Truly Equal nominates the best magazine cover of the year and takes the words right out of my mouth:
“If this magazine cover does not stop you in your tracks, nothing will.”
The accompanying article can be read here.
Archive for December, 2006
That’s what the Nashville City Paper is calling it anyway and I tend to agree. The year 2006 revealed the corruption that’s been festering under the skin of our state’s political and economic system for quite some time –lest we forget that it wasn’t so long ago that Senator Bill Frist’s family owned HCA/Humana pulled off the biggest corporate fraud of its day without so much as one person going to jail. What was our state’s response? Why, we made him a US Senator.
Yet Bill Frist’s and his family’s scandals, although some of largest and most “high profile,” are far from being the first major ones we’ve produced. Tennesseans, as the Nashville City Paper’s review of 2006 shows, seem to have a knack for producing and attracting corrupt politicians and nefarious businessmen intent on defrauding both citizens and the state’s coffers.
Maynardville City Council: November Meeting
Published by December 28th, 2006 in Local and Maynardville. 0 CommentsI’ve been meaning to start posting these for a while. They are the same ones that ran in the Union News Leader. Tip for those that are new to blogs and/or “categories”: Notice the category at the bottom of the post. If you click the various categories listed they will take you to similar posts. This should make it easy to find all of our articles on any given topic.
Highlights from Maynardville City Council’s November Meeting
MAYNARDVILLE CITY HALL - As the year winds to a close, Maynardville City Council (MCC) has its eyes on the future. And while the future of the city is by no means stilted, the path it is to take remains hazy on some points.
INDUSTRIAL PARK REZONED
First on the agenda was a proposed rezoning from industrial (M-1) to low-density residential (R-2). The area in question encloses Richardson Way beginning at Main Street. Affected by the rezoning would be several houses as well as those businesses located inside the Union County Industrial park.
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Luttrell City Council’s November Meeting
Published by December 28th, 2006 in Local and Luttrell. 0 CommentsHighlights from Luttrell City Council’s November Meeting
LUTTRELL - When the City of Luttrell’s 2006 application for the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) was denied, city council members wanted to know why. Had they not, after all, managed to use the funds to keep the city’s sewer system in good working order? Hadn’t they spent hours going over the application? The answer, as it turns out, is a unique one.
Luttrell fulfilled not only its grant obligations for 2005-2006 cycle, but also achieved the highest of the three star ratings on this year’s evaluation. It was also one of only a handful of applicants in the 2006 pool that did not have a commissioner’s order from a state agency demanding that they resolve specific violations and problems. The grant money Luttrell sought for 2006 was to help with maintenance and upgrades rather than correcting state violations.
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Plainview City Council: November Meeting
Published by December 28th, 2006 in Local and Plainview. 0 CommentsHighlights from Plainview City Council’s November Meeting
PLAINVIEW CITY HALL — Plainview City Council met in November to examine Plainview’s overall direction and discuss several measures to secure the city’s operating costs.
BUILDING PERMITS & ZONING
City Council passed a motion to increase the cost of building permits issued by the city. The new regulation, establishes a fee of $50.00 for residential building permits. The permit fee for storage sheds will remain at its current rate of $10.00. The higher fee for residential permits will help offset the city’s costs for inspections and the issuance of permits.
Three new building permits were reported by the city zoning official. Two of the permits, a residence and a garage, were located at separate addresses on Thomas Road. A third permit was taken for a residence located on Monday Road.
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No that headline is not a statement of opinion about the course of the war or Bush Administration policy. Sadly, it’s a statement that’s meant to be taken all too literally. According to a new study released by the Army, suicide rates among soldiers deployed in Iraq are at their highest rate since 2003.
With many troops on their second and third tours and no end in sight it’s not surprising that suicide rates are starting to rise. The military is stretched thin and can’t afford to keep many troops at home simply because they are suffering from depression. A sad fact is that many of those in the military that have gone AWOL or committed suicide could’ve finished their military careers and their lives had they been given the down time and counseling needed to recover from the trauma of war.
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TN Senate Speaker Vote Just Got More Interesting
Published by December 20th, 2006 in State. 0 CommentsA new twist has been added to the ongoing Senate saga as state parties vie for control of the Senate Speakership. Apparently a fellow democrat has decided to challenge Wilder’s sole candidacy. Democratic Sen. Joe Haynes threw his hat into the ring on Monday.
He stated in a news release that,
“I have a tremendous amount of respect for the leadership of Lt. Gov. John Wilder, but I believe the time has come for a new vision for the Senate.”
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How Do You Spell Pandering? Update on Mary Cheney Pregnancy
Published by December 16th, 2006 in National. 3 CommentsApparently President Bush is quite happy for Mary Cheney and her family. According to CNN:
WASHINGTON (Reuters) — Vice President Dick Cheney’s pregnant lesbian daughter Mary will make a “fine mom,” President Bush said, sidestepping his past comment that a child ideally would be raised by a mother and father.
Mary Cheney, 37, and her longtime partner, Heather Poe, are expecting their first child, which would be the sixth grandchild for the vice president. Cheney was hired last year as an executive for America Online — whose parent company Time Warner also owns People as well as CNN.
“I think Mary is going to be a loving soul to her child. And I’m happy for her,” Bush said in an interview with People magazine.
The Washington Post reported that the baby was due in late spring.
I guess with so many republicans and evangelicals coming out of the closet acceptance for gay republicans was inevitable.
GOP Threats Against Sen. Mike Williams are Toothless
Published by December 14th, 2006 in Local and State. 2 CommentsEven though speculation continues over who Senator Mike Williams will vote for in January, it appears that GOP threats of retribution should Senator Williams cross party lines again and vote for Lt. Gov. John Wilder, are toothless ones.
Not only have a large number of constituents from the Senator Williams’ home county voiced their support of the Senator, but it also turns out that the Tennessee Senate Republican Caucus may have no official means of punishing Senate members who step out of line.
The GOP Caucus, began a draft proposal to establish rules regulating party votes after Sen. Tim Burchett and Sen. Mike Williams jumped ship in 2005 to vote for Wilder. However, even though the new draft by-laws state that one of the purposes of the Senate GOP Caucus is to elect a Republican Senate Speaker there is no means of punishing Republicans that vote for a Democrat instead.
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Christian Groups Boycott “Left Behind” Video Game
Published by December 13th, 2006 in National. 4 CommentsSeveral Christian groups are urging a boycott of a video game based on the Left Behind series. The game, is a first person shooter in which players find themselves left behind after the “rapture” and must navigate a post-apocalyptic world. The goal of the game is to “convert” or kill as many non-rapture believing Christians and non-Christians as possible. Players are rewarded for both converts and kills.
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