Stop by Friday for pictures and QuickTime clips from last night's Tommy Emanuel concert at Maryville College. I'm finally going to get the first batch of pictures off the camera. Watch out for the pictolanche next week.

Welcomes go out to the newest members of the Rocky Top Brigade: Sister Secret City from Oak Ridge and Thomas of Newsrack Blog, formerly of Oak Ridge but now of Washington, D.C. Sister Secret City writes:

You can always tell a foreigner by how they say "Oak Ridge." Any native will say "oak RIDGE." Foreigners say "OAK ridge." Now some foreigners say it right, but you can bet that anyone who says it wrong is Not From Around Here.

When I bought my house in Louisville, TN, from Steve and Terry the first thing they told me was how to pronounce it: Lewisville, to avoid confusion with Louisville, KY. Only foreigners (people not from Louisville, TN) use the French pronunciation.

Speaking of the Brigade, last night someone posted inflammatory comments over at SouthKnoxBubba under the name Bill Hobbs. Hobbs says it wasn't him, and Bubba's check of the IP logs confirmed that it was indeed a troll. The forged comments have been taken down and I won't repeat them here, but they were made by an imposter, not by the real Bill Hobbs.

UPDATE: lots more Brigade members, including my friends Chris Range and Ron Crowe over at CelticGrove.

Steve Den Beste explores the North Korean problem: communism, despotism, starvation, and now cannibalism. If North Korea follows the Soviet Union and collapses under its own weight - and it eventually will - who will take over? Den Beste believes that less populous South Korea won't want to reunite with a nation so besieged by debilitating problems. His solution: let China have North Korea.

Funny Stuff

Awful pun. Not dirty, just awful. Here's another one. (Ariel writes: "Omigod, Les, those are so bad they're good. Or, like PopTarts, so hot they're cool.")

James Lileks is excellent this morning. Come to think of it, he was excellent yesterday, too.

With the resignations and changes at the New York Times, Jim Hightower hopes that the Times will do the right thing and retract some of its deceptive headlines:

Candidate Bush Supports Environmental Legislation
Bush Won't Touch Social Security Surplus "Under Any Condition"
Bipartisan Bush Presidency To Change Tone In Washington
Rumsfeld Assures: No Plans To Invade Iraq
Rumsfeld: U.S. Has "Bulletproof Evidence" Of Iraq-Al Qaeda Connection
Ashcroft Domestic Security Enhancement Act To Further Protect American Freedoms
Bush Economic Stimulus To Benefit Everyone, Not Just The Wealthy
George W. Bush Elected

Scott Adams writes in the June Dogbert New Ruling Class newsletter:

Like the proverbial dog chasing a car, the Induhviduals [Al-Qaeda] haven't considered what would happen if they caught one. For example, let's say they (the Induhviduals, not the dogs) accomplish their stated goal of destroying the economies of the Western world. Is that really a good plan for people who live in a desert and import most of their food?

Just for the record, if I'm down to my last potato, I'm not sharing it with a guy who wants to kill me so he can get a better supply of virgins in paradise. That lesson is a little thing I call Economics 101, infidel style.