I was saddened this morning by the passing of Pop Corn Sutton, a man who represented a tradition in the hills of East Tennessee that goes back before the Revolutionary War. The Scots Irish people brought their distilling skills to this land when it was still only 13 colonies. They fought the hated British at the Battle of Kings Mountain in North Carolina, and later the new federal government over the taxing of spirts during the Jay's Whiskey rebellion.
The people of East Tennessee have always had a reputation for being rebels and Pop Corn represented the spirit of East Tennessee in a powerful way. The people who hounded this brave man until he died,(suicide is suspected) are brothers to the black robed magistrates that sentenced the American patroits during the revolution.
Don't you find it curious that the woods here are full of pot farmers and they pick one old man? This was about showing us dumb hill billies who is boss.
Pop Corn Sutton was more of a man than most of his critics will ever be on and off the bench, on the worst day of his life. He didn't just talk the talk. He walked the walk as well. His motto was "Live free or die."
East Tennessee has lost a little bit of its soul to day. The people who sentenced that poor old man to 18 months in jail should have sentenced him to demonstrating his craft at the Applachian Museum in Norris instead. He was a part of our history as surely as TVA or Sequoia are.
Go in peace Pop Corn. You were the spirit of the Appalachian people and it looks like we may not see your kind again as we are swallowed up bgy all these new move ins. remember the words to Rocky Top folks. They should play that song at this old rebel's funeral and then toast his memory with some of his own untaxed whiskey.

I know somebody is still making moonshine, because I have some in my fridge. Perhaps I should do something about that in honor of his passing.

Here's a link to the story: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2008869772_moonshinerd...

Very sad.

Under the guise of protecting the enviornment, this bill as introduced by state senator B. Marrero is nothing but a power grab of epic portions. It gives the commissioner of commerce and insurance the power to adopt rules establishing minimum efficiency standards for the following types of new products: Bottle-type water dispensers" commercial hot food holding cabinets: compact audio products: DVD players: DVD recorders: medium voltage dry-type distribution transformers(part of every TV and radio and many other things) metal halide lamp fixtures, portable electric spas, walk in freezers and on and on. The list is to long to print.
The kicker is in the body of the bill, where the commissioner can set what increased standards he wants, and you won't be able to make or buy or sell a new product in Tennessee without compliance on pain of heavy fines and penalties. It also says ANY OTHER PRODUCTS AS MAY BE DESIGNATED BY THE COMMISSIONER.
This will take effect in 2012 if it gets out of committie and passes a third reading. We the people will pay through the nose for our goods and services and no one will connect B.Marrero with this outrage. The commissoner of commerce will be like a king, distributing largess to who pleases him and punishing who doesn't with higher efficiency standards.
What a potential shake down racket! The stench rises to high heaven and all this to protect the "enviornment!" I recomend that concerned voters contact their state senators and since there is a companion bill in the house, their house represenatives as well. You can do that at http://www.capitol.tn.gov/legislators

I got creative the other day and decided to bake a whole chicken while my wife was at work. "She works hard." I thought. Susan will appreciate a good home cooked meal.
They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions and I am living proof of this. The first thing I did was get the whole roasting chicken out of the freezer and try to take it out of the plastic bag. Did you know that you can't peel a frozen chicken?
Not being the patient type I put the dratted thing in a pan of water. Two hours later, the chicken was still as hard as a Wall Street CEO's heart.
I then got the bright idea of the microwave. After ten minutes in there, it thawed all right, but the plastic wrapper had ballooned like a fat woman's pantyhose.
I had another brilliant idea! I got a huge, two tined fork from my Barbeque tools and snuck up on the ballooned bird. With a quick stab I sprayed my arm and the kitchen floor with warm chicken juice.
I finally got the chicken in the pan and then noticed something strange and nasty sticking out of it. It was a grisley slightly bloody item that I eventually identified as a neck. I got rid of that as as fast as I could. I couldn't help but wonder how that bird met his end so to speak.
I started potatoes and some peas and filled the sink full of dishes in the process. With the best of intentions, I swore to my self that I would clean all that up before she got home.
Then I had another bright idea. I had heard that cooking wiht wine really would bring out the taste in meats. "Hey!" I thought. " I got a big bottle of white wine under the counter, I never opened for New Years!"
I slopped some on the chicken and tried a taste myself. It was so good, in fact that I had a big glass. Then I turned on the TV and the news came on. After fifteen minutes of the economy and world situation, I had to have another big glass. This was on an empty stomach, by the way.
Susan came home and I was a sleep on the couch in front of the TV. The chicken was burning, and the kitchen looked like a war zone. "What have you done now?" she said. "I can't leave you alone for a minute!"
"Oh well" I try to be good.

