Following the announcement regarding changes to the athletics tickets program, UT has announced a major change in the academic process and how graduations will be processed.

Under the new system, students and family members will need to give money to a new fund overseen by the athletic department in order to receive a diploma.

UT says it has adopted this policy “to facilitate quicker and more streamlined academic schedules, and to eliminate any confusion that non-donors are important to the future of Tennessee or the college…” Under the new program, students are allowed to graduate once the combined total of donations from family members is equal to the value of an amount of silver that is exactly 18 times the weight of the student.

Gifts may be made to academics, but only those designated to the athletics department will be counted towards graduation.

“I don’t understand it,” says Marcus Williamson. “Just two weeks ago, if you asked anyone about Michael Jackson they’d tell you he was crazy. At best, they’d giggle and recall the joke about the similarities in Jacko and K-Mart…boy’s pants, half off.”

“Now, he’s a freaking saint. Sure, he made a couple good songs. But he also slept with little boys, monkeys, and Lisa Marie Presley….possibly all at the same time.”

“If you feel like you need constant coverage of his life, start here, with the timeline of his face.”

A new program, “College-Bound Sisters,” has been unveiled in North Carolina to pay young girls not to get pregnant. The payment, $1/day. The program was developed at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro by Hazel Brown, a maternity nurse who thought too many teens were having babies.

Brown said she hopes the program, which pays $1 each day to 12-to-18-year-old girls, will keep them from getting pregnant.

From most of the folks interviewed, the general consensus is that if $1/day will keep these girls from having sex, they were most likely doing it wrong. Once they get their hands on an instruction manual of some sort, $1/day will seem much less appealing.

Also, according to people just as qualified to come up with a plan as Hazel Brown, some folks believe that teaching these girls to enjoy handouts will help train them to look forward to the WIC program and Food Stamps, or maybe even lead the very business-minded ones to the streets as panhandlers.

When TVA recently announced they were planning to place the first new mPower reactors at the Clinch River site near Oak Ridge, they never expected protesters to organize so quickly.  Within three hours of the announcements, groups of old guys with big hair and black leather assembled near the proposed location, holding “No Nukes” signs and looking very serious.  When approached, the group sent out Bob Geldof as their official spokesperson.  He said that not only were Boomtown Rats present, but Modern English, Ultravox, Midnight Oil, Lene Lovich, and Nena were all on hand to protest.  “We’re expecting Bono any minute,” explained Geldof, “Gary Numan flew out to get him from the White House.  Gary flew us all here, actually.  This has nothing to do with our relevance, or trying to get press for our music,” he continued, ” which is all out of print anyway.  This is about ‘no nukes.’”  When asked to explain his stance, he repeated the phrase “No Nukes,” and encouraged the other 80’s artists to chant along with him.

A TVA spokesperson just chuckled and walked away when asked for comment.

On the heels of announcing a spin off from Time Warner, AOL has released spotty details regarding a proposed merger with Remedy Coffee, located in Downtown Knoxville.

The deal, seen similar to the agreement AT&T has with Starbucks, would provide online access for AOL users while visiting the new (and, as an editiorial note…simply fantastic) coffee shop.

AOL management indicates that the deal makes a great deal of sense due to the fact that the foot traffic at Remedy Coffee is about equal to the number of remaining subscribers to AOL services. The next step is a market study to determine if the visitors to Remedy are the same people that are currently AOL users - if they are not, the deal could be in jeopardy.

Well, it looks like the media-generating mouth of Kiffin is much quieter if he doesn’t have a scripted response written by someone else (like, say his Twitter feed, that is still handled inappropriately). When confronted by Spurrier today, Kiffin “…clearly embarrassed, mumbled something inaudible.” You go boy!

Unable to communicate with folks on a one-to-one basis, Bjorn Knoxley and Brehd Patchley, the owners of Knoxpatch, are relatively pleased to announce the formation of the Knoxville Anti-Social Media Association (KASM).

“The idea came to me while standing alone in the corner of the beer garden at Crown & Goose during the recent Knoxville Social Media Association meeting,” explains Brehd. “I simply wasn’t interested in talking to anyone, but I certainly love typing at them. I don’t know why we need to go outside anyway, when we can share rumors and use any personality we want from the comfort of our own laptops.”

With two competing social media organizations in Knoxville, the other being Social Media Club Knoxville, KASM may find it difficult to find enough outcasts for involvement. Not being deterred, a heavy schedule of events haven’t been planned. According to Brehd, “Despite everyone’s incessant urge to be social, we’ve decided not to hold meetings on the first and third Thursday of each month at Prince Deli. If nobody shows up for these, we may not hold morning meetings at Starbucks as well.”

Just over a month ago, a photo op was staged of President Obama entering a Northern Virginia Chrysler dealership and buying a new PT Cruiser.  This was supposed to display his faith in both Chrysler as a company and the economy in general.  In a speech, he stated he was doing his part to stimulate the economy, even though he used Hillary Clinton’s campaign funds to do it.

A month later, an investigation got underway to determine what exactly happened to the car.  DOT records, obtained using the Freedom of Information Act, show that the PT Cruiser was gifted and regifted at least 5 times.  Obama immediately gave the car to his mother in law, who quickly signed it over to her personal chef.  He signed it over to a neighbor, who gave it to his teenage daughter, who gave it to a school mate.

An assistant to the Chef-In-Law, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the chef was actually pissed after he received the car.  “She didn’t want the car.  It sucks.  Just look at it!  So she gave it to her chef.  He was mad that after cooking her all her favorite meals she would repay by giving him a piece of crap car,” the aide explained.  The teenage daughter told us, “Are you kidding? I’m not going to be seen in that thing!  I gave it to a needy kid!  My scholarship review board meets next week, and I needed something to set me apart.”

The needy kid would not return calls for comment.

Not satisfied with simply switching from a useless Republican to a useless Democrat, Senator Arlen Specter has decided to dramatically change other aspects of his life.  Few know that on the same day as his announcement, Specter took delivery of a European car, fresh from a used car lot in England.  At a scarcely-attended news conference, Specter told us, “As a senator, the import laws don’t apply to me.  And I am tired of driving on the left.  I want to drive while sitting on the right!  This yellow right-hand-drive Skoda Roomster really fits that bill!”  In addition to switching parties and sides of the car, Specter has also changed from boxers to briefs and from Viagra to Levitra.

Knox County Mayor Mike Ragsdale on Tuesday morning proposed replacing the US dollar as the international reserve currency with something available around most of the globe, pork bellies.

In an essay posted on the Knox County Government web site, Ragsdale said the goal would be to create a reserve currency “that is disconnected from individual nations and is able to remain stable in the long run, thus removing the inherent deficiencies caused by using credit-based national currencies”.

Analysts are split as to whether this option could work, due to the difficulties obviously involved in trading pork bellies on a daily basis. “Just storing them presents a problem,” said one detractor. “It’s hard to get many pork bellies in your wallet, even a purse will hold a limited supply…and they’re only going to stay fresh for a set amount of time.”

Although unlikely to gain traction, Ragsdale’s new plan has quickly gained the support of pig farmers and butchers.