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Rumors have it that current Gwinnett County Commissioner/Candidate for Gwinnett County Chairman Lorraine Green has explicitly informed any business or legal entity that is trying to get a rezoning passed by the Commission WILL either write a check to her campaign for commission chair or get an immediate no-go vote from her for their requested re-zonings.

This explains a LOT of her maxed-out contributions from building supply and real estate developers. Green is by far the most arrogant, self-presumptuous, snot-nosed commissioner to likely EVER sit on the Gwinnett County Commission…and, demanding contributions for favorable rezoning votes is certainly well within her realm of modus operandi.

First, a resounding THANK-YOU to the House for demolishing Senator Joseph “Stalin” Carter’s (R-Gulag, Georgia) Senate Bill 506 by a resounding vote of 103 to 61.

Frankly, I cannot believe THIS bill actually made it out of the senate. Those folks are always pompously declaring themselves to be “the deliberative body” of this state. They would have better luck deliberating where the lint in their navels come from (and WE would probably be a much better state) than having this balderdash legislation pass.

Senator Joseph “Stalin” Carter’s original bill (the one the Senate madcappers passed) required the following from the state’s public school system:

1) Every student would have to have their BMI calculated twice per year. “BMI” stands for Body-Mass-Index, and it is a measure of how healthy or how obese someone is.

2) The BMI scores would not be identifiable by anyone for any one kid, but, each school’s collection of BMI values would be aggregated and averaged and compared to the state’s aggregated values. Those schools found to have an average BMI that lies outside the “state school norm” would be designated an “unhealthy school zone.” (No more cookies for any school designated as “unhealthy”…backpacks and lunch bags would be searched at the door and any food deemed to be unhealthy by Senator Stalin would be confiscated and the student marched-off to the gulag. Just kidding…but, I’m not very far off in using absurdity to make the point about this legislation, am I?)

What constitutes the BMI? A person’s height and their weight. Period.

To those of you who like to consider yourselves as having a basic ability to think, tell me…what makes a child 18 or under so significantly different than most adults?………………..

Give up? No, you know the answer…I just can’t hear you respond. The answer is CHILDREN ARE GROWING HUMAN BEINGS!

Seriously, how stupid do you have to be to presume it is valid to apply the BMI to a person who is growing? Not “growing old,” but growing as in getting taller, getting wider, growing in bone density, etc., etc., etc.

The BMI is only a valid measurement of someone’s physical state if that someone has reached a steady-state of not growing any taller. Duhhhhhhh…

With Joseph “Stalin” Carter’s line of thinking, a whole school that happened to have a lot of lower-than-average-height kids one year could be designated as an “unhealthy school zone” and cause THAT school’s parents to suddenly spend their time worrying about something they might not have ot worry about as time goes on. (Damn! That biology stuff is a REALLY difficult concept for state senators to grasp, isn’t it?)

I understand Stalin Joe’s “good intentions” here. He thinks physical education is a good thing and he wants schools to re-introduce it into their curriculums, and he thinks offering-up a statistic will help goad the schools into focusing on it.

But, you know what? The reason why PE has been driven OUT of the public schools is because of dear old George Dubya Bush’s “No Child Left Behind” legislation. Under this federal legislation, your state can only “measure-up” to one federally mandated statistic: the scholastic competency of the students. Anything else must be discarded in the curriculum to make sure the students study, study, study, and…don’t forget, study in order to do well on federal tests. If Carter wants to find someone to blame for obese kids, he can look to his federal government heroes…those Republicans who voted FOR this legislation.

Now, far be it for me to just bitch about something without offering a viable, practical solution. And, it is a non-state-legislative idea: There are physical fitness trainers in private practice who would LOVE to volunteer their time to help educate kids on eating healthy and exercising and living healthy lifestyles. This could be done after school, or somehow worked into the day (maybe during the time the students would have been tasked with having their height and weight taken by the school nurse). I hear that all a school system has to do is just ask for volunteers from their community (Doh! What a concept! A school system asking for help, rather than having someone shove something down their throat) to help set-up a health and fitness program.

Maybe a Senate Resolution would have been a better step. Maybe just an idea that Carter started offering op-eds to be printed in local newspapers would have been a better start to educating the public on obesity and how the epidemic can be slowed down.

But…to ram a state-mandated, socialist-centric bill down the throats of school systems, the kids, their parents, etc. is to demonstrate a clear lack of understanding on what it means to be a Republican. Senator Joseph Carter flunks the test on having the ability to claim he is a “Republican.” This guy and his ideas should be considered to be quite dangerous. I can only shudder to think what his next idea will be…?

