My Overly-Simplistic Guide to the 2008 Ballot (Part 3 of several)

U.S. House I live in District 5, that's Rep. John Lewis' district, and he'll be staying in DC, thank you. Being that Lewis was caught supporting Sen. Clinton's candidacy early on, and was "corrected" (by a 70-30 margin) into supporting Sen. Obama, it will be very interesting to see how his interaction with the district changes (if any) during the coming term. District 8 has shown one of the best actual elections you'll see in this state, and I've completely missed out. Incumbent Jim Marshall vs. Rick Goddard. Army vs. Air Force. Democrat vs. Republican, in serious (R) territory (Gov. Perdue's home turf). Would Savannah please unseat Jack Kingston from the 1st District? Good grief. Public Service Commission - District 4 Here's the debate; check it out, it's worth watching. The first question to Jim Powell in this debate regarded his fight over residency. The rest of the debate demonstrates why Watergirl (aka Secretary of State Karen Handel) went to the Supreme Court to exclude Powell from the ballot. There are three people in this debate, and only one of them is not a clown. That legitimate candidate is Jim Powell. As for the residency fight, the Georgia Supreme Court secured Powell's name on the ballot, with unanimously affirmation of the Court of Appeals' rejection of Handel's overrule of an Administrative Judge's ruling. So, that's Up, Down, Up, Up, for those keeping score. This ruling should get infinite lives on at least one video game, and definitely gives us the chance to elect a legitimate candidate for the PSC.

posted at: 20:07 | permanent link to this entry

Circuit City and Amendment 2

Here is an object lesson in why Amendment 2 gets my 'no' vote: Circuit City is closing all stores in Atlanta. What do these two have to do with each other? These stores were built to corporate specs (matching local building codes, of course), with a particular business model in mind. That business model has failed, as a result of some mix of internal faults and competition. Now, we have nice, empty, decaying buildings and (portions of) parking lots to deal with. Various municipalities already bend over to "attract" developments like this; it's how Atlanta's been built up over the past 20+ years. The question for Amendment 2 is: do we want to redirect funds marked for education, to propagate business failures like these?

posted at: 19:51 | permanent link to this entry

My Overly-Simplistic Guide to the 2008 Ballot (Part 4 of several)

GA Court of Appeals This is one of the more under-the-radar elections of this cycle. Creative Loafing agrees. There are seven(!) candidates running for one open seat on the Court of Appeals. One of these candidates will be on the appellate bench...Cross out the agenda attorneys, cross out the legislator, cross out the fundie, and that leaves: Sarah Doyle , Bruce Edenfield, and Christopher McFadden. The geek aura is strong with McFadden, so I'm sending a vote in his direction, with intent of blocking the goosesteppers in a runoff. U.S. Senate I still don't like any of the candidates for Senate this year. However, GriftDrift has it right. It's an interesting bout of gamesmanship, as folks are so pissed off about Sen. Chambliss that they'll vote Allen Buckley to force a runoff between Chambliss and Jim Martin, then vote Martin in that runoff. (this assumes that Martin doesn't win the thing outright, an outcome which may require direct intervention to prevent.) A middle finger to both parties: one hopelessly unamerican; and the other, well, just plain hopeless, enough to not bother running a candidate in Georgia, until after Sen. Obama won the Georgia primary with a 70.

posted at: 17:06 | permanent link to this entry

The Election, in Review (part 1)

Overall, it's been a very demographic-driven presidential election, with various candidates winning primaries based on matching demographics, instead of actual merit. It wasn't that surprising to see the two least demographically-oriented candidates clear their party nominations. That being said, I think that McCain (and allies) held open the the doors of the Republican Party for a 'last call', and not enough people showed up, for the gambit to continue. As such, McCain threw in the towel on the party in July. I do disagree with the notion of "the party" acting as an external entity, however. Parties are containers, comprised of factions (in the US, anyway). To say "the party abandoned its principles" is to imply that the controlling factions valued those principles in the first place, and is a similarly weak claim as the "Washington changed us" blather I've heard from Republican stumps this election.

posted at: 05:13 | permanent link to this entry

Today's topic for discussion is:

For your listening edification: listening to words, a lecture and literature audio site.

posted at: 04:15 | permanent link to this entry

Hmmm...

Keep an eye on this news from Columbus: someone over the line in Alabama found a voting machine in their driveway Thursday. The fun part will be finding out which county had (or will have) their votes replaced with the contents of this machine.

posted at: 04:15 | permanent link to this entry

Gettin' nothing but static...

There's so much to write about, it's a logjam. Saturday, I was asked for comments by a Creative Loafing reporter, something about how my holidays will be affected by the economy this year. I blabbed for a bit, said nothing useful, and came up with an actual answer last night: "Our economy lives on idiocy, and it will die on idiocy." I failed in my attempt to hold out for the second-gen Android handset; the old Palm just fell apart (literally). So, I bought a new Palm (Centro) to hold me over to next year. Best new waste of money: Domo (-kun) fuzzy dice. A severe miss over at Atlanta Dish. Taco Mac or Fox and Hounds, or Chop House...for good food? I think not. Speaking of food, Murphy's has run into some of the best tomatoes I've ever tasted -- the fact that I actually like them raw astounds me. Reflecting upon my earlier visit to Bookhouse Pub: the place that serves collard green spring rolls, and would likely fry their coasters if they could get away with it, doesn't serve iced tea, of any kind. How screwed up is that? There's been excellent, excellent art over at Aurora Coffee lately: face masks are the theme, in their lifeless floppiness. My "last" project has gone live over the weekend, I'll babysit it through the next few weeks, but I believe this will be the last upgrade I'll be involved with for this product. The only thing left for me to do now, is turn out the lights later.

posted at: 04:10 | permanent link to this entry

xkcd is made of win.

(link goes to full comic; I think I might make a bumper sticker from this).

posted at: 02:18 | permanent link to this entry