Shots Across The Bow

John Kerry Gets One Right.

Albeit inadvertently.

Not about the educational performance of the troops; he's dead wrong about that. I saw it for myself a few weeks ago we my son graduated from Basic Combat Training. For a bunch of poor, underprivileged, under-educated recruits, their families sure seemed to drive an awful lot of nice cars.

No, the only thing Kerry got right was in his defense of his stupid comment.

This is the classic G.O.P. playbook.

Karl Rove thanks you for your support, Sen. Kerry.

The Prestige

Where misdirection should be wielded with the precision of a surgeon's scalpel, this movie uses it like a sledgehammer to batter the viewer into numbed submission, which is too bad, because buried beneath the randomly shifting timelines was a pretty cool story.

The story follows Robert Angier ()Hugh Jackman) and Alfred Borden (Christian Bale) two young magicians aspiring to become the most celebrated magician of their era. Starting as friends and co-workers, tragedy sets them against each other in a blood feud as each attempts to outdo the other. The problem is that the movie shifts backwards and forwards in time, seemingly at random intervals. I'm guessing that the effect is supposed to be one of revelation as scenes take on a different light as they are explained by later ones, but the problem is that there are no revelations.

Magic relies on mystery, and there are no mysteries here. We know what is coming long before the movie gets there.

I can't say much more about the movie without giving away some spoilers, so I'll put the rest of the review below the fold. I do give away the major plot points, so if you plan on seeing the movie, don't go any further.

Movies that rely on a gimmick, a twist, or a shock ending are usually only good for one viewing. While occasionally, you get a movie that makes the twist the icing on the cake instead of the cake itself, like The Sixth Sense, or Million Dollar Baby, more often, writers and directors get so hung up on preserving the twist that they forget to serve up the rest of the movie.

The Prestige has the makings of a killer movie, but not only does it fail to bake the cake, the icing falls flat as well. Michael Caine told us early in the movie that Borden was using a double, and since the character of Fuller just randomly materialized, it was pretty clear who the double was. And as for the contents of the the tanks, anybody who didn't see that coming wasn't watching the movie.

So much for the twists.

There's another problem in the story that comes from the book; the rules set at the beginning of the movie were violated. This is a story about stage magic, illusions. To suddenly introduce real magic, even if it is supposedly based on science, breaks my suspension of disbelief. I don't buy it anymore.

This could have been a much better movie. It's worth a matinee, or a rental, but I left the theater wanting to see The Illusionist, which is supposed to be a better movie.

Never Mind

In yesterday's podcast, I called on folks to leave Michael J. Fox alone. Some people are criticizing him for going of his meds to dramatize his condition.

Today, Fox claims he wasn't off his meds, that the tremors and slurred speech were a normal occurrence, implying that his medications weren't always effective or reliable.

You can imagine this came as quite a shock to me since just a couple of months ago, I saw him on Inside the Actors Studio, where he gave an extended interview with nary a twitch. In fact, at one point, he halted the interview so he could go of stage and take his meds in order to complete the show with minimal palsy.

Coincidentally, that episode is being rebroadcast on Oct 30th. Check it out for yourself and see if you think Fox was really on his meds or not.

In my book, he's gone from a hero to a zero.

Technorati Issues

I just signed up for techorati and there's a problem. According to them, I haven't updated in 6 months.

How do I fix that?

Political Ads

OK, due to popular demand, here is the next podcast from Shots Across the Bow. This time, I take on political ads, primarily the Michael J Fox spots and the RNC attack on Harold Ford. The ads can be seen below, if you care for that sort of thing.
Musical Credits:
Intro: Liar by Three Dog Night
Exit: Don't Slander Me by Roky Erickson

Harold, Call Me



A Fox the Dems can call their own.

Resolving a Paradox: Part 1 The Separation of Church and Science

The Earth was created in 6 days and is about 10,000 years old.

The Earth formed over millions of years and is about 4.5 billion years old.

One is an article of faith, the other a matter of science, right?

One is true, the other patently false, right?

Well, maybe not. What if I told you that there is a way to use science to show that both statements could be accurate simultaneously? Note carefully that I said could be true, not are true. I can't say for sure if the following series of conjectures is true or not. What I can say is that the second statement does not automatically render the first one false.

It all depends on using the proper framework.

