Morning Reads for Tuesday, January 12, 2016
Good morning! I hope your eggs were properly cooked, and your issues were equally to your liking.
- TransCanada is suing the United States about the rejection of the Keystone XL Pipeline, and the Wall Street Journal wants TransCanada’s attorneys to be sure to point out that despite the political consternation at home, the Obama Administration is just fine with a similar pipeline project in Africa.
- The Economist released their annual interactive Big Mac index.
- If I wasn’t so tired I’d feel validated by this CDC report identifying the most sleep-deprived group in America.
- Georgia is ground zero for preserving the Indigo snake.
- Richard Hyde was reappointed to Georgia’s Judicial Qualifications Commission.
- The question of whether or not to renovate the garden at the Juliette Gordon Low birthplace causes consternation in Savannah.
- In Florida, people have feelings about Daylight Savings Time.
- Cakeage is a thing. “It’s like my comic relief and my only way of getting back at people, even though I do it secretly,” Mr. McCarthy said. “These people sought out a nice restaurant, yet they undermine it by bringing in the world’s most hideous cakes.”
- Dear Neal McCarthy, owner of Atlanta’s Miller Union: if you’re talking in the New York Times about your secret Instagram account where you make fun of the people who pay you money to eat at your restaurant, it’s actually not a secret, but maybe it is rude.
It’s only Day 2 of session, and by now you may have spent enough time thinking about the Capitol to ponder, “Oh, this is why Daddy said not to go downtown! Teri, remind me what we’re looking for?”
It’s This Week in Hamilton! Over at Vulture, in honor of yesterday’s birthday of our Ten Dollar Founding Father, it’s Hamilton Week. This interview with several of the musical’s stars is delightful, and illustrates how lucky we are to be alive right now, so we can witness extremely intelligent, undeniably talented people sing superbly catchy songs about our nation’s birth (and afterbirth). Gems in the interview include Daveed Diggs, who portrays both Thomas Jefferson and the Marquis de Lafayette, explaining what it actually means to be famous:
There are people who haven’t done anything but who are famous. Like, you can be YouTube famous tomorrow if you have the right cat. Some of my favorite research was reading the letters between Lafayette and George Washington where they’re, like, trading tips about who should build a statue of you.
Finally – why am I here? The short answer is that for the past year, I contributed to a blog along with a group of smart, talented, writers who valued thoughtful analysis of the issues facing Georgia, and – most importantly – brought levity to the conversation, since politics without a little levity is absolutely miserable. I represent Smyrna’s Ward 3, and I appreciate that municipal elections in Georgia are nonpartisan, since the services we provide to residents are fundamental to a primal degree: things like sanitation, water, public safety, and bike sharing. I’ll mostly write here about issues that impact local decision-makers, and since I have two school-aged children, I’ll probably also write about issues that impact The Kids. Thanks for reading, and thanks for contributing to the discussion here. Onward, and Open Thread!
About Author
Teri
Teri Anulewicz is a Democrat who represents House District 42 in the Georgia General Assembly. She previously spent nearly a decade on the Smyrna City Council. A native New Orleanian and quasi-Texan, Teri graduated from Agnes Scott College in 1998. She's been a front page contributor since 2015, and she compiles each Tuesday's Morning Reads.
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Final Report from the Casino Committee:
https://cmgajcpolitics.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/hope-preservation-report-final-1-11-16.pdf
The chairman of the Economic Development Committee’s bill suggests up to six casinos in five regions. It has a companion measure, House Resolution 807, that would ask voters to amend the Constitution to allow casinos. HB 677 would establish the guts of the program.
The AJC’s exclusive pre-session poll found that 62 percent of Georgians support legalizing casino gambling.
Supporters of the idea on Monday said they would push first on the resolution and save the enabling legislation for 2017.
The study committee estimates Georgia is losing up to $346 million a year to casinos in other states, as Georgians cross borders to play.
I still haven’t heard any reason why we would take any risk to allow a pipeline that transports Chinese-owned oil to a port facility. In what way does this help us at all?
That oil is already being moved across our rails and roads. Pipelines are much safer and will help reduce traffic on roads to a small extent but will help reduce traffic on our rail system quite a bit. I have no problem with pipeline as long as the company building the pipeline is offering fair market value for the land they are using. This has not been the case in some locations.
Here is a really good article about the transportation of oil products. It really is a pick your poison scenario. I tend to believe that a well maintained and yes, regulated pipeline is the best option.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2014/04/26/pick-your-poison-for-crude-pipeline-rail-truck-or-boat/
Here are a few key paragraphs.
“In the U.S., 70% of crude oil and petroleum products are shipped by pipeline. 23% of oil shipments are on tankers and barges over water. Trucking only accounts for 4% of shipments, and rail for a mere 3%. In Canada, it’s even more lopsided. Almost all (97%) of natural gas and petroleum products are transported by pipelines (Canadian Energy Pipeline Association).”
