July 30, 2007

Sprechen sie Deutsch? *

Here's a nice bit of citizen-journalism investigating the demise of German language classes at Wilson Central High School in Lebanon, TN, a bit east of Nashville. A nice video news report - and, really, about as good as what you'll see on the local news much of the time.

*Spelling corrected.

Sad Day for the Surrendercrats

The New York Times reports that public support for the Iraq war is rising, and Democratic analysts - again in the NYT - admit the surge is working. Harry Reid, Barack Obama and the rest of the Surrendercrats can't be happy about this.

July 28, 2007

Will They Never Learn?

A stupid company with stupid lawyers is commencing legal action against a Nashville blogger. They should have read this first (and all the prior related posts linked within). Memo to Jackson Miller: Post every document you receive from the lawyers. Their client will back down and call off the dogs soon enough.

July 27, 2007

TVA Considers Nuking Global Warming

The Tennessee Valley Authority is preparing a major effort to combat global warming. Read all about it - and why it is necessary - at the Ecotality blog today. Here's the link.

Bredesen Moves Qualifacts Out of Blind Trust

Financial disclosures signed by Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen indicate that, sometime in the past year, the governor moved Qualifacts Systems, a healthcare software company he founded before becoming governor, out of the "blind trust" in which most of his investments and business holdings have been managed since he became governor.

I found that information after reading an interesting story published a week ago in the Chattanooga Times-Free Press regarding the nonpartisan Center for Public Integrity giving Tennessee an "F" grade for failing to require its governor to disclose certain personal financial information, and was intrigued by a comment the governor made in the story.

Regular readers of BillHobbs.com may remember that last year I wrote a series of posts about the sudden resignation of then-TennCare director, J.D. Hickey, whom Bredesen had hired to run TennCare. Hickey resigned on short notice and became the CEO of Qualifacts. The governor's office never revealed the extent of Bredesen's role in Hickey's hiring at Qualifacts, but left the implication that Bredesen wasn't involved as Qualifacts was in a blind trust.

Spurred by emails from a company insider who told me - though I was unable to confirm it - that Bredesen had participated in at least one Qualifacts board meeting while serving as governor, I wrote a series of posts a year ago raising questions that the mainstream media had failed to ask regarding Hickey's sudden move to Qualifacts, seeking to determine what role, if any, did Bredesen play in Qualifacts' decision to hire Hickey, and whether Bredesen's holdings in Qualifacts, a privately-held company, really were in a blind trust. You can read those posts here:

We Need More Qualifacts - July 8, 2006,
Qualifacts Update: Damage Control - July 10, 2006,
Qualifacts Update: Tennessee Media Giving Bredesen a Pass - July 11, 2006,
Not-So-Blind Trust: The Qualifacts Mystery Deepens - September 13, 2006,

The coverage here clearly made the administration nervous, though they needn't have worried as the mainstream media moved on without digging further into the story.

Now comes the Chattanooga Times-Free Press report on the Center for Public Integrity's failing grade for Tennessee regarding disclosure requirements of its chief executive's business interests.

Center for Public Integrity officials said they flunked Tennessee and 20 other states that do not require disclosure of basic information that helps citizens track their governors' private financial interests and possible conflicts of interest.

Gov. Bredesen, a multimillionaire who accepts no state salary, said he has most of his assets in a blind trust. "I'm always willing to revisit it," he said of increasing disclosure standards. "I'm in a little bit of a unique situation in that I either have a blind trust or I don't. And if you have one, it's hard to disclose."

Gov. Bredesen's blind trust was created in 2002 as he prepared to become governor. In his April 16, 2007, statement of disclosure, he noted that investments held by him and his wife, Andrea Conte, are managed by Hirtle Callaghan & Co. and subject to the blind trust agreement. "We do not have knowledge of or influence over the retention, investment, re-investment or disposition of those assets," he states in the disclosure.

The governor said Wednesday that he has two holdings outside the blind trust. One is Qualifacts Systems Inc., a software company in which the governor is a majority stockholder. Last year he invited former TennCare director J.D. Hickey to run the company.

But Qualifacts was still in the blind trust as of April 2006, according to the disclosure Bredesen filed with the state on April 13, 2006. That disclosure indicates that his Qualifacts holdings were part of the investments managed in the blind trust:

Investments held by Andrea and me are managed by Hirtle Callaghan & Co. and subject to a "blind investment" agreement. Pursuant to that agreement, we do not have knowledge of or influence over the retention, investment, re-investment or disposition of those assets. The only asset managed by Hirtle Callaghan of which I have limited knowledge and which has been publicly disclosed previously is my interest in Qualifacts Systems, Inc. .. Outside the blind trust, I am the sole shareholder in Blue Canyon Inc...

In other words, as of April 2006, Bredesen's holdings in Qualifacts were in the blind trust, but by April 2007 he had moved them out of the blind trust.

Also, the Times-Free Press story appears to confirm that Bredesen made the hiring decision that moved Hickey from TennCare to Qualifacts.

In April 2006, Bredesen - while serving as your governor and running for re-election - moved his TennCare director over to run a company that Bredesen owns but which was, ostensibly, in a "blind trust" that allowed Bredesen no "influence" over it. The mind boggles at how selecting a company's new CEO doesn't count as "influence" over the company and its value as an investment.

