was she paid by Knox County for that trip across the ocean?

I suspect that the reason our publicly paid county mayor spokesperson is not releasing the names of those who accompanied Rags to the Baltics is because they would be the subject of backlash in their respective communities for running with Ragsy and laughed at if they thought Rags was capable of delivering anything from a local standpoint to benefit anybody else.

Again, another local politician trying to play worldwide leader of the free world and a damn miserable failure on all accounts locally.

Let's see if the news sentinel bothers to drop a public records request on the county to see if the local taxpayers were paying any part of this fiasco.

except for Ragsdale, his administrative assistant, a couple of guys from Sevier County (not Knox County) and some of his wags from Atlanta, Georgia.

Maybe instead of Knox County getting hoodooed on this Kosovo foolishness, they ought to let the citizens of the old country have a shot at Gatlinburg, Pigeon Forge, and Sevierville. Besides, Knoxville already has a sister city somewhere in Japan and step sisters in Memphis, Nashville, and Chattanooga.

Let's see if any of the expenses from this excursion end up on the Knox County P-card, they won't be hard to find. The ethics committee would like to see them as well.

If you asked Ragsdale's toties if the business is even located in Knox County, he'd have to say no, I suspect the business is actually located in Sevier County and Ragsdale, in my opinion, is using his role as county mayor to try and line up future employment in September 2010, since he (a) won't be Knox County mayor anymore (b) won't have a lot of job offers pouring in (c) Victor Ashe will be back in town looking for a gig to pay the light bill and the pompous ass expenses himself (d) the University of Tennessee will not be asking Ragsdale to be their next university president and (e) much to Ragsdale's chagrin, Billy Haslam will be the next governor of the State of Tennessee and Ragsdale will not be offered a cabinet level post and probably won't even be on the dias at the inauguration.

In my opinion, Ragsdale's over inflated ego and determination of self worth have destroyed his political career (he can't even go back and be president of the Knoxville Quarterback Club), destroyed his marriage, destroyed his credibility in Knox County, and possible set Knox County government back 10 years with the insider deals, arrogance connected to self worth, and made Knox County the laughing stock of the entire state of Tennessee.

Just ask Bill Lockett how funny things are these days.