Gene Patterson has a post on his blog reporting that Betty Bean will have a three part series in the Halls Shopper News about the life and times of Tyler Harber.

Patterson writes that Tyler Harber “never worked a single case while employed by Knox County’s Office of Probation and Pre-Trial Release. He worked exclusively for Ragsdale. He called himself “Ragsdale’s body man.””

Is this a case for the Knox County District Attorney? Should Mayor Mike Ragsdale have to pay back Knox County for Tyler Harber’s salary? How much did Harber make in his Knox County job?

More on this story on Gene Patterson’s Sunday talk show “Tennessee This Week” on WATE television and on Lloyd Daughtery’s radio program “The Voice” on AM 1180 on Monday morning. Betty Bean and Frank Cagle will be on the air with Lloyd Daughtery Monday discussing the interesting life of Tyler Harber and the politicians he worked for.

Heh:

Orville Wright did not have a pilot’s license.

Tomorrow a local community is asking for help. The people of the Midway Thorngrove community are having an open house and breakfast so people all over Knox County can learn of the pressure and tactics the Knox Community Development Corporation (aka “The Development Corporation”) is using to railroad and steamroll and industrial park into a rural community.

The breakfast is from 7:00 – 10:00 am at the Thorngrove Odd Fellows Lodge Hall for only $5.00 for adults and $3.00 for children under 12. All kinds of activities are planned at the Thorngrove Ball Field starting at 10:00 am including a Country Market, Cake Walk, Live Entertainment, Horse Drawn Wagon Rides, Auction at 2:30 pm, Drawing for Cash Giveaway, Homemade Ice Cream and more.

The following issues concern me about the benefit to Knox County and the way this has been handled.

First there is no definition of what kind of industrial park this will be. It has been said it would not be heavy manufacturing but there is still much wiggle room. It is most likely a distribution center. The reason Hackney was fought by the community was that it was too close to a school and the traffic from tractor trailers would endanger the school. This project is too close to a school and has the same traffic safety issues.

There are no customers. Stop the “Field of Dreams” madness. If you built it they MAY NOT COME.

The real costs of bringing utilities to this park have not been defined.

The real costs of improving corridor roads leading to the site have not been defined.

The cost of a local sewer plant have not been defined.

This process has been run through the system in record time. There is a fairness issue to the community that has been ignored. A request has been made to Knox County Commission for a thirty day continuance so a traffic study can be done.

Third party intermediaries have been found. There are Realtors, developers, and speculators being used as middlemen between TDC and the land owners. The average cost to TDC is $29,800 per acre but the landowners are getting only $15,000 an acre. That is an outrageous fee just to flip the land. It appears there is serious insider trading occurring with the blessing of TDC. These land owners are not being paid the full value of their property.

Unfair sales pressure is being put on the land owners as they are being told if they don’t sell their land the project will still go through and their land will be worth less so they better sell out now.

MetroPulse writer Rikki Hall is correct that the process is inverted. His comprehensive article is this weeks MetroPulse highlights many of the problems and challenges faced by the local community.

There are specialists that locate distribution centers. Have any experts been contacted about this location? This is a very illogical place for a distribution center. A more successful place would be in Loudon County at the 40-75 split.

The ROI is horrible. Once all costs have been accounted for this project could easily cost over 50 million dollars. So to create 2000 minimum wage jobs that equals $25,000 per job.

What is wrong with MPC and Knox County Commission? Are there any business people that understand ROI?

All of this at a time when six Knox County Schools are critically underfunded. Where is the leadership?

The Iraq invasion was a bad idea poorly executed by incompetents, but at least it comes in handy once in a while. We used our influence in Iraq to deny an Iranian plane permission to fly through Iraqi airspace. We then leaned on Turkey to make sure the plane couldn’t go around Iraq. The plane, which was loaded with missiles destined for Hezbollah in Damascus, was forced to turn around.