The Center for Public Integrity is absolutely right to give Tennessee a failing grade.

July 26, 2007

An Entrepreneurial Truth

I just finished watching the new documentary The Call of the Entrepreneur, which will be released later this summer by the Acton Institute, and it is every bit as good as the trailer (see video) made it appear to be.

It's the kind of documentary that Sam Davidson at Remarkablog would enjoy, judging from this post of his today titled "Be an entrepreneur or die."

I just finished reading Thomas K. McCraw's short piece in the new Inc. magazine. He profiles Jospeh Schumpeter, "one of the most astute business thinkers who ever lived." I had never heard of him until this morning, but McCraw's book about him is now on my wish list.

Schumpeter was a very early advocate of entrepreneurship, believing that individual invention was what powered a capitalist economy, and not the role (or non-role) of the government. McCraw points out that while Schumpeter's ideas didn't immediately catch on in the first half of the 20th century, he now looks like a genius.

How to Make a Great Cheeseburger

And now for something completely different... a cheeseburger recipe.

Start with good ground beef - I recommend the Greenwise brand from Publix - it's beef free of antibiotics and preservatives, from cows raised without growth hormones. In other words, it's better for you than the regular ground beef. The lower the fat content of the beef the better.

Mix the beef with your favorite brand of Worcestershire sauce, and sprinkle in some "Meat Magic" seasoning from Chef Paul Prudhomme's Magic Seasoning Blends" and also sprinkle in some McCormick's "Montreal Steak" seasoning. Yeah, I know McCormick's also makes a hamburger seasoning. Use the steak seasoning.

Form burger patties from the mix.

Grill over flame.

Place burger on bun - I recommend Sara Lee Classic White Bakery Buns.

Top with, in order:
Four or five leaves of Baby Spinach lettuce, stems removed,
Shredded Colby-Jack Cheese,
One slice of a good, fresh tomato.

Spread on underside of the top bun a mix of:
Ketchup
Mustard
Redbone Alley's Chipotle Aioli from Redbone Foods.

Consume along with your favorite beverage and some potato chips. For chips, I recommend Ruffles' Natural Sea Salted Reduced Fat Chips. The beverage choice is up to you.

I had one two for dinner the other day. Best burgers I've ever eaten.

I've heard it said that the two greatest American inventions are jazz and baseball. I'd add the cheesburger to that list. There are bad cheeseburgers, of course, just like there is bad jazz and lousy baseball. But cheeseburgers done right are sublime.

July 25, 2007

Blogging the NCSL Convention

Aldon Hynes, a liberal blogger in Connecticut, reports that he's registered to cover the National Conference of State Legislatures' 2007 convention, August 5-9 in Boston. Thanks to the work I did last year to convince the NCSL to media-credential bloggers and allow them access to the sessions, the NCSL now apparently is treating bloggers as members of the media. I can't make it to Boston, but perhaps some more politics and policy bloggers - liberal and conservative - will register with the NCSL's media office and cover the event. As Hynes notes, the five-day convention has a packed and interesting schedule of sessions and events

The one I wish I could be in Boston for:

The Media: Out With the Old, in With the New?
Newspaper readership is declining while web traffic on news sites continues to rise. Statehouses are even fielding requests from bloggers for press credentials. Are state legislatures prepared to communicate with the public in this new era?
Wednesday, August 8 at 2:45 p.m.

In the Mail: Ten Tortured Words

In the mail today: Stephen Mansfield's new book Ten Tortured Words, subtitled "How the Founding Fathers Tried to Protect Religion in America ... and What's Happened Since."

Mansfield's book explains the history of the original intent of the Constitution's First Amendment - to protect religion from assault by the federal government - and how it has been subverted and the First Amendment has been misapplied in order to drive religion from American public life. Mansfield's book also points to signs of positive change on the horizon.

Review coming after I finish reading it.

Also, read Mansfield's recent op-ed on the same topic in USA Today. And you can learn more about Mansfield, a New York Times Best-Selling Author who happens to live in Nashville, on his website and accompanying blog.

$5 Billion Earmark Update

When I reported two weeks ago on an effort by U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minnesota, to pass legislation to kill the Defense Travel System, opening up a potential $5 billion in government business to Carlson Cos., a home-state company whose executives donate heavily to his campaigns, one facet of the story I didn't explore was the question of why U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Oklahoma, was co-sponsoring the same legislation.

Coburn has built a well-deserved reputation as a crusader against government waste and earmarks, but new information I've received indicates his motives in this effort may also be less than sterling. A travel industry management consultant emails:

The co-author with Sen. Coleman was Sen. Coburn, R - OK. One of his constituents is Sabre Holdings which has the online booking tool partnered with Carlson. Sabre spent vast sums improving its Oklahoma facility in recent years. Just Google it.

Attached is the press release from the Defense Travel Management Office on the Section 943 study of DTS. The report will reinforce what you have reported and add some new information.

Update: FederalTimes.com has a copy of the report and also reports that it endorses the Defense Travel System...

The Pentagon will move to require its civilian and military employees to use the Defense Travel System after an outside report won the department breathing room to fix the much-maligned system.

