Weekly Blogger Roundup!!!

The "things are heating up and it's not just Global Warming" edition of the TennViews weekly liberal blog roundup and what the best and brightest bloggers in Tennessee are talking about...

• 10,000 Monkeys and a Camera: US Elections in Crisis: "We are supposed to be the greatest nation on earth and yet we appear to be incapable of holding an election and then having confidence in our returns."

• Andy Axel (at KnoxViews): Fred Thompson is losing to this guy?: "It speaks volumes that the hapless Thompson can't put up even a one-point victory on this lunatic..."

• BlountViews: Why they come here: "Immigrants from Mexico do not come to Tennessee to live out their lives. They come to work."

• The Crone Speaks: Economic downturn?: "So, it’s no wonder I’m looking at these reports and saying "what the f*** took you economists so long to realize the reality?"

• Cup of Joe Powell: The spelling disqualification: "Question: What's the first sign of the return of the TN State Legislature? Answer: A flurry of goofy, useless and grandstanding bills from Teh Rep, aka Stacey Campfield of Knoxville." ALSO: The good, the bad, the primaries: "...good news is that how a person votes matters more than the opinions of the bobble heads."

• The Donkey's Mouth: Tennessee Republican Party Advocating Legislator Pay Raises: "From the keystrokes of TNGOP communications director Bill Hobbs, comes perhaps a new GOP initiative -- legislative salary increases."

• Enclave: The Monster Tennessee Media Could Become : "...if his numbers and prominence start to rise, we should be as vigilant of the closing distance between media noses and Mr. Thompson's own bum." ALSO: Extensive coverage of the Davidson Co. election office breakin and identity theft.

• Fletch: Long-haired Middle-Aged Dude and the Sea: "This outing was my first on a small sailboat on the open ocean..."

• KnoxViews (Bill Young): The Democrats in Michigan: "We got a battle in Michigan - Uncommitted vs Clinton", ALSO (metulj): Obama on My Block: "I asked her if hope was important right now. She said that the last 7 years was like being held captive by aliens."

• Lean Left: ACLU: Close Gitmo Now: "The prison camp at Gitmo is a symbol to the world of our leader’s cowardice and viciousness and it is the single most effective propaganda tool the terrorists have." ALSO: New Hampshire: Beating the Press: "With its focus on trivia and personalities, with its mistaking high-school level jealousies and phobias for insight, with its insistence on substituting story lines for reporting, the political press in this country is an enormous threat to the health of our democracy."

• Left of the Dial: Meth Seizures In East Tennessee: "While the number of meth labs seized in Tennessee decreased in 2007, the numbers are still staggering especially in east Tennessee."

• Left Wing Cracker: Jim Kyle, you da man!: "Look, something has to be done here; as I have noted previously, the citizens of District 29 have no representation, and the Senate, even though tied at 16-16-1, could be run roughshod by the Republicans, and that is NEVER a good thing."

• NewsComa: Don McLeary, Convictions and Not So Smart Politics: "Trust is important in politics because it’s hard to discern. And in partisan politics, loyalty is everything."

• Pesky Fly: Two Feathers Short of a Full Chicken : "There's an openly racist anti-Obama email making its way around the internets." (Ed. Note: I got it, too.) ALSO: Power Blackout : "I believe that Barack Obama is much smarter and more shrewd than anyone is giving him credit for. I would make the case that Obama is first and foremost a student of power, and that his conciliatory approach is intended to disarm his opposition rather than wave a white flag of surrender."

• Progress Nashville: Bush becoming a dangerous joke: "Nearly a year is left in the Bush administration and like a cornered, wounded animal, it is at its most dangerous."

• Resonance: Another Electoral Compass Quiz: "One notable aspect of the grid is how closely the candidates within each of the two parties are clustered together. In other words, primary voters aren't being offered substantive choices on the issues."

• RoaneViews: Wild and Scenic Environmental Film Festival: "Patagonia is cosponsoring the event with the Tennessee Clean Water Network..."

• Russ McBee: The topsy-turvy state of human rights: "Today, a mere sixteen years after the Soviet Union collapsed, the US is the country building gulags, and the former Soviet republics are abolishing the death penalty because it's barbaric." ALSO: FBI wiretaps canceled for not paying the phone bill: "Neither Congress nor the courts seem willing to stop warrantless wiretapping, but apparently the phone company will."

• Sean Braisted: Custer's Last Stand: "As his aides most elegantly put it, South Carolina's is Thompson's "Custer's last stand." The place where Custer went to die." ALSO: Republican Circus: "The predictable fare of "taxes bad" and "me kill terrorists" was on full display, with the occasional interjections of Ron Paul calling for a return to a 19th century economic system."

• Sharon Cobb: CNN Poll: Clinton or Obama would beat any Republican, ALSO: Watching The Republican Debate Last Night Reminded Me Of The Importance Of Getting A Democrat Elected In 08 For President: "All and all, it was a huge, macho hate fest."

• Silence Isn't Golden: Will he or won't he?: "Allowing someone to run unopposed shows weakness, complacency. The Republicans know this--they knew damn well that they couldn't beat Phil Bredesen in 2006, yet they still ran someone anyway." ALSO: Candidate lightbulb jokes: "How many McCain supporters does it take? We don't know. They're still in shock over the fact that the lightbulb didn't go out in New Hampshire."

• Tennessee Guerilla Women: Without Writers, Bill Maher is Still a Sexist Pig: "And there you go, when you have a lefty comic who behaves like the Rush Limbaugh of the Left, even Tony Snow gets to have rational moments." ALSO: Hillary's Victory -- Women Vote Against Misogyny: The Tweety Effect: "...there can be no doubt that the misogyny oozing from media pundits like Chris Matthews got New Hampshire women good and mad and they showed it with their votes."

• TennViews (Joe Powell): Real ID Redux - Still A Bad Idea: "While DHS now says it will reduce the cost of implementation, a cheaper bad idea is still a bad idea." ALSO (in case you missed it): New Hampshire reaction from Tennessee liberal bloggers, BONUS: Middle class help: "John Edwards has done a pretty good job identifying the problems facing the middle class. But what does he propose to do about them? The mainstream media is all over that question, hot damn!"

• Vibinc: What I Want in a President: "What we want, as Democrats, is more important than who we want as the nominee."

• Whites Creek Journal: Not again...: "Does [Kucinich] think he'll pick up 120,000 votes and win it? Hell no! he sees this as a perfect opportunity to test the reliability of electronic voting machines against a paper ballot." ALSO: Iranian Speedboat incident "Probably Faked": "The only conclusion I can come to is that our Country's International Policy is in the hands of amateurs. Stupid ones."

• Women's Health News: Education of the Pregnant Teen: "One advocate for the change was told, 'You can’t have maternity leave. If you have your baby on Wednesday, you better be back on Thursday.'"