Not bad for a guy I’ve often slapped in the back of the head and called Space Monkey on multiple occasions.

Besides the obviously great job he’s done turning what once was an eyesore into a useful and attractive space, I love is that he’s renaming it The Taggart Building. Personally, I would have gone with Roark Towers, but The Fountainhead influenced me more than Atlas Shrugged.

Click over for the video of the news story. I’d embed it, but WBIR has auto-play on their videos.Similar Posts:

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Official KO members, KO sponsors, and members of KO affiliate organizations receive a 20% discount for this event: $20/per person includes an evening of cocktails, friends, an upbeat vibe, and inspiring speeches about Knoxville’s potential to be even more sustainable, innovative, cosmopolitan, and empowered entrepreneurial community of cultural creatives.

This is a great opportunity to meet some of the folks involved with KO, and if you aren’t a member yet, you can swing by and take this quiz to see if perhaps you should be!

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And his better half, cathymccaughan says,

What good does it do to close the high school when the teens will be at the mall or movies every day?

Just curious…do they close schools when someone gets the regular flu? It appears to be just as dangerous. What about food poisoning (it could have happened at school)? Or a stomach virus? Or pink eye? Or lice?

Considering all the bad things your kids can pick up from other students while in school–and I’m not talking about illnesses–swine flu shouldn’t worry anyone too much. Then again, maybe it’s better for the kiddies to take a week off from that kind of learning.

UPDATE: Here’s a story on WBIR about a West Valley Middle Schol student who has recovered from a probable case of swine flu. I haven’t seen any updates yet as to whether it’s related to the Bearden High School news.

UPDATE II: djuggler confirms in the comments that it’s the West Valley Middle case, not Bearden High School

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Imagine my surprise to find that in addition to the few fringe/dangerous/extremist wing nuts who ventured out to express their disagreement with the insane spending going on in Washington, a couple of thousand other folks showed up as well. After driving around for 30 minutes or so trying to find a parking spot (must’ve been a special event at the KMA today?) I made it down to the rally.

There was a pretty varied cross section of people. Lots of “Fair Tax” signs (I’ll post later why I have a hard time getting on board with that), lots of Ron Paul supporters, and thankfully not much bashing of President Obama directly. I think most people understand that this didn’t start with the current administration, but was going on before they got there. I mean, sure, he voted for out of control spending when he was in the Senate, but it’s not really fair to hold him accountable for silly things like his record.

I didn’t see any rowdy behavior, save the old hippy Obama supporting couple walking around screaming at people, basically trying to get under people’s skin. That was funny. I don’t have anything against geezers reliving their glory days in the 1960s, I just wish they were still getting their funding from their parents instead of a Social Security check.

Some politicians spoke. Next.

Stewart Rhodes from Oath Keepers wrapped up the event–spend some time reading over there.

I had a two year old in tow, so I didn’t make the trek to the Federal Building. Besides we had to get her back home to work off some of this debt she’s racked up.

There are some posts from other (Michael Silence, Chris for Liberty, Six Meat Buffet, Blue Collar Muse) people up already, along with posts from other tea parties (Bob Krumm, RustMeister, Poor Richard’s News, Tom Guleff) from all around the state. I did notice the local “progressives” have posted about the event as well. No word yet on their counter protest. I’m sure they are still sitting in traffic due to the massive turnout.

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It made me laugh that one of them was actually called an “oversimplifying Republican” in the comments. Now that’s funny. How ironic is it to accuse someone of oversimplifying while stating in the same sentence that anyone who disagrees with big government and rampant spending is a Republican? Last I checked (I’ve been checking for the last 8 years), Republicans aren’t exactly proponents of small government and controlled spending.

That brings me to my next point.

It is truly disgusting to see the Republican establishment try to claim the Tea Party movement as their own. We don’t have to look too far back in history to find a point in time when Republicans were happy to vote in favor of bailouts and laugh down anyone who supported keeping the federal gov’ment within its Constitutional limits. Of course, it’s easy to vote against this garbage now that you know it will pass anyway. I realize you guys are out of ideas and completely out of touch with your base, but this is too little too late.

We’re not forgetting. At least I’m not.

And as far as the media is concerned…oh well. While I hope the coverage is there (and I think it will be locally), I don’t see much point in complaining about the fact that they aren’t giving Tea Parties their due. If anything, it gives credence to the argument that the media is in the bag for the current powers that be.

