The Austin City Council has released the final ballot language for the upcoming propositions including the citizen-initiated Prop 1 and 2. For the first time in Texas history, a municipal council was directed by a court to rewrite ballot language as it was found that the language did not "present a fair measure of the proposed measures [and] chief features" and gave the City Council a deadline to change the language. Since I covered the last, and now found illegal, ballot language, I'll do the same for this final version. But first, the standard disclaimer:

Although I currently work for the City of Austin, I am in no way representing or advocating *any* official position of the City in this matter. I am writing this as a concerned citizen of Austin who would like to see our government as transparent and efficient as possible and I am using information that is publicly available elsewhere to make my points.

At this time, I am neither for nor against the proposed Charter amendment. My focus with this post is to try and bring a non-biased look at the proposed amendment and the ramifications it would bring if enacted. This opinion is put forward in the hopes it will facilitate discussion and will bring other concerned citizens into the issue. So please, do not read anything into this post that is not explicitly stated.

The City Council's final language appears thusly:

Proposition 1:
Shall the City Charter be amended:

1. to provide online access to public information, which for the most part is already available, by creating an online electronic data system for most City communications and documents at taxpayer expense;
2. to require that private citizens' emails to public officials be placed on the City website in "real time," including emails or electronic communications between private citizens and public officials in all City departments, and limit the ability of citizens to keep private the details of these communications, unless legal exceptions apply;
3. to require that the heads of all City departments, all city manager's staff and all city council members and their staff post online in "real time" information about meetings and phone calls with private citizens; and
4. to prohibit the city from exercising state law protection for information that could expose the City and taxpayers to greater financial and legal liability and risk?

So let's again breakdown each section.

1. to provide online access to public information, which for the most part is already available, by creating an online electronic data system for most City communications and documents at taxpayer expense;

This is more representative than the last ballot language which included sections on certain departments possibly releasing private information (Library, Health clinics, Police Department, etc) which Proposition 1 did not call for. "For the most part," this statement is accurate and correct but it does miss a crucial goal of the amendment: efficient access to public information. While it's true that most of this information is available, the Open Records request mechanisms employed by the different departments throughout the city are not efficient. The request can take as much as 10 days before the requestor even knows if the information can be retrieved. The amendment seeks to clarify and accelerate the public's access to this public information by putting online as much public information as possible (and, most importantly, where approved by City Council) to let the public find what it needs without using valuable employee time first. As mentioned elsewhere, APD alone will have to fill 2500+ Open Records requests this year and countless hours of employee time will be used in fulfilling those requests. The amendment's core argument is that it is more efficient for the public to search these records first and then be able to put in specific requests for particular information than the current system.

2. to require that private citizens' emails to public officials be placed on the City website in "real time," including emails or electronic communications between private citizens and public officials in all City departments, and limit the ability of citizens to keep private the details of these communications, unless legal exceptions apply;

This statement is still misleading. First, the premise that email will be placed on the City website in "real time" is not required by the amendment. The ballot language premise is a very broad interpretation of the clause "expeditiously as possible and to the greatest extent practical" and does not mention to the voters the circumstances that would have had to happen for that situation to become realistic. The City Council is the determining body on the practicalness of any measure that is not explicitly stated within the amendment so this situation would have to be:

1. Sponsored by some department, citizen's initiative, etc., to be placed on the Council's agenda.
2. At that meeting, Council would have to deem that situation practical.
3. If found practical, Council would have to draw up ordinances and resolutions to meet and enforce the requirements of the situation.
4. Council would have to pass the ordinances and resolutions.

So, if "real time" posting of email on the City's website ever does happen, you can lay the blame squarely on the City Council as they would have been the ones who found the situation to be for the public's benefit. Just for argument's sake, other scenarios that could have been used by the Council on the ballot that would have been just as misleading could be the amendment calls for all private citizen's Social Security numbers to be placed on the City website in "real time," or that all victim's records at APD will be placed online in "real time" (I've actually heard people mention that one). The amendment simply does not call for these scenarios nor would the amendment supercede any current state or federal laws in place to do so.

Council Member Brewster McCracken has stated that the email issue had been "[...] litigated and you all lost. ... [T]his language has been upheld as being accurate." At the time, he was talking to the amendment supporters in the Council chambers who rewarded this false statement with an appropriate response (boos and catcalls). As explained in this post, from the judge's own ruling, speaking specifically about the email issue, he stated "I don’t know that there are any city departments that would be excluded but certainly private citizens emails to any public official because there are exceptions that apply." As mentioned by myself and others, and which is validated by the state judge, private citizen's email has exemptions and, for various reasons, may not be put online. The City Council and their supporters *really* need to drop this red herring...

