Looks like Oak Ridge wants in on the red light camera extortion.

"He said 10 people have died on the city's roadways in the last three years, and nearly 850 have been injured."

I like how they don't say under what circumstances these deaths or injuries occured. Exactly what percentage were red lights even involved?

Interestingly enough today's New York Times has a piece on this very subject.

ORNL Federal Credit Union is hosting a secure Document Shred Day. This event is free and is open to the public.

The event is Saturday, April 19th from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. Secure documents such as bank statements and also film and data CDs will be accepted. All shredding will be done 100% on site by a commercial shredding service. Read more for locations...

The Knoxville Juggler's Club is meeting this Tuesday!

Jan Sanders Hall at Cokesbury United Methodist Church will be open to jugglers from 7 to 9 p.m. on the first Sunday and the third Tuesday of each month.

Jugglers and non-jugglers alike are welcome to attend. For the answers to "What type of people attend juggling clubs?" "Why juggle?" and "Who can juggle?" see Knoxville Juggling Club relauches. The answer to who can juggle is anyone! I have even seen a one handed man juggle 5 balls!

ORNL was selected as the site of a $125 million federal biofuels research and development project. The project will study cellulosic ethanol production and involves UT and several other parters at the state-funded Joint Institute for Biological Sciences. Andrew Eder has the story.

Personally, I've been opposed to the idea of ethanol. It sounds great to rural voters, though, so the politicians love to talk about it, especially Republicans in the Red States. But if you think about it, it's a step backwards to a more primitive technology. Instead of feeding hay to our horses we'll be feeding corn and switchgrass to our cars, and it still leaves us on the internal combustion dead end.

And, is topsoil really a renewable resource? How many millions of years did it take to make the rich, fertile topsoil of the Great Smoky Mountains and the Tennessee Valley? And what about the crop failures this year? Imagine what ethanol would cost at the pumps with shortages like that.

What we should be researching is efficient, distributed solar power (we've had plenty of that this year!), alternative propulsion, hydrogen fuel cells and hydrogen generation and distribution, safe nuclear fission, cold fusion, antigravity, impulse power and warp drives and all that kind of stuff.

But I am resigned to the fact that ethanol is inevitable. (Every car in the Indy 500 ran on 100% ethanol this year, so it must work OK.) And I suppose paying a farmer in Kansas or Tennessee for fuel instead of funding terrorists and fighting wars in the Middle East is an improvement. And I suppose it's a viable "bridge" technology until something better comes along. So I suppose it's a good thing that ORNL and East Tennesee can cash in on some R&D action.

In case you were wondering what I think and what not.

Looking for thoughts on two local school districts and areas to live - Oak Ridge and Maryville. I've been in the Knoxville area less than three years and live in Halls. The WalMart-Home Depot behemoth going up (thanks for nothing, MPC & political enablers / hacks that ignored local residents) made me think about moving, and since I have three (soon to be four) young children, I thought I'd take the opportunity to move into the best local school district. Thankfully the cost of housing isn't a barrier to moving into Oak Ridge or Maryville. (Not interested in Farragut / West Knox)

So, what's your take? Looking for non-biased (and biased!) thoughts on education and the quality of life in those two districts. I'd especially love to hear from those who moved from one of those places to the other.

Thanks!

More news for the unhip and uncool. It looks like Oak Ridge is on the short list to become an intermediate storage facility for "consolidation and preparation" of commercial, high-level radioactive waste.

Tucked inside the $31.2 billion Senate version of the FY '07 Energy and Water Appropriations Bill is a provision that could cast the spotlight of controversy, once again, on Oak Ridge and America's commercial nuclear waste.

The provision, known as Section 313, would require the Secretary of Energy to designate a site in each state containing a civilian nuclear reactor for the "consolidation and preparation" of spent nuclear fuel, and authorize him to designate a "regional" CAP facility, should he determine that such a facility would be in the "national interest."

If this sounds vaguely familiar, it should — it is similar to a Department of Energy proposal 20 years ago to construct a "Monitored Retrievable Storage" or "MRS" facility, in Oak Ridge, for the "temporary" storage of spent fuel from reactors across the country, pending the completion of a permanent repository.

[snip]

...the Oak Ridge City Council voted recently to apply for a $5 million grant from the Department of Energy to study the feasibility of conducting spent fuel reprocessing activities at the industrial complex formerly known as "K-25."

Whether or not a CAP facility is authorized, the prospect of reprocessing spent nuclear fuel in Oak Ridge could result in a long-term commitment to hosting nuclear waste in Tennessee.

If a person who makes money from a battle where others lose their lives is a 'war profiteer' is Y-12 a 'war profiteat'?