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......

Photo by DESMONDWYSON on flickrGov. Rick Perry and his staff are holding off on hitting the "delete" key, thanks to the work of a political activist. John Washburn of Milwaukee programmed his computer to automatically send out two requests a week for all government e-mail generated by Perry staffers. Under state law, records aren't supposed to be destroyed once somebody has asked for them. The governor's office said they will comply with Washburn's requests, which......

In collaboration with Fritz Haeg, a Los Angeles-based architect with a penchant for vegetables, Arthouse at the Jones Center plans to give your lawn a makeover—with your permission and eager participation, of course. The Congress Avenue institution is seeking a patch o' turf in front of an apartment/condo building in Austin on which to build a food-producing, artist-designed garden, otherwise known as an "Edible Estate." What do you have to lose by nominating your yard......

Starting today, commenting on Austinist and all other sites in the Gothamist network will require logging into an -IST account. Registration is super easy––either click the Create an Account link at the top of this or any other page on Austinist or, easier yet, create an account right at the bottom of the entry page that you want to comment on. So simple! All you have to do after that is confirm your e-mail address......

No, this isn't a plot for the pilot of a new Sci-Fi Channel original series, it's a real life epidemic that has forced the University of Texas to temporarily dim the lights of its most revered building on campus, The UT Tower. The University has sent out this e-mail: "As some of you may have noticed, there is a cricket infestation on campus particularly affecting the area of the Main Building and UT Tower.......

Have you ever wondered what would happen if you hit “reply” to those Nigerian e-mail scams to strike up a conversation with the sender? Have you ever thought about responding to a classified ad, just to harass the ad placer in an outlandish way? Does the idea of pushing people’s buttons via the anonymity of e-mail appeal to you? Do you just like laughing at stuff that’s funny? If so, David Earthman might be......

Attention, pirates and purchasers of digital music alike! On Wednesday, Apple officially launched its new, long-awaited DRM-free music download service. It's called iTunes Plus. But don't get too excited, music fans. Whereas before, in the DRM (digital rights management) world, every song you downloaded from iTunes was wrapped in protective code that could hinder your personal use of the product (bad), songs downloaded from iTunes Plus are apparently not as "liberated" as Apple may have......

The video for Spoon's "The Ghost of You Lingers" is floating around (even if it's probably unofficial) now, have a look: It's a blue, bleeding piano, y'all. Incidentally, we found it amusing to watch this guy read his poetry in one tab while the Spoon song plays in another ... be sure to start them at the same time, it's a sort of Wizard of Oz / The Wall accident that worked out smashingly well.......

Spring Break is over and the students at The University of Texas have reclaimed their city--things are slowly coming back together. However, before the break, one would assume that these future leaders of tomorrow would have saved up their energy for a vacation to Cancun, a road trip to Florida or, god forbid, staying in town for that music festival that you only gets you a wristband tanline. But just months, weeks and days......

Tarleton State University students are making national headlines for recent pictures they posted on Facebook.com after hosting an MLK Day Party, where guests wore gang apparel, drank malt liquor, carried handguns and ate fried chicken. One girl even dressed as Aunt Jemima. The Smoking Gun has the pictures. Donald Ray Elder, leader of the NAACP at the Stephenville, Texas university, found the pictures while browsing Facebook and sent an e-mail to party-thrower Jeremy Pelz.......

We don't know about you, but it's friggin cold out there. Well, not for some of you. It seems as though places that are supposed to be cold are warm and places that are supposed to be warm are cold. Or maybe that's just us. Either way, we're freezing. Austinist said goodbye to their co-editor (sell-out) and played rumor monger on the SXSW lineup. And when dozens of dead birds littered downtown Austin, it's......

Classes have ended at The University of Texas and winter is finally here, the time when girls trade short skirts for sweatpants and guys replace short-sleeve UT shirts with long-sleeve UT shirts. For the students at UT Austin, it's been a pretty tough year. West Campus construction has kept them up all night, their football team choked, APD won't let them party as hard, and now, starting tomorrow, it's final exam time. Where do......

*This post comes from Guest Contributor Kerry Skemp* Beyond a vague yet fascinating physical resemblance (no, really), George W. Bush and Norman Mailer have little in common. The former represents all that is evil in the world (or all that is good, depending on who you talk to), and the latter represents the fact that our country used to offer journalistic investigations of a type that didn’t begin and end at Gawker.com. If you want......

One of this city’s finest events is coming to town in late October. It just so happens that one of the world’s greatest bands will be in town the same week. Conflict of interest, you say? Psh. Try terrific synergy. The Austin Film Festival, celebrating its 13th year this October 19th-26th, is offering two lucky film and music fans a chance to see the Rolling Stones on concert on October 22nd. If you purchase......

Any native Texans out there? Or anyone who has one of those "I wasn't born in Texas, but I got here as soon as I could" bumper stickers? Or are you a Texan now stuck somewhere else? Tracy Smith, a grad student at UC Davis, is doing her dissertation on Texanness (or rather, the essence of being Texan) and needs your help. Some questions she needs answered: What do you think it means to......

