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Thursday, March 1, 2007
Does this mean there could still be a virtual Nixon?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
One of the best reads in last week’s AJC was the story by reporter Alison Young about how the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is using the virtual world of Second Life to educate Net-addicted users on health issues by giving virtual inoculations to virtual children, and such.
Second Life, if you’re out of it, is a kind of computer game for grownups in which real people create avatars, their digital counterparts, and carry on a virtual facsimile of real life.
Now comes news that a group of Republican avatars, some with “Bush ‘08” tags, showed up late Monday night and vandalized the virtual headquarters of Democrat John Edwards.
We get this from the blog gamepolitics.com, “where politics and video games collide.” Oh, don’t we wish we’d thought of that one.
The new red-light camera bill: What happens when matter and anti-matter collide
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Late yesterday, the House Motor Vehicles Committee passed out an altered version of H.B. 77, a bill to ban red-light cameras in Georgia.
As it now stands, the bill permits the cameras, but seeks to remove any incentive for counties and cities to use them to generate revenue.
And it was House Speaker Glenn Richardson, in a surprise appearance, who stepped from behind the curtain and claimed much of the credit - or responsibility - for the new face of the bill.
Richardson the Libertarian met Richardson the Pro-Safety Figure, he explained, and these changes were the result. We’ve got eight minutes of rough audio in which Richardson explains his divided feelings. It’s worth the listen.
Richardson, who lives in Paulding County, tells of encountering cameras at three straight intersections, in an adjoining county that can only be Cobb.
“Those cameras are generating a lot of money, and perhaps we’re doing it for the money now instead of the safety,” Richardson. “And we shouldn’t be taxing citizens who violate the law for the purpose of raising money, period, in my opinion.
“I don’t like red light cameras, and my initial reaction when I saw Rep. [Barry] Loudermilk’s and Rep. [Bobby] Franklin’s bill was, let’s just go in there and repeal it.”
He then explained how he came to decide otherwise. But this was his closing thought:
“If I get pulled over for speeding and it costs me $200, I can pay it. But by the time you get to the surcharges and add-ons that we have, that $200 fine is $300. And I can pay that.
“And most of you can, too. But for a lot of citizens of this state, who’ve been sitting in traffic like I did for an hour and a half, $300 to them is a week’s pay.
“It means they don’t make part of their house payment, or their car payment, or they don’t pay their insurance or they don’t take care of their kid.
“And we have to always remember that, yes, they did run the red light, yes, they did speed, but we’re taking money from citizens.”
Bush delays implementation of ‘Real ID’ drivers licenses
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Washington Post has the following article this morning, of importance to many in the state Capitol:
The Bush administration will allow states to postpone the planned May 2008 launch of a program to toughen security requirements for driver’s licenses by up to 19 months, in response to complaints about the projected $11 billion cost and potential disruptions, congressional and Department of Homeland Security officials said yesterday.
Another Democrat in the wings for the race in the 10th
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Augusta Chronicle this morning says a second Democrat has entered the 10th District congressional race.
She’s a 55-year-old Evita Paschall. The well-established Augusta attorney has been reading the headlines. “One of the things I’m concerned about is health care and the effect of cutbacks on veterans’ medical treatment and their health plans,” she told the newspaper.
The other announced Democrat in the race is Terry Holley, who was been by Norwood last year.
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Who knew that the Legislature tracked the stock market?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Leave it to China to create the perfect metaphor for this year’s session of the Legislature.
We were chatting with House Rules Committee Chairman Earl Ehrhart (R-Powder Springs) about the sloth-like pace of things. The man who controls the flow of legislation on that side of the Capitol began with the party line.
“We are trying to develop a more deliberative pace,” he said. “We’re truely going to prove that we are the party of limited government. The key to this is in the committees. The work needs to be done right, so that we don’t have to come down here year after year and fix ‘oopses.’”
But there are other reasons for the slow-down. Gov. Sonny Perdue’s style in his first term was laissez faire. Now pre-occupied with plugging the hole in PeachCare, the governor is even more hands-off this year. Which means there’s no prime mover, insisting that bills keep inching along.
“He doesn’t have a legislative agenda, really,” Erhhart said.
Then there’s China. In the first two years of the Republican takeover in the House, Ehrhart said, there was a pent-up demand for legislation that Democrats had denied over the decades. That has subsided, the chairman said. Everyone’s taking a breather.
See? This is a market correction.
Ehrhart held out the possibility that this year’s fight over the licensing of hospital services across the state could stretch into next year. So could debate over his proposal for education tax credits, he admitted.
Expect the pace to pick up when the Legislature comes back, he said. That will continue through 2008. “We’re probably slowing it down a little bit much. we’ll probably level it out over the next year,” Ehrhart said.
More Pollies for the group behind Casey Cagle
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Stoneridge Group, an Atlanta based political direct mail and Internet firm, has gotten two more Pollies for its work last year with Casey Cagle, the successful Republican candidate for lieutenant governor.
The awards come from the American Association of Political Consultants.
It won a “best overall negative/contrast” direct mail piece — that’s a hit piece for you novices — for its mailer on rival Ralph Reed’s involvement in the lobbying efforts for the Northern Marianas Islands. Which is ironic, because in substance, that mailer was the weakest of those produced by the Cagle campaign. See it here.
The firm also won a Pollie for “best overall web-based humor” for “ralphreedsgreatesthits.com,” featuring a South Park-like Bill Clinton giving advice to Reed. Here’s the link. The best part is the radio announcer reading the small print at the tail end.
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