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The Tennessean found that 42 percent of all measures passed by that state's legislators have no force of law. They are feel-good measures that soak up money and time. One legislator filed 167 resolutions of congratulations, memorials and such. The paper says:

Tennessee lawmakers sponsored more resolutions than anything else this legislative session, lauding people like pop star Justin Timberlake and expressing solidarity with a Turkish religious movement, among other endeavors.

A Tennessean review of more than 6,000 records shows that 42 percent of all measures filed were resolutions with no force of law.

And while not all passed -- Timberlake didn't, religious freedom in Turkey did -- the drafting of such "memorial" resolutions cost about $70,000, by staff estimates.

Most resolutions honored local teachers, soldiers, sports teams, administrators or students for outstanding achievement.

Among them was Hendersonville Christian Academy valedictorian Jamie Wallmark, 17, who earned a 4.125 grade point average.

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Traveling Lawmakers

Here in Florida, state lawmakers rolled back local property taxes and told the counties to suck it up and cut spending by a billion dollars. That is why there are some raw feelings about 80 state lawmakers who still plan to spend tax dollars to attend state-legislature conferences this year.

It raises an interesting question of who from your local and state governments is traveling to conventions -- and where this year. One of the most attended gatherings is the National Conference of State Legislatures meeting next month in Boston. Here is the impressive agenda packed with stuff that lawmakers could use to be more insightful and effective (if they actually attend the sessions).

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Big Change in Web Measurements

Yesterday, Nielsen/NetRatings said page stickiness, not page views, will be what counts most in measuring Web traffic. It means that online ratings will be much more like TV ratings, looking at how much time people spend online, not just how many pages they click through.

It is time for that change since sites using Ajax and other technologies allow site updates without the user pulling up new pages.

If an online user watched a three-minute streaming video, the current system would not credit them even for one additional page view. The new system would see that the user is online for three minutes, engaged in a page.

YouTube, eBay and AOL's instant messaging sites will be big winners in this new measurement since they suck up tons of online minutes but might get counted as only a few page views per day per user. The typical YouTube user watches each page for 46 seconds, twice as long as the average user looks at a Google search page. So, you see, they should not be counted the same.

How will this change journalism sites? For one thing, sites will be rewarded for posting online videos, chats and other interactive activities that engage, not just inform readers. Multimedia sites will get more leverage to start generating some revenue.

You can now download a list of Deborah Jeane Palfrey's alleged prostitution clients' phone numbers. This is the list that snared one U.S. senator already. The list runs from 1994 to 2006. I dabbled in the lists and found an amazing number of calls to California and Florida. Already, blog sites have taken the numbers and made them easier to search. Just click here, plug in a number and see if it comes up. There are a fair number of caveats on the numbers -- remember that whoever once had a number on the list may not have it now.

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Spas Cater to Kids

MSNBC says:

According to the International Spa Association, more than half of the nearly 14,000 spas in the United States offer packages for families, teens or kids. A growing trend is for mothers to ask for products and services designed for themselves as well as their children.

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Al's Morning Multimedia

You know about Myspace and Friendster, but have you tried Dogster and Catster?

Dogster has more than 300,000 dogs registered with their own sites, with 400 new sign-ups per day.

Catster has more than 125,000 cats online. You can find the critters nearest you by typing in a city name.

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Editor's Note: Al's Morning Meeting is a compendium of ideas, edited story excerpts and other materials from a variety of Web sites, as well as original concepts and analysis. When the information comes directly from another source, it will be attributed and a link will be provided whenever possible. The column is fact-checked, but depends on the accuracy and integrity of the original sources cited. Errors and inaccuracies found will be corrected.

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