For starters, you have to understand that by design, science does not answer any questions about religion and the existence of God. The idea of supernatural forces/beings/actions is automatically excluded from consideration in the scientific framework. This makes scientists very happy, as they can make and test their mechanistic theories about how the world works without worrying about divinity mucking things up.

But there's a consequence to operating in this framework that many scientists have a tendency to forget. Since they start out by choosing postulates that exclude the idea of God, none of their results can be construed to say anything about God, whether positive or negative.

Yes, you in the back, you have a question?

"But if the equations work without a God, then that means there's no need for a God, so doesn't that prove He doesn't exist?"

A good question, and one I'm glad you asked because it perfectly illustrates the fallacy of trying to disprove the existence o God using science. The short answer is "No, it doesn't." To more fully demonstrate, let's construct a proof. Your argument goes like this:

I can describe this process without resorting to God.
Therefore God does not exist.

It is very clear that the conclusion is not supported by the proposition. In order for the conclusion to be true, you would have to include a first postulate, making the proof look like this:

If God exists, He must be crucial to every process description.
I can describe this process without God.
Therefore God does not exist.

While the proof is logically sound, there is no basis for the first postulate, which makes the proof invalid.

Now, getting back to the subject at hand, the first postulate of science can be stated like this:

All processes in nature can be described without recourse to supernatural actors/forces.

Note that this statement says nothing about whether or not those forces actually exist or not. And because it doesn't, no proof constructed from that first postulate can have anything to say about the existence of those forces.

So, since science by definition cannot say anything about God, then why would I call this essay "The Mathematics of Divinity?"

Because math is not science; math is a descriptive language. It uses abstract symbols manipulated in a rigid, logical fashion, in an attempt to describe the real world. The results are haphazard at best.

Ahh, you in the back again. Math major, I take it?

"Come on, professor! You expect us to believe that math is haphazard? Math is perfectly designed, always logical, always repeatable, and makes perfect sense! How can you call that haphazard?"

Ok, allow me to demonstrate. Come up to the front of the class. On my desk, you'll find 5 pencils. Take 7 of them and bring them here to the podium.

"I can't! If there are only 5, then how can I bring you 7?"

What, you can't bring me -2 pencils?

As I said, haphazard. Following the rigid logical rules of mathematics can easily result in answers that have no real world counterpart. The point I'm trying to make here is that math is only useful when it provides an accurate description of the real world and its processes. It has no intrinsic value of its own.

So, what does all of this have to do with reconciling the biblical age of the earth with the scientific age?

Everything.

We'll talk about age as a dimension in Part 2.

I Voted

As promised, NO on Amendment 1, and I voted for neither Ford nor Corker. If those two represent the best Tennessee has to offer, we are in truly sad shape.

A Blogger Visits the MSM. Part 1: The Fourth Estate Goes Commercial

If there's one thing that the left and right halves of the blogosphere agree on, it's that the mainstream media is biased.

Of course, we don't agree on the direction of the bias, but that's just a minor quibble, right?

Folks on the left say that the media is biased to the right because wealthy corporate types own the media, and we all know that all wealthy corporate types are conservatives, right? Folks on the right say the media is biased to the left because the vast overwhelming majority of editors, publishers, reporters and columnists vote Democrat.

So which side is right? Both? Neither? After spending a day at the Knoxville News Sentinel, I still don't know, although I suspect that the answer is "a little of both." What I did discover was that there are other factors that play a far larger role in determining A) which stories are followed, and B) how they are presented.

Before I get started, I have to thank Michael Silence for getting me in the doors, and Editor Jack McElroy for allowing me complete access to his newsroom. “Go where you want and write whatever you want,” is what he said to me. We’ll see how serious he was about that when I get back from Vegas and send him an expense report.

To begin, we have to understand that a newspaper is a business, and like any other, it must pay the bills and make a profit. Fail in that regard, and it doesn't matter how many Pulitzers you win; nobody can read a paper that goes out of business.

There are many who look at the idea of operating a paper for profit as, well, a conflict of interest, and they have a point. After all, facing the truth is an often unpleasant experience, and how many people will continue to buy a paper that they find unpleasant? The publisher will want to print stories that will appeal to his readers in some fashion or another. A good example of this is the recent story in the KNS about the Farragut Birthday Bacchanalia. Since when is a girl's birthday party news?

