It may be best to stay off IH35 this weekend; the highway closure in Buda will surely slow down traffic in Austin. Don't forget the municipal election tomorrow! Yeah, yeah, we know already: Perry reaffirms that he will run again for governor in 2010. Sinkhole overtaking the town of Daisetta....

Photo by jenn_jenn on flickrFind out how much money your neighbors make at Statesman.com Make it work! ‘Project Runway’s’ Tim Gunn coming to Austin AMD's chief technology officer resigns, no plans to replace him Hike and bike trail along Cesar Chavez reopens TEA threatens to shut down Pearce Middle School Record-setting Texas gas prices average $3.28 American Airlines begins to get planes back in the air......

State judge says strip club fee violates First Amendment rights. No matter what you may have heard, the Democratic county conventions are indeed on for tomorrow. Don't let the Capitol 10K thwart your attempts to get downtown on Sunday! Here's some information on street closures. State Board of Education says standard English and social studies guidelines can be applied to elective Bible courses for Texas high schools....

Texas is hot in more ways than one, apparently. Umlauf family selling some of their sculpture pieces (not the ones donated to the city). All-female jury rules in favor of the police officers in the Ramon Hernandez lawsuit. Time Warner wants you to switch to digital cable: they are taking the weather radar channel off the basic lineup....

14-year-old girl assaulted in the wee hours of Tuesday morning in Southeast Austin; police are looking for the suspect (who may be wounded from when the girl fought back). Federal jury will decide if police used excessive force on Ramon Hernandez in 2005. UT system raising tuition fees. Tejano star Emilio in medically-induced coma, but showing some improvement....

Burn ban in place for Williamson County. Wildfire just south of San Marcos is heading near homes in the area. Bastrop High principal on administrative leave after allegedly making racial remarks. Round Rock PD uncovers pickup truck packed with 12 illegal immigrants. Marble Falls teenager shoots his friend in the head while playing a video game....

In case you're still curious about where to vote on Tuesday, we've reprinted the official list from the Travis County Clerk web site as of Monday evening. For up-to-date information, you might want to double-check the Office of the Registrar's database To find out which precint you're in, use their handy Voter Verification form. From the Elections Divison: Registered voters can vote with a voter registration card, driver’s license or any official photo ID,......

Brian Thompson seeking an injunction against Dawnna Dukes; her campaign ads say he's never voted. New KXAN statewide poll of Democratic voters has Obama with 50%, Clinton with 47% and 3% undecided. McCain will hold a town hall meeting with Dell employees tomorrow in Round Rock. New City Manager Ott made two appointments today. Someone at Liberty Hill ISD hasn't heard of a shredder....

It's always great catching a band at their CD Release show, because you know they're going to be fired up and ready to bring it. And such is the state of this Thursday at The Parish Room, where Austin-proud The Boxing Lesson will be dropping their new disc, Wild Streaks & Windy Days, an unabashedly Pink Floyd-esque collection of psychedelic rock. With songs like "Muerta" and "Back from the Dead," they establish an eerily sinister tone that's ably coupled with songs nodding to their forebears, such as "Dark Side of the Moog."...

Six Organs of Admittance, complete with awkward band name and bootfulls of whispery/screechy talent, will be taking this town by storm (or sea, or desert cyclone) tonight at the Mohawk. Serving up super-soothing melodies mixed with squalls of distortion to make one big ball of twine, psych-folk style, Six Organs has over the last ten years developed an utterly unique sound, as well as a veritable sand dune of critical acclaim. While they usually tend toward the contemplative and hauntingly beautiful, their most recent album, Shelter from the Ash, has some disturbingly dead-on rockers sure to shake the Mohawk all the way to the lake. And did we mention that Six Organs' frontman Ben Chasney is a guitar god?...

