In a story straight from the "only in Texas" files, the Texas Animal Health Commission is requesting that it be allowed to pay its inspectors $50 per day if they use their own horse for work.

Hey, you get your travel allowance, they get theirs.

Texas Youth Commission (a happy, skippy euphemism for the juvie people) is in trouble, and the Legislature is leading the charge to burn it to the ground. It's all over allegations of sexual abuse, cover-ups, and incompetence. TYC is built on the idea of taking young offenders, often from the big cities, and dumping them in what are (again, euphemistically called) schools in the furthest corners of West Texas. It's supposed to keep them away from bad influences, but what it also means is a lack of state oversight of the people into whose tender mercies they have been delivered.

The worst of all possible outcomes came with allegations of serious sexual abuse of inmates at the Evins Regional Juvenile Center in Edinburg and the West Texas State School in Pyote by ranking staff, and the almost complete failure of the state to do anything about it. (visit The Texas Observer for overviews of the allegations in Pyote and Evins.) Two years after the original allegations, 18 months after reports landed on prosecuting attorneys' desks, and almost a year after the Observer ran a major story on them, the Lege has finally rumbled into action.

Feb 1 - A Senate Finance Committee meeting turns ugly when Sen. Juan Hinojosa, D-McAllen, sternly questions TYC Executive Director Dwight Harris over the events on Pyote. Harris gives answers that have been seen as, well, less than forthcoming.

If we may direct you to one of two brief features this week - coinciding nicely with our South by Southwest Interactive coverage - here's Austin blogger Amanda Marcotte on her two weeks under assault from the right-wing noise machine. After successfully steering the popular lefty blog Pandagon, she was asked to run the campaign blog for John Edwards, but ... well, you can read the rest for yourself. Just be glad the mighty Wurlitzer doesn't sound for you.

Once you're done with that, check out this longer piece Marcotte wrote for Salon. For a sympathetic but contrary view on Marcotte's hiring, there's more here.

Fascinating stuff to be sure. Our thanks again to Marcotte for her words and participation.

The city's Small and Minority Business Resources Department is operating with bad information, at a loss to certify how many businesses in its files are truly minority-owned, women-owned, or disadvantaged businesses, according to a report by the Office of the City Auditor. "In our audit we found problems in the area of certification, specifically as it relates to the accuracy of data on certified firms maintained by the certification agency that processes certification of Minority-Owned Business Enterprise (MBE) and Women-Owned Business Enterprise (WBE) for the City of Austin," says the report, released at yesterday's meeting of the Audit and Finance Committee. "We also found that SMBR’s oversight of the contract with the certification agency was weak."

In 2004, the agency outsourced its MBE, WBE, and DBE certification to South Central Texas Regional Certification Agency for $50,000 a year. It's there the auditor's office found problems with the "accuracy of data on certified firms maintained by the certification agency that processes certification of MBE and WBE for the City of Austin," and that "SMBR’s oversight of the contract with the certification agency was weak."

Most shockingly, the information in the city's own database is wildly out-of-sync with its contractor. "As of October 2006, the SCTRCA database showed 761 firms certified as MBE, WBE, or DBE for the City of Austin, and the City vendor database showed 1,401 firms as being certified. … SMBR’s monitoring of the contract with SCTRCA does not provide sufficient assurance that the desired goals of the certification activity are achieved and that accurate information is provided to the City."

Download the report here.

I suppose we'd be remiss not to mention this: Over in this Austinist post about SXSW wristband sales, there's plenty of complaints and bellyaching about the festival, to which our humble editor and SXSW co-creator Louis Black chimes in:

"You guys really do nail me. Every ugly word is true. Nick Barbaro and I live in a multimillion dollar Westlake mansion where we wander around all day in our slippers thinking how we can screw Austinites out of even more money. The house is all white – white walls, white furniture, white art – but our slippers are red. There is no music because we hate music!

Sometimes we sit by the pool drowning locals who passed out while waiting on line for wristbands. I wish I was as tough and smart as you guys, but you are all so right, I'm just a juvenile smug egocentric asshole paying slave wages – fat and happy, smug and stupid, neurotic and narcissistic. In fact Nick's only complaint about our quite perfect life together, outside of our lack of house servants (only a couple of dozen) and his routine but unfair accusation that hogging the bodies of the poor and passed out I'm drowning more than my share, is that I read him my column each week over and over and over again, using different voices as well as parts of my body to make sound effects.

For those of y'all keeping track, the controversial Crossing at Bouldin Creek received final approval at PC last night. Neighbors sought to fight the development, planned on more than 50 lots, as they've maintained the area it will be built around floods dramatically when it rains, despite recently revised FEMA flood maps claiming it doesn't. However, going up after other controversial requests meant the neighbors didn't present until 1am, when a sleepy commission approved the case – but with two no votes, and one abstention.

The Star Riverside waterfront variance request at 1300 E. Riverside may have nearly died the death of a thousand cuts, but we won't count it out yet. As the decision came down around 1am, we missed it, but we've put in a few calls. Bottom line: Doesn't look dead yet.

The Lakeshore PUD request along Riverside was similarly cut back, with its 2,500 condos and apartments (!) cut back to 1,800.

Over at the Parks Commission, more Riverside drama. The 222 and 300 E. Riverside tracts were postponed for a month in order to hammer out details on the waterfront variance request (and give attorney Richard Suttle time to think about what he did).

Not to blow our own trumpet too much, but we did say Monday that right-wing pundits would start laying into Al Gore. Now the Tennessee Center for Policy Research has accused him of being an energy hog, using 20 times the electricity of the average household. Calling him a hypocrite, center President Drew Johnson said the former vice president and winner of the 2000 popular vote in the presidential election should "walk the walk, not just talk the talk, when it comes to home energy use."

However, the report ignores two facts: 1) The Gore house is also the Gore office, and he pays a premium rate to buy guaranteed wind- and solar-generated electricity. He buys carbon credits for the natural gas he burns, and the whole place is carbon neutral. 2) Gore's energy company, Nashville Electric Service, says it never gave the center the information about Gore's bill and doesn't know why it's claiming they did.

Plus, if anyone had bothered to check, the supposedly independent Tennessee-based think tank is actually a libertarian shill for consumer-unfriendly tort reform and is opposed to public health care and a raise in the minimum wage. It's already called the green energy movement "beneficiaries of federal pork." So it's fair to skip the "impartial" label here.

Here's a quick question: Has anyone checked how much green energy Drew Johnson buys?

If you want to sign up for green energy in Austin, you may have to wait - Austin Energy has had such high demand, it's looking for more suppliers. For Texans living outside of the municipality, go to the Power to Choose Web site, type in your ZIP code, and get impartial information about your green-energy choices.

Microbrewers have finally found a Lege ally in Rep. Jessica Farrar, D-Houston, who on Monday filed a bill that would allow small beermakers to sell their product on the premises of their breweries directly to consumers (as winemakers are already allowed to do). As the organization Friends of Texas Microbreweries had asked, House Bill 1926 defines eligible brewers as those whose annual production is less than 75,000 barrels, and on-site ale sales would be capped at 5,000 barrels per year. Possible roadblock: a powerful wholesalers lobby, who might look unkindly on any incursions into their business.

The city's Planning Commission is in for some shit tonight: Neighborhood power broker Jeff Jack and SaveTownLake.org are inveighing against final passage of the Star Riverside development's request to skirt the Waterfront Overlay Ordinance. With a staff recommendation, they're facing an uphill battle.

On top of that, the Bouldin Meadows development is also up for final presentation – word is that the neighbors will present more evidence about the flooding danger there.

It's a rough one tonight.