Since it becomes one of the most popular pieces the paper has published in recent times. The front desk at the Sentinel has sold more copies of that paper than any other this year. The links on the website to the multimedia portions of the story continue to draw significant traffic. Email to the editor is still flowing in. As online producer Erin Chapin told me, the Jerry Springer Days stories bring the most traffic. Or as Editor Jack McElroy posted on his blog:

News is what people talk about, and people definitely were talking about "My Super Sweet 15." Our Web traffic showed it was the best-read and the most discussed story of the year.

This brings up a very important point; not only do people usually get the government they deserve, they absolutely get the press they deserve. One of the things that online news makes possible is the ability for the consumer to custom tailor the news he reads on a daily basis. He can use any one of a dozen different aggregators to pick and choose which news stories he reads. This sounds great in theory, but there's a drawback. If people only read the news stories that appeal to them, there's a good chance they'll lose track of the big picture, and never know they're missing it. An online newspaper has the ability to marry the depth of coverage from newspapers with the immediacy and multimedia of television, leveraging the strengths of both mediums, but if all Joe Public wants to read is the Sports pages and Peanuts reruns, it all goes to waste.

And there's very little that can be done about it. As Jigsha Desai, online editor said, the consumer gets to make the final choice. I also talked with Deputy Managing Editor Tom Chester, (Think Lou Grant with a pony tail and a toothache) who had a more optimistic view. He pointed out that it wasn't just the salacious stories that got big traffic. There were a couple of stories with national impact that pulled very strong online numbers, including the Roane County prison break that killed Cotton Morgan. According to Chester, the KNS updated frequently and rapidly, and became the best source for those following the story nationally.

It becomes a balancing act of sorts; you have to maintain your readership so they’ll be there when the news breaks.

Making it even tougher is the fact that 75% of the paper's revenue comes from advertisers. The biggest single impact of this fact is space. That amount of advertising takes up a ton of space that would otherwise go to news. On the day I was there, Say Uncle criticized the KNS for not covering a story he was pushing concerning Knoxville Mayor Bill Haslam. Say Uncle said:

I handed the local newspaper the story on a silver platter. I posted the story on their blog. I know that some local TeeVee folks read that blog and my blog. But, not a peep any where in the local press. Your average Knoxvillian (who’d likely not be happy about this) doesn’t know it happened.

But the local newspaper has some hard-hitting stories on beefcake, planting trees, and chainsaw sculpting.

On the day in question, both the A and B sections of the paper were running long, and stories were getting bumped and trimmed to fit. I sat in on the final budget meeting of the day, and while Uncle's story never came up, it was clear that there simply wasn't room for another story. Add that to the balancing issues I discussed earlier, and you can understand more about how the story about Knoxville's top bachelor made the cut.

It's not a perfect business; there's always going to be compromise.

But here's the thing that Uncle is forgetting; the KNS did publish a story about it. They published Uncle's story via Michael's blog. And assuming that the blogs are archived just like the rest of the online content, any searches on Haslam and Bloomberg will pull up Uncle's post. Think about that for a second. A private citizen, writing anonymously, can publish a hard news story on a MSM website.

I think that's fairly impressive myself.

So here's the bottom line of this first look at the KNS. Like so much else in the real world, newspapering is all about compromise. You have competing demands for space, plus you have to report the hard news while keeping your increasingly distracted readerships full attention.

And you have to make a few bucks at the same time.

I know there are a lot of folks who hate the idea of a for profit media, and as we've examined, there are drawbacks to the corporate model. But it seems to me that we as consumers are the most glaring drawback. We say we want hard news but we follow stories about Britney Spears and her baby much more avidly. Steve Irwin's death by stingray drew significantly more attention than North Korea's detonation of a nuclear weapon. We get the media we pay for folks, and right now, we're putting all our money into gossip and hype.

And what is the alternative to a corporate media? One that's government sponsored, like the BBC in England? Talk about a conflict of interest!

This may be the dynamic that is driving the blogosphere. Tired of the filler and fluff, frustrated by the lack of space for in-depth coverage, we go out and do the job for ourselves. We aren't limited by column inches, only by bandwidth and server space, and that gives us a freedom most reporters can only envy. But as more content goes online, and more newspapers break the old school mindset, I think we'll see newspapers come to resemble blogs more.

I talked for quite a while with Jack Lail, Managing Editor/Multimedia about how online newspapers would compete with free news aggregators already out there. His response was that people came to the internet looking for original content, and somebody had to be able to provide it. And as Tom Chester mentioned, one of the things that drew international attention to some of their stories was the frequent updates that kept the story fresh and current.

