Archive for December, 2007
Rigging the lottery
Left of the Dial wonders, based on past history, whether it would be possible to rig the Tennessee Lottery system:
Rep. Jason Mumpower, R-Bristol, is determined to force the lottery to go back to using the balls, a system that inherently creates confidence because players can actually see the winning numbers as they appear. Computers invite [...]
Read More..>>Haslam and blogging
Apparently, city leaders are considering starting a blog.
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Fred Thompson’s “no silly hat rule”
Apparently Thompson’s campaign style isn’t getting rave reviews from the hometown Iowa press, including this Waverly columnist:
But what happened to the “tour of downtown Waverly” that was on his schedule?
Canceled. Not going to happen. He was not going to walk the streets of Waverly in search of voters.
Instead, Thompson rode four blocks to the local [...]
Terry Frank says Tennessee election laws need some tweaking
Terry Frank:
Violation of federal campaign law is many times more serious than violating Tennessee campaign laws.
And unlike Senator Jerry Cooper (D) who transferred money from his campaign to his personal account, those involved in the embezzlement of federal campaign dollars are paying a criminal cost.
Does anyone out there know if the State of Tennessee statutes [...]
New music from Randall Brown
You may know Randall from his KNS entertainment blog, but he’s also a merry music maker in his own right, and he’s got a fun new holiday song available for your listening pleasure.
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Gun safety through abstinence education
SayUncle links to a cartoon comparing abstinence education to giving kids loaded guns and then telling them not to play with them. The best part of the post, though, is from one of SayUncle’s commenters, who says:
Is it a post-modernist deconstructionist allegory for the oneness of our existence? I’m so confused…
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Read More..>>Is the mortgage meltdown starting to impact local home prices?
Josh Flory says Knoxville home prices are sputtering:
An optimist might point out that other parts of the country are seeing price declines (see this New York Times story for details.) A pessimist might speculate that East Tennessee is on the trailing edge of the housing trend, and may yet see prices drop.
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Read More..>>Not what Santa intended
An East Tennessee child received an MP3 player loaded with porn under the Christmas tree:
The Hills had bought three MP3 players for their children from a Wal-Mart store in Sparta, Tennessee.
It turns out one of the MP3 players had been returned to the store from a previous owner who loaded sex clips, graphic war [...]
Ann Rule on Mary Winkler
Famous crime writer Ann Rule is tackling the Mary Winkler case in her new book:
Rule did not attend the Winkler trial. Beverly Morrison of Henderson attended as a first-time researcher for her.
“I came away having a lot of questions that were never answered in court,” Morrison said. “I still don’t know how much abuse there [...]
TN GOP convention applicants seem to like Ron Paul
Link.
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Happy Birthday La Leche League
From my personal blog:
LLLI is one of the most successful grassroots women’s health movements in modern history. It’s all about empowering women to help and support other women with information, hands-on support (for free) and research. And it all began with seven 1950s housewives who just wanted to breastfeed their own babies.
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Read More..>>Smoldering wood can lead to unsafe carbon monoxide levels?
I never realized this was possible, but apparently it is:
Authorities believe wood and brush dumped in the area may be smoldering, leading to the elevated carbon monoxide level in the neighborhood.
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New Year’s Resolutions for the famous
From the Christian Science Monitor.
Among my faves:
Hillary Clinton
1. Find a hobby for Bill
2. Suggest Wellesley start a football team
3. Find a second hobby for Bill
Queen Elizabeth
1. Throw out my mini skirts
2. Insist Phil stop eating peanuts in bed
3. Ask Helen Mirren if she’d like the job
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Gift of the Magi goes high tech
The Vol Abroad had an O’Henry twist to her Christmas:
…both of us received DVD sets for Christmas - and last night our DVD player gave up the ghost.
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Sevierville is still a small town
Jon Hickman’s family accounting biz is located in downtown Sevierville:
Our office closed for lunch today, so we could have our Christmas dinner. We forwarded the phone, locked the doors, and hit the road.
Except we didn’t lock the door. And when the mail lady came by and noticed no one was here, she dropped off the [...]
Campfield vs. Cohen on pork
Rep. Stacey Campfield is taking Congressman Steve Cohen to task for calling himself “the pig slayer” in reference to Cohen’s stated opposition to a GOP plan to allow excess lottery funds to be used to rebuild school facilities:
“I was the pig slayer,” Cohen said (in the News Snetinel). “Now they all want to be the [...]
Digging through a packrat’s stuff
First Impressionist is digging through a lifetime worth of her parents’ stuff, getting it ready to sell on Ebay:
I plan on systematically working through her home over the next few years, organizing, ebaying items and getting items ready for a spring rummage sale.
This is a HUGE project, as my parents are decades long packrats. The [...]
A nifty tool
Michael Silence blogs a nifty EPA tool that lets you see how green your area’s energy consumption is by entering your zipcode:
How Clean is Your Electricity?
We’re better than the national average on hydro (thanks, TVA!) and worse than the national average on coal (thanks, TVA).
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Another kind of year-end top 10 list
Cup of Joe Powell is counting down the things we could do without in 2008:
A short list. Yours may vary:
Glenn Beck
Daily reports on Britney Spears
Being tasered
The sports trifecta of steroids, OJ Simpson and Barry Bonds
Carlos Mencia
The View
Two commercials: Fitness Made Simple; Head-On…
And the list goes on.
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Questions about Anderson County audit
Citizen Netmom’s initial perusal of the brand new audit report leaves her with some concerns:
This afternoon, the Tennessee Comptroller’s Office posted the FY07 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report for Anderson County. While I haven’t thoroughly examined all 277 pages, I did skip to the “findings” beginning on p. 274.
Expenditures exceeded Commission’s appropriations in six major [...]
