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My local NPR station, WUWF has a local show on Saturday night, The Blue Plate Special which hosted by Greg Guzman. He is actually the radio station’s Director of Corporate Marketing, and as you would expect for someone in a position like that, he is a registered Republican.

In addition to playing blues artists, Greg features local musicians and sports. It’s a little disconcerting to switch from Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown to the Pensacola Ice Pilots hockey team or the Pelicans baseball team, but it may be the price paid to get his two-hour show.

Lately he has been breaking into rants during his show. First he expressed his opinion on the direction of the FCC and its effect on radio broadcasting. He was unhappy. After a couple of weeks he brought up his opinion of the actions of the board of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and their introduction of politics into the sphere of NPR stations. Of course, the entire station went into crisis mode following the Congressional funding cut attempts.

Tonight he was responding to someone complaining about NPR reporting being biased. Greg stated his party affiliation and pointed out that the Republican Party has the White House and the US Congress, the Florida governor and legislature are also Republican, so get a grip, if the news is negative, it is going be negative about Republicans. If people want to elect some more Democrats, and give them control of something, then the news can be negative about them.

I figure he’ll be a Democrat any time now after he realizes how futile it is to attempt to use logic on his fellow Republicans.

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Brian Conley runs the Metro Pulse a weekly paper in Knoxville, Tennessee. The only reason people outside of Knoxville know of his existence is that local bloggers like South Knox Bubba talk about the newspaper. The paper occasionally references the blog, but doesn’t have a permanent link to it as the Knoxville News-Sentinel, the local daily, does.

In addition to his own blog which features some great bird photography, and fabulous pictures of a recent trip to the West Coast, Bubba hosts a forum, and is the “godfather” of the Rocky Top Brigade, a loose knit community of Tennessee bloggers.

For personal reasons Bubba has been blogging anonymously. He is a liberal in a conservative area and a small business owner, so there’s a perceived need not mix blogtopia¹ and the real world.

People on Bubba’s forum didn’t like an article in the Metro Pulse. Let’s be clear, it wasn’t Bubba, it was commentators who didn’t like the article. For whatever reason Conley went ballistic and threatened to reveal Bubba’s identity in a front page article in the newspaper with references to Bubba’s police record and credit history.

As far as Bubba is aware he doesn’t have a criminal record and obtaining and revealing his credit history will at least violate Conley’s terms of use with the credit bureau and may be illegal.

Having had to deal with this issue himself, Atrios jumped on it and awarded Wanker of the Day to Brian Conley.

Steve Gilliard joined in with Bully in action.

SKB outed himself, so if you care he writes niche market software for banks. That’s why the talk about criminal records and credit reports are blatant threats and would qualify Conley’s conduct worthy of arrest in the state of New York, and probably most states under extortion laws.

Bubba has written nothing that would be altered in any way by knowing the name on his driver’s license or the occupation on his tax return.

Conley has shown himself to be contemptible. He has certainly not helped his business by attacking Bubba, and if there is justice to be found in the Knoxville business community, he has done himself great injury.

1. yes, skippy coined that term

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CBS has some good news: Rebuilding Hope One Boat At A Time.

A short piece on Americans who put their own lives on hold for 6 months to join a Peace Corps program to help the people affected by the tsunami to rebuild their lives.

How do we convince the world that these people represent the real America?

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A CBS report that demonstrates a problem with many non-profits: 2 PETA Workers Face Cruelty Rap.

As little as I like PETA for a number of reasons, I don’t think this was anything other than two bad employees. You can’t take radical positions without attracting radical people.

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This wire service report on a “battle” in the war on drugs is one of the major reasons I think drugs should be legalized and taxed.

A joint local police and BATF operation with a “no-knock” search warrant and the wrong address, a recipe that has lead to death too often.

The “noise device” is called a “flash-bang” grenade by officers because it is an explosive device that can cause injury and start fires. This is not a good thing to do to a Vietnam veteran as we tend to react badly to loud noises and flashes in our vicinity.

The entire episode was about 4 ounces of marijuana!

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NBC reports on the meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention: Southern Baptists in ‘doldrums,’ leader says ahead of meeting

…He noted that the annual number of baptisms in the convention had been largely unchanged for decades – a worrisome sign because baptism, he said, was “the first giant step in discipleship, a relationship with the Lord and Christ.”

If you aren’t growing you are dying. Based on all of the reports of the “growing influence” of fundamentalists you have to wonder about the accuracy of the reporting and polls. The SBC are the largest Protestant denomination and by their own records they haven’t grown in decades.

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Billmon addresses at problem at the Whiskey Bar concerning Congressman Conyers’s forum on the Downing Street Minutes and noted the venue was less than friendly or photogenic, being a small basement room in the Capitol complex.

He thinks the Democrats should build a suitable meeting venue to hold these fora when the Republicans are being jerks about allocating rooms.

The problem is that one of the ways in which the Republicans were being jerks was scheduling almost a dozen votes during the Mr. Conyers’s session requiring members to go to the House chamber to participate. To be readily usable the new room would have to be built within the Capitol complex, which would require Republican support, and would have to be under the control of the minority leader.

The Democrats could build or lease the facility, but they would have to hold meetings when the House or Senate was not in session to avoid voting conflicts.

There are problems, but they should do it to escape another Republican limitation.

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