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Have you ever been to a city/county board meeting in your area?

Walmart gets no more pull then then any large developer.

What data set are we supposed to use to determine the veracity of the time warner's claim? I am perfectly aware of the imperfection of the census numbers used in my post but we have to start somewhere. TWC does not indicate anywhere on their web site (that I could find) the size of their Memphis market.
I did find these numbers. "Time Warner Cable has about 124,000 customers in Memphis, about 10,000 in Germantown, about 8,500 Bartlett, and about 9,000 in the West Memphis system, which includes Sunset and Marion, Williams said."
Now that's about 152,000 subscribers. So according to this for every 2.5 subscribers there is a thief.
Do you believe that?
The point is the Memphis cable company posits the number 60,000 thieves to make their claim of significant loss to influence the generally pro-business attitude of the legislature. They are using this technique to further restrict our rights. [Cable service theft is already illegal.And prosecuters have sufficient tools to enforce existing laws.] I think we should examine their numbers to see if they are valid. We should at least have an open and honest debate.

Memphis is a good place to go to get away from too much tech. But that doesn't mean that it can't be fun, quirky, or even geeky.

For instance, A. Schwab's on Beale street has been home to millions of items of questionable utility since 1876. Get your "voodoo powders, handcuffs, clerical collars, saucepans and the largest collection of hats in town" from one of the "cousins" who run the store now.

If you do decide to go to Graceland, consider going for Elvis Week, lovingly called "Death Week" by the locals. It's August 9 - 17, peaking during the candle light vigil on the 15th. It's much more lively during this week than others. You can go to things like the (unofficial) Elvis Impersonator's Contest or the mostly locals only Dead Elvis Ball at the P&H Cafe.

Of course for a real "experience" you need to visit Graceland Too in Holly Springs, Mississippi. This place is everything that Graceland isn't and somehow more. You can come 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, so there's no excuse. You'll go, right? Paul McLeod, who lives in Graceland Too and gives the tours, is a character who's collected more junk, err, memorabilia, about Elvis than he knows what to do with. He kept saying that people showed up at 3 am in a limo with girls in bikinis and a man dressed up in a banana suit every 5 minutes during the first half of the tour. Then he pull out a picture of a limo in front of Graceland Too with a guy in a banana suit...so maybe we should believe him when he says he records every channel of television and makes note of every Elvis reference. Or maybe not.

Oh, and one last thing, if you can't get enough of this kind of thing, you should really hop on over to Joni Mabe, the Elvis Babe's Museum which includes a wart of Elvis' as well as pieces that might be his toe nail. It's in Athens, Georgia.

I think it would have more to do with those individuals paying child support and not having to worry about terrible things like kids being roasted to death because they are forgotten in day care vans.

I've been looking for the story at the Commercial Appeal's website, but I can't seem to find it, since it happened long before they had a website.

I've been on a FedEx plane during a hub tour, but I wasn't looking for security holes. I guess all I'm saying is that it has happened before.

I stopped reading news papers about 6 years ago. The main reason is that they insult me. The same thing goes for local and national news casts. I find it extremely infuriating when some reporter or an "anchor person" summarizes what a politician or some other person was saying.... I am intelligent enough to understand the original speaker, I do not need someone to summarize it for me. Also, the picking and choosing of quotes infuriates me. Of course, that is related to the second reason why I do not read news papers... they are too concerned with sensationalism.

Now, I realize that flashy headlines sell papers and get people's attention but the line between the tabliod press and the "serious" press has just about disappeared. The local news paper here in Memphis, "The Commercial Appeal" is very bad about printing articles that are one-sided or appear to be one-sided. They are extermely bad about taking quotes out of context and reporting only the information that they think will make the most sensational story... not the most informative story. Furthermore, they rarely finish a story. They only report the initial "sensational" parts of the story but never follow up with "the rest of the story" For example, they might report on a crime that occurred and someone getting arrested. They will never follow up with a story on whether the person was found guilty and if so, what the punisment was.

I also do not think that the majority of people writing for the popular press is qualified to write about technical topics. You have all seen examples when they have misrepresented facts or have reported information that is flat out wrong- simply because they did not understand what they were writing about.

I do not live in a news void, however. I get the majority of the news that I am interested in from the Internet... the fabulous thing about the internet is (as you all know) that you can get information on a particular topic from many many different sources and come to your own conclusions... not to the conclusions of some reporter. As far as local news, I listen to the headlines on the radio and that's about it. If there is something that catches my attention, I will try to find out more about it.

What can be done to get me to read a news paper... get rid of the sensationalism, start reporting COMPLETE stories. Stop "dumbing down" the information and stop taking quotes out of context. Also, put the whole paper online.

Two children just died in Memphis in seperate daycares on the same day because a single person was tasked with monitoring too many children.

These kids were left in vans for hours by the drivers when it was well over 90 degree heat. If this was due to too many kids, incompetence, or a combination of the two, I don't know. However, the two daycares in question have had their licenses suspended by the state, are now closed, and the drivers/attendants of the vans have been fired or prohibited from working near children. Unfortunately, this is something that happens every year.

State closes two deadly daycares
Mayor asks state to help monitor daycares
Daycares fail to follow new rules
Parents, Daycares struggle with 'why'

Two children just died in Memphis in seperate daycares on the same day because a single person was tasked with monitoring too many children.

These kids were left in vans for hours by the drivers when it was well over 90 degree heat. If this was due to too many kids, incompetence, or a combination of the two, I don't know. However, the two daycares in question have had their licenses suspended by the state, are now closed, and the drivers/attendants of the vans have been fired or prohibited from working near children. Unfortunately, this is something that happens every year.

State closes two deadly daycares
Mayor asks state to help monitor daycares
Daycares fail to follow new rules
Parents, Daycares struggle with 'why'

Two children just died in Memphis in seperate daycares on the same day because a single person was tasked with monitoring too many children.

These kids were left in vans for hours by the drivers when it was well over 90 degree heat. If this was due to too many kids, incompetence, or a combination of the two, I don't know. However, the two daycares in question have had their licenses suspended by the state, are now closed, and the drivers/attendants of the vans have been fired or prohibited from working near children. Unfortunately, this is something that happens every year.

State closes two deadly daycares
Mayor asks state to help monitor daycares
Daycares fail to follow new rules
Parents, Daycares struggle with 'why'

Two children just died in Memphis in seperate daycares on the same day because a single person was tasked with monitoring too many children.

These kids were left in vans for hours by the drivers when it was well over 90 degree heat. If this was due to too many kids, incompetence, or a combination of the two, I don't know. However, the two daycares in question have had their licenses suspended by the state, are now closed, and the drivers/attendants of the vans have been fired or prohibited from working near children. Unfortunately, this is something that happens every year.

State closes two deadly daycares
Mayor asks state to help monitor daycares
Daycares fail to follow new rules
Parents, Daycares struggle with 'why'