This is perhaps the funniest thing I’ve read

in some time.

• download death toll

The list is long among those lining up to run for Jim Bryson’s Senate seat, should he run for governor. From anonymous (some more than others) sources, these are some of the individuals who have expressed interest in running.

Chip Throckmorton, Mayor of Oak Hill, BGA grad, and who has spent a significant amount of time growing up in Williamson County, and who also would be a well-financed candidate.

Jack Johnson, who works for Pinnacle Bank and has previously run for Metro Council At-Large in 2003.

Jeff Ford of Brentwood, who is one of two District 6 county commissioners in Williamson County.

Paul Pratt, who is well-established in Franklin and whose family business happens to be the largest insurance company in the city.

I also have confirmation on good information that Doug Grindstaff, Chairman of the Williamson County Republican Party, was on his way to pick up a petition to run this morning. Doug was also Bush ‘04 Chairman for Williamson County, and has been the CEO of Genesco, Proctor & Gamble Canada, and Proctor & Gamble Cellulose.

And there are some rumors and rumblings that State Representative Glen Casada has interest in the seat. I haven’t been able to get too much confirmation on that.

And get ready to laugh at this one…former Tennessee Democratic Party chairman Randy Button intends to run on the Democratic side. And yes, pigs will fly through the Franklin square before that starts to matter.

UPDATED for some content. I still cannot confirm whether or not Representative Casada is in or not.

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Van Hilleary is apparently having a press event at Legislative Plaza as I write this. I presume he’s a) not withdrawing from the US Senate race – it’s too late to do Ed Bryant any good, or b) he’s announcing he’s running for governor as a write-in candidate in 2006.

Unfortunately, when on the topic of Van, neither seems all that far from a reachable reality.

I lied about light blogging. I was perusing some leftist blogs and noticed an angry trend that confirms Power Line and my contentions regarding the similarities between the unreasonable client and the Democratic base. For instance

I’ve been holding off on my thoughts about Alito until I knew what was going to happen. Not like I didn’t know what was going to happen, but I wanted to believe in hope.

I’m not the only person upset tonight. I’ve visited other blogs and found quite a few that have a common thought: F$ck it, f$ck it all!!! Lots of people are quiting the party. When you have 14 Democrats without the balls to stand up, what else can you feel? Others are REALLY pissed off and ready for a take over of this party. When we can’t scare up 25 votes over a person like Alito (an unabashed racist and womanhater, not to mention what else), how can we hope that anything else can stand muster?

The few amount of gay rights we have gained over the years, like WA state getting a gay rights law passed in the last few days is already under attack, and bound to be overturned by an extremist court that only has one objective. Keep the right extremists in power.

And it goes on, and on, seething with unreasonableness. Then there’s the list of the condemned war inc download . Complete nuttiness like this

Senate set to turn our civil rights clocks back 30 years today…

not just for women and not just because of his views on abortion rights… but for gays and blacks and everyone who isn’t a pasty white bible thumping moron.

I’m not sure what happened in 1976, but it must have been big. Then there are attempts at self rationalization, “In the kingdom of the fascists, the moderate is the radical leftist.”

The base is practically demanding that the Democratic Party abandon all hopes of appealing to the majority of the electorate. The behavior of the Senate Democrats on the judiciary committee was not that of a party controlled from the reasonable center, but that of a vehicle steered by the braintrust over at MoveOn.org. In short, members of Democratic Underground have crept up from their subterranean lairs, daring sunlight, and have effectuated not only what to fight for, but how to fight for it. Their efforts have resulted in the liberal lion melting down on the Senate floor, muttering something about Judge Alito holding responsibility for children dying of asthma. And this resulted from a smear campaign that should only be reserved for the undeniably wicked.

To its credit, the Democratic leadership did step up, and managed to stop the bleeding. The fact that no filibuster materialized shows that the radical elements don’t completely control the party – yet. But the course of events demonstrates they have sway – and in primaries this year, that sway will likely be amplified.

I have a ton to do today, so blogging will likely be light. Normally when I say that I end up blogging as if my life depended upon it. As usual, we’ll see.

In the meantime, check out Les Jones’ post

on potential Google logos stemming from an effort to comply with China’s (real) censorship laws.

