From David Carroll, Chattanooga radio and TV broadcaster,

I do not take offense when a fact checker corrects me. I am thankful that someone cares enough to make me get it right. Like Mark Twain said, “80 percent of the quotes on the internet are made up, and you can’t believe the other 30 percent!”

Heh.

From Daily Kos,

Okay, Reverse Xmas is almost upon us. Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy night. A bumpy night that lasts four years. Plus, everyone else in the car will be shrieking and biting and farting the entire time. I begged my doctor to prescribe me a 1,460 day NyQuil dose, but she refused.

Well, Joe Biden delivered his farewell address to the nation. “Hey, sorry for all the peace n’ prosperity, I never woulda bothered creating all those jobs if I knew all y’all were after was excuses to ingest livestock medication. Anyway, you should probably look up the word ‘oligarchy’ before those billionaire social media moguls erase it from the internet.”

What can you say?

H/T RoaneViews

Among those receiving pre-emptive pardons were Gen. Mark A. Milley, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the longtime government scientist who advised Mr. Trump during the coronavirus pandemic; and all the members of the bipartisan House committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, including former Representative Liz Cheney, a Republican from Wyoming.

“These are exceptional circumstances, and I cannot in good conscience do nothing,” Mr. Biden said in a statement. “Baseless and politically motivated investigations wreak havoc on the lives, safety and financial security of targeted individuals and their families.

Good for him.

The Supreme Court on Friday delivered a blow to TikTok by upholding a law that could potentially lead to the video-sharing social media platform being banned in the United States.

The justices in an unsigned opinion with no dissents rejected a free speech challenge filed by the company, meaning the law is set to go into effect on Sunday as planned.

court acknowledged that the national security rationale affected its analysis of whether there was a free speech violation

"TikTok's scale and susceptibility to foreign adversary control, together with the vast swaths of sensitive data the platform collects, justify differential treatment to address the government's national security concerns," the court said.

Interesting.

Republican Sen. Eric Schmitt's (R-Mo.) "accusation that the U.S. military has lowered its standards due to diversity, equity and inclusion programs was spectacularly undermined by a typo on a poster behind him."

What can you say? We'll be putting up with this idiocy for the next 4 years.

From 2023,
Bud Light was featured in a social media promotion by a transgender influencer
...
Bud Light has faced a boycott from some conservative commentators and celebrities as its sales have plummeted.

January, 2025,
Donald Trump has received a special personalized inauguration present from beverage giant Coca-Cola, which previously criticized the president-elect after the January 6 Capitol riot.

Coca-Cola condemned Trump and his supporters following the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. At the time, the company said the riots were "an offense to the ideals of American democracy."

Coca Cola supports a convicted felon, a man found guilty of sexual assault, and an insurrectionist. Sheesh. Will there be a big boycott against Coca Cola?

Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg is celebrating “masculine energy” in corporate culture amid news that his company is making several policy and program changes, including trashing multiple initiatives around diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI.

Also, abandoning its fact-checking program, as fact-checkers were “too politically biased.”

Hah. The truth is biased?

Like everyone else in his party, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) voted against the Inflation Reduction Act in August 2022.
...
In a Nov. 15, 2024, letter, Johnson privately urged the Environmental Protection Agency to award an environmental justice grant to a city in his district ― a grant funded by the IRA,

Well, isn't he special?

The Blount County Director of Schools David Murrell resigned Monday, January 6, 2025. In his resignation letter, he said he wants to "return to a tenured faculty position with BCS."

... "the district had been through three directors in three years and would be going into a fourth."

In a Blount County Board of Education meeting Thursday, an addendum was added to the agenda.

The addendum read, “Agreement, Release, and Covenant Not to Sue,” and attached was an agreement signed by Board Chair Chris Pass and Murrell.

It stated that the board would place Murrell on paid administrative leave until the acting director assigns him to an educator position, which could happen this school year or at the beginning of the next. It also read that the board will not remove Murrell’s tenure “based on any events that have happened before the effective resignation date.”

The agreement also said that Murrell would release BCS from any claim regarding employment, termination, attorney’s fees, discrimination, wrongful discharge, or “any other federal, state, or local constitution, regulation, law (statutory or common), or legal theory.”

What the heck is going on? Why is this Director of Education leaving? Why did the other two leave? Why the deception? Why can't Blount County Schools keep a Director?

Saw the development going up on the South side of the river, looking from the UT campus, around Neyland Stadium.

Gives the area a lot of character. /s

Any parks going up around all those apartments? Any public access to the river?

Makes you think about all the apartments built (or in the process) along Cumberland. They did a good job with the street scaping. However, the sidewalks are too small and the buildings are too close to the road.

The National Weather Service is predicting 2-8 inches of snow today through tomorrow morning.

