How Can You Tell?

Well, smoke does get in your....somewhere. That's one clue. When someone is blowing smoke, well, just beware.

Now this is difficult when dealing with politicians and government bureaucrats. They are almost always blowing smoke when facing the public, the electorate, the people they are supposed to represent, to serve, but so rarely do. When is the smoke benign? When is it just the by product of a, perhaps fiery, passion? When is it truly toxic.

In these times there is an easy way to determine when that smoke is toxic and who has a propensity for these corrosive vapor releases. Whenever a politician or bureaucrat refers to the Flock's exhaustive deep surveillance system as Automatic License Plate Readers (ALPRs) they are laying a smoke screen not seen since WWII Pacific Theater naval battles. Dense. Extensive. Intentional. Obfuscating. Does the Flock Surveillance System read license plates? Yes. It does. It also captures detailed car images, processing them to capture make, model, year, and other identifying features. It does the same with people, pedestrians in view of these cameras. It captures sound. The System is listening to your conversations, even that "Bob Newhart" telephone conversation. It is also tracking your phone. But these politicians and bureaucrats call this an ALPR. Are they lying? Perhaps by omission. 

Now you know who these people really serve. And who they don't, and never will. Not in their DNA. If you want change, you're going to have to change the people. 

It's Better Than Nothing

It is incomprehensible but the 2026 eSPLOST passed with over 81% approval. Given how badly DeKalb Schools have mismanaged finances it is stunning that voters would agree to give them even more. Yet that is exactly what happened. This is a mystery. 

Once school of thought holds that while everyone, tax-loving voters included, must, however begrudgingly, acknowledge that public schools are a public failure, these folks will nonetheless contend that "it's better than nothing." Unfortunately this assertion has not properly been put to the test, though we did come close during the pandemic shutdown where we saw not only what passes for public education's pedagogy but got an inkling of what our world would look like if we called this experiment a failure and moved on. 

It is about time we all learned the lesson public schools are teaching us.

Wild Fang

Look at these bicuspids.

Vampire?

This feels a bit like kicking someone when they're down, or on the way down, but it why we're here. It will not be very long before detractors add "vampire" to their growing list of Bad Things To Say. Everybody will be piling on. 

Above The Law?

You almost feel sorry for her. Almost.

Where The Buck Stops

The Buck Stops Here

Ten Point

Next time you feel the urge to lambast the bloke who asks about deer harvesting on private land in Dunwoody, don't. This creature died a horrible death. Much, much worse than a broadhead arrow.

HOA! HOA! WHOA!

January 1, 2027 brings a late holiday present to unfortunate Georgians who live under the thumb of a Home Owners' Association with the full implementation of Georgia's Homeowners Bill of Rights. This removes the completely one-sided power imbalance of power where a HOA previously had absolute power over your life. At least as it is lived in your neighborhood. To be honest, it wasn't really your neighborhood, it was the HOA's neighborhood, but that all changes on New Year's Day, 2027. You stand a chance of getting your own home. 

Your neighborhood HOA will have to register with the Secretary of State and pay a registration fee. This fee will support an organization where you can file a complaint against a HOA and they will pursue that complaint. It may not work out the way you hope, but at least you are not exclusively at the mercy of a completely unrestricted HOA. At least there is hope.

And there is a downside that affects those homeowners who have not been suffering under a HOA. These non-HOA properties have enjoyed a market advantage. They are attractive to many potential buyers and may offer a price advantage. This will be somewhat lessened when a HOA is no longer quite the monster it has been. Small price to pay for the greater good.

Learnin' From Smyrna

Smyrna has appointed a Public Safety Technology Task Force, something we could use here in Dunwoody. Job one seems to be keeping an eye on the eyes on us, to protect the public's privacy and civil liberties. What a novel idea. 

Do you suppose Dunwoody will follow suit, sort of like they did when engaging in the sign wars? Yeah....no.

Not Right

Not How The Flag Is Flown

AI Has Won

Apparently AI is now in control. Social media is all ablaze with suggestions that on the one day where it is traditional for everyone to wear a disguise this might be an opportune time to convey humankind's disdain for AI powered, pervasive surveillance. That AI is having none of it.

It looks like cops, who do, at best, a mediocre job of patrolling our streets and keeping our neighborhoods safe, will be out in force to protect the eyes and ears of the AI surveillance machine. AI is more important than you. AI has won.