I'm still having a hard time finding the section that the Council is referring to when talking about "limit[ing] the ability of citizens to keep private the details of these communications,". There is nothing in the amendment that limits the citizen's right to privacy when dealing with their government. There is language that makes it harder for the City Council, City Managers, Division heads and their staff to keep their calendars and non-public meetings about City business with others secret. There is language that makes it harder if you are seeking economic benefits from the City to keep those negotiations secret. There is further language that makes it harder to keep the misconduct of police officers secret. But if you are a private citizen, all of the federal, state and local privacy laws on the books are not superceded by this amendment and will remain so. I can't stress this enough.

Finally, I would like to give some credit where it's due. Council Member Jennifer Kim tried to add more descriptive language to the ballot on this point. Specifically, she tried to have the words "consistent with state and federal privacy protection laws" substituted for the phrase "unless legal exceptions apply." Council Member Kim, I commend your attempt and agree that your phrase is much closer to what the judge ruled in his decision and thank you for your attempt at clarification.

When I first read this clause in the original language, I withheld my personal comments through the litigation that followed in the hopes that the Council would change the language and drop this fallacious clause. I'll go out on a limb here... If Proposition 1 is defeated, it will be challenged in court and it will appear on a later ballot because of this clause. Council Members McCracken, Dunkerly, Leffingwell and Mayor Wynn, your steadfastness to this particular language will cost the city more future litigation, the costs associated with it and another dubious legal distinction for this City Council.

3. to require that the heads of all City departments, all city manager's staff and all city council members and their staff post online in "real time" information about meetings and phone calls with private citizens; and

This is another misleading statement about what the amendment calls for. The relevant section from the amendment follows:

(B)OPEN ACCESS TO CITY CALENDARS

1. For all matters involving City business, the following people must maintain calendars of all meetings and maintain logs of all telephone calls:
   1. City Councilmembers and their staff;
   2. City Manager and his or her staff;
   3. Assistant City Managers and their staff; and
   4. all department heads.
2. These calendars and logs must contain the time, date, subject matter, and persons involved in all meetings and telephone calls involving City business. These calendars must be used to schedule and record all past and future meetings that occur after the implementation date of this section.
3. Calendars and logs must be posted online in real time and be accessible to the public.
4. “Meetings” includes all informal and formal meetings including but not limited to telephone conferences, videoconferences, happy hours, and luncheons.
5. This provision must be implemented within six months of approval of this amendment.

I highlighted the relevant sections in that clause. If you are a private citizen and you are speaking to a public official through one of the listed means about City business, then, according to the amendment, that must be noted in the appropriate log. The federal government, proposed by none other than one of the most conservative members of Congress, Newt Gingrich, follows much the same system. It is a way the public can see who their elected officials are talking to and about what subjects. If you are going to call Mayor Wynn and tell him how great or not great he is, there is no need to record the call as that is not City business. Further, if a Council Member calls their doctor, that call is not subject to the documentation clause. Only City business is required to have the notation. Another branch on that limb... This clause will also be seen by a later court to be misrepresentative and misleading and will help to overturn a defeat of the proposition.

4. to prohibit the city from exercising state law protection for information that could expose the City and taxpayers to greater financial and legal liability and risk?

This section must be referring to the requirement of the amendment that pertains to public information. Here is that section from the amendment.

SECTION 4: Public Information.

The term “public information” means information that is required to be produced under Texas Government Code § 552.021. Public information also includes the following categories that must be produced in response to a public information request:

1. INFORMATION RELATING TO CIVIL LITIGATION. That the City is a party to litigation does not render information relating to that litigation less important; rather it often means the information is a matter of heightened public interest. Therefore, the City must not withhold information relating to civil litigation under Texas Government Code § 552.103, but it may withhold under other Public Information Act exceptions.

First, the amendment states that the City cannot withhold information under the following Texas Government Code section:

§ 552.103. EXCEPTION: LITIGATION OR SETTLEMENT NEGOTIATIONS INVOLVING THE STATE OR A POLITICAL SUBDIVISION.

1. Information is excepted from the requirements of Section 552.021 if it is information relating to litigation of a civil or criminal nature to which the state or a political subdivision is or may be a party or to which an officer or employee of the state or a political subdivision, as a consequence of the person's office or employment, is or may be a party.
2. For purposes of this section, the state or a political subdivision is considered to be a party to litigation of a criminal nature until the applicable statute of limitations has expired or until the defendant has exhausted all appellate and postconviction remedies in state and federal court.
3. Information relating to litigation involving a governmental body or an officer or employee of a governmental body is excepted from disclosure under Subsection (a) only if the litigation is pending or reasonably anticipated on the date that the requestor applies to the officer for public information for access to or duplication of the information.

Added by Acts 1993, 73rd Leg., ch. 268, § 1, eff. Sept. 1, 1993. Amended by Acts 1999, 76th Leg., ch. 1319, § 6, eff. Sept. 1, 1999.

