Never Underestimate the Power of an Empty ‘Feelgood’ Marketing Gimmick

Wed   19 Mar 2008   13:10 by Kevin McGehee 66° and light rain in Coweta County, GA 3 comments [Here's Your Sign]

Electric cars, hybrids, ethanol… How smart, really, is the Smart car? It’s not especially inexpensive—$11,590 for the base Pure coupe—$13,590 for the “loaded” Passion coupe (and $16,590 for the convertible). At least, not relative to what else you can buy for that money—for example, a Chevy Aveo ($10,235), Toyota Yaris ($12,225), Kia Spectra ($12,895), or Hyundai Accent ($12,925). And those are subcompact sedans; they can carry four people. The so-called Smart car is a hypercompact two-seater. If you need room for even three people, you’ll need to buy another car. How smart is that, exactly? But it gets great gas mileage—right? Actually, not that great. » Smart Shoppers People have become so sensitized to being “environmentally friendly” that any old snake oil will sell like hotcakes if it claims to be good for the environment. So, what is the appeal of this thing? I suspect it’s of a piece with what I like to call hybrid fever. There is a segment of the population that likes to wear their green on their sleeves—showy environmentalism rather than plain Jane common sense. It’s the reason why people spend several thousand dollars more to buy a hybrid over an otherwise equivalent standard car. They probably realize they’re not saving any money (and the “environmental cost” of hybrids is actually pretty high when you take into account the totality—raw materials, manufacturing/disposal costs, etc.), but these folks like to present a public display of their politically correct values whenever they drive. A Prius does that; an older Corolla doesn’t. If you doubt the power of image over actuality, consider the Honda Civic hybrid. Though very similar to the Toyota Prius in terms of function, it looked like an ordinary Civic—so its owner was unable to enjoy the image boost of driving an obvious hybrid. It was a sales flop—while the Prius has sold gangbusters. I should come out with a line of “environmentally friendly” smudge pots.

That’s Assuming You HAVE a Future

Thu   13 Mar 2008   11:37 by Kevin McGehee 60° and fair in Coweta County, GA 0 comments [Get Offa My Lawn!] [Here's Your Sign]

Garvey said he didn’t want to haggle over statistics. “We’re much more interested in the future,“ he said. And why, pray tell, does Mr. Garvey not want to haggle over statistics? Well, there’s “cooked,“ and then there’s “deep-fried to a crackly crunch.“ Jekyll Island—depending on who’s talking—is either in danger of financially slipping into the Atlantic Ocean or is competently keeping its nose above water. Jekyll’s governing body and development partner Linger Longer say the state park is in dire straits, showing a precipitous decline in both visitors and revenues over the last 15 years. Only the construction of hundreds of condos and hotel rooms can save the state park, they say. “A significant revitalization is something that will make Jekyll a compelling destination,“ said Linger Longer’s Jim Langford. But wait just a minute. [...] The drop-off in visitation claimed by the Authority and Linger Longer is another dispute. Between 1996 and 1997, the number of estimated visits to Jekyll plummeted from 3.5 million to 1.9 million—a 44 percent drop, according to data compiled by the Authority. But that year, the counting method was flawed, according to Ken Cordell, a U.S. Forest Service expert on park visitation. Cordell compared the count gathered by Jekyll with one compiled by the Georgia Department of Transportation. The DOT figures showed only a slight drop-off in traffic that year. State auditors also reported that parking fee revenues in 1996 and 1997 barely changed. Authority records show that hotel occupancy rates dipped only 1.9 percent during that time period. And the number of visitors taking historic district tours actually rose 10 percent. “It is a relatively safe assumption that something about the JIA method of counting and estimating visitation changed between 1996 and 1997,“ Cordell concluded. » Jekyll Island figures don’t add up There’s a principle known as “GAAP”—“generally accepted accounting practices”—which help to ensure that figures can be compared reliably from one accounting period to the next. It’s permissible to revise the way things are reported, but you have to disclose the revision and you ought to offer at least one set of reports both ways for a side-by-side comparison. The Jekyll Island Authority doesn’t seem to have done that. And Garvey? He likened the annual reports to “marketing” documents and “snapshots of our annual performance.“ He’s right about the snapshot thing—but financial reports aren’t merely “marketing” documents. They’re the fulfillment of an obligation—and when the organization is of a public character, whether a publicly-traded corporation or (as in this case) a corporation actually owned by the state, that obligation is not only to the owners themselves but to the public at large. Presenting financial reports that can’t be compared reliably to previous reports is a profound violation of accounting ethics. And that’s why auditors exist: to find and expose such shenanigans so that those who attempt them get caught. JIA got caught. The State of Georgia needs to start chopping.

