Tag Archives: Politics

“It’s almost like they are out to take advantage of the rubes,” —an economist

Do big box stores count as development? Are they worth millions in tax incentives and bond investments? Maybe we can find something better for local industry and jobs.

Rumors have been flying for years about a Bass Pro store coming to Valdosta, like this one on a Georgia Outdoor News forum:

01-22-2008, 09:05 PM, bear-229
ive heard the land has been bought. very close to the new toyota lot but it has not made it to the “new locations” on the web site

That’s on James Road, in that huge proposed development that Lowndes County approved around that time.

Scott Reeder wrote for The Atlantic 13 August 2012, Why Have So Many Cities and Towns Given Away So Much Money to Bass Pro Shops and Cabela’s?,

Both Bass Pro Shops and its archrival, Cabela’s, sell hunting and fishing gear in cathedral-like stores featuring taxidermied wildlife, gigantic fresh-water aquarium exhibits and elaborate outdoor reproductions within the stores. The stores are billed as job generators by both companies when they are fishing for development dollars. But the firms’ economic benefits are minimal and costs to taxpayers are great.

An exhaustive investigation conducted by the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity found that the two competing firms together have received or are promised more than $2.2 billion from American taxpayers over the past 15 years.

Where does all that money come from? Bonds, usually. Which is yet another reason why last legislature’s HB 475 to give unelected bodies bond issuing privatizing power would be a bad idea.

What does all that money go for?

Continue reading →

There is something you can do

Anybody who has tried to do much of anything around here has run into this phrase:

There’s nothing you can do.

I was reminded of that when I read this, from the Economist 12 May 2012, Hope springs a trap,

This hopelessness manifests itself in many ways. One is a sort of pathological conservatism, where people forgo even feasible things with potentially large benefits for fear of losing the little they already possess.

The article expands on that idea:

Development economists have long surmised that some very poor people may remain trapped in poverty because even the largest investments they are able to make, whether eating a few more calories or working a bit harder on their minuscule businesses, are too small to make a big difference. So getting out of poverty seems to require a quantum leap—vastly more food, a modern machine, or an employee to mind the shop. As a result, they often forgo even the small incremental investments of which they are capable: a bit more fertiliser, some more schooling or a small amount of saving.

It may seem that the article is about the poorest of people, but that “pathological conservatism” could as easily apply to the hopelessness many people seem to have about ever getting solar panels on their own roofs, or to attracting enough business to our area to employ our high school and college graduates, or that businesses will ever come to the south side.

Yet the point of the article is that field studies by MIT economist Esther Duflo show Continue reading →

Vermont protests against wind vs. nuclear

Compare 6 arrested of about 25 demonstrators against Green Mountain Power’s wind energy project on Lowell Mountain vs. 130 arrested of a thousand protesting in March against the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant.

Also notice what they were protesting. The location on Lowell Mountain, as damaging the mountain top and being unsightly, plus:

“I feel like they [GMP] only went through the public process to a point, and the process is flawed,” said Young, a self-employed logger and farmer from Westfield. “Community members don’t have the resources to have a strong voice. It’s complex, expensive, and lawyers don’t want to do it.”

At Vermont Yankee, the protests were against radioactive leaks, nuclear waste, and this:

Yankee’s initial 40-year license expired Wednesday. The plant is still running, under a 20-year extension from the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission—despite a vote by the state senate not to allow the plant to continue operating in Vermont.

A common theme is lack of democratic oversight, although even that seems greater in degree for Vermont Yankee. We are familiar with that issue in Georgia, where there’s an election going on for Public Service Commissioners and legislators.

Another common theme is that it’s complex and expensive, which is indeed an issue for big wind projects. Power companies like them as big as they can build them because that fits their corporate bureaucracy. They can instead be smaller and distributed. Nuclear power plants, on the other hand, are always big, bureaucratic, and expensive.

While I thoroughly sympathize with the Lowell Mountain protesters about the mountain top issues, I don’t see anything about them protesting the risk of a wind spill. Risks of nuclear radioactive contamination are very real, and are among the Vermont Yankee protesters’ main issues. Wind off the coast of Georgia would not have that problem.

