"Snark Bites" 2/08-14/09

2/14
Knox Area Legislator Asked to Produce 'Certificate of Sanity'
"If he's sane, surely he has the documents to prove it," says citizens group

From APB reports. KNOXVILLE, Tenn. State Rep. Stacey Campfield of Knoxville has been asked to prove that he is of sound mind after joining Frank Niceley of Strawberry Plains and House Republican Caucus Chairman Glen Casada as supporters of a lawsuit trying to force President Barack Obama to turn over a copy of his birth certificate.

Campfield acknowledged that he, along with Nicely, Casada and Rep. Eric Swafford, R-Pikeville, would back a lawsuit to be filed by the Darn, Our Derangement's Obvious Squad (DODOS), which regurgitates the hoary chestnut that Obama may have been born outside of the United States. Campfield acknowledged that he joined the suit to draw attention to himself and be a general nuisance.

"Look at me! Look at me!" said Campfield. "I'm pestering the president! I'm important! I'm somebody! Look at me, look at me! Blast it, look at me, I said!"

Members of the National Organization to Defend Our Democracy from Obstinate Stupidity (NODODOS) say that this is just the latest in a series of outrageous, unproductive stunts Campfield has pulled during his tenure in the state legislature - stunts that only distract from the job he is supposed to be doing.

NODODOS contends that Campfield's constant posturing and support of silly legislation are signs of mental illness. The citizen's group is demanding that he produce a "certificate of sanity..."

2/13
County Mayor Eyes Sunshine Institute
"After losing the Sunshine Lawsuit, Knox County is the logical location for it," says Ragsdale

From APB reports. KNOXVILLE, Tenn. Gov. Phil Bredesen's call for a new institute dedicated to the Open Meetings Act, also known as the Sunshine Law, has caught the attention of Mike Ragsdale.

Knox County's mayor on Thursday called for local officials to work "very aggressively" on a proposal that would create a home for the Sunshine Institute locally. During a meeting of the board of The Development Corporation of Knox County, Ragsdale cited the City County Building and the proposed Midway Industrial Park as possible locations for the institute. The mayor also mentioned the possibility of hosting an online "virtual Sunshine Institute" at the URL currently hosting the County Commission Chat Room, "because that's mostly just a vacuum of wasted cyberspace right now."

"Because Knox County lost the landmark Sunshine Lawsuit in 2007, it's only logical that Knox County should be the home for the Sunshine Institute," declared Ragsdale.

The mayor suggested that county commissioners consider donating records of the Sunshine Lawsuit they lost for the institute. Ragsdale professed his hope that the institute could be located "outside the fence, in the sunshine, out of the shadows, in broad daylight," apparently a reference to his preference that the the institute be located someplace sunny. He also suggested that the current contretemps between tempestuous current Knox County Commissioner "Our" Larry Smith and pugnacious former commissioner Scott "Scoobie" Moore be used as a case study for the institute.

Mike Edwards, president and CEO of the Development Corp., concurred with Ragsdale's suggestion.

"There's nothing we ought to go harder after than what you're saying," he said. "Having the 'Our' Larry-Scoobie Moore donnybrook as a showcase of bad government would be a perfect symbol for how hard up Knox County is."

Edwards added that the Development Corp. should engage the City of Knoxville, the University of Tennessee and TVA about the proposal.

"All local governmental, quasi-governmental and pseudo-governmental entities should be involved in this institute," he said. "Except, of course, for the Development Corp. We're special..."

2/12
TVA Board: Recycled Coal Waste PR 'Has Many Uses'
Reams of press releases "can be made into paper dolls and hats" says chairman

From APB reports. Long before a coal ash spill deluged a rural Roane County neighborhood, TVA was spreading million of tons of publicity materials from its coal-fired power plants - as recycled materials.

"Yes, we are taking these PR materials and we are reducing the amount that goes into landfills and beneficially reusing them," said TVA Chairman Over T. Transom at yesterday's TVA Board of Directors meeting. "They are good products for paper dolls and hats, for example."

PR is just one naturally occurring byproduct of coal ashification.

Some activist groups have warned consumers of the possibility of high levels of casuistry, suggestio falsi, artifice, equivoque, canards, tergiversation, perfidies, prevarication and dissimulation in reused PR materials, and at the very least, they say users should be wary of ink smudges. TVA President and CEO Kilmore Trout scoffed at the notion.

"PR is one of the few things in life that can reduce consumer pressure on and improve the acceptance of" a company without producing any tangible benefit to the consumer, said Trout.

Transom countered that up to 70 percent of the PR material is pulp, roughly 20 percent is cellulose fiber and about 10 percent is chicanery, with only tiny amounts of ink.

"So when they talk about the ink smudges, they are talking about only faint trace marks ... because it is such a small concentration," Transom said.

PR materials "are about as toxic as Muzak," said Michael McDonald with the Center for American Public Relation Studies...

2/10
County Law Director Declares 'Government Quarantine'
"Until further notice, county officials must keep their hands to themselves," says Lockett

From APB reports. KNOXVILLE, Tenn. Knox County Law Director Bill Lockett said Monday he has declared county government officials under quarantine until further notice. Apparently already weary of the constant scandal eruptions after only months in office, Lockett said county officials were "a danger to citizens from exposure to a scandal bug" and that they were to "keep their feet on the straight-and-narrow, their heads out of the clouds, their eyes peeled, their ears open, their mouths shut, their noses to the grindstones and their hands to themselves."

Suiting words to deeds, Lockett last week sent a letter to county commissioners advising them to resign from any boards they had appointed themselves to. On Monday Lockett also filed a motion in Knox County Chancellor John Weaver's court that "seeks to extricate Knox County from the dirty deeds case" that Knox county joined with Bradley Mayes against Natural Resources Recovery of Tennessee. In his motion, Lockett declared that the county's continuing inclusion in the case could expose "innocents to a scandal contagion."

"County officials seem to have contracted some form of the buffoonic plague," wrote Lockett. "They may have been exposed to it from dirty money that had been mixed in with the mulch. Or possibly from serving in government with Scott 'Scoobie' Moore. But, in any event, it appears to be highly toxic to higher brain functions, and the farther county officials are from that mulch, the better. Because that stuff stinks."

Lockett also appointed private investigator Thomas Magnum to conduct an investigation into the county's relationship with the mulch to determine if the buffoonic plague had indeed originated there.

The investigation into the county-mulch relationship was called for by Weaver. He chastised the (county) Department of Engineering and Public Works for allowing county officials to "play in the mulch without supervision..."