Fresh Loaf

Number of Georgia jobs created or retained by the national stimulus package: 23,879

Estimated number of jobs created or retained nationally by stimulus money: 1 million

Current Georgia unemployment rate: 10.2 percent

Georgia unemployment rate at the end of 2008: 7.5 percent

Current national unemployment rate: 9.8 percent

Amount of money allocated to 18 Georgia agencies by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act: $3.2 billion

Amount of that allocated money spent by those agencies so far: $702 million

Amount of money spent per job created or retained across the state: $29,380

Georgia’s median income for an individual: $40,760

Sources: AJC.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Census Bureau

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Number of Georgia Tech students suspected to have contracted swine flu in the first two weeks of classes: 150

Number of cases confirmed: 12

Number of cases confirmed at the University of Georgia in a 12-day period in August: 20

Percentage of swine flu cases that end in death: 0.4

Percentage of regular flu cases that end in death: 0.1

Percentage of the 1918 Spanish flu cases that ended in death: 2

Percentage of swine flu cases in pregnant women that end in death: 6

Number of people who have died from swine flu in the U.S., since April 2009: 500

Number of people who have died from being hit by a car, truck or bus in the U.S., in 2008: 4,378

Sources: Associated Press, AJC.com, Reuters, MedicineNet.com, USAToday.com, Fatality Analysis Reporting System

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Number of people arrested during a Missouri town hall meeting on health care reform held by Democratic Congressman Russ Carnahan: 6

Number of Democratic congressmen who have received death threats from or have been hanged in effigy by health care reform protesters: 4

Number of people who “liked” Sarah Palin’s Facebook note accusing health care reform of potentially establishing “death panels”: 6,392

Number of attendees at Georgia Democratic Congressman Hank Johnson’s Aug. 10 town hall meeting: 1,500

Number of attendees at Georgia Republican Congressman Tom Price’s Aug. 1 town hall meeting: 60

Attendees at a joint town hall meeting on health care held by Georgia Republican Congressmen Nathan Deal and Phil Gingrey: 600

Number of attendees at the Deal-Gingrey town hall meeting who were visibly supporting President Obama or health care reform: 1

Increase in uninsured patients at Grady Memorial Hospital so far in 2009, compared to all of 2008: 67,000

Obama’s margin of victory over John McCain in the 2008 election, in which each candidate proposed plans for health care reform: 9,522,083

Sources: Facebook, 11alivenews, AJC.com, house.gov

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June 2009 U.S. unemployment rate: 9.5 percent

July 2009 U.S. unemployment rate: 9.4 percent

Number of months, before July 2009, since the U.S. saw a decrease in unemployment: 16

Number of points by which the Dow Jones Industrial Average increased immediately following the release of the new unemployment data: 142

Average U.S. weekly income, June 2009: $609.37

Average U.S. weekly income, July 2009: $614.34

Last month’s unemployment rate in Georgia: 10.1 percent

Jobs lost in Georgia since around this time last year: 209,500

Increase in Georgia jobs in health care and educational services, according to the most recent statistics: 12,000

Sources: AJC.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Washington Post

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Amount of federal stimulus dollars allocated for Georgia transportation improvements: $1.1 billion

Of that $1.1 billion, amount Georgia will spend on road construction and maintenance: $932 million

Amount of federal stimulus dollars earmarked for MARTA: $63 million

Amount the state of Georgia contributes to the operating costs of MARTA: $0

Number of other states that don’t allocate funding for their major public transit systems: 0

Atlanta’s rank among the country’s most traffic-congested metropolitan areas: 3

Number of cities whose residents spend more time commuting than those in Atlanta: 0

Percent likelihood that an Atlanta driver will express road rage if cut off: 14.4

Rank of Atlanta when it comes to seven cities surveyed for rude drivers: 1

Sources: AJC.com, Atlanta Business Chronicle

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Number of cars that were damaged as a result of the June 29 parking deck collapse in Midtown: 38

Number of injuries: 0

Number of parking spaces not impacted by the collapse, according to a statement from Atlanta-based Hardin Construction Co., which built the deck, to help “put this incident in perspective”: 1,377

Number of times the deck has been inspected by the city since its 2002 construction: 0

Number of injuries resulting from the December collapse of a bridge at the Atlanta Botanical Garden, also built by Hardin Construction: 18

