Never, ever tie a dog (or a cat or a child or any other living thing) to a parked vehicle. Period. Parked vehicles tend to not stay parked, and careless operators sometimes forget what's tied to them. Or, someone else could drive away not knowing.

SEE: Jury deciding fate of man who dragged Little Brown Dog behind his truck...

UPDATE: Hung jury, mistrial. New trial set for Aug. 7th.

Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility: "Despite a proposed budget hike of more than $150 million, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is moving to curtail support for its critical ocean-based tsunami warning system and terminate funding for Alaska’s tsunami and seismic network and emergency public outreach for the West Coast and Alaska, among other activities." Read more...

Bloomberg reports that Citgroup "defrauded, falsified information or misled federal government entities" by selling or securing insurance for defective mortgages.

Authoritarian legal scholar and former Attorney General of the United States, Alberto Gonzales, is speaking at UT Law in about 25 minutes. I just found out from a law student who will be in attendance. Not a single mention of this event anywhere I can find.

District Selectman D.W. Moorehouse (R) is promoting a bill that prohibits giving children androgynous names "which confuse and promote homosexual tendencies." Moorehouse explains...

SEE ALSO: dontsaystacey.com (by way of @superpixels)

Peter Orszag:

Life expectancy appears to have risen more in the states with relatively large increases in unemployment... During the Great Depression, too, life expectancy rose... Their research shows that a one-percentage-point increase in a state’s unemployment rate is associated with a 0.5 percent reduction in the state’s mortality rate.

We asked Knox Co. Election Administrator Cliff Rodgers via email if they were tracking provisional ballots for voters who showed up for early voting without state-approved photo ID.

Mr. Rodgers replied that "As you can imagine, we're watching this issue closely. We have had no provisional photo ID voters."

We also asked Blount Co. Election Administrator Libby Breeeding, and she said they haven't had any either. "I guess we did a pretty good job getting the word out," she said.

This is encouraging, although it doesn't tell us if any voters left without voting or are staying home because they don't have ID. Hopefully turnout won't be affected.

UPDATE: Davidson Co. Election Commission reports no photo ID provisional ballots so far.

UPDATE: Hamilton Co. Election Commission also reports no photo ID provisional ballots so far.

UPDATE: Shelby Co. Election Commission reports they have had "very few," perhaps two or three so far. They noted, however, that the 21 satellite locations just opened yesterday. The downtown Shelby Co. Office Bldg. location has been open since the 15th and has had maybe one provisional ballot so far.

Add to the previous list state business owners, who aren't too happy with bills in the state legislature that allow employees to bring guns to work as long as they leave them in the car. They are even more pissed off about a companion bill that would prevent them from "discriminating" against gun toters by having separate parking lots or the like. The Nashville Business Journal reports...

So far in the 2012 election cycle, state and national Republicans have managed to piss off conservatives, women, seniors, gays, teachers and unions. Now the state Republicans have gone and pissed off veterans. Who's next?

It's desperation at the national level, but the only explanation at the state level is hubris. Doesn't seem like much of a way to win elections.

The Knox Co. Election Commission reports that 3948 people have voted in the first week of early voting for the March 6th primary. Turnout is strongest at Downtown West, followed by Farragut.

Including absentee ballots, 4174 have voted in the Republican Primary, 462 in the Democratic Primary, and 5 for Board of Education only.

There appeared to be a slight surge at nearly every location yesterday. Perhaps voters are starting to make up their mind.

Pam Strickland's recent column about school class sizes provoked a response from Tennessee Education Commissioner (and Teach for America alumnus) Kevin Huffman, who basically calls her a liar.

Huffman says that if Ms. Strickland had read the proposed legislation more closely she would see that it doesn't double or allow unlimited class sizes. In fact it does eliminate "average" class sizes, as Ms. Strickland wrote, but it also maintains "maximum" class sizes, as the Governor and Mr. Huffman contend.

However, the devil is in the details. If you read it a little more closely, you will see that it also eliminates a prohibition against class size waivers set forth in TCA 49-1-104 (a), which currently states that "neither the commissioner nor the state board of education shall grant waivers from the maximum class sizes established in this section."

Without such a prohibition, Huffman would be free to grant class size waivers to every school system in the state, allowing them to set whatever class sizes they want. (Class size waivers are a "feature" of Tennessee charter schools.)

So while Ms. Strickland might be guilty of a little impassioned hyperbole in an opinion column, it appears Mr. Huffman is guilty of subterfuge while acting in an official capacity.

So much for the diesel-fueled Haslam Machine's influence when it comes to national politics. According to this ARG poll, Santorum leads Romney 34% to 27%.

That's within the margin of error, just barely. But look at the Tea Party support: 40% Santorum v. 17% Romney. And according to this report, Santorum is only just now getting his ground game organized in Tennessee, half way through early voting.

This will be entertaining. And quite amusing if Little Ricky wins Tennessee.

Will be used mostly for reading books & magazines, less often for watching movies. Opinions, please!

Yes, that's going to suck, but the real cost is a lot more. Just the environmental costs make it more like $15/gal. according to the Center for Investigative Reporting. And they don't even count the $trillion or so we've spent over the last ten years "securing" foreign oil supplies.

If we had to pay what gas really costs at the pump instead of putting it on the national debt credit card we'd likely get more serious about alternative fuels and more efficient transportation.

TripAdvisor is a mostly OK resource when traveling and looking for hotels, restaurants, etc. But it helps to become familiar with some of the reviewer styles to gauge reliability. Here are a few to watch out for...

Georgiana Vines reports from the event at Jig and Reel. It's a crummy job but somebody has to do it. Our sympathies to GV. I need a shower after just reading it.

The Tennessee Dept. of Labor and Workforce Development has received official notice of the following layoffs:

• Continuing layoffs related to Food Lion store closings affected 340 workers in Knox, Anderson, Blount and Cumberland counties, including 220 workers at an Anderson Co. distribution center.

• Sea Ray boats in Knox Co. laid off 24 workers on Jan. 12.

• Colonial Hills Nursing Center in Blount Co. closed and laid off 222 workers between Jan. 20 and Jan. 30 after losing federal accreditation.

• PACA Body Armor in Campbell Co. (Jacksboro) is closing and laying off 86 workers on Mar. 3.

• Briggs and Stratton is closing their facility in Dyer Co. an laying off 231 workers between Mar. 1 and May 15.

If you can't be there, here are some live webcams:

• Nola.com Mardi Gras Parade Cam

• Earth Cam Bourbon Street

Parade Schedule from Nola.com (all times Central):

• Orleans Zulu - 8:00 a.m.
• Jefferson Argus - 10:00 a.m.
• Jefferson Jefferson Trucks - after Argus
• Jefferson Elks Jefferson - after Trucks
• Orleans Rex - 10:00 a.m.
• Orleans Elks Orleans - after Rex
• Orleans Crescent City - after Elks
• St. Tammany Covington - 10:00 a.m.
• St. Tammany Chahta - 1:00 p.m.
• St. Tammany Folsom - 2:00 p.m.
• St. Tammany Donz - TBD

The wall calendar in my kitchen (printed in Korea) says it's Presidents Day. The U.S. Federal Government Office of Personnel Management says it's Washington's Birthday. [1]

Our Republican-controlled state government is once again stacking the deck against working people in favor of their corporate overlords. Mary Mancini explains...