Spittoon

Wed   12 Mar 2008   16:10 by Kevin McGehee 67° and fair in Coweta County, GA 0 comments [Here's Your Sign]

Not as untouchable as his legendary namesake: Eliot Spitzer’s tumultuous tumble from the zenith of a promising political career to the nadir of a shocking sex scandal came as no surprise Wednesday as the bright, bull-headed governor announced his resignation, effective Monday, under bloating pressure from state lawmakers and the public. Lt. Gov. David Paterson will become the 55th governor of New York and the state’s first black governor. There were rumors that the once-heralded Democrat had negotiated a plea deal to avoid jail time in the case, but U.S. Attorney Michael J. Garcia squashed those rumors. “There is no agreement between this Office and Gov. Eliot Spitzer, relating to his resignation or any other matter,“ he said in a statement to CBS 2. That leaves Spitzer open to being indicted and facing prison time. » Resigned to Disgrace I was hearing iffy things about Spit-take when he was New York’s attorney general, so I really cannot say any of this flabbergasts me. He always sounded like the kind of guy who would push the envelope of media-protected Democrat invulnerability just as far as he could—and find its breaking point the hard way. Best of luck to Gov. Paterson. He’ll need it.

I Wouldn’t Have Bought a Used Car from Him

Mon   10 Mar 2008   21:14 by Kevin McGehee 58° and fair in Coweta County, GA 4 comments [Here's Your Sign]

Eliot Spitzer, that is. Tonight I went to a local burger joint for dinner, since Chris is working evenings. This place has apparently started holding trivia contests, and was about to start when I sat down. I didn’t sign up to play but was fairly sure I could do well if I chose to. And in fact by the time I finished eating and left, there was only one question that would have stumped me: “What state’s governor was recently revealed to be involved in an alleged prostitution ring?“ I hadn’t looked at or listened to the news all day, or I probably would have known about it. Spitzer has just managed to become the Bill Clinton of a new generation.

Mixed Emotions

Sun   2 Mar 2008   21:50 by Kevin McGehee 51° and clear in Coweta County, GA 1 comment [Get Offa My Lawn!] [Here's Your Sign]

The definition of “mixed emotions,“ according to the old joke, is watching your worst enemy drive off a cliff in your brand-new luxury car. Steinem raised McCain’s Vietnam imprisonment as she sought to highlight an alleged gender-based media bias against Clinton. “Suppose John McCain had been Joan McCain and Joan McCain had got captured, shot down and been a POW for eight years. [The media would ask], ‘What did you do wrong to get captured? What terrible things did you do while you were there as a captive for eight years?‘“ Steinem said, to laughter from the audience. McCain was, in fact, a prisoner of war for around five-and-a-half years, during which time he was tortured repeatedly. Referring to his time in captivity, Steinem said with bewilderment, “I mean, hello? This is supposed to be a qualification to be president? I don’t think so.“ » Stumping for Clinton, Steinem Says McCain’s P.O.W. Cred Is Overrated As I’ve said before, I’m in danger of actually enjoying this election season, now that nobody I really want to see win, is in the running. When the Democrats take out after the Republican nominee, I can just sit back and watch it as entertainment. I’ve said in other venues that I think McCain’s war service should be off limits. I should have said, “off limits for Republicans.“ I can’t say that it would bother me much for the Democrats to go that route. Except that it would help McCain get elected…

Let’s Get This Straight

Thu   28 Feb 2008   12:56 by Kevin McGehee 42° and sunny in Coweta County, GA 4 comments [Courting Disaster] [Get Offa My Lawn!] [Here's Your Sign]

