Fresh Loaf

Number of 911 calls the Atlanta Police Department received between May 10 and July 31 of this year: 243,938

Number of calls 911 staffers kept on hold for an “unacceptable” amount of time during that time period: 30,813

Percentage of Atlanta 911 calls that were placed on hold in December 2008: 33

Longest period of time, in minutes, that WSB-TV/Channel 2 found a 911 caller was reportedly placed on hold: 38

Number of minutes a West End home burned in May before firefighters were dispatched by the 911 call center: 17

Number of minutes Rachel Wittenburg waited for a 911 operator in September while her daughter suffered a seizure: 7

Average number of seconds in which emergency calls are answered, according to former call center director Miles Butler in August: 12

Number of seconds it’s considered “acceptable” for a 911 caller to wait on hold: 40 seconds

Number of calls placed to Atlanta 911 in 2008 that were “abandoned” by the caller: 55,591

Atlanta’s 2008 crime ranking among 268 cities with more than 100,000 people: 14

Sources: Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Atlanta Police Department, WSB-TV

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Late Saturday night, a Grant Park couple’s home burned for 25 minutes before firefighting crews arrived. Officials are probing why it took the City of Atlanta 911 call center so long to relay the message to fire crews. A computer malfunction has hindered the department’s ability to determine the exact time the 911 call was received.

Below is a video of the fire posted on YouTube by the couple’s neighbor.

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Got plenty of links to go with that freshly roasted Honduran coffee … mine that is…

Nafiza “Soulja Girl” Ziyad is asking a judge to drop her charges related to her now infamous freestyle battle with an elderly, gray-haired lady riding MARTA. The defense motion cited in the AJC says the video, which went viral and has been watched over 600,000 times, “exposed her to extreme distress and embarrassment.”

Wait till she sees the REEEMIX:

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• Jury deliberations begin in the Brian Nichols case.
• Not all are opposed to Gwinnett County’s mandatory recycling program.
• Braves GM Frank Wren busy talking deals on day one of Baseball’s winter meetings.
• More Clayton county students could find themselves in single-sex classrooms next year.
• Illinois Guv arrested on corruption charges.
• Five suspected 9/11 planners recant their offer to confess.
• President-elect Obama’s plan to bring broadband to the masses is hailed all over, and his web 2.0 press machine is all over it (the praise, that is).
• If media were complicit in hyping the housing bubble that drove the economy in the last five years; are they being complicit in making things seem gloomier than they really are now?
• More Media Briefs: Jay Leno to stay at NBC … Arianna Huffington is IWM’s person of the year … Time’s top 10 magazine covers of the year.
• Just because: Remember in Back to the Future when Marty McFly goes into Doc Brown’s house and the automated robotic arm drops another can of dog food onto Einstein’s bowl, which was already overflowing? … Feed your dog with an iPhone.

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Six years ago, Saxby Chambliss authorized the most vilified political campaign ad of the past decade, one that questioned the courage of then-Sen Max Cleland — a triple-amputee Vietnam War veteran — by showing pictures of Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein.

Well, prepare for deja vu. Last week, a new attack ad debuted on local TV channels, this one aimed at Chambliss’ runoff opponent, Jim Martin, and incoming president Barack Obama. This time, instead of using the magic of video to link the Democrats to bin Laden, they’ve chosen Mohamed Atta, leader of the 9/11 hijackings, to serve as the bogeyman.

On the left is Atta’s familiar FBI mug shot, taken from his Florida driver’s license photo:

… and on the right is a screenshot from about 10 seconds into the new anti-Martin ad; Atta’s mug shot is top center:

(more…)

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— At Georgia Women Vote, Amy Morton met North Carolina Senatorial candidate Kay Hagan and reports that the Hagan needs no lipstick. Her opponent, incumbent Elizabeth Dole, voted with Bush 92% of the time. But didn’t most Republicans? And didn’t many Democrats who still quiver in their boots at the thought of being considered “liberal”?

— You want cynical? I’ve got cynical. Blog For Democracy notes that Republican operatives in Ohio and Michigan are collecting lists of foreclosed homes so they can challenge the registration of voters who used to live in them. This is what our political process has come to?

— In a belated “Morning Wooten,” DriftGrift gives another prime example of just how much our political discourse has broken down.

— But some folks still keep things real. Arc Of Time has posted a link to last year’s emotional recollection of being on a flight the morning of Sept. 11, 2001.

— From the Daly Briefing in Iraq: “When I got to the office, the lights weren’t working and I had to call someone to come down and work on them. I sat in the dark for a few minutes thinking about all the stuff I had to do. Then the young airman I work with walked in and asked me if I was going to the ceremony. How in the world could I have forgotten? How could any of us forget? Why did it take someone reminding me what today was for me to remember?”

— Now that’s keeping it real. But our society has short attention spans and, thus, short memories. So, finally, a YouTube clip worth remembering. In memory of …

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SPY VS. PIE: The AP reports that Julia Child left a career as a WWII-era spy to become a chef; Child is one of several well-known Americans whose previously secret spy career was revealed this morning, as the personnel files of the pre-CIA Office of Strategic Services were declassified.

SHOOTING: The chairman of the Arkansas Democratic Party is dead after a recently fired Target employee mysteriously drove more than 30 miles to Little Rock and shot him.

LANIER: Georgia officials asked SCOTUS this morning to overturn a February appeals-court ruling requiring congressional approval for the state to take more water from Lake Lanier to quench Atlanta’s growing thirst.

STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE: The NYT reports on the resurgent popularity of streetcars in at least 40 U.S. downtowns such as Cincinnati, New Orleans, Houston and Charlotte. Not mentioned: Atlanta’s distant visions for the Beltline and Peachtree Street streetcar.

SACS: The accrediting agency is in Clayton County today, part of its review to determine whether the school system will be the first since 1969 to have its accreditation revoked.

SCRATCH PAPER: Cox Newspapers is selling all but three of its newspapers.

RESCUE 911: The recent death of a Johns Creek woman highlights problems in the Fulton County emergency services, as the 911 operator who sent emergency crews 30 miles in the wrong direction had a long history of such routing mistakes. She also repeatedly was disciplined for sleeping on the job, chronic tardiness and fighting with co-workers, and records show her behavior wasn’t uncommon in the department.

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