Category: Local Politics

Knoxville Politics (and the surrounding counties)

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Go Vote! Today is important!

Today is Election Day! Make the time to vote please! We have all seen that everybody’s vote counts. Voting is a civic duty and is important to the democratic process. (For the asinine Stacey Campfields out there, "democratic" is not to be confused with the Democratic political party. Until fear mongering, constitution shredding, AT&Tism, and Homeland Security improprieties in the name of protecting your freedoms, completely erode it, you live under a democratic form of government. Specifically, the United States of America is a Representative Liberal Democracy.)

I also encourage you to print your sample ballot and, at the bare minimum, do an Internet search on the candidates you will be choosing. To go the polls and vote on someone because their name rings a bell, or one name sounds better than another is not helping anyone’s cause. Your wild guess may knock a potentially good candidate out of office. If you are in Knox County, your sample ballot is online. Print it, spend a few minutes researching your candidates, and vote knowledgeably! Remember, your employer is obliged to give you time off to go to the polls.

Update: See also: Video of me encouraging voting and far better video of Todd Jordan encouraging voting.

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We asked to be heard; tonight is our chance!

Do you care for the future of education in Knox County? We have asked that the citizens be heard in choices like rezonings and choosing a school superintendent. They are now willing to listen!

Knox County residents are invited this week to share their suggestions on what characteristics the school system’s new superintendent needs.

And the school board has been told to stay away.

[Source, Knoxnews.com, Residents’ input sought on superintendent]

I personally think the superintendent needs to come from outside of Knox County and maybe far from TN where local politics and good ol’ boy relations will not be an influence. I want someone making decisions that are right for our children and not because of politics or helping a buddy out.

Don’t forget to attend the superintendent search forums tonight (11/26) at either Austin East or Central High School auditoriums, beginning at 7:00 pm.

Additional forums will be held Tuesday, 11/27/07, at South Doyle and Bearden High School auditoriums, also at 7:00 pm.

[Source, Knoxviews.com, ]

This is very important! Make the time to voice your opinion please.

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Engineer Roads for Speed Control

Knoxville is pondering the use of automated speed cameras to ticket people who violate the speed limits. I am opposed. I am a treat the problem, not the symptom type of guy. My quality assurance training taught me that if you automate a flawed process, you simply perform that flawed process with greater efficiency.

Florida came up with a solution. I read about it a couple of years ago. (unfortunately, I haven’t been able to find the reference) An architect and civil engineer reduced speed by eliminating traffic controls, removing signs, putting people and trees closer to the road, and narrowing the roads. widening the double yellow narrows the roadThey engineered speed control! It worked. Would you like to try it? Knoxville is engineering roads for speed right now! The roads that connect Kingston Pike to Sutherland passing by West High School are changing to reduce speed. If you turn from Kingston Pike to Forest Glen Dr you will undoubtedly notice that the double yellow widens briefly, the road has some lines painted across it, and some ruts have been carved into the road to audibly warn you to slowdown. These are fairly intangible but work! You cannot help but slow down.

What happens when people get used to the lines and drive fast anyway? Firstly, the faster you drive over the ruts, the more horrid the noise which sounds like you are destroying your tires. Secondly, in addition to the psychological narrowing, the roads are being physically narrowed at the midpoint. With the addition of this median, cars will slow down. Maybe they’ll add a tree! (doubt it)

Why not engineer the roads and use speed cameras? Speed cameras treat the symptom. The symptom is that people are speeding. Physical narrowing of Tobler LnThe problem is that people feel like they are making good time and packing more into their lives by speeding. The truth of the matter is that if you are speeding in a town or city, you may be shaving a minute or two off your commute but due to traffic patterns, and the placement and timing of lights and other traffic controls, your commute does NOT change that dramatically as compared to simply driving the speed limit.

Won’t cameras teach people to slow down? No, cameras work after the fact, catch the wrong people, and cannot identify the driver. They also cannot judge the situation. Safe driving sometimes includes speeding up. Often we try to avoid an accident by slamming on the brakes. It feels natural. Sometimes accidents can be avoided by speeding up and I shouldn’t have to speed a day of my life in court plus fees explaining that to repeal a ticket from a robot. Since speed cameras have their effect after the incident, they in no way prevent tragedy! The camera that send a ticket to a speeding high schooler for speeding from West High to Kingston Pike does not save the life of the child who runs out into the road to get his lost ball. The re-engineered roads, which treat the problem and force the new high school driver to slow his vehicle, give that driver the opportunity to stop in time to save the life of the child running into the road to get his lost ball.

Update: Groovy!