A Pentagon-commissioned report by the nonprofit Institute for Defense Analyses recommends that the department continue using the Defense Travel System (DTS) and that a portion of DTS used for travel accounting not be separated from the portion used to book trips, as critics have urged.

The institute completed in the report in March, but the Pentagon did not release it until this week, in response to a Federal Times request.

The study largely endorses the arguments of Pentagon officials responsible for DTS - including David S.C. Chu, undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness - who have pushed for improving the traveler interface of DTS, not overhauling the system.

A department spokesman said officials there consider the report a win for DTS, which critics call hard to use and not worth the nearly $500 million it has cost to develop. Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., with support from Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., earlier this year introduced a bill requiring Defense to scrap the travel-booking portion of system, which the senators labeled a “boondoggle."

But because the Pentagon agreed to a series of recommendations in the report, Coleman will not push to attach the legislation as an amendment to the 2008 defense authorization bill, a spokesman said.

First Amendment, The YouTube Debate, And Fred...

Thoughts on where the presidential candidates stand on First Amendment issues, on CNN's YouTube Debate, and on misleading reports of disarray in Fred Thompson's campaign, today at ElephantBiz.com.

July 24, 2007

How to Build Media Credibility

The Chicago Tribune considers the link between transparency and credibility and urges the news media deploy more of the former in order to increase its share of the latter. The link, and my thoughts, at Mesh Media Strategies today.

Bible Blogging

Here's a link to a fascinating blog I found today, thanks to the One Year Bible Blog. When I was a teenager, the church I attended encouraged all of its members to read through the Bible in one year, following a calendar that divided the Bible into 365 daily readings. I wish I'd had the One Year Bible Blog back then.

Which reminds me - I'm scheduled to speak at the Society of Adventist Communicators' convention in Nashville in mid-October (brochure PDF) on the subject of blog ethics. I'm not a member of the Seventh Day Adventist denomination, but I'm happy to help them better communicate the gospel message in whatever small way I can. My talk will be titled Being Paul in the Blogosphere, a reference to the story in Acts 17:16-23 about the Apostle Paul visiting the Agora at Athens, a great marketplace of ideas that is not too unlike today's blogosphere, a free-for-all of ideas and ideologies, faiths and disbelief, and very few rules.

How Paul handled himself is the model for today's Christian wanting to operate ethically and faithfully in the world of blogs and related social-media such as YouTube, MySpace, Second Life and Digg. Paul's approach to the people of Athens was ethical, transparent and bold - good strategies for the blogosphere, too.

Here's the story from Acts 17:16-23:

While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols. So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearing Greeks, as well as in the marketplace day by day with those who happened to be there. A group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to dispute with him. Some of them asked, "What is this babbler trying to say?" Others remarked, "He seems to be advocating foreign gods." They said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection. Then they took him and brought him to a meeting of the Areopagus, where they said to him, "May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we want to know what they mean." (All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.)

Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: "Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you.

Last month, teenagers in Pastor Victor Hulbert's youth group put video clips of mountain boarding and other antics from a church camping trip on YouTube. They said their friends, who aren't Christian, saw the clips and were surprised that Adventists were "normal" people.

"This is actually evangelism," said Hulbert, communication director for the Seventh-day Adventist Church in the United Kingdom. "They're seeing Adventists as real people who can have fun."

Learning new methods of such subtle, or even overt, evangelism brought together about 100 Adventist Church leaders, communication professionals and technology experts from around the world for the fourth annual Global Internet Evangelism Forum at Newbold College in Bracknell, Berkshire, Britain, June 28 to July 1.

"Those who are still not with us need to know that there is a deliberate approach to the Internet in the church," said Rajmund Dabrowski, communication director for the Adventist Church world headquarters, which sponsored the event.

"Some are stuck with the predictable approach to evangelism," Dabrowski said.

Your church isn't on YouTube and MySpace? It isn't using blog and podcasts? Chances are it isn't growing as fast and reaching as many younger people as the church down the street that is.

July 23, 2007

City Paper: State Budget May Violate State Constitution

The City Paper becomes the first mainstream news outlet to report on the likelihood that the Tennessee state government has repeatedly violated the state constitution and state law in how it calculates the annual cap on the growth of state spending.

Some state budget hawks are questioning whether the state has repeatedly violated how the constitutional cap on state spending is calculated. A state attorney general’s opinion has been requested relating to the so-called Copeland Cap, written into the state constitution in 1978, and how it should be computed.

The Copeland Cap says that state spending cannot exceed the growth of the economy - which is measured by personal income growth - within a fiscal year. The cap was named after its legislative sponsor, former state Rep. David Copeland (R-Chattanooga).

In calculating the Copeland Cap and how much the state budget can grow, officials have been using tax revenues. But some spending watchdogs say the state constitution and law requires that state appropriations - not tax revenues - be used to calculate the baseline from which the budget can grow. State appropriations would provide a much lower amount.

Because almost every year the state ends the fiscal year with a surplus of revenue over the amount of state tax revenue appropriated in the official state budget.

While The City Paper deserves praise for doing the story, reading it reminds me of why I prefer blogging. Reporter John Rodgers writes, "some spending watchdogs say the state constitution and law requires that state appropriations - not tax revenues - be used to calculate the baseline from which the budget can grow."

