Democratic Senate candidate Mike Padgett responds to Sen. Alexanders "Manhattan Project" with an "Energy 2.0" proposal. At least it has a more up-to-date new age moniker. Read the press release after the jump...

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I know I’m over my post quota today. At least there will only be one more week of the endless “my baby is graduating” posts to ignore. Today, to everyone’s surprise, Tommy was awarded Bearden High School’s Achiever Award. It comes with a scholarship. As if I needed an excuse to cry. Again. The paragraph below was written by Tommy on the scholarship application. His grammar skills are atrocious, but the sentiment is sincere.

I feel I deserve this scholarship because I have overcome a lot of problems and improved greatly. When I was younger, I could not go more than two or three years without having to be removed from society and sent to alternative schools or the like, however, I have improved tremendously and can now handle normal school just fine. I used to be extremely antisocial, avoiding people no matter what, but now I have friends. I ride horses with people on Thursday afternoons and even have a small club I go to Tuesdays and Thursdays. On Saturdays I play dungeons and dragons with some friends as well. I dislike failure a lot and try very hard to get things done and succeed. I work hard and usually get good grades. I also try to help out whenever I can with other students and I try to help my teachers.

Speaking at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory today, Sen. Lamar Alexander proposed "launching a 5-year New Manhattan Project to put America firmly on the path to clean energy independence within a generation."

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AP - Barack Obama all but erased Hillary Rodham Clinton's once-imposing lead among national convention superdelegates on Friday and won fresh labor backing as elements of the Democratic Party began coalescing around the Illinois senator for the fall campaign.

AP - Microsoft Corp. will focus on growing its own advertising and Internet search business after it withdrew its takeover offer for Yahoo Inc., Chairman Bill Gates said Friday.

Democratic candidate for Senate Mike Padgett has released his own energy plan today:

n the wake of Lamar Alexander’s speech this morning announcing a new “Manhattan Project” for energy independence, one of Alexander’s Democratic opponents, former Knox County Clerk Mike Padgett, has released his own plan called “Energy 2.0.”

Like Alexander, Padgett discusses expanding the use of nuclear power and finding ways to burn coal cleaner. Absent in Padgett’s 10 point plan, however, there is in depth discussion of and heavy reliance on plug-in cars.

Padgett, always the populist, calls for Detroit to build more efficient hybrid vehicles. “We know electric-hybrid technology can reach in the neighborhood of 48 mpg already. In the nation that produced Henry Ford and Bill Gates, we can find a way.”

Padgett also calls for using the tax code to reward energy innovators and punish those wedded to the old ways, “Eliminate the $17 billion in tax breaks previously given to Big Oil companies and set those tax dollars aside in a trust fund to invest in renewable and efficient energy. Levy a windfall profit tax on the oil industry to help fill the trust fund.”

Padgett plan also calls for companies to buy pollutions credits so that polluters can pay for developing more renewables and making them “part of the power

grid.”

Hyperlocal newsie Paige Clancy gives us the 411 on a May 12 meeting where Metro Planners will discuss a Charlotte Avenue/Richland Park Detailed Corridor Design Plan, a plan focusing on possible growth and development along Charlotte Pike.

Catherine McTamaney weighs in on the Metro Council’s famous nose-thumbing of the United States Justice Department:

If the Council was trying to push back on federal interference, as some have argued, they picked the wrong issue. Our humanity is already being called into question, with services instead of salaries being cut throughout the slashed budget. If you want to make a statement, go swim across the Cumberland. Don’t do it at the expense of the constitutional rights of your constituents (and the federal dollars upon which our already threatened social services rely).

Reuters - The White House on Friday set out terms for a possible deal on a housing market rescue plan, as a sweeping package backed by the House of Representatives was on its way to an uncertain greeting in the Senate.

AP - Insurgents attacked a Somali military base near the presidential palace in Mogadishu on Friday, and an ensuing gunbattle left at least six people dead and 13 wounded, witnesses said.

The Tennessee Republican Party celebrates 60 years of “Israel independence”:

The nation of Israel has fought for its independence and democracy in the Middle East for centuries and commemorates its 60 years as a nation, a partner in peace and an ally of America.

The importance of Israel will be a top issue in the presidential election in November. To mark Israel’s milestone of independence, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad spewed his remarks this week: “Those who think they can revive the stinking corpse of the usurping and fake Israeli regime by throwing a birthday party are seriously mistaken. Today the reason for the Zionist regime’s existence is questioned, and this regime is on its way to annihilation.” Ahmadinejad further stated that Israel “has reached the end like a dead rat…”

Our votes this November must be cast for those who are solid in their stance on the war on terror, their views on Israel’s right to protect its citizenry and a partner for peace and democracy in the Middle East.

NashvillePost.com’s E. Thomas Wood tells the tale of one in his latest indispensable history column:

Only a few journalists were on the beach at Kitty Hawk when the Wrights tried out their latest model in May 1908. One of them was a cub reporter and graduate of Nashville’s Montgomery Bell Academy named Fred Essary.

A little bunch of nothing which started making the rounds this afternoon. Or is it something?

Did John Edwards say at the end of this clip from Morning Joe “I just voted for him on Tuesday?”

You decide.

No official endorsement but interesting.