Looks Like A Duck

Must be a duck.

Park in a driveway, drive on a parkway

Apparently when you pave a lane of interstate beside an existing road and stripe it just like a road folks begin using it like a road. And why not? Doesn't multipurpose include motor vehicles?  

Franchises, Fees, And White

This is not just another rant about how despicable, right out of the gate, that Dunwoody (and other new cities) have been in adding new taxes when the city started--in this case franchise fees. It is that, but it is somewhat more.

It has not been that long ago that City Hall flew the flag of "Smart City" and it still adorns our recycle bins as a weekly reminder of the lady that doth protest too much. But when it comes to utilities, franchises and fees City Hall has gone full frontal lobotomy.

It is one thing for a mere resident to open a bill, see the "Local Fees and Taxes" and think that somehow the local government provides some benefit or service on our behalf with the money they pick from our pocket. But it is another thing for all those smart folk down to the Hall and up at the GMA to be so ignorant, since they were in cahoots establishing this in the first place.

So what is the disconnect? Well, in an incessant drive to paint this city monochrome, Council has decided that all utility markings will rendered in white: paint, sticks and flags. Yep. They will mark a white sidewalk with white paint. Maybe like those white tattoos they will be visible in UV light. Maybe someone on council has F&F selling those lights or maybe the paint. Or both.

But it gets better and that is where the intense ignorance (or hubris) kicks in. Quite a while back many of the utilities lobbied under the gold dome to make some changes to how they are regulated and franchised in Georgia. What they fought for, and won, was state-wide rules and regulation: state wide franchises. What was untouchable was the money, meaning that the local yokels got the cash, but they lost their place at the table when it came to bossing these folks around. The cities were pretty pleased because their focus was, and still is, on the money. But now it seems mass amnesia has settled on City Hall and they think they have the power because they get the money when in fact they gave up the power just to keep the money.

Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch.

Million Dollar View

There is a second, more viable, proposal for McCondos for Old Farts in the dilapidating low rise office park on the Parkway. Prices are likely to start in the mid-700's but with added upgrades and an elevator a $1M price tag is not out of reach.

Depending on the unit an owner is a short lift ride away from a window sporting a view something like this.

That's right. One million dollars to look at the arse-end of a decaying US Post Office. The salt in this wound is that the USPS attempted to close this office consolidating operations at the delivery facility on Shallowford near 285 an industrial area where such views are more in context. Folks who claim to be more Dunwoody than you would have none of it, claiming that where they are from, so long ago, the center of any city was anchored by the post office. The USPS caved to pressure closing the Shallowford facility moving those operations to daVille. As a result the Dunwoody Green Market (yes, there once was a farmer's market in Dunwoody) lost use of the USPS side parking lot and you get to pay a fortune to enjoy the sights and sounds of the USPS in all its glory.

Butterfly Defect

Doctors are often accused of playing God* and should take care when they do, but it is with even greater care that lesser folk should play Doctor.

Flash back about two years...

A teenager, around 15 years old suffers from heart disease, a particular condition that will prove fatal, possibly in short order. These are circumstances that warrant consideration of a transplant. But...Consideration is not the same as "Guaranteed On-Time Delivery." This is not Fedex. This consideration generally considers many factors: overall health of the recipient; psychological and lifestyle evaluations; and assessment of the recipient's likelihood of following the rigorous post-transplant medical regimen. Some considerations are viewed as harsh but they are driven by the reality that need far exceeds supply. These assessments inherently assign value to the lives of individuals and determine who lives and who dies based on relative value. But who would really recommend transplanting a heart, a life, into a 68 year old grandfather while denying life to a 30 year old father of two preschoolers?

But in this case medical considerations did not carry the day as the medical assessment indicated the heart, with its rare gift of life should go to some other recipient than our 15 year old. The medical considerations for denial relied on the psychological and lifestyle evaluations which, since the candidate was black, were met with cries of profiling and racism. The cause was taken up by local media as an attention grabbing cause célèbre -- they spoke of "his journey." Political pressure was added to the pressure of Political Correctness forcing a reversal of the medical decision that resulted in an at-risk black youth being given the second chance he, at the time, so adamantly claimed he would treasure.

And now his journey has ended and ended badly. So badly that had his body rejected the heart, killing him from medical complications it would be far better than the truth he created, the journey he took given his second chance. He is alleged to have done many things, but it is certain that he fled the police in a car that was not his to drive, a chase ending with him hitting a pedestrian before crashing into a an obstacle that ended his own life. And stopped forever the beating of the donor's heart.

