Oil would be well if it ended well, but oils not well..or a bigHola to Burton comes up dry

In another case of YOUR tax dollars at work, the LA Times reports here that oil production in Iraq is still lower than in the pre-war days, and that future oil production has been seriously harmed thanks to bungling by Halliburton and KBR.

Is this the case of the gang that couldn’t drill straight????

My favorite is the $70,000,000 given to KBR for building pipelines that were only half completed forcing the Iraqis to pump the oil back into the freaking ground.

The Tennessean got our name right!!

In today’s North Davidson section of the Tennessean that actually contained North Nashville coverage in three pages out of eight, Nancy Deville wrote a story about the new brownstone development in our neighborhood and she actually got our neighborhood name right – Salemtown. We’ve apparently graduated from being in ‘the Germantown area’.

The City Paper managed to break the new development story about a month ago, but they also managed to tar the neighborhood as somewhat squalid and aluminum sided, with the caveat that the new development would lift Salemtown from its seediness. Needless to say, Salemtown bloggers didn’t care for the characterization –S-TownMike’s take and my own weigh-in.

The Tennessean piece didn’t paint the new development and developers as saviors of a drowning neighborhood, so, even though they came to the story late, a tip of the hat to Ms. Deville.

Tennessee Rubes – What the Gas Guy really thinks..

I blog-strolled over to the Gas Guy’s alter ego blog earlier tonight and happened to read his post on the Stones, along with a few of the comments..this one by The Gas Guy aka Evil Jeremy caught my eye:

You guys can, as consolation, all feel special that you know the answer to the Riddle of Gas and a bunch of poor rubes in the Volunteer State do not.

The Gas Guy is snickering with his pals who were in on the joke.

Turns out he really is a Gaseous guy…

Reaching out to my Republican friends

Are you lonely? Do you need a date? Are you having trouble meeting people who don’t start foaming at the mouth when they hear the name Bush? This site is an answered prayer.

Thanks to MSNBC.

If you’re not watching Veronica Mars…

you are missing one of the best shows on TV. Kristin Bell, the actress who plays Veronica, may be 25 but she plays 17 quite well.

The writers know how to work a story arc over the course of a season without sacrificing the ‘watchability’ of individual episodes (check out Season 1 on DVD whenever it comes out and you’ll see). Veronica is a sleuthing daughter of a private detective who manages to walk the thin line between the cool crowd and the dweebs and somehow masters the domain without really fitting in anywhere.

TV gets high school, maybe because many of the writers are mentally still in high school. TV doesn’t do college well – witness any number of shows that centered on high school (Beverly Hills 90210, Dawson’s Creek, Buffy) that were decent to good while the kids were in high school, but just totally sucked rocks when the kids went to college.

Veronica M. is as good as any of the aforementioned shows, imo. Kristin B is a star and has now replaced Sara Michelle Geller (buffy) as the ridiculously younger actor who I now I have a crush on…damn, was that my out loud voice???

Yet another theory – Salemtown name game

My friend Gary responded to an earlier posting about the naming of Salemtown. His theory makes as much sense as any I have heard or read:

The now named American Tobacco Company, makers of snuff and stuff in plant(s) in the area of North Nashville ajoining Salemtown was originally part of the original American Tobacco Company started by James Buchanan “Buck” Duke. Buck Duke was an original robber baron, but was best know in the tobacco industry for introducing ready rolled cigarettes from his factories around Durham, Winston-Salam, and other towns in North Carolina. When he started those factories, the people in the world who knew all there was to know about cigarette machines were Greek. Thousands of Greeks had immigrated to the Norheast and were lured to North Carolina by the American Tobacco Company. Even today, there is a relatively large Greek population in mid North Carolina many of which work for big tobacco.

That all being said. Working in a tobacco factory requires more skilled tradesmen than is intuitively obvious. One wonders if Mike, in his seminal post, had the tobacco right but the reason wrong. What if Buck Duke, or others, started snuff factories in Nashville and sent a relatively large group skilled workers from North Carolina who were from the Winston-Salem area who settled in the enclave in North Nashville within walking distance of the snuff factories? What if they called their new neighborhood ‘Salemtown’ in honor of their North Carolina roots?

