Two Miami Dade County deputies were escorting Alberto Morales, a sex offender, from Miami to Las Vegas. On the stop for a at DFW for connecting flights, the deputies decided to change from continuing the flight and drive to Las Vegas due to Morales’ disruptive behavior. They stopped at Wal-Mart in Grapevine for supplies and one deputy went into the store and the second stayed with the criminal. Morales broke his own glasses that he then used to stab the deputy repeatedly and escaped.

Texans say, “Thank-you Florida.”

Officials believe ‘extremely dangerous’ escaped Miami felon still in area | Dallas-Fort Worth Crime News – News for Dallas, Texas – The Dallas Morning News.

With unemployment destroying lives throughout America, the professional, scientific and technical services sector has actually expanded ~15% over the last dozen years.

The Praxis Strategy Group took a look at the top 50 metropolitan areas with these jobs and ranked them according to how they have performed during that time. Let’s take a look at how the only 2 Tennessee regions did:

Under visionary leadership, Nashville’s medical and technology industries have boomed. Meanwhile, Memphis is shedding highly paid jobs.

Take a look at the city leadership and ask, is it any wonder?

Link: The Cities Winning The Battle For The Fastest Growing High-Wage Sector In The U.S. | Newgeography.com.

Californian Joel Kotkin bemoans the decline of his home state in The Golden State Is Crumbling:

California’s dominant ruling class—consisting of public-employee unions, green jihadis, and Democratic machine politicians—has no real use for science as Gilman saw it: as a way to create prosperity for its citizens. Instead, the prevailing credo of the state has been how to do everything possible to return to its pre-settlement condition, with little regard for what that means to the average Californian. …

Increasingly, California no longer beckons ambitious newcomers, except for a handful of the most affluent, best educated, and well connected. Through the 1980s and even through the late ’90s, the aspirational classes came to California. Now they head to other, more opportunity-friendly places like Austin, Houston, Dallas, Raleigh-Durham, even former “dust bowl” burghs like Des Moines, Omaha, and Oklahoma City. Meanwhile, Golden California, particularly its expensive, ultragreen coast, gets older and older. Marin County, the onetime home of the Grateful Dead and countless former hippies, is now one of the grayest urban counties in the country, with a median age of 44.

Of course, the self-described “progressive” mafia that runs California will point to Silicon Valley and its impressive array of startups. But for the most part, firms like Google, Twitter, and Facebook employ only a small cadre of highly educated workers. Overall, during the past decade the state’s high-tech employment fell by almost 4 percent, while Texas’s science-based employment grew by a healthy 11 percent. The sad reality is that turning T-shirt-wearing kids like Mark Zuckerberg into multibillionaires doesn’t do much to reduce unemployment, which even in San Jose—the largely blue-collar “capital” of Silicon Valley—now hovers around 10 percent.

Exactly.

Non-blogging Advised by Wolves writes:

California’s Prop. 31 is a regionalist program to raid the suburbs and transfer that wealth to failed cities. Failed cities will not be required to reform, they can depend on new funding from the suburbs.

The beginnings of this idea is also taking hold in Tennessee with the Memphis Independent School District declaring failure in order to require the County to step in and take over in accordance with State Law. Bartlett, as an organized municipality, is withdrawing from the County School District and establishing an ISD of their own. If the regionalists get their way, Bartlett will be suborned by Memphis. Now there is a nightmare.

Exactly.

The Obama Machine has cranked out a 17 minute mockumentary narrated by none other than legendary actor Tom Hanks with the aim to get Barack Hussein Obama reelected. According to FactCheck.org, it is filled with half-truths and misleads the viewer.

It has now come to light that there is yet another lie embedded in the video. This time, it is about the decision to make the raid that captured Bin Laden:

In the first clip, actor Tom Hanks narrates: “How do we understand this president and his time in office?” The next clip is of Vice President Joe Biden praising the President’s decision to kill Osama Bin Laden: “As he walked out of the room, it dawned on me. He’s all alone. This is his decision. Nobody is standing there with him.”

But that isn’t what happened. Time Magazine has uncovered a memo that paints a very different story altogether:

“The timing, operational decision-making and control are in Adm. McRaven’s hands,” the memo says. “The approval is provided on the risk profile presented to the president. Any additional risks are to be brought back to the president for his consideration. The direction is to go in and get bin Laden and, if he is not there, to get out.”

In other words, it was McRaven’s call to pull the trigger or not on the raid.

Some would say that this is a distinction without a difference, sort of like a head coach in football drawing up the game plan and letting his offensive coordinator actually call the plays. Then, technically, President George W. Bush gets the credit, since it was on his watch our war on terror was declared, Navy SEALs and Special Forces funding was increased and the hunt for Osama bin Laden began.

