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. 

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.

But Is It Yours?

You just drove home in that brand new Ford or GM. Love it, right? But do you own it? Not in the sense that you have a bank loan and they hold the title, but in the sense of "is it really yours?" Is it yours to do with as you please, to fix it when it breaks, or to have whomever you choose repair and maintain your automobile? Well, the answer from the Ford and GM CEOs, Roger Penske and an automobile dealer lobbyist is pretty much "Hell No!" And they said this, out loud, to Donald Trump at a recent Whitehouse meeting. And Trump? What did he think? Well, he disagrees. As hard as it is to believe, the Trumpeter disagrees with auto execs when it comes to Right to Repair.

These power players were really there to lobby the administration against H.R. 1566, the REPAIR Act, and found themselves afterwards in the uncomfortable position of clarifying their statements and positions without further irritating Trump. Ballet meets tap. Their biggest problem is that in order to achieve that goal you must say some pretty idiotic things and run the risk of exposing more than you want. It isn't just government that hates transparency. Businesses do too, especially when dealing with government. 

So what's really going on?

Glad you asked, and as always you should follow the money. And there are lots of threads to pull there.

Back in the day, maybe up to this day, about the only thing more unpleasant than taking your car to a dealer for service was dealing with the cable company, partly because dealerships were in the business of selling cars, not repairing them. They would service them, but they preferred to let independent shops handle that and it wasn't nearly as profitable as sales. Times have changed. Service makes money, and dealerships have seen a decline in service visits from 33% in 2024 to 29%, a bit over 10% decline. Rest assured this is not because these vehicles are suddenly more durable or reliable. Another factor to consider is that dealers dominate EV service visits with over 2/3rds of total visits, with EV market share indicating that non-EV service visits have fled the dealerships. 

It gets more amusing. The Ford CEO has recently whined about having 6000 open bays, bays without auto technicians. He seems to think this is because there are not enough techs, and in part he is correct, but if you take a stroll down YouTube lane looking for auto techs who explain why Ford cannot hire, or keep, technicians, well, you can spend days down that rabbit hole. It all comes down to compensation, and it is multidimensional. Auto techs pay to get trained before they get their first job. Like ya do. Then, they have to buy mechanics' tools and the tool chest to keep them in. Drop in on Harbor Freight and check out the prices of their professional quality Icon line. Ain't cheap is it? Maybe ten grand to get started. Now, the shop does pay for the shop tools, like lifts, compressors, scanners and the like. As they should. 

Then there is the pay side of the equation. Techs get paid "rate" which is the number of hours it should take for a particular repair. This rate is set by the auto manufacturer. And, should the cohort of techs come under the limit, the manufacturer will lower the rate. It never goes up. But it does get worse. If the work is on warranty, the rate is slashed, at least by half. So if it is an engine replacement, happening with increasing frequency, normally spec-ed at 20 hours, then the warranty rate is maybe 10 hours. Maybe. Now you can look at this a couple of ways. The boss, the manufacturer, is making the techs pay for their, the manufacturers' mistakes. Or, you could say that the manufacturer and dealer are ripping you off, charging much more than the work is really worth. In any event, the tech gets paid the same hourly rate, probably 20% or less of what the dealer charges you. Why is this? Because of who is paying. Customer work is revenue and adds to the top line. Warranty work comes right off the bottom line, right out of profits. That's something CEO's care about. And they have no problem ripping you off, so to improve the optics, they abuse the techs, then wonder why techs are leaving. The fact that the CEO is responsible for the incredible increases in warranty work is just rubbing salt in the wound. 

The execs' bogey man is "security" claiming it would be a risk to public safety for non-dealer techs to gain access to encrypted information. This bogey is bogus. They already control the software needed to access modern vehicle computer systems and have a secure gateway module that restricts access to every other module in the car. And even with access to this software, it can only be accessed by an authorized technician. And this authorization is managed by third party organizations that act like identity notary publics. So a technician's identity and access will be authenticated for each software diagnostic tool they are allowed to use. And they do not have to work for the manufacturer or one of the dealers. And, if they have made a computer system that is riddled with security holes, and many are, that is on them, not on the consumer and not on the techs and not on the independent service companies. 

Given they were lobbying Trump, maybe they should have hidden behind negative consequences of burdensome regulations, which is real. It is widely known that CAFE standards have taken a horrible toll on vehicle, and particularly engine, reliability and longevity. Many are now blowing up under warranty, including engines from Toyota, Honda, Ford, GM as well as others. You need look no further than stop/start which greatly reduces engine life, or even more obvious: engine oil specs. Cars sold in the US and abroad will require 0-w20, maybe 0-w16 and now even 0-w8 engine oil to meet CAFE regs. The same car sold outside the US will require 0-w30. At least. This was exposed when Chrysler issued recalls due to engine failures. The fix? Replace the engine oil with 0-w30 and put a new sticker on the oil cap. Maybe presented with these facts, these regulations, controlled by the administration, might change.

