Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed, in an address Wednesday to a special commission on Georgia tax reform, called on the state and Gov. Sonny Perdue to reduce the public workforce in order to redirect money toward education.

Whoa. What a novel idea; don't cut taxes unless you can make up the shortfall, and eliminate the bloated state workforce to provide for an educated future work force.

-janelane

Atlanta's Mayor Reed suggests cutting state workforce �| ajc.com

You know my pants sag low (low)
Even though (though) that went out of style
Like ten years ago (go)

Ha! Two points for internet radio.

-janelane

Spose -- "I'm Awesome"

On August 4, Judge Vaughn Walker issued a lengthy opinion that concluded, "Proposition 8 fails to advance any rational basis in singling out gay men and lesbians for denial of a marriage license."

AMEN! The same way there wasn't a rational basis for interracial couples not to marry, there's not a reason outside various religious texts for gays not to marry. Hopefully the marriages won't be on hold for long.

-janelane

The most important news and commentary to read right now. - The Slatest - Slate Magazine

The public is largely unaware of this because the conservative establishment in both Washington and the press has been relentless in its effort to separate the G.O.P. from the excesses of the Palin-Fox-Beck-Breitbart bomb throwers and from wacky Tea Party senatorial candidates like Sharron Angle of Nevada and Rand Paul of Kentucky. To hear most non-Fox conservative pundits tell it on Sunday talk shows or op-ed pages, these unruly radicals are just a passing craze. The new post-Bush G.O.P., we’re told, is exemplified by responsible, traditional small-government conservative governors like Mitch Daniels (of Indiana) or Chris Christie (of New Jersey).

But it’s Daniels and Christie who are the anomalies.

Whenever I start to hyperventilate about the state of the US if the Tea Party gets their way (think pre-Victorian England -- no education or voting rights for women or non-white people, a two class system where the rich aren't taxed to provide basic services for the desperately poor (or themselves, for that matter), and a judicial system based on the Old Testament), I think it must be because I haven't experienced politics for that long. Surely once you've seen 20 or 30 years of the back biting and a certain party trying to return us to the fabled "good ole days" with idiotic rhetoric, you get used to it.

It just doesn't feel that way, though. It feels like the pendulum is swinging backwards a lot more than it's swinging forwards. 41% of Republicans think Obama isn't a citizen, for Christ's sake! That's a seemingly insurmountable propaganda machine if we've ever witnessed one.

-janelane, the glass is half-full of Gulf coast oil-water

Op-Ed Columnist - How to Lose an Election Without Really Trying - NYTimes.com

The race has drawn high-profile endorsements from several presumed 2012 presidential hopefuls. While Ms. Palin, the former vice presidential candidate and Alaska governor, campaigned for Ms. Handel, who would have been the state’s first female governor, Mr. Deal received endorsements from both Mike Huckabee, the former presidential candidate and governor of Arkansas, and Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the House.

Ah, I pity the Republicans. Their main choice was between a woman endorsed by that flaming idiot Palin or a man endorsed by that flaming asshole Newt Gingrich. One's empty upstairs and the other's corrupt as fuck. Go Georgia!

-janelane

Georgia’s Gubernatorial Primary Is Too Close to Call - NYTimes.com

McCain and Coburn, both Republicans who voted against the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act last year, named their report “Summertime Blues: 100 stimulus projects that give taxpayers the blues.”

Their list includes Georgia Tech professors who received federal stimulus funds to understand how jazz, avant-garde art and Indian classical musicians improvise. The report cites an Atlanta Journal-Constitution article that describes the $762,372 study, which involves using brain imaging to learn how musicians do their work.

The researchers hope their project will help develop new technologies that support creativity in music, education and other areas.

“How will this help pull the United States out of an historic economic slump?” McCain and Coburn’s report asks.

Also making the senators’ list is another Georgia Tech project, also highlighted in the AJC article, that was granted $427,824 in stimulus funds for a study on elderly people playing video games, including the Wii Boom Blox game. The researcher hopes her work could help create guidelines for developing other "brain games" for seniors.

Georgia Tech issued a statement in response, saying such research is “necessary for the long-term economic success of our state and our nation.”

“Federal agencies funded research projects at Georgia Tech because they determined that the projects meet the appropriate criteria for stimulus funding,” Georgia Tech spokesman Matt Nagel said. “The fruits of this research are new industries and companies. For example, we are proud that our Center for Music Technology has already developed two new companies with this type of research."

The senators also highlighted a $677,462 research project at Georgia State University to study “why monkeys respond negatively to inequity and unfairness.” Asked about the project, the university sent the AJC a news release from last year that said the research “will hopefully answer questions about the evolution of responses to reward inequality -- including those responses in humans.”

Additionally, McCain and Coburn's report lists an $897,000 stimulus grant awarded to the Georgia Forestry Commission for tree planting. The commission's chief said the plantings are helping the environment and are expected to directly create 20 full-time jobs, plus other jobs in nurseries and related businesses.

Fuck McCain. And fuck all the other Congressional republicans who can't get their heads out of their asses and save teacher's jobs FOR FREE.

-janelane

Georgia stimulus projects make list of 100 that "give taxpayers the blues"  | ajc.com

As the pill marks its 50th anniversary this year, the Catholic Church is making renewed efforts to persuade the faithful to practice natural family planning, arguing that artificial birth control not only violates church doctrine, it harms women's bodies and the environment.

But the church has an uphill battle, Catholic leaders say.

Polls show that Catholics overwhelmingly reject the Vatican's views on birth control. And about half of American Catholics who leave their faith cite their unhappiness with the church's teachings on birth control as a reason they left, according to a survey last year by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.

Seriously?! At this point, how many death knells does the Catholic Church need?

Somehow they're managing to leave behind their followers while becoming more in line with the rabid American conservatives that preach abstinence. Looks like another Catholicism-American government conspiracy is order.

-janelane

Forget contraceptives, go natural, church teaches | freep.com | Detroit Free Press

Mr. Bozich says the factory’s cost will be $4.80 a T-shirt, 80 cents or 20 percent more than if it paid minimum wage. Knights will absorb a lower-than-usual profit margin, he said, without asking retailers to pay more at wholesale.

“Obviously we’ll have a higher cost,” Mr. Bozich said. “But we’re pricing the product such that we’re not asking the retailer or the consumer to sacrifice in order to support it.”

Knights plans to sell the T’s for $8 wholesale, with most retailers marking them up to $18.

This is important. To pay a living wage costs $0.80 more per T-shirt than to force garment workers to live in abject poverty. That's $0.80 for a T-shirt that Barnes and Nobel at Georgia Tech will sell for $18.00.

So, let's agree: 1) no more bullshit about how much it costs companies to do what's right for 3rd-world workers and 2) no more bullshit about how Americans can't afford to pay living wages for producers of their consumables.

-janelane

An Apparel Factory Defies Stereotypes, but Can It Thrive? - NYTimes.com

But without that animating tension, or any real tension, this year’s Warped Tour, which featured around 80 bands on 7 stages — a grab bag of stalwarts from a range of styles — felt unmoored. What good is punk with nothing to be mad about?

WTF?! Well, I've got plenty to be mad about:

> 3,500 dead in the WOT
> Untold millions in environmental damage in the Gulf
> Texas Republicans rewrite history
> 9.3% unemployment and no end in sight
...

Music Review - Metalcore, Screamo and Hugs - NYTimes.com

Turtle