this item originating at the County Clerk’s office.
This may or may not be what the Commission voted on Tuesday. It’s not signed by any of the voting Commissioners or the County Clerk.
It says it’s a NOTICE. Is a Notice an ordinance?
It’s still not on the County’s website list of ordinances.
So many questions!
Cynics might have still other questions.
-jsq
Above owed to Farrah D. Reed, who also commented on Gov. Deal: the bad, prison slave labor competing with free labor:Georgia operates the fifth-largest prison system in the nation, at a cost of $1 billion a year. The job of overseeing 60,000 inmates and 150,000 felons on probation consumes 1 of every 17 state dollars.
Maybe if our tax dollars were spent on education and rehabilitation we wouldn’t have so many folks locked up in the first place!
-jsq
the Valdosta Board of Education (VBOE) approved
along with its
statement opposing school consolidation.
George Rhynes reports there were 300 people there,
and he videoed everybody who stood up and spoke.
I especially like this one, with Jerome Tucker asking:
That pretty much sums it up, doesn’t it?What makes the Chamber of Commerce better qualified than professional educators?
Here’s the video:
Videos of last night’s Valdosta school forum by George Rhynes
education, referendum, consolidation, statement,
Forum at Valdosta Middle School, Valdosta Board of Education (VBOE),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 20 September 2011.
Videos by George Boston Rhynes for bostongbr on YouTube.
Here’s a playlist of all George’s videos of that Forum:
Videos of last night’s Valdosta school forum by George Rhynes
education, referendum, consolidation, statement,
Forum at Valdosta Middle School, Valdosta Board of Education (VBOE),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 20 September 2011.
Videos by George Boston Rhynes for bostongbr on YouTube.
-jsq
Louis XIV handing down an award at Versailles |
It’s now been a week since the Lowndes County Commission passed an ordinance for no stated reason, not on the agenda, and not read to the public. It’s still not on the county’s online list of ordinances. Gretchen was covering an event Friday at which she saw Commissioner Crawford Powell; she asked him to send her a copy of the ordinance. Five days later, nothing has arrived.
So, our only clues are Commissioner Raines’ remarks that it had something to do with videoing and photographing. And his remarks that he believed that the Chairman could do it on his own, but he’d like to make a motion for the Commission to approve it.
So we have to guess it had something to do with
Ashley Paulk’s outburst of the previous morning,
in which he
flattered me
by addressing me and only me by name,
even though there were at least two video cameras recording the meeting.
This is what he was going on about:
The County Commission wishes from this day forward that any filming be done from the media area in the back corner of the room.He didn’t say anything about still photography, or for that matter
about digital videoing, so I don’t know whether what he said
had anything to do with whatever it was that
Commissioner Raines moved Tuesday and the Commission approved.
Nor does anybody else know.
Now a cynic might say, Continue reading
The referenced story by Julian Miglierini 1 September 2011 for BBC News also said the Mexican president went farther: Monterrey attack: Game-changer in Mexico’s drugs war?Mexican President Felipe Calderón seems to be experiencing a dramatic change of mind regarding his war against drug cartels. Soon after a drug gang set fire to a casino in Monterrey a few weeks ago killing 52 people, Calderón told the media that ”If [the Americans] are determined and resigned to consuming drugs, they should look for market alternatives that annul the stratospheric profits of the criminals, or establish clear points of access that are not the border with Mexico.” Many people interpreted that as a veiled reference to drug legalization.
Hours after it took place, the president described it “as an abhorrent act of terror and savagery” and later said the authors were “true terrorists”.When you think about the billions or trillions the U.S. and other countries spend against terrorists who cause less damage than the Mexican drug cartels, he could be indicating that priorities are misdirected.
The Cato article says Calderón has now gone further: Continue reading
local governments and businesses don’t have to wait
on the state.
For example, the
Lowndes County Commission has opened a discussion about solar energy
in response to a presentation by Bill Branham.
