Radical Georgia Moderate

I should just quit my job and blog all the time. Anybody want to sponsor me? Here are articles I’d like to blog about now, but can’t, since I don’t have time:

• Atlanta Boy Scouts inflated black numbers, audit says (login) - Apparently, the Boy Scouts made up 5,000 black kids out of thin air.
• Funds tribe gave to Reed hard to trail (login) - There’s a good math problem to be found in here somewhere.
• I’m the guy they called Deep Throat (PDF) - Everyone else will surely write something about this, so I don’t feel like I’m missing out on all that much.

This started out as a response to a post on Joe’s site, but got long enough I thought it warranted a post of its own. Jim Wooten writes (emphasis mine):

Gov. Sonny Perdue has appointed a congestion mitigation task force. Its charge should be clear: Subject every transportation project to competitive cost-benefit analysis. Buy solutions that result in the greatest congestion relief for the dollar. The task force should, too, set goals for gridlock improvement and measure the progress.

And Joe responds:

Anytime I’ve tried arguing my case against c-b analysis, I feel as though I’ve been met with dismissals. Does anyone realize the significance that c-b analysis carries on how our region is planned out, and just how shortsighted a tool this is?

The Atlanta Regional Commission already recognizes (PDF) that the operations and maintenance of our existing infrastructure represents 46% of the cost of the Mobility 2030 plan. That means 46% of the money that’s spent on improving our existing system will go toward what we already have. As more roads are built, that portion of the pie will grow, which means there will only be less monetary room to accomodate any further growth.

In other words, the more roads we build now, the less we can build later. The more roads we build now, the more we have to spend on maintenance. The more roads we build now, the less we have available later to build other options.

I whole-heartedly agree with Joe on this point, and think there’s a lot of short-term thinking going on at all levels of government and business right now. I don’t trust publicly-traded companies for what I see as the same reason Joe doesn’t trust the cost-benefit analysis as a model for regional transportation planning.

No time to write a full post and probably not much of my own insight to add anyway, but if you live in metro Atlanta and particularly in Fulton County you need to read this article (login).

It’s not just Sandy Springs.

Across Fulton County, a wellspring of dissatisfaction seems to rise so strongly that the County Commission chairwoman says she can’t go anywhere without getting an earful.

“For decades, the Board of Commissioners has clearly not been meeting the needs,” Karen Handel says. “That’s why we have this intense discontent. I heard it on the campaign trail. I hear it both north and south. I really see it as a citizen revolt.”

That unrest has Fulton County on the verge of unraveling, 70 years after it was created by the merger of three struggling counties. If Sandy Springs residents decide to incorporate June 21, the county fears that $68 million could be sapped from its coffers.

Two other unincorporated areas of the county — Johns Creek and Milton — also are considering becoming cities unto themselves.

“The perception that Fulton County doesn’t work is part of the racial, social dynamics that are just fierce,” says state Sen. Vincent Fort (D-Atlanta). “It doesn’t reflect so much on the quality of the service but the people who are on the outs. Whatever it’s based upon, it’s real. Sometimes it’s rabid.”

I‘ve come to a point where I try not to take national politics too seriously these days. It’s an uncontrollable clusterfuck that’s all but totally pointless to get emotionally involved with. But, occasionally, I hear something that really gets under my skin. I give you Vice President Dick Cheney and his co-conspirator in bullshit dissemination CNN (emphasis mine):

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Vice President Dick Cheney said Monday he was offended by Amnesty International’s condemnation of the United States for what it called “serious human rights violations” at Guantanamo Bay.

“For Amnesty International to suggest that somehow the United States is a violator of human rights, I frankly just don’t take them seriously,” he said in an interview that was to air Monday night on CNN’s “Larry King Live.”

You know what offends me, Dick?

This is what one does when one is stuck for content and generally bored with his own blogging (hopefully a temporary state of affairs). Time Magazine put out a list of its top 100 films of all time. These lists are designed more to generate discussion and to draw attention to the venues that publish them than they are to be definitive lists, much like AFI’s top 100 list or VH1’s 25 crappiest bands specials. So, to follow the meme, these are the films I’ve seen from Time’s list:

Two types of people pursue a full-time career in the retail industry: morons and sociopaths. Exceptions to that rule are rare. Since I’m just arrogant enough to believe I’m not a complete moron, that leaves me with the option of honing my sociopathic skills. Or, I could jab a screwdriver through my temple to knock me down a few pegs. Not real appealing options either way.

I hate this job a lot more than other jobs I’ve had, but for some reason there’s not nearly the sense of dread I felt when on my way to other jobs. The feeling, I imagine, is not unlike going into shock. If you trip and skin your knee or step on a bottle top that lodges in your heel, the pain is immediate and sharp. Whereas, if you were to jump off a four-story building and survive, you could break every bone in your body but not feel anything.

To the same degree, trying to drown this job out with booze (as I’m about to do) is like a long, tedious version of driving a screwdriver through my temple.

The water came like:

Georgia ranked 29th of 49, including the 48 continental states plus DC on the GMAC Insurance National Driver’s test — a middling performance. Apparently, bottom-of-the-barrel edumacation has little correlation with adult drivers’ knowledge of road rules. I’d wager all the truck and bus drivers tip the scales the South’s way though. Actually, my middle school bus driver was a raving drunken maniac who endangered children’s lives every day. So, scratch the bus drivers remark from the record. That’s way too complimentary.