• July 15: Three days after the war began, a source tipped off U.S. intelligence about an imminent shipment of missiles from Iran to Hezbollah.
• July 19: A spy satellite photographed Iranian crews loading three missile launchers and eight crates, each normally used to carry a Chinese-designed C-802 Noor missile, aboard a transport plane at Mehrabad air base near Tehran. Israel says Hezbollah fired a C-802, a precision-guided anti-ship cruise missile, at an Israeli warship off Lebanon’s coast on July 14.
• July 20: The Ilyushin Il-76 transport plane left for Damascus, but Iraqi air-traffic controllers denied it permission to enter Iraq’s airspace. The Iranian flight crew then requested permission to fly over Turkey. Turkish controllers granted permission — but only if the plane would land for an inspection. The plane returned to Tehran, where the military cargo was unloaded.
• July 22: The plane flew humanitarian aid to Damascus after stopping for inspection in Turkey.

Stuff like that represents the upside of the invasion– using Iraq to the strategic advantage of America and its allies. Unfortunately, those benefits are dwarfed by the pain and cost Iraq has given us so far.

Via GLN, comes this:

Federal prosecutors in Maine can continue to use gun laws to combat domestic violence, the U.S. Court of Appeals has ruled.

U.S. Circuit Judge Sandra Lynch, sitting in Boston, ruled that John Frechette of Lewiston can be charged with the federal crime of gun possession by a person convicted of a crime of domestic violence, even though his 1996 misdemeanor assault conviction came after he pleaded no contest in a “mass arraignment” in Lewiston District Court.

In 2005, U.S. District Court Judge D. Brock Hornby in Portland had dismissed the indictment against Frechette, saying that his no-contest plea to a misdemeanor domestic violence charge did not qualify as a “knowing and intelligent” waiver of his rights under Maine law. Hornby found that as a result, the 1996 conviction could not be used as the basis of a federal gun-possession case against Frechette.

Via Boots and Sabers, comes this:

You see Mike I don’t care if you own a gun, I really don’t when society falls apart I intend to loot from people like you since you will not be able to defend you or your family

Aversion to punctuation aside, heh.

You may have problems. Seems Guy Montag is having an effect:

Fairbanksing

A gratuitous fabrication in a story when the truth would have served just fine.

If true, Troy Gentry, half of the country group Montgomery Gentry, is a disgusting person:

The indictment alleges that in October 2004 [country star Troy] Gentry paid Greenly $4,650 for Cubby, a tame, trophy-caliber, captive-reared black bear that was the largest bear used by Greenly in his wildlife photography business. After the purchase, the indictment says, Gentry killed Cubby with a bow and arrow while the bear was contained in a pen on Greenly’s property. The indictment does not specify how large the pen was.

Why would he do that? To show off:

The bear’s demise was videotaped, but court documents said the tape was edited later to show that Cubby had been killed in a “fair chase” hunting situation.

So, Gentry buys a domesticated bear that is essentially a pet and has been trained to be comfortable around people. Then kills it and makes it look like it was done in the wild. I suppose to make him look like a sportsman or some such. The newspaper account notes:

On Tuesday, Gentry pleaded not guilty to a charge that he violated the federal Lacey Act by falsely tagging the bear.

…

“Apparently it was perfectly legal to kill that bear since he was the owner,” Meshbesher said. “The government claims that once it was killed, there was mislabeled tagging because apparently the (property) owner indicated that it wasn’t killed on his game farm. It is a highly technical charge. The whole point is, they have to prove that Troy knew it was wrong and willfully went ahead and did it anyhow, and that relates to the tagging, not the killing.”

As a sort-of libertarian, here’s the deal: What Gentry did was cruel, evil and stupid. But I doubt it was illegal. My understanding is that for the Lacey Act to apply, said animal must be transported across state lines. So, they are obviously going after him on a highly technical charge to prove a point. The prosecution is stupid as well. But at least it’s stupid for good as opposed to Gentry being stupid for evil.

