A member of the Edgewood Neighborhood Association (in North Knoxville)has been trying to remove a mini-tent city being set up by homeless people in the back yard of a condemned house next to her property. The building code people say it's a police issue. The police came out talked to the "campers" and then left. They never reported what they found to the woman who complained. Apparently several small items have gone missing during the time the "campers" have been there. Is this business as usual for the KPD?

Kay Watson has done some good reporting about the present situation.

Tonight's story: Angry taxpayer questions Knox County Mayor about spending (and that angry taxpayer is a CPA who's looked at records)

Link...

Second tonight's story by "Jake Jost, Investigative Producer"
Knox mayor will eliminate hospitality account ("A review by 10 News showed that account had actually dipped into the red."):

Link...

Yesterday's story: Knox mayor's administration to straighten out hospitality fund (He said he's going to clean it up.)

Link...

Cheney finally admits he was wrong about his "last throes comment" but then immediately turns around and states this.

One more reason to avoid shopping at Wal-Mart.

Link...
Anybody know who these Knoxville Life Church people are? It's a novel idea, but somehow it's a little like mixing Church and State to me...

Do they own part of the church? Are they a mega-church like the ones seen on TV?

Will this have an impact on the kind of films they play there? Would there be church service & then Sicko right after?

Will this mean lines of homeless people camped on the sidewalk waiting to get in on the Sunday morning coffee?

Nothing against God...just curious...

Here's the details according to the Property Scope
Link...

Over at Knoxnews.com, Rebecca Ferrar is reporting that Ragsdale is shutting down the "non-taxpayer-funded hospitality account" AKA the liquor fund.

Dwight Van de Vate says it's not been decided yet how the county officials will handle dinners at pricey restaurants and such.

How about they buy their own dinners ... is this asking too much? -- s.

He's a certified flip flopper. From ABC News...Well actually, based on an iCaught video that ABC news ran.

Former Sen. Fred Thompson, R-Tenn., appears to have flip flopped on his pledge to sign federal legislation replacing all federal taxes with a 23 percent sales tax, according to an unedited FairTax.org video reviewed by ABC News.

Seems bloggers are scooping media all over the place. Goodness, I wonder if things like this will influence "local politicos" who yearn to become national politicos? Seems more and more that Fred is not ready for the primetime limelight.

off the city's web site:

Link...

I've noticed the Get Fuzzy comic having political messages on character Rob's t-shirt lately. Today his shirt says "Bring 'em Home." A few weeks ago after the Supreme Court ruled on the " Bong Hits 4 Jesus" case, Rob's shirt said "Dumb Hits 4 Judges" for about a week. The artist Darby Conley lived in Knoxville I think for high school and maybe longer.

Giuliani makes a big, dramatic announcement re. his health care "plan". It's a $15,000 tax deduction (or credit, hard to say which - the AP writer calls it both, and they are, of course, entirely different) to buy "private insurance".

He hasn't worked out all the details and he doesn't know how much it would cost or how many people it would cover (he hopes to have those numbers in the next few months).

Here's a clue. A tax deduction won't help any of the 50 million people without health insurance. Most of them don't pay taxes. Oh, if it's a credit I guess it would help everybody. It would also cost about $1.5 trillion.

He also doesn't explain where people are supposed to buy this mythical "private insurance."

Great plan, Rudy. What an incredible nincompoop.

But it's so typical -- solve everything with a tax break sprinkled with fairy dust. These guys sound like a broken record, and are so incredibly clueless I don't even know why anyone takes them seriously about anything.

The DLC convention in Nashville this weekend featured a keynote address by Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen and ended with remarks from President Bill Clinton.

Coverage of the speeches can be found at the The Commercial Appeal, the Knoxville News Sentinel, and the Nashville Tennessean.

None of the current Democratic presidential candidates, who were all were invited to attend, made it to the conference. The conventional wisdom is that they are campaigning hard to the left during the primaries to appeal to the base, and will come courting the middle in the general election.

