Gloom, Despair and Agony on Memphis

What the hell is wrong with WREG/3? I've been watching the news more than usual lately, keeping an eye on Hurricane Dennis. WMC/5 and WPTY/24 & 30 are keeping calm about the potential for Dennis to roll right over our little corner of Heaven, but over at WREG it's all HORRORSHOW! ARMAGEDDON! WILD WINDS! all the time. Austin Onek today seems to be determined to paint the worst possible picture of what's to come.

I know that stations want to get viewers and frequently hype stuff to scare viewers into watching, but this is dancing along the edge, if not actually crossing a line. You don't hype hurricane worries. WREG has always had problems with the way it handles forecasts, hyping the bad and playing "happy weather" with the good, rarely just playing it straight, but this is a new achievement and one not to be proud of.

I haven't yet seen any of the stations try to make comparisons between what may come with Dennis and Hurricane Elvis two years ago, but I'm willing to bet it's only a matter of time. If you spot it, send an email.

WELCOME Peggy Philip readers! Thanks for stopping by and please check out the rest of the blog. If you want to read more thoughts about local news from a former insider's point of view, please also go to Jamey's blog.

New Zealand's Oopsie

Remember last week I posted that, thanks to New Zealand's signing the Kyoto Protocols, that every family there would incur a $900 bill for greenhouse gas pollution, even though New Zealand produces only .2% (two-tenths of one percent) of greenhouse gasses?

Well, I was wrong.

Seems that government accountants mixed up their plus and minus signs and what was a $500 million credit is actually a $500 deficit! Not only that, but an international accounting firm says that those same government accountants have seriously underestimated the liability.

Each New Zealand family wouldn't owe merely $900, but possibly as much as $2700!

Yeah, Kyoto is such a good deal for the US.

Nashville Beats Memphis Ag-- Oh, You Know the Drill

Intel has released its annual report of the most wired cities and, no surprise, Memphis does poorly. We're America's 17th largest metropolis but we rank 68 in wireless access. Nashville shows up at 27 and Knoxville is 52. St. Louis is 35. Hell's bells, Little Rock is ahead of us at 59!

This does not surprise me. Too much of Memphis is too poor to take advantage of portable computing technology, unable to afford the laptops, and too out-of-step with the digital revolution to know or care much anyway.

But it saddens me nonetheless. Being digitally up-to-date isn't incompatible with the small-town feel Memphis wants to hold on to. It actually reinforces it by keeping people in this spread-out burg more in touch than would otherwise be possible.

But as long as we have the nation's second-highest unemployment rate, crappy warehouse jobs on offer, a city government that won't get behind the infrastructure needed, and a school system that turns out people too ignorant to operate a wireless computer, I guess we'll just have to suffer.

Kelo is Nothing Compared to This

Unless they reverse themselves and give approval to a huge new residential development, the entire Carroll County, Maryland, Zoning Commission is going to jail. The developers involved went to court and a judge agreed, ordering the Commissioners to act or face jail.

Benjamin Rosenberg, attorney for the developer, the Carrolltowne Development Partnership, said he would demand that planning commission members -- including Julia Walsh Gouge, president of the Carroll County Board of Commissioners -- be jailed if they refuse to comply with the order.

Area schools are surrounded by portable classrooms. The roads are congested and the water supply is so stretched that the commissioners have curtailed development until new supplies can be tapped.

Rosenberg contends the inadequacies should have no bearing on the Carrolltowne development.

"They will find water for this project," Rosenberg said. "The county should have reserved water for this project in 1995. If need be, it will have to take water allocated to another project."

The South Carroll area, which includes Eldersburg and Sykesville, has endured seasonal water shortages for several years.

As one of the Commissioners belatedly notes:

What is the point of having commissioners if the county is going to be run by lawyers and judges?

Indeed.

Thaddeus Reports, You Decide

An amazing story on Thaddeus Matthews' blog about corruption and fraud by area State Representatives and businessmen. All the names and details are there for any intrepid reporter to follow up on and document. Question is: will anyone dare to do it?