The Vortex has remounted one of its first big hits, Alan Bowne's Beirut. The original production put Vortex on the map as the place to go for cutting-edge, indeed bleeding-edge, work. With a script that's a tad dated but still meaty, the show explores the political, social, and emotional fallout of the AIDS crisis. It includes full nudity and sexually explicit material, all done to serve a story that's weighty and intense. Thu-Sun, 8pm, through 1/26. [Reservations: 478-5282]...

Former Dallas resident Nancy Rose McGowan, 26, was thrown in Travis County Jail yesterday after authorities discovered that she lacked a state board license and, more disconcertingly, any kind of formal education in pharmacy work whatsoever. McGowan had been working at the CVS Pharmacy at 4405 E. Riverside Drive for the past two months, and actively filled prescriptions using the names "Amber Mclendon" and "Amber Shcherbelis."...

Eanes was concerned because the teacher had led their physics program to be one of the best in the nation and had quit less than 45 days before the start of the school year. Therefore, they refused to accept his resignation and filed a complaint with the state. Yesterday, however, Eanes school district superintendent Nola Wellman announced that if Harper turns in his resignation again (by the end of this week), she will recommend that it be accepted and the complaint to the state be dropped....

GOP voters look at their candidates, say "eh". Environmental groups push idea of warning pregnant ladies about caffeine. But what if you want your baby to get a lot of homework done before it comes out? Are you not rich, only kinda super-privileged? Not to worry, Harvard will help. Just get your caffeinated fetus to ace the SATs in utero. A bunch of dudes really want to fly without parachutes, spend their lives building......

Intelligence reports now reveal that Iran is *not* making a nuclear bomb. Remains to be seen whether this will make a difference to Bush, who just doesn't like the cut of their jib. Damn! What is it with the Senate and thirteen-year-old boys? Brad Pitt, perhaps in a contest with Angie to see who can adopt the most people, takes the entire Lower Ninth Ward under his wing. Two popular musicians were recently murdered......

Comic from ToothPasteForDinner.com State science curriculum director Chris Comer says she was forced to resign today according to the Austin-American Statesman. She walked away from her nine-year career with the Texas Education Agency amid accusations of insubordination and misconduct, both of which appear to be connected with her apparent bias against the teaching of intelligent design as an alternative to the theory of evolution. The senior adviser on statewide initiatives, Lizzette Reynolds, who previously served......

Senator Barack Obama delivered a rousing speech to thousands of die-hard supporters this past Saturday at the Backyard, touching on just about every hot issue at the core of next year's election debates. Pledging to shut down Guantanamo, restore habeas corpus, and renew the hunt for Al Qaeda, Obama stressed the need for a stronger international agenda and quoted Kennedy's famous inaugural address—"Let us never negotiate out of fear, but let us never fear......

Image from MySpace Trans Am, My Education @ MohawkThursday, Nov. 15The Mohawk (912 Red River)9 PM, All ages, $8[info] | [tickets]It's unfriggingbelievable that these guys are on tour with Tool right now. Seriously, it doesn't seem like it was that long ago, standing in crowded bar somewhere, listening to a song called "Ballbados", feeling like there must not be that many people in the world that want to hear instrumental, testosterone-driven synth-rock performed by some......

Boubacar Joseph Ndiaye & Youssou N’Dour at the Maison des Esclaves AFS Presents Return to GoréeTuesday, November 6thAlamo Drafthouse South Lamar (1120 S. Lamar)$4 / Free for AFS members, 7pm[info]The place where my fathers died, return to the land of Gorée, the place where my mothers cried, return to the land of Gorée. – Harmony Harmoneers We'll admit it: our jazz knowledge consists of a couple of Miles Davis and John Coltrane albums mixed with......

Rebecca Robinson won't sit still. In addition to her day job, Robinson is also an award-winning actor, garnering recognition as the Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama for the 2006-2007 B. Iden Payne Awards. Austinist asked Robinson some questions about The Wine and Food Foundation of Texas and her role as Executive Director of the Austin-based organization whose membership reads like a a who's who of heavy-hitters in the growing Texas culinary scene. How did......