From this summary, under the “litigation exception,” a governmental body can withhold information about pending or reasonably anticipated civil or criminal litigation. This exception allows the government to hold back otherwise releasable public information because it feels there is or may be some sort of litigation that might include that information. This is an important concept to grasp. The information being sought by the public does not have to be actually involved in litigation; it just has to be deemed by someone in government that it might, at some point in the future, be part of a litigation claim. Further, the entity can keep this information secret until the statute of limitations expires for the whatever the phantom offense this information may be involved in.

As these examples show, this section of the Public Information Act has been abused by government entities in the past. Historically, this exemption in the Texas Public Information Act has been used in 2 ways:

1. a shelter to keep clearly public documents secret that otherwise would not be exempt and
2. as a delay tactic to allow further court motions and "grandfathering" claims to be filed on a dubious ordinance or law.

Proposition 1 still allows the broad and correct exemptions for attorney work product and attorney client privilege that will protect all information related to any litigation the City may be party to. The City does not need this exemption and it's prohibition will not expose the "City and taxpayers to greater financial and legal liability and risk." The City can still use the other numerous, broad and generous Public Information exemptions that protect Public Information through any litigation process. The prohibition in using this one exemption will make it easier for private citizens and watchdog groups to get the public information they already own even if it might cause embarassment or legal problems for some in the government.

So, in summary, I still feel the language on the ballot is misleading. I also feel that even though the City Council has tried their best to stack the deck against this initiative, it will still be a close vote come election day. I guess we'll see how things shake out.

I've been meaning to comment on this story for quite some time now. Unfortunately, it's taken about 2 weeks to actually find the time to sit and jot the thoughts down. The story, which is split into 2 parts, reports that there is a Prop 2 "resurrection" movement afoot by SOS and the Council to take the best elements of the defeated Prop 2 and try to incorporate those as ordinances. Now, to me, this is certainly a fine idea and I think even the opponents of Props 1 & 2 agreed that something had to be done to protect the Barton Springs area. But, contained in the article is a quote from Council Member Lee Leffingwell (one of the most fervent anti-Proposition opponents) who disagrees with that idea:

"Not so fast, opponents say. On Saturday, 69 percent of voters cast ballots against the measure. So some neighborhood and business leaders say that those ideas have been roundly rejected and that more community input is needed to create a lasting solution to the vexing issue of development in the environmentally sensitive area.

Council Member Lee Leffingwell, who crafted the ordinance, plans to slow the process and allow for a larger community discussion to take place. Input from interested parties as well as the two city bodies now considering the ordinance will provide the springboard for conversation."

Now, some would argue (myself included) that the 69% figure used above is completely misleading. While the propositions may have been defeated by 69% that does not, by association mean that 69% of the people of Austin are against protecting the Barton Springs watershed. Most of the Prop 2 opponents had said that protection of Barton Springs is sorely needed but they just didn't agree with how the propositions sought that protection. The fact that 31% of the people of Austin still voted for the propositions considering the outright misleading ballot language is a strong indicator that the citizens of Austin really do value environmental protection over development in sensitive environmental areas.

So now we come to Council Member Leffingwell's statements. On the one hand:

"These charter amendments were written behind closed doors with no public input, no vetting and no opportunity for changes to correct errors and unintended consequences," says Lee Leffingwell, an Austin City Council member who is former chairman of the city's Environmental Board."

And now the other:

"Will you answer specifically which reforms you support and which you do not?

I AM STILL IN THE DISCUSSION STAGE WITH REGARD TO WRITING THE ORDINANCE, AND SO CAN'T COMMENT ON ANY ASPECT OF YOUR SCORECARD AT THIS TIME."

Pot, may I introduce Kettle... (More on that from a blog post by JS Hatcher).

Also, looking around in Council Member Leffingwell's campaign finance reports, one notices that the only PACs that gave Mr. Leffingwell money during that election cycle all had something to gain by defeat of the propositions (granted, these filings were in the 2005 election cycle and the Open Government/SOS amendment campaigns were ongoing but probably not a campaign issue at the time):

• Austin Apartment Association
• Austin Board of Realtors
• Austin Police Association
• BOMA
• Homebuilders PAC

Now, call me a cynic but a council member whose only PAC contributions came from developers, who is now quoted to want to slow down the environmental protections for Barton Springs and is currently doing what he accused his Proposition opponents of doing, does not instill the greatest confidence in me that he should be the one to lead the effort for protection of one of Austin's most sensitive environmental areas. Anyone else on the Council with a bit more cred care to step up?

Toby Futrell and the "Livable City"

The second part of the article is about a little spat between the City Manager's office and a report released by the City Auditors. In the report, the City Auditors:

"presented an audit that found that Austin does not have an "overarching vision for growth" or anything that ties together a patchwork of smaller city-planning efforts."

