Inventors of Augmented Reality and Dental Polymers Among This Year’s Americans Honored by the National Inventors Hall of Fame

Inventors Hall of Fame

by Julie Taboh   Edison did it. Eastman did it. And so did Steve Jobs. They invented products that changed our lives. But for every well-known inventor there are many other, less recognizable individuals whose innovative products have greatly impacted our world. Fifteen of those trailblazing men and women — both past and present — were recently honored for their unique contributions in a special ceremony at the National Inventors Hall of Fame Museum, which is nestled in a corner of the vast atrium of the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office building in Alexandria, Virginia. Augmented reality Stan Honey was honored for inventing a graphics systems that makes it easier for television viewers around the world to see key moments during live sporting events… such as sailing, car racing and American football. “What we do is we superimpose graphic elements like yellow lines into the real world, correctly positioned so that they can reveal something that’s important to a game that is otherwise hard to see,” he said. The graphics make those yellow lines look like they’re actually on the field, Honey explained, but “they’re keyed underneath the athletes… so it looks like it’s on the grass, but in fact if…

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Huge Turnout of More Than 7,800 on Last Day of Early Voting in Nashville Special Mayoral Election

early voting

Residents of Nashville/Davidson County surprised the local punditry on Saturday when 7,818 voters cast their ballots Saturday on the last day of early voting in the May 24 special mayoral election. The new single day record for the 14 day early voting period brought the total early voting turnout to 34,576, more than half the 59,000 who early voted in the May 1 transit plan referendum election. There may be more surprises in store on election day this Thursday in this unusual race. Here’s why: 57 percent of all the early votes cast–or 19,666 out of 34,576–were cast over the last three days. This is a dramatic change in voting behavior compared to early voting for the May 1 transit plan referendum, when 37 percent of the 59,000 early votes were cast. You can see the break down by day and voting location below in data provided to The Tennessee Star by the Davidson County Election Commission: [pdf-embedder url=”https://tennesseestar.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/519-EV-Daily-Report-May-24-2018-Mayor-Dist-1-3.pdf” title=”519 EV Daily Report-May 24, 2018 Mayor & Dist 1 (3)”]   What this huge surge in turnout over the last three days, after an anemic first eleven days, means for the outcome of the May 24 election is anyone’s guess.…

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State Employees Association Endorses Harwell, Fitzhugh In Gubernatorial Primaries

The Tennessee State Employees Association’s PAC has endorsed Beth Harwell and Craig Fitzhugh in their parties’ gubernatorial primary races, the Times Free Press reported. Harwell is the state House Speaker. Fitzhugh is the state House Minority Leader. “This was a lengthy endorsement process, including written and in-person interviews,” said Pat Bowman, chair of the Tennessee Employees Action Movement PAC, in a statement. “In the end, I am pleased with the candidates we’ve endorsed.” The PAC tried to interview all major candidates in both parties. They heard back from Harwell, Fitzhugh and Republicans Randy Boyd and Bill Lee, and Democrat Karl Dean. The only candidate who didn’t respond to the questionnaire or agree to an interview was U.S. Rep. Diane Black, a Republican. Lee filled out the questionnaire but was not interviewed. State employees wanted to learn candidates’ views on issues including the outsourcing of government services to for-profit companies and whether candidates would commit to “insourcing” using state workers. Other issues included “failures” of TNReady tests and raises for state workers. Fitzhugh’s and Harwell’s campaigns provided statements expressing their gratitude, The Tennessee Journal’s Humphrey on the Hill reported. Fitzhugh’s campaign said, in part, “It’s a true honor to receive the…

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Donald Trump to Hold Nashville Rally May 29 In Addition to Fundraiser to Support Blackburn

President Donald Trump will hold a rally in addition to a fundraiser for Marsha Blackburn on May 29, Politico reports. Republicans hope the president’s visit will put Blackburn over the top in her U.S. Senate race against Phil Bredesen. The venue is at Nashville Municipal Auditorium. Blackburn, a conservative House member, is engaged in a tight race with the former Democratic Tennessee governor, Politico says. Bredesen is popular among centrist Republicans. A Vanderbilt University poll shows Trump has a 53 percent approval rating in Tennessee. Bredesen was viewed favorably by 67 percent, and Blackburn had a 49 percent favorable rating. Both have similar name recognition. Other polls have shown Bredesen with a slight edge, though Republicans expect a slate of advertisements that will tie him to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. CHQ called the Blackburn-Bredesen race one of the six hottest in the nation, The Tennessee Star reported. The story read, “Blackburn, an excellent speaker and TV presence, is one of the House’s strongest voices on the pro-life agenda. Even better, when Corker started making noise about maybe un-retiring, Rep. Blackburn said ‘bring it on’ facing down the establishment interests who would have liked to keep Corker, the author of…

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Nashville’s City Council, School Board and Mayoral Candidate Erica Gilmore Want All Tennesseans to Keep Paying for Nashville’s Illegal Aliens