I'm guessing, like so much else that goes on in Shelby County, this will be all that's said about it.

Why "Ethics Reform" is Doomed to Fail

The Registry of Election Finance is the State body charged with assessing fines for violations of campaign finance law. All they can do is assess the fines; enforcement of payment is up to the Attorney General. Guess what that means? Yup. Hundreds of thousands of dollars in already-assessed fines uncollected by scofflaw legislators. Sworn to uphold the State Constitution and its laws, but getting off scott-free when fined for breaking those laws. And the AG just turns his head. Is it any wonder the Tennessee Waltz sting was so successful in this kind of environment?

Ethics reform means nothing unless there are people who will enforce those laws. Do you really believe they'll create meaningful laws with regulatory enforcement and servants of the State willing to prosecute those laws? Don't hold your breath.

Iraqi War Casualty Map

A Flash-based presentation of all the military casualties of the Iraqi war, presented day by day from the invasion in 2003. Powerful in itself, but look at the patterns, too.

So Long and Thanks For All The... Uhhhh

After helming the massive changes that have wracked the Commercial Appeal, helping new Editor in Chief Chris Peck to remake the daily into... well, whatever it is today, Publisher John Wilcox is resigning...

...to become publisher of the San Francisco Examiner, the free-distribution newspaper he says is "a new model" for newspapers everywhere struggling with declining circulation and advertising revenue.

Just like the one he's leaving, which has smaller circulation than when he took over. Watch out, San Francisco! Here's the Wikipedia history of the paper.

"I expect operations at The Commercial Appeal will go along as they have," Wilcox told upper-level managers in a morning meeting. "You've gone through a tough transition. But you've made significant progress and the future is bright."

Corporate meetings I've been in where I heard talk like that, it was bland-speak for "You're still in trouble, but I am outta here."

During Wilcox's tenure in Memphis, The Commercial Appeal began publishing separate weekly and twice-weekly Appeal editions in eight communities as a way to increase the amount of local news coverage.

Of course, there are some of us who would like all the news, not just some of it. Those Appeal sections were light on "news," though, and filled with stuff like "Local bookstore likes readers." Not really news, just a reason for folks to buy a paper with them in it (and extra copies for friends and relatives).

Within four months of the rollout, the editions were profitable, Wilcox said, paving the way for the paper to add more community editions, including one for Millington readers.

Lower ad rates, most likely, and only a handful of pages to fill. Of course, it helps when it only takes two people to produce those Appeals and a lot of the writing is done for you for free -- by the people you're covering or their PR firms. Those Appeals aren't newspaper-lets, but shopper's guides. Big difference.

The biggest challenge, Wilcox said, has been changing the culture in the newspaper itself to reflect "a leaner, more community-oriented feel."

Well, yeah! "We're cutting back reporters. You've gotta cover more, and write more." I'd resist that, too. The Memphis Flyer has been covering that aspect lately.

I've heard that former editor Angus McEachran has been none too happy with what's happened to "his" paper under Wilcox and Peck, which might explain his non-appearance in its pages even though he still calls Shelby County home. Wilcox came from within the Scripps-Howard corporation, the owners of our daily, but is now leaving it. Did he jump or was he gently pushed? He's moving downmarket; the Examiner has two-thirds the circulation of the Commercial Appeal and functions on the alt-weekly business model of selling lots of ads to subsidise its "free" cost.

Of course, Wilcox is a California liberal. He tells the San Francisco Examiner "I am excited to be joining one of the nation's most progressive newspapers in my home state of California." And his cohort Peck is another liberal of the Pacific Northwest variety. Peck has been importing a lot of folks from his old haunts to the Bluff City. The Commercial Appeal's changes have been a corporate experiment to fight the industry-wide decline in circulation, relevance and profits of newspapers. So, I wouldn't look for any major changes from whoever takes over for Wilcox.

