After a nice four-day weekend in Chattanooga, I’m back to the grind and attempting to catch up on the news. I can’t believe the audacity of good friends getting married on what ended up being a heavy news weekend. They should have known better…

Back in TN-03, I noticed the Congressional race is heating up. Van Irion signs are everywhere, and “Send Mrs. Smith to Washington” bumper stickers covered numerous cars. While the entire country becomes more and more divided over politics, my home district is just slugging it out over which Republican to elect. One of the many reasons I love East Tennessee.

What did I miss over the weekend?

1. There was not one, but two new “scandals” involving Sarah Palin. E! News reported that she was a bit greedy at an Oscar event, which conflicted with a number of other stories that I read earlier. Ted Casablanca, who doesn’t have the best gossip track record and is just a tad partisan, spread the vicious story. Earlier accounts said that Palin accepted the free gifts and then donated them to the Red Cross in addition to donating $1,700. Immediately after Casablanca published his version, the blogosphere and media ran with that angle. When you factor in Radar incorrectly announcing the retirement of Chief Justice John Roberts, don’t trust celebrity gossip sites for political news. If these are legitimate sources for politics, Perez Hilton needs a Sunday morning talk show.

The media is also going crazy with reports that Palin’s brother illegally obtained medical care in Canada when they were children. Hot Air has a rebuttal. Good heavens. We need a version of Snopes just to get Palin facts right.

Dear media: we get that you don’t like Palin. Get over it and focus on real news.

2. Christopher Buckley realized that Obama is not that great after all.

Mr. Buckley, you are still my favorite novelist, but you are not your father. Sad that someone who writes razor-sharp satire about the Beltway could be taken in by the slick marketing of the Obama campaign.

3. The Census sent letters to 120 million households announcing that the Census will be mailed in April. How much did this cost? Mail from the Federal government doesn’t require postage like private mail does, but this had to cost several million dollars to print and deliver. Couldn’t those resources have been used more efficiently? Also, what about the environmental impact? How many trees died so that the US Government could tell us something we already knew?