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Say NO to speed cameras

I was against red light cameras (and still am! $2 million TN dollars went to TX because of Redflex!) and I sure am against speed cameras. Speed trapping makes roads dangerous! Roads should be predictable. We don’t need people slamming on their brakes for police cars and cameras. Sometimes to avoid a problem it is safer to speed up then slow down even if that means hopping above the speed limit. An officer can see, "that truck was about to sideswipe him and he avoided it by speeding up." A camera cannot make that judgment.

I often drive fast on the Interstate. It is safe because the relative speed of traffic is the same and visibility can be several miles. I don’t drive recklessly. There is a huge difference between driving fast and driving recklessly. A slow driver can drive recklessly. In town, I tend to drive the speed limit. I recognize the lights have been timed such that you will make little gain by speeding in town. The few seconds you shorten your trip by speeding is not worth the danger you place pedestrians and other drivers in within the unpredictable confines of busy roads.

Speed cameras and red light cameras are profit tools for public, tax funded law enforcement. We don’t need them! We fix traffic problems through better civil engineering (narrow roads, curves in roads, reduction of traffic signs, removal of speed limits, etc.) and through education. Could you imagine the impact it would have if a police officer pulled you over for speeding and instead of giving you a ticket brought a video player to your car and forced everyone in the car to watch a 15 minute educational video on how speeding wastes fuel, puts unnecessary wear and tear on the vehicle, places people at unnecessary risk, and reduces travel time by less than a few minutes than staying under the speed limit? The 15 minute delay per incident may be reason enough to slow down. But even if the message did not reach the driver, perhaps it would get through to some of the passengers and then you’ve made a difference. Will a bill in the mail have that same impact?

UPDATE: Michael Silence has put up a poll to see if Knoxville wants speed cameras. When I took it, 86% said no.

Update: UT to probe ethics of using traffic cameras. Think about the other cameras we can have in our future "beeeep Our facial recognition software has identified you as Jane Doe. You have been standing in the same spot for 5 minutes and one second which constitutes loitering under ordinance w37704. A fine of $45 has automatically been assessed to your cell phone bill."

Related: Google is mapping Knoxville. How will you be immortalized for the world to view? Do speed cameras change driving habits? See Driving Patterns – Let the Ass Merge.

Update: More details including Chattanooga’s numbers.

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Who put me on this soap box? With a tinfoil hat?!

Is Oak Ridge getting rougher? My reply to Atomic Tumor:

I often wonder if its not that things are getting rougher but that things are getting smaller. Years ago living in a small down with 3 television stations, the focus was on local news with bits of highlights of nation and world the half hour before local. I am sure school shootings happened but if you were in Wilmington North Carolina and the shooting was in Denver Colorado, it didn’t really impact you.

Now as the shooting is happening its beeping across cell phones around the globe like a stock ticker. We know everything about everyone as it happens. That’s good! But we must maintain a sense of perspective which is hard to do under the current fear mongering administration. The government, the media, and the preachers have people scared into giving up their rights! These people aren’t thinking; baaaa baaaa. Re-read 1984. Look at the what’s happening in the UK and how it could easily happen here. Watch Wag the Dog. I’m not saying go totally tinfoil hat on us, but if we don’t shock some common sense into some people, we are going to speed down a bad path. GW Bush 2008!

As an example, the Rocky Elementary School Principal is adamant that the children’s safety at the school relies on enclosing the entire property in a horrifically ugly hurricane fence. Will it have barbed wire? This will destroy a community school. No one will be able to use the playground on the weekends. Home values will fall. Is there really a threat to the children? I haven’t seen it and I’m not stupid or blind. But the principal is so caught up in the security assessment by some for profit firm (that’s what the firm is supposed to do!) that he doesn’t even want people talking about the fence.

In summary, we are now inundated with information that makes the world smaller but also stresses us with somebody else’s problem. Fear mongers react instead of respond thinking “this will happen to us” and in an oddly self-fulfilling prophecy, their lives get scarier because of the increased security due to "the threat."

[Source, AtomicTumor]

Update: Suzanne point out that the crime figures reflect that Oak Ridge is just getting rougher. From City-data.com crime index (higher means more crime, U.S. average = 323.2):

  • 2000 = 361.1
  • 2001 = 368.8
  • 2002 = 462.5
  • 2003 = 478.4
  • 2004 = 506.7
  • 2005 = 507.1
  • 2006 = 450.3
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Voters Need Not Hide Behind the Curtain

Knox County has decided that voter privacy is bunk. As long as you certify the information is for political reasons only, Knox County Election Commission will send you a list of active and inactive voters and their history. Cost? Free!