Number of fatalities from the bridge collapse at the Atlanta Botanical Garden: 1

Amount Hardin Construction was fined by the city for the Botanical Garden collapse: $6,300

Amount that Hardin received earlier this month from the University of Houston as part of a new housing construction project: $50,000,000

Number of parking spaces planned for two new parking decks that the University of Georgia is having Hardin build: 943

Sources: AJC.com, 11alivenews.com, Hardin Construction

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Rank of Atlanta rapper Soulja Boy Tell ’Em’s Twitter page on a list of “businesses” with the highest number of Twitter followers: 9

Rank of CNN: 1

Total number of Twitterers following Soulja Boy: 892,491

Total number of “tweets” the rapper — or his handlers — have posted on his Twitter site: 4,412

Estimated number of tweets worldwide that were related to the Iran protests, following the country’s June 12 election: 79,000

Estimated percentage of tweets that referenced Michael Jackson in the two hours following the king of pop’s death: 30

Total number of Twitter members worldwide: 37 million

Number of other major social-networking sites that have grown faster than Twitter over the past year: 0

Number of jobs that MySpace was forced to cut following stiff competition from Twitter and Facebook: 300

Sources: Twibs.com, twitter.com/souljaboytellem, WashingtonPost.com, ColumbusDispatch.com, Mashable.com, NYTimes.com

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Rank of Atlanta among 10 cities when it comes to the highest percentage of arrestees who tested positive for drugs last year: 6

Rank of Atlanta when it comes to the highest percentage of arrestees who tested positive for cocaine, specifically: 1

Percentage of New York City arrestees who tested positive for cocaine: 27

Percentage of Atlanta arrestees who did: 40

Number of cities, besides Atlanta, that had more arrestees test positive for cocaine than marijuana: 0

Percentage of Chicago arrestees who tested positive for marijuana: 48

Percentage of Atlanta arrestees who did: 39

Number of cocaine packets found last week on a man in the Turner Field parking lot: 118

Number of cocaine and money-laundering counts filed in late May against a Georgia criminal defense attorney: 40

Sources: U.S. Office of National Drug Control Policy, WSB-TV, Fulton Daily Report.

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Number of Georgians currently incarcerated or on probation or parole: 562,763

Georgia’s national rank for percentage of population in the corrections system: 1

Chance that a Georgian is in the corrections system: 1:13

Chance that a New Hampshire resident is in the corrections system: 1:88

Average daily cost, in dollars, to house and provide for a Georgia inmate: 48

Amount, in dollars, Georgia pays each year on its corrections system: 1.1 billion

Amount, in dollars, a state lawmaker recently proposed charging inmates for daily “room and board”: 40

Total population of the 20-county metro Atlanta region: 5.2 million

Total population of U.S. corrections system: 7.3 million

Sources: Pew Center, Associated Press, Atlanta Regional Commission, Georgia General Assembly

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Number of people who gathered at The Standard Jan. 8 to memorialize slain bartender John Henderson: 200

Number of Facebook members for Atlantans Together Against Crime four days after Henderson was killed: 750

Number of members as of last week: 5,558

Estimated attendance at the group’s first anti-crime rally last week in Little Five Points: 175

Estimated attendance at a town hall meeting on neighborhood crime hosted last week by Council President Lisa Borders: 300

Percent reduction in police man-hours due to city-wide furloughs: 10

Number of restaurants that participated in a benefit last Wednesday to add to the reward to find Henderson’s killers: 79

Estimated amount the “dine-out” benefit raised toward the reward, in dollars: 50,000

Total dollar amount of the reward, as of Friday: 72,000

Sources: Atlantans Together Against Crime, AJC, Crime Stoppers Atlanta

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Number of people who died jumping from metro Atlanta highway overpasses in 2008: 1

Number of buses to plunge off a highway overpass: 0

Number of people who threatened to jump from metro Atlanta construction cranes over this past year: 0

3344 Peachtree

Number of new Atlanta skyscrapers under construction or completed in the last 12 months: 11