I have a ton to do today, so blogging will likely be light. Normally when I say that I end up blogging as if my life depended upon it. As usual, we’ll see.

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TeamAntiCorker, led by one of the more committed Van Hilleary Kool-Aid drinkers, unleashes a can of irrational disdain here. In fact, they have a new website to spread (mis)information – out of context and not grounded in the real world, of course. I have a mind to let them enjoy their perceived self-righteousness. Then again, maybe not.

I’m not sure they could fear Bob Corker more.

Good.

UPDATE And I just checked that new site thoroughly. It’s like, way mature. I’m glad we have so many neurons firing on that side of the debate.

We have a new conservative blog in our midsts, the State of Franklin. It just got started, but be sure to bookmark it and check it out.

The Republican response to campaign finance reform has been less than stellar. This link, which ends up at Byron York’s column in National Review on the subject is worth checking out. The editor’s note says enough

EDITOR’S NOTE: On Capitol Hill today, there is increasing momentum for a move that would crack down on 527 groups, those big, unregulated organizations — like the George Soros-funded America Coming Together — that were allowed to accept unlimited contributions in the 2004 presidential campaign. But this time, unlike the debate over the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance-reform bill, it is Republicans who favor more government regulation of the political system. In the current issue of National Review, Byron York examines a GOP flip-flop on what once was a matter of principle.

Well, yeah – this is a problem. George Soros was a bit annoying and was an awful big gorilla, but his efforts turned out to be politically impotent. There is some sentiment that in future elections we may be less fortunate. At the center of our distress lies a particularly troublesome senator from Arizona

For Republicans, the choice might seem easy; Pence-Wynn is a clear move away from the steadily increasing regulation of political expression. Yet many in the GOP — actually, most in the GOP — are instead leaning in McCain’s direction. And the reason is not any principled belief in campaign-finance reform, but rather the fear that Democrats will use 527s to beat the hell out of Republicans in 2006 and 2008. GOP House aides who follow the situation believe that most House Republicans would vote for limits on 527s. And a key Senate aide says that a very large number — perhaps all — of the Senate’s Republicans would support limits, and do it for nakedly political reasons. “Republican members believe that 527s are a bad thing, gnawing away at the vitals of our majority, and that what McCain supports means their elimination,” the aide says. “No doubt the bad guys will just find another section of the tax code to abuse for anonymous giving and deadly attacks against Republicans, but for now, since Republicans don’t like them, and McCain is scared to death about what they could do against him come primary time in ’08, there’s a marriage of convenience underway.”

Convenience absence principle and substance breeds bad policy. Pence-Wynn is a step in the right direction

But it is in the House that another GOP plan has emerged, one cosponsored by the solid conservative Indiana Republican Mike Pence and the equally solid liberal Maryland Democrat Albert Wynn. Pence and Wynn would impose some new restrictions on 527s, mostly along the lines of requiring them to report contributions quickly and openly. But they would not impose any limits on contributions. And they would go a step farther: In a bid to restore influence to the traditional parties, they would repeal the limits on the total amount of money any donor can give in a two-year political cycle. Current law allows individuals to give $2,100 to a candidate in any given year, or $4,200 per cycle. It also caps individual contributions to a party committee at $26,700 per year. Those restrictions are well known. What is less well known is that the law also limits the total amount of all contributions any one person may give. That limit is indexed for inflation, and right now stands at $101,400 — a combination of $40,000 for federal candidates and $61,400 for party committees.

What Pence and Wynn would do is remove that aggregate limit without touching the individual limits. So, under their plan, if a donor this year wanted to give the maximum $2,100 to all 231 Republican members of the House and all 15 Republicans up for reelection in the Senate, he would be free to do so. If he wanted to give the maximum allowed to each of the party committees, he would be able to do that as well. No individual giving limit would be broken, but the person’s aggregate contribution would be much higher than allowed in the past.

Sounds good to me – anything that weakens McCain-Feingold sounds good to me.

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you missed it, Bill Hobbs is now back, fully blogging again at BillHobbs.com. Of particular note is the continuing TEA involvement in attacking SJR 629

The TEA Legislative Report editor then goes on to say the TEA has “no intention of entering into a running debate on this issue.”