If you're one of those enviro-avengers styled after the heroes of I [Heart] Huckabees who chained themselves to bulldozers in the name of protecting Mother Earth, a new environmentally friendly business called Austin CarShare may appeal to you. Like Zipcar, it aims to provide urbanites with short-term car rentals, something especially useful to students who typically use mass transit, or to families with an occasional use for a second car. The neat thing is that,......

A Scanner Darkly was the hot ticket last night, and we even saw a few of you sneaking into Superman Returns at the South Lamar Alamo. If you missed the rare opportunity to see Jean-Luc Godard’s masterpiece projected on a big screen, here is the word straight from Austin Film Society Programming Director, Chale Nafus: Since some of you (were) at the premiere of A Scanner Darkly (Wednesday night), we are considering showing Jean-Luc Godard's......

Spurred perhaps by the Travis County mother-daughter pair who filed that ludicrous lawsuit against them earlier this week, MySpace today announced that it'll be implementing new restrictions on interactions between "adults" and "younger users." From the Associated Press, via KVUE: The site already prohibits kids 13 and under from setting up accounts and displays only partial profiles for those registered as 14 or 15 years old. But under the new changes, MySpace users who are......

Memo to the students of Baylor University: if you take it off for Playboy, plan on finishing your higher education as part of some other student body. The pin-up mag recently hit Waco looking for girls to undress for its Big 12 issue, prompting an e-mail from Baylor administrators reminding students to keep it on or face consequences that could include suspension. The missive was not an idle threat: in 2002, a Baylor student......

*The views expressed in this column are those of the author's and do not represent Austinist as a whole.* -The Editors The last time I dumped someone, I did so over the phone with a script written on a notepad. I full-well realize this is lame. However, using a script to cut someone loose is exponentially less lame than taking to screening calls and ignoring e-mail entreaties. The question is largely at which point......

Washington - The Senate voted down desperate efforts to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Drilling proponents had attached Arctic drilling to a critical bill that provides our troops with the resources they need to keep us safe. The vote that was 56-44. For procedural reasons, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist cast a vote with ANWR opponents so that he might be able to resurrect the issue for another try. But......

In a bizarro turn of events, the judge in The Hammer's criminal case issued an apology recently, evidently because the trial has degenerated into "a very confused state." District Judge Pat Priest this past weekend canceled a hearing originally scheduled for next week, and further opted not to decide whether DeLay should be tried solely on money-laundering charges. Records indicate that Judge Priest was initially inclined to ruling for DeLay, but then suddenly changed......

E-mail messages (dated 7/17/02) from lobbyist Jack Abramoff, obtained by the Justice Department and Senate investigators, show that he told an Indian tribe client that he was being pressured by U.S. Rep. Tom Delay for a $25,000 political donation. This is significant because the e-mail messages are the first evidence to demonstrate that Abramoff cited personal pressure from DeLay in trying to persuade political donations. Previous ties between Abramoff and DeLay have centered around......

Mark your calendars for Wednesday, December 14 because starting at 6 p.m. the political smack talking begins. In The Pink Texas, a non-partisan political blog, and PinkDome, a not-so non-partisan political blog, are celebrating the holiday by hosting, “Pink Is The New Christmas,” at the Brown Bar. This is not to be confused with any activity regarding the website Pink Is The New Blog. If you do not have an e-mail invite you may......

-The Washington Post's Terry M. Neal speculates on Miers' failed bid for the Supreme Court -The latest move in Google's quest to take over the internet: crushing eBay? -Janet Jackson has a secret kid! (Maybe) -2,000 international firms have been accused by the United Nations of paying off Saddam Hussein's regime -MSNBC explains the whole hubbub over the CIA leak story -Charles and Camilla, desperately trying to stay relevant -Another luxury condo's going up......

A couple of weeks ago, we asked for advice on a cool wedding DJ, who wouldn't spin any of that crap music heard at your typical reception. You guys turned out to be as cool as we thought you were, and sent some recommendations our way. Now we share them with others who happen to have both good taste and an upcoming wedding. Some friends had a wedding where Karaoke Underground "DJ-ed" before the......

That’s the first thing you see when you click on the "How To Be Saved" link on the website for the Woodland Hills Baptist Church located at 3400 Old Jacksonville Rd. in Tyler, Texas. So what’s the big deal, you ask? The head of this church, Dr. Wiley Benett thinks that Hurricane Katrina was sent by God to destroy New Orleans. Don’t believe us? Well check out the sign for yourself. No PhotoShop was......

We're getting to that age at which a few of our friends are starting to get married. Most of our friends are pretty cool, and have discerning musical tastes, as we're sure many of you do. Two friends in particular, who are getting married this December, need a wedding DJ. But not just your average wedding DJ. They need one who won't break out the cheesy hits: Celine Dion, Boyz II Men or The......

Do you have a burning desire to share your opinion about coffee shops with your neighbors here in Austin? Are you a Craiglist regular with something to say about the local music scene? Do you refer to yourself as "we" even when talking to your friends? Perhaps you should be writing for Austinist! We're currently looking to bring on a handful of new contributors to cover all aspects of Austin. If you're interested in being......

One of the advantages of being marginally employed is that we sometimes have days, like today, off from work. We were going to do something important with our day off, like take out the trash and check our e-mail, but then we kept reading the awful hurricane news. We got all worked up and decided to go do some volunteer work. Note that the last time we did some volunteer work that didn't involve......