One question for my readers. I know that in the old days being the publisher of the paper meant you owned the name and the presses; you hired the writers, photographers, pressmen and reporters; the paper reflected your interests and passions. It meant you could go to your editor in chief with a few pages of your thoughts and say "Print this in tomorrow's edition" and he'd do it. He had to or you'd fire him.

So what does being "president and publisher" mean in the age of corporate, chain newspapers? How important is the position? How much influence do you wield? How at the mercy of the corporate parent are you? I'm curious.

Can anyone provide any background on what motivated Wilcox? Again, walk or push? Who's dissatisfied and why?

How Did I Miss This?

Many thanks to Darrell Phillips who provides pointers to two new blogs, by WPTY/24 anchors Dee Griffin and Cameron Harper. Dee's only has two entries, but Cameron's been hard at it.

I'm waiting to see how long it is before Cameron's instinct to speak his mind crosses with his corporate-sponsored blog's limits. I'm guessing not long. Oughta be fun when it does.

Only thing missing is a comments feature on individual posts.

Are there any other blogs out there I should be aware of?

Fun With Google: Harold Ford and Miami

Blogging for Bryant carries the story of US Senate candidate Harold Ford Jr.'s top-dollar tastes when it comes to his campaign dollars. The original story is here. Definitely an eye-opening read. Something caught my eye, though, and I went digging.

After all, if Google-trolling is good enough for the Commercial Appeal it should elevate the quality of this blog!

I was intrigued by a mention of Miami, Florida. From the very earliest days of the Tennessee Waltz sting, a connection has repeatedly surfaced between Memphis and Miami. To my knowledge, no one has yet investigated it to either bury or prove allegations of links between Tennessee Waltz and Harold Ford, Sr., who lives on the ultra-exclusive Fisher Island. Nor have links between TW and Michael Hooks (who made some oddly-explained trips there) been investigated, either, to any satisfactory degree.

So, among the many campaign expenses of the Ford campaigns, there was mention of nearly $4000 spent in 2004 at the Delano Hotel. Check this map link and you'll see it's a very short drive up the 1A from Fisher Island and Junior's daddy. (The Delano is the red marker. Fisher Island is the Virginia-shaped island just below Highway 41.) How very convenient, eh? The article mentions that Ford has had campaign fund-raisers there, just a stone's throw from Daddy's house.

There are several Miami restaurants mentioned, as well. And sure enough, all of them -- Nemo, Prime 112 and Ago -- are right in the same area.

Of course, the obvious explanation is the innocent one. It's all above board, and it's all convenient to Harold Ford Sr.'s home and exclusive community because daddy is helping his son.

But for those of us who are still waiting for someone to investigate the Memphis - Miami connection, it's all just too tantalising. What will it take to produce answers? Maybe if John Ford was involved, we could interest the Commercial Appeal. But since swanky South Beach, exclusive homes and restaurants, and big money are involved, all of which make for compelling television visuals, I can't for the life of me figure out why any local television news station hasn't done some digging yet.

Or maybe it is all for nothing. If so, then report that.

If you want to pore though Harold Ford Jr.'s expenses for yourself to see how high-living, second-tier Washington lives, then you can go to the Open Secrets website and look here and here. Happy hunting.

Ford Eats More Foot

I missed this Harold Ford, Jr., quote from last month, but found it again today, searching for something else. From the LA Times, talking about Dean and the Democratic Party:

We really don't have a message right now.

That same "whatever you need us to be" will be on display between now and Fall '06.

Here I Am

I was away from the computer all day yesterday, hanging out with Mark and his son. We spent the better part of the day at the Battle Bunker playing our usual Epic game. I'm getting better at wargaming, as this time Mark was only able to defeat me on points after four turns, rather than on Victory Conditions after three.

