Drop The Puck!

It's ice hockey time in Tennessee! The Southern Professional Hockey League reigning champions Knoxville Ice Bears open their season tonight against Jacksonville Barracudas at the Civic Colisseum. The Sports Illustrated recently nominated the Ice Bears "the best sports team nobody knows about".

Not Only Gays, Single Mothers Too

Chancery Court in Shelby County denied an adoption by a single mother. The child in question was an abandoned, cocaine afflicted baby who had been in foster care with the adoptive mother since birth. The judge ordered the DCS to "find a suitable dual-parent home and if unable to locate a suitable dual-parent replacement, consult an adoption agency". Tennessee Court of Appeals overturned the decision saying activist judges do not have the authority to override DCS decisions. Incidentally, the same judge recused himself after having been accused of bias in the controversial case in which an American couple was seeking to adopt a Chinese girl against the wishes of her birth parents. That case is now on its way to the state Supreme Court.

Teen Drivers

WVLT Channel 8 news was asking the viewers "Do you know when you should be most worried about your teenage driver?"
My wife's response: "Yeah, between the ages of 15 and 21."

Inquiring Minds

It seems that the only balls in the Knox County Commission can be found north of Emory Road. North Knoxville comissioners Greg "Lumpy" Lambert (R) and Mark Cawood (D) are calling a probe to allegations of shenanigans related to the "Harbergate" dealings in County Mayor Ragsdale's office.

Bob Corker: PG-13

I would like to publicly thank the National Republican Senatorial Committee for the opportunity to explain to my 5-year-old son what "Playboy bunnies in lingerie" means while watching the morning news on TV.

Patented: Consumer Scam

Ever had a hard time getting your mail-in rebate refund? This U.S. Patent just granted may be the reason:

Manufacturers and service providers offer rebates as a financial incentive to increase sales. Rebates offer cash back to consumers who fulfill a set of requirements after purchasing a product bearing a rebate. By requiring post-purchase activities, the rebate offerer attempts to reduce the number of successful rebate claimants. Breakage occurs when a product bearing a rebate is sold, but the rebate is not successfully claimed. Because rebate programs offer the potential for breakage, manufacturers can offer a more valuable rebate compared to a straight reduction in product price. Thus, manufacturers establish procedures to maintain a sufficient rate of breakage and to prevent fraudulent rebate claims. Consumers, in contrast, desire the quickest and easiest process for receiving their rebates. This creates a tension between the manufacturer's desire to maintain consumer satisfaction and the need to sustain a sufficient level of breakage in rebate programs. ... In addition, the rebate processing system allows consumers to interactively submit information from a comfortable environment. Thus, consumers are more likely to provide a more exhaustive list of information, providing a greater opportunity for data-mining.

In other words, the purpose of mail-in rebates is to advertize a rebate to artificially "lower" the price of the product, but make it as difficult as possible for the customer to redeem the rebate, and to collect accurate customer data for "direct marketing" (junk mail) purposes. I'm not a lawyer, but if I was, it sure would sound like deceptive trade practices to me.
The patent holder in question is Parago, Inc., a company based in Texas. This is no fly-by-night outfit, with customers like Amazon.com, Circuit City, TiVo, McAfee, Staples, OfficeMax, Verizon Wireless, Dell and Comcast, to name a few.
Buyer beware. Personally, I buy nothing that I can't get a good price on without a mail-in rebate.
(HT Techdirt.com)

Don't Believe A Word You Read Here

As my writing style is unmistakenly cantankerous, I've thought it prudent to add a disclaimer to the bottom each page assuring readers that everything written in this blog is my opinions and idle conjecture only, not to be taken as a statements of fact. Today, we learn about another line having been drawn into the 1st Amendment sand, in form of a $11.3 million judgment against Florida woman for internet slander. In case my diligent use of "allegedly" and "apparently", plus the little CYA, prove to be ineffective deterrents against prospective litigous bastards, heed well that my net worth is firmly in the sub-zero realm. It's all fiction here, move along.

Casting The First Stone

It is ironic that after years of populistic pandering, the GOP is being shot down by the same way it came to power: Hypocricy and FUD. RJ Eskow at The Huffington Post expounds the pervasive decadence among conservative rightwingers.

So how can evangelical Christians ever support these characters again? And here's a party game for the rest of us: Which of the Seven Deadly Sins don't these rightwingers commit - over and over and over? ... Let he who is without sin cast the first stone - but if you're a rightwing preacher backing one of these Republican candidates, I say "let he who is without shame cast the first vote." Adultery's just one of the deadly sins popular with these guys. There's also pride, greed (otherwise known as gluttony), wrath, and sloth.

The Foley scandal may be heavensent to the Republican Party; it will absolve the party leadership after the inevitable slaugher in the coming election. But let us not forget: Instead of fostering success, the GOP now promotes greed. Instead of providing for the chance of the American Dream, the GOP is shipping our livelihood abroad. Instead of supporting families, neocons now tout bigotry and hate. Instead of fighting for lower taxes, the GOP engorges in corruption, government waste and pork-barrel orgies, and leaves the bill to be paid by our children. Instead of maintaining America as the global leader, neocons have succeeded in reducing us to failing, despised imperialists in world politics. They have abolished some of our most fundamental Constitutional rights, and failed to protect others. The vote should not be about conservative or liberal values, it should be about American values.

Piling It On

Live by the sword, die by the sword. It's hard to not gloat over the GOP's recent woes. These hypocrites have touted their holier-than-thou propaganda for the past six years, and the wheels are starting to fall off. Voters may have shrugged off the Abramoff scandal, ignored Bob Ney, forgotten "Duke" Cunningham and Tom DeLay, written off investigation to Bill Frist's stock dealings as politics, but Mark A. Foley is well nigh impossible to explain away. The best retort they seem to come up with is the "Clinton did it first" mantra. Yeah, yeah, but at least Bill Clinton was engaging in consensual activity chasing some genuine booty and not teenage boys. Former Rep. Foley headed the Missing and Exploited Children’s Caucus, and was instrumental in passing a law that imposed tougher prison sentences on sex crime offenders. Ouch. I'll bet that after the November elections, there will be a number of things that will come back to haunt the "God's Own Party".