He also proved wrong all those who said the Doctors' judgment was in error and did so at great cost and risk of even greater cost. Transplant is a zero sum game and if there is any upside it is that a lost life can provide life for another that might otherwise end as well. The scarcity of transplant organs compounds the inherent tragedy--in cases with multiple recipients a choice must be made and it will be a life and death decision that will inherently value the life of the donor, the life of the recipient and the lives of those who will not receive that transplant. In this case mob rule supplanted domain expertise devaluing a donor's sacrifice that could well have offered a recipient, who may well have died in this recipient's stead, a long productive life.

That was not to be as the wrong decision was made by the wrong people for the wrong reasons and yielded the previously identified expected outcome. And that is the direct damage. The disregard for the consequential, collateral damage is disgusting as an ill advised extended life nearly cost a pedestrian her life and is a alleged to have fired a weapon at another. That as little damage was done (that we know of) is something to be thankful for.  Unless you're the woman he hit with the car or the family of a young mother who died waiting for a heart.



* Old joke. Q: What's the difference between a Doctor and God? A: God knows She's not a Doctor. To bad more people won't say that.

Random Number Generator

Randomness is a very important tool in cryptography. Not so much for speed limits.

But that appears to be what we have with our new variable speed limit signs on top end 285.

If you enter 285 at Ashford Dunwoody heading towards Spaghetti Junction you will pass more than four of these signs, spaced about an eighth of a mile apart, before you get to the Doraville Speed Trap. One recent morning the sign at Chamblee Dunwoody read 55 MPH, the next was a slowdown to 45 MPH and the very next one (near the GM plant) was 65 MPH.

Seems a bit odd though it was clear that drivers were no more paying attention to these signs than they did the previous, low-tech, low-cost ones. From the very beginning those who drive this stretch of interstate knew just how silly these signs are doomed to be. Drivers ignoring any signage undermines the key assumption of the ill-fated plan: that drivers will observe the signage and obey the currently posted speeds.

We've been told that the speed is set according to "where you are going" rather than to the immediate conditions near the sign. This in no way explains the 55-45-65 MPH sequence. We've also been told this is about safety, about wreck avoidance and prevention. Of course any wreck on 285 has the knock-on effect of bringing traffic to a standstill so safety and congestion management are inseparable. Still, this is nonsense.

Perhaps a more likely explanation of this silliness is that the agency controlling  these signs is seeking an IGA with local law enforcement putting in place a revenue sharing plan. Until then speeds will be set to minimize speeding tickets but once the agreement is in place then speeds will be manipulated according to the revenue needs of these agencies. Perhaps they will even set the signs at the shoulder to a different speed than the one right across at the barrier wall (they are not always showing the same speed) so the Local LEOs have discretion on how much they get for which ticket (and ticketed party).

Or perhaps it is just another case of grant-grubbing out of control.

Cultivating Ebola

In a recent BBC interview a health researcher suggested models were showing Ebola cases in West Africa would peak in January unless additional efforts were applied to care for the infected. Were that to happen the peak would occur a FEW MONTHS LATER.

The backup singers in the Bleeding Hearts Club Band are already screeching "Lies, Lies, Damn Lies" but this is in fact the case. Have you asked yourself why this outbreak seems to be much worse (in number of cases and fatalities) than previous Ebola epidemics? Bear in mind, you really do have to ask yourself because the CDC either does not know or would lie to you.

The real answer turns out to be quite simple.

Ebola is extremely virulent and in previous outbreaks it quickly ran its course amongst the group that went skinny dipping in the animal reservoir where the virus hangs out when not killing humans. The very speed with which it attacked that limited population meant it did not have time to spread beyond the village that went all bat crap crazy. Left to its own devices, Ebola is inherently self-limiting. It attacks. It ravages a community. It burns out.

But then westerners, the U.S. in particular, step in and declare a WAR ON EBOLA (hashtag StopEbolaNow) and by slowing progression amongst the initially infected, they support the spread of the disease outside that limited community ensuring that even more die. So what the U.S. and its CDC are really doing is turning an epidemic into a pandemic exposing the truth that their War On Ebola is in fact a War On The World. With its PC fueled agenda the Obama administration shows more concern over offending African nations than protecting the American people. But at least he is consistent.

So not only are the CDC and the Obama Administration bringing Ebola to America and doing a damn fine job of spreading it around, they are helping kill more people in Africa--the only people they really seem to care about.