To which the City Manager took offense and disagreed with 3 of the 4 study authors by saying:

"In fact, the City has a vision and it is widely recognized. Our vision is for 'Austin to be the most livable city in the country.' "

May I introduce Exhibit A against City Manager Futrell's claim. In the studies cited in the post, Austin ranks as the third highest cost of living in the country. Higher than traditional high cost leaders San Francisco (10th), Boston (9th), Chicago (8th) and Atlanta (4th). Austin has the 4th highest average house cost in Texas (behind Ft. Worth, Dallas and San Antonio) and ranks number 12 nationally for the highest average cost of the typical home in America. These are not exactly the most livable conditions in the country.

Now, does city planning have anything to do with this rise in prices? As cited in this document, my guess is that the 29 now-under-construction-or-planned residential developments and super-condos being built on the shores of Town Lake, throughout downtown and in the ultra-swanky 2nd street area will only further inflate these cost of living indices (most have starting prices in the $200's for a 1/1). One can certainly make the argument that development should take place in downtown (I do support that) but of all the projects listed, from what I can tell, not one project is an affordable housing project.

So I have to agree with City Manager Futrell here. She does have an "overarching vision" of Austin. Under her's and the City Council's leadership, they seek to make Austin unaffordable for most residents. They seek to transform the prime green spaces and park lands of Austin into multi-story, multi-million dollar condominiums, raising the cost of living while attempting to replace the few East Austin parks with nasty infrastructure plants needed to clean the crap out of the water from these lofty, rich residents and the eventual Dallas-like sprawl of SH 130. They seek to keep their vision of Austin planted in future city council elections by raising campaign contributions, creating slush funds and erasing term limits. Yes, Ms. Futrell, you and your Council Member friends have a vision for Austin. Unfortunately, it seeks to replace what some of us have come to believe what Austin is about and replace it with a miserably cloned vision of Dallas.

I came from Dallas after 17 years of living there to Austin for the last 10, with most of that time in the Barton Hills area so I've seen the pace of change downtown under a close lens. I can't help but think that with the most developer friendly City Council in my memory along with the unification of former Council Members and Mayors against environmental protections for Barton Springs, it won't be long before we'll see the 580-ft towers being grandfathered in overlooking Barton Springs Pool.

The Barton Springs segment of the Edwards Aquifer has been declared in the Alarm Drought stage. According to the Chronicle:

"One of the drought indicators, Barton Springs, is flowing with 31 cubic feet of water per second, much less than the average 53 CFS, said BSEACD hydrogeologist Brian Hunt. Spring flows and levels in monitor wells briefly increased after rains in early May, but they have been steadily dropping since then. Currently, groundwater users, such as the cities of Buda and Kyle for example, are required to reduce usage by 20%. That could mean lawn-watering schedules or outright bans, said Hunt. Area sprawl development isn't necessarily to blame, he said, but likely exacerbates the situation. If dry conditions continue, the aquifer could reach critical stage by late summer, triggering 30% usage reductions and even lead to crackdowns on chronic water-wasters. The district is urging people to be water-wise at all times. Find more information at their Web site,http://www.bseacd.org/."

I find the timing of this announcement personally interesting based on a conversation I had with a co-worker this week. Their main point was "Who really cares if AMD puts their development within the recharge zone? It's not like that development can block recharging the entire aquifer!" Well, here's the reason why it matters. Recharge zones are typically geographically small areas where the water from the surface starts making it's way down to the aquifer. As this generalized cross-section shows, water, for the most part, doesn't make it's way down from the contributing or artesian zones. To further complicate things, different parts of the aquifer are replenished from different recharge zones (there are usually geologic features that direct water into one zone or the other). So while the Edwards aquifer may be getting recharged down in San Antonio, that usually doesn't do Barton Springs a whole lotta good.

So enter AMD and it's 850,000+ sq. ft development planted directly on top of the recharge zone. As this map shows, the recharge area for the Barton Springs area is relatively small (bisect Hays county and go north to where the aquifer zones stop and that is basically the Barton Springs Segment of the aquifer). So now add the huge AMD complex, the impermeable cover that is associated with it (roads, parking lots) and the infrastructure that will also be needed (water pipes, underground cabling, etc). The impermeable cover will collect particulate and chemical pollution from the cars/trucks riding/parking on it. When it rains, this pollution will be picked up and accelerated into the Barton Springs recharge zone and straight into Barton Springs pool (and don't tell me about the catchments they will be putting in place. No catchment can provide 100% filtration). So we will all get to swim in the eventual gasoline/oil/diesel/chemical mixture that along with low inflows/outflows to the aquifer, we'll see a rapidly degenerative effect on the quality of the water. And, I might mention, that's only if there is a Barton Springs pool left because of the reduction of water collection within the zone that the AMD and eventual future developments will provide.

