Speed Walking

Pedestrian Tracking

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.

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?

It Must Have Rained

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.

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?

Student Driver

Fob Off

'Shroom On Over

OMG GMO

Remember the good old days when someone, usually a government someone, wanted to do something unpopular, even bad, justified it with "National Security?" No more. There's a new excuse sweeping the globe: climate change.

There is no limit to what can be justified using "climate change" as the rationalization. Nothing. There is nothing so bad, even evil, or at least previously reviled, that climate change cannot gild. Case in point: GMO. That's right, outlawed in many parts of the planet, genetic modification of organisms is now a part of the battle against climate change. 

Once considered a manmade disaster of its own, GMO is born again as a savior, healing the disasters caused by global warming. Be fair, it ain't "climate change," it is still Al Gore's global warming.  But ponder this: what comes next that will make global warming a great thing? Be afraid.

What Changed?

A recent front page article in the Blue Bag Rag, which really shouldn't have been published, simply reveals the state of stupidity at city hall. It's ostensibly about Flock O' Cameras, but it is so full of nonsense one can only suggest that you "lift the pants, it's too late to save the shoes." 

Where to start?

Oh, let's start with the money. Where does this article say it comes from? Well, it is claimed to be PCID funded, the same PCID that back in the day was quite proud of getting 19 dollars of OPM for every dollar they ponied up. So...yep...outsider money to do what outsiders tell you to do. Sounds like city hall has a pretty loopy definition of "local control." But...wait for it...later the article mentions concerns about a private company using public money to surveil the public. Where the hell were these concerns in the first place? If city hall's greed overcame these concerns back then, why not now?

What changed with the Flock agreement, when, and why wasn't it noticed until now? With the army of money sponges we have at city hall, when they actually come to the office, why did we not have a single bureaucrat to monitor the T&C's, and changes thereunto, for outsourced responsibilities? Maybe we should fire a great number of useless bureaucrats and find someone who can bird-dog outsourcing contracts. Sounds like a win-win.

Then there is the big constitutional so what? You're in public, on public infrastructure, with a vehicle identification that, by law, must be visible. As a federal court has pointed out this violates no constitutional right, even if it were the government doing it themselves. Now, if a private company were to do this, constitutional rights don't apply because those rights protect us from the government, not from each other. 

And then we get to the real issue, or at least part of it, the issue that has the Blue Bellies running this shit show clutching their pearls: ICE. Mentioned ICE twice in this rather short article. First that ICE seems to have accessed some data from the Sandy Springs' (our big sister) Flock O' Cameras followed later by reported assurances from Flock that they don't do that. Heaven forbid that ICE should use every resource available to do their job. Maybe Dunwoody considers itself to be the gold standard of governance, one that ICE should emulate: just don't do your job. Don't even try.

It is a curiosity that city hall doesn't want to get criminals off our streets. And you only need pull the thread a bit before the whole sweater of "undocumented immigrants" unravels. Do they have a driver's license? Acquired by what means? Falsified statements and documents? And you want motor-voter, don't you?

Then you gotta bottom-line it. Are these spend-then-tax Blue Bellies really only pissed because they, well really PCID, are paying and ICE is free-loading? Well, as far as we know that may be the case, because no one seems to have asked if ICE is paying for Flock data services. Maybe if ICE went down to city hall and said "let's make a deal" and threw some money their way, they'd be cool...like ICE. That's how we got interstate lanes in folks' front yard. OPM and other people's agenda. City hall's definition of local control: we take their money and we control it.

What's Wrong With This Picture?

No Yellow Line Down The Middle

 

Smile

Smile Like You're Trying Not To Laugh

 

Door Knockers

You've had a job, haven't you? Of course you have. Most likely you've had a job requiring a pre-employment drug screening. Equally likely that job did not require post employment, suspicionless drug tests. Almost as if a drug free workplace is a one day event, with that day coming before you're actually at the workplace. Afterwards nobody cares, so...toke up.

It is the same as politicians. They come out to press the flesh before the election, with feigned sincerity they do their best to fool you into voting for them. Afterwards they really couldn't care less about any of that, any of you. Sure, they may have these "public input" online push polls gathering "data" you'll never see, just so they can say they're still "in touch." Hardly.

