Does anyone know if Knoxville has a certified community kitchen for use by individuals wishing to prepare foods for home delivery or sale in farmers' markets? I believe this is a common 'economic development' feature in some other cities.

They installed roads and greenways, helping connect the city's 50 miles of trails leading to a nature center, lakes, historic sites, playgrounds and a wildlife area. They also installed lighting and utility systems to improve the trails.

Knoxville leaders celebrate finishing first phase of Urban Wilderness Gateway Park with ribbon-cutting ceremony

As of June, 86 percent of Democrats had received at least one dose, compared with 52 percent of Republicans. All the states with the lowest levels of vaccination — Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, Wyoming and Louisiana — voted heavily for Donald Trump. Barely half of Republican House members report being vaccinated.

GOP dumb as dirt. But then they did elect the previous president, T.

"Florida reports highest daily COVID-19 cases since January"

Florida on Wednesday reported 12,647 new cases of COVID-19, the highest daily number of cases since late January, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The last time that Florida topped this number was Jan. 30, when it logged 14,654 cases. The U.S. registered 55,132 cases on Wednesday, meaning that Florida’s daily count made up about 23 percent of new cases reported by the CDC for that day.

Dumb as dirt. Bob Graham is probably gnashing his teeth. Lawton Chiles is rolling in his grave.

HUD Fair Market Rent lookup

FY2021 Final Fair Market Rents Documentation System

Bezos is scheduled to take flight this morning, Tuesday, July 20, 2021.

Same-day delivery: Amazon's Jeff Bezos set to make history with suborbital spaceflight.

"Weather permitting, Bezos is scheduled to launch Tuesday at 9 a.m. ET from a site in the West Texas desert southeast of El Paso. Blue Origin will stream the event live on its website beginning at 7:30 a.m. ET."

Ms. "Wally Funk, 82, a former test pilot who was one of the Mercury 13 women who underwent training in the 1960s to demonstrate that women could qualify for NASA's astronaut corps. Funk would be the oldest person to reach space."

59.3% of adults in the U.S. are fully vaccinated.
47.7% of adults in Tennessee are fully vaccinated.
57.1% of adults in Florida are fully vaccinated.
70.9% - 77% of adults are fully vaccinated in 5 states (Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maine, and Rhode Island).

Tennessee has the highest percentage increase of new cases per 100,000 residents in the last seven days at + 340%. Arkansas has the highest count of new cases per 100,000 residents in the last seven days. Florida has the highest daily average of new cases in the past 7 days at 6,493.

And while rates are spiking nationwide -- up about 70% over the last week -- Florida’s rise is among the worst.

“Just four states accounted for more than 40% of all cases in the past week, with 1 in 5 of all cases occurring in Florida alone,” White House COVID-19 coordinator Jeff Zients told reporters during a briefing Friday.

"Jacksonville, Florida, COVID-19 cases almost doubled in 1 week." "The growth in cases has risen for four weeks in a row and is now at levels not seen since winter." Duval County, FL, "saw 4,428 new cases in the last seven days -- a 21.9% positivity rate." Baker, Bradford, Nassau, Putnam and Union counties’ positivity rates are even higher." "The state’s rate of positive tests rose to 11.5% from 7.8% the week before."

It just goes on and on around the country. Los Angeles has reinstated a mask requirement. Hospitals are filling up again. If only there was something we could do? Oh, yeah, get a vaccine! Stop drinking the conservative right kool-aid. Get a vaccine! Don't go to Florida. Get a vaccine!

There is no state, county or city in the country where a full-time, minimum-wage worker working 40 hours a week can afford a two-bedroom rental, a report from the National Low Income Housing Coalition showed.

A full-time minimum-wage worker can afford a one-bedroom rental in only 7% of all US counties — 218 counties out of more than 3,000 nationwide.

The federal minimum wage is $7.25.

But the report showed that a worker would need to earn $24.90 per hour in order to afford a two-bedroom home at Fair Market Rent. And a $20.40 "housing wage" would be needed for a one-bedroom. Fair Market Rents are government estimates of what a person should expect to pay for a modest home in their area.

Minimum wage workers can't afford rent anywhere in America

Tennessee doctors want investigation into state's handling of pandemic

The Tennessee Department of Health is halting all adolescent vaccine outreach, even for vaccines not related to Covid-19, according to internal documents.

The halt impacts all outreach to adolescents, including Covid-19 second-dose reminders, HPV reminders and kindergarten vaccination surveys, according the documents circulated within the department obtained by CNN and first reported by The Tennessean.

Tennessee is halting outreach on all vaccines for adolescents, including for Covid-19

Tennessee abandons vaccine outreach to minors — not just for COVID-19

As of 7/14/2021,

since the inception of COVID-19, approx. 1/23/2020...

the Knox County Health Department reports 42,935 coronavirus cases and 8,668 probable cases.

There have been 650 deaths due to coronavirus in Knox County.
That is up from 602 total deaths reported as of March 19, 2021. Forty-eight deaths in 4 months, average 12 deaths a month.