Gentry denies the claim:

“Troy is an avid environmentalist and hunter who supports and follows all game laws,” Meshbesher said. “Before he killed the bear, he was told by the bear guide that it was proper and legal to kill the bear, which was not a tamed bear and was never in a pen or cage.”

It’s possible he was lied to but then how does he explain buying the bear?

A man’s home may be his castle in South Carolina but for self-defense purposes, so is his car, his business and the tent he’s pitched in the woods.

The Legal Community Against Gun Violence, who are apparently only against guns and not the violence, have a plan to deal with guns and not gun violence:

“Regulating Guns in America” demonstrates conclusively that gaps in federal policy contribute significantly to the country’s gun violence epidemic. With 100,000 Americans killed or injured by firearms each year, the report puts to rest any notion that federal regulation is adequate.

“In the absence of federal regulation, states and local governments can enact creative laws to address the problem of gun violence in their communities and regions,” noted Nina Vinik, LCAV’s Legal Director. “The gaps in federal policy are an opportunity,” Vinik added.

In addition to identifying the limits of federal law, “Regulating Guns in America” describes state and local laws in each policy area, highlighting innovative measures already in place at the state and local levels.

You can download the report here.

Update: Via Kevin, David Hardy says:

My first thought: one more Joyce Foundation clone, a supposed “grassroots” organization in fact created by Joyce’s millions, and with a membership at best in the dozens. But perhaps I’m too cynical.

Nope. Hop over to Joyce Foundation’s webpage and we find among its grants:

“Legal Community Against Violence
San Francisco, CA $380,000
For general support. (2 yrs.)”

Fun with blogs stats!

This comes up every once in a while in the Tennessee Blogosphere. The latest is from Adam (who I didn’t realize was still blogging at his old site), and he offers objective analysis of dick measuring err blog comparison of the folks listed in AC’s poll by listing sitemeter and technorati stats.

Every time these guys get into the cock appraisal, err, blog comparisons, they always leave off these Tennessee blogs (I put the sitemeter – technorati stats beside their name):

Donald Sensing 2,084 – 4493
Les Jones – 1,889 – 19323
Me – 1,351 – 4723 (mine are a bit inflated due to an instalanche but usually run about 1,100 – 1200)

Yeah, we’re still small compared to Reynolds but bigger than the other blogs listed in terms of pecker assessment, err, objective analysis. And I realize Adam was listing the blogs on AC’s poll. But it begs the question:

Why no love for the second, third and fourth place bloggers in this here state whenever there are man-muscles to be gauged, err, stats to be objectively analyzed?

Don’t get me wrong, we three are still third/fourth tier blogs but, err, we beat the others in terms of traffic and two of us beat the technorati spread. But no love even though our blogs can beat up your blogs?

It’s from the LA Times so it’s probably made up, but regarding the LAPD:

Officers over those years shot themselves or one another nearly as often as they were shot by suspects.

It’s no secret that I hate geese. In Washington, they finally realized that people have had enough of the vile, disgusting creatures:

They tried border collies in Virginia. They tried a stuffed coyote in New Jersey. In fact, officials nationwide have tried just about everything to get rid of large flocks of Canada geese that move in, eat the grass and leave lots of unwanted poop.

Until now, geese foes have had to obtain permits from the government to kill the geese or destroy their nests and eggs, and that hasn’t been easy. But the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has issued a new rule making it easier for farmers, airports, landowners and public health officials to kill the geese without permits.

The new rule went into effect last week.

Good. Vile, filthy creatures that turn your land into a shit pile. And, if you have water on it that they take a liking to, you just lost your property rights. More:

Animal rights activists say there’s got to be a better way to deal with the birds.

Yes, a suppressed Ruger 10/22. The new rules allow:

_Airports, public health officials and landowners to destroy nests and eggs without federal permits.

_Private and public airports to round up the birds for destruction without federal permits.