Want proof? You need look no further than city hall. Do you think those nattering nabobs have a clue about your issues...your concerns? Only if you're as clueless as they are. Are you?

Life On The Train

Suppose there is a train, running at a constant speed down a straight, level stretch of track. The train sports an engineer and a conductor. Passengers are split equally between men and women, and includes a small group of blind men. All of the men sit on one side of the train while the women are seated on the other as the women detest Allspice and the men are not fans of Chanel No. 5. A specially outfitted car carries a circus elephant that had been left behind to recover from a head cold. 

Along the track there are four observers one at each end and two in the middle with those at the ends and one in the middle on the same side of the tracks. The engineer likes to blow the whistle constantly because he's an imbecile and it makes him smile. The conductor collects tickets and breaks up fights. Sometimes.

So, train's moving, whistle's blowing. The bloke standing at the end of the tracks behind the caboose, with the train moving away hears the whistle and knows it is flat. At the other end that bloke hears the whistle coming towards him and knows it is sharp. The blokes in the middle hear it coming towards them, then moving away. They hear a whistle that is sharp, briefly on pitch as it passes, then becomes flat as it moves away. The exact same train observed at the exact same time and three different observations. Which is correct? Do you take a vote? The two blokes in the middle heard the same thing, while those at each end heard something different to the middle and the other end. The conductor, and all the passengers, hear an incessant but on pitch whistle. So who's correct? Turns out they all are. Four observation locations, four different observations and all four are correct. At the same time. 

These observers aren't just listening they are looking. In the train windows and inside the train. The three blokes on the one side see passengers. They are all men, so they conclude it is a train full of blokes. The lone observer on the other side sees windows full of women, concluding it's a mobile hen party. The conductor walks down the aisle looking to one side and seeing women, to the other are the men. The conductor knows there are both men and women on the train. Do you take a vote? Three blokes saw a train full of men, one saw only women, and the conductor, who is actually correct, sees both men and women. But who gets believed?

The blind guys who have never seen an elephant, literally and figuratively, send their most trusted member to the circus car to feel out the situation. Almost half an hour later he returns and tells the blind that an elephant is a huge creature with two tails, a small one at one end, a large one at the other. They both "wag" and each has a wet spot beneath. He offered other details regarding leathery hide and tree-like legs, but it was the two tails that fascinated. Even some sighted, who had never seen an elephant, were convinced this was indeed a wonderful animal. Others, who had seen elephants, claimed the "big tail" was actually a very long nose, that operated like a monkey's tail...it could grab things. Unsurprisingly, no one who believed two tails was ever going to believe the Pinocchio story. 

Is there a point to this? That, dear reader, is for you to decide.

Proxy Voting

Proxy. This word gets tossed around quite a bit, and not just lately. Back in the early days of the civil rights movement ZIP codes were (and still are) closely associated with demographics. It was common for insurers and lenders to change rates or even refuse to serve certain ZIP codes, claiming they were not discriminating based on race.

But it sure looked like they were.

So some laws were passed. These laws removed intent from discrimination...it no longer mattered whether you intended to discriminate if the outcome was indistinguishable from intentional discrimination. If it looks like intentional discrimination then it was. And it wasn't just ZIP codes, insurers and bankers, it was employers inferring from names or colleges the race of an applicant with that affecting the hiring process. Recently there have been accusations that higher ed has been using these same proxy indicators to favor demographics they prefer. 

There are other proxies, codewords, for race. Urban is a euphemism for Black, despite the fact that a lot of non-Blacks live in cities, but should there be a dramatic increase in Whites, that is decried as gentrification. So...maybe? Products can also be proxies. Remember Colt 45 Malt Liquor? Cadillac cars? Or...how about this: fried chicken. 

Maybe the recent council votes were not about traffic and drive thru congestion. In both cases these were fried chicken emporiums. Were all the requirements placed on the applicants just a way of saying no? For reasons having nothing to do with traffic or walkability? Remember, if it looks like racism, it is racism. 