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Currently, this is a non-partisan movement, and I hope it stays that way. Of course there are literally dozens singles of people who actually support the current spending insanity that’s going on and will turn out for a counter-protest. My sources tell me that the entire lot of them will be sharing a ride in a single Prius.

Pics and video will be up post-festivities!

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From KnoxViews:

Their proposal, modeled off of the top-ranked San Francisco Renaissance Center, entails using the space as a resource where startups in a variety of industries (specifically companies positioned to bring in the majority of their revenue from outside Tennessee) can grow around a community of other startups, self-employed professionals, and organization representatives that specifically serve the startup community.

If you fall into any of these categories, swing by and check it out! And, as always, there’s the weekly Wednesday open house at the coworking space on Kenesaw where you can meet cool KO people and find out more!

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Wanna know what I think (I assume you do because you are reading this)? I think most of these reps knew the taxing of the AIG bonuses is unconstitutional and knew that it will never happen. Therefore, it’s a win/win. They think they will look like they are sticking up for the “little guy” to their constituency, all the while knowing their arses are covered for voting on legislation that allowed the bonuses to be paid in the first place.

“I made a mistake, and I tried to reconcile it, but the Supreme Court shot it down” or some such nonsense.

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It seems to me it would be awfully tough to indoctrinate adults who have made a decision on their own to attend a course, especially when, according to the original post, most of these adults seem to share a common viewpoint going in.

Now, indoctrination of children who are more or less forced to a attend a course–that I could imagine. But that would never happen in a public school, right?

I’ll continue to wait patiently for someone in the media other than John Stossel to address that one. I guess to most in the media that isn’t nearly as important as what consenting adults do in a free society while harming absolutely no one.

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I’ll give him this…he did his homework. I think he may have checked out a few of the blogs of those who would be attending the meetup tonight. Or, more than likely, his researcher checked them out…dunno. Case in point–he invoked the name of Ron Paul 5 or 6 times throughout his talk. The libertarian streak (he claimed he has one of those too) was pretty strong in the room. He also made a point to champion homeschooling and gun rights early on.

He most definitely had checked out Frankly Speaking. She asked tough questions, and he gave…answers to some of them. He even pre-empted a question he expected her to ask on term limits, saying he himself was bothered by the fact that held his job as Congressman for so long. I believe him when he says we wishes he could’ve/would’ve left Washington earlier, but I suspect that his extended stay has a lot to do with fact that he knew Phil Bredesen was pretty much untouchable in 2006.

When asked about bringing conservatives back to the GOP and keeping them from going third party (the term “rogue” was actually used–heh), he brought up the very valid point that the only way to change the system was from within–if you wait for a third party to change things you are going to be waiting forever. It’s a great point, and since he made it himself, I will have high expectations of him to walk that walk if he’s elected governor.

As for his libertarian streak, Congressman Wamp didn’t seem to be very aware of a reasonably popular idea amongst libertarians and constitutional conservatives to repeal the 17th amendment. It seems like a current conservative/libertarian U.S. Congressman with aspirations of becoming a governor would want to do everything possible to return the power of the States back to the States, right?

Don’t get me wrong, I liked a lot of what I heard. And as The Missus pointed out when I was recapping the meetup to her, this is exactly what I hoped for from Ron Paul’s Presidential campaign–I wanted the conversation shifted to the libertarian direction. I’m seeing a lot of evidence that the GOP is starting to notice that (1) young people can be excited and mobilized by the concepts of liberty and (2) they pretty much stunk the place up for eight solid years.

As far as governor-specific questions go, I heard two things from Mr. Wamp that I really liked. One, “absolutely no income tax”…I love that. Two, he would like to look at eliminating the estate tax in TN. His point was that the state collects $93M in estate taxes each year, but that could probably be made up in increased sales tax revenues if retirees were encouraged to move here (and consequently spend money) because of the elimination of the estate tax.

As I said, I think Congressman Wamp, and the rest of the establishment Republicans for that matter, are starting to get the picture that they need to return to a “get-government-out-of-my-life” message. I don’t think he has the act down pat yet, but I give him credit for trying. I’m already more interested in this race!

And let me say this…

I greatly appreciate Zach Wamp’s willingness to meet with us and commend him for spending only 1/4 of the time speaking and 3/4 of the time fielding what were, at times, very tough questions from people he was 100% sure would put their impressions on Al Gore’s internet for all the world to see.

Links to others who were in attendance are coming! Here are thoughts form Blue Collar Muse.

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