First it was the ridiculous idea that Bill Clinton could become Hillary’s vice-president (in the increasingly unlikely event that she could become president). Now this: The question has nagged at the parents of Americans born outside the continental United States for generations: Dare their children aspire to grow up and become president? In the case of Senator John McCain of Arizona, the issue is becoming more than a matter of parental daydreaming. Mr. McCain’s likely nomination as the Republican candidate for president and the happenstance of his birth in the Panama Canal Zone in 1936 are reviving a musty debate that has surfaced periodically since the founders first set quill to parchment and declared that only a “natural-born citizen” can hold the nation’s highest office. Almost since those words were written in 1787 with scant explanation, their precise meaning has been the stuff of confusion, law school review articles, whisper campaigns and civics class debates over whether only those delivered on American soil can be truly natural born. To date, no American to take the presidential oath has had an official birthplace outside the 50 states. “There are powerful arguments that Senator McCain or anyone else in this position is constitutionally qualified, but there is certainly no precedent,“ said Sarah H. Duggin, an associate professor of law at Catholic University who has studied the issue extensively. “It is not a slam-dunk situation.“ » McCain’s Canal Zone Birth Prompts Queries About Whether That Rules Him Out There is nothing in Article II of the Constitution that requires a presidential candidate born after the formation of this country, to have been born within the national boundaries of the United States. The qualifications are as follows: at least 35 years of age, a natural born citizen of the U.S., and resident within the U.S. for no less than 14 years. ...to me, a simple layman who has a passing understanding of the English language, the interpretation is simple: if you were a U.S. Citizen at the moment of your birth, either through your presence within the United States or by dint of having at least one American parent, you are a “natural born citizen.“ If you had to petition to become a citizen, you are a “naturalized citizen.“ To my mind, the universe of citizens is broken in to two parts: natural born and naturalized. » Natural born citizen Exactly. I never wanted John McCain to be president. I don’t want him to receive my party’s nomination at the convention later this year. But as far as the U.S. Constitution is concerned the only concern with McCain is his demonstrated lack of respect for the First Amendment (McCain-Feingold). But there isn’t even anything in the Constitution that says a candidate who has written unconstitutional legislation is ineligible to be president. John McCain is therefore eligible. The question of whether he should be elected is entirely a political matter. As it should be.

More Floor Space, More Shelf Space, Less Reason for Me to Shop There

Wed   27 Feb 2008   10:39 by Kevin McGehee 34° and mostly cloudy in Coweta County, GA 0 comments [Coweta County] [Here's Your Sign]

Over the years I’ve complained in this space about the Kroger supermarket at Thomas Crossroads. I’d go there for months at a time, happily finding most everything I want there, and then all of a sudden those items would disappear from the shelves and not be seen again for weeks at a time. Occasionally though not frequently, the shelf tag designating where the item in question should be stocked, would remain in place throughout, under a blatantly empty spot on the shelf. For most of the time we’ve lived here, I had no particular reason to choose Kroger over, say, Publix. The customer loyalty card at Kroger guaranteed a lower price on much of what I could buy there (when there was anything I could buy there) but there was no particular benefit to shopping there regularly. I often found the staff at Publix to be nicer, but there was a lot that I wanted to buy that they didn’t carry either. Then Kroger opened their new store at Newnan Crossing, several miles out of the way. Unlike Thomas Crossroads at the time, it had a Kroger gas station, and with enough of a purchase history on the customer loyalty card you get a ten-cent-a-gallon discount on gasoline. So, for a while we actually tended to go to Newnan Crossing to shop for groceries—and I discovered the new store was almost certain to carry the things I’d often been frustrated trying to buy at Thomas Crossroads. Then gradually I started to find that Thomas Crossroads was doing better about having what I wanted. And then the chain built a Kroger gas station at Thomas Crossroads. We resumed doing our regular shopping close to home and life was good. Then came the expansion of the Thomas Crossroads store. Always small by the standards of Kroger in this area, management decided it needed to be made larger and reset. That project has taken a few months but now seems to be pretty much complete. And today I went in, looking for a handful of specific items. Of which they had none in stock—indeed the shelf space for one of them is now vastly smaller than it was before the expansion. Another should have been well stocked in a yawning cavern of empty shelf space, over a tag that promised that, indeed, this store does intend to carry this product again. Eventually. In short, the Kroger at Thomas Crossroads is up to its old tricks again. But this time I don’t have to put up with it. Now there’s another, larger store where I have always found those things. Always. Every time. Still, I’m going to send the Kroger Corporation a link to this post so they can bust heads at Thomas Crossroads—if they’re so inclined. If I have no reason to continue shopping at the older store despite its expansion, the chain might as well have simply shut it down. It’s not as if Thomas Crossroads doesn’t have a vacant supermarket already.