So sound the alarm, I say! We need to make sure our elected officials know that Barton Springs has entered into drought stage. I hope that the rains will come this summer and replenish the stores but outside of a stray hurricane, I think we're in for another long, hot summer.

Recently, in one of the mail lists I subscribe to (the Austin Wireless Group), a thread was started about the new wifi mesh that's being deployed in some parts of Austin. At the time (a few months back), it received a fair amount of press about how it was going to be a public wifi network and some politicians jumped on to "associate" themselves with the new network. To some, it seemed like the politicians were promising free broadband for all Austin residents, but I'm here to tell you the real details of the mesh from someone whose been on the inside.

First, let me start out by saying that I was (am) the Lead Security Analyst/Engineer on the mesh project. A co-worker and I were responsible for the city's first efforts into wifi by designing and installing the first wifi hotspots in the city parks and most of the first wifi hotspots in city buildings a few years ago. Now, as far as the mesh is concerned, I've been to most of the technical meetings, talked to vendors and approved the security measures utilized in the system. I've got a fairly deep understanding of how this thing works, where it is, where it's going and most importantly, how you and other citizens of Austin can benefit from it.

The first thing that needs to be mentioned is the city's policy on wireless is everywhere it's deployed, it will be a public network. This was a security decision as, at the time when we first started getting the projects, wireless had some real security problems so we approached it from the flip side: Instead of trying to protect the network, we'll use our traditional remote access methods that we trust to protect the traffic. Secure the traffic, not the network. This philosophy also turns out to be beneficial to the public as now every place we install wifi, the public has yet another free hotspot. So feel free to associate and use any wifi signal you see that begins with "COA-Location" as those are the public network's SSIDs.

So now, the city has the mesh. It was born out of the need to promote the World Congress of Information Technology back in May but a savvy CIO also saw the opportunity for a longer term benefit. I wasn't in the first meetings between the CIO and Cisco but from what I understand, the city was wanting to experiment with a mesh network and Cisco was looking to promote their newest mesh system. Cisco stepped up and donated the hardware to kickoff the network by donating 55 (or thereabouts) wifi nodes, the wifi controlling system and the technical experts to get it started. Since WCIT was going to be centered around a few places in town (Austin Convention Center, City Hall, etc), the decision was made to get those areas up first and progress to the other areas of Austin soon thereafter.

At about this time, the first "myth" about the mesh was born. Because politicians were involved, some of them got overly generous with the end goals of the mesh and they led on that this mesh was going to be primarily used for providing Internet access to those people underneath the umbrella. On the technical side, we had always been told and had planned that the mesh would be for facilitating city business and be used as a testbed for future city applications but because of the network's nature (wifi), it would be a public network. The truth, as usual, is somewhere in the middle of these two uses.

It's against state law for the city to sell Internet access. You can thank your wonderful telcos and cable companies for writing the law that prohibits the city from offering Internet access like any other utility like electricity or water. So everything the city does wirelessly, the CIO goes out of his way to meet with those proprietary interests to make sure they understand what we're attempting to do and the plan won't be misunderstood. The mesh, after WCIT, will be primarily used for city business. The public will still be able to get on and use the bandwidth but that will not be its primary function. Large scale powering up of the network runs the risk of violating state law so signal output is kept low so as only to work outside (notice the name of the mesh, the "Outdoor Wireless Mesh Project." Telcos and cable companies do not provide outdoor signals so the project can't be deemed "anticompetitive." But in order to stay anticompetitive, signal strengths must stay low as to dissipate very quickly once inside buildings.)

There are numerous applications coming down the pipe at the City that might be able to leverage the wifi coverage as the connection method. As an example, one of those applications, affectionately called AMANDA, is the new building permitting system where each inspector in the field will have a tablet PC and will be able to issue permits in real time on site with no lines or waiting by the customer. Currently in their testing phase, these tablets are connecting through Cingular's HSDPA as the default transport but over time, as the mesh becomes more prevalent, we'll default the tablets to use wifi first if it exists. And since the city own's the wifi network and the backhaul, over time, this will save the city tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands in connection costs. And you can multiply that by every new field application the city develops. The potential savings is huge.

Now, because the mesh's primary function is city business, it is being "tuned" for that business. The nodes on the mesh are running at very low signal outputs. Basically you can get a signal while standing outdoors in a clear area but once you walk into a building, the signal disspates very quickly. This is by design and not the true performance of the mesh system (I think that the mesh is only using about 10% of it's full output strength but I'll have to check on that). The point is it's not supposed to be pervasive throughout everyone's homes in the mesh umbrella zone. If you can get a signal, the city is just fine with you surfing away on it. But the city is not in the ISP business and has no obligation to "power up" the signal because it keeps dropping off in your 2nd street condo bedroom.