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Toxic air in Georgia —NRDC

Georgia's air: not quite as bad as Florida's.

WTXL wrote Thursday, Florida and Georgia ranked high for toxicity exposure,

According to an analysis released by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), Florida is the 6th worst state in the nation when it comes to exposing residents to toxic air pollution from coal-fired power plants.

Florida's air would rate even worse if Florida Power and Light had to burn coal in Florida instead of at Plant Scherer near Macon to generate power for Florida. Instead, FPL dirties Georgia's air for Florida's benefit.

Georgia is ninth worst on the NRDC's Toxic 20 list, in “Toxic Power: How Power Plants Contaminate Our Air and States”. Here's NRDC's press release.

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GA Sec. State hears complaints from voters @ Brooks 2012-08-09

Kemp listening

Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp came to Quitman Thursday to hear about election issues. Here is the first of many videos George Boston Rhynes took of the event. There are more on his YouTube channel, bostongbr,, and I will post some of them here, too.

This local voter pretty much summed it up:

My county commissioners… found nothing wrong with this. How much can one community endure? They found nothing wrong with this! How much can one community endure to have a right to have our votes cast and counted for who we want to represent us.

Here’s the video:

GA Sec. State hears complaints from voters about Elections,
GA Sec. State Brian Kemp, Brooks County (Brooks),
Video by George Boston Rhynes for bostongbr on YouTube (K.V.C.I.), Quitman, Brooks County, Georgia, 9 August 2012.

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Well loan and tap fees —Barbara Stratton @ Hahira 2012-08-02

Received yesterday on Hahira approved for water well loan by state. -jsq

It’s nice to know Hahira will get a break in interest, but tax payers will still have to pay back the loan. I missed the council meeting which is unusual for me. Does the video show anything about the fact some council members voted not to raise the tap fees for new construction which would certainly help pay back the loan instead of depending so much on tax monies? Developers should not be allowed to come in and make huge profits from new construction, then take their profits and let the citizens pay the price for increased water demands. Raising the one time tap fees would have distributed some of the costs to the developers who enjoy the profits from increased demands on the infrastructure and water usage.

-Barbara Stratton

Yes, we have video of the entire Hahira City Council meeting, which will be posted soon. LAKE is always happy to accept help in taking or labeling videos.

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The reality of the solar industry —Michael Noll

Received Friday on Plant Vogtle water use. -jsq

Please note a recent article in the New York Times about the best alternative to nuclear power in Georgia: The Secret to Solar Power By Jeff Himmelman, 9 August 2012.

To quote from the article:

“… the reality of the [solar] industry — as evidenced by the enormous investments that companies like Google and Bank of America are making in residential solar power — is that it has rapidly become a smart, practical and profitable investment.”
Michael G. Noll, President
Wiregrass Activists for Clean Energy (WACE)

When will Southern Company & Georgia Power finally wake up? —Michael G. Noll

Received today on Plant Vogtle water use. -jsq

Energy projects such as biomass plants, coal firing plants, and nuclear power plants waste enormous amounts of water. The once proposed 40MW biomass plant in Valdosta would have consumed 800,000 gallons of water DAILY. Considering that for years now we are experiencing record drought conditions and heat waves in the US, this should make everyone’s hair stand up on the back of their necks. (For more information see “Electricity’s Thirst on a Precious Resource”.)

Add to this scenario a recent decision by the US Nuclear Regulatory Continue reading →

Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp in Quitman noon today

George Boston Rhynes reports Brian Kemp, Georgia Secretary of State, will be in Quitman today about election matters, apparently at the Brooks County Commission building. Here’s a video playlist: by George of elections issues ranging from the recent attempt by the Board of Elections Chair to stop George videoing a public meeting, to the suspension of the Elections Supervisor, to the Quitman 10+2.

Here’s my previous post about the Chair challenging George for doing what any citizen can do. Here’s who are the Board of Elections, and a playlist for the rest of that meeting.

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