The Panetta memo, rather than presenting a profile in courage, says “approval is provided on the risk profile presented to the president.” This left enough wiggle room to blame the operation planners and controllers if the raid had gone as wrong as President Jimmy Carter’s famous failure to rescue American hostages held by Iran. This memo left room for the blame for another “Blackhawk Down” snafu to be blamed on anyone and everyone but President Obama.

One has to respect Tom Hanks for his accomplishments in driving for the WWII memorial in Washington D.C., but that respect is diminished when he mouthed half-truths and borderline lies in support of a president that has squandered the economic livelihood of our children’s children.

Even before this latest revelation, the RNC had a great take on the mockumentary:

“In 2008, [Obama] did a 30-minute infomercial to talk about what he would do as president, and it seems somewhat ironic that four years later he has to stretch a 17-minute video to say what he’s done,” [RNC] spokesman Sean Spicer said. “As well done as it is, even the best Hollywood studio effects can’t cover up the failed policies of the last three years.”

While on the subject, Spicer took aim at Obama’s hectic fundraising pace and Hollywood-style leisure activities, like playing golf.

“Americans understand that politicians are going to raise money, and that their presidents need downtime and time with their family,” he stressed. But “for a guy who’s trying to talk about the 99 percent, to be blatantly living the lifestyle not just of the 1 percent but the .1 percent looks contrary to everything that he’s talking about.”

Then again, selective blindness is a well known Liberal affliction.

Mick Wright brought a YouTube video to our attention, writing:

“In this little-known video posted in June 2010 (only 18 total views) by the pro-government consolidation group Rebuild Government, none other than Tomeka Hart assures voters the school systems “are not affected and they will remain separate entities.”

It has been a week, and the video is still only up to 155 views.

Courtesy of The Truth About Guns:

Politicians object to guns. Citizens not yet in the grip of political ambition are amazingly clear thinking.

Michael Silence, writing for Knox News, applauds state Senator Stacey Campfield for maintaining government transparency by leveraging the internet:

When elected officials are active online, everyone benefits.And while he gets heat for what some consider controversial positions, one has to applaud state Sen. Stacey Campfield, R-Knoxville, for being one of the highest profile elected officials in the state on the Internet.

Great article, especially as the bulk of it is dedicated to the upcoming consideration of legislation concerning red-light cameras.

Full Disclosure: I gladly clicked the “Like” button on Kill Tennessee Traffic Cameras.

The world in figures: Industries: Infrastructure The Economist.

Results of the contested races in the Shelby County General Election:

• Republican Mark Luttell easily took County Mayor over Democrat Joe Ford (57.8 to 41.5)
• Democrat incumbent Steve Mulroy easily bested Republican challenger Rolando Toyos for County Commission District 5 (65.5 to 34.5)
• Republican David Lenoir took the County Trustee office away from incumbent Democrat Regina Newman, who was unanimously elected by the county commission to serve as interim Trustee last September (49.3 to 46.4)
• Republican Bill Oldham beat Democrat Randy Wade, although Wade has yet to concede even though he lost by over 7,000 votes (51.9 to 48.0)
• Republican Jimmy Moore easily defeated Democrat Ricky Dixon for Circuit Court Clerk (55.4 to 44.6)
• Republican Kevin Key eked out a win over Democrat incumbent Minerva Johnican for Criminal Court Clerk (48.7 to 45.7)
• Republican Joy Touliatos gratifyingly tromped Democrat snake-oil-salesman Shep Wilbun for Juvenile Court Clerk (51.4 to 43.9)
• Republican Paul Boyd beat Democrat Sondra Bection for Probate Court Clerk (52.1 to 47.9)
• Republican Wayne Mashburn handily beat Democrat Corey Maclin for County Clerk (54.8 to 45.0)
• Republican Tom Leatherwood stomped Democrat Coleman Thompson for Register of Deeds (58.4 to 41.6)

Republicans won 9 of the 10 contested races in Shelby County, often by surprisingly wide margins against Democrat candidates with establish name recognition (e.g., Joe Ford and Shep Wilbun). Congratulations to the Shelby County GOP leadership for believing that the party could do this well in a county dominated by Democrats (57 percent of the voters voted in Democrat primaries during early voting).

Also deserving note, my heartfelt congratulations go out to personal favorite and acquaintance Heidi Shafer for being elected to the County Commission (District 1, Position 2).

Technorati Tags: Races of 2010, Tennessee Politics, Shelby County General Election, Mark Luttell, Shelby County Mayor , Joe Ford , Steve Mulroy , Rolando Toyos , David Lenoir , Regina Newman, Bill Oldham , Randy Wade, Jimmy Moore , Ricky Dixon , Kevin Key , Minerva Johnican , Joy Touliatos , Shep Wilbun , Paul Boyd , Sondra Bection , Wayne Mashburn , Corey Maclin , Tom Leatherwood , Coleman Thompson , Heidi Shafer