Winter weather message.
WINTER STORM WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM 10 AM EST /9 AM CST/
THIS MORNING TO 7 AM EST /6 AM CST/ SATURDAY...
Snow will begin by mid to late morning, moderate to heavy
at times this afternoon and evening. The snow may mix with sleet
or possibly freezing rain for areas east of interstate 81 and 75
this afternoon. Total snow accumulations between 3 and 6 inches
west of interstate 81 and 75, and 2 to 4 inches east. Ice
accumulations around a light glaze.

Accuweather has a great radar map to follow.

We'll see. I'm ok with snow here in the South. I always hope it's gone the next day.

Bezos' Amazon film and television studio will pay $40 million to license the rights to a documentary about Melania Trump.

...documentary directed by Brett Ratner,... who happens to be the disgraced “Rush Hour” director who has not made a Hollywood movie since 2018, when he was accused of sexual assault and harassment by multiple women..

$40 million???? Just think what good he could do with $40 million.

OMG!

“Back in 1867, Democratic President Harry Truman tried to buy Greenland”

[image or embed]

— Acyn (@acyn.bsky.social) January 7, 2025 at 6:22 PM

Stopped by a major chain fast food restaurant in South Knoxville yesterday. A customer came up to the counter and asked for the code to the restroom. I asked the employee what the deal was with requiring a code for the restroom. He said there are a lot of bad characters in the area. Pretty rough. How sad.

Reminds me of when I was job hunting in the 80's in Orlando. I stopped for gas and there was bullet proof glass protecting the cashiers. I avoided that part of town from then on.

I've cooked on a stove with coil burners for a looonnng time. It's a little hard to find a coil cooktop. I know of at least one person that has used a glass top for probably 30 years.

In a recent New York Times Wirecutter article they describe how to clean a glass top stove. To summarize, it takes 20 minutes to clean and you need a retractable safety scraper for use with a single-edge razor blade and a ceramic-glass cooktop cleaning paste.

Now, i admit I'm not a great cook and not a great house cleaner. But, heh, i clean my coil cooktop every time I cook with water and paper towels (or a washable cloth), sometimes a Clorox wipe. It takes about 30 seconds. If the drip pans get really bad, you can replace them pretty cheaply, which I haven't done. We've had our coil cooktop for 20 years with one minor repair, $20, I believe.

The only reason I can think of to get a glass cooktop is for resale value. I think I'll wait.

From Knoxnews,

It is truly amazing U.S. Rep. Tim Burchett continues to embarrass and vote against East Tennesseans, this time by voting on Dec. 20 to shut down the federal government.

...
Consider our neighboring congressman, Chuck Fleischmann, who represents Oak Ridge. He serves on the House Appropriations Committee and actually gets things done for his district. He is conservative but not foolish.

And, what about his friendships with George Santos and Matt Gaetz?

... the average American voter has the intellectual capacity of a potted fern.

Jimmy Carter, 39th president and Nobel Peace Prize winner, dies at 100
The tenacious Southerner was turned out of office by disillusioned voters after a single term. But he had a brilliant post-presidential career as a champion of health, peace and democracy.
...
“Jimmy Carter stands up as a model of what it means to live a life of meaning and purpose, a life of principle, faith and humility,” Biden said in remarks earlier Sunday night. “What I find extraordinary about Jimmy Carter though is that millions of people all around the world, all over the world, feel they lost a friend as well, even though they never met him.”

A few tidbits about Jimmy Carter.

He may have been a one term president, but he led a exceptional life including a Nobel Peace Prize and his work with Habitat for Humanity.

The Chicks, Christmas Swing, in 1991.

The House Ethics Committee report was released on Monday and revealed that the committee found "substantial evidence that U.S. Representative Gaetz, FL, violated House rules and other standards of conduct prohibiting prostitution, statutory rape, illicit drug use, impermissible gifts, special favors or privileges, and obstruction of Congress."
...
"It is possible for Matt Gaetz to still face criminal charges, as there don't appear to be statute of limitations issues for the relevant charges," Perlstein said. "However, the decision to bring charges lies with the two sovereignties involved: the state of Florida and the U.S. federal government."

It would be truly amazing if politicians protect Mr. Gaetz from prosecution.

Sen. Hagerty, TN:
...I say thank God Elon Musk bought Twitter, because that’s the only way we would even know what’s in this bill, otherwise the conspiracy between the government and Twitter would have continued and this would have all been covered up.” Hagerty replied.
...
Hagerty said that Musk’s “transparency” helped make this happen and later clarified that he didn’t mean the billionaire alone made people aware of the bill.

Isn't that sweet. Is it that he can't do his job so he and other MAGAs rely on the shadow president to feed them information?