P.S. The following State Senators are my heroes for voting against this legislation back on February 29…and, they are not all Republicans:

BROWN, 26TH
CHAPMAN, 3RD
COWSERT, 46TH
DOUGLAS, 17TH
HENSON, 41ST
HUDGENS, 47TH
JACKSON, 24TH
MULLIS, 53RD
MURPHY, 27TH
SCHAEFER, 50TH
SEABAUGH, 28TH
SMITH, 52ND
WILES, 37TH

Think what you want about Georgia Speaker of The House Glenn Richardson, but on the issue of tax reduction this past session, his point of view trumps Lt. Governor Casey Cagle’s by 10 horse lengths.

At issue was what kind of tax-reduction should take place? The main component of the House side was to give the voters of Georgia a chance to vote to eliminate the ad valorem tax on our vehicles. I don’t know about you, but I’ve paid around $235 per year on the ever-so-slowly-declining-assessed value on my car. I imagine folks who buy SUVs at prices $10,000 above my Accord pay a few hundred more per year.

Cagle and the Senate’s proposal was to “reduce the state income tax by 10% over 5 years.” Cagle and his merry band of math flunk-outs really thought this was THE way to go. However, faced with the following statistics I wonder how long he’s willing to hold onto this point of view:

According to TaxFoundation.org the combined tax rate for Georgia local and state income tax is around 10.3%. I don’t think we have a “local” income tax, so, I think we can safely assume the 10.3% is all state income tax.

Now, the Tax Foundation site goes on to state that the per capita income for Georgia is on the average of $35,210. I think that number is high and may be way off, but, for conservative estimating purposes that give the Senate side of this equation the most benefit of the doubt, we’ll stick with $35,210.

So, approximately how much state income tax does everyone pay yearly? Multiply .103 times $35,210 and you get $3,627.00 in income tax the average Georgian pays to the state.

Cagle thinks that 10% of this amount, phased-in over 5 years will amount to something really, really substantial for your wallet. Let’s continue with Math 001 (”001″ is a math course designed for those who flunked-out of Math 101) and see if Cagle is right:

10% of 3627 = $362.70
Divide $362.70 by 5 (as in “5 Years”), and what do you get?
$72.53 per year in less taxes to pay. (And, again, this is based on the high estimate of $35,210 being anywhere near the correct value for Georgia’s per capita).

Did you go “WOWWWWwwwwwwwwww…! That’s a lot of money! I can use that to go buy 2 bags of Nutro Dry dog food! I can use that money to fill-up my Honda Accord 2 times! Wowwwwwwww-eeeeee….”

I don’t think Lt. Governor Cagle knows a whole lot about what his “policy issues” really mean in the real world. Who the heck did this research for him and said it would amount to a better savings for the Georgia taxpayer than cutting-out the ad valorem tax on vehicles? Who thinks $72 is a larger number than $200? Maybe Casey got tax policy mixed-up with golf scores.

One can only wonder if the same researcher who drew the Cagle tax-reduction plan up was related to the policy researcher who took a flawed research study on the effects of allowing Sunday alcohol sales in New Mexico to give to the Governor and the Senate used as the basis to vote-down the Sunday sales bill from the House…

Due to discussions with the folks who are for this amendment, I have now changed my mind: I believe the Human Life Amendment should be put to a vote in both the House and Senate, and those legislators should pass it out by the required 2/3 majorities, and it should be placed on the ballot in November 2008.

Like so many others involved in politics, for a time there, I wrongly presumed the voters are not educated enough on something like this to be able to make a wise choice. That was arrogant on my part.

In much the same way that I was arrogant on my presumption that people should not be given the chance to vote up or down on the human life amendment, THOSE people who continue to block the legislation for selling alcohol on Sunday are also being extremely arrogant in their fight against putting THAT legislation to a vote.

If the Republican and Democrat legislators who represent Georgia are truly interested in “life, liberty, AND the pursuit of happiness” for all citizens, both those who are living now and future citizens, they should come together and allow the voters of Georgia to have a say on this ballot initiative, as well as pass the bill regarding local control of alchol sales on Sunday…and let people decide for themselves (Is Governor Sonny Perdue THAT arrogant as to continue to threaten a veto if it passes the Legislature?)

