I haven't been following it closely, but you have to admit that Obama is looking and acting very presidential on his trip to the Middle East. It appears U.S. soldiers were even allowed to afford him an enthusiastic reception.

My favorite part was the press conference where he says he reminded Gen. Petraeus who's the boss, and it's the Commander in Chief not the generals. (Our present Commander in Chief notwithstanding. Sending troops to solve a political and diplomatic problem is like sending the Bush cabinet to storm the beaches of Normandy, led by Cheney and Rice.)

I also like that McCain is reduced to having a tantrum about the network media coverage and that Fox didn't get invited to go along. Now they're both reduced to whining like a couple of cry babies.

It also seems that Bush is trying to take Iraq off the table as an election issue by suddenly suggesting there's a "horizon" beyond which U.S. troops will be home. Wonder if it also had anything to do with the Iraq PM calling for a withdrawal and now agreeing with Obama on a timetable? Either way, it appears McCain is left all alone standing in the corner with his 100 year strategy.

And what's the deal with Chuck Hagel accompanying Obama? Hmmm...

A flight with seven Texas congressmen on board had to make an emergency landing. According to AP, the congressmen were on their way to D.C. to sign an aviation safety bill.

According to Air Cargo World, the bill addresses "poor oversight and a cozy relationship with airlines" and requires the FAA to rotate inspectors and prohibits safety inspectors leaving the FAA from working with airlines for two years.

I wonder if the Representatives, including Ron Paul, were previously for this bill or against it, and how they feel about it now?

Flowers In Morning
Mary Ann Valvoda
Loudon, TN

The 2008 Tennessee Watercolor Society Biennial Exhibition is closing Friday at the Emporium Center in Downtown Knoxville. Visit the Emporium page on Art Museum Touring.com (Link...). The 31st statewide juried exhibition showcases representational and experimental paintings in watermedia by some of the most prominent artists from across the state. Sixty paintings from over 200 entries were selected for the exhibit by the juror, internationally known artist Cheng-Khee Chee, including 17 artists from the East Tennessee area.

Go see the show before its gone!

Support your local galleries and museums! They are economic engines for your community.

Sherrie

A real, honest-to-God nashville recording studio -- Dualtone, the same outfit that's releasing the Redstate UPdate CD -- is redoing John's CD and releasing it this summer. Here's a promo they've put on Youtube. I really, really like it. You'll see some familiar faces here, and one that might surprise you.

Link...

Read Katie Couric's interview today with Obama; then read her interview with McCain.

Compare and contrast. Who spends his time talking about his foreign policy vision and goals? Who spends his time bashing his opponent?

And BTW, the comment about "would rather lose a war..." - that's the second time today McCain said it.

Do you suppose everyone who supports Obama also wants to "lose a war"? Are we all traitors?

Q: What's the difference between Osama and Obama?

A: The Republicans are actually trying to stop Obama.

is now posted on the Knox County website. Link...

Dwight Van de Vate
Chief Administrative Officer
Knox County Government

Alot has been said latley about the Central St. Hookers, and I'd like them out of there as much as anybody, or more like it, the creepy men who troll the area looking for hookers. But seeing as its the oldest profession, I wonder if its solvable. Maybe we should turn one of the rehabbed buildings in the area into a brothel. Or better yet, perhaps house the hookers with the Knoxville Fellows and the fellows could help rehabilitate them, or vice versa.

Something struck me the other day at an Obama house party as I heard people going around the room, explaining why they support Barack, and in so doing obeying the culture of his campaign and delicately dancing around the subject of race.

The ideal of being color-blind is a joke. No one does it because no one can.

Didn't see the first part of it, but tuned in just in time to see an angry, red-faced Ownings saying he's tired of seeing county employees abused and urging Salter (and, presumably anyone else who has been aggrieved) to get an outside lawyer and sue commissioners who falsely accuse them of wrongdoing.

This is regarding the mulch operation.

Now that the United States manufacturing base has eroded to next to nothing, and with the sharp spikes in the price of commodity items (owing largely to the fact that these are priced in heavily devalued dollars in commodity markets), the latest economic crisis is causing acute pain in the service industry.

What does it take to raise our collective consciousness about this? Well, it appears to be that Starbucks is poised to create what amounts to an inconvenience for many - having to drive out of the way to get a cup of second-rate, boutique-brewed coffee. This is not to trivialize the experience of the people losing their jobs; however, it does point up the sort of thing that will stir the populace into action.