_Local governments to round up the birds if they threaten public health by congregating at reservoirs, athletic fields, parks and public beaches.

In an update to the New Orleans gun lawsuit going forward, Reason Engaged:

On the surface, it doesn’t look like gun owners have much to gain by having a 2A case come before the Supremes. Unless you think about what might happen if enough people got riled up about number two…

The other night, the second child slept through the night. Woohoo.

The other thing is that, now that we have a boy, I realize the Mrs. has no idea how a penis works. For example, she says, while pointing to a spot on the kid’s penis:

I think something is wrong with his penis.

Me, I look at the spot and say: Honey, that’s the frenulum, it attaches the skin to the shaft.

Her: Never noticed it on yours

Me: I know.

Aunt B. is mad because Kansas City is rounding up politically incorrect dogs and killing them:

Animal control officials said 149 illegal pit bulls have been turned in or confiscated in the two weeks since the city increased its enforcement of a ban on the breed.

Mayor Joe Reardon announced July 28 that the city would temporarily waive penalties against people who turned over their pit bulls, which are illegal within city limits. The day before, a pit bull attacked 71-year-old Jimmie Mae McConnell, who later died.

The amnesty period ends today. More than two-thirds of the dogs were turned over in the first week, and animal control officials said the pace has slowed to what it was before the amnesty period.

And you can rat out your neighbor:

While those who voluntarily turned in their dogs didn’t get cited for violating the ban, owners who were identified through a telephone hot line were cited if officials could determine they owned a pit bull.

Breed bans are ineffective for a variety of reasons. And this is the result. Aunt B. also says:

I think it’s to punish their owners for being “scary” and “out of control” and “violent.” If some of us who own the dogs don’t happen to be poor young men, tough shit for us. This is about making sure that the “bad” elements of society know who’s in charge.

I would bet, dollars to donuts, that if you looked at the cities that have enacted “pit bull” bans, you would find that there’s a lot of tension in those cities about race. I know you could say that about every city in America, but I mean, I think you’d find “pit bull” bans enacted in cities where the demographics are changing rapidly. Look at the ban on “pit bulls” at the Nashville dog parks.

So, it’s doggie racism and people racism? Or classism. So many isms to worry about. The world needs less isms and more asms.

When I was delisted at Google, no one bought ads. I lowered the rates and still nothing. Google relisted me and the ads have returned.

No details but:

DETROIT – A federal judge has ruled that the Bush administration’s warrantless surveillance program violates the Constitution.

More:

U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor in Detroit became the first judge to strike down the National Security Agency’s program, which she says violates the rights to free speech and privacy.

Maybe Roger was right.

Heh:

Dammit! Just when we started to get to the bottom of the “real story” behind the airplane hijacking ring of last week, those wily Bushies pull another fast one on us, conveniently “finding” the killer of Jon Benet Ramsey just in time to dominate the front pages with another “distraction”.

GLN has the update:

The state of Wyoming passed a law in 2004 that allowed for expungement of misdemeanor domestic violence convictions restoring the firearms rights disabled by the Lautenberg Amendment. The expungement would allow a previously prohibited person to acquire a state ccw. Existing law allowed ccw holders to acquire firearms with going through the federal NICS check.

In August of 2004 the BATFE began a series of letters to Wyoming. The letters said that the state definition of ‘expungement’ conflicted with the federal definition, which controlled the definition of prohibited persons. Because the state could issue a ccw to a prohibited person, the Wyoming ccw was no longer sufficient to bypass the NICS check.

Wyoming has filed suit.

Are the Democrats moving a bit too far to the left? What do you think?

I think it depends on the particular Democrat. Harold Ford, Jr., for example, is running a campaign as a conservative. Remember folks, party over ideals. Unless you’re a neo-liberatarian.

And, are the Republicans becoming more centrist?

