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Page 1 of 762 pages 1 2 3 > Last »
July 2008
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The Perfect Image
by McGehee
If I wanted a picture to illustrate the “can’t help themselves” level of stupidity exhibited by some people, it would be the one associated with this old article I stumbled on while following some silly internet bunny trail this evening. Of course, it’s really unfair to the squirrel, because it really didn’t know any better—whereas people (theoretically) do.
[Me] [Boreblogger Nirvana™] [People] [Here's Your Sign]
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June 2008
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11:48 pm Monday
June 30, 2008
No backtalk
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I Cannot Disagree
by McGehee
68°F. and fair in Coweta County, GA
Saturday evening, on our way to the fairgrounds, Chris and I saw a ten-mile-long backup on northbound I-85 due to a series of accidents not far from our own exit. Vehicles in the backup attempting to leave the interstate four miles from the accident scene were backed up for at least another six miles.
The interstate is undergoing extensive work through Coweta County, and in my opinion the planning for the project has been an extended fustercluck.
It’s time for Coweta County residents to avoid travel on Interstate 85, if possible. In less than a week, there are been three massive multi-vehicle traffic accidents on the interstate in our county that have jammed traffic for hours.
Each of these major wrecks took place in highway construction areas. Stormy weather may have contributed to two of the pileups.
Even before these recent multi-vehicle accidents, authorities reported a significant increase in wrecks on the interstate within the past year. For well over a year, every mile of I-85 in Coweta—plus a stretch south of Coweta in Meriwether and a much longer stretch in South Fulton north of Coweta—have been undergoing construction. That construction will continue at least for another 18 months. The scheduled deadline is for the work to be completed by the end of 2009. Too often construction deadlines are not met.
As the construction has progressed, more barriers have been erected. There have been recurring lane changes and shifting of traffic. When the new inside lanes that are now being constructed are completed, workers will begin rebuilding the outside lanes. We will experience more and more lane changes and more and more barriers during the next 18 months.
»
It would be a good idea to avoid travel along dangerous I-85
For miles, I-85 effectively has no shoulders. The posted speed limit has been lowered from 70 to 60, with signs proclaiming the limit is “strictly enforced”—but the prevailing speed remains as it was before the work began.
Did I mention “no shoulders”? As in, where the @#$!! is a trooper or deputy supposed to pull somebody over?
Very bad planning. The only thing worse I can imagine is for all that traffic to detour onto Coweta’s surface roads. Fortunately not everyone who travels I-85 reads the Times-Herald. Or this blog.
[People] [Coweta County]
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The Shape of Things to Come, if Obama Is Elected
by McGehee
78°F. and partly cloudy in Coweta County, GA
Back in the ‘70s, when “Doonesbury” was still occasionally funny, Garry Trudeau had fun with Jimmy Carter by imagining him with a Cabinet-level “Secretary of Symbolism.”
In keeping with the notion that Barack Obama would be a second Carter term…
Unity, N.H., is not just small, it’s small and out-of-the-way. The town has no major roads, just winding country ones. It has a single school, the elementary school, no large retail center and no parking. It is an hour and a half from the nearest sizeable airport, and hotels for traveling press are nowhere to be found. Who in the world would hold a political rally for several thousand people here? Barack Obama would.
Unity might be one of the worst towns in America in which to hold a major political rally, but symbolically it was ideal for the Obama campaign. Where better to have Hillary Clinton join Obama on stage in a display of party loyalty, showing her supporters that there are no hard feelings for her loss to Obama and urging them to work hard to make him President, than in a town named Unity, where in the New Hampshire primary in January the vote for Obama and Clinton was evenly split—107 apiece?
For the attendees, the choice of location would be a nightmare. For the Obama campaign, a campaign based entirely on symbolism, it was perfect. »
Used in Unity
If America is going to elect its first black president, don’t you think he should be good for something besides symbolism? How is he not making a token of himself here?
[People] [Here's Your Sign] [Government] [Politics] [Elections] [Election 2008]
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12:11 pm Saturday
June 28, 2008
» McGehee
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...it’s field day
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.
[Me] [AK4MC] [Humor?] [People] [Coweta County]
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12:54 pm Friday
June 27, 2008
No backtalk
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DeGeorge for Coweta County Commission
by McGehee
87°F. and partly cloudy in Coweta County, GA
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.
[People] [Coweta County] [Government] [Politics] [Elections] [Election 2008]
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A Story Four Years in the Making
by McGehee
87°F. and partly cloudy in Coweta County, GA
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.
[People] [Government] [Politics] [Elections] [Election 2008]
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