Personally, I think what you'll see with the mesh over time is coordination of nodes being amped up based on the applications that will be set to use them. This is pure conjecture so don't hold me to this but I can see this as a valuable way to utilize the mesh. As mentioned before, an AMANDA inspector has a few buildings within the mesh that they'll need to inspect that day. We can powerup the immediate nodes closest to those locations so the signal will propogate easily through the walls of the building and then, when the inspections are done, we can power the signal back down again. Using it in this way will allow for the inspector to easily connect to the network yet still not break any state laws for "selling" Internet access.

Another use of the mesh will be to provide ad-hoc connectivity to entities during "disaster" scenarios. Last year, when Katrina hit, the city was setting up temporary and short-term networks for the Red Cross and other national entities in city locations where those networks didn't previously exist. Now, with the mesh, we can just power up the nodes closest to the locations the groups need and there will be no need for the city to run in with the wired + wireless infrastructure that was used in Katrina's wake. That will save the city tons of money in just people power when the next disaster strikes.

In my next post, I'll attempt to discuss the city's plans for eventual mesh coverage. There's plans to roll out the mesh in some areas of Austin that have usually been left behind the technology curve so it brings into the discussion the role a municipal government has in providing Internet access to its citizens. If the discussion on the AWN list is any indication, it should be a lively topic for debate.

I live blogged this show for a friend who was stuck at work loading OS's on ancient laptops. I was looking to live blog something for practice anyway and this looked like it would be a fun first time.

7:00pm - Show kick off... Yowza on Storm's outfit! Tiny little mini... Tania, if you have questions, leave a comment and i'll try to answer it for you...

7:01pm - Summary of last night's show... Patrice, Magni, Storm, Toby (shirtless), Lucas stoned as usual, Dilana (great as usual), Ryan (Brooke thinks he was on top of his game), Ryan the "Dark Horse" Star

7:04pm - Dilana thinks that Ryan sucked w/o the house band. Ugh, Windows plug... Live spaces... Dilana would shoot Ryan if they were in the same band...

7:07pm - Dave Navarro plugging Windows... Ugh! Dilana has pink and blue cones on the side of her head! And she has on a tiny freakin' corset... I guess she's not counting on singing tonight (encore or bottom 3) Ryan is saying that this is the best that Dilana has spoke (nicely) all week... He thinks she should be more positive to the other rockers... More Windows Live plugs... UGH!

7:10pm - About to announce who will be singing this weeks SuperNova track... Video from earlier this week... This song seems to be another stinker! "Get your Hey, Hey, Hey... Get your Ho, Ho, Ho..." Yikes!

7:12pm - "Be yourself and 5 other cliches" - Jason Newstead... They picked Toby for the SuperNova track. Toby's voice compliments their music better than Dilana... His breathy, upper register power vocals seem to match this music...

7:15pm - Man that chorus sucks... The song's pretty derivative... Heard it before in many other songs but Toby's voice does lend itself well to the track...

7:16pm - Man, Brooke's mini is pretty short as well... :) Commercial break. Time to load up the plate o' dinner...

7:21pm - They're doing faux interviews reporters... Dilana wants to strangle Lucas everyday... Lucas responds w/"Mind your own business..." They're really playing Dilana as the bitch... Dave: "What the hell are you thinking?" Actually speechless.. "never rag on your peers" Dave: "Why do you say things like that?" Lucas, not surprised. Lives w/that... Looks really stoned...

7:26PM - Announcing the bottom 3... I guess no encore tonight... Patrice, Toby, Storm at the end of last night show... One more... Magni... Commercial break...

7:31pm - Patrice looks matronly again... She just looks like their older sister... 1st in the bottom 3: Magni... His song is Jimi Hendrix, Fire... Jason likes it (pumping fist). 1st verse a bit uncomfortable, 2nd much better.. His growly quality came out... Playing lead guitar bridge... 3rd verse is almost all growl.. Not a bad "yell" note... Overall, ok not stellar... Jen thinks it's just ok... Tommy thinks it's ridiculous...

7:35pm - Next is Patrice... Picked Middle of the Road by the Pretenders... She re-arranged it.. 1st verse is a bit awkward... Prolly not going to save her tonight... Doesn't look like many people are enjoying this arrangement... She said this arrangement is for Gilby but doesn't look like Gilby likes it much... Hmm, don't know if I liked it much... Certainly won't save her... Prolly should have done one of her origs for swan song... Jen thought it was one of Patrice's best... Commercial break...

7:43pm - Down to toby and Storm... Toby... Singing Plush by Stone Temple Pilots... The only person that might have saved Patrice would have been Storm so it looks like the producers want Patrice out as SN will keep both Toby and Magni... Vocals are pretty good... Still doesn't have much of a lower register... Safe and pedestrian take on the song... Jen thought it was prett good... Commercial break...

