Radical Georgia Moderate

I work in the Colony Square building on 14th Street, and there’s a bomb threat next door at The Proscenium. Radio reports say the police believe it’s real, though I don’t think that’s confirmed yet. Here are photos from the scene taken from my office window:

As much as I’d like to sit around and play journalist with updates every ten minutes, I’m getting my ass out of here for a few hours.

This college football season has one of the more compelling opening slates in recent memory. Cal-Tennessee, Arkansas-USC and Georgia Tech-Notre Dame are all on tap for Sept. 2; we’ll see if former Tennessee quarterback Brent Schaeffer will actually show up to play for Ole Miss against Memphis Sept. 3, and then we’ll watch the annual Miami-FSU penalty-fest on Sept. 4.

A few months ago, I had the idea (that I thought was original at the time) to create a product where users could add audio comments to posts, then listen to the audio sequentially — sort of a podcast created in bits and pieces at varying times and locations.

Then Skype added a feature to its software that let up to 100 users speak on a conference call at once (which in turn isn’t hard to record and post somewhere). That happened before I even had time to look up a venture capitalist’s phone number.

Well, now it appears video sharing site Grouper has upped the ante, adding a feature to its site where users can add video comments through a web cam. The videos and video commenting software all work through Flash, and can be embedded on a web site the same way YouTube videos are.

All I can say is… wow! View an example of the technology in action here. It’s similar to what I wanted to make, except mine was going to be audio-only.

If this catches on, it could dethrone YouTube. What I know for certain is this is the first application I’ve ever seen that actually made me want to buy a web cam.

h/t Techcrunch

Cross-posted on my Georgia Podcast Network blog

Be sure to place your votes in Creative Loafing’s Best of Atlanta contest. The deadline is tomorrow, so there’s no time to waste! Please vote for the Georgia Podcast Network for best local web site, and one of our programs for best local podcast. We’re partial to Mostly ITP, but they’re all fine choices.

h/t Atlanta Metroblog

Here’s another reason to dust out the bomb shelter:

As we get close to the final availability of Internet Explorer 7, I want to provide an update on our distribution plans. To help our customers become more secure and up-to-date, we will distribute IE7 as a high-priority update via Automatic Updates (AU) shortly after the final version is released for Windows XP, planned for the fourth quarter of this year.

So… they’re just going to compel people to upgrade without any regard for whether Internet Explorer 7 is:

1. Compatible with custom corporate applications, and
2. Compatible with most sites on the web in general.

That’s spectacular. The bright side is this probably ensures job security for another five years or so.

Hello there blogosphere, so nice to see you. I know we haven’t spoken in a while… that you’ve missed my delusions of grandeur, and me your sweet vapid beckonings and promises of further insulating the already insular. Here’s what’s been going on lately:

• Movie review podcast on the Georgia Podcast Network! It’s on now that we’ve figured out how to incorporate sound effects on the fly. Look for more reviews in the future.
• I’m writing a program to collect NCAA Picks information this year. The back end is almost finished. It’s going to kick ass. More info to follow…

The 6th district is inexplicably represented by a medical doctor, Tom Price, who not only voted against investing money in stem cell research in 2005, but did so again in 2006–and refused to vote to overturn the recent Bush veto, as if to put an exclamation mark on his “no.” Further, he’s voting against the district’s interest by voting to extend the Bush tax cuts, in the current frantic-spending environment being propelled by Republicans–thereby embodying the Republican version of “cut and run,” which is to cut taxes and run away from the resulting debt.

This is the district formerly represtented by Newt Gingrich, so it’ll be a tough sell. But the Democrats have an intriguing candidate for this seat which Price won unopposed in the last election–and Steve Sinton has a grasp of the issues and a conservative, yet progressive, position to provide an appealing alternative to the status quo. He’s been making quite an impression. I like the way he puts his stem cell position:

The stakes couldn’t be higher. Recently, President Bush–against the will of the majority of Americans–vetoed a bill supporting embryonic stem cell research. Our health is being held hostage.

Instead of finding cures to cancer, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and other diseases that afflict many of us and our loved ones, a stroke of a pen – W’s first veto – made him The Decider. We don’t get the best medical breakthrough of the century. What’s worse is that my opponent, a medical doctor, REFUSED to vote to override President Bush’s veto.

