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Page 3 of 790 pages « First < 1 2 3 4 5 > Last »
June 2008
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It’s Field Day
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Sat Jun 28, 2008
12:11 pm
by McGehee
[AK4MC]
[Humor?]
[Coweta County]
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Today at 2:00 p.m., hams across the country begin “Field Day,” a 24-hour activity designed to practice emergency-power operations, make contact with a lot of other hams far away, and if possible show off the hobby to interested prospective new hams.
My club will be having its Field Day fun at the Coweta County Fairgrounds in Newnan.
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DeGeorge for Coweta County Commission
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Fri Jun 27, 2008
12:54 pm
by McGehee
[Coweta County]
[Elections]
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To paraphrase Don Rumsfeld—and as proved yesterday—sometimes you have to choose your candidate for the reasons you have, not necessarily the reasons you want or wish you had.
I mentioned last month that I didn’t know enough about the two candidates for county commissioner in my district, to really have any idea which to vote for. Well, I think I’m probably going to vote for Gary DeGeorge.
First (and least substantively), he was the one who contacted me seeking my support. That’s one of those little things that make a lot more difference than they should, and which John McCain could stand to think about. Now, DeGeorge admitted that he sought me out because I have this blog, which apparently has some local readership—but his opponent, Rodney Brooks, didn’t even respond to a League of Women Voters survey. DeGeorge, being younger, has some grasp of the possibilities of the “new media” in politics, and is trying to use them. (I do kind of wish he weren’t using MySpace for his campaign site, but at least he has one.)
Two other things have tipped me toward preferring DeGeorge, one being:
Brooks said he doesn’t understand why the county commissioners stopped a Wal-Mart from coming to Ga. Hwy. 154 at Interstate 85.
“We lost a large tax base,” Brooks said. Many residents of the fourth district are going to Peachtree City’s Wal-Mart and taking their sales tax dollars with them. »
Candidates oppose passenger jets here
That Wal-Mart issue was as close as I’ve come in a long time to an outright NIMBY position, but others also opposed it who live nowhere near that interchange. The Times-Herald editorialized against it, citing its proximity to a considerably larger, existing Wal-Mart, and the need for massive road and intersection improvements to handle the traffic—improvements that the developers weren’t offering to cover. The cost of making that location workable for high-impact retail would have eaten a huge chunk of the sales-tax benefit Brooks envisioned. Furthermore, sales tax revenue contributes a great deal to government spending; not necessarily so much to residents’ standard of living. Coweta needs a wider and more balanced range of economic development. Minimum-wage retail has its place, but we’re not exactly hurting for those jobs as it is.
And for the record, if people who live in my part of the county are shopping at a Wal-Mart in an adjacent county, it may be due in part to the fact that so many of my neighbors’ jobs are not in Coweta. Priorities, people.
One more matter that enters into my thinking on county politics is the commission chairmanship. Of Georgia’s 159 counties, only Coweta County does not have a chairman specifically elected to that post by the voters. Rather, each year the chairman is elected by the members of the commission itself. There is some talk of bringing Coweta into line with the rest of the state, and I tend to agree—but it’s not a major issue to me.
This issue has had its profile raised a little bit after Commissioner Leigh Schlumper, the incumbent in my district who is not seeking re-election, was passed over for the chairmanship this year and sued for discrimination. The lawsuit raises other complaints besides the chairmanship, which I think deserve to be aired if they have any basis—but on the chairmanship itself I’m fairly confident what a court would have to rule.
The claim is that the county has a rule prescribing a sequence of rotation that essentially made 2008 Schlumper’s “turn” for a second term as chairman. However the chairmanship remains the subject of a commission vote. The rotation sequence, if binding, essentially dictates the outcome of a commission vote, which I think a court would rule the commission cannot do merely by ordinance. As long as the commissioners elect their chairman, they should be free to use their own best judgment from year to year in making that choice. For his part, DeGeorge agrees. Brooks would prefer that the chairman be elected countywide, so that the power now held by a non-elected county administrator would be wielded instead by an elected official, directly accountable to voters.