Arragh! Matey! Shiver my timbers, 16 men on a dead man's chest! When you use the word "piracy" it conjures up a mental picture of Long John Silver and eye patches and parrots. In modern times nothing could be further from the truth.
The pirates that opperate out of Somalia are more like sea going gang members than anything else. They hijack at AK47 point and demand ransoms of millions. Gone is the romantic pirate ship with the skull and cross bones at the main sail.
At least some of the money goes to finance muslim terrorists and the drug trade, as well as even more piracy. These modern day pirates couldn't function without the safe havens that the Somalia government provides for bribe money. Somalia has one of the least effective governments in the world, indeed you could call it a government in name only.
Long term the answer is to either force a real government on this part of Africa, possibly through UN action except for the fact that the UN only works about 20% of the time, or through covert action on the part of the powers who are tired of being held up. I suspect that only illegal action will work on illegal actions like this brand of 21st century Jolly Rogerism.
One thing is certain. Only strong and lethal action is going to be understood by these thugs, not negotiation or weakness. If the cargo ships had security on them, much of this would go away in a blast of 50 cal. machine gun fire. What is Black Water doing these days? I hear they are looking for work right now.

I must confess I hate yard work. I am one of those people who loves fresh air and exercise. I can watch it all day. All I need is a nice picture window, a comfortable easy chair and some adult beverage and I am good to go.
It was time to mow this year because the yard was looking kind of shaggy. I decided to do something about it today, because it was a beautiful spring day. The sun was shining, birds were singing, and my 18 month old brindle pit bull was sleeping under the cedar tree in the front yard.
I also saw a large gray squirrel take two strides and vanish into the waste high grass with a big nugget of dog food in his jaws. I could tell it was time and no putting it off.
I went down to the basement and checked the oil and gas level in my front wheel drive mower and pushed it up to the front yard. After two pulls it started right up. Sammy the big brave pit bull nearly made it to the top of the 50 foot cedar in the yard before he saw it was only me and some strange beast on wheels.
I began to force the big push mower through the jungle that I call my yard. The first thing I hit was Sammy's tennis ball. The ball came out the side of the mower like a cannon ball fired at Bull Run and nearly got our cat.
We have a large, fixed black and white tom named Foot. I call him that not because of the famous Civil War historian, Fritz Foote, but because he showed up as a stray with a badly mangled front foot. 300 dollars later, he was my cat and in honor of his over priced appendage called foot.
There was a hellacious clatter and I realized I had just run over one of Sammy's beef bones. Those things are hard as stone. I thought I had broken a blade.
This was just too much for Sammy. He must have thought that the mower was destroying his toys and eating his bones. He came out of nowhere and tried to eat the tires off the mower. Sears makes good tires. Try as he might, no ammount of running in and snapping at them made the monster back off.
"Shoo dog. Go on ya mutt!" I cried as I did my best not to run over the dog. Sammy yapped and snapped and circled like he was fighting a badger or something. I got to give him credit. When it came time to defend his toys and his precious bones, he grew a back bone. And became a major pest at the same time.
I was so busy trying to mow and not turn loose of the safety handle which shuts off the mower (I hate all lawyers!) without hitting the silly dog, that I stepped in one of the many holes he had dug without my noticing. I nearly broke my leg.
We both had enough at the same time. I put him in the house and started to hop around the yard using the mower as a kind of walker. Just as I finished the job, the cedar unloaded about 30 pounds of pollen and I started to choke. I finished up with a sinus head ache and my foot in a nice ice water bath. This is going to be a long, long summer.