Drive-Thru City

What, do they just not like chicken joints? Two times in a row council has slapped down requests for drive-thru lanes for fast food restaurants. The last was a bit of a bitch-slap as the anti-drive-thru folks threw up a bunch of hurdles all of which the applicant cleared. 

And then the answer was still no.

Everyone knows the mayor has always had it in for drive-thru lanes, and god only knows what she thinks of Chipotle's digital pick-up lane as without an ordering box it is technically not a drive-thru. We also have an ice cream lovin' bicycle nazi on council so there we have two hard "noes" to any drive-thru and two unshakable "yesses" to  paving interstate lanes in your front yard.

These folks are dictators, pure and simple. They don't care what you want, what your preferences are, because in their world it only matters what they think is "right." They're going to do what they want to and frankly, screw you. 

And that's what will make this a drive-thru city, with the irony being folks are going to drive-thru on their way to convenience, which happens to be a Raising Cane's or a Zaxby's. With a drive-thru. 

Shocking Turn Of Events

It seems like years, but it was only months ago, that thru regulation and diktat federal bureaucrats were driving consumers to electric vehicles. It smacked a bit of the forced pandemic programs and perhaps successful implementation of those diktats suggested that agendas could be imposed centrally, forcefully. 

The political winds changed and all the Washington Wind Socks pointed a different direction. Suddenly the EV market had to stand on its own merits. It is collapsing. Despite several years of state and federal subsidies, EVs are simply not market ready, perhaps because all these subsidies encouraged individuals to purchase, at the same time discouraging manufacturers from reducing cost/price, anticipating subsidy increases to match price increases. It has happened before, and may well again. In the near future. 

What is interesting is that the Blue Bellies who felt the bureaucratic state's role is to constrain consumer choice, herding them towards implementing the Blue Belly Agenda gave no concern to obvious consequences, particularly the impact on electric generation and grid capacity. Higher residential bills to pay for new generating capacity? No worries...EVs are worth it. Really? Fragile grid? Straw...meet camel. Deal with it. 

And then came...server farms. These are not EVs. Some would say these data centers draw electricity 7x24. Indeed. They do. But we have about 300 million registered vehicles in the US. If these were all EVs, as the Blue Bellies want, each would draw around 75Kwh over a 4 hour period, and if they were all scheduled to even out the draw, it would represent 3.75 terraWatts, on average, 7x24. Enough to power 3.1 billion housing units in the US, where there are currently 148 million units. Perspective. While new data centers will use more electricity, they are a base load, while EVs will provide very uneven loads, thus straining the system. Either one, or both, will drive expansion of generating capacity. And we're talking dramatic expansion. 

What is interesting is that the Blue Bellies are avid, outspoken supporters of the one, and equally outspoken in opposition to the other. Will we ever find out the real reason for this?

Speed Trap

Georgia has an off and on again relationship with "speed traps," with South Georgia implementing a "Yankee Tax" on folks headed to Florida, and most notably with Pine Lake, a DeKalb County city (a real one) of under 800 residents. 

Laws were passed. 

Now there are very limited situations where a speeding ticket can be issued at less than 10 over: by Ga State Patrol; or when the speed limit sign includes "strictly enforced." The latter seems to have all but disappeared in Georgia, but it is of little matter. At least in Dunwoody.

These inconveniences did not deter some dunderhead from pondering the impact, presumably beneficial, of lowering speed limits within Dunwoody (clearly not to include I-285). This was either trolling or serious lack of observation skills. 

Are the flashing "yield" signs at the entrance to Nandina effective? No.

Is the re-jiggered 'T' intersection at the exit from Nandina lowering the number of rolling stops? No.

Why might that be?

Could it possibly be that without enforcement drivers are not going to pay attention to these signs? Do you think they would pay any more attention to lowered speed limit signs than they do to the ones in place now? Do you think this city is ever going to use real, live patrol officers to enforce traffic laws inside Dunwoody? 

Cops around here don't even run cruise lights, do you really think they're suddenly going to care about any traffic violations?

So, can we make Dunwoody a speed trap? Hardly.

Conveniently Located

Cavity? Filled.