“Amid a North American energy boom and a lack of pipeline capacity, crude oil shipping on rail is suddenly increasing. The trains are getting bigger and towing more and more tanker cars. From 1975 to 2012, trains were shorter and spills were rare and small, with about half of those years having no spills above a few gallons (EarthJustice.org). Then came 2013, in which more crude oil was spilled in U.S. rail incidents than was spilled in the previous thirty-seven years.”
“A rail tank car carries about 30,000 gallons (÷ 42 gallons/barrel = about 700 barrels). A train of 100 cars carries about 3 million gallons (70,000 barrels) and takes over 3 days to travel from Alberta to the Gulf Coast, about a million gallons per day. The Keystone will carry about 35 million gallons per day (830,000 barrels). This puts pressure on rail transport to get bigger and bigger, and include more cars per train, the very reason that crude oil train wrecks have dramatically increased lately.”
Eiger, thanks for posting that Forbes article. I am inclined to agree with you. I think that in Georgia, and particularly in metro Atlanta, we take rail transportation for granted in the sense that freight trains are ubiquitous in nearly every part of the city; trains are the picturesque centerpieces of more than one downtown.
And that’s the thing: the rail line that travels through Kennesaw, Marietta, Smyrna, downtown Atlanta, and Decatur (before it continues through the state) is the same stretch that goes through Maryville, Tennessee. The derailment there this past summer should remind us that some serious, toxic stuff passes through our cities, and along our property lines, past subdivisions, and past schools (think of The Kids!). I greatly prefer one pipeline over hundreds of trains.
CSX has a 99-year lease with the state on the old Western & Atlantic line that bisects northwest Georgia (including the cities I named above). That lease is up in 2019. How timely for a discussion of improving safety along that line!
Sorry to hear Atlanta Siverbacks suspended operation because they could not find a new owner. It’s likely any potential new owner was dissuaded because of competition from a Blank owned soccer team that will get a partially taxpayer funded stadium and practice facility. Very difficult to compete with government subsidized monopolies.
That is disappointing. The Silverbacks are/were a very good team, but I’m not really surprised with the new Atlanta United team coming in to the area. It pretty much sucked the oxygen out of the room for them. Plus, their practice/play fields were right off of Spaghetti Junction, so a new facility probably would have been needed eventually. You’re right, a potential owner probably wouldn’t want to plunk down big dollars for an NASL team to compete with the new MLS team.
http://www.ajc.com/news/sports/pro-sports/silverbacks-cease-operations/np3TW/?icmp=AJC_internallink_01122016_digesttease_0112digest01
Changing the time biannually has become a complete nonsense but this needs to be addressed at the national level. Perhaps Congress could work it in between the bills guaranteed to be vetoed and done only for the opportunity to generate press releases. The energy savings thing is total bunk, even more so with modern lighting. (I calculated my entire Christmas lighting costs in electricity with total LEDs to be less than 50¢. Yes, I’m retired.) Would it be so difficult for offices or schools to change their hours if they feel the need to match the earth’s tilt that even cavemen knew how to time?
Totally with you on this! It makes no sense in today’s society to keep changing clocks twice a year, and struggling with the sleep monster. Not to mention more heart attacks occur on the day we loose that hour than any other day of the year. Besides, the federal provision does not mandate daylight savings time be used. It says that IF any entity decides to use it, they have to conform to a nationwide uniform standard. (Too many different versions were being used, depending on local tee times.) Where do I sign up, what do we do to get back to Standard time year-round and stay there?
Coming home from work in the dark is depressing. Save lives and keep the kids in the fields, run with DST year round. If not change std working hours from 9-5 to 8-4.
Good point, Salty. I don’t care whether it’s EST or DST year round — they just need to pick a time and stick with it, stop changing twice a year. All the health problems come from those changes’ effects on people’s circadian rhythms. Simply staying one standard time should remedy that. (Besides, I love the temporary extra hour of sleep once I get used to it.)
I don’t care which one we stick with either. It should be up to individual companies or school boards if they wish to change hours due to seasonal changes of available daylight. Most offices and many traditional shift workers have more flexibility than they once did anyway. One of my kids is a nurse who works 3 days a week in a full-time role, one son never sees his kids as a small business owner, and the other one is a pilot and hardly works at all :·) Seriously though the daylight hours worked should not be a federal issue and the only clock changes mandated by the feds should be the occasional leap seconds required by our calendar.
Warren Buffett, railroader, don’t want no stinkin pipeline.
Would Hamilton still be a Federalist and opposed the Bill of Rights today with the current Congress and 300 million souls ?
The Orianne Society does good work.
http://www.oriannesociety.org
Since it would be transporting Chinese oil from Canada wouldn’t US companies profit more from rail rather than the pipeline?
Any chance someone else gets in (Biden) with Hillary’s sinking poll numbers in NH and IA?
Hard to say. Anything can, and does, happen in politics.