Now that they’ve learned
that
solar is cost-effective in the same way buying a car is,
that
there are two fast-growing solar manufacturers in Georgia
(
Suniva of Norcross
and
MAGE SOLAR of Dublin),
with associated potential jobs right here in south Georgia,
and
about
the extraordinary negative side of coal mining,
If the LCC won’t do it, how about solar Valdosta fire departments, or solar Hahira tobacco barns?
-jsq
Solar Summit in Atlanta, in which we learned
there were four certified solar installers in Georgia four years ago,
and now there are forty;
that
oil for energy
is a national security risk (Col. Dan Nolan),
and that
“Solar is great for diversity, independence, research, and business.” (Chuck Eaton),
and that
Georgia is the third top state “that would benefit from solar deployment through generating and exporting energy to other states” (Richard Polich).
Sounds like a business opportunity to me!
GSEA chair Doug Beebe elaborates in a column in the Atlanta Business Chronicle on 11 September 2011, Solar energy already works in Georgia, but it can do so much more for our state’s economy,
This has been a great year for the Georgia Solar Energy Association, too. Our membership has swelled to almost 300 corporate and individual members. This number includes manufacturers, installers, integrators, consultants and advocates who want to see Georgia benefit from an industry that contributed more than $5 billion in economic activity to the U.S. gross domestic product since 2008 and now employs more than 93,000 workers nationwide.Great, huh? So what’s the problem? This: Continue readingOur annual Southern Solar Summit in Atlanta this summer sold out, filling the auditorium at the Georgia Tech Research Institute Conference Center with Georgians eager to learn what innovations are making solar power more accessible in Georgia and beyond. Another annual Solar Summit in Savannah last month doubled its attendance this year, proving that interest in solar has spread beyond metro Atlanta.
The 2011 Georgia Solar Tour will feature sites statewide. We hope that some of the participants in this year’s tour will become hosts in next year’s.
In the VDT via AP today:
Continue readingGeorgia’s pardons board rejected a last-ditch clemency plea from death row inmate Troy Davis on Tuesday despite high-profile support from figures including the pope and a former FBI director for the claim that he was wrongly convicted of killing a police officer in 1989.
Davis is scheduled to die Wednesday by injection for the killing of off-duty Savannah officer Mark MacPhail, who was slain while rushing to help a homeless man being attacked. It is the fourth time in four years that Davis’ execution has been scheduled by Georgia officials.
Steve Hayes, spokesman for the Board of Pardons and Paroles, said
Continuing
Gov. Deal: the good, the ugly, and the bad on prisons,
quoting again from
David Rodock’s interview with Gov. Nathan Deal
in today’s VDT.
THE TIMES: Your proposal to have probationers replace illegal immigrants for farm labor. Did that idea work? If it didn’t or it did, what’s going to happen next year during the picking season?Really? Except for little things like not being able to vote if they are felons, and having to pay their probation officers. But back to the Gov.: Continue readingDEAL: “Well, it worked with some success. I think there was a great deal of skepticism about it on whether these people will work and there is a threat associated with their presence. We have to remember that probationers are not under arrest. They are free in our society.
that nonetheless is a useful measure (the good).
He reiterated a bogus talking point (the ugly).
Then he proceeded to contradict it in advocating something that would
work against reducing the prison population (the bad).
David Rodock’s interview with Gov. Nathan Deal is in the VDT today.
I’ve previously noted that Gov. Deal has taken at least a tentative step towards sentence reform. That’s good, but not enough. Let’s do the rest, Continue readingTHE TIMES: How are we going to address the large number of incarcerated citizens and decrease those numbers?
DEAL: “I think one of the better things we can do is have accountability in courts whether they be drug courts, DUI courts, mental-health courts, towards sentence reform.
the like. We know that they work. We know the recidivism rate, if they go through those approaches rather than directly into the prison system. We have less recidivism. We break the addictions, and we’ve got to work very closely on that.”