I’m pretty sure no witches were burned here in S-Town, and I’m now sure that the name Salemtown pre-dates the Salem church. Tobacco has played a big role in Tennessee and Nashville history, so it really wouldn’t be surprising if the name refers to cigarettes (lone wolf theory) or to a town named for a cigarette.

North Nashville – Salem’s Lots helps out the Tennessean

I realize that I, a North End resident, may be a little bit sensitive on the following issue, but, is it too much to ask for the Tennessean to print at least one news item from North Nashville in their North Davidson edition?

I’ve included a terra-map of Nashville to help the Tennessean. The area below the ‘upside down U’ on the map is the main part of North Nashville. The eastern and northern boundary of North Nashville is the Cumberland River. The southern boundary is roughly Joe Johnston street extending out to the TSU campus on the west, and the Bicentennial Mall on the east. I know that some might quibble with these boundaries, but I don’t think anyone would argue that the Waverly-Belmont area AND Woodbine school are anywhere near North Nashville. Both Waverly-Belmont and Woodbine school are written up in today’s North Nashville edition.

As a long-time Nashville resident, I understand that Nashville geography is confusing. Much of what is commonly known as East Nashville is actually north of downtown. Old-timers know that South Nashville is roughly the Woodbine (Flat Rock for you real old-timers) area, even though the Granny White area is true south. I would have expected the Tennessean to have figured all this out by now.

I understand that the Friday edition of the Tennessean is going to cover some of the exciting new development in my neighborhood (Salemtown), thanks to S-TownMike. What I don’t get is how both S-TownMike and I had the story several weeks ago, along with the City Paper, and the Tennessean is just now getting here. Maybe they were trying to find our neighborhood but got lost in Waverly-Belmont.

Baseball blog neglect – where’s the LOVE?

I know there ARE some Nashville bloggers who profess their love of baseball. I read your profiles. I also know that Nashville is more of a football town than a baseball town, and I have to reluctantly accept that. I love the Dores (NOT bandwagoning here, i’ve been a fan since freakin’ 1960 and yes, I have suffered) and I’m a Titan fan, but my heart belongs to beisbol.

We are coming to the end of an exciting baseball season. My beloved Yankees are battling with the devil-spawn Red Sox for dominance in the East. The young whippersnapper Indians of Cleveland are waging a full frontal assault on the wilting White Sox. The suspiciously large-headed Barry Bonds is back and bashing home runs for the Giants who are maintaining a weak pulse of a chance in the West.

The American League season will end next week with the first and second place teams playing each other in series that will probably determine who advances to the playoffs. The National League wild-card race is blazing….yet…

The local blog world is void of spheroid discussion. There is another sport out there you know.

Go YANKEES!

My God, Flipper’s got a gun and he’s swimming this way…

At first I thought I was reading the Onion when I read this story. Apparently we’ve been training dolphins to pinpoint and shoot terrorists.

Hurricane Katrina has liberated these killer dolphins. I knew that the genetic makeup of said dolphins implies intelligient design, but I gotta wonder how they know the diff between a terrorist and an innocent scuba diver who doesn’t know today’s password or the difference between their intelligence handler and the PETA folks who are surely coming to the rescue.

Just my luck the next time I’m down chilling in Grayton Beach, I’ll be attacked by a brainwashed dolphin who thinks that all non-conservatives want to destroy his way of life…

Sharon Cobb

I had the privilege two weeks ago to hang out with blogger extrordinaire Sharon for an evening at the Australian Festival in Centennial Park. Prior to that evening I had talked to her approximately three minutes on the phone. We spent about three hours talking, walking, being grateful we didn’t spend $15 to sit under a tent to listen to the musical portion of the evening. Sharon is smart, clever, fun, not predictable (a high compliment btw) and someone I now consider a friend.

As most of you know by now, she is going in for surgery today. The cancer invading her body is a cruel imposter that will, hopefully, be removed completely today. Our thoughts and prayers have been requested, and I, like so many others, am not going to deny that request.

Peace and comfort, Sharon.

The ‘Rep’ is channeling Martin Luther King..

Representative Campfield has devoted a post to the eloquent ‘I have a dream’ speech. Sadly, he left out the part of the speech that proclaims, ‘I dream of a day when a white state representative will become a member of that state’s black caucus’.