The phrasing makes it sound as if the assertion is in dispute. No one who reads the state constitution and relevant state law will honestly dispute that the state constitution and relevant state law clearly and explicitly say the baseline is to be calculated using appropriations, not revenue.

Article 2 Section 24 of the Tennessee constitution says:

In no year shall the rate of growth of appropriations from state tax revenues exceed the estimated rate of growth of the state's economy as determined by law. No appropriation in excess of this limitation shall be made unless the General Assembly shall, by law containing no other subject matter, set forth the dollar amount and the rate by which the limit will be exceeded.

There is no ambiguity here.

Instead of couching it all in passive-voice, CYA-speak - "questions have been raised," "some observers say" - the news media should report the undeniable truth: State Treasurer Dale Sims admits the Bredesen administration has been using total revenues rather than appropriations from state revenues as its baseline (see video), and that the constitution and state law unequivocally say the baseline must be calculated based on appropriations from state tax revenues.

Report the facts - and let the chips fall where they may.

The Call of the Entrepreneur

I'm rather looking forward to seeing the new documentary The Call of the Entrepreneur when it is released later this year - and not just because my cousin wrote the script.

Arnold Kling at TCS Daily calls it "the most subversive film I have seen" and "a threat to tyranny everywhere, including here at home."

Jeff Corwnwall at the Center for Entrepreneurship in Nashville wrote on his blog recently that he is trying to arrange a screening here. I'll keep you posted.

July 22, 2007

The Truth Is...

Penelope Trunk, a writer for the leftwing The Huffington Post who also writes a regular column for the Boston Globe, says journalists are supposed to misquote people because "the journalist gets paid to tell her own stories," and "journalists who think they are telling 'the truth' don't understand the truth. We each have our own truth."

The truth is, Ms. Trunk, that there IS truth and if your "truth" isn't actually true then it is fiction, no matter how badly you want to believe it, and if you intentionally spread fiction as "truth" then you are just a liar.

July 21, 2007

Harper's Versus the Bloggers

BlackFive takes a hatchet to an attack by Harper's magazine on bloggers.

"You're not a real journalist" is his way of saying "only professionals like me should be allowed to talk to high officials, not uncredentialed folks like you." This is about protecting the idea that "the press" has a special status or stature, and that mere bloggers or citizens do not deserve access to important people. That should be reserved for the journalists, the gatekeepers of our Republic.

In a sense that is highly amusing. I am delighted by the idea that I might wish to "pretend to journalistic standards," as if that were some high and fine thing to which I ought to aspire.

On Harry Potter

Harry Potter and the Deathly Tax-and-Spend Democrats - at Elephantbiz.com.

July 20, 2007

Iraq Update

With Tennessee's U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander recently proposed that the White House and Congress "come together" on a way out of Iraq by implementing the Iraq Study Group recommendations, it's worth your time to watch this 30-minute video of Iraq Study Group member Edwin Meese III being interviewed about the ISG recommendations and the Iraq war by Hoover Institution research fellow Peter Robinson. Is Alexander right? Or is the ISG plan really just a plan for American surrender in Iraq?

July 19, 2007

Surging China

China's annual economic growth surged to an 11- year high of 11.9 percent in the second quarter, a stunning number that puts China on course to chalk up its straight fifth year of double-digit economic growth and to overtake Germany as the world's third-biggest economy perhaps as soon as this year. Reuters has the details. For perspective on what China's rapid economic growth - and India's - means for the United States, check out the Uncommon Knowledge interview with Michael Spence, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and Philip H. Knight Professor Emeritus of Management in the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University. Spence is Chairman of an independent Commission on Growth and Development, focusing on growth in developing countries.

Tennessee MSM Continues to Ignore Bredesen Administration's Flagrant Violation of Key State Constitution Budget Provision

As I reported Wednesday afternoon, state Rep. Susan Lynn, R-Mt. Juliet, has requested Tennessee Attorney General Bob Cooper to issue an opinion as to the constitutionality of the method by which the state currently calculates how much it may increase the state budget each year under the Tennessee constitution's provision known as the "Copeland Cap."

Except for a mention this morning by WKRN political blogger A.C. Kleinheider on VolunteerVoters.com, and some other mentions on his blog previously, the state's mainstream media has ignored the story for more than a month.

I first reported on June 13 that state Treasurer Dale Sims had admitted under questioning by Rep. Lynn on the House floor during the final days of the legislative session that the administration of Gov. Phil Bredesen had calculated the 2007-08 budget's Copeland Cap number using the previous budget year's total state tax revenue as the baseline, rather than on the appropriations from state tax revenue, as both the state constitution and relevant state laws clearly require.

Sims even admitted the administration has been doing this for years. (See video.) Potential cost to taxpayers over the years is in the billions of dollars, but the Tennessee news media remains silent. Perhaps they realize that reporting the story will reveal, embarrassingly, that they failed miserably for years to properly and accurately cover the budget process.

The Nothing Story

The "Fred Thompson Was a Pro-Choice Lobbyist!" story fizzles to a dispiriting end (for Democrats) as his billing records back up Thompson's version of the story. Ed Morrissey at Captain's Quarters has the details...