Bring Back The Magic*

Nothing can tear you apart

If you keep living straight from the heart

Though you know that you're gonna hurt some

The magic will come

If you keep living straight from the heart

You will know when to stop and to start

Once you see that no one really wins

Then the magic begins

Bring back the magic

Don't make life so tragic

Bring back the magic

Don't make life so tragic

This magic doesn't work. Not even in Margeritaville, and certainly not at Dunwoody City Hall. It seems that one former councilman did not get the memo. Neither did the Blue Bag Rag as they have been spending ink letting him vent his disappointment and frustration. 

This is quite baffling. This councilman was a vocal supporter of forming a city, certainly had access to the proposed city charter (everyone did), and also must have known that the neighbors we could elect to council or to be mayor would be powerless. It is there in black and white. Given this, how in the world can "local control" exist? Is he, or anyone else for that matter, at all surprised at this bloated, self-serving bureaucracy, with its insatiable greed for outside money? If he wants the city to "do the right thing" he surely understands that for them the "right thing" comes with lots of money. All he needs to do is scrounge up a grant. 

But this is getting a bit tiresome, like watching and listening to Ernest Angley: entertaining at first; amusing at its best; but mostly unbelievable as all faith healings are. There is no pentecostal politician, certainly not a former politician, who is going to lay hands on these bureaucrats, yell "Heal!" and suddenly they become righteous, faithful or even honest servants of the citizens of Dunwoody. 

He made a deal with the devil and took the road paved with mere intentions. Welcome to hell.

* Apologies to ParrotHeads everywhere.

It's A Sign

 If you have visited God's country lately you may have noticed a couple of things. First, there are not many billboards, at least not compared to Georgia. And, a significant number of the billboards they have look a lot like this:

This Might Backfire

Much of what they say is true, well, at least the facts they lay out verify. But the messaging...that could use some work. At a glance, folks seeing this billboard might assume that school teachers in NC are not being paid, or not being paid enough. Relative to other states the pay is low. Relative. But relative to other states, outside of Raleigh-Durham, Charlotte and Asheville, the cost of living is relatively lower. It would also be interesting to compare median public school pay to median private school pay and compare those state-to-state. In this state, and presumably most, private school teachers' pay is less than public school. 

A verifiable claim is made regarding 2000 or more open teaching positions, so do private schools have a larger number of open positions? Relatively speaking. If NC is anything like GA, there are lots of "teaching" positions in the schoolhouse that do not include any in-class activities. Then there is a possibility, there as well as here, of the fox and the henhouse, as it is they who assign these classifications, and they who declare the staffing requirements. That is something they can, and do control. 

That's the quantitative story: more money; more teachers. Maybe. There is the qualitative story, which the casual reader, like the one doing 70 MPH on I-85, may, to be kind, infer: that more money means the current teachers on the payroll will do a better job, thereby creating better schools. Is this to say that the teachers they have are holding back and could do a better job? This also begs the questions of "what does better mean?" and "who defines better?" How do we, the taxpayer, audit for improvement, IE better, when the taxpayer doesn't even control these definitions? Or maybe the taxpayer does. DeKalb County Schools have been enduring declining enrollment, some caused by underlying demographic changes, but some attrition is due to parents, taxpayers, taking a different path. A powerful message given these parents still pay for public schools but are concerned enough to also pay for the other option, be it in money, or time, or both. 

DeKalb has the answer to our problem: hire a PR firm to run a campaign. Looks like NC has done the same. 

It's A Tough Job

DeKalb County Schools have engaged a firm to entice parents into bringing their kids back to public school. Seems the approach of right-sizing evaporated under the withering heat of parental resistance. In this case these parents already had their kids in public school placing them outside the target market for the PR firm. Thankfully, the PR firm gets paid for each student whose ass they can get back into class. For that one magic day when attendance counts for annual state funding. 

That should tell you pretty much everything. It isn't about learning. It's not about education. It's all about money. Based on the amount of state funding each little backpack toter represents and what the firm charges DeKalb may yet be able to fill that new admin building. All the while existing schools, of which there are arguably too many, will continue to deteriorate. But hey, you like your Vanderlyn, you can keep your Vanderlyn. Happy now?

For the casual observer this is going to be interesting.  Convincing parents who've decided on a better option than DCSD, to reconsider and possibly bring back the funding is formidable. Parents with children approaching school age may be no easier to convince. It just so happens these parents talk to other parents whose kids are already in school. These parents are more likely to be swayed by their neighbors than some out-of-town marketing firm. This summer should be fun.

EFF-ing Flock

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) focuses on privacy and liberty in the internet age and has taken aim at Flock and their ubiquitous cameras. In the first case, they saw, and reported on mission creep. This included a case directly contradicting Flock's statements that their technology "is not used to enforce traffic violations" even though a Georgia State Trooper ticketed a motorcyclist for holding a phone with the notation on the ticket that it was captured on a specific Flock camera. 

Obviously, Flock do nothing to actually ensure their system does not do what they say it cannot do. 

In a follow up a month later, EFF reports that due to lack of judicial supervision cops have expanded their [mis]use from specific violations to whatever the hell tickles their fancy. They suggest that lack of a warrant requirement has created a culture of off-label, unrestricted access to sensitive location information. PoPos' justification, provided by Flock, is to point out all the high-stakes crimes these cameras assist in, despite the facts proving the technology's more common use in very low-level investigations. Buford City Schools is using this technology for residency verification, which on the surface seems, well, lazy. BCS claims they are so good that they are subjected high levels of residency fraud but have failed to clearly explain how this happens and why Flock's technology is such a godsend. Lest you think the cesspool is restricted to Georgia, this is happening across the country. Governments, predominantly law enforcement agencies, are now doing searches as pre-employment background searches.  Now that these eyes now have ears, the technology is being brought to bear on noise complaints, including our very own DeKalb County PD. 

Across the board, the justifications range from cherry-picked examples to the downright silly, insulting the intelligence of any subjected to this blather. Like you. These are obfuscations deflecting attention from their end-around on due process. It may not be illegal (yet), maybe not even unethical, but it is clearly immoral, and this mission creep is only going to get creepier. 

Flock O' Worries

Flock, of ubiquitous camera fame, is an interesting phenomenon sitting at the intersection of technology, demographics and politics. Politics of the left, especially the "defund the police" movement, dramatically improved Flock's prospects allowing them to body-surf on the wave of political virtue signalling, a poorly understood, but virulent characteristic of the left. Flock gave the DtP pols cover. They could claim they support the police, but market Orwellian surveillance as a safety measure. All for the greater good, eh? Especially when you could watch PDs waste away due to attrition. A win-win for the left. 

The market is huge, and geographically concentrated, as the left who embraced and marketed the technology tend to dominate urban areas with dense populations and lots o' crime. And Flock played the collaboration card, as their technology allowed bad guys to be tracked across geo-political borders. No criminal, nor anyone else for that matter, can escape Sauron's never-blinking eye. The technology was sold as "license plate readers" simply tracking plates that the "good guys" told them to watch out for. Then it was gun shot tracking. And next? Who knows.

But all was going well until... 

...along came Trump.

The left fled their Maid Cafés, where they had been gorging on the empty calories of their word salads, to enlist-in-resist. They all did. And that is all they had...all they have. That is their dilemma and our entertainment as it is always fun to see the haughty hoisted on their own petard. Locally, the left pivoted very quickly, very anti-Flock, and suddenly anti-surveillance-state, as if the U.S. Constitution is a new-found friend. A friendship that will not long endure. Or, we would not have Flock in the first place. 

The left does have a real issue, at least in their mind, and it isn't just that they hate Trump, or that the score is Bad Orange Man two, Pant Suits zero. About the only thing they've had as a real, non-knee-jerk, policy position in the last 20 years has been "open borders." That's the real issue, and they dare not say it out loud. They gag at the current administration's enforcement of federal law, and their possible access to Flock's capabilities to do that job. The left's sanctimonious idealization of any and all who "ain't from 'round here," lawfully or not, resulted in serious atrophy in the reasoning parts of the human brain, so they cannot see the logical contradictions of their words and actions. They are also ignorant of how cartels are now into migrant trafficking and their business relationship is not transactional, it is recurring. These migrants will do the cartels' bidding lest the family they've left back home should suffer. Many are not the saints of the left's imagination---they are cartel operatives embedded in our society. But they prefer that over having this administration gain access to Flock services they somehow feel is theirs. 

It will be amusing to see if the left embraces their surveillance state or maintains their "resist" posture. 

Vigilante Wars

Now that the primaries are over, perhaps it isn't too soon to point out some silliness. A week prior, around 0630-0700 a tall, thin man with a small dog, an ankle-biter-kick-dog, was seen on Chamblee Dunwoody near the Knoll. This man, and kick dog, scurried across C-D. Why did the kick-dog cross the street? Glad you asked: so the thin man could uproot a couple of political yard signs. It gets better. Then they scurry back across so the thin man could uproot a real estate sign. This was not in the Village Overlay but one must wonder if he's a diligent vigilante there as well.

Clearly the thin man never took a course even resembling Ethics 101, for if he had, he'd know that if it isn't yours you don't touch it. Unless he is a Dunwoody Slumlord and owns these two properties, it is far from believable that all these signs were his. It is hard to speculate on what was going thru the thin man's mind, why he thought he should do this, and why he thought he could. From outside his addlepated brain it only seems that he shouldn't. Perhaps that's the real problem with vigilantes. They are enforcing a law that exists only in their mind. It is a bit funny when you know that one of the signs was for a sitting judge known for respecting the constitution (state and US) and state laws, rather than an opponent who wanted to legislate from the bench. Now that is the signs of the times.

AJC: Do Better

Really? 85 Today?

Didn't You Report His Death A Couple Weeks Ago?

Red Light District

Started on 1 May.

Is DeKalb trying to tell us something?