Original content, frequently updated?

That's blogging, folks.

Part 2 will cover the online growth of the KNS in more detail.
Part 3 will cover how a story is framed and presented, using two different stories.
Part 4 will cover election night at a major newspaper.
Part 5 will cover the Sports operations, which are almost completely separate from the rest of the paper, from the standpoint of covering the Vol's bowl game. (In my dreams!)
Part 6 (If they let me back into the building) will cover the physical aspects of the paper's production.
Part 7 will cover any questions you, my loyal readers will want to ask that I've forgotten to ask.

Army Manning: An Observation

We all know the statistics and the scares: The left fringe constantly sounds the draft drumbeat, while the Pentagon insists that there will be no such thing, and the recruitment/retention goals are being met or exceeded.

So which side is telling the truth? Durned if I know, but I do have some anecdotal observations to add to the discussion.

When Adam got to Basic at Fort Leonard Wood, his start date was backed up by about 3 weeks because the facilities were overloaded. There were more recruits than the base was prepared to handle.

When he left basic for AIT at Fort Sill, his training start date has once again ben rolled back due to the high numbers of soldiers in the training pipeline. According to him, there are facilities for training about 250 soldiers per class at any give time. Right now, there are almost 500 soldiers in the class.

What does this mean? Let's put it this way; do you need a draft when you have morevolunteers than you can train?

The Shots Across the Bow 2006 Voters Guide

Early voting is underway and to help you all out in deciding who to vote for, I've put together the Shots Across the Bow Voter's Guide. Here in one place I address all the major issues, showing you the differences between the parties so you can make an informed choice when you get into the booth. Sure, the News Sentinel has their version, but who do want to trust, a major conglomerate or a pajama clad blogger?

Never mind; don't answer that.

Without further ado, the voting guide.

Oops, I forgot to mention that this is my first podcast. Very low tech for now; I don't even have any bumper music. You'll just have to settle for me! Let me know what you think!

UPDATE: While it plays at a reasonable volume on my laptop, I've gotten a couple of reports that it's too quiet, so I replaced the original file with one that should be louder.

Multicultural Myopia.

Let me get this straight:

If a Christian landlord refuses to rent to a gay couple based on his religious beliefs, we should condemn him as a homophobic bigot.

If a Muslim cab driver refuses to carry a passenger because that passenger is carrying alcohol, or is transgendered, we should respect his religion and set up an entirely separate system for him, in order to show respect for his religion.

I don't think so.

Private Adam Michael Privett; An American Soldier

The Soldier's Creed:
I am an American Soldier.
I am a Warrior and a member of a team.
I serve the people of the United States and
live the Army Values.

I will always place the mission first.
I will never accept defeat.
I will never quit.
I will never leave a fallen comrade.

I am disciplined, physically and mentally tough, trained and proficient in my warrior tasks and drills. I always maintain my arms, my equipment and myself.
I am an expert and I am a professional.
I stand ready to deploy, engage, and destroy the enemies of the United States of America in close combat.
I am a guardian of freedom and the American way of life.
I am an American Soldier.

Adam in Class As




Proud Papa




The old hand shows the new kid how to read Army Orders

Protesting Too Much

Via Michael Silence, I see that an enterprising fellow is currently constructing a mockumentary about the 101st Fighting Keyboarders, whose blogroll you'll find to the right of this page.

In what can only be considered accidental self-parody, creator Paul H. Henry and his friends are devoting a tremendous amount of time and effort to creating a series of chapters stretching out over 5 weeks, all designed to show us warbloggers how irrelevant we are.

If we're provoking that type of response, just how irrelevant can we be?

Light Blogging for the remainder of the week

My oldest son graduates from boot camp and I'm driving to Missouri on Wednesday and won't be abck until late Friday.

No wild parties while I'm gone, and clean up the mess before I get back!

Vols ranked 8th in AP, 9th in Coaches Polls

Is Tennessee really that good?

I'm saying yes, but it has less to do with the Georgia game and more to do with the season so far. Georgia's numbers, particularly on defense, were inflated by a soft schedule, (opponents went a combined 11-18) and the offense was revealed as suspect by their struggles against Ole Miss and winless Colorado.

But let's look at the rest of Tennessee's schedule to date.

