midsummer

it may be hot but at least we aren't drought stricken ---

your american free enterprise system at work . . .

The treatment of workers by American corporations has been worse — far more treacherous — than most of the population realizes. There was no need for so many men and women to be forced out of their jobs in the downturn known as the great recession.

it's all very depressing

a miracle

thnx andrew

desperate people

57 dead this month; 150 this year ---

These tougher enforcement measures have pushed smugglers and illegal immigrants to take their chances on isolated trails through the deserts and mountains of southern Arizona, where they must sometimes walk for three or four days before reaching a road.

nice sky tonight

your american free enterprise system at work

The problem isn't merely the greatest downturn since the Great Depression. It's also that big business has found a way to make big money without restoring the jobs it cut the past two years, or increasing its investments or even its sales, at least domestically.

denuding spring hill

patterson's doesn't look right without any oaks in the front yard --- they should have replanted when another big one went down a few years ago ---

sad vegas

So many homes in Las Vegas have been foreclosed upon that banks rarely bother to hang a "For Sale" sign on the front lawn anymore. Instead, visitors identify bank-owned properties by the brown grass and the 8.5 x 11-inch sheet of paper taped to the front door or the garage.

poor kevin and all the other musicians, waiters, bellhops, and everybody else down at the service end of the food chain ---

the corporate reward system

there is no justice --- bp exec. is gonna get an annual pension of $930,000 when he leaves in october ---that news makes me think bad thoughts

ancient organisms

we get all excited about a 200 year old oak ---- here's a woman that is trying to document in photographs the world's oldest organisms --- what an excellent way to set an itinerary --- i'm not sure i believe the 500,000 yr old siberian actinobacteria, but the 9,000 yr old spruce in sweden or 3,000 yr old llareta in the andes are impressive enough ----

very sad

Ted Haggard now claims that he has "over-repented" for his encounters with rentboy Mike Jones, that he has no same-sex attraction, and that what occurred between he and Jones was merely "a massage gone awry."

"gone awry"? does that mean that the massagee did or did not have a happy ending?

miscellaneous views

including the balcony, freshly defoliated and simplified

fading bigotry

The city of Marietta will host The Marietta Rainbow Festival on Saturday,  the first gay pride celebration held in the city.

cobb county lost out in hosting events during the 96 olympics because of homophobic bigotry --- anybody else remember gordon wysong and bill byrne?

unscrewing on-street parking in atlanner

this is long overdue ---shoulda done it this way to begin with:

For the second time in less than a year, the Atlanta City Council has completely changed the city’s parking regulations. Earlier this week, the council voted to create at least four distinct parking zones that would each have unique parking hours and restrictions. With the 10-0 vote the council moved to increase the time limits of metered parking in certain areas and to eliminate overnight parking restrictions in those areas altogether. Sunday enforcement also was eliminated, though Atlanta police still will ticket and tow illegally parked cars.

a zen moment

dead hand of history

A paper by Diego Comin, Erick Gong, and myself was just published in the American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics. We collected crude but informative data on the state of technology in various parts of the world in 1000 BC, 0 AD, and 1500 AD. . . .1500 AD technology is a particularly powerful predictor of per capita income today. 78 percent of the difference in income today between sub-Saharan Africa and Western Europe is explained by technology differences that already existed in 1500 AD – even BEFORE the slave trade and colonialism.

g'evening

cobb county, georgia

interstate driving is a bitch --- hemmed in by semis, raining cats and dogs --- i'm glad i'm home

new tennessee rest stops

i saw two under construction --- interesting faux-vernacular architecture

larue county, kentucky

a whole lotta corn going on --- beautiful fields, even it if is all a conagra monoculture, with little signs along the way to prove it

startled by some of those horse-and-buggy christians (mennonite, amish?) in the oncoming lane --- clop, clop, clop --- no image :(

another benefit of tax cuts for the rich

the rich get richer, don't you know

your morning crazy

crazy and homophobic

joys of traveling

fox news and a mcpaper for breakfast --- makes me want to go back to bed

nashville and the wilds of kentucky again

220 yr old champagne!

