Something's Wrong Here

 

The picture is fine. The caption...not so much. Exactly HOW does DCSD earn sales tax? Is it by bamboozling voters into supporting an eSPLOST every five years or so?

Well, they have earned something.

Who IS This?

30 Years Old

Gee, Our Old LaSalle Ran Great...

...those were the days.

A Column Once Appearing In The AJC

Who knew there even was a thing like "Everyday Ethics?" Where did it go? Nowhere near the palace on Ashford Dunwoody, that's for sure.

Outside Your Remit

AT&T are trying to decommission all POTS accounts and have picked up some resistance from the powers that (think they) be in California. No surprises there. What is interesting is the quoted source of data for the number of accounts for Landline service which is all too often the term used, incorrectly, to refer to POTS, and "landline" can include VOIP over cable that uses the existing in-home legacy copper pair wiring. That ain't POTS. 

Back to the data source. 

In a Newsweek article on the topic they get their information from what most normal people would consider an unlikely source.

According to the latest  from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) National Health Interview Survey, in 2024 almost 20 percent of American households nationwide used landline services alongside wireless phones, while 0.9 percent relied on landline services only—which amounts to about 3 million people.

Clearly, "landline" is more than good ole POTS, as it is entirely unbelievable that one in five households have real, honest-to-god POTS.

This is where the CDC is way out of line, out of their lane. How in the hell would POTS matter to disease prevention and control? Do pacemakers still use analog modems with acoustic couplers? Not very likely. Surely the CDC is not concerned that legacy FAX technology will be left stranded, which, by the way, will also not work with VOIP over cable (or anything else). And the only real reason to use a FAX is to contact a Senator or Representative (you figure it out). 

The Bundibugyo strain of Ebola has claimed several hundred lives. So far. There is no vaccine, nor are there any effective therapeutic measures. Maybe if the CDC stayed in their lane they would have been working, effectively, to control and prevent this deadly disease. 

Community Effort? Really?

Here's a clue for some (or just one) of the clueless at city hall: the Fourth of July parade is put on by Dunwoody Homeowners' Association. Always has been. Even before someone set light to this dumpster fire of a city.

Mother Mayor did not get the memo. She effuses gratitude, thanking all the little people in the community for helping out. "Thank you to our incredible partners..." and then lists "their" partners, the last of which is the DHA. It is this kind of politicians' condescension we were told we would leave in the past when we tore ourselves away from the county. Mother Mayor didn't get that memo either. Instead, she takes the podium to express her gratitude as if it were she, and maybe city bureaucrats, who put on the parade, rather than the community itself. It is this grandstanding, this taking credit for the good works of others that cultivates disdain for politicians, and greater government, in the electorate. 

Mother Mayor did fulfill one role as she rode in a convertible in the parade, just as Cynthia McKinney did a few decades ago. Apparently they have more in common than one might have expected. 

Why Do They Bother?

Brookhaven is all in a tizzy because their bureaucrats have successfully foisted a 40% millage rate increase on the citizenry. As expected, the spend-and-tax advocates, mostly elected officials, have come out in support with the usual, feeble rationalizations. The first is the "pennies a day" that somehow is supposed to justify their out-of-control, profligate spending. This garnered pushback from taxpayers with one commenting "Back at you. What have you done to save pennies a day?" The obvious answer is "nothing" as they haven't even tried. 

Next they trotted out the "city taxes are a small part of your total property tax." Yes, you've heard that one before from our very own Mother Mayor attempting to justify the constant back door tax increases in our slice of heaven. While there is a property assessment freeze, do not think for a minute that property sales are nonexistent or forget that at closing that property marks to market. Hence, a free and easy tax increase. 

You have to wonder if the Georgia Municipal Association puts on seminars offering up all these talking points. While they are incredibly idiotic they are equally consistent. Surely these apologists didn't meet up at a pub with one saying to another, "well, this is what worked for me, after all I did win re-election." That said, in the world of politics, stupid is virally contagious. 

The irony? Well, these spend-and-taxers are all Blue Bellies and these faux cities would not even exist had it not been for the efforts of fervent Red Breasts who wanted to isolate our communities for wasteful spending at the county level. Clearly no good deed goes unpunished.

It Isn't What They Say

They call them "Automated License Plate Readers," but that is hardly even the tip of the iceberg. These systems also track vehicles by color, body style, and even bumper stickers. A license plate is merely an afterthought. In fact, cops, from the comfort of their Aerons can search for, and track, a car by description alone. 

Apparently that is not enough.

These devices now include "SignalTrace," a technology that tracks phones, smart watches, health rings, AirTags, and yes, even automobile electronics. They have your phone, your location and the time you were there. No car. No license plate. But hey, you're in public and that makes you fair game, but just for a moment consider that law enforcement needs a warrant to obtain location tracking information from your cell provider. 

Apparently that is not enough.

Bring on the drones. These can indeed track and follow cars, but they can do with people what they do with cars. They can find and track individuals based on a description. "Find the Black dude wearing a gray hoodie." Things like that. But trust them, Flock says they are not using facial recognition. You believe that, don't you?

Apparently that is not enough.

They are now mining internet data, scraping social media platforms and even suggesting they'll mine the dark web. To be fair, Flock have said they decided not to do the dark web thing. You believe that, don't you? So now the cops can enter your license plate and get an entire workup on you. 

Apparently that is not enough.

Enter AI. Now they are able to track multiple vehicles, determine how often, and where these particular vehicles congregate. How useful is that? It gets better, or if you ask an aficionado, more useful. Now these systems determine that some behaviors are suspicious, identify the usual suspects and alert the po-po. That's right, a corporation's AI is issuing BOLOs to cops, and they're getting paid to do it. So who, exactly, is in charge these days?

When will enough be enough? Will it ever be too much?

Living On The Edge

On the edge? Which edge? The financial edge. Who? That would be the DeKalb County School District. A recent Blue Bag Rag has dramatic opposing page headlines. On the left: DeKalb School Board narrowly passes a $1.6 billion budget. On the right: ESPLOST overpayment forces hard choices for DeKalb Schools. 

Between these two we find the ragged edge where DCSD lives.

Looking at the overpayment, which implies re-payment, the current cost estimate is $10-15 million. This overpayment has been going on since 2022 (can they blame it on pandemic induced incompetence?), so going forward, barring increases in overall sales tax revenue, the shortfall will be $3-4 million. It is the pearl clutching over approximately $15 million taken from a $1,600 million budget that is most alarming. This represents less than one percent of the recently approved budget. So, one percent means the bottom has fallen out? What kind of financial wizards are running this shit show? Does the budget not include open positions? Hard to believe it doesn't, do don't fill them. Yes, at a burdened cost of a quarter of a million or so, you forgo around a hundred vacancies, but is that really a bad thing? This likely exceeds vacancies in the central administration but there are many "teaching" positions with no classroom exposure that rightly should be classified as administration. Just not with an office at the palace. Maybe, just maybe, they could ditch some of the expensive packaged programs our merry-go-round of supes have installed. 

The bottom line? A one percent hit to a budget, any budget, should not be a financial threat, as it should come from this budget item: contingency funds.

It Must Have Rained

What's The Point?

There are several systems supporting encrypted text messaging. Does it work? Apparently not.

You might wonder how the FBI did that. You should. Did they get a warrant? It should not have been very difficult. Do they have a "relationship" with the messaging services? Maybe that ended with the change in administrations. Who knows? Can we ever find out? Unlikely.

It makes you wonder if there is any benefit to using these apps.