It was a bloody battle for both of us. I made a surprise move with some Terminator Marines at the outset, sending them directly into his backfield, but lost the initiative roll (to see who moves first). He moved his troops out of harm's way before I could activate mine and I just floundered, instead of hammering his flank. I returned the favor later in the game by shooting his Thunderhawk gunship full of troops out of the air. He was depending on them to clear out my troops late in the game, which sorely vexed him.

He also fields a unit called a Warlord Titan, which is an enormous mechanised war engine filled with powerful long-range weapons. I had the great joy of watching this monster stay hemmed in with a small unit of my Scout Marines, the cheapest unit Space Marines have! We once ran a bunch of scenarios to see if it was possible for my Space Marines to kill his Titan, and it wasn't. It was taking me over 1100 - 1300 points of my army just to hammer into submission his 850 point Titan. That didn't kill it, just cripple it for one turn. The point imbalance isn't worth the results, as it leaves me weak on other fronts. So, seeing such a tiny and weak unit stop the biggest unit in the whole Space Marine armory was kinda satisfying. And I made him waste all that firepower on the last turn by making him chase a broken unit of Assault Marines. Hah!

I'm beginning to get the hang of Epic now and really enjoy the sense of commanding an army across the field, making plans and responding to the enemy's moves, having to deal with setbacks and reaping unexpected wins. I'm getting to where I'm internalising the game mechanics (though Mark is kind to put up with my constant questions) and becoming immersed in the experience. Mark is enjoying getting an opponent who can test his skills. We're having fun.

And for the reflexive amongst you who will now chirp "Chickenhawk," I must remind you that checkers and chess are ritualised and abstracted forms of combat as well. Chess was often used to teach strategic thinking to kings, generals and rulers. So save yourself the embarrasment, OK? Sigh....

Newton Finally Hoists His Colors

After years of being weak-willed when it comes to sucking up to the Democratic majority in State government, earning him a well-deserved reputation as a RINO, now indicted Representative Chris Newton decides to show some backbone and not resign his seat in the State House.

Of course, this means he will be deeply conflicted as he considers and votes on ethics legislation and regulations later this year. At least now East Tennesseans can see Newton's colors clearly.

The Production of Innocence

Speaking as I was (or will, if you haven't read that far yet) of Jay Rosen and PressThink, he has a great look at the media's fascination with the developing media war over the next Supreme Court appointment. It's not about the story, so much, as what he terms, the production of innocence, a purely journalistic conceit.

By the production of innocence I mean ways of reporting the news that try to advertise or "prove" to us that the press is neutral in its descriptions, a non-partisan presenter of facts, a non-factor and non-actor in events. Innocence means reporters are recorders, without stake or interest in the matter at hand.

This basic message--innocent because uninvolved--isn't something said once, in a professional code of conduct. It has to be said many many times a day in the very course of writing and reporting the news. The genre known as He said, she said is perhaps the most familiar example. The production of innocence is one reason you make that phone call and "get the other side" before you run with a damaging story.

The truth and its damages may in certain settings have two sides; and you may, if you're very lucky, "get" the other one by making that obligatory call, but most of the time what results from appying this newsroom rule is not a truth with all necessary sides, but a particular claim of innocence that means a lot to journalists: good, we got the other side. We are being just. And this of course is way better than not making the call.

In the alchemy of these things (they are very akin to magical thinking) "We called you for your reaction" is supposed to prove: We're not on anyone's side, see? And my point is that along with the production of a truthful, honest and compelling report, the reporters I have quoted here are continuously engaged in another ritual: advertising their own innocence, which is necessary if people are going to accept the final product as news cured of views.

Gubernatorial Straw Poll Results

Blogging for Bryant's Jay has sent along the results of his Republican straw poll of potential candidates for governor in 2006.

The unsurprising news: Beth Harwell wins clearly.

The breakdown:

Beth Harwell -- 35.6%

Ron Ramsey -- 24.1%

Van Hilleary -- 23%

Bob Corker -- 11%

Jim Henry -- 6.3%

I really hope Ramsey stays put. He'll be the Senate Speaker next Assembly, providing Republican nincompoops can be kept in line, and will be a needed breath of fresh air there. Hillary needs to stay in the Senate race and let Bryant end his political career. It will be costly for Bryant financially, but good for him in terms of image building prior to facing "is he or isnt he?" Harold Ford. Bryant also has an impressive lineup of Tennessee bloggers willing to help him make ground pork of Corker.

Beth, are you paying attention yet?

Deceptive Reporting

Today's Commercial Appeal carries an AP story (why not one written by the Nashville bureauman Richard Locker?) that is slightly misleading in its thrust.

Matt Gouras breathlessly notes that Governor Phil Bredesen personally approved some changes to a consent decree that he's now trying to have voided. It's... well, it's almost like he's a hypocrite!

Not so much. Bredesen tried to have a simple, immediate cost-saving measure implemented, one that would pass muster with both the court and the Tennessee Justice Center. It was a stop-gap measure before bigger changes to come. Smaller actions taken in the process of getting the larger goal don't negate the goal. So, it's a bit disingenuous to me.

On the other hand, the article does point up that Bredesen, for all his vaunted management skills and the centerpiece status of TennCare reform, is still floundering. Being a good business manager doesn't always translate into being an effective politician. The manager is used to expecting his will to be carried out, and to having subordinates fall in line. Politics, obviously, is nothing like that, as Bredesen is showing us. You can't order, you have to persuade; and even then you're going to fight a lot of other folks with their own agendas in the process.

Bredesen really is making a botch of his TennCare reforms. He's alienated a large number of his party-mates and has provided a spectacular opening for any Republican challenger next Fall. He no longer has Tennesseans lined up with him to accomplish the goal of TennCare reform; he's got a lot of special interests (many in his own party) lined up opposing him.

He could, of course, just sign an Executive Order ending TennCare, returning Tennesseans to the loving embrace of Medicaid, but that's sort of the nuclear option. Besides, he would find himself in Federal courts anyway, as the Tennessee Justice Center would move like lightning to oppose that. He's on more secure ground with abolishment, legally, but his chances of success are still in question and his chances of re-election would be zero.

Not to absolve the TJC of their share of the blame! They have been skillful in manuveuring themselves into the victim's seat under Bredesen, and they've been abetted by friends in government and the press. Remember the injuction filed by Judge William Haynes back in January? Nowhere did those stories mention how the injunction came to be. Judges don't just wake up one morning and decide to take action; they must first be presented with a motion to act upon. In the case of the January injunction, we were never told who initiated the appeal. I know because I was looking. It finally came out months later that it was the TJC after all. By keeping their name out of it, they were able to avoid the usual obstructionist press they get whenever they act.

Make no mistake. The TJC wants socialised healthcare for Tennessee. Having gotten it under McWhirter, they are doing everything possible to retain it. They will fight every attempt to slow its growth or modify it substantially. If they had their way, taxes would be raised to pay for TennCare as it exists now and you would just have to accept that.

There is a plan out there that would go a long way to rein in costs while only cutting a few thousand from TennCare rolls. They seem basic and sensible. I'm not informed enough on the issues and policies here to know how many of these ideas are being tried by Bredesen, nor whether they will have the cost-saving effects claimed. But they should be looked at first, and tried where advisable first. I don't think Bredesen is even doing that.

It's an opening for an enterprising Republican to use. Make real reform using the ideas of the reformers. Then, then, if TennCare is still ballooning and careering out of control, she the Republican candidate for governor can go ahead with the nuclear option in security.

But I doubt any Republican would. Party inertia, self-interest and the sclerotic hand of the Old Money boys at the top determines what happens, not bright thinking by the party's members. I suspect more than a few of the moneyed Republicans want a second Bredesen term, so they can make yet another run at enacting an income tax. A failing TennCare would only be an opportunity to revive that excuse from 2002. Letting Bredesen fail, rather than acting positively to rescue TennCare, serves their purposes better. Any candidate for governor will be stuck between wrestling the beast of TennCare reform and serving the Old Money Masters, which may explain why no one seems to be stepping up to run.