"It tasted fantastic. It was a very sweet champagne, with a tobacco taste and oak," Ekstrom said.

that gives another dimension to "vintage" --- like the 1820 canned ham that was opened in 1938 and found to be in more or less perfect condition

yup

the president, this morning:

... too often, the Republican leadership in the United States Senate chooses to filibuster our recovery and obstruct our progress. And that has very real consequences.

like expiring unemployment benefits, and the disaster that is for a whole lot of people today

big 'un

an 83 lb flathead catfish from the altamaha --- they can weigh up to 125 lb --- i guess i did not know they could get so big --- still wouldn't eat one

chattahoochee

a little canoe trip on the hooch today, from the dam to settles bridge --- only turned our boat over once --- the water is very cold, since it's all from the bottom of the lake

the park

a great american elm has been dying for a couple of years and, coincidentally or not, so has a fairly pitiful water oak in the background --- both have been marked for destruction --- sad to see the old-timers go






however, the rudbeckia is/are spectacular

a cowardly, worthless woman

she's come a long way from her run for fulton co. commission ---

and then there were ten!

ten nations with justice for all
 2001 Netherlands
2003 Belgium
2005 Spain
2005 Canada
2006 South Africa
2008 Norway
2009 Sweden
2010 Portugal
2010 Iceland
2010 Argentina

i hope i live long enough to celebrate that in the US of A

"ice patch archeologcy"

Warming temperatures are melting patches of ice that have been in place for thousands of years in the mountains of the Canadian High Arctic and in turn revealing a treasure trove of ancient hunting tools.

and not just prehistoric tools either --- how creepy is "blood falls"????

more tea-party crazy

at least the tag line is correct: "radical leaders" do in fact "prey on the fearful & naive" --- it's since been taken down --- kinda ironic since it was iowa that booted up obama's campaign in the first place --- i wish these people at least knew that socialism was the last thing hitler's germany was about --- also, for their purposes, stalin would have been a much better choice than lenin --- but, hey, we don't need no stinking facts to screw up our demagoguery, do we?

better late than never i guess

although we may have heard this before, there is once again talk of a "multi-modal" passenger station across forsyth from five points station, near the site of the old union station (1930) --- this might be serious, however: ga. d.o.t. is involved ---

DOT legally can't use its gas tax, its major source of state funding, for rail projects. Yet state leaders said there is a new respect for transit at the agency and new activity. DOT has taken the lead on the terminal project now through its program for public-private partnerships.

plus, the report tells us that the station "would allow for bicycle and pedestrian access" --- as if that were a great leap forward rather than just typical dumb gdot

bastille day

vive la france!

antoni!

a friend sent me this postcard detail of the roof at casa batllo in barcelona --- it almost makes me want to go somewhere

post-racial america

this is from last year, but is worth doing again:

"Even it you are not yourself in a position of power, … if you've gotten used to seeing people who look like you in almost every position of authority," he says, "to then have to wake up every day and see a man of color basically running the country … is psychologically debilitating to white folks who all their lives weren't necessarily bigots or racists in any overt sense, but had simply gotten complacent with the way things were. They had internalized these notions of entitlement and superiority. . . .

"On the one hand it's funny," says Wise. "On the other hand it's really frightening, because people, when they're in that sort of meltdown mode don't make good decisions and do really crazy things." . . . .


"At some point, people will have to say, maybe black folks aren't the crazy ones. Maybe it's not the folks of color who have lost their minds. Maybe it's you."

we've still got a ways to go

asteroid lutetia

hi-res images from the recent flyby here

vive la france

chimps and bonobos

everybody always makes a big deal of chimpanzees and their penchant for violence and warfare ---- but:

First off, chimps aren't "our closest primate cousin," though you'll need a sharp eye to find any mention of our other, equally intimately related cousin, the bonobo in most of these "news" stories. Like a crazy relative who lives in a shed out back, bonobos tend to get mentioned in passing-if at all-in these sweeping declarations about the ancient primate roots of war. There are plenty of reasons self-respecting journalists might want to avoid talking about bonobos (their penchant for mutual masturbation, their unapologetic homosexuality and incest, a general sense of hippie-like shamelessness pervading bonobo social life), but the biggest inconvenience is the utter absence of any Viking-like behavior ever observed among bonobos. Bonobos never rape or pillage. No war. No murder. No infanticide.