On July 1, 2009 TVA is shutting down the Loudoun county pistol range after 30 years of use by the Lenoir City police department, the Loudoun county sheriff's department and over 300 FOP members.
This includes myself. I have used this range for the last 10 years. It has been leased to Loudoun county FOP lodge 21 for the last 30 years and in all that time no one has had a problem with the range or any of the people who use it. The closing of this range means that the Loudoun county sheriff's department and the Lenoir city police and members of the FOP have no place to practice or qualify.

The official reason is TVA has recieved "complaints about safety concerns and other enviromental factors associated with a firing range." This is in a letter sent to the FOP by one Darrell Cuthbertson, Manager of the Little Tennessee Watershed Team, Land and Water Stewardship.
The last thing I want to hear from TVA right now is a lecture, real or implied,on the enviornment. These are the clowns that have all the nice smoke stacks that destroy my air quality and have turned Kingston into an ash dump.
The only injury I know of happened to me, when a spring broke in my civil war era colt navy black powder revolver and cut my finger. So much for safety issues.
The real reason, in my opinion, is a pistol range is an obstacle to the continual developement and theft of water front land that should be held in trust for the people of the State of Tennessee or turned over to the original farmers that owned it. TVA shouldn't be in the real estate business, period.
Back in the 1970's I use to go to Tellico and walk the shore line and dream of what a wonderful park that land would make. Then the developers came, with their political clout and bull dozers.
I saw the foot prints of deer, foxes, rabbits, and all kinds of other animals fleeing the path of destruction that is now Tellico Village. It made me sick to see it.
Not long ago, one of the developers around Vonore discovered a coal seam while grading off all the forest soil to sell and went into the illegal strip mine business. TVA and it's agency that is dedicated to "development of the Tellico basin" said nothing about it. The EPA had to step in. Enviormental concerns indeed!
I think a little lead in the ground from a pistol range is well worth it to protect what little land is left on the lake and what little habitat is left for the wild life.
I urge people who believe in the second amendment, people who want to stop development on Tellico lake and people who just believe in fair play to call John Duncan Jr., Lamar Alexander, and Bob Corker and complain. They might also call the Little Tennessee Watershed Office at (865) 632-1315.

Once a long time a go,when my brother the technician, who has had a life long love affair with electricity, was a teen, he accuired a big bag of fire works from Crazy Ed's fireworks in Union county.
Being the kind of guy he is, he could't keep from combining his new toys with his obsession. He ran a drop cord out into the back yard, under a giant Chinese elm that is still there now, cut the end off it and wired a strait pin up to the bare wires.
The next thing he did was to pull the fuse out of the M-80 he was going to set off, stick the pin in it's place and dig a hole in the ground and place a tennis ball on top of it. The M-80 is an illegal fire cracker with some serious explosice power behind it.
All he had to do next, was to plug in the other end of the drop cord and BANG! The tennis ball would rocket up to the top of the elm tree, which was at the time 40 or 50 feet tall at a minimum. The cool thing about explosives that are not shaped is the force of the explosion is equal around the center of the blast. Any explosion is just a very hot fire and expanding gasses.
This meant that a hole in the ground on top formed over an expanding and much deeper hole under the ground. My brother fell in love with his new pass time and set off a bunch of charges, trying to see just how high the ball would go. He always used the same hole too. The blast under ground didn't make that much noise,so the neighbors never complained about it.
One day the sky opened up and it rained for about three days solid. Our dad was walking around in the back yard, after the rain and suddenly the ground under his feet gave way and he went up to his thigh in muddy water. He was furious, once he figured out what had happened.
That was the end of the tennis ball orbit shots. The moral is you shouldn't play tennis on the 4th of July. Have a safe one folks.

This idea is a clunker in my opinion. It is nothing but an attempt by a bunch of ecology wacos and greedy capitalists (Isn't it funny how they always seem to make money from the same ideas?)to keep poor people from driving cars.
This idea and cap and trade are both just attempts by the rich to put the poor and middle class in their proper place. Those pesants need to walk to my house to clean it and they had better be glad to be here too. That way they can keep warm this winter! Listening to poor demorcats defend Obama is like listening to a bunch of chickens defending KFC.