We can always dream can’t we?

I was wondering how this particular post was not rife with grammatical errors and run-on sentences, and then I realized he was quoting from the King.

Not enough sense to get in and get out of the rain

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Reporters who stand out in the wind and rain during hurricanes are idiots, but more importantly think WE are idiots.By now most two year olds know that HURRICANES ARE BAD and they REALLY BLOW. Point your camera out from a window or porch if you want to show how that traffic light is being twisted and the big wow of another piece of aluminum siding blowing by. Give us a break.

Even sharks know better. I don’t really want any of these faux-Jack-Londoners to die or even get seriously injured, but I do wish that at least one of them would get blown about 30 yards across one of their strategically important parking lots. Now THAT would be entertainment.

FDA Head resigns – I’m sure there’s some horse show official..

out there ready to step in and take the reins..

FDA head Lester Crawford resigned today. The former vet’s lowlights included the approval of Vioxx and the political decision (vs. the medical decision) to not approve the sale of emergency contraception and recalls of malfunctioning heart devices.

Stomp twice if you think that emergency contraception is baaaaaaaaaaaaaad…

It was SUPPOSED to be the summer of George

I have a theory that pretty much every situation in life has some analogy or corollary from Seinfeld. If you have seen all the episodes (in some cases multiple times), you will recall a line or a scene or a plot twist that somehow relates to the current mise en scene.

“You know ….if you had told me twenty-five years ago that some day I’d be standing here about to solve the world’s energy problems, I would’ve said you were crazy. Now let’s push this giant ball of oil out this window.”

An energy bill porked up with some interesting Texas expenditures and suspicious pollution waivers courtesy of Tom DeLay, that does not address CAFE standards, that does not intensely concentrate on alternative energy sources or new technology and that does not even address global warming concerns (yes, there IS a middle ground between Kyoto Protocols and doing freaking NOTHING) is about as sensible as pushing a giant ball of oil out of the window.

“So, has the summer of George begun? Or are you still decomposing?”
“Decompressing.”

Having to cut that month-long vacation in Texas by two days must have been a jolt…

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but lately I’ve been drifting aimlessly.”
“Now that you mention it.”
“But I’ve finally realized what’s missing in my life… Structure!”

Based on various reports about the President’s involvement during the first three days post-Katrina, including his initial listless remarks which sounded like he WAS reading a laundry list, followed by a speech in San Diego and some golf and back to Texas.

“Yes, I was very wise to hitch my wagon to his star..”

General Colin Powell apologized for his pre-Iraq war speech to the U.N. explaining why we HAD to go to war in Iraq. Also pretty much every senator or congressman in a moderate non-blood red state who is identified with the Bush doctrine, now that everyone can see that the man is as fiscally conservative as a drunken _______ (fill in the blank with any group or person you wish to insult) at a whorehouse, and that the build-up to the war may have been well-planned but the post-war terrorist-recruiting prelude to a civil war plan ain’t exactly working as advertised. And, yes, I know that much good has been done and that Saddam was bad, but I also know that we are up to 24,000 civilian deaths and 1,899 American military casualties. Oh yeah, most of the terrorist funding pre-9/11 up to today has come from Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia.

“Why would we want to help somebody?” That’s what nuns and Red Cross workers are for.”

The Rush/O’Reilley initial response that the victims in New Orleans should have had enough sense to get out before Katrina, notwithstanding that 20,000 or so didn’t have a car and/or enough $$$ to go anywhere. And for anyone wh thinks that killing someone for stealing a pair of sneakers is a good trade.

“Serenity now! Serenity now!”
“What is that?”
“The doctor gave me a relaxation cassette. When my blood pressure gets too high, the man on the tape tells me to say ‘serenity now!'”
“Are you supposed to yell it?”
“The man on the tape wasn’t specific.”

This is for the American public at large who are still reeling from Katrina while waiting for Rita while watching gas prices spiral upward while paying more and more for the blood pressure medicine needed for the stress and bad diets we continually ingest while a war is going on and we are fed incessant reports of a missing rich white girl in Aruba while lots of other people were missing who didn’t look much like the missing girl in Aruba, meanwhile the budget deficit is reaching epic historic prooportions and the beat goes on..and on…and on

“I was in the pool! I was in the pool!”