Lawrence Keane:

The mayor misused gun trace data to launch so-called “sting” operations against firearms dealers without the knowledge of either ATF or his own police department. In the process, his private investigators interfered with as many as 18 ongoing criminal investigations, imperiling the lives of law enforcement personnel — like undercover NYPD cops who played a key role in busting up a Virginia gunrunning ring. This is precisely why law enforcement groups like the Fraternal Order of Police, the nation’s largest police organization, support legislation that would keep gun trace data out of the hands of the public yet make it available to law enforcement for investigatory purposes.

And, you know, the investigations were illegal.

Good read:

As a former state police trooper, I can state emphatically, that I oppose the move away from local policing to a heavily armed “national” quasi-military police force policy. You need look no further than New Orleans after Katrina. You could watch California Highway Patrol officers and many out of state police agencies going door to door, disarming innocent civilians. Police officers were on a mission to confiscate firearms from people trying to protect themselves. Observing this, was to incite a first class riot in my home.

Ayup. More:

We have become accustomed to standing quietly on the sidelines while our local police Chiefs and Sheriffs have accepted huge amounts of federal dollars and military equipment for their special response units. They are all under a variety of mission specific names and classified standing orders.

Update: No, that is not an endorsement of this guy’s new world order, UN rant.

Via Cam, comes this:

A federal lawsuit accusing the city of illegally confiscating firearms during the chaos that followed Hurricane Katrina was kept alive by a federal judge Wednesday.

U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier denied a motion by the city of New Orleans to dismiss a suit by the National Rifle Association and the Second Amendment Foundation. The gun-rights groups sued Mayor Ray Nagin and New Orleans Police Chief Warren Riley over the confiscation of guns following Hurricane Katrina.

The city asked the judge to dismiss the suit for lack of jurisdiction, saying “the states, and by extension their political subdivisions, are free to proscribe the possession of firearms.”

The court rejected the motion, ruling the city did nothing to back up “the brazen assertion” that the second amendment did not apply.

“I’m delighted to see that the second amendment still applies in Louisiana,” said Wayne LaPierre, executive vice president of the NRA.

Well, the fifth circuit is the strongest circuit court on the second amendment. Excellent. More:

In April, police made about 700 weapons available to owners. Those seeking a weapon must bring either a bill of sale or an affidavit with the weapon’s serial number, which LaPierre called an “impossible requirement.”

It is an impossible requirement. More folks should have turned theirs in ammo first.

This could be the case that gets to the supreme court. The fifth circuit has stated the second amendment means what it says. Other circuits have not. Cold get interesting.

What? After this, it could happen:

A former schoolteacher was arrested Wednesday in Thailand in the slaying of 6-year-old beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey — a surprise breakthrough in a lurid, decade-old murder mystery that had cast a cloud of suspicion over her parents.

And it was nothing:

Three Palestinian-American men who were found with nearly 1,000 cell phones were charged Wednesday with federal fraud conspiracy and money laundering after a county prosecutor backed off from terrorism charges filed earlier.

Nylarthotep notes:

Sixty people crowded into a small room at the Bayonne police firing range to witness smart gun technology. Donald H. Sebastian, PhD, senior vice president of research and development at New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT), stood near an oversized screen displaying a real-time video of an NJIT policeman shooting an experimental handgun in an adjacent indoor range. Although there was no applause as shots rang out, the action demonstrated that smart gun knew friend from foe.

Sixteen electronic computerized sensors embedded in the gun’s grip distinguished known from unknown users. “We’ve only just begun and we’re pleased to say that we’re getting 90 percent reliability when scanning users,” said Sebastian.

If people are expected to depend their life on it, 90% isn’t good enough. For those not in the know, NJ has mandated that smart guns are the only ones to be sold. Well, once they’re invented that is.

For the world’s least powerful handgun. Heh. Scroll down a bit, the permalink seems busted.

A woman who was savagely raped has armed herself since her attackers will soon be out of prison. Via David.