We can expect the billing records to make a big splash in the blogosphere. However, a few points should be noted. Fred Thompson made it clear that he never represented this group as a lobbyist, and that he never lobbied John Sununu on their behalf. Sununu verified Thompson's denial. Thompson never denied nor confirmed that he provided some consultation on their behalf through Arent Fox, saying that he could not recall either way.

If the source has the details correct, it would appear to support Thompson's statements. A lobbyist who only bills 19 hours in 14 months would be a highly unsuccessful lobbyist, and the client idiotic. The billing would be consistent with internal consultations at Arent between Thompson and whomever represented the NFPRHA's lobbying interests, perhaps in the nature of gaining Thompson's perspective on various members of the Bush administration, although there also could have been direct consultation with the NFPRHA.

Remember, Thompson's record in the U.S. Senate on the abortion issue was 100 percent pro-life. And those who are trying to portray him as pro-baby killing are in fact pro-baby killing themselves and don't want the GOP to select a pro-life presidential nominee.

As one commenter at CQ reminds us, "the same drive-by media that is attempting to paint Fred Thomspon durring this primary season as somewhat sympathetic to abortion, will attack him for his opposition to 'a woman's right to choose' during the general election."

July 18, 2007

Challenging the Bredesen Administration on Its Copeland Cap Violations

State Rep. Susan Lynn, R-Mt. Juliet, has requested Tennessee Attorney General Bob Cooper to issue an opinion as to the constitutionality of the method by which the state currently calculates how much it may increase the state budget each year under the Tennessee constitution's provision known as the "Copeland Cap."

As I reported here on June 13, State Treasurer Dale Sims admitted under questioning by Rep. Lynn on the House floor during the final days of the legislative session that the administration of Gov. Phil Bredesen had calculated the 2007-08 budget's Copeland Cap number using the previous budget year's total state tax revenue as the baseline, rather than on the appropriations from state tax revenue in the 2006-08 budget. (See video at right.)

The clear language of both the state constitution and all relevant statutes all say "appropriations" are to be the baseline. Sims claims the state has for years been using revenue rather than appropriations as the baseline.

In signing the budget into law, Gov. Bredesen may have signed into law an unconstitutional state budget.

Here is the text of Rep. Lynn's letter to AG Cooper:

Dear General Cooper:
I respectfully request an expedited Attorney General's opinion on the following:

Whether the governor, pursuant to Article II, § 24 of the Constitution of the State of Tennessee and Tennessee Codes Annotated § 9-4-5203, must use appropriations to determine if and to what extent the appropriations of state tax revenue exceed the growth of the state's economy.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Susan Lynn
State Representative

Also, my sources tell me a lawsuit is in the works that will challenge the constitutionality of the 2007-08 budget and the use of appropriations rather than revenue to calculate the Copeland Cap baseline.

Over the Backfence

I'm writing about hyperlocal journalism vs. citizen journalism, and the failure of Backfence.com, over at Mesh Media Strategies. Click here for the latest.

July 16, 2007

Betting on the Wrong Horse?

Is Tennessee about to bet $70 million of the taxpayers' money on the wrong horse? While the state of Tennessee is preparing to spend some $70 million in taxpayers' money subsidizing an effort to develop an ethanol industry based on switchgrass - an unproven technology not yet ready for commercialization - the state of Georgia has just issued a construction permit to Range Fuels, a Colorado company that has what it says is a commercially feasible way to produce ethanol from a wide variety of other biomass. Details today at Ecotality.

This Site For Sale?

I got an email the other day asking me if I would sell this domain name, billhobbs.com. I said I would start to consider it at $150,000. If you owned your own name as a web domain name would you ever sell it?

Backfence Down

My latest post at Mesh Media Strategies looks at the impending demise of Backfence.com.

July 15, 2007

Walnut Street Bridge, Chattanooga

The Walnut Street Bridge is now a pedestrian and bicycle bridge spanning the Tennessee River and linking downtown Chattanooga with the North Shore community and Coolidge Park, one of the nicest urban parks you'll find anywhere. In this photo the bridge is reflected in the glass wall exterior on a terrace at the Hunter Museum of American Art, which is hosting an exhibition of paintings by Grandma Moses through August 12. A membership at Nashville Frist Center for the Visual Arts gets you into the Hunter for free.

More Photos From My Recent Trip to DC

The first three of these photos were taken at dusk, July 3, from the rooftop of the new Newseum under construction on Pennsylvania Avenue.

The Capitol Building.

The Capitol Building

The Washington Monument.

Inside the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum, July 4.

This is the view looking up from where we sat on the floor for about an hour during a severe-weather alert that cause the National Park Police to close access to the National Mall on July 4th while a severe storm with a possible tornado moved through the area. I'm not sure being in glass-enclosed box with airplanes hanging over our heads would have been safer than being out in the open if a twister hit but, hey, if you're going to die in a tornado, better to die crushed by a World War 2 fighter plane or an old USSR nuclear rocket, or the capsule that brought the first astronauts back from the moon, then underneath the remains of a mobile home, I guess.

