ICE Never Stopped Chasing People in Cars in the Rio Grande Valley www.texasobserver.org/ice-car-chas... - via @gaigedavila.bsky.social

ICE Never Stopped Chasing People in Cars in the Rio Grande Valley

Immigration agents sped after a vehicle through a residential neighborhood on the same day of the agency’s traffic stop pause, reportedly endangering a mother and son—before pulling a gun on and brief...

texasobserver.org

Cartoon from 1976 Austin Creeks plan proposing a string of greenbelts along city creeks to connect the town via pedestrian and biking paths.

How does a plagiarism machine report "news"? In all seriousness, if there's no one out discovering local news, who does AI copy from besides press releases? While the motive for this is clear (greed), I don't understand the thinking behind it. AI can't perform journalism IRL. (gift article)

'Gut-wrenching': major layoffs hit Texas newsroom as Scripps embraces AI model

KRIS 6 employees are slated to be laid off amid Scripps' plan to boost core profits by shifting toward an AI-powered newsroom model.

expressnews.com

Cornyn is such a lickspittle. Honestly, I was offended every time anyone suggested he was "better than Paxton," bc, not by his votes he's not. He spent all spring running bigoted anti-Muslim ads. For my money, he turned to the dark side by his 2nd term as AG and never looked back.

Eric Michael Garcia@ericmgarcia.bsky.social · 23h ago

Susan Collins announces she will vote against confirming Todd Blanche to become Attorney General. This comes after Cornyn and Tillis said they will vote to confirm him. Murkowski has not said how she would vote to confirm him. Same for Bill Cassidy.

London's "outer tributaries have ... been largely tamed, and the inner ones consigned to a little-frequented underworld," wrote Nicholas Barton in "The Lost Rivers of London," the granddaddy of investigations into buried urban streams (1962). Came in the mail today.

Livestock show in Rosewood Park, Austin, late 1940s.

The Long branch is a buried creek first identified by @indelibleaustin.bsky.social, and the city watershed department says its location wd drain into Boggy Creek. But after studying city drainage records carefully, I now believe it ran south to the Colorado River down Comal, and was buried in 1931.

Draft cartouche for my buried creeks map. I'll do a cleaner version, just thinking about concepts.

TIL that, in the 1930s, Austin had a "municipal band" that was led by Blondie Pharr, for whom the Pharr tennis center at Patterson Park is named. Pharr had been band leader at UT in the '30s, and led Austin's municipal band after that. Center was named for him bc he was an avid tennis player.

Blondie Pharr leads Austin "municipal band"

Clipping found in Austin American-Statesman published in Austin, Texas on 6/10/1937. Blondie Pharr leads Austin "municipal band"

newspapers.com

Can't find the little creek starting behind Sam's BBQ on any old map, or other names referencing it in the newspaper, but that's definitely what's going on there, so on my little map I'm going to call it the "BBQ branch."

Grits for Breakfast@gritsforbreakfast.bsky.social · 3d ago

This brings my running total of upper Boggy Creek's buried/occluded water sources to 7 disrupted, natural creeks and 2 capped springs. Boggy Creek's history for the last 100 years has been government removing its natural base flow and ↑ stormwater drainage channeled into it by orders of magnitude.

Idk about "best," but re: bf the Civil War, I'd suggest Knights of the Golden Circle by David Kaehn. The KGC burned the Alamo Express newspaper in San Antonio and wanted to colonize the Caribbean and Central America as a slave empire. Crazy, little-known history I haven't seen anywhere else.

—>realhackhistory.org@bsky.realhackhistory.org · 3d ago

#Skystorians, or anyone with an interest, what’s the best book on secret societies and conspiracies enacted by confederates before and after the U.S. civil war?

And one more occluded Boggy Cr triubutary! There is a small, dry creekbed beginning behind Sam's BBQ on E. 12th at Poquito, curling around to cross the street where Alamo wd go but does not, eventually entering a pipe. This stream connected w/ what 19th century Austinites called the Cemetery branch.

TY, this is very interesting and helpful. The city website shows a pipe coming from the park to the north dumping into that culvert that seems to drain a LOT of area. Looks like all that was installed in 1952, you can still see the original creek in the 1940 aerial view.

I am sharing a photograph of the Boggy Creek tributary between Airport Blvd and Vineland drive. This gully now starts at Airport and Schieffer, but presumably it used continue to where Mueller Lake is now. The picture shows a section that has a concrete bed, south of 40th street.

In the 1880s, William Radam was operating a high-volume well on the banks of Boggy Creek using a Knowles steam pump that a reporter said produced 500 gallons per minute, >1 cfs. I've been trying to figure out which model he likely used, but that's more than the capacity of the ones I'm seeing.

This article was basically, "Well, we brought this anti-trans bigot onboard as a rainmaker and our partners decided they liked money more than integrity, so we sold our souls."

