RoaneViews notes some changes in their website advertising, and wonders if they are rethinking their business plan.

If it doesn't work out for them over there in Roane County, maybe they should take a look at Rhea County.

UPDATE: KAG has more.

Internet Fraud Loss For 2007 Tops $239 Million

Sounds low to me. I would have guessed ten times that.

Kathy at Domestic Psychology is not sure about new Knox County Superintendent Jim McIntyre's choice of residence and school district. Hey, we're all just trying to help Dr. McIntyre fit in.

In related news, Brian Hornback also has advice for Dr. McIntyre, and says the School Board needs an intervention before he arrives.

The City of Knoxville has hired David Massey as the new Neighborhood Coordinator, replacing Jason Woodle who is joining TVA. Massey will report to Community Development Director Madeline Rogero.

More details...

Planned Parenthood of Middle and East Tennessee (PPMET) recognizes University School of Nashville counselor and teacher Anita Schmid and the Education Department of Nashville CARES as the 2008 Family Life Educators of the year in recognition of outstanding family life and human sexuality education.

The awards will be presented at PPMET's "Gala in the Garden" at Cheekwood Botanical Garden in Nashville tonight. The featured speaker will be Cecile Richards, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) and the Planned Parenthood Action Fund. Ms. Richards is the former deputy chief of staff for Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi and daughter of former Texas Governor Ann Richards.

More details in the press releases after the jump...

Rep. Campfield is criticizing Gov. Bredesen's decision to withdraw support for a bill that requires automatic license revocation for DUI. Campfield employs some interesting math to make his argument, and apparently doesn't read the bills he sponsors.

Loveable Liberal has a great post at TennViews: High noon in home room

WBIR.com: The mysterious body from the sky

On September 11, 1985, Fred Myers called authorities to his house in the Island Home neighborhood. The 85-year-old had found the body of a man, tangled in a parachute.

Three months after Thornton plunged to his death, a black bear was found in the north Georgia wilderness, apparently overdosed on cocaine dropped by Thornton.

This WBIR Our Stories episode brought back some memories.

It's finally going to be online.

(See also Tennessee This Week at the WATE website, which has also undergone a recent facelift.)

WBIR.com:

The Federal Highway Administration has now passed on questions about Knox County Mayor Mike Ragsdale's purchase of IdleAire stock to [the Office of the Inspector General].

Ragsdale purchased the stock during the same month he signed a contract to pass federal funds on to the company.

Is losing your ass on an investment a mitigating circumstance?

Right now at WBIR

UPDATE: Guess it's over? Is there an archive?

UPDATE: WSMV liveblog (by way of ACK).

UPDATE: Tom Humphrey: 2000+ layoffs (by way of Michael Silence).

Present, But Not Voting

In essence, the poll tax ensured that the folks exercising the franchise had a vested interest in good governance, and the low salaries ensured that the men running for office were capble individuals in their fields.

[..]

Maybe it's time we recognize that the franchise is too important to be taken for granted. Maybe it shouldn't be tossed out as freely as beads at Mardi Gras. Maybe, just maybe, voting should be something we earn through demonstrated competence, or by having a net positive effect on America, rather than being a drain.

This long, overwrought piece pines for the good old days of poll taxes, when men were men, black men were three-fifths of a man, and women couldn't vote.

Many share the frustration of ill-informed, apathetic voters voting against their self interest if they vote at all. But guess what? They're citizens, too. And they have to live with the same policies as everyone else. And we all have to live with the apathetic products of our ill-informed policies. In other words, we get the government we deserve.

Instead of restricting the right to vote, maybe we should teach civics. And serve up something besides Fox News to inform the electorate.

OK, then.

Richmond Indiana Palladium-Item:

Three voter officials from Tennessee toured the centers early today to see how things were going. And what they found is that people here like the concept.

"We want to do this in Tennessee," said Greg Mackay, administrator of elections in Knox County, Tenn. "People think it’s great. That’s what has surprised us. We thought people would not like having lost their neighborhood precinct voting place.

"Everybody I’ve talked to has been positive about the vote centers."

Mackay sat munching a pork tenderloin sandwich at The Country Ribeye on Rich Road in Richmond with David Twigg, deputy administrator in Knox County and Tony Brown, administrator of elections in Roane County, which is adjacent to Knox County.

See here for related news. Thanks to Bill Young for bringing this to our attention.

"Janice Velva"

This is one of the better spam e-mail names I've seen lately. "Janice" is selling fake diplomas.