July 13, 2007

Adventures in the Land of Lincoln

The Hoover Institution has posted another interesting video, a half-hour interview with author Andrew Ferguson regarding his new book, "Land of Lincoln: Adventure's in Abe's America," published by Atlantic Monthly Press. Ferguson is a senior editor at The Weekly Standard and has written for The New Yorker, the New Republic, The Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal and many other media.

Ferguson, interviewed by Hoover Institution fellow Peter Robinson, discusses how various interest groups have tried to mold Lincoln's image into their own agenda, and how - and why - America can and should recapture the "large" and universal Lincoln. Watch it here in the small box, or larger here at Google Video.

You can purchase the book at the Amazon link or here

Small Town News

Interesting public records access story in the Cookeville, Tennessee, Herald Citizen today: "An Internet journalist who says he was denied access to public records in Livingston has filed a court petition asking a judge to order that access." Read the story carefully and note that while the city attorney insists OvertonJournal.com publisher Joseph Edwards was not denied access to public records, the county attorney very noticeably doesn't deny the second part of Edwards' allegation - that he was told he could have access to the court records only if he agreed to let a judge pre-screen his stories before publication.

July 12, 2007

Who?

Dan Riehl at Riehl World View asks an important question.

Villagers to Soros: Mind Your Own Business!

Billionaire and Democratic and liberal causes benefactor George Soros so badly wants to protect the poor people of rural Romania from a gold mine that will improve their standards of living that his Open Society Institute opened an office in the village of Rosia Montana, Romania, to fight the proposed gold mine. Results: The people of the village are now protesting loudly. Not against the proposed mine. Against Soros and his allies who wish to stop the mine. Gheorghe Luchian, star of the documentary Mine Your Own Business, has the details and a video link on his blog Report from Rosia.

100 Percent Against Earmarks

The National Taxpayers Union has posted the pictures of every member of Congress who has voted for every amendment proposed by U.S. Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Arizona, to strike earmarks from appropriations bills. Four Tennessee members of congress made the list.

Wonderful and Crooked

There's an amazing bit of information in today's Chattanooga Times-Free Press story regarding state Sen. Ward Crutchfield's decision to plead guilty on the eve of his trial on federal bribery and extortion charges stemming from the FBI's Operation Tennessee Waltz probe: The trial may have revealed evidence of a "crooked" method of fundraising used by the Tennessee Democratic Party.

Both sides had been filing motions to limit or exclude certain testimony in the case as late as Monday. Among other things, Sen. Crutchfield's attorneys wanted to exclude a secretly recorded tape in which his administrative assistant, Linda Johnson, told an undercover FBI operative about a "wonderful and crooked" way to get money into state political campaigns.

In the filing, Mr. Farmer said Ms. Johnson's opinion as "to the propriety of Democratic fundraising methodologies is not an issue in this case."

Chattanooga attorney Jerry Summers said of Ms. Johnson that "I represent her, but we don't have any comments at this time. I think it would be inappropriate for me to comment at this time on the eve of Senator Crutchfield's trial."

The motion said use of the sound clip "will serve no purpose other (than) to inflame and mislead the jury regarding Democratic Party fundraising."

Will the Tennessee Registry of Election Finance, the Tennessee Ethics Commission, or the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation now demand to hear the whole recording, and probe to find out the details?

Here's hoping the federal prosecutors in the Crutchfield case release the recording. The public has the right to know all there is to know about this "wonderful and crooked" fund-raising scheme.

Hat tip: Tennessee Politics Blog.

A $5 Billion Earmark?

In late March of this year, just three weeks after filing legislation that would largely kill a government program established just 10 years ago to help the Department of Defense reduce waste in its mammoth travel expenditures, U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minnesota, received $8,200 in campaign contributions from the Minnesota power couple that includes the CEO of Carson Wagonlit Travel, one of America's largest travel corporations.

If passed, Coleman's legislation would make an additional $5 billion worth of government travel spending potentially available to Carson Wagonlit, which is part of The Carlson Cos., based in Minneapolis, Minn. Coleman's home state.

Carlson is one of America's largest private corporations with reported sales of $37.1 billion in 2006. Carlson brands include Radisson Hotels, casual dining chain TGI Friday's, Regent Seven Seas Cruises, Carlson Leisure Group (travel agencies) and Carlson Wagonlit Travel, a business travel management firm. Carlson also owns CW Government Travel, which provides travel management for some departments of the federal government.

In June, Carlson announced that CW Government Travel had won a U.S. Department of Justice contract to provide 'E-Gov Travel Services' and would manage all of DOJ's travel needs, 'including planning and authorization, approvals, reservations, vouchers, and reporting.'

Carlson already provides similar services to the U.S. Department of Education, the State Department, the General Services Administration headquarters, the Department of Labor, the National Business Center, and a number of other federal agencies. Carlson estimated the DOJ contract to be worth $43 million. That's a nice little contract for Carson Wagonlit, which did $20.5 billion in sales in 2006, but that DOJ contract is not the big fish that Carson is trying to catch.

Carlson has its eye on the U.S. Department of Defense - which spends more on travel than the rest of the federal government combined. And that's where Sen. Coleman comes in.

The Defense Department is the biggest single purchaser of travel services in the federal government, accounting for more than half of the nearly $11 billion that Uncle Sam spends on official government travel. As you can imagine, Carlson - America's largest travel agency - would love to get some of that more than $5 billion in potential business.