We have changed our policy concerning purchase of voter lists on disk. If you will print out, fill in and send us the Certification for Purchase of Voter List on CD (http://www.knoxcounty.org/election/pdfs/request_form_disk_list.pdf) we will send you a disk with all the active and inactive voters and their history. For free. [Source]

I wonder just how detailed that history is?

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Haslam Makes Me Giggle

Right! Sure. Billy you just keep fooling yourself.

"These are great jobs with bright, creative people who have created something that’s special here," Haslam said. "When you talk about the media production business, now you talk about Knoxville in the same league as New York and Chicago and L.A. And maybe this is an even better place." [Source]

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Panic!

Don’t take hand lotion to the airports! Hand lotion is the next terror substance! Because..well..uh, terrorists have smooth hands? No, that can’t be it. Um… No..can’t publish that thougth.. that would take away the G rating of this blog? What’s that? I lost my G rating? Oh I never had one! So, Knoxville wants to be Boston?

A white substance left in a hospital emergency room, prompting a quarantine of the area may have been a hand lotion. [Source]

Oh NO! Potentially deadly substance found in hospital! What do we do?!

"It smelled good, so we’re thinking it was a hand lotion," [Source]

That’s right! Stick yer nose in that thar anthax and tell me ifn its dangerous. After the spokeswoman for the Knox County Health Department, whose job is apparently to go to crime scenes and shove her nose into unknown substances, you know, like medieval food tasters!, after she lived, it was determined that something had to be done with the substance.

A private contractor that handles the hospital’s wastes will incinerate the bottle and contents, Dougherty said. [Source]

You got that right! We determined the substance to be inert and harmless so instead of having a hospital employee, or the high paid (she does get paid well for shoving her nose into stuff right?) health department employee, or for that matter one of the sick people at the hospital, or a child, to simply throw the container into the trashcan, we are going to pay a "private contractor" (read that as expensive) to dispose of the substance. I had the personal privilege of working with one of the fine companies in Oak Ridge who get paid to move hazardous waste around. You know those spray cans of paint, compressed air, and so forth that you so casually chunk into the trash can? Those are considered hazardous materials and government agencies have to pay to have them "properly disposed of" which means that they are dumped into 50 gallon drums, sealed, and shipped to a landfill at $10,000 per drum. Not tightly packed mind you. Sure, they could fit a lot more cans in a drum if the spray cans were put in an orderly fashion but if you just throw them in the drum you have to create more $10,000 invoices (and it takes less time). So you can bet the private contractor is going to take a vacation on that container of hand lotion.

Does anyone think before they jump anymore? Or has the government just got you that scared! Is this over? No way! For your enjoyment, the News Sentinel promises to spend more money on this horrific event!

More details as they develop online and in Friday’s News Sentinel. [Source]

Anyone know what teenage boys do with hand lotion? That’s what’s happening with your tax dollars right here!

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Foreigners To Invade Tennessee

They will take your land. They will take your money. And you will pay them to do it!

Land taken with E.D. by the state and potentially fully built by the state with your tax dollars. [Source]

See also.

Update: I’m not sure I understand this statement: "They cause more accidents, more delays, more gas and more road rage." I have used toll roads as a passenger or driver most of my life and they have always seemed fine by me. Matter of fact, they are always in better repair than other roads. The only trouble I have ever seen is in approaching an unmanned toll and not having any change.

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Rezoning continues…Feeder schools

I had a call today and had the pleasure of being interviewed by Gordon Boyd of WVLT regarding the next phase of Knox County Schools rezoning, feeder schools (ie. Middle and Elementary). If they use my footage, it will air between 5:30 and 6 today. I enjoyed the interview and afterwards thought many wonderful ideas and tidbits of information I could have shared and probably could have talked another 15 minutes. Of all this school rezoning stuff, I have really come to respect the quality of our local reporters. Regardless of station, they are professional, courteous, well informed, and very friendly. I am very unimpressed with some of our school board members and hope that they will never again run for office unopposed! That said, Cindy Buttry, Robert Bratton, and Thomas Deakins did their jobs very well, deserve commendation, and should be re-elected. I cannot speak much one way or another for Rex Stooksbury or Jim Williams. I was terribly unimpressed with Sam Anderson and do not think he holds office with an open mind. Karen Carsen needs happy pills and to not hold office. I thought Indya Kincannon was going to be a good board member but in the end I think she is just a good politician. I felt she played both sides of the fence and at the last minute chose the side that benefited her the most. Dan Murphy is a self-serving, arrogant ass and should be booted out of office today.

Update: Here’s the article with a link to the video.