Again, my apologies to those who wish to have the Human Life Amendment on the ballot. I was wrong to try to block you, in much the same way that the Christian Coalition continues to try and block me from making a choice on whether or not I can choose to purchase alcoholic beverages (like a nice bottle of wine) to go with my hastily prepared steak on Sunday.

I really don’t have the desire to debate the issue contained within the text of Georgia HR 536, The Paramount Right To Life Amendment. Most of you know where I stand, and I know where most of you stand. To debate what you believe and what I believe about when human life begins will end-up exactly where we both started: a lot of disagreement and exasperation. Let’s skip that feeling all together, okay?

However, a rather interesting post I read on PeachPundit.com tonight sparked my mind to start thinking about this legislation in a completely different light. AND…it is a light that actually may cause a lot of the pro-life legislators to become quite against HR 536, and for the pro-choice legislators to actually turn in favor of it.

Or, it might not do either. After all, I do, on occasion, think that the people we elect to office possess and practice the same basic commonsense that I have…and I’ve been more and more disappointed in the validity of THAT presumption over the past 4 years.

The blog post I read concerned someone celebrating the “birth” of their new baby…and the fact that on this year’s tax form, that new baby gets to be a deduction: Two people filing jointly become three deductions on the 1040 Form…all because a baby was “born.”

Now, I am putting the words “birth” and “born” in quotes because although we currently have definitions of what those words mean, if HR 536 were to pass on the ballot, those words would actually become meaningless in this state.

The text of HR 536 states the following:

(a) The rights of every person shall be recognized, among which in the first place is the inviolable right of every innocent human being to life. The right to life is the paramount and most fundamental right of a person.

(b) With respect to the fundamental and inalienable rights of all persons guaranteed in this Constitution, the word ‘person’ applies to all human beings, irrespective of age, race, sex, health, function, or condition of dependency, including unborn children at every state of their biological development, including fertilization.

Now, if you bestow “personhood” on the human zygote in the womb (or, even the amoeba) at the moment of conception, then that means the following can, and, as it often is in our system of laws, WILL happen:

1) The legal birthday of that “person” becomes the date of conception. (I guarantee you even the most average of lawyers would be successful in arguing that to be the correct interpretation of the law.)

2) At that date of conception is when the parent(s) can begin deducting that “person” on their taxes. (Again, even the most average of tax attorneys could successfully argue that to be perfectly valid.)

3) All of the “welfare moms” who now receive monthly checks from the government for their children will be able to start receiving those checks right after the date of conception. What’s that? I’m hearing mumblings from pro-life conservative Republicans who don’t feel like allowing these 9-months-prior-to-normal-birth-welfare-moms to start collecting money on their new “persons” in the wombs. (What’s that? You’re going to pass another law that disallows this money until the zygote actually forms into a fetus and gets “born” the old-fashioned way? Well, that’s okay, we’re used to your continual and consistent demonstrations of sheer hypocrisy.)

4) At the moment of conception, the “person” will be assigned a social security number, and be eligible for anything a regular, air-breathing “person” is eligible for now.

5) If this were to become a constitutional amendment, either in Georgia or on a national basis (Huckabee supporters, pay close attention here), that would mean that in the event of any cessation of the life of the zygote, the blastocyst, the fetus, etc., that death would be immediately subject to a law enforcement examination into whether the “death” was involuntary manslaughter, voluntary manslaughter, or murder. Those are three very possible categories of causation of death that could be applied to explain the death of the “person” in the womb.

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A Republican cowboy from Texas attends a social function which Hillary Clinton is attending and trying to gather more support for her nomination. Once she discovers the cowboy is a Republican, she starts to belittle him by talking in a southern drawl and single syllable words.

As she was doing that, she kept swatting at some flies that were buzzing around her head. The cowboy says, “Y’all havin’ some problem with them “circle flies?”

She stopped talking and said, “Well yes, if that’s what they’re called. But I’ve never heard of “circle flies.”

“Well ma’am,” the cowboy replies, “circle flies” hang around ranches. They’re called “circle flies” because they’re almost always found circling around the back end of a horse.”

“Oh,” Hillary replies as she goes back to rambling. But, a moment later she stops and bluntly asks, “Are you calling me a horse’s ass?”

“No, ma’am,” the cowboy replies, “I have too much respect for citizens of New York to call their Senator a horse’s ass.”

“That’s a good thing,” she responds and begins rambling on once more.

After pausing to take a breath, the cowboy, in his best Texas drawl adds, “Hard to fool them flies though.”

Harry Shearer’s Website scoops-up the entrails of TV news broadcasts and finds a new use for them: