Say Uncle reports: US Department of Education Needs 27 Short-Barreled Shotguns.

Now that is one tough school.

Speaking of tough schools, Memphis City Schools wants its own police force:

Memphis City Schools already spends $10 million dollars a year on school security. And now, a resolution is on the table to expand that.

“Further expand Memphis City Schools security force and eliminate Memphis Police from all campuses,” says Kenneth Whalum, a MCS Board Commissioner.

The elimination of MPD officers from campuses is a controversial idea. Dr. Cash has been pushing to change state law in order to have his own “peace keeping force” since he took over as head of schools.

What is happening to our country?

Technorati Tags: Department of Education, Memphis City Schools, Gangs in Schools

Memphis awoke to a surprise snowfall this morning. Forecasters predicted warm air would come from the south turning light flurries of early snow into rain. Instead, the warm air stalled and is now predicted to get here mid-afternoon.

In the meantime, our roads are covered with snow and very slick, accidents abound, and the city’s salt trucks were still on the lot well into rush hour.

View from AlphaPatriot’s Back Porch

The Gorebot’s home is quite a ways north of here. I wonder what it looks like?

On the other hand, snow is being trucked into Vancouver for the winter Olympics as the area experiences unseasonably warm temperatures.

Trouble is, with opening ceremonies only five days away, the above-freezing temperatures in Vancouver continue to raise concerns for other sports, particularly snowboarding and freestyle skiing, two events being held on the mountain overlooking the city.

The biggest test comes today, when freestyle moguls training sessions are scheduled to begin.

So much for being able to predict global temperatures with any sort of accuracy what-so-ever.

Meanwhile, meteorologists dealing with the east coast Snowpocolypse are freaking out:

Moody’s has done an analysis of the 100 largest metro areas and found the five markets that will perform best in 2010:

The five areas that Moody’s foresees home prices performing best in 2010 are: Tacoma, Wash., (an increase of 2.44%); Memphis, Tenn., (up 0.99%); Pittsburgh (up 0.89%); Charleston, S.C. (up 0.18%); and Seattle (decline of 0.50%).

Yep, fifth best-performing market will actually slide in value. What kind of recovery is that?

Yet a recovery depends on several factors. At the top of the list is a turnaround in the labor market. More people going back to work will have a beneficial effect on household income and consumer confidence and would stabilize the housing market, says Stuart Gabriel, director of UCLA’s Ziman Center for Real Estate. As of November, one of out every 10 American workers is unemployed, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. And while that’s down slightly from October, Moody’s expects the jobless rate to peak in the third quarter next year at 10.6%.

You heard it right — Moody’s expects unemployment to continue to rise throughout the first half of 2010.

Further, according to RealtyTrac (an online marketplace of foreclosure listings) the number of foreclosures will continue to rise. Here is the trend they predict:

• 2.3 million households received foreclosure notices in 2009 (fact)
• 3.2 million households will have received a foreclosure notice in 2009 (this, and the rest, are RealtyTrac projections)
• That number will peak in 2010, approaching four million.
• In 2011 foreclosures “will start to go down at least marginally.”

Hang on, it’s going to be a rough ride.

Technorati Tags: Ballooning Unemployment, The Crashing Housing Market, Foreclosures, Barack Hussein Obama the Dangerous Choice

King Willie says he is leaving office to "pursue other challenges" effective 31 July.

With Herenton’s resignation, Memphis’ charter dictates that City Council chairman Scott McCormick will become mayor for 20 days. The council then will vote to appoint an interim mayor to serve until the next municipal or general election, which is scheduled for November. If the council cannot agree on an interim mayor within the 20 days, then CAO McGee becomes mayor until the next election.

Herenton, Memphis mayor since 1991, was re-elected to his fifth term just last November in a contentious three-way race. With his resignation, the city will be subjected to another expensive mayoral election process.

Willie says that he is considering several options, including returning to education from whence he came. A FOH (friend of Herenton) says that Willie is considering either going back to be the Memphis City Schools Superintendent or running for the Ninth Congressional District seat.

But one cannot help but wonder if his sudden departure has anything to do with the ongoing investigations:

As recently as December a federal grand jury subpoenaed records related to Herenton’s association with a city contractor.

The rumors of more arrests spinning off from Tennessee Waltz have refused to die, but I have come to the conclusion that this was more wishful thinking than anything else. Indeed, I think Left Wing Cracker may be correct when he suggests otherwise:

Does this have anything to do with the Grand Jury investigation, or is it just that he wanted one last electoral victory to say F— YOU to those who wanted him out?

Memphis has long been known as "America’s Distribution Center". In addition to people, a lot of goods move through Memphis every year. After all, Memphis International handles more cargo than any other airport in the world, and Memphis is home to the second largest inland port in the country, services five Class 1 railroads, and is a conduit for over 200 trucking firms.

Memphis is the logistics center of America. 17 percent of the work force works in logistics, the most of any metropolitan area in the country. Intermodal transportation is the railroad’s fastest-growing freight category, and Memphis logistical operations continues to grow. Just last year, Canadian National Railway began a 2 1/2 year, $100 million project to expand their operations in Memphis.

So it is no wonder that the topic of another bridge over the river to connect Memphis and Arkansas pops up from time to time. We only have two, and the big I-40 bridge was opened way back in 1972.

Tentative plans call for installing a bridge at the southern edge of West Memphis, through the city’s industrial park and the river port. The bridge would cross the Mississippi River there and reconnect with Interstate 55 south of President’s Island near downtown Memphis.

Another idea is to build a bridge just north of Marion. The bridge would merge with the northern loop of Interstate 40 in northwest Memphis.

The Tennessee Department of Transportation conducted a study several years ago and recommended crossing the Mississippi River in south Arkansas as part of the Interstate 69 proposal. Interstate 69 is a proposed traffic corridor running from Evansville, Ill., to Houston.

Officials with the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department said a new Mississippi River bridge will cost between $ 450 million and $ 710 million, and it would take five to 10 years to build.

Another reason for the bridge is the amount of traffic that rolls through West Memphis, Arkansas:

A new bridge would alleviate much of the truck transport traffic that rolls through West Memphis, said Ward Wimbish, director of economic development for the city of West Memphis. The 1. 5-mile stretch of roadway in the midst of the Crittenden County city doubles as Interstate 44 and 55 and is the third most congested area in the country, highway records indicate.

The two existing bridges see more than a hundred thousand vehicles a day roll across their structures. Think of the impact if a terrorist attack takes out one of them.

It’s time for a third bridge.

Tennessee’s Narcotics Officer of the Year for 2006 was charged with taking regular payments from drug dealers and selling anabolic steroids:

Some two dozen Memphis police officers have been indicted for public corruption since 2004, but Valentine’s arrest is particularly troubling to officials because he also held supervisory duties.

According to an affidavit, Valentine received regular payments from drug dealers for three years in exchange for assisting the movement of one marijuana shipment per month. The arrangement ended in 2000 when one of the traffickers’ associates was arrested.

An informant said Valentine also worked with him in the spring and summer of this year in buying and distributing anabolic steroids.

Bad people are found in almost any job, including those who pledge to protect and serve. Yet they remain trusted by the public, a sentiment I don’t understand. Yes, most cops are good people, just as are most politicians. But I won’t trust a cop with my life any more than I trust a politician with my bank account information.

Remembering that all politics are local, join your state gun rights organization, whether you get a carry permit or not. Keep the criminals guessing as to who may be armed. Because you never know who the criminals are, and may not find out until it’s too late.

Memphis Mayor Herenton’s tied up in another scandal, this one involving a questionable land deal with a man that has received numerous no-bid contracts from the city.

Known as “King Willie” because of his tyrannical misuse of power, the mayor lives in a $529,400 house at 5281 Horn Lake Road, a rather nice neighborhood. Here’s an aerial view of his 5 bedroom, 4 full bath home.

He also owns an adjoining lot at the corner of Horn Lake and Dubois Drive, which has been appraised by the Shelby County Assessor of Property at $45,000.

In October 2005, Herenton sold the lot to E.W. Moon, LLC (view the warranty deed) for $50,000. Then just months later, in May 2006, Moon gave the property back. Gave, as in “for free”. (View the quit claim.)

Herenton is now building a home on the lot and sees “nothing improper” about the deal with Moon, even though Moon has received $702,000 no-bid city road design contracts from the mayor since 2002. (The mayor is the man that approves city contracts. As I understand it, the city council can’t do anything except make recommendations.)

Reached in his Los Angeles office, Moon said he didn’t give or loan Herenton $50,000, but said he forwarded the money to the mayor because he intends to buy the house when it’s finished. Moon said he doesn’t have a written contract on the house but does have an oral agreement to buy it.

“You don’t have to put everything in writing. We’re friends,” he said.

Indeed. And you don’t have to exchange money in the light of day, either. It takes really good, trustworthy friends to move money under the table. And this looks like a good way to move money under the table — only they got caught.

But so what? It seems that these actions don’t even violate Memphis’ ethics rules!

This is not the first time that this particular lot has made Willie money. According to records on the Shelby County Register of Deeds site, Herenton sold this lot to Joyce P. Kelly in 1996 for $35,000. Then in 2003, Kelly sold it back to the mayor for $28,000 — after seven years of real estate appreciation as high-dollar houses sprung up all around it. After all, it is located in Banneker Estates, a gated community that Herenton has developed and in which his own home is located.

The name Joyce Kelly is a familiar one in Memphis politics, as it is the name of the mayor’s girlfriend and sometimes fiancee. She first entered the public light in 1989, when County Commissioner Pete Sisson charged Herenton (who was Memphis City Schools Superintendent) with promoting Joyce Kelly to principal of Corry Junior High while she was having an affair with Herenton (Thaddeus Mathews has a scan of the story).

Cross posted at TennWatch.

Drove to work from the ‘burbs this morning with no problems, although I admit to routing around the one big arching bridge that I usually go over.

The West Tennessee Violent Crime and Drug Task Force (now that’s a mouthful) conducted months of investigations. It all paid off when they busted into 32 y.o. Kevin Taylor’s house to find 57 pounds of cocaine ($700,000 on the street).

A single cop stopped a pickup for speeding and the resulting search turned up 66 pounds of coke ($840,000).

Sometimes, you just get lucky. Mostly, I think, because criminals are stupid. Why would you speed when you’re running drugs? Perhaps  Copperhead Road was in the CD player?

Tonight I listened to 22 candidates speak. Twenty two!

All you conservatives, especially you Memphis political bloggers, are missing out on a great opportunity to meet candidates when you don’t show up at the SCCRC (Shelby County Conservative Republican Club) meetings.

For those of you who are interested, I’ll be posting my thoughts over at Volitics.