Headlines

• The National Weather Service released data showing that this August was the hottest on record for Austin, with an average temperature of 89.1 degrees.

• Monday is Labor Day, signaling both the end of the summer (we can only hope) and ... what was that other thing? Oh yeah, the accomplishments of workers and labor organizations everywhere. May you get some solidarity with your colleagues and respite from your toils.

• The Austin Police Department plans to launch a "no refusal" initiative over Labor Day weekend – that means suspected drunken drivers who refuse to give breath or blood samples will be subject to the dreaded blood search warrant. No weaseling out of this one, drunkies.

• Capital Metro's creaky, iconic, and underused 'Dillo trolleycar-styled buses are now officially roadkill. The Cap Metro board of directors voted this week to suspend 'Dillo service indefinitely.

• If you're wondering what happened to that audit of the Austin Revitalization Authority due at the end of August, its release has been postponed – it's now due to come before the City Council's Audit & Finance Committee on Sept. 22.

• City Council is off this week – and doesn't hold a regular meeting until Sept. 24 – but work continues behind the scenes on the city's 2010 budget. Council meets Monday, Sept. 14, to approve the omnibus budget. See "City Hall Hustle."

• Thanks to the kind donations of attendees at The Austin Chronicle Hot Sauce Festival last weekend, $14,269 and 29,413 pounds of nonperishable food were collected for the Capital Area Food Bank – that's 8,000 pounds more than last year. See "19th Annual 'Austin Chronicle' Hot Sauce Contest."

• Reaping the whirlwind: After he raised the ridiculous specter of secession, Gov. Rick Perry was called out by the Texas Nationalist Movement for no-showing at its Aug. 29 rally at the Capitol.

• An estimated 2,000 people attended U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett's Aug. 29 health care town hall, the last before his return to Washington to work on insurance reforms. On the same day, GOP Congressman Pete Olson halted his Houston THINO (town hall in name only) after being challenged over his baffling claim that free-market doctors' refusal to perform heart surgery on a child means government health care can't work.

• The slow path to redemption: Onetime loyal Bushie and former White House counsel Gen. Alberto Gonzales has backed Attorney General Eric Holder's plans for an inquiry into allegations of CIA torture.

• Novelist Kinky Friedman launched a media offensive for his campaign to become Democratic nominee for governor, saying he erred in running as an independent in 2006 and declaring, "It's time for Texas to secede from Rick Perry."

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Quote of the Week

"Is this going to be enough to prevent catastrophic climate change? I personally am not an optimist. I don't think that it will. That's my personal opinion – that's not Austin Energy."

– Austin Energy General Manager Roger Duncan, talking about the utility's 2020 generation plan at a town hall meeting, Tuesday, Sept. 1