The DLC gets hammered a lot by the Democratic circular firing squad for being "GOP-lite" on too many issues, and rightly so in some cases. C.E. Petro sums up the liberal left criticisms of the DLC here and here, and it's hard to argue with most of it.

Having considered myself a DLC-style Democrat in the past, though, I wonder if we shouldn't try to keep an open mind about moderate ideas, and keep an open dialog with moderate Democrats and Republicans to find common ground and educate each other as necessary.

Read more after the jump...

My brother just wrote:

"Marelle and I are in Paris. She arrived for the end of
the TOUR DE FRANCE and noticed she had red bumps.
Before long she had virus symptoms and was really
going down hill. I called the American Hospital in
Paris and they wanted 200.00 dollars to see her. So we
went the French route and for 30 Euro she saw a great
French doc just around the corner from our apartment."

Here's a sports update from Left Wing Cracker on Barry Bonds and Michael Vick.

Knox County Administrator of Elections Greg Mackay explains the City of Knoxville election process, and how the upcoming City primary and general elections work, including the runoff system. Read it, and the list of candidates, after the jump...

The Lonesome Coyotes will be appearing at the Knoxville Museum of Art, Friday, August 3rd, 5:30PM as part of the Alive After Five series. Admission is $4 for KMA members, $8 for non-members. There will be food and cash bars.

The East Tennessee History Society and the Tennessee Archive of Moving Image and Sound are hosting Home Movie Day, Saturday August 11, 2007, 12PM to 4pm at the East Tennessee History Center, Knoxville, TN (on the corner of Gay St. and Clinch Avenue).

The event is free and open to the public. Participants are asked to bring along their own 8mm, Super 8 and 16mm films for screening. People without films are welcome to come along and watch. Information and advice on how to care for films will be available.

Read more about the national Home Movie Day project, and here's the press release from the ETHS and TAMIS.

By way of Elaine Davis, an update on the effort to get nurses in all Knox County schools.

The East Tennessee Branch of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation is lending their support, and will speak to the School Board about it at the School Board's Aug. 6th meeting.

In addition, School Board Chair Karen Carson has called an informal public meeting on the topic. The meeting will be this Thursday, Aug. 2nd at 10AM at the Atlanta Bread Co. at Turkey Creek. Anyone interested in talking about funding for school nurses at all Knox County schools is invited to attend.

Ed. note: I'm surprised this is even an issue. I guess I assumed every school had a school nurse. Even tiny little South Knoxville Elementary had a nurse when I was growing up, and she was a primary source of health care for lots of kids.

Although school nurses should be trained not to leave kids alone in the exam room. I remember one occasion when I was sent to see the nurse due to complaining about, uh, non-specific symptoms. The nurse left me alone, and I ran the thermometer under hot water from the sink and managed to get sent home with a "fever."

How does Knox County Sheriff J.J. Jones deal with an employee who took $10 worth of gas by using his county charge account? Does he allow the deputy to repay the money? Does he say 'sorry, it won't happen again'? No. He fires the deputy.

Quoting Sheriff Jones “problems with unethical and inappropriate conduct will be dealt with swiftly,” . Link to story Link... .

Some folks label Knoxviews as a "Liberal" blog but I would promote the term "progressive" as a better fit, since several of us like certain "conservative" ideas as opposed to classic liberalism, but we, as a group, certainly tend to lean away from the right with a few exceptions.

What I think sets Progressive blogs apart is the "Where's your evidence?" response to most blog threads. If you can't back it up, prepare to do battle with the forces of truth, which we've all learned first hand at one time or another.

It's tough to get away with a hit and run post in these here parts, as the great Lobster Tale would illustrate.

Now we know more than we want about the price of tail in Knoxville.

In a health care workshop at the DLC in Nashville this weekend (more on that in another post), Gov. Bredesen touted Cover Tennessee as a model for addressing the problems of the uninsured.

I guess it's better than a sharp stick in the eye, or no insurance at all, especially if you've suffered a sharp stick in the eye.

