I tuned in to the live stream of the anti-health reform rally in Atlanta this afternoon. A couple of random observations:
Organizers of the event expected 25,000. As I watched, some guy announced from the stage a crowd of 12,000. So, less than half of what they expected, and that number is self reported (Edit: The ajc is reporting only 4,000 attended). To put that in perspective, I got more votes as a Democrat running for office in Forsyth County. Not exactly a huge gathering.
Holy Cow. What an infomercial. I hope people brought a pen and paper because in between the “Socialism!” attendees where showered with “please visit <insert your particular cause website here>” over and over again. They might as well have invited the ShamWow and SlapChop guy for all the self-interested peddling going on (we can’t sell this at this price all day!).
The expert panel was priceless. One of the guys, Robert Goldberg, is known as the guy who tried to draw analogies of the health care reform debate to the movie Bruno.
Some country singer named John Berry sang “Give Back My America”. I learned that I can’t “pray like my daddy did”. Did not know that. Berry did admit before starting that “I’m not a prolific songwriter”. I agree.
It’s still all about land use.
I’m all for efforts to extend rail and other alternative forms of transportation (in the right places!), but it will never be even close to enough. Until we do something about the incentives for developers to build single acre lot subdivisions that don’t connect (cul-de-sac paradises), we’ll just keep pushing more cars onto surface roads that will never support the traffic.
If the recent downturn has taught us anything, it should be that we have enough inventory of low density development to last us awhile. Instead of sitting back and waiting for developers to come save their counties, commissioners in the exurban/suburban metro area should be re-tooling land use policy that lends itself to higher densities along transit nodes. I get that folks like their one acre and a mule (hell, I do to), but the lack of diversity in our land use planning will kill growth over the long term more than anything else we do (or don’t do).
I’ve long been of the opinion that land use is the sole province of localities, but I’m more open than ever to state or regionally driven action that requires counties to have workable Master Plan and TOD centric development options in the local comprehensive plan. If we don’t do it now when demand is low it will never happen.
The race warrior strikes again!
Listen, I don’t know who painted what on Congressman Scott’s signage. Pretty sure with something like this it’s possible we will never know.
But I’m pretty sure this just reinforces my perception that Randall is race-baiting wanker. When last we counted:
“Rogue109″ and “Racist” turn up at PP:
- 153 time since he was front paged
- 37 times in 2009 alone.
And that was last April! There’s no telling what that number is now.
While we are dealing with the issue let’s just dispense with the strawman. The difference was Pamela Graff used race to defraud. The motive was money and self-enrichment. None of that is going on here. Instead, at just about every teabagger gangbang somebody shows up with a Hitler/Nazi placard. It’s standard operating procedure. It’s not shocking that the standard rally flair of the teabagger movement would end up painted at the location of one of its targets.
Sez Wingfield:
If you disagree with Democrats’ health care plans, they consider you stupid. Or a liar. Or maybe a stupid liar, pants on fire.
Looks like it’s time to get Kyle Wingfield in front of the Death Panel. Because, you know, those are totally going to be real and anybody who says different is a LIAR! Ask Palin.
Weasels.
Cowan finds it ironic the way the state is handling publicity about the loss of HTRG compared with when it was put in place five years ago.
“Since it was implemented, we have been required to print the following statement on all tax bills:
‘This reduction in your bill is the result of homeowner’s tax relief enacted by the Governor and the General Assembly of the State of Georgia’,” Cowan said.
House Bill 143 goes out of its way to make sure counties don’t emphasize the loss of HTRG, Cowan said.
The law states, “each fiscal authority shall not include a notice on each tax bill regarding the unavailability of the credit.”
Eliminating HTRG will cost the average homeowner about $200 – $300. The Governor and General Assembly are trying very hard to make sure you don’t notice. Bills hit the postman next month! Excitement!
So I heard about this kid who was all like “The Ox is a total douche bag”, and then the Ox people said, ”listen you little prick, Ox will be there next week and you’re totally going to have to face him on the playground if you don’t shut up”, and the kid was all like “yeah, well, fuck you, that’s not what you told me when we were texting yesterday”, and the Ox people were like “hey, that’s not cool, why you got to go telling everybody”, and then some other kids said “yeah, dick, Ox is teh awesome so leave him alone”.
inspired by gray