Love It Or Leave It

In the never ending debate over citihood we have finally reached the inevitable rhetorical deadlock: Love It or Leave It. In comments to the AJC point-counterpoint we find this nugget:

"And frankly for those who would see Dunwoody lose its cityhood, you are welcome to move to an unincorporated areas[sic] of DeKalb."

Like many of the City Crusaders this glosses over a foundational truth in this matter: many of those unhappy with current City operations and actions already moved to unincorporated DeKalb County in a nice little area known as DUNWOODY!

Or at least it was nice. Now, not so much to oh so many.

Crusaders might argue that change is inevitable (it is) and suggest that no matter what the form of government Dunwoody is not what it was 35 years ago (it isn't) and if that pastoral community enjoying the benign neglect of a distant government is what you want (some do) then it is indeed time to move somewhere that looks like Dunwoody of yore. On the other side of the ledger one might argue that those who want to live beside the Beltline or Silver Comet Trail should move to the Beltline or along the Silver Comet. Or that those who want to see the world spin around a bicycle hub should move to an existing cycle-centric city. Or if organized sports are your thing find a town with six baseball diamonds and move there. If you came to avoid traffic, you're part of the problem. Like successful city schools? Move to Decatur.

At the end of the day the "Love It or Leave It" rhetoric rings hollow. No one, not even Jill Chambers, suggested the City Crusaders should leave unincorporated North DeKalb for an existing city but instead called for moderation, vetting and debate. Instead we plunged headlong into citihood with a mid-summer vote engineered to carry the day on the backs of a minority of registered voters. Even in the weakest HOA such a dramatic change (on the order of changing the Articles of Incorporation) would require a super majority of all eligible (e.g., registered voters) homeowners. Rather than address the issues and define the details upfront we've kicked the can down the road. We seem to be out of road.

Those advocating that you love the new (and changing) Dunwoody or leave it have a point: the good ole days are gone and they are not coming back. If you've been here for more than ten years and you want to continue to live in the kind of community you got when you came here then you really need to move.

Don't look back, just mourn the loss and move on.

Are City Schools On The Pogrom?

Since before the City of Dunwoody was formed there have been various rumblings about racial motivations behind actions in the Wold. This has resulted in one court case that was dismissed pretty much out of hand and a more recent federal case that appears to be moving forward. While the latter is not specifically charging racism events including the Parks Bond Referendum have made it clear that race plays a significant role in how the City deals with PIB apartments that are home to a significant minority population.

It was during the Bond discussions that individuals highly placed in the Dunwoody power structure let it be known that a significant problem in some schools were the children from the PIB apartments and that replacing those apartments with baseball diamonds would address that problem. Since then the City has been relentless in nurturing the perception that there are many problems with the minority population in that area.

Now that we're looking forward to either a Dunwoody Charter Cluster or Dunwoody City Schools will this City be able to cast off the mantle of racism they've so willingly shouldered? Perhaps. Perhaps not. Given that the impending breakaway is from a DeKalb system with its almost exclusively black power structure in order to create a system controlled by whites charges of racism are sure to surface. Given this City's track record on diversity and inclusion it seems increasingly likely that failure of these initiatives is the price Dunwoody will pay for a debt already incurred.

Welfare Mommies

Conjures a potent image, eh? Makes you think of some pregnant ne'er do well surrounded by four other kids including a pregnant teenage daughter. A woman with no visible means of support 'cepting Unca Sam yet sporting the kind of manicure that make you wonder how she can even use that smart phone.

Now imagine how pissed you'd be to learn that only those who receive this welfare are afforded the opportunity to vote on matters concerning the operation of the program from which they benefit. In effect you only pay the bills but you don't actually get a vote. Pretty pissed you betcha.

When you consider that public education costs around $10K per student per year then that family of five or six down the block is as much on the dole as your imaginary welfare queen. And the bit about disenfranchising mere payers into the system? Well, that's happening. Right here in DeKalb.

Recently a group of parents came together to vote in favour of establishing a charter cluster. Several things made this interesting including the fifty percent plus one majority required to go forward. But that was just counting votes.

What is more interesting is how votes were apportioned. As this vote was structured the parents were merely "trustees" of their children's vote. And only for those children who could attend a school in the cluster even if they are not currently attending. So, a parent with four children eligible to attend get's four votes. Those with children in college, under age or simply blessed with bareness get no vote. Notta.

Some are calling this a "Mommie Brigade". We'll just call it the largest entitlement program in America.

More Isn't Always Better

The American way of life seems based on the notion that if some is good more must be better. Certainly this has been adopted by educracy who advance the notion that everyone absolutely must have a college degree and an advanced degree where ever funding permits. No brains required.

Turns out reality doesn't support these notions of overfunding higher education. A couple of articles in the Atlantic warrant a read and expose the farce.

• The PhD Bust
• The PhD Bust and Young Americans

We've been hearing, mostly from those with a vested in interest in convincing us, that we just do not have enough PhDs and that furthermore we don't have enough home-grown PhD candidates and are therefore forced to import and arguably increase our import of foreign degree candidates or holders. Sadly the job market strongly disagrees with the premise that the more advanced the degree the better the job prospects and the higher the pay. And this problem exists for the STEM fields where we have technology rock stars like Bill Gates promoting the notion that we need unlimited H1B (and H2B) visas because we're not pumping out enough highly trained tech talent. Where is he when newly minted PhDs are being forced into un- and under employment? Why isn't he waving six figure job offers under their noses?

Anecdotally a recent Ga Tech graduate with a freshly minted EE PhD found work very hard to come by. Being resourceful he updated his resume removing mention of the PhD in favour of his Masters degree and started work at IBM within two months. Making over six figures.

Corporate America may just not hire you if you're "over educated" but academia eats their young. In the world of higher education a PhD in Mathematics (the truly universal language) is most likely to get you a job as a "post-doc", academia's term for "wage slave". That's assuming you get a job at all. Then there is the path split between teaching and research. If you're inclined to teach then that advanced degree in Math might get you a university job, perhaps even tenure track but you'd be very fortunate if it commands a salary much over $50,000. If you're research oriented your prospects and pay are better, but only if you walk in the door with funded research in your back pocket.

So why is it that academia promotes this scam? Mostly because there is much upside and little or no downside. Professors with tenure are not really impacted by the fact that fresh graduates add to the burgeoning pool of the over-educated and underemployed. In addition no one really cares that these new grads would dramatically undercut tenured salaries as these professors have their "job for life" and are not subject to the kind of cost-benefit evaluation used in the corporate world. College administrators are adherents of the "grow or die" philosophy and are incented to expand their department without much regard to what happens after the student stops paying tuition.

So at the end of the day we're educating too many folks to an unnecessary degree and wasting resources to do it.

All I Can Hear

All I can hear I me mine, I me mine, I me mine. 
Even those tears I me mine, I me mine, I me mine. 
No one's frightened of playing it 
Everyone's saying it, 
Flowing more freely than wine, 
All through the day I me mine. 

The drive towards a City School System is no less relentless than the drive towards citihood. But due to citihood we know now much more than we knew then. Or at least we should.

1. Smaller is better. With schools the thinking is with a smaller budget the magnitude of graft is proportionally reduced. But if it is only proportional then by any measure than absolute value it is the same. But being smaller while retaining many fixed costs drives the smaller system to seek alternative funding--think higher taxes or "grants". With the City smaller hasn't been working as well as expected.
2. Local control is more responsive. Based on our Cityhood experiment it is only possible to believe in this unicorn when inebriated. As the City has handed over total control to the City Manager, the new schools will to a Superintendent, who will be equipped with the added power provided by a protective outside accrediting agency. In each case the elected officials, your representatives, will be operating exclusively with what the Manager/Superintendent provides, suggests or demands. 
3. Local control keeps decisions close to home. What we have learned from the City is this notion is patently false. What happens is simple. The City sells local control to State and Federal agencies for grant money, often spending more than originally budgeted to provide matching funds to secure the grant. Local decision making evaporates because the grant requires more than matching funds, it also requires you do what the granting agency wants the way they want it done. In order to obtain State and Federal funding schools will hand over control of their curricula, content, evaluation and classroom practices as well as taking on burdensome meta-work. 
4. They are your neighbors/fellow parents. The implication is that you and your neighbors are more alike than different and society's affinity for self-segregation makes that seem plausible. Sadly we have learned from our City Council that your neighbors can be really pissy little boys and girls.
5. It's about the kids (or vision). Perhaps it will start that way but sooner or later it will increasingly be about money--the more we get the more we spend. But let's assume smaller is better and that includes school size--remember it is all about the kids. What happens when that runs afoul of the state's funding scheme that pays more for large schools? Will it still be ALL about the kids? Didn't think so.

And isn't it ironic that these lessons, easily and freely understood from our experiment with City governance will be forcibly pushed into the deepest end of our ignorance pool?

Blind Sided

Cheryl Atkinson, like all too many educrats across this nation, is hell bent on getting "computers in the schools" and has announced that 8200 students will be transitioning from "traditional" textbooks to netbooks, self-congratulating herself by saying "no longer will our students be saddled by heavy backpacks". As if that were not enough she could not hold back this edu-fart: "the fact is our children have an intellectual complexity  that demands we change our educational approach". Only in educational la-la land can profound ignorance and non-existent work ethic be considered "intellectual complexity".

It is mind-boggling that adults spew this nonsense and even more so that it works.

But this diatribe isn't about the proven waste of money and year over year growth of graft and mismanagement in public school IT departments and it isn't about the fact that computers in the classroom have no demonstrated benefit. This is about what may have a chance to put a stop to this nonsense.

If anything or anyone can, it will be the NFB--the National Federation of the Blind. If you check out their website you will notice (at the time of this writing) a prominent condemnation of Amazon for pushing their Kindle e-book readers to schools. You may think nothing of this, but consider that a philanthropist attempted to donate similar technology to an Athens area school and the school was compelled to reject the offer--they could not accept the legal risks of being sued by the NFB. If you don't believe it just point your browser to google and search "nfb sues".

It looks like DCSS and the taxpayers that fund it are about to get blind sided because they cannot see past the latest trend.

It's The Robot Boys

It was an early Christmas present for our beloved boys in blue but for the rest of Dunwoody it was a flaming bag of stink dropped off on our collective front porch. 

The Dunwoody Police are getting a robot.

Did the department request a robot? Do they even need a robot? Did they make the case for this robot to Council? Did Council approve and provide budgetary support for a robot? Is there anyone who can be held accountable to the public who had anything to do with initiating and executing this acquisition?

Hell no. 

So why are we getting a robot? This cannot really be a Christmas present. Can it?

Well the answer is quite simple but only after you understand what drives decisions in this Smart City of Conservative Critical Thinkers. There was a grant. Yes sir, turns out GEMA, didn't quite run out of money in their federal money laundering scheme so they were throwing it out like candy at parade. Of course it wasn't just money. You have to spend it the way they tell you because that's how grants work. Another thing grants do is get you to buy something you don't need and then you have to pay to maintain it. Sort of like how a "free puppy" ain't really free. See, someone is going to have to maintain this mechanical device and we're very likely to see officers taken out of service for "robot training". 

Maybe after they're trained they'll be half as good with robots as these Danes.

Bank Operates In The Hole

There has been some confusion surrounding the siting of the Chase bank at the corner of Dunwoody Village Parkway and Chamblee Dunwoody Road in the heart of the Village. Some say it is situated "in a hole" and if one is standing on the sidewalk near the city-mandated, never-used park bench, the building does indeed sit below sidewalk level.

The problem is that folks have it all backwards. Literally. When you are looking from the CDR sidewalk you are actually looking at the back of the building. The picture below is of the actual front of the bank. Notice the porch, signage and those little things blocking the view...they are called "automobiles". These are often used by what business folk call "customers" in order to get to and from the place of business.

It is all the rage for governments to legislate how and where a business is allowed to put its own building on its own property. Dunwoody is neither unique nor unusual, but they have kicked it up a notch down to the Village requiring bike racks, park benches and lighting in addition to the signature "beige and brick" and the more commonly mandated sidewalk.  Whilst all the greenies are fawning over the "artists renditions" of folks perambulating up and down the sidewalks, some taking a brief respite on the bench and generally having a good ole time, businesses have been laboring diligently to make this nonsense workable.

And they did.

They were forced to situate the building near the "frontage road" (Chamblee Dunwoody) with parking "in the back". And to make this work they simply turned the building around so that from a functional point of view it is the back that faces Chamblee Dunwoody Road. The functional front is "in the back" where all the cars are parked. While they did dress up the functional back, don't be too surprised if the doors stay locked if only for security reasons. Still not convinced? Well, where is wheel-chair access located? Do you usually put handicap access as far as possible from the front door?

You can legislate all you want in an attempt to coerce your own brand of silliness, but businesses are going to do what they must in order to remain in business. Some folks maintain that the City should not have allowed this bank to be built in a hole, but the fact of the matter is that is exactly what the City insisted be done.