Bejus on a Jet Ski

Mon   25 Feb 2008   15:47 by Kevin McGehee 63° and sunny in Coweta County, GA 0 comments [Coweta County] [Here's Your Sign]

Maybe the local Amateur Radio Emergency Service group isn’t the only thing that needs to be reassigned. Coweta Commissioner Leigh Schlumper filed a civil lawsuit against fellow commissioners Tim Higgins and Tim Lassetter in U.S. District Court Friday, claiming the two men set out to discriminate and defame her, which resulted in her not being elected as chairwoman of the Coweta County Board of Commissioners. Schlumper alleges in the lawsuit that she was not elected in January 2008 to be chairwoman of the five-member board because she was the victim of rumors and derogatory comments made toward her by the commissioners because she is a woman. In addition, she alleges she was cautioned by other county commissioners not to interact with male county employees, not to appear in public with male employees, and was “openly accused” of having affairs with male county employees. The two-term commissioner claims that a campaign of rumors, harassing letters and phone calls commenced against her when a close friend of Lassetter’s applied for the position of deputy chief of the Coweta County Fire Department in 2006 but was passed over for the promotion. Jay Jones, a close and old high school friend of Schlumper’s, was selected by the county’s fire chief instead, according to the lawsuit. » Schlumper files lawsuit against 2 commissioners A county commissioner can’t make the county fire chief hire someone he doesn’t want to hire—can she? If she can, then we have deeper problems here than harassment over a hiring decision. Then again, if she can’t, and yet we have people blaming her anyway over that hiring decision, we still have deeper problems around here than just what Schlumper is complaining about in her lawsuit. If Coweta were to be merged with Fayette County, it wouldn’t be the first time a Georgia county was absorbed into another; modern-day Fulton County includes the former counties of Milton (north) and Campbell (south).

Jurassic Pork Rides Again

Sat   23 Feb 2008   16:19 by Kevin McGehee 44° and mostly cloudy in Chattanooga, TN 2 comments [Alaska] [Here's Your Sign]

You’d think after 18,000 years in the U.S. Senate ol’ Uncle Ted would have solved all these problems by now. High energy prices and a lack of jobs are choking the Alaska economy outside Anchorage and Fairbanks, U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens said Thursday, and he intends to do something about it. Stevens, the longest-serving Republican in Senate history, filed for re-election with a familiar campaign message that Alaska must develop its natural resources. With a 40 percent dropout rate in many Alaska high schools, he said, the state’s youth need hope for employment. “I’m going to work to get them jobs,“ he said. » Stevens files for re-election The saddest part is, he’ll win. He could keel over dead tomorrow and he’d still get re-elected in November. And again in 2014, and 2020, and 2026…

Her Income May Be About to Take a Hit

Sat   23 Feb 2008   16:11 by Kevin McGehee 45° and mostly cloudy in Chattanooga, TN 1 comment [Here's Your Sign] [Media Ochre]

...at least, it should. State Rep. Jeanette Jamieson, an accountant and tax preparer who serves on the committee that writes tax legislation, landed on Georgia’s delinquent taxpayer list Friday for owing $45,734, according to the Georgia Department of Revenue. The Toccoa Democrat has until March 15 to pay the state taxes under a consent agreement reached with the Revenue Department, Jamieson said. [...] “Sometimes when you are so busy looking after everybody else’s business, you don’t pay as much attention to your own as you should,“ said Jamieson, reached at Jamieson Accounting and Tax Services, the business she owns and manages in Toccoa, in northeast Georgia. “I think that is really where I dropped the ball in my own personal matter. I have learned a valuable lesson from it, needless to say,“ she said. The delinquent taxes date back to 1998 and span eight years, Jamieson said. She said she does not know what prompted an audit by the state Revenue Department. » Legislator owes 8 years of taxes - $45,734 Let’s recognize and applaud the AJC for stating Jamieson’s party affiliation in the second paragraph, rather than leaving it to the end of the article as Establishment Media outlets so often do when the miscreant is a Democrat.

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