I have a homegrown spam filter for our business account and the top four hits are "viagra" (yes, they still use the correct spelling), "save" + ".com", "penis", and "rolex" + "watches" in that order.

They all had hits as recently as today, and combined they have filtered approx. 80,000 emails since I wrote the program and added the terms to the filter list a while back.

The Knoxville News Sentinel is following the Maryville Daily Times lead. Hopefully it won't also lead to this.

Nobody else will, either.

In related news, Tom Waits is coming to town, and there are several reports of Elvis sightings on Market Square.

By a 94-2 vote, the Tennessee House of Representatives passed HB3687 to establish a convenience voting pilot program.

The Senate is scheduled to vote on it tomorrow. Knox, Anderson, and Loudon counties have been mentioned as candidates. Background on the pilot program can be found here.

Nashville is Talking:

One of the backers of the proposed Bible Theme Park USA in Murfreesboro is a very successful businessman but was once more known for his photographs of cover girls and "Pets of the Month" for Penthouse Magazine.

You can't make this stuff up.

RCP North Carolina average: Obama +8. No recent poll has shown an advantage for Clinton. Obama has overcome a Clinton lead of 24 points in November.

RCP Indiana average: Clinton +5. Only one recent poll shows an advantage for Obama. Obama crept up to a slight 3 point advantage in late April, but Clinton has since erased it.

There are 72 delegates at stake in Indiana, and 115 in North Carolina. Obama currently has 1737 delegates, and Clinton has 1607 (Green Papers estimate). Neither candidate can get to the 2025 needed to nominate today, even if one were to win 100% of the vote in both primaries.

And so it continues.

(The encouraging news is that nearly 32 million people have voted for a Democratic nominee so far, v. 18.5 million for a Republican.)

2008 3-State 3-Mountain Challenge Ride Report

The climb up Suck Creek Mountain went well. I found a good rhythm and chugged five miles uphill. I was kind of glad for the climb, because I thought it would help me warm up.

I'm exhausted from reading that and Brian's just getting warmed up. Follow the link and check out Brian's outstanding photo journal of this grueling event.

Got tired of waiting for some of the recent "blockbusters" to appear on Amazon/Tivo Unbox and stopped by the Blockbuster store...

As part of Mayor Bill Haslam's budget proposal, the city is proposing an overhaul of its employee compensation plan.

The proposed compensation plan is the result of recommendations by a consulting firm hired to study the city's current system. It is intended to bring salaries in line with "market rates" and minimize "salary compression" where new hires are making close to the same as more senior employees, particularly in the police and fire departments.

Commissioner Scoobie Moore wants County Commission to intervene in a dispute over a friend's $730 county tax bill.

Mayor Bill Haslam presented a $168.5 million budget for FY 2008-2009, up 3.3 percent from last year.

Mayor Haslam said during his budget luncheon address today at the new SYSCO distribution center that the budget includes funding to continue City operations at the current level, escalate redevelopment efforts, and bring city employee salaries in line with market rates in three years.

He also noted that the city's bond rating has recently been upgraded to AA+, the "highest in the city's history," that the reserve fund has increased from $18 million to $42 million and that the city's outstanding debt is 20% lower than it was when he took office.

Some budget highlights...

Hard to say which would be more entertaining: Senator Lumpy or Senator Stacey X.

Rikki Hall's latest Metro Pulse column calls on Sen. Lamar Alexander, known for his sometimes outspoken support of the environment, to lead the way on enacting a carbon tax.

Here's why I never order lemon with my tea or water and why I remove it if they serve it anyway. (And here's a follow up.) Paging Don Dare!

Without one-time charges, GM's overall losses were $350 million for the quarter, with a loss of $812 million in North America. GM's North America market share also dropped from 22.5% to 21.7%.

The biggest hit:

The one-time items included a $1.45 billion charge to reflect a change in the value of GM's 49 percent share in GMAC Financial Services. Young said the company revalued its stake because of losses in GMAC's residential mortgage division.

Maybe GM should stick to their knitting. And start making cars people want.

The good news is that North American losses are attributed to "plummeting" truck and SUV sales as buyers move to lighter vehicles which are less profitable. The bad part of the good news is that GM will cut 3500 jobs as they scale back truck and SUV production.

Speaking of traffic, here's the report on first quarter 2008 revenues from Knoxville red light cameras:

2008 Program Collections 010108-033108
Fines paid to City of Knoxville= 266,685.27
Payment to Redflex= 417,631.54
Program total= 684,316.81

Detailed report here, crash rate analysis after the jump...