• Tennessee has faced one of the tougher schedules in college football. Our opponents have a combined record of 20-12
• Cal is on a 5 game winning streak since losing to the Vols, scoring 40+ points per game and reclaiming a top 10 ranking. They just beat a highly ranked Oregon team soundly.
• Air Force is undefeated in conference play
• The Gators are rolling towards an undefeated season. And no, Georgia has no chance agains the Gators.
• The Vols are 2-1 against teams ranked in the top 10 when we played them, and lost by 1 point to Florida.

So yes, the Vols are a top 10 team. You could argue that there are a couple of teams ranked behind them that could beat them, but there are also a couple of teams ranked ahead of them that they could handle fairly easily. As the season progresses, we'll see how it all shakes out.

Nuclear Test in NK

The peace loving people of North Korea™ have just tested their first nuclear weapon. The MAD doctrine has officially been replaced by the Madness doctrine. It is no longer a question of if nukes will be used against the US, but when.

We now return you to your 24/7 coverage of Mark Foley.

The Birthday Party

It seems all of Knoxville is simply agog over a massive birthday party thrown for a Farragut girl by her mother. It's gotten more ink and pixels than any story not involving gay cyber sex, so I guess I ought to throw my own two cents in.

I don't get it. Why all the fuss? If I could afford to make each one of my kids king/queen for the day, I'd do it in a heartbeat.

And so would a lot of you folks out there who are griping about it.

I'd spend the money a liitle bit differently. I'd probably spend less on clothes, invites, and fancy cakes, and go for a first class weekend in NYC, or something like that, But that's just details; the bottom line is I have no problem with a parent who wants to blow it out on one occasion for her kid.

Vols 51, The Overrated Pound Puppies 33

You know what the most fun part of the game was?

Listening to the shock in the ESPN announcers' voices as the Vols utterly destroyed the Bulldogs over the second half.

Sorry, ESPN, we decided not to follow your script.

Did anybody else catch it late in the fourth quarter, when the announcer started talking about how the Tennessee game showed how good a team Florida was?

I didn't see a Gator on the field, did you? Here's a hint, ESPN; talk about the freakin' game you're broadcasting, not last week's game, or the game you wish you were watching.

One last thing and I'll lay off ESPN for a bit. I waited through the boring baseball stuff to get to Sportscenter's coverage of the UT game, and if I hadn't just watched the game, I wouldn't have known that UT won. Every highlight was Georgia scoring, and the only comment they made about Tennessee was "Boy, they need help on special teams."

Yeah, that's certainly a bigger story than UT scoring 51 points on the number one ranked scoring defense in the NCAA.

Man, what a game! The Vol defense, patched up and held together with duct tape, held the Dawgs to 9 second half points while the offense exploded for 30 points, not counting the blocked punt. Way to go Wardlow! Cutcliffe supplemented a fair running game with a strong short passing attack that kept Georgia scratching their heads and sniffing their tails as they tried to come up with a way to stop the Tennessee attack.

Now it's time to get ready for Bama in two weeks. I don't care that they struggled against Duke. The Tide Vol game is always a battle.

I'm looking forward to it...

For the Good of Society

I don't like that phrase, and tend not to trust an argument based on it. Any time somebody says, "We must do this for the benefit of society," or "We can't do that because it would harm society," I get a little bit suspicious. It usually turns out that the "society" those folks are talking about is a group limited to them and the people who think like them.

That's why I try to avoid it, and instead speak about the limiting of personal freedoms. It's a much more concrete concept, and much easier to measure.

Let's revisit the Marriage Protection Act as an example. It's backers all claim that we must protect marriage "for the good of society." They almost always fail however in providing any concrete details in exactly what they're protecting marriage from, and how limiting marriage to one man one woman will accomplish that goal. Many times they fall back on the argument that it's the traditional form of marriage, and since it is the most common, it must be the best. While there's some merit to that idea, it can't be accepted blindly. History is full of practices that lasted for centuries, only to be replaced when we outgrew them.

Monarchies, for example.

The fact is that virtually all forms of family arrangement can work, as long as a few simple rules are observed. The primary purpose of a marriage is to raise children to function within the society, and that means that the form of marriage will be dictated by the form of the society.

Take a desert nomadic culture, where infant mortality is high, and each clan faced constant warfare. That society has a vested interest in producing as many babies of the strongest stock as possible, while requiring a surplus of males for fighting off raids. The inevitable result of this environment is a polygamous marriage structure.