Or maybe not:

I didn't expect it to be fabulous insurance. 5 visits per year, 5 prescriptions per month, just enough to cover yearly things and the occasional sickness, but better than nothing. Well, it might as well be nothing, because I can't find anyone that actually takes it. I've been seeing the same OBGYN for 15 years and her office doesn't (and is not going to ever) take Cover Tennessee. As I'm sure the women on here know, being comfortable with that particular kind of doctor is a big deal. In my quest to find a new OBGYN, I discovered that of the 9 participating Knoxville providers listed in the handbook, only one is a woman. Upon calling to make an appointment, I was told that she does NOT take the plan, things have changed since the book came out.

We need to quit sticking band-aids on our broken health care system and perform some major surgery.

Michael Silence says it is:

KnoxViews has linked to and commented on extensively the saga of politicians behaving badly in Knox County. I sense, that has had very little if any impact on local politicos.

Do you agree? Can anyone think of an example where a discussion on a local blog, here or anywhere else, has made any difference or changed any behavior or affected any outcome?

Also, I wonder how many local government officials and employees read this blog? We know that a couple do, because they post here from time to time. I wonder how many others lurk? And what if any benefit is it to them, or to the community at large?

An update on the Maryville High expansion with photos from an endangered neighborhood over at BlountViews...

Known for his improvised, casual style and robust laughter, Snyder conducted a number of memorable interviews as host of NBC's "The Tomorrow Show." Among his guests were John Lennon, Charles Manson and Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols.

Read more after the jump...

A piece in Saturday's N-S details efforts by Connected Tennessee to increase the availability of broadband internet service in Tennessee. A coverage map is included.

But, as the article points out, their have been complaints of map inaccuracy.

It's quite inaccurate for my home, anyone else?

Betty Bean has the scoop on the now infamous Lobster Lunch. Apparently Bean is the only reporter who can get to Diane Jordan and Margie Loyd for the real story. Read it here Link...

Whatever it takes...whatever it takes.

Yeah, I know everyone is obsessed with P-cards and other county commission BS, but I have another question.

Mr. Mackay, care to respond to this test of your Hart Intercivic machines? They've been hacked.

The researchers "were able to bypass physical and software security in every machine they tested,'' said Secretary of State Debra Bowen, who authorized the "top to bottom review" of every voting system certified by the state.

Will this make news in Knox County? Let's watch and see.

yes, these are the same machines that were "literally smoking" at the Downtown West precinct.

Dwight Van de Vate issues an official response from the County Mayor's office regarding the use of county purchasing cards for personal medical expenditures:

It has come to my attention that a story will be published in the Halls Shopper News regarding a charge on the Mayor’s p-card. The gist of the story is that the Mayor charged the co-pay for a medical procedure on his card. Although this may be new information to the Halls Shopper News, it is not new anywhere else. The Mayor discussed this with WBIR last month. Apparently they didn’t believe this particular matter merited public discussion.

[..]

We readily acknowledge that serious, substantive issues regarding the p-cards have come to light. At the core of these issues are serious allegations of misconduct over the use of these cards by three former employees of Knox County. An attempt to confuse an honest mistake by any employee of Knox County, including the Mayor, with these other issues is both ridiculous and reprehensible.

Memo to County Commission attached (PDF format).

Just so Ragsdale doesn't feel too singled out - here's how Commission made the 1/31 appointments. In their own words, no less.

I was suprised to see so many folks discuss the possibility of Ragsdale resigning on the local policial shows this week.

On Inside Tennessee (don't know that there's a link to their footage, unless #9 is still illegally doing it elsewhere), John Becker, Susan Williams, Don Bosch and the guy from the paper (don't recall his name) brought up this possibility in the show's last part.

Then on Tennessee This Week, Gene Patterson, Frank Cagle and Lloyd Dougherty also discussed it alot:

Link... then click on "Lloyd Daugherty and Frank Cagle"

Are folks to the point that they're discussing Ragsdale resigning?

Finally made it over to the new Tomato Head in Maryville yesterday. Our review is here. Bonus feature: Free Parking!