Bush’s popularity and job ratings have certainly displayed shrinkage…

“You’ll be out before we get the check!”

The American public and their children and their children and their children, etc, on Bush leaving office in 2008.

“It’s time for George to start being George again.”

God help us…

Now HERE’S an ad

This ad sure beats the heck out of those demographically diverse pseudo-cool dweebs singing about Coke on some rooftop!

Click yes on that security pop-up window.

My dinner with Van Hilleary, er, Ed Bryant

I got to be a part of the bloggers bash with Ed Bryant today at the Sunset Grill (I think we are supposed to call it Nashville Area Political Bloggers group, but how do you say NAPB??).

First of all, thanks and props to Sunset Grill for allowing the bloggers to meet in a private dining room gratis, and for their always excellent food (not gratis, but reasonably priced).

Thanks also to Bill Hobbs and Sharon Cobb (who will be including a complete transcript of the luncheon tomorrow on her site) for their work setting this up.

Bryant’s opening remarks began with his explaination for being late (he was barely late). He has been working with other West Tennessee Republicans to demand a recount/explaination/possible reversal in the Ophelia Ford 12-vote landslide victry over Republican John Roland. It sounds like Bryant and colleagues are putting just as much energy in demanding a re-count as his counterparts in 2000 did in stopping recounts.

One thing that surprised me, even though it certainly fits in with Bryant’s conservative philosophy, is that despite what went on in Memphis (possibly the dead rose and voted according to Bryant) and the other electoral chicanery that has occurred over the years on a state and local level, Bryant does not see any need for federal standards or rules governing how local and state elections are run. He still believes that standards should be set on the local and state level.

One thing I really wanted to know: What’s the diff between Bryant and Hilleary and Corker, at least according to candidate Bryant. What I found out for sure is that ‘moderate’ is the new ‘liberal’ (moderates are baaaaaaaaad). Corker, according to Bryant, is the moderate candidate while he (Bryant) and Hillary are going to duke it out for the conservative vote.

Polls indicate that the candidate of the moderate wing (are there enough of em’ to be even considered a wing?) is not getting much support. Bryant’s polling shows Bryant in the lead, while, believe it or not, Hilleary’s polls show that Hilleary is in the lead. Both have Corker trailing in single-digit-ville.

But, why would a Republican primary voter go into the booth and select Bryant over Hilleary (or vice versa) if said voter wanted to nominate a conservative? I’m still not sure, even though Bryant did claim the ‘better set of tools’ for the job, based on his congressional and judicial experience. Bryant claims that he will be appointed to the Judiciary committe, if elected, which will put him in the right place to encourage the nomination and installation of ‘non-activist’ judges to Federal and Supreme Courts.

My impression of a non-activist judge is that he/she rules in a way that agrees with what conservatives want, but maybe that’s just me.

Bryant’s three big issues in the primary are: judicial appointments, immigration and traditional values. The only traditional values that came up in the luncheon were abortion and gay marriage. Not much commentary re gay marriage, but Bryant is clearly anti-abortion/pro-life. According to Bryant, abortions should be illegal (not clear what you do to the moms who get an ‘illegal’ abortion) because life begins at conception, but birth control pills and other birth control devices should remain legal. Considering that some pills and devices are technically abortions, I see some inconsistency there. At least he didn’t break into the Monty Python number, “every sperm is sacred’.

When asked why one should err on the side of life when it comes to a fetus, but not in the case of the death penalty, Bryant responded that the fetus does not have the due process rights of the convicted criminal. Based on statistics I’ve seen over the last twenty years, some folks get a lot more due process than others.

Bryant’s immigration stance would be onerous, but unenforceable outside of police state circumstances. All illegal aliens should be removed and sent packing, according to Bryant, who also stated that he disagrees with President Bush’s recent proposals regarding immigration.

Regarding Katrina, Bryant did admit that rolling FEMA into Homeland Security was probably a mistake, and that we need to be careful with the enormous amount of money that we will be spending to repair and rebuild the coastal area, with the addenda that we need to cut spending in other areas to compensate for the massive post-Katrina cleanup expense.

Bryant supports the Bush SSN proposal while admitting the proposal is seriously stalled. He believes that private accounts will eventually become a gateway issue again and will re-surface.