I thought the TEA – which describes itself on its website as “an organization that advocates learning without limits,” would not seek to limit what its members might learn about Senate Joint Resolution 629, and might actually favor the free and open exchange of ideas and points of view on the issue. But I was mistaken – apparently the TEA prefers merely to lecture its members with a one-sided and inaccurate message and then shut down debate.

The TEA is, as mentioned many times on this blog, a union. It is not comprised of a bunch of teachers wanting to ensure the best possible education of students. It is comprised of quasi-Teamsters working to ensure there is no other possible education for students but public education, and by public, meaning that every negative aspect of an inefficient government bureaucracy be expanded and embraced. Fewer students mean less teacher members, which means less power.
As for TEA inaccuracy and uninterest in debate, I’m hardly surprised. The last thing the TEA may be is a First Amendment organization. The attack of the TEA on Bill Hobbs was a bit surprising, though. The TEA piles on, and Hobbs has become the official whipping boy of conservative blogdom. I suppose from the TEA’s perspective it’s better than actually defending indefensible ideas.

It must be the weekend for new quality conservative bloggers. A new anonymous blog has popped up entitled Music City Oracle. Of particular immediate interest to me is this recent post

In a story that has not received any press coverage, the Jackson Clinic is asking an administrative law judge to rule that the Department of Labor and Workforce Development violated the law by making changes to the workers’ compensation medical fee schedule without providing notice or a hearing.

There’s nothing quite like seeing a shadow government step outside its bounds.  The Department of Labor  claims that the  adjustments were  “minor”, and did not require public notice and comment. Here are the changes they deem “minor”

Last year, the department adopted provisions in the fee schedule that paid physical therapists treating workers’ compensation patients less if they worked for a “physician affiliated” facility than they would be paid if they were independent. In February, the Department suddenly announced that it had adopted changes (effective May 1) to the physical therapy reimbursement rules. Under the changes, a physician could be fined $10,000 if he referred to a physician affiliated physical therapist. The Commissioner of Labor said that no notice or hearing was required since the changes were “minor.”

Before: phsyician affiliated physical therapist gets paid for treatment, but less than an independent.

After: physician who referred to the physician affiliated therapist is fined $10,000.

It appears that “minor” depends on one’s point of view. The problem is multifold. First, a rogue government agency is creating new rules with an impact reaching into the millions of dollars. Second, this change is likely to actually push health care costs higher and increase the cost of doing business in the state.  Neither is good. And on its face, neither is justifiable.

There we have it. Not only can Phil Bredesen not control the Tennessee Highway Patrol, the Department of Safety, and TennCare. He also cannot control his own Department of Labor.

Jim Bryson, anyone?

The Tennessean has an editorial today demanding that all new voting devices have a paper trail to ensure accuracy. I’m still trying to figure out why the “paper trail” is so embraced. It was precisely the failure to function of a “paper based” system that almost let Gore steal the presidency in Florida in 2000. The editorial board cites a problem in Texas this month, where an electronic voting system created by Hart InterCivic allegedly resulted in inaccurate results – “100,000 votes were lost of 150,000 cast”, says The Tennessean. This is supposed to bolster the case for paper ballots.

Well, not exactly.

The Dallas-Fort Worth Star-Telegram has a story on that March 7th primary election here. Apparently “a computer programming error counted some votes multiple times and boosted the final tally in both primaries by as much as 100,000 votes.” There were no votes “lost”, as our local paper of record has asserted. In short, the program added prior votes together. And apparently the problem was easily fixed. Each candidate was able to obtain hour-by-hour and precinct-by-precinct tallies with no problem. Every candidate in the story feels the results are correct.

In short, there was an addition error (a notably human-like error), which was quickly fixed. I sometimes wonder whether the editors actually investigate the sources they cite. I simply Googled “texas election lost votes” and up came the above-story, first on the list. Then I read it. The whole process took about 90 seconds.