A new 668-page report by the Texas State Library and Archives Commission has declared that Texas has too many state reports. The 18-month-long project surveyed over 170 agencies, public colleges, and universities, all of whom are required by the State Legislature to generate a periodic report of some sort. The task force anticipated dealing with about 400 of these reports; the final tally exceeded 1,600 before investigators evidently decided they'd had enough. "At first, we......

The notion that ‘It's not a conspiracy theory if it's actually true,’ is about as spot-on and useful as ‘Golly, she ain’t a witch if she done drown.’...

The Austin Music Foundation presents the third installment of its ever popular She Rocks Calendar Series this month. Created by Ricardo Acevedo and In The RA Studios, the calendar first debuted in 2006, and has since seen notable local female rockers such as Amber Dickerson of Full Stride, Margaret Myrick of Blackholicus, Cella Blue of White Ghost Shivers, and Stella Maxwell of Cruiserweight grace its pages. The first edition’s proceeds were collected for New Orleans......

Math teacher at Bowie high school wins a national education award worth $25,000. Last night, the Planning Commission voted against proposals made by CWS to develop land so close to Lady Bird Lake. TxDOT used cameras hidden in orange barrels to collect license plate data for a transportation study. Staph infections making the rounds at Austin high schools; 10 Anderson football players have been affected in recent weeks. As if we needed another reason......

Just as they debuted their most promising exhibit to date, Congress Avenue's Volitant Gallery yesterday announced plans to shutter its doors at the end of the month. "At this point it appears Volitant Gallery will be losing its lease by October 31, 2007," wrote Volitant Gallery Director Xochi Solis. "Sean [Gaulager, Volitant's assistant director] and I are excited to begin new and fresh challenges that will continue our personal missions for art education and growth......

FACT: In 2007, there will be 181,510 new cases of breast cancer diagnosed in the U.S. alone. Of those diagnosed, nearly 41,000 will succumb to the disease. AWESOME FACT: When detected early, breast cancer has a 96% survival rate. This Wednesday, join Mayor Wynn and members of Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation’s Austin Affiliate to kick off National Breast Cancer Month and celebrate the 10-year anniversary of Austin’s Race for the Cure. To celebrate......

If you've ever been to the Texas/Oklahoma State Fair, you know that area between the ferris wheel and the Dizzy Dragons: it begs for rock. It glistens, yearns, begs for an instrumental post-rock 5-piece to grace it with versions of "Spiegel im Spiegel" (Arvo Part), long-form pieces composed for F.W. Murnau's classic 1927 silent film Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans, and the other, more traditional state fair-ready jams: you know, the kind with vibraphone......

The University of Texas raised $26 million in athletic donations in 2006, putting it 16th among all U.S. universities. A study by The Chronicle of Higher Education found that money for athletics accounts for more than one-quarter of all contributions to some universities. The Chronicle survey reported that the country's largest athletic departments and booster clubs raised more than $1.2 billion in 2006 and 2007. The University of Texas wasn't the top athletic fund-raiser in......

Construction worker fell over 25 feet (and may have landed on some upended rebar) from condo construction at 17th and Lavaca this morning. New background check requirements lead some volunteer dogwalkers to quit their work at Town Lake Animal Shelter. Al Gore is in town tonight; we'll keep an eye out for the YCT protesters. Numerous people named in Dallas corruption investigation, including city officials and a State Rep. A&M is having difficulties attracting......

Iraq to review all security contractors working within its borders, after Blackwater screwup kills eight over the weekend. What the hey, they're an autonomous government. Right? Clinton to public: Can I have a health-care do-over? Racism ain't dead, for the 897th time. Mayor Wynn doesn't drive a hybrid, but he will, he tells Sprig.com. Senator Craig is getting support from the ACLU, which has got to sting. Everybody's leaving Britney. Why didn't FOX let......