I sort of had to laugh when I found out that people were organizing to "Save Our Starbucks," as if a community would be endangered by such an economic sucker punch. Could it possibly be that Starbucks has overextended itself, has become a victim of its own exuberance, and that they have passed the point of market saturation in many locales?

Never mind that businesses that have had major presence in Tennessee, such as Murray or Carrier or White Lily or Electrolux or Whirlpool or Modine or Superior Industries or Brown Shoe Company or Aleris or Horace Small Apparel or Huttig or Federal-Mogul or Siegel-Robert Automotive South or Eastman Chemical or GM/Saturn or La-Z-Boy or RH Donnelly or Goodyear or JC Penney or Paccar or Fedders or Levi Strauss have reduced or eliminated thousands of good paying jobs over the last decade...

And it occurs to me: We, as a country, don't really make goods anymore. We make coffee.

That's pretty weak tea for what used to be the most developed country in the world.

"I think it's fair to say that we don't have any specific credible threat information with regard to the convention, you know, from a terrorist standpoint."

Let's see, Osama bin Laden is still on the loose, he got to watch Saddam Hussein get arrested, he has a degree in accounting, and he worked undercover in Chicago. Oh, and he was a "legal" attache in Baghdad.

Let's hope all of the additional security personnel in Denver do get to go there, see the Rocky Mountains, and go home.

Heckuva job, Jimmie!

The N-S has declared the revolution is over.No more outrage about Black Wednesday.Pack up the pitchforks extinguish the torches.It's bidness as usual.The N-S endorses the Black Wednesday appointee for sheriff.

From March of '06 till February of '08,day in day out,letter after letter to the editor,headline after headline,story upon story,editorial after editorial the N-S pounded the Black Wednesday crowd.But now it's bidness as usual.

Good government gone bad..The N-S takes the Black Wednesday crowd to court.But now it's bidness as usual.

I don't know Sheriff Jones very well but everybody I know that knows him agrees he's great guy.But we need a clean sweep of the Black Wednesday crowd.

These have been a tough 2 1/2 years for county government.

Randy Tyree knows how to right the ship & navigate the Sheriff's Department to calmer waters.

Vote for a new direction not bidness as usual.

Vote Randy Tyree for sheriff.

This is the first I ever heard of Apollo Braun.

Link...

This year's Chocolate Rain?

Link...

Ragsdale and his spokesman have been saying going to civil service for the county employees would cost 1 million dollars. I wonder how enforcing people are hired or fired with cause would cost that much, or anything extra at all? Also, if these new commissioners are sworn in early to prevent this or motions not so friendly to Ragsdale from taking place, it will be just as tacky as the folks being sworn in early back on 1-31-07.
One thing that turned me off on the charter change folks and their friends is sort of an underlying sentiment (shown alot in the KNS editorials) that if you are too harsh on Rags or question the petition drive too much you are obviously with Lumpy and Scoobie.

It has been nearly three years since Hurricanes Katrina and Rita devastated the gulf coast region, leaving behind a wake of suffering and human misery unmatched in recent American history. Sadly, the victims of this crisis are still suffering and residents of the Gulf Coast region are still waiting for the government to do the right thing by investing in the region, cleaning up and rebuilding New Orleans and surrounding communities. The scale of this crisis is unimaginable for a modern, developed nation with the industrial strength and collective will we have to remedy the situation. As a country, it is time for us to come together and call for justice for the victims of Katrina and Rita with a comprehensive, public works program designed to address the real needs of people who are still suffering from this natural disaster.

Read this New York Times article and tell me you don't want a chocolate chip cookie.

Tips: They're better warm. The dough should be chilled 12-36 hours. Make them big. For something extra, use really good chocolate.

Talkin' bout mulch!

(link...)

Also, some notes from the first Public Hearing on Civil Service.

(link...)

Science Applications International Corporation is establishing a worldwide corporate "shared services center" in Oak Ridge and consolidating "transaction-based functions associated with human resources, finance, and corporate purchasing" from San Diego and McLean, VA at the new facility.

The shared services center, located in an existing SAIC facility on Laboratory Road, will create more than 150 new jobs in the Oak Ridge area through 2009, bringing SAIC's total Oak Ridge employment to nearly 900.