As I said, I think the voter-elected chairmanship is probably a better way to go than the current, rotating chairmanship—but a lot would depend on how the powers of the office are balanced against those of the other commissioners. Lacking a definite plan for such a transition I am not inclined to give that issue alone a great deal of weight in deciding my vote.
I think DeGeorge deserves a chance.
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A Story Four Years in the Making
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Mon Jun 23, 2008
1:42 pm
by McGehee
2 comments
[Elections]
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Barack Obama is “of the system. He’s going to be in the system,” Steele told a morning gathering of the Georgia Association of Black Elected Officials.
“Why are they attacking Michelle Obama, first lady Michelle Obama, and not really attacking, to that degree, her husband?” Steele asked. “Because he has no slave blood in him. He does not have any slave blood in him, but Michelle does.
“This system is an issue. I don’t care what you say. You can’t expect the system that enslaved you save you,” Steele said. »
SCLC head: Michelle Obama treated more roughly than
her husband, because of her slave heritage
This view of Obama isn’t new. Limbaugh has been talking on the radio about how this is the grievance lobby’s effort to ensure that an Obama victory doesn’t eliminate their influence.
I think it could also be a way to not “own” an Obama defeat; after all, he’s not really authentic.
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Ouch
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Sun Jun 22, 2008
1:03 pm
by McGehee
[Asides]
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A bad week for friendships? Maybe—but this is just downright scary.
I kinda sorta care about these people, in my own snarky, anti-social way.
Update: LocalMalcontent’s grief explained. Condolences, friend.
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And What Direction Might That Be?
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Sun Jun 22, 2008
12:22 pm
by McGehee
5 comments
[Get Offa My Lawn!]
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I’d say, almost certainly to the left.
The can-do, bootstrap approach embedded in the American psyche is under assault. Eroding it is a dour powerlessness that is chipping away at the country’s sturdy conviction that destiny can be commanded with sheer courage and perseverance.
The sense of helplessness is even reflected in this year’s presidential election. Each contender offers a sense of order — and hope. Republican John McCain promises an experienced hand in a frightening time. Democrat Barack Obama promises bright and shiny change, and his large crowds believe his exhortation, “Yes, we can.”
Even so, a battered public seems discouraged by the onslaught of dispiriting things. An Associated Press-Ipsos poll says a barrel-scraping 17 percent of people surveyed believe the country is moving in the right direction. That is the lowest reading since the survey began in 2003.
An ABC News-Washington Post survey put that figure at 14 percent, tying the low in more than three decades of taking soundings on the national mood. »
Everything seemingly is spinning out of control
If 83 percent of people are not convinced the country is headed in the right direction, it should be a simple matter to fix that in November, by reversing the 2006 congressional elections. A Congress more conservative than the president is capable of a lot. During the 1990s such a Congress enacted major welfare reform and brought about the first deficit-free federal budgets in a half century.
We need a Congress that will focus on the things the Constitution gives Congress to do. We do not need a Congress that will try to micromanage the conduct of a war or hold multi-week hearings into the behavior of professional athletes. We also need a Congress whose members won’t get caught with their hands in the public cookie jar or trying to solicit sex in public restrooms.
If the American people want to feel that events are not spinning out of control, they need to invest some effort in getting and keeping them under control—and that includes devoting more attention to electing public officials than to choosing a winner on “American Idol.”
I’m not optimistic.
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Firefox 3 (final) for Ubuntu Linux?
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Sat Jun 21, 2008
9:27 pm
by McGehee
[Asides]
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My Linux laptop is still stuck with Firefox 3b5—I can’t find a package for a more recent version, Firefox’s “Check for Updates” Help menu item is grayed out, and I never have figured out how to install unpackaged software on Ubuntu.
So far what little experience I’m getting with Linux leaves me underwhelmed.
Update: No sooner did I post this, than the update manager found a passel of updates it missed just moments ago—including FF3.
So, never mind.
The “Check for Updates” Help menu item is still grayed out…
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