7:51pm - Gilby's up... "Patrice, so happy you got a chance to share her song w/the rest of the world, 4th trip to the bottom three"... Magni, 2 weeks in a row in the bottom 3... Killer version of fire... Toby, good enough to sing our song today... Insane that you're in the bottom 3... Think about that... Go sit back with your buddies... Down to Magni and Patrice.. Patrice: "Chop, chop"... Tommy, freaks out that Patrice in bottom 3 for the 4 time... You're the next to go... Tommy didn't seem to like that... Big smile on Patrice's face... Dave: Congrats on making i this far... Patrice: Fan of Dave's band... Brooke: Viewer's chice week next week... More MS plugs... UGH! TUESDAY at 8PM, TANIA! Show over and Patrice is on her way back to Austin...

Summary - I don't think anyone is surprised by Patrice's departure... Everyone I talked to thought the same thing... Storm's the last "gimme" and will be out next week. Geez, more MS plugs... Why do I watch this show? Last little interviews at the end: Magni has no problem being in bottom 3 and will miss Patrice. Toby enjoyed the SN song. Wants the job more than ever.

My overall predictions: Top 3: Dilana, Ryan and Magni. Supernova will cut Dilana loose at the end and offer Ryan the gig. Will last for one album before Supernova calls Magni back to front them later. Dilana will be off to a short solo career (will be around 'til the end of next summer and then it's back to the biker bars and bah mitzvahs... :)

I'm still working on the Part Two post on the wifi mesh but a few things popped up that I'd like to mention.

• First, from Envision Central Texas and in what I'm sure will put a big smile on our resident New Urbanist, The Congress for New Urbanism has selected Austin as the host city of their 2008 annual conference. From Envision's newsletter:

  Austin has been selected by the Congress for the New Urbanism as host of their 2008 annual conference. This is an high-profile event that will bring hundreds of talented people to our region to discuss innovative approaches to planning and design. Stay tuned for more on this in the months ahead!

  I couldn't find a mention of this on their website but I'm sure that Envision Central Texas knows what they're talking about.
• On Monday, I saw our wonderful Mayor, Will Wynn, commit a technical case of jaywalking. Before I could whip out my Razr to try and take a picture (I was riding my mountain bike and my phone was in my backpack so it would have taken awhile to extricate it) he was on his merry jogging way. Now, I say "technical case" as I was southbound on West Ave just north of 5th while Mr. Mayor was northbound, freshly off the Town Lake trail. I was trackstanding my bike waiting for the light to change and as soon as the light changed, we both started heading our respective directions. But the Mayor didn't use the crosswalks and crossed on a diagonal from one sidewalk on the southeast side to the sidewalk on the northwest side. Technically, that's jaywalking and I've seen people harrassed down on 6th for less offensive infractions than that (like touching a removable barrier when that person got pushed into it from the crowd).
  As a commuting cyclist, I try to respect all the laws I'm supposed to on the bike as a "role model" to other cyclists (I could have easily run the red light as there was no traffic), I feel our Mayor should feel the same and should've used the crosswalks when there is at least one member of the public there (me). I mention this only because I felt he had the time to cross the intersection the way you're supposed to (using the crosswalks) and he is supposed to be Austin's "role-model-in-chief." I mean, if everyone just started crossing intersections on the diagonal it would lead to pure chaos. Anarchy, even... ;-)
• Finally, the graphic above I found off a link from Atrios. Usually, plot lines like that mean one thing: the subject of the plot is about to crash. And crash *hard*. Comparitively speaking, when you see a biological population plot move in the same way, you're about to have a mass die-off. So maybe housing prices are about to become more affordable here in Austin sometime soon. Sure is scary to me...

I'd also like to send a big "Thank You" to the guys at Lost in Texas for adding me to their Austin blog roll. It's my first listing in a blog roll and I'm flattered to be referred off such a cool blog. Thanks Lauren and Fletch! And congrats Lauren on your World Championship!

Those of you who have mosied over to my site to read a post or two may have noticed that I haven't done much posting lately (and yes, Mom, I haven't stopped posting!). Between getting a summer cold that knocked me back for a few weeks where I couldn't ride my bike into work (which hampered the Saturday Bike Blog feature) and trying to get this site up and running the way I'd like, it hasn't left much time for me to post entries. Well, now, I'm proud to say, I'm over the summer cold and I think I got this site working the way I wanted to see it so I'll be returning to more regular posting (I can hear the collective groan now... :)

But first, I'd like to extend my first "Grand Opening" invitations to those on the Austin Bloggers metablog. The Austin Bloggers site was one of the reasons why I decided to start blogging and hence, the impetus to create my Political Suicide site. I read a post from someone that linked off the site and had a rather uninformed (well, I thought) post about Proposition 1. So I decided to talk with my employer (the City of Austin) to make sure that I could start posting about the controversial propositions and still keep my job. Those meetings produced my first blog posts which tried to break down the legalese as well as provide the first technical plan and real costs to meet the requirements (something that neither side had done yet). From those posts, I then started finding other topics to post about and it's been nothing but fun since then.