Erica Gilmore

Predictably, Nashville’s Metro Council, school board and mayoral candidate Erica Gilmore want Governor Haslam to veto HB2315, the anti-sanctuary city legislation sitting on his desk. Nashville’s leadership wants the Governor to protect criminal illegal aliens. But Nashville’s advocacy for illegal aliens goes further, wanting all Tennessee taxpayers to continue sharing the fiscal burden for the 33,000 illegal aliens estimated to be living, working and going to school in Davidson County. Part of Nashville’s gripe is that they believe the state should give them more public money to pay for more services like English Language Learner (ELL) instruction and translators for the 15,000 or so students in their schools that need these services. Davidson County is reputed to have the highest concentration of students in the state, who need to learn the English. As it is, in FY 2017, state and local governments in Tennessee spent $122.3 million dollars to fund ELL services for all non-English speaking legal and illegal alien students enrolled in Tennessee’s public schools. It is estimated that across the state, approximately 135,000 illegal aliens including the 33,000 in Davidson County, cost Tennessee taxpayers $793 million dollars in 2017. This cost estimate does not include remittance money sent by…

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Commentary: Media Hypocrites Way Off Base to Jab at Mike Pence for Doing His Job

Mike Pence

by Jeffery Rendall   Chief among many reasons conservatives felt good about Donald Trump’s stunning victory in 2016 was the fact Mike Pence would be his vice president. Instead of tapping someone with deep establishment connections within Washington circles Trump selected Indiana Gov. Pence as his running mate, a man who hadn’t even endorsed the eventual nominee in the lead-up to his state’s Republican primary (Pence went for Ted Cruz but said nice things about Trump too – it was almost akin to a split endorsement). Up until that point Pence was well-known to national conservative groups but was still a mystery to many of the rank-and-file party members across the country. The mainstream media wondered, why Pence? He hailed from a conservative state Trump presumably would have little trouble winning; he’d been a congressman for a dozen years and had ascended to a leadership position yet was not considered a party poohbah in Congress. The humble Midwesterner was not even viewed as enough of a “team player” to merit establishment support – after all, he’d opposed George W. Bush’s big government Medicare Part D expansion… Those darn limited government conservative principles of Mike Pence – they always get in…

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Questions Emerge About Avenatti’s Past

by Peter Hasson and Joe Simonson   Much of the developments surrounding Stormy Daniel’s lawsuit again President Donald Trump have focused on the business dealings of attorney Michael Cohen, but an investigation by The Daily Caller News Foundation reveals that Daniel’s counsel, Michael Avenatti, has his own questionable history. Avenatti’s past is littered with lawsuits, jilted business partners and bankruptcy filings. People who have worked with the lawyer described him to TheDCNF as ruthless, greedy and unbothered by ethical questions. Dillanos Coffee CEO David Morris claimed last Tuesday that Avenatti never paid him for over $160,000 worth of coffee that Dillanos supplied to Avenatti’s company. “So @StormyDaniels hot shot lawyer Michael owes my small company @Dillanos $160,179 for coffee,” Morris wrote on Twitter. “He talks a big talk about integrity. We trusted him.” “Michael Avenatti owned Tully’s coffee. They were a large chain of coffee shops. We are a wholesale roaster. We supplied his coffee. The $160,000 represented only a few weeks worth of beans. We cut him off when he wouldn’t pay, he had to close,” Morris explained in a subsequent tweet. The Daily Caller News Foundation on Thursday interviewed Avenatti over the phone on several topics including Morris’s accusations, which Avenatti denied.…

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Ukraine Computer Involved in Tennessee Elections Attack

Investigators found evidence of a “malicious intrusion” into a Tennessee county’s elections website from a computer in Ukraine during a concerted cyberattack, which most likely caused the site to crash just as it was reporting vote totals in this month’s primary. The firm, hired by Knox County to analyze the so-called denial-of-service cyber attack, said Friday that “a suspiciously large number of foreign countries” accessed the site as votes were being reported on May 1. That intense activity was among the likely causes of the crash, according to the report by Sword & Shield Enterprise Security. County officials said no voting data were affected, but the site was down for an hour after the polls closed, causing confusion before technicians fixed the problem. The vulnerability identified by Sword &Shield has been fixed and additional safeguards are now in place, said David Ball, the county’s deputy director of information technology. The election results, to be officially certified this month, left Glenn Jacobs, also known as the pro wrestler Kane, ahead by 17 votes in the Republican primary for Knox County’s mayor. Origin unknowable Investigators said it’s impossible to prove just where the denial-of-serviceattack originated from, since the county can’t store all…

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Pigs at the Trough: Many of Briley’s Donors Are Developers, Lobbyists, Lawyers, and PACs Who Benefit From Metro Nashville Business

David Briley

Acting Mayor of Nashville David Briley has raised more than $720,000 for his campaign to win the May 24 special mayoral election, according to two financial disclosures filed by his campaign with the Davidson County Election Commission for the period beginning March 8 and ending March 31 (when he raised $402,885) and the period beginning April 1 and ending May 14 (when he raised $317,315). Much of his financial support comes from real estate developers, lobbyists, engineers, architects, lawyers, and PACs who stand to benefit from contractual relationships or the actions of Metro Nashville/Davidson County Government. Briley’s former law partner, Charles Robert Bone and employees of the Bone McAllester Norton law firm donated $13,000 to Briley’s election campaign. Charles Robert Bone was one of the leading proponents of the $9 billion transit tax plan, which Nashville/Davidson County voters rejected emphatically on May 1 by a 64 percent to 36 percent margin. The Bone McAllester Norton law firm frequently represents clients who have business interests influenced by Metro Nashville. The firm has a practice area that “includes the representation of clients with issues related to the powers granted to these agencies, the validity and effect of rules and regulations adopted by these agencies…

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