Isn’t it time we send a message to Washington, not a rubber stamp?

Please, please, please stop referring to Casey Cagle as a moderate. Just because Ralph Reed was a sociopathic pseudo-religious type who adopted the word “conservative” doesn’t mean that anyone other than him involved in the same race must be a moderate or liberal. Cagle’s record is conservative to the point of being anti-consumer which makes libertarians cheer, liberals bristle, and people like me a little wary of him but relieved he’s not Ralph Reed just the same.

And I have yet to see analysis of the election results that I thought hit the mark. These results are too strange to be explained by any single factor, as most people (including me) have tried to do. Here are just a few dynamics in play:

• Crossover votes in the 4th against Cynthia McKinney
• Crossover votes statewide against Ralph Reed
• Extraordinarily low turnout, in part because of:
  • Disaffected Democrats because of the brutality in the governor’s (and later) the lt. governor’s race
  • Disaffected Republicans because of the brutality of the lt. governor’s race
  • Disaffected gays because of Cathy Cox’s flip-flopping
  • Disaffected evangelicals because of the scumbaggery of Reed
  • Cynicism about the electoral process in general: Exasperation with Republicans for running nearly everything into the ground and with Democrats for not offering any real alternative

Until I see something really convincing, my thought is that anyone who claims to have a full explanation for the results is full of shit. It’s nearly impossible to quantify crossover votes in any substantive way, and even more difficult to prove a negative (i.e. - who stayed home, and of those who didn’t, who crossed over).

Some people have claimed this is the beginning of a categorical rejection evangelical Christians’ electoral clout. Others still have claimed this only reflects evangelicals’ resolved willingness to reject their own when they feel betrayed. Either is possible, as are other scenarios, like Democratic turnout being higher simply because national Republicans are screwing the pooch that badly. But it’s all conjecture, so don’t take it too seriously. There are a lot of people who are filling a logic vacuum with wishful thinking.

A quote from my interview with pastor Billy Ball at the Atlanta Pride Festival was featured in an article in AfterElton.

Rusty Tanton, a Mostly ITP show host with the Georgia Podcast Network, interviewed Ball during the Atlanta Pride festival.

“We’re out here preaching the gospel and warning the sodomites that are part of this gathering that if they don’t repent they are going to hell,” Ball told Tanton. “We have an objection to [homosexuality] because God has an exception to it. It’s an abomination in the sight of God. It’s the most accepted tolerated sin in America right now, I think, besides abortion, and the church is way too quiet about it.

“We came out here because we love these people enough to warn them and rebuke them, Ball added. “The word of God clearly spells out that sodomy, man with man, woman with woman, is an abomination before God.”

Check it out here.

Cross-posted on my Georgia Podcast Network blog.

Major surprises to me about last night’s results:

• Casey Cagle’s 12 percent margin of victory over Ralph Reed in the GOP LG race
• What happened to Shyam Reddy and Scott Holcomb in the Dem SOS race? I guess Gail Buckner wasn’t kidding about her polling. I’d just like to know where all that support came from.
• Ray McBerry, who was supposed to be token opposition, pulling almost 12 percent of the vote against Sonny Perdue in the GOP Gov. race
• Mac McCarley’s abysmal showing in the Dem Gov. race (just over 2 percent). So much for gay protest votes.
• Cindy Sheehan showing up to get jiggy with Cynthia McKinney in the 6th. Maybe Hugo Chavez forgot to RSVP?

I want to write about all these scenarios in detail and throw some numbers around, but I don’t have time now. Please chat it up in the comments. I’m especially intrigued by McBerry and Cagle’s surprisingly strong showings contrasted with McCarley’s awful one. I suspect more crossover voting than was predicted by most people, but don’t have time to crunch numbers to validate that theory one way or the other.

UPDATE: Of course, that theory could be (and I think probably is) totally misguided since with 98.6 percent of precincts reporting, 53,451 more people voted in the Dem. Governor’s primary (466,262) than in the GOP Governor’s primary (412,811). That makes these results even stranger to me.