But beside the editorial board’s shoddy research, this infatuation with paper still puzzles me. The real issue is security, not accuracy. Electronic results, which have been backed-up multiple times, are certainly more reliable than mechanic ballot boxes and pulp, where individual votes can be physically misplaced and easily and surreptitiously created. Elections were stolen for years in Tennessee with paper. Typically, you just add more of it. If electronic voting is so easy to manipulate, as many pro-pulp forces insinuate, then adding paper to the mix doesn’t really add any security. Remember Karen Bennett, who locally ran against Rob Briley for State House in 2002, ended up having one ballot box lost for days, and eventually found unattended in a warehouse where it never should have been. Mistakes happen anyway. Anyone can manipulate mechanics and paper. Not everyone can manipulate electronic voting records. Plus, as The Tennessean thoroughly proves through its misrepresentation, the failures of electronic voting are grossly overstated.

Further, I’m not sure how this idea is any better

Voter Verifiable Paper Ballots, or VVPB, instead of touch-screen machines. These electronic machines allow the voter to manually mark a ballot that is then read by an optical scanner.

Yes, and we should give rides to the polls only with horses and buggies. How many potential errors or security problems can you count with this one? I don’t have enough bandwidth to do it. Actually, this is the worst idea of them all, as it creates a seemingly certifiable result with a process ripe for abuse and mistake.

Speaking of mistake, make no mistake – I want accurate vote results. Also remember, we will never reach perfection. But a lot of time and energy is being wasted demanding a “paper trail”, which would do nothing to ensure accuracy. The paper trail represents whatever the electronic voting device receives as votes. As long as the electronic voting device is multiply backed-up, we should be fine with the result. I’ll happily change my mind if someone can make a good argument that paper adds integrity and security to the process. But right now, the arguments for it seem rather weak.

I have followed the TennCare saga from the outskirts. I and others believed at the time that Bredesen made the initial cuts from the rolls, many of them would be back. And you know, that’s exactly what happened. I am puzzled by blogs such as this one who are so ready to believe the good intentions of our governor and slam Republicans in the Assembly.

Stand by him if you want, but you’re a sucker for doing so.

(actually written by Nathan)

My favorite blogospheric 2nd Amendment advocate is celebrating his Blog Birthday this week. Go check him out, and join the party.

Those who “feel” they are being censored in the United States need to look a little outside themselves. Via the BBC

The first Russian film based on a novel by the Soviet-era dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn has been shown on Russian state television.

The First Circle (V Kruge Pervom) was written by the Nobel Prize winner more than 50 years ago.

The 10-part TV film depicts the terror of the regime of former Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, describing the Soviet Union as a huge prison camp.

Solzhenitsyn returned to Russia in 1994 after spending 20 years in exile.

Solzhenitsyn can tell all those crying wolf here in America what censorship and government oppression are truly about. That is, if they’d listen.

UPDATE More real modern day censorship can be found here.

Here’s more proof that the Bush Administration is soft on corporate corruption

.

Cindy Sheehan, shill for the extreme left and committed anti-Semite, appears she might run for US Senate in California. In the meantime, she’s going to do some more camping

free boo

CARACAS, Venezuela – Cindy Sheehan, the peace activist who just announced that she is weighing a run for Senate, plans to protest again outside President Bush’s Texas ranch, Venezuela’s president said Sunday with Sheehan by his side.

Hugo Chavez, his arm around Sheehan’s shoulders, told a group of activists that Sheehan had told him that during Holy Week, in April, “she is going to put up her tent again in front of Mr. Danger’s ranch.”

“She invited me to put up a tent. Maybe I’ll put up my tent also,” Chavez said, to applause from activists invited to his weekly broadcast on the final day of the leftist World Social Forum.

I wouldn’t mind terribly if she stayed in Venezuela.

Israel’s acting prime minister has clearly stated where Israel stands after the Palestinean decision to vote an anti-Semitic terrorist group into power

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s acting prime minister on Sunday ruled out contacts with a Palestinian government led by Hamas unless the Islamic group renounces violence, and the defense minister threatened to “liquidate” militants if they attack Israelis.

Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Israel will stop the monthly transfer of tens of millions of dollars in tax rebates and other funds to the Palestinian Authority if a Hamas government is installed.

Liquidate? I do believe that’s the highest setting. Good.

I’m watching C-SPAN right now, and Ron Paul, Republican Congressman from Texas, seems to also want to surrender in Iraq. I want my liberal purveryors and fair and balanced critics to note that I condemn Paul along with John Murtha.

It’s not a partisan thing. It’s just that most surrenderites live on the Democratic side of the isle.