Bryant is a gracious, nice-looking plain-speaking man. He was friendly and appeared to genuinely enjoy answering our questions. Even though I disagree with him profoundly politically, I trust the man on a personal level and would like to hear him explain the ramifications of his immigration policy, and what should happen to people who get abortions in a society where abortions are illegal.

I still don’t know of any philosophical or political difference between Bryant and Hilleary. They are both pro-tax-cut in the midst of the whirlwind spending and I suspect their judicial temperments are identical.

If either Bryant/Hilleary is nominated, we, the voters of Tennessee will have a clear choice between the moderate, somewhat liberal Harold Ford and the deeply conservative Bryant/Hilleary.

UPDATE 9/22/05: I’ve been informed in an email from Jennifer Easton that Ophelia’s margin of victory was 13 votes rather than 12, and that Ophelia’s opponent is named Terry Roland, not John Roland. I’ve got to get off the John fixation.
My apologies.

And the answer is: The fastest way to lose any street cred I have left

The answer lies within. What’s that giant sucking sound coming from the west?

Ice, we hardly knew ye…

We CAN be heroes

Along with the snafus, multi-level layers of blame, and Brownie-you’ve-done-a-heckuva job palaver, there are Katrina heroes, including a Wal-Mart manager who stole a bunch of boats and brought supplies to hundreds of people and one federal ‘agency’ who got it right: The United States Coast Guard.

According to the Boston Globe, the Coast Guard had rescued 1,200 people before FEMA set foot in New Orleans. This piece in the Washington Post further details the impressive work of the Coast Guard in the aftermath of Katrina. Despite the fact that Coast Guard stations in the area were destroyed, the Guard eventually rescued a staggering 22,000 people.

The Coast Guard REALLY did a heckuva job…

I can’t remember what this is about

According to this, Chinese scientists are working on a way to block memories, a la Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, by messing with the pre-frontal cortex of mice. Treated mice forgot about a shock related to a certain piece of music, and repeatedly listened to the same piece of music without flinching. Untreated mice panicked like a FEMA employee when asked if he wanted one of those ‘hurricane’ drinks.

The ramifications are ominous (movie studios could drug your popcorn making you forget how bad, say, STEALTH is, and as a result you might return to see the movie again and again, not realizing that the film is a wretched waste of celluloid).

On the other hand, judicious use of the treatment would enable me to forget:

1) Red Sox beat the Yankees last year in the playoffs
2) I ran over my cell phone last month
3) the song ‘Horse with no Name’ by America (and I’ll take the treatment again if i hear that damn song again)
4) Paris Hilton (’nuff said)
5) the time in high school when I went out with this girl I really liked for the first time and I couldn’t think of ANY thing to say, until I spotted a bright green home mailbox that I felt compelled to discuss. Oddly, no more dates with this girl..
6) 22 straight victories by Tennessee over Vandy in football (maybe events will overtake the need to forget this one!)
7) pretty much every haircut I got from the 7th grade thru high school
8) the time at work (I work for the state Health department) when I was involved in a discussion about breastfeeding promotion and I blurted out something about calling women who had quit breastfeeding and encouraging them to start again..doh!
9) the time I fell out of a trash can I was hiding in behind a map of the Holy Land in Sunday school class when Pat Boone’s daughter walked into the class
10) Any movie starring Freddy Prinz Jr.

There’s more, but I might start crying…

The name game – Salemtown mythology revisited

Last night when we out walking the hyper-dog Sparky, we stopped to chat with long-time Salemtown resident Patsy Gidcomb (Patsy lives on the 1800 block of 5th). Patsy has lived in her current house for 46 years, and for most of her preceding years, she lived across the street. She remembers Freeman’s Restaurant on Buchanan and 5th, the dry cleaners and the grocery store all within two blocks of her house.

We asked Patsy the inevitable question: How did Salemtown get its name? She wasn’t sure, but she did contribute mightily to our quest: “Salemtown had its name before the Salem AME church was created and built”. Another naming myth debunked!

I’m leaning strongly to the theory espoused by the lone wolf of Salemtown in S-townMike’s seminal post last week in his Enclave blog.

Smoke em’ if you got em’…