Senior SAIC executive Leo Hazlewood will head up the center. Hazlewood said, "We were drawn to the Oak Ridge area because of its stable work force, modern telecommunications infrastructure, favorable business environment and attractive quality of life. We've developed a great deal of respect for the business and social environment by virtue of our presence in the area for the past 30 years."

Recruiting for positions at the SSC will begin in the fall and interested candidates can visit http://www.saic.com/career for more information.

McCain, Obama first joint appearance in a church?

From TalkLeft,

We should keep religion and morality out of politics. It's a private matter that should stay private. What's next, debates at churches? Televising prayer breakfasts instead of congressional hearings? This is a slippery slope.

Sheesh.

H/T egalia.

Early voting is underway, and election day is a little less than three weeks away. Here are our endorsements.

County General:

County Commission 1-A: Sam McKenzie (D)
County Commission 2-B: Amy Broyles (D)
County Commission 4-A: Finbarr Saunders (D)
County Commission 4-B: Steve Drevik (D)
County Commission 6-A: Kathy Bryant (D)
County Commission 9-A: Chuck Ward (D)
Criminal Court Judge Div. II: Ken Irvine (D)
Property Assessor: Andrew Graybeal (D)
Register of Deeds: Scott Emge (D)
Sheriff: Randy Tyree (D)

Primaries:

TN House 16th District: Barbara Nicodemus (D)
TN Senate 14th District: Steve Roller (D)
TN Senate 16th District: Jean Anne Rogers (D)
TN Senate 22nd District: Rosalind Kurita (D)
U.S. House 1st District: Rob Russell (D)
U.S. House 2nd District: Bob Scott (D)
U.S. House 4th District: Lincoln Davis (D)
U.S. Senate: Bob Tuke

Discuss...

Two years ago Knox County issued grant money to the tune of $40,000 to ostensibly support a gathering known as the Regional Minority Health Summit. Two years later that $40,000 resides in a checking account opened in Johnson City, Tenn. It's a story with more questions than answers, but you can read about in the current edition of the Shopper-News, now online.

Link...

Larry Van Guilder

The Orlando Sentinel posts an article on "Winning Strategies for Obama, McCain in Florida".

Florida generally tends to lean Republican. "Republicans carried Florida in eight of the past 11 presidential elections..." Nothing unique here, Republicans carried most of the states in the past 11 presidential elections.

The writer's tip for Obama, Maximize turnout.

However, it appears the one time Florida did not follow the Republican trend was Bill Clinton's second term, 1996. The 1996 election had the lowest voter turnout of the past 12 presidential elections and Florida went for Clinton. Could it really have been a great economy that won Clinton the election in Florida? I guess the writer's tip may be good after all since Obama will not win based on a good economy this year.

At TennViews...

Does anyone know more about this old story? A woman gave birth alone in a cell in the medical unit of the Knox County Jail in August 2007. The baby was injured, and the woman filed suit against the county in January.

See BlountViews.com...

Since nobody stepped up to the plate for a Friday bird blog, I thought I would offer this humble image I shot a couple of years ago.

Two more after the break.

Belmar, NJ, just south of Asbury Park, is an apparent party town in the summer. The mayor has been blogging in order to get the word out to renters "about what is and isn't allowed in Belmar".

He included "humorous" comments about specific incidents:

like the group who left their marijuana-smoking water pipe out on the table while police responded to a noise complaint at their address.

Another entry regarded a fight between two ladies, one from Staten Island who kept holding her drink while fighting.

"Now, we're not sure if the glass was stuck to her hand cause of all the hair spray, or if this is a technique Staten Island girls learn in Brownies, but we are thankful she left her brass knuckles and straight razor in her other purse."

The mayor will be blogging no more. He has issued an apology, sort of. Guess he needed Rodney Dangerfield's help writing the jokes.

$85 million worth of household goods and supplies for Katrina hurricane survivors not distributed for two years, then marked as surplus and given to areas not affected.

“[FEMA] has proven to be, time and again, deaf to the immediate needs on the ground in the aftermath and long-term recovery from a major disaster,” Sen. Landrieu said in a press release this week. “I am planning a joint hearing for later this month of my Disaster Recovery Subcommittee and the House Homeland Security Committee to get to the bottom of how FEMA’s communications chain could again fail the Gulf Coast so tremendously.”

Our government has become quite ineffective. They can't see past the moment. We need to hold them accountable.