@bbeach.bsky.social · 3d ago

Money always bends the knee. www.nytimes.com/2026/08/02/u...

Very disappointed. Reading @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social ‘s book only to discover it is not, in fact, a how-to book on successfully kidnapping billionaires. Do better. Enough with the false advertising.

Kerry Hatley gave Usman a break 2 wks ago after a legal punch, then today watched a fighter jab a finger into another man's eye and called it a punch. He blows these calls nearly every time he refs. Hatley is the ref's rep on TX's combat sports advisory cmn, which advises a guy at TDLR named Greg.

Grits for Breakfast@gritsforbreakfast.bsky.social · 8mo ago

That said, we do have an advisory board to Greg that meets once or at most twice per year. So I went to see who was on that commission: it does include some medical personnel, but also the Fury FC promoter from the Collazo fight and *Kerry Hatley,* the referee who let the ATX fight go on too long.

SA Express-News editorial board: Eighty-five inmates died in the Bexar County jail between 2020 and 2025, making it among the deadliest in Texas. We are calling for change. www.expressnews.com/projects/202...

Jailed to death in Bexar County

Eighty-five inmates died in the Bexar County jail between 2020 and 2025, making it among the deadliest in Texas. We are calling for change.

expressnews.com

The Secret Poquito Creek Outdoor Ping Pong Table. "Poquito Creek" is a one-block segment of daylighted creek that used to be buried in a pipe -- likely the end of what in the 19th century Austinites called the Cemetery Branch. There was water in it, but it connects w/ Maple Creek, which is dry rn.

It's not that remarkable: The premises of their policies were all based on racist lies that only made sense in delusional, nativist brains and, when implemented in reality, it was still stupid AF, regardless of the level of enthusiasm some of the worst ppl in America cd muster for it.

Greg Sargent@gregsargent.bsky.social · 4d ago

Remarkable: Dems have now pulled even with the GOP *on immigration* in two new national polls. A third finds Trump 22 points underwater on the the issue, and *32 points* underwater among independents. Trump has absolutely destroyed the GOP advantage on immigration. newrepublic.com/article/2138...

Kathy had left a Xmas wreath up on our back deck bc this was in it and once had eggs it it. But I finally convinced her we cd take it down bc the residents, including the egg inhabitants, were long gone. Pretty sure it was wrens, and they're only here during winter.

There are many things to get shitty about with #SpaceX (they are, after all, a PoS company) — but I’m less cranky about their random rocket piece hitting the Moon, and more focused on what SpaceX is doing here on Earth. Because …. they are doing some pretty shitty things. 👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽

Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 5d ago

The fact that it’s poisoning Black people is not seen as a negative to these folks.

Maybe you’re not 65 or older and this doesn’t affect you but it does your parents and grandparents. Also this is a slippery slope for other cuts that will affect you. Where is AARP? This is one reason I dropped them. abcnews.com/Health/trump...

Trump administration to end Medicare Part D subsidy program in 2027

The prescription drug benefit is used by millions of seniors.

abcnews.com

The Lake Travis HS star will do fine next year on the free agent market, so let the trust-fund babies who own the Bucs fume all they want. The team decided not to extend him and to let him become a free agent after the season, was he supposed to feel affirmed and supported?

Rotoworld Football@rotoworld-fb.bsky.social · 5d ago

Buccaneers unhappy with how Baker spoke about organization

First draft drawn in a notebook of a map of occluded and buried tributaries to Boggy Creek (East Austin) -- 5 creeks and 2 springs -- listing the years they were disrupted. Not to scale, obv, just trying to situate them in my mind. Will do a nicer version in photoshop for publication.

That prolly wd've hooked me. Inspired by doesn't sound like they're recreating a dish, per se, but I'm a sucker for ppl trying to re-create old/forgotten recipes from the past. I've (half) joked that historians need their own version of America's Test Kitchen!

Claire E. Aubin@ceaubin.com · 5d ago

Did I buy a cookbook solely because it has a recipe inspired by Hildegard von Bingen in it? Yes

I've now twice seen Blue Herons out at the second coming of Jim Hogg's old fishing pond, which the city recreated just south of (now-capped) Oak Springs. There's a colony the birds near downtown (a heronry, its called), but I hope they also start nesting around that pond.

Great blue heron colony nestled near Downtown Austin

YouTube video by KVUE

youtube.com

A Tesla on autopilot didn't detect a person in the road A Tesla on autopilot didn't detect a person in the road A Tesla on autopilot didn't detect a person in the road OMFG OMFG OMFG this is so fucked

KXAN News@kxan.com · last wk.

The identity of the motorcyclist has not yet been released.

A bit like white folks in the 1960s choosing to close public swimming pools rather than integrate them.

tamara nopper@tamaranopper.bsky.social · last wk.

Public bathrooms, once common, are difficult to find now because of the history of segregation against African Americans as well as the targeting of LGBT individuals. now.temple.edu/news/2022-09...