So if we want to use "the good of society" as a measure, first we have to define what society we're talking about, and that's nearly imposible in America. We are no longer a homogenous country, if in fact we ever were; for better or worse we are now a large grouping of diffrent cultures, bumping up against each other, causing friction between the groups. Trying to enforce the beliefs of one of those groups on the others will only increase that friction, leading to discord.

So let's take a different approach. Instead of concentrating on the differences between the groups, let's work with what they all have in common, and see where that takes us. One thing we all share is the desire to maximize our personal freedoms; we want to be able to make our own choices. If we approach government from that viewpoint, maximizing personal freom, that leads us to a different criteria for limiting those freedoms. Instead of worrying about how our choices affect society, instead we're looking at whether our choices result in limiting the freedoms of others.

Can anybody make the case that allowing two men to get married will limit the freedoms of anybody else?

I can't. And until that argument is made, then the state has no business interfering.

Keeping Our Ports Safe by Banning Online Poker

Mr. Frist, you will never be elected President. I'll campaign for your opposition, whoever it may be. Heck, I'd even vote for Hillary Clinton over you. I know what to expect from her.

Listen you no-good sneak thief. If you want to stop internet gambling, then do it in a straight up fight. Take your nanny state bill and send it to the floor of the Senate on its own, not attached to a ompletely unrelated bill that you know will pass. That's an act of desperation; you knew you couldn't get it passed any other way so you had to sneak it in under cover of night.

Is that how you represent the people? By sneaking legislation past them? Is that how you plan to serve as President? Forcing your will on the people by whatever means necessary? The only ting you truly represent is everything that's wrong with American politics.

You're a dangerous man, Mr. Frist. You've decided that your opinions matter more than the people you are supposed to represent. That makes you unfit to serve as President. The good news is that we won't have to deal with you for much longer. Ford or Corker will take your Senate seat, you'll vanish in the Presidential primaries, and soon you'll be remembered in Tennessee politics in the same breath with Don Sundquist.

An appropriate legacy.

Capital Punishment

I'm against it.

But after hearing about those little Amish girls in Pennsylvania, I have to give it some more thought.

Do you let a rabid dog live because you think killing an animal is cruel?

For the record, if they'd held a vote in my 8th grade class, I would have been elected as the boy most likely to climb a tower and start shooting. I was unpopular, the class freak. I was picked on and made fun of for 6 years without any relief. But it never even crossed my mind to go pick up a gun and start killing the kids who were making fun of me. And I can't even begin to fathom the thought process that drives a man to grab a gun twenty years later and go spaughter a bunch of innocent hildren.

Nor do I feel any burning need to understand what drove that piece of sub-human filth to his atrocities.

Call me old fashioned, but I still believe that you don't try to understand a monster; you simply kill it before it gets to the kids.

Crank Up the Insanity; It's Almost Election Day

Ok, let me see if I've got the message right.

I'm supposed to vote for Democrats in Tennessee because a Florida congresman apparently agrees with the ACLU that soliciting teenagers for sex is protected speech?

And I'm supposed to be aghast at the use of "secret codewords" in a Republican fundraising letter that I'm told were used to let me know that Harold Ford is black?

And Dennis Hastert should resign because Mark Foley sent salacious IM's to an 18 year old?

What is this, voodoo politics? Political "spooky action at a distance?"

I don't think so folks.

Let's take a quick step back into the land of reality.

• If Foley propositioned minors; he should resign and face prosecution.

  He has and he is.
  

• If anybody had any knowledge of illegal acts by Foley and failed to come forward in a timely manner, then they should resign and face prosecution. That includes members of the opposition party and the press as well as the Republican leadership.

  From what I'm hearing so far, it seems like covering up a crime to get away with it is bad; covering it up to spring it on the political opposition at a time when you can gain the most advantage is just good politics. Never mind that you potentially covered for a sexual predator over a three year period; it's the election that counts!

• I didn't need any "code words" to figure out that Harold Ford is black. Nor do I care. And since I forgot to send in two Krunchy Korn Klusters breakfast cereal box tops (eat with white milk only) plus $5.95 for shipping and handling, I never got my Sooper Secret Special Racist Decoder Ring, I tend to miss those secret messages anyway.

  And it seems to me that the Ford campaign is making this a much bigger deal. They wouldn't be trying to use race to their political advantage would they?

  The sick behavior on both sides of this race is all the more reason to vote NOTA in the Senate race. I'll pick one of the fringe candidates; they may not have a chance to win, but at least I'll respect myself in the morning.