Pellicot. Cornell.

Cornell is in a spot of trouble. There are accusations of rape being leveled at members of a fraternity, exacerbated by claimed mishandling of the case by Cornell University, the school's police and the real police and district attorney in Ithaca. No arrests were made and there seems to have been a failure to communicate. Cornell's internal investigation resulted in minimal punishment with the initiator and the guy who solicited more participants both expelled (permanently) but the other five writing essays or taking sensitivity training. If you've seen the solicitation texts (check European media) it is clear that neither the guy sending, nor any guy responding deserves a place in civilized society. 

So maybe we're not civilized.

But we're not the only ones. France has had the Pelicot rape case that occurred in the southeast of the country, where a man drugged his wife and solicited, over the internet, men to come to their home and rape her.  This spanned several years and he was only found out when he was caught upskirting women and videos of his wife's repeated rapes were found in the ensuing search of his computer.  He and fifty, that's right fifty, other men were found guilty on charges ranging from sexual assault, attempted rape and rape. Pelicot was also found guilty of raping a co-defendant's wife, when the co-defendant decided to adopt the Pelicot paradigm and began drugging his wife to have other men rape her. Something virtually identical occurred in the UK, a husband drugging his wife, then inviting men to rape her. 

Something is profoundly wrong with men.

These cases have much in common. They both make a pretty powerful case for capital punishment, though one must wonder if even this would be an effective deterrent, but at least it would address recidivism. There is a clear undercurrent of men seeing women as something sub-human or just some thing. Anything but another human being to be respected as such. The texts, the solicitations, are convincing proof. 

There are also differences. Given the unlimited supply of vitriol spewing from the internet it is no wonder the woman in the Cornell case has remained anonymous. Nonetheless there has been victim shaming and blaming and some suggestions this is just another Duke LaCrosse hoax. This woman is young and the thought of public harassment haunting her for the rest of her, hopefully long, life is terrifying. The wife in Pelicot case, Gisèle, being quite a bit older, chose the opposite path, appearing in court every day of the trial. She has become a symbol of the abuse and oppression that women endure, and have since time began. 

This will continue until men treat women like people. 

Neo-NIMBY

Dunwoody has a data center in it. Has had for some time. In the perimeter area. Great place for one, with both power and data infrastructure. And it has gone without notice for some years. Now, for who knows what reason, data centers are the mark of the devil and must be stopped. Rouse the rabble. Get the pro protesters on the job. The owners of the data center are prepping for renovations and "neighbors are concerned" as if they don't know these renovations are a temporary issue. But today's virtue signaling is "I'm Against Data Centers." "I Stand With Ukraine" is so yesterday.  

Let's be clear: there are going to be data centers. You may prefer they not be located near you. Not in your backyard. When did that become acceptable? Apparently when war was declared against data centers. Maybe you'd like data centers far, far removed from your driveway. Maybe on the other side of the globe. Perhaps in a competing nation. Perhaps an adversarial nation. Sure. Why not? Let's give all kinds of sensitive data to those countries. Isn't that what we ended up doing with TikTok? 

The point of the spear for the anti-data center protesters is electricity, in the hopes that they can convince the gen-pop that their power bills will balloon. They've given up on water as it doesn't resonate and won't play well in Atlanta, which is notorious for abusing regional water supplies. So electricity it is. The anti-s scored a recent victory getting the town of Lovejoy to rescind a commitment to support a data center in their town and so it will go somewhere else. What the folks beating the power bill drum seem to have never seen or heard of is one of these:

These are towers supporting overhead power lines that distribute electricity all across this great state (and country) of ours. That's because NIMBY-s of yore did not want a power plant anywhere near them. But, if you live in daVille, and get out at all, you've probably seen several of them. These protesters don't know what these things do or think you don't, because what this means is the data center you can't see because it is out of town is going to use the very same electricity it would have were it in lovely downtown Dunwoody. Same electricity, generated at the same power plants, and purchased from the same power company. If, and it is an if, data center power consumption causes your bill to increase then it really doesn't matter if the data center is in Lovejoy, Cordele or Dunwoody. Pushing them into Alabama won't really help either, because...Southern Company. 

If you're advocating no data centers, not near me, not even in the US, then you're advocating for US technical inferiority.