It looks like another major controversy has come to an end as an LA area television station will change 75 billboards which read “Los Angeles, CA Mexico.”
Granted, I don’t live in area with much ethnic tension, and that may effect how one views this kind of thing, but I really don’t get what compels some people to make a big fuss about this kind of thing. It’s not disparaging to anyone. But there’s this:

William Gheen, president of Americans for Legal Immigration, said the change was a small victory in the larger battle of enforcing the nation’s immigration laws and securing its borders.
“Those signs offended people across the country for two sensitive reasons. There’s documentation that some large corporations are contributing to our illegal immigration problem and secondly, a large number of illegal aliens and their political activists don’t respect or acknowledge America’s territorial jurisdiction over the area and have repeatedly said, ‘It’s our land and we are taking it back.'”

I know many Americans don’t like illegal aliens for various reasons, but are they really worried the group might “take back” land to Mexico?

The Knoxville Regional Transportation Planning Organization has posted cycling map. If you’re wanting to bike in and around downtown Knoxville, this may give you some help on which roads to use. Of course your “comfort level” on the listed roads may vary.
Interestingly, the map doesn’t mark the roads immediately west of the City/County Building as “steep grades.” Guess I’m just a wimp.
More bicycle-related resources here.

Time to talk terror again:

Al Qaeda is still “very active” recruiting and seeking to attack the United States, although it has been hurt since the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001, Vice President Dick Cheney said on Monday.
“The enemy that appeared on 9/11 is wounded and off-balance, and on the run — yet still very active, still seeking recruits, and still trying to find ways to hit us,” said Cheney, who reviews intelligence on threats daily.

Interesting how little we heard about Al Qaeda in the months immediately following the election. But I guess that’s one of the neat things about having an invisible enemy: if you don’t talk about it for a while, people will forget about it; then you can whip it out again whenever you want to change the subject.

The Tennessee legislature is at it again with its annual consideration of a bill removing the helmet requirement for motorcyclists.
Although I generally favor granting individuals as much personal freedom as possible, I think I lean the other way on this one. I balance the competing interests, and this seems to weigh in favor of safety: the public cost for this elective risk is significant, given what I consider to be the relatively minor nuisance of wearing a helmet.
As the article points out, the $10,000 insurance requirement is a joke; motorcycle crash victims with head injuries typically face hospitalization bills well above $10,000.
At any rate, there’s a Darwinian element to this whole debate. For my part, I’d hate to risk bouncing my unprotected noggin on the road while chugging away on a bike going 18 mph, much less cruising around at 65+ mph.

Because some stupidity is worth repeating to expose it:

Federal judges are a more serious threat to America than Al Qaeda and the Sept. 11 terrorists, the Rev. Pat Robertson claimed yesterday.
“Over 100 years, I think the gradual erosion of the consensus that’s held our country together is probably more serious than a few bearded terrorists who fly into buildings,” Robertson said on ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos.”
“I think we have controlled Al Qaeda,” the 700 Club host said, but warned of “erosion at home” and said judges were creating a “tyranny of oligarchy.”
Confronted by Stephanopoulos on his claims that an out-of-control liberal judiciary is the worst threat America has faced in 400 years – worse than Nazi Germany, Japan and the Civil War – Robertson didn’t back down.
“Yes, I really believe that,” he said. “I think they are destroying the fabric that holds our nation together.”

Kind of comical until it hits you: who do these people continue to get national air time?
Via Eschaton.
UPDATE: Apparently there’s something even worse than liberal judge: a liberal Muslim judge.