Now, why create *another* blog site? Well, I had a different take on what a political blog site should be based on my own dissatisfaction with most of the current political blog sites. On all of my favorite blog sites, generally speaking, you are only reading one person's take on some event. You then see some pretty good debates that happen within the comments later. So I decided to extend that idea to the blog site itself. The political leanings of Political Suicide are neither left nor right (although my leanings are most definitely lefty). Hopefully, the site will become a place where both right and left will be able to post in the same place and there will be built-in debate facilitating features on Political Suicide that will further the political discourse.

So what can you do on the site? Currently, as a member, you can start a blog, put up a chat room, start a poll or post links to resources elsewhere on the Internets or schedule/plan events on a communal calendar. But that's not all. We'll be building in some unique features that no other political site currently has. We'll be programming up a karma point based system for comments and chats that will allow users to give points to other users for well done blog posts or comments. We'll also be adding online debate "face-offs" where members will be able to watch the experts debate in real-time whilst commenting amongst themselves in the "peanut gallery."

But at some point, I had to launch the site so people could start using it and so I decided to launch what I had now. I'm not a programmer so wading through Python/Plone/Zope has been somewhat of a struggle for me but I will be adding new features as we go along. So, if you're interested, come on by and see if you'd like to participate. I desperately need some posters that represent the right side of the spectrum as I don't know the blogs/places for the best information from that perspective. I'll be returning to some more regular posting (I've got a new photo feature I'm adding as well as a follow-up post on the city's wifi mesh) while still squishing some technical bugs (still need to figure out why the trackback ping doesn't work to Austin Bloggers) so I hope to see you there!

Sorry for not getting it up yet but I'll be in another meeting early next week specifically about the deployment schedule so I decided to wait until then to make sure I had the most up-to-date information to publish. In the meantime, if anyone feels like joining in and adding to the content, feel free!

Ok, I don't use Windows as a primary OS and haven't for going on 10 years now (with the exception of a few programs I'm required to use at work, I would never touch it). I find it a terrible OS with a horrible UI and just plain ugly to look at (esp. when compared to Mac OSX and the XGL-based GNOME). So, when designing this site, I followed the Internet standards (CSS, primarily) as they should render the pages the same on all browsers, right? After all, Plone does accessibility and other things like that for you...

So check the screenshots. The one on top is IE 6 on XP Pro; the one on bottom is Firefox on Fedora Core 5. The same page that renders wonderfully on all browsers I've tested (Firefox, Mozilla, Opera and Konqueror on Linux; Safari and Firefox on Mac) renders horribly only on Internet Explorer. I just found that out today as one of my friends who uses IE at work showed me. IE just does not follow standards and so now I have to try and figure out how to get these pages to render right in just IE. I'm very tempted to just put a link to Firefox on the page an just blow off IE. From what I understand, they've supposedly fixed these CSS rendering problems in IE7 so that might be easier than trying to figure out how to essentially send 2 pages. Argh! This just pisses me off!

Please, for the good of the Internet. Ditch IE and download Firefox. Not only will you be more secure but you will have more features to use and will be supporting Internet standards at the same time.

Update: Seems the guys who develop Plone have figured this problem out and put up a CSS page that fixes most of the problems (IEFixes.css). Thanks Jon for pointing me in the right direction. It's still not perfect but it'll do...

I wasn't planning on posting today but Texas lost a great woman and I lost a personal inspiration so I thought I'd add to the collective of voices mourning her passing. Former Governor Ann Richards died today from esophageal cancer. I have very fond memories of Ann in her gubernatorial campaigns (I cast my first vote ever, in any election, for her in her re-election loss to GW) and of course, her wonderful 1988 Democratic National Convention speech (transcript located here). Who could've guessed that her famous line about GW's dad would fit so appropriately for his son as well ["Born with a silver foot in his mouth."]

I had the great privilege of meeting Ms. Richards once at, of all places, the checkout line of the downtown Whole Foods. She was quite unmistakable. A diminutive woman in an electric blue leotard, bike shorts and that trademark white-as-snow Texas-size hair. We didn't talk politics or about anything important. We just shared a few words about what was on the cover of one of the magazines (I believe it was an Utne reader) and she broke out into that trademark and jovial laugh when she made a little joke about getting her change back from the cashier.

Ms. Richards was probably the first person that made me aware of politics and government and how it has the potential to affect people's lives for the be