Just out of curiosity, where are all those privacy hawks that were so upset about the government monitoring phone calls, and tracking money. They were ready to go to the mat to defend our right to communicate privately.

Apparently their concern doesn't extend to Republican emails and IMs.

And before I get comments about how I'm defending a child molester just because he's a Republican, let me point out once again that I said if he did what people say he did (and based on his actions since the story broke, I have no doubt that he did, and probably much worse) the he should go to jail.

I just don't agree that it has anything to do with any race outside of one Congressional district in Florida.

Marriage Protection Amendment

We get to vote on it in a couple of weeks.

How will you vote?

Before you answer, think about what the amendment says for a moment. It says that the State Government is asserting the right to tell you who you can marry and who you can't. Of course, since it's a Constitutional Amendment, and has to be ratified by the voters, it's really saying that your neighbors have a say in who you marry.

Do you really want to allow your next door neighbor to have any input in deciding who you share your life with?

Let's apply the definition I used when discussing my political philosophy and see where that takes us. Looking back, I said:

1. The role of the government is to protect us from each other, not ourselves. That's the difference between being a citizen and a subject.
   
2. The government will be assigned specific, limited, tasks to carry out its role. Those tasks cannot be expanded by the government, only by the citizens.
   
3. The power of the government to carry out its assigned tasks is strictly limited to that which is ceded by its citizens.

So let's look at marriage in the light of the above statements. It is clear to me that under number 1, the state must be able to show that allowing marriages other than one man-one woman would have a damaging impact on folks outside of that marriage. Maybe you can make that case, but I think it's a big stretch. If two guys get married, the only impact I see is that I face less competition on Saturday night.

If any of y'all can make a case for how allowing two people of the same sex to get married would cause damage to you, by all means, make it. Just make certain that your arguments do not apply equally as well to traditional marriages. Or interracial marriages. Or interreligious marriages.

Having failed the first requirement, it's clear to me that the MPA is a non-starter. It's a governmental invasion of my rights as a free adult to do what I want with my life.

So I will be voting NO.

It's All Relative

Every now and then, we get a reminder that we are truly blessed in our lives. It usually comes at a time when we are stressed beyond what we think are our limits.

I get to announce on the PA system for the local elementary and middle school football teams. It's something I really enjoy doing. I just found out yesterday that one of the little guys whose game I called last week went to the hospital with dizzy spells 2 days ago. The doctors did some tests, and an MRI showed a massive tumor on his brain. They'll do surgery to remove as much of the mass as possible, but they won't be able to get it all, and even if it's benign, there will be some brain damage from the surgery.

He's 8 years old.

I have six healthy, smart, and relatively well rounded children; I am unbelievably blessed beyond measure.

For those of you who read this message, if you believe in a God, and believe in prayer, please add this youngster and his family to your prayers.

And if you have kids, give them an extra hug, and count your blessings.

Things Not to Talk About at a Party

I've always heard that there are three things you should never talk about at a party:

Religion.
Politics.
I can't remember what the other one is, but we probably talked about it too.

Yep, we had a BlogFest tonight, (Just checked my watch, and I guess I should say last night, but since I haven't been to sleep yet, its still tonight to me) and we talked about everything under the sun, and some critters that have never seen sunlight, like Knoxville politicians for example, and a good time was had by all.

I got to meet some old friends, and make some new ones, and that's always a good thing. A lot of folks showed up, including a few that I wasn't expecting, and we had a very interesting mix of personalities.

Before I go any further, I'm going to apologize in advance to anybody whose name I mess up. I was writing with a cheap pen on register paper, and my handwriting isn't all that great to begin with, so transcription errors are sure to creep in. Let me know in the comments and I'll fix the errors as quickly as possible.

When I walked in to Barley's shortly after 6, I let the folks at the door know that I was with the RTB, and was expecting a large group. They directed me to the upstairs bar. During this brief conversation, I was approached by a distinguished looking gentleman, who introduced himself as the man behind the blog Staghounds. He introduced himself, and we climbed the steps to the promised land. Upon reaching the summit, we met Racheal of TN Girl who heard us discussing the internet, and flagged us down.

