Gutless Wonder

America is divided. No news there. Apparently Dunwoody is as well. Again, likely not a surprise. But, is it getting worse? That seems to be the case. That great, and widening, divide seems to be between city hall's bureaucrats and politicians, and the electorate...the citizenry. It started with bonds and general tax increases. City hall loves 'em. Citizens don't. Then there is the "pave paradise" folks at city hall, whose enthusiasm is largely driven by grant funding. Folks in daVille are less enthusiastic about an interstate lane in their front yard. Then there was attempted theft of the First Baptist parking lot that left more than a few folks wondering what they were drinking at the palace. The Dunwoody Dildos are universally regarded as ugly (or worse) and are now seeing "D" lids disappearing. Apparently city hall has so pissed off folks that a little malicious vandalism is cropping up. And the latest? That would be government surveillance. The Flock surveillance system. 

A bit of vandalism here too.

Reminiscent of the Biden stickers cropping up back in the day. Probably about as effective, no matter what they're trying to do. These are just a protest. 

At least one protester decided something perhaps a little less harmless than a sticker-protest.

That blue box hanging below the gutless camera is the power and brains of the operation, keeping in mind that the real brains are in Flock's cloud. This vandalism speaks to excessive anger combined with minimal restraint. 

It isn't clear how widespread the anti-Flock sentiment is in daVille, and we'll never know because this city will never put the matter to the citizenry for a vote. It would be interesting to find out how many folks have tried the old see-click-fix on this bad boy. 

Best Of All...

...it's Dunwoody!

 

But Is It Really Warranted?

The law is a funny thing. There's laws. There's the constitution. There are courts. There are judges. There are processes. Many of these are intended to protect us. From the government. Some work. Some don't. In many cases we are being protected from the police, from heavy-handed law enforcement. Many folks today are concerned about a ubiquitous, pervasive surveillance state. 

But is it? Is it a surveillance state? Flock's acolytes would say thee nay. They claim that their extensive hordes of cameras, their exhaustive data collection and processing is not surveillance, it is observation. You know, exactly like a cop standing on the sidewalk, taking down license plate numbers. An objective observer would see this for what it is. Bullshit. But, is it surveillance? 

Legally, probably not. There is some merit, legally, to the notion that this is simply watching folks who have entered public areas, shedding any expectation of privacy. Then it gets tricky, because we're a quarter  of the way through the 21st century. Past the Information Age. Filled with Digital Natives. And, the law, the Supreme Court, has caught up. There are precedents around Digital Tracking, and warrants are required to access records. Almost as if you have an expectation of privacy in your own person. And this includes geofencing. Geofencing is arguably exactly what that flock o' cameras, and the information collection behind it are doing. 

It won't be long before this is argued. In court. Before a judge. Maybe even the Supreme Court, and if it makes it that far precedent suggest SCOTUS will not see this extensive data gathering as the legal equivalent of a cop with a pencil and pad. Maybe it is time for state and local governments to step up. Maybe they should establish requirements for warrant, even an administrative warrant, to perform Digital Tracking. As it turns out, the government does not have a Constitutional right to surveil us. 

Cockroaches VS Vandals

The Cockroach Janta Party, started as a bit of a lark, has proven quite effective at forcing government change forcing the resignation of a national leader during a high-stakes testing scandal. This in a country suffering under increasingly autocratic rule which ironically is the largest "democracy" on the planet. 

Closer to home we have vandals attacking government installed, though privately owned, surveillance systems. This is likely to go as well, and be as effective, as the anarchist takeovers in Seattle and Atlanta, with the noteworthy support of the local politicians, who proclaimed the areas held by anarchists "autonomous zones." These, like the professional protestations of the Police and Fire Training Center, resulted in nothing more than arrests and in Atlanta, the death of an innocent child. 

Perhaps the folks rising up against government surveillance should learn a few lessons from the Cockroaches. 

There's That Word Again

The Blue Bag Rag has been long on ink for former politicians of late most recently on a record-holding former councilman who, to date, is the only incumbent to face defeat at the ballot box. His miscalculation was getting too far ahead of the city by immediately discarding the promises of fiscal prudence before council meetings were even being held in Dunwoody. Yes, it was foreshadowing and the city has indeed followed that lead. He even went on to advocate a charter re-write removing any mention of a millage cap. This kind of fiscal imprudence has brought us to the point where we hear that word.

Fair.

Let us not belabor the point that nowhere is it carved in stone that life, in any aspect, is fair. We'll not even question who died and made this man god, a god to decide what is, and is not, fair. After all, this is a politician, former and failed, but a politician nonetheless, with unwavering allegiance to the left. When the mouth spouting the word fair hails from that direction, you can be assured of one thing: it's gonna cost you money.

Indeed, that was the pontification, taking issue with the property tax freeze committed to in the pre-city sales pitch. When the left wants to talk tax increases, commitments to fiscal integrity, or any integrity for that matter, have a very limited shelf life. While one might expect some of the New Blues to come in and start bitching about how they are paying taxes on valuations at the time of their purchase while others have their value frozen some time in the past, but just wait for it...in a few years even newer comers will say the same thing about them. This valuation freeze encourages long-term ownership, a defining characteristic of Dunwoody from the days before more government was piled on. 

But Varuca Salt wants that money, and wants it now! So out comes the Word Hammer. Simply declare this to be unfair, after all we all get the same city services (whatever those are) don't we? And what is more American than a wealth tax? More seriously, that kind of thinking only inhabits the left. How is it fair that a taxpayer in a $1M home pays so much more than a nearby taxpayer in a $500K home when they get the same city services? The only way this can be characterized as fair, is if your goal is to maximize the amount of money the government collects, with utter disregard for how that money is spent. 

It should surprise no one that this councilman did not win re-election. 

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.