Deaths by age group:

14 in the 18-44 age group (2%) (increase of 27% since 3/19/21)
101 in the 45-64 age group (16%) (increase of 22% since 3/19/21)
147 in the 65-74 age group (23%) (increase of 5% since 3/19/21)
388 in the 75+ age group (60%) (increase of 6% since 3/19/21)

As of 7/13/2021, there are 43 COVID-19 patients currently hospitalized in Knox County, 11 in ICU. That's up from a low of 21 on 7/4/21 and has been rising since.

As of July 13, 2021, ICU bed available capacity is at 6.3%, with 317 total available ICU beds. However, I'm not sure how there is a total capacity for ICU beds of 317 when the current census reported is 397.

As of July 14, 2021, the TN Dept of Health reports the average positivity rate over the past 7 days is 5.6%.

Vaccinations reported, last updated 7/14/2021:
% with 2 doses - 45.42%
% with at least 1 dose - 49.09%

There are places within cities where summertime heat can soar, and giant swings in temperature are observed over a matter of blocks. Neighborhoods with little tree cover, few grassy areas and a lot of concrete can be as much as 15 to 20 degrees hotter than the surrounding areas.

During heat waves, these so-called urban heat islands are deadly.

These cities have the worst urban heat, where temperatures can spike 15-20 degrees in a matter of blocks

In 41 states, minors must have the consent of a parent or guardian to be immunized but Tennessee is one of five states that has a "mature minor doctrine" that allows health care providers to decide if any child has the capacity to consent to vaccination themselves.

Tennessee's vaccine manager says she's worried for her state after she was fired

Spoofing is when a caller deliberately falsifies the information transmitted to your caller ID display to disguise their identity

Robocalls are when you receive a call and hear a recorded message instead of a live person.

Robocalls and spoofing have been a problem for a while and keeps getting worse.

Effective June 30, the FCC implemented a new technology to cut down on the calls uses a technology called Stir/Shaken. "STIR/SHAKEN is a framework of interconnected standards. STIR/SHAKEN are acronyms for the Secure Telephone Identity Revisited (STIR) and Signature-based Handling of Asserted Information Using toKENs (SHAKEN) standards. "

From the New York Times,
"In short, the F.C.C. is trying to make sure that if you’re getting a call, the network on which it is being made is verifying the caller."

"The F.C.C.’s first step was setting a June 30 deadline for what it calls “voice service providers” (you know them as phone companies) to register their efforts to reduce the scourge of scams in a public Robocall Mitigation Database. So far, more than 1,500 of them have, the F.C.C. said.

Starting on Sept. 28, phone companies must refuse calls from providers that have not registered with the F.C.C."

"The carrier uses the STIR/SHAKEN technology to create a digital signature that authenticates the number’s path from start to finish."
...
“At the end they can say ‘Ah, this call is actually from this number,’” he said. “There is end-to-end verification, which gives you insight into the caller and how legitimate they are.”

According to Jim McEachern, the principal technologist for Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions, “The key thing here is it was never intended to be a silver bullet,” he said, speaking of the F.C.C.’s new push with Stir/Shaken. “It was intended to be a tool to help.”

We can only hope this new technology helps. It does appear that our robocalls/spoofs have gone down in the past week but we'll wait and see.

The robocallers/spoofers will be working on ways around this new technology. Just recently the FCC issued a $225 million fine against a health insurance telemarketer for spoofed robocalls. Will it make a dent? It remains to be seen.

Provided these are all or mostly true, they peg the extreme on nonsense meter ...

Texas man who waited 'over six hours' last Super Tuesday to vote now faces illegal voting charges

How Republicans Tried to Rig an Election in North Carolina (And Almost Got Away With It)

Branson is scheduled to take flight tomorrow morning, Sunday, July 11, 2021. The flight should take about 90 minutes and will go to an altitude of 55 miles.

They fly out of Truth or Consequences, New Mexico.

Jeff Bezos, Blue Origin, is scheduled to take his space flight July 20.

This is a lot of money.

Yeehaw!

After retiring we are cleaning out the house to rid ourselves of so much of our business remains. Among the 5 retired laptops we found, this is a Compaq Contura laptop from 1993. We believe it came with Windows 3. However,for the last couple of years we used it for a MS-DOS application only. It was Compaq's first attempt at making an affordable laptop. Sadly it will not boot up.

It weighs 7 lbs and is about the width/height of a current laptop, but is 1 and 1/2 inches thick. The screen is tiny at 7 inches wide.

Nearly 30 years old. Obviously we have too much stuff.

Another item we'll not force our relatives to sort through and toss.

It appears my little start-up congressional campaign has freaked out Rep. Tim Burchett. He's fundraising from it. Here's part of what Burchett blurted.

It's all boilerplate nonsense. He even alludes to me getting support from Hollywood moguls. That isn't happening, but if you'd like to help, a check would be nice--Mark Harmon for Congress, PO Box 27185, Knoxville TN 37927

But Republicans are now considering breaking up Cooper's district, which could help them gain another crucial seat in the House, where Democrats hold only a four-seat margin. With complete control of the state legislature, Tennessee Republicans could change the state's House delegation from seven Republicans and two Democrats to eight Republicans and one Democrat based in Memphis.

Republicans consider dividing up Nashville district to gain US House seat

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Freedom!