Watch between now and the Fall. If Beth Harwell passes, that's a sign. She has a good chance against Bredesen. If the Republicans runs an undistinguished or second-tier person, or worse yet a no-hoper, you'll have your answer. Bredesen is wide open to defeat right now, and as the "anti-gay marriage" contingent heats up coming into 2006 it will only get worse for him. But the Republican leadership is behaving as though he's a prohibitive force to reckon with. Maybe, if your name is Van Hilleary. But not for a fresh and energised candidate. The grassroots is ready to fight and only needs a leader to get behind.

As Bredesen continues to flounder and get outflanked by the TJC, this will only become more obvious.

125 Unanswered Science Questions

As part of the celebrations of 125 years of publishing, Science magazine queried hundreds of scientists in myriad fields to ask them what some of the remaining questions of science are. The list is fascinating reading.

Some samples:

What Is the Universe Made Of?
How Much Can Human Life Span Be Extended?
What Genetic Changes Made Us Uniquely Human?
How Are Memories Stored and Retrieved?
How Did Cooperative Behavior Evolve?
Will Malthus Continue to Be Wrong?

More than a hundred others still waiting answers....

Still Day Late, Dollar Short

The New York Times had an article over the weekend looking at the Greensboro, NC, newspaper experiment and the broader changes sweeping newspapers. Trouble is, the story's written as though it's current, when in fact this story has been rolling along since last year. Jay Rosen of PressThink has been covering it extensively, as he thinks it's pointing the way for the future of newspapers. The Memphis Commercial Appeal even gets a mention.

Read that article first then come back here.

OK. What The News & Record is doing is ceding a lot of control of their paper to non-paper people. They are blending the newspaper's traditional mission -- to gather and print the events of a community, as well as pertinent opinions -- with the blog revolution, where anyone is a reporter and editorialist. Papers benefit from having more reporters and more diverse voices, the community benefits by gettign a broader and deeper picture of itself. But it requires the paper to explicitly align itself with the people of the community, and not the business and civic interests they typically support.

That's why the Commercial Appeal is having problems. They make moves in the direction of the blog revolution and going online, but are still deeply wedded to tradition and the old way of operating a newspaper, the "voice of God" model, as the NYT article puts it.

Remember failed initiatives like "Readers Respond?" That was a brief experiment where reader questions about particular articles written by CA staff were printed in the paper, along with the writer's response. It failed because it was just a version of the typical "Letters to the Editor" model, but particularised. Actually having writers defend and explain what they wrote was also a bit difficult for people used to operating protected behind the institutional wall of a daily newspaper.

For heaven's sake, look at the whole "Letters to the Editor" model. As someone who's written his share of letters (before the blogosphere liberated me), it's still baffling. Readers send in their thoughts. Does the paper just print them? No. Not only are spelling and punctuation cleaned up, but letters are modified in all sorts of ways. Cut for space; re-ordered for "clarity"; the tense of verbs is altered to suit the newspaper's voice, even if it's the readers voice speaking; if the letter refers to a previous LttE the name is changed to "a previous letter writer" and sometimes names are just changed to "protect" something.

It's instructive: The paper can't let people speak with their own voice, but must filter that voice through the bureacracy -- through the control -- of the newspaper. That's not an institution that sounds willing to cede some control.

The Commercial Appeal has starting bringing in more guest editorialists, which is good, but far too often these voices support the position of the paper, rather than represent the many voices of the community on any given issue debated.

Well, I don't have time right now to run down everything wrong. Let's just say that when each story comes with, not a link to a forum on another part of the website, but comments directly below the story posted, when the writers address the concerns of readers directly and do have to defend what they write, when a paper that wants to "tell the story of Greater Memphis" actually gives those stories their own voice rather than editing it to fit the paper's style, then we'll be making progress.