But they can't.

In 1997, during the Clinton Administration, investigative reports found large-scale waste in the Defense Department's system of administering travel, and the Defense Department launched a program to create an automated on-line Defense Travel System to drastically reduce the overhead costs of administering the 'back-office' functions associated with manually processing and paying travel vendors and travelers' vouchers, as well as to properly account for travel expenses through various auditing and control functions. Up to that point, Defense employees traveling on official business could book their own travel through a travel agency, then turn in the receipts for reimbursement.

In addition, the DTS would consolidate into one system the nearly three dozen different - and incompatible - travel systems then operated by different branches and agencies within the military.

(A more recent study estimated that the Defense Department wasted $100 million in 2004 on unused airline tickets purchased by or for Defense travelers that were never nor submitted for refunds because the department lacks a system to identify unused tickets in the process of reconciling travel reimbursement claims.)

In 1998, DOD contracted BDM Corporation to build the Defense Travel System, which was to be an online, automated system that handled both the 'front end' of making travel arrangements and reservations and the back end of payments and the accounting and auditing. BDM was later acquired by TRW, which itself was acquired by Northrop Grumman, which now is overseeing completion of the DTS.

Today, the Defense Travel System is in use at all of the 281 major military installations that account for the vast bulk of Defense travel, and has been deployed to more than 8,100 of the approximately 11,000 remaining U.S. military facilities and sites. And usage of the system is rising - the DTS has processed 3 million travel vouchers since its launch, including 2 million vouchers and 2.4 million travel authorizations in the last year.

While Defense has been developing the unique DTS system for handling its travel booking, voucher processing, accounting and auditing needs, the General Services Administration pursued a different approach to providing automated travel booking to the civilian Federal agencies.

Federal civilian agencies are authorized to use one of three vendors certified by the General Services Administration to provide automated travel booking services. Those vendors are Carlson Travel, American Express, and Northrop Grumman, the builder of the DTS.

The Defense Travel System is not without its critics. Over the years, the Government Accountability Office has issued two reports on the DTS; the DOD Inspector General has reviewed the program, and the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (chaired by Sen. Coleman until the Democrats took control of the Senate in January) has also issued a report.

Each of those reports has identified different flaws and short-comings in the DTS, which remains a work-in-progress.

In March, Sen. Coleman filed legislation, which would eliminate the travel booking functions of the DTS and encourage the Department of Defense to instead use travel agents - such as those who work at various Carlson Travel franchises, for example - to identify flights, hotels and rental car options. Defense travelers would gather their own travel reservations information, then input that info into the back-end portion of the DTS.

But instead of letting Northrop Grumman complete work on the DTS - on which more than $400 million has already been spent - Coleman proposes to scrap it, and go back to the old, wasteful, system of letting Defense employees book their own official travel through whatever travel agency they happen to find in the Yellow Pages. More often than not they're likely to be dialing the number of a Carlson travel agency.

Coleman titled his legislation, S. 754, the 'Defense Travel Simplification Act of 2007' - but allowing Defense employees to book their own travel was one of the reasons why the Defense Department's official travel budget was riddled with waste. (More recently, Sen. Coleman filed an amendment to the pending Department of Defense spending authorization bill that would do much the same thing as S. 754.)

Northrop Grumman, answering critics of the DTS program last year, said that the DTS is projected to save $178 million in productivity costs and $56 million in real dollars each year when fully deployed by the end of this year.

Scrapping it and switching to one of the 'eTravel' services used by the civilian agencies 'would forego about $25 million of the conservatively estimated $56 million in annual savings that DTS would produce,' Northrop Grumman contends.

Before you dismiss that as spin from a company that doesn't want to lose access to a government gravy train, remember this: Northrop Grumman is one of three GSA-certified eTravel vendors.

It could potentially make more money if Defense switched to eTravel and selected Northrop Grumman's GovTrip system as its eTravel vendor. Says Northrop Grumman:

Halting DTS development would be the wasteful discard of a $400 million investment by taxpayers in an existing, operational, effective system before its benefits have been fully realized while spending an additional $40 million to $65 million per year using eTravel, which does not meet the Defense Department's security and interface requirements.

Is it because he's facing a tough re-election fight next year and wants to grandstand as a friend of taxpayers and a foe of government waste? Perhaps. It's a pretty standard political pose in an election year.

But there are plenty of better examples of real government waste, so why is Coleman so fixated on the DTS, a program that, when fully implemented, is designed to save taxpayers money?

Consider this: Northrop Grumman's DTS gives it a monopoly over more than half of Uncle Sam's total spending on travel, while its GovTrip system competes with Carlson (and American Express) for the less than half of total federal government spending on travel that remains.

Carlson is America's largest travel agency, but more than $5 billion in annual travel bookings by the federal government is slipping beyond its reach as more and more Defense employees are switched on to the DTS. (Carlson hates the DTS so much that a few years ago it filed a lawsuit - later dismissed - alleging Northrop Grumman got the contract unfairly.)

Since 2001, more than $65,000 in Carlson-connected money has flowed into Sen. Coleman's campaign coffers.

