Because nature, not necessarily intelligently, designs a few things, too. Things that make themselves a bit more harshly manifest at this low-temperature, low-humidity time of year. Things that some have called snot flaps.

Sound familiar? Well, we did write a small feature about them, about this particular bio-design, some years ago (when we had just finished reading Infinite Jest and hadn't fully shrugged off the influence of David Foster Wallace's prose style). We point you to that very (design, we're insisting) feature now, relevant as it is in these Neti-Pot rampant days:

The Snot Flap Manifesto

Enjoy.

So today was Christmas, and honestly I wouldn't have known had K8 not invited me out to Charlie's for some free Christmas dinner.

We had a blast, and I just wanted to take this opportunity to thank the fabulous staff at Charlie's for making a fey Jewboy (and his big lezzie "date") feel welcome at the Christmas table!

Click the pics to see more of our delicious feast c/o Charlie's.

I heard rumblings that this is a decades (!) old tradition at the downtown gay bar. What an incredibly generous gesture and great annual tradition. Well I know where I'll be spending next Christmas. And the one after that… and the one after that… and… well, you get the idea.

Cheers!

Merry Christmas.
Happy Yule.
Gay tidings.

Nestled between articles titled:
"A thermosensory pathway that controls body temperature" and "Netrin signal transduction and the guanine nucleotide exchange factor DOCK180 in attractive signaling" in the medical journal Nature Neuroscience is this little gem:

"A glial amino-acid transporter controls synapse strength and courtship in Drosophila"

No turkey? No ham? no figgie puddin'?

Well, fret not! Charlie's Austin, for the bazillionth year in a row is offering Totally FREE Christmas Dinner starting at 1pm on Tuesday, December 25. Come have dinner with family!

The bar on Lavaca, near the Capitol, opens at noon and food service begins at one. They are asking for folks to consider bringing dessert.

At least one of the Kates and an Andy will be there. See you there?

The nuisance who just won't go away, Gene Kelly, is back for another run at U.S. Senate. He's thrown his hat in the ring for the Democratic nomination, pitting him against Houston's Rick Noriega and Corpus Christi's Ray McMurrey. The winner will challenge incumbent Republican John Cornyn.

If you want to get elbows-deep into the fight between Nelda Wells Spears and Glen Maxey, check out this thread on the Burnt Orange Report. Maxey and Spears' treasurer Bill Aleshire have pulled out the long knives and are really going at each other, with plenty of other voices chiming in as well. Maxey, a former state representative for District 51, is challenging Spears in the Democratic primary for the office of Travis County Tax Assessor-Collector (and Voter Registrar), an office she has held for 16 years. Aleshire, of course, is the former Travis County judge, as well as one of Spears' predecessors in the tax assessor office.

A few months ago, when Karl Rove stood down from the White House, long-time Turd Blossom watcher Jim Moore told Chronic that "Karl's priority is to write his first draft of history." Now the man known as The Architect has a publisher for that history, having signed on the dotted line for a reputed $1.5 million with Simon & Schuster for right to his autobiography. Actually, it's with Threshold Editions, a well-funded outlet for right-wing jeremiads run as a vanity imprint for former assistant to President George W. Bush and counselor to Vice President Dick Cheney, Mary Matalin.

Threshold's short roster of authors contains familiar faces to Rove, including: Mary and Lynne Cheney (any coincidence their father/husband used to be Matalin's boss?); Bush's ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton; Bush-appointed Republican National Convention chair and White House counselor Ed Gillespie; Kissinger acolyte, former governor of Iraq, and McArthur wannabe L. Paul Bremer, III; and former State Department careerist Edward Djerejian. If that name sounds familiar, it may be because he was chair of the committee that, in Dec. 2002, wrote Guiding Principles for U.S. Post-Conflict in Iraq - the unofficial game plan for post-invasion reconstruction and privatization of Iraq.

F.Y.I. The Post Office General Mail Facility off of 290 at Crosspark as of 9am this morning (Sat., Dec. 22) was EMPTY. Nada. No one. Zip. Zilch. The two nice postal dudes behind the counter were tweedling their thumbs and jokingly asked how I got past the hounds when I went up to get service.

The counter is open today until 3pm. Domestic Express Mail in most cases will get to its destination by Mon., Dec. 24, Christmas Eve for all you last-minute Santas.

Responsible Growth for Northcross has lost its lawsuit attempting to stop the construction of a Wal-Mart on the former Northcross Mall property by Lincoln Property. RG4N sued the city, asserting that city staff had improperly approved Lincoln’s site plan for the Wal-Mart Supercenter without considering the project’s impact on public safety, traffic, and flood drainage as required by city ordinance. Part of RG4N’s claims was that city staff should not have approved the Wal-Mart’s garden center as an “accessory use,” essentially meaning it’s a minor part of the store, and it should have been a “conditional use,” or a central use of the property, which would require a zoning change and thus would have triggered public hearings.