It seems that three was the critical number, because after that, people began coming over from the bar and joining our little group. In short order, we had a crowd. Michael Silence, who I'd met once before at a gathering he held came over and joined us. He's looking very trim, and we had an interesting talk about the political future of the US, and about how bloggers could integrate with the existing media framework, to the benefit of all concerned. Julie Patchouli and Lissakay were the next two to arrive (I think. Things are starting to blur a bit, but then again, it's 2AM or so) and we all introduced ourselves, and figured out who went with which blog.

The ever dapper R. Neal showed up with his lovely wife Michelle, and Cathy arrived, with a baby in her arms and son in tow. Betty Bean made it to the bash, despite the fact that I held it a day early!*grin* The last arrivals of the early group were Frank Murphy and his family, a pleasant surprise since he hadn't told me he was coming.

We kind of stood around awkwardly at first, since essentially we were a big group of strangers who may have known one or two of the other people there, but had only read the words of the rest, if that. But despite the popular image of social misfits barricaded in their mother's basement, typing rants at midnight wearing pajamas, bloggers tend to be a social lot, and pretty soon, the conversation took off, and things really got rolling.

More folks trickled in as the night went on. Frank and his wife (Tina? I'm sorry, but I'm drawing a blank...) from Team Swap came in, as did Katie Allison Granju and Jonathan Hickman, who arrived late and left early. Ahhh. Newlyweds! Katie asked all about my impending grandpappyhood, and I talked with Jonathan about chicken wing recipes.

A mountain of a man came slowly up the steps, and I was introduced to local actor, writer, blogger, and all around interesting man, cafkia, whose blog name is an acronym I will not repeat, but wish I'd thought of, since it applies to many of us so perfectly. Rumormonger, well known to those who read Knoxblab came along, and the last two to arrive were Matt, who writes the Tennessee's Progressive Report, and Stacey. I didn't get a chance to talk to Stacey, so I don't have a link to her blog, but I hope to correct that shortly.

I think I got everybody; if I missed you, let me know, and I'll fix it.

Y'all will be happy to know that I was on my best behavior, and avoided all controversial subjects during the 5+ hours I was there.

Except for the discussion I had with Betty Bean about the Civil War and Neo-Confederatism.

Oh, and the discussion over the equality of men and women I had with LissaKay and Randy.

And a quick discussion on Islamofascism with cafkia and Lissakay.

And I talked with Matt quite a bit on the Ford Corker race.

ANd we all talked about gay marriage and the Marriage amendment.

Other than that, I avoided any topic that might be considered in the least controversial.

Some highlights of the evening:

• cafkia wasn't familiar with Frank's blogging style, so I gave him a quick introduction by asking Frank his thoughts on the new, souped up, Oscar Mayer Weinermobile. Frank played right along, and immediately began expounding on the merits of microwaving a hotdog in the bun, and reminiscing about riding in the original weinermobile while cafkia just stared in a sort of stunned disbelief.

  I guess you had to be there, but it was funny. Maybe that's my comedic talent; I can be Carl Reiner to somebody else's Mel Brooks. I'll just feed straight lines and play along while a really funny person gets the laughs.

  Hey, it worked for George Burns.
  

• In a discussion about the internet, I hear Randy say something that I had never considered before, but that immediately made a lot of sense. "Bloggers provide the one thing the internet needed but didn't have; fresh content." It was one of those statements that in retrospect seems obvious, but I just had never thought of it that way. And blogging is the key to advertising on the internet. Until blogging took off, most web pages were static; making it nothing more than an electronic library. Sure, that's a wonderful thing all by itself, but it isn't sexy. It doesn't drive repeat traffic. Blogging is sexy; it draws you back to the same pages over and over because they change with each visit. And multiple viewings are the key to successful advertising.
  
• Frank Jr, commenting to his father, "Oh great, I'm stuck in a room with a bunch of people like you!"
  
• Lissakay describing herself as a "Radical Moderate." The phrase might not be original, but I love it! I may use it as the name of my hypothetical third party when I hypothetically run for President in 2008.

In short, we all had a good time, and folks were very receptive to the idea of making this a regular event. So expect to hear from me again in a couple of weeks and I'll start lining up another one for October. Those of you who missed out on this one will have your chance at the next one. Is the Old City a convenient location for everybody, or should we move it around more, maybe hit Sassy Anne's or some place out west? Let me know.

By the way, Cathy has already posted some pictures and Lissakay has some here.
I would have brought my camera, but at the last one of these we held, I had to fuzz out the faces of so many anonybloggers that there wasn't much picture left!