Helping Carlson by striving to earmark $5 billion in business for them to compete for is a pretty nice payback.

Or perhaps there is no connection between those campaign contributions and Coleman's crusade to cancel the DTS. Perhaps he really is just out to battle government waste and thinks there are better alternatives to the DTS.

Still, filing legislation to kill the program - and soon thereafter getting big campaign contributions from major campaign benefactors who stand to benefit from that legislation - looks a lot more like a senator using his legislative power to benefit big campaign contributors and a big home-state employer at the expense of the U.S. taxpayer.

That's the kind of behavior that cost Republicans their majority in the last election.

Update: Minnesota Campaign Report says comedian and failed liberal talk show host Al Franken is raising serious cash for his campaign to unseat Coleman.

The Politico says Franken out-raised Coleman - by a wide margin in the second quarter.

July 9, 2007

The Legalities of War

Here's video of an interesting discussion between two constitutional law professors about the legal issues in the War on Terror, featuring Richard Epstein of the University of Chicago Law School and John Yoo of the University of California-Berkeley School of Law. The discussion is moderated by Peter Robinson of the Hoover Institution.

July 8, 2007

The UnFairness Doctrine

John Seigenthaler looks at the push from Senate Democrats to revive the "Fairness Doctrine" for radio, in a commentary in the Sunday Tennessean.

This concept of a "Fairness Doctrine" is a flawed federal policy relic from early days of radio when the Federal Communications Commission decided to force broadcast owners to air opposing viewpoints.

From the day it was implemented, enforced FCC "fairness" violated the free-speech rights of broadcasters. It took the FCC more than 50 years before it officially killed the doctrine in 1987, acknowledging that enforced "fairness" was "unconstitutional on its face."

For more than a half-century, then, the commission, Congress and the federal courts deprived broadcasters the rights of free expression that newspaper owners had enjoyed since 1800 - the year the original "sedition" law died.

As Independence Day approached, a study - startling in its findings - was released by the Center for American Progress asserting that 91 percent of talk-show programming was "conservative." The study found only 9 percent to be liberal — or "progressive," to use the word the center prefers.

Since the study came out, three influential Democratic senators, Dick Durbin of Illinois, Dianne Feinstein of California and John Kerry of Massachusetts, have expressed favor for Fairness Doctrine legislation.

Even as support for fairness seemed to be building, a majority of House members took a wiser course, voting last week to bar the FCC from using any taxpayer dollars to reinstitute the doctrine.

The idea of any agency of government deciding what is "fair" in the news media is silly on its face, as well as unconstitutional...

July 6, 2007

Buh Bye NashvilleIsTalking.com?

WKRN Channel 2 in Nashville is apparently no longer committed to the blogosphere in the way it was when Mike Sechrist was the station's general manager. I have a look at the situation at Mesh Media Strategies, and a business-model comparison to The City Paper's new Nashville City Blogs.

July 5, 2007

Reflecting Freedom

Fireworks over the Washington Monument, reflected in the glass exterior of the Newseum, taken from the rooftop terrace of the Residences at the Newseum, which are extremely nice.

Update: Glenn Reynolds posted yesterday about severe storms causing the National Parks Service to clear the National Mall on July 4th and send people into nearby government buildings for shelter. I was touring the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum with my family and we were among those kept inside the building for more than 90 minutes until the severe storms passed. The Air and Space Museum faces the National Mall - the broad and long expanse of grass between the Washington Monument and the Capitol Building - but the back side of the museum faces a parallel street that isn't governed by the National Park Service. So, while the Park Service was herding people off the mall and into the front doors of the museum, and preventing people from leaving through those doors, people were free to exit the back doors - which lead to the odd experience of sitting inside for shelter and safety and seeing hundreds of people passing by on the street outside.

Given that where we needed to go was on the other side of the National Mall, which was "closed" until the storms passed, we opted to stay until the all-clear.

It should be mentioned that the Park Police didn't do much to inform the crowds stuck in the Air and Space Museum about why they weren't be allowed to exit the building on to the National Mall. If you weaved your way to the front and asked, they'd tell you, but nobody used the public address system to make a general announcement - and it would've been easy as a unit from the the Air Force band had set up to play a small concert in the main atrium of the museum and, in fact, did play between 6 and 7 p.m.

Another thing: The Air and Space Museum atrium is not the safest place to be if there's a threat of a tornado. It's basically a glass box - walls and ceiling are all windows. And there are big airplanes hanging from the girders. And big rockets standing on the floor. If the tornadoes had come close, I'd have preferred taking my chances out in the open.

Canadian Embassy, Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington DC.

Update: I met Ben Sargent, editorial cartoonist for the Austin American-Statesman, briefly at a dinner at the Canadian Embassy on the evening of July 4th. Sargent is one of my all-time favorite editorial cartoonists. You can see his work here.

Sargent's son Sam, a university student and Congressional intern, was with him - and looked for all the world like he could be the twin brother of Drew Johnson of the Tennessee Center for Policy Research. I wish I had snapped a picture, but I didn't.

July 2, 2007

The Hill

The U.S. Capitol Building, today. Perfect weather in Washington today - low 80s, low humidity. 700,000 expected on the Mall Wednesday for the July Fourth festivities and fireworks.