As it is, they are just aping what they see, missing the deeper points by a mile. Circulation is falling still; credibility is falling still; importance and relevance are plummetting. What used to be a flinty rock is now a mushy bowl of tapioca.

Inside the Democratic Mind

In an interview given in Washinton, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi demonstrates an appalling ignorance of basic Constitutional issues. Try this:

Q: Two questions: What was your reaction to the Supreme Court decision on this topic, and what do you think about legislation to, in the minds of opponents at least, remedy or changing it?

Ms. Pelosi: As a Member of Congress, and actually all of us and anyone who holds a public office in our country, we take an oath of office to uphold the Constitution of the United States. Very central to that in that Constitution is the separation of powers. I believe that whatever you think about a particular decision of the Supreme Court, and I certainly have been in disagreement with them on many occasions, it is not appropriate for the Congress to say we're going to withhold funds for the Court because we don't like a decision.

Q: Not on the Court, withhold funds from the eminent domain purchases that wouldn't involve public use. I apologize if I framed the question poorly. It wouldn't be withholding federal funds from the Court, but withhold Federal funds from eminent domain type purchases that are not just involved in public good.

Ms. Pelosi: Again, without focusing on the actual decision, just to say that when you withhold funds from enforcing a decision of the Supreme Court you are, in fact, nullifying a decision of the Supreme Court. This is in violation of the respect for separation of church -- powers in our Constitution, church and state as well. Sometimes the Republicans have a problem with that as well. But forgive my digression.

So the answer to your question is, I would oppose any legislation that says we would withhold funds for the enforcement of any decision of the Supreme Court no matter how opposed I am to that decision. And I'm not saying that I'm opposed to this decision, I'm just saying in general.

Q: Could you talk about this decision? What you think of it?

Ms. Pelosi: It is a decision of the Supreme Court. If Congress wants to change it, it will require legislation of a level of a constitutional amendment. So this is almost as if God has spoken. It's an elementary discussion now. They have made the decision.

Q: Do you think it is appropriate for municipalities to be able to use eminent domain to take land for economic development?

Ms. Pelosi: The Supreme Court has decided, knowing the particulars of this case, that that was appropriate, and so I would support that.

Horrifying. And she wants to be the Majority Leader?

...this is almost as if god has spoken. Does anyone wonder now why they fight DC Court of Appeals and Supreme Court nominations like berserkers? Look how her mind was conflating church/state and Supreme Court when she was thinking about the Court. It's "almost" religious to them. Does she really think that countering Supreme Court decisions through law requires a constitutional amendment? Can she truly be that stupid?

As someone else notes, did they ask her if she holds Bush v. Gore in the same reverence?

Gubernatorial Straw Poll

Yes, it's pretty early, and yes, that isn't stopping anyone anyway.

Jay, over at Blogging for Bryant, a website you should be reading regularly, has a straw poll up. Who is your choice, of the presumed and possible Republican choices, for nominee to run against Phil Bredesen?

Bredesen's very, very beatable. The Republican candidate, if they really run and give their heart and soul to it, can win. The big problem is the money guys who run the upper reaches of the Republican Party. Many of them want an income tax because it will include language that removes the Hall tax on unearned income, and so they want Bredesen to have a second term. In his second term, you watch, Bredesen will suddenly find we have a fiscal problem that can only be solved by "exploring" the income tax. So, the money guys will encourage the Republicans to run a mere trophy candidate, as the Democrats did against Sundquist in his second term run. (Remember John Jay Hooker's lone wolf candidacy? His own party wouldn't support him, so he drove himself around the State, begging his way onto talk radio shows.)

As Bill Hobbs has noted many times, if Bredesen never gets a second term, we never get an income tax.

I meant to have the poll box on Half-Bakered, but the Javascript does impolite things to this blog when I add it to the template. When, and if, Jay gets it fixed, I'll be adding it. In the meantime, head over to Blogging for Bryant.

Go! Vote!