"view from the window at le gras"

the first photograph, 1826

everybody but atlanner

On Thursday, Charlotte, Cincinatti, and Fort Worth all received around $25 million to put toward streetcar projects in their respective cities, as part of nearly $300 million in announced transit grants, while much of the remaining funding went towards bus service.

poor atlanner---we're getting left behind, thanks in no small measure to the appalling ignorance and shortsightedness of our pathetic excuse for a state legislature

rainy evening

miller union

excellent eats on brady avenue --- i will dream about the key lime–blueberry semifreddo

"animais da guerra"

orange kittens, no less

everyday view

old rich's building

views

from the 21st floor of 34 peachtree

heat is on

that 100 degrees yesterday tied the record, but it was entirely bearable since the humidity was in the low 20s --- still i'm glad i wasn't out roofing houses in it

"an irrational prejudice"

hawaii's republican (surprise!) governor vetoed that state's civil unions law, but that doesn't matter so much now since a federal judge has ruled that the so-called "defense of marriage act" is unconstitutional --- a huge victory for our side --- sooner or later justice will be served:

As an irrational prejudice plainly never constitutes a legitimate government interest, this court must hold that Section 3 of DOMA . . . violates the equal protection principles embodied in the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

seen at margaret's bank

the crape myrtle are so very fine right now --- the blossoms are, of course, the best part, but the branches, too, are great as they shed last year's bark

relentless

the mockingbird hates dog more than people i think --- we either have a lot of mockingbirds in the neighborhood or this one has a much bigger territory than i would have thought

a different view

went over to robt last night --- from 20 floors up, he has a panoramic view of the entire atlanta skyline from downtown to buckhead --- i forgot my tripod, not that my images would have been any better if i had not forgotten it

don't pray for me . . . .

The STEP trial established that intercessionary prayer per se was ineffective either positively or negatively as long as the patients don't know about it. However, patients who know that they are being prayed for do measurably worse than the unprayed or ignorant of prayer.

does it work the same with atheists?

"punishing the jobless"

krugman:

There was a time when everyone took it for granted that unemployment insurance, which normally terminates after 26 weeks, would be extended in times of persistent joblessness. It was, most people agreed, the decent thing to do. But that was then. Today, American workers face the worst job market since the Great Depression, with five job seekers for every job opening, with the average spell of unemployment now at 35 weeks. Yet the Senate went home for the holiday weekend without extending benefits. How was that possible?

it's what the republicans do . . . .

independence day

but one in five of us don't know from which country we declared our independence

mid-80s, low humidity ---

for atlanner in july, the weather does not get any better than yesterday and today --- and a fine day for basking in the sun's carcinogenic rays

and still they come . . .

from about an hour ago --- only there are not very many running at this point in the parade ---

sweaty people

50,000, but these were the first --- gebre gebremariam of ethiopia the winner --- they were way out in front of the pack that will pour down peachtree this morning ---

atlanner

after kuntsler and david byrne went and hurt all of our feelings by poor mouthingour fair city, it's good to see another stoopid list that puts us in the top something --- or nearly top --- a global city, beta class --- the only other american cities ranking above atlanner are new york, los angeles and chicago --- hasn't been that long since we were ranked gamma poot or whatever --- of course that just means we are above average in our ability to toady to the ruling class

ranking the presidents

A new poll of leading presidential scholars ranks Barack Obama as the 15th best president of the United States, just below Bill Clinton but ahead of Ronald Reagan . . . . [George W.] Bush joins Harding, Andrew Johnson, James Buchanan and Franklin Pierce, all of whom have consistently ranked as the worst presidents since the poll started, in the bottom five.

republican heads are exploding all over the place

let them eat cake

The House of Representatives approved a bill to reauthorize expired unemployment benefits for the long-term jobless on Thursday, after a similar measure failed for the fourth time in the Senate the previous night due to a Republican filibuster.

republicans just don't give a shit

upcoming

seems a little redundant with the piedmont arts festival just a week before, but whatever --- it's supposed to  promote the "neighborhood," the 5,000 residents on p'tree between north and 14th, with many more on surrounding blocks ---