Of all regional banks that failed in 2008, percentage based in Georgia: 20

Number of major banks headquartered in Atlanta when 2008 began: 1

Number of major banks still headquartered in Atlanta as 2008 ends: 1

Number of Atlanta-based Fortune 500 companies that went bankrupt in 2008: 0

Hartsfield-Jackson’s 2007 ranking among major U.S. airports for flight delays: 7

Hartsfield-Jackson’s 2008 ranking among major U.S. airports for flight delays: 9

Sources: Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Emporis, Bureau of Transportation Statistics

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Number of Georgia runoff elections for statewide, partisan positions in the past 20 years: 2

Of those two, the number in which the top general-election vote-getter (a Democrat, in both instances) won the runoff: 0

Of voters in the 1992 general election, the percentage that returned to vote in the Senate runoff: 55

Of voters in the 2006 general election, the percentage that returned to vote in the Public Service Commission runoff: 10

As of Nov. 20, the percentage of early voters in Georgia’s U.S. Senate runoff who are African-American: 22

Percentage of early voters in the 2008 general election who are African-American: 34

In past decade, average percentage of black general-election voters who voted in runoffs: 8.5

Average percentage of whites who did: 9.2

Percentage of early voters in the 2008 general election who had voted in the GOP and Democratic primaries, respectively: 25, 30

Percentage of early voters in 2008 runoff (as of Nov. 20) who had voted in the GOP and Democratic primaries, respectively: 44, 34

Source: Georgia Secretary of State

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Atlanta’s volunteer rank out of 50 major cities: 31

Charlotte’s rank: 10

Atlanta’s road rage ranking: 6

Atlanta’s “Meanest Cities Towards Homeless” ranking: 4

Number of listed charitable organizations in Atlanta: 361

Number of violent crimes in Atlanta in 2007: 7,213

Number of Facebook groups about volunteering in the Atlanta Network: 41

Number of Facebook groups about partying: 297

Sources:Volunteeringinamerica.gov; nationalhomeless.org; autovantage.com; census.gov; superpages.com; facebook.com

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Percentage of graduates in the last two Atlanta Police Academy classes who’ve been arrested or cited for a crime: 36

Of the 33 total graduates, number who became officers: 33

Number of those graduates who’d been denied jobs with other law enforcement agencies: 12

Minimum number of graduates who’d been deemed psychologically incompatible for work at another police department: 1

Number of officers the Atlanta Police Department should employ to ensure public safety, authorities say: 2,000

Number of officers currently employed: 1,700

Number of Atlanta officers indicted in a 2006 botched raid that left a 92-year-old woman dead: 3

Of those, number who blamed pressure to meet arrest quotas as the impetus for the raid: 3

Months after the raid that the city created a Citizen Review Board to review police misconduct: 4

Number of police misconduct cases that the board considered in its first 18 months: 0

Sources: Atlanta Journal-Constitution, International Brotherhood of Police Officers

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Number of major hurricanes to hit Georgia’s coast during the 19th century: 5

Number of major hurricanes to hit Georgia’s coast since 1900: 0

Number of Category 1 or 2 hurricanes to hit Georgia’s coast since 1900: 4

Years since last hurricane made landfall in Georgia: 29

People who used I-16 between Savannah and Macon to flee Hurricane Floyd in 1999: 2.5 million

Gallons of drinking water National Hurricane Center says family of four needs for a three-day evacuation: 12

Estimated damage caused by Floyd, which hit North Carolina as a Category 2 storm: $6 billion

Number of coastal Georgians who evacuated their homes in 1999 for Hurricane Floyd: 350,000

Population of coastal Georgia in 2000: 558,350

Projected population coastal Georgia in 2030: 844,161

Sources: Associated Press, Coastal Georgia Regional Development Center, Georgia Emergency Management Agency

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MARTA’s current budget deficit: $43 million

Number of positions MARTA plans to eliminate because of deficit: 180

Number of these 180 positions that are currently vacant: 130

Number of future MARTA newly created station-agent positions being offered to newly laid-off MARTA employees: 50

Amount by which MARTA’s revenue from local sales taxes was below expectations during first-quarter of 2008: $6.9 million

Amount MARTA spent on fuel last year: $13.4 million

Amount MARTA expects to spend on fuel this year: $17.6 million

Number of trips MARTA passengers took in April 2007: 11,999,867

Number of trips MARTA passengers took in April 2008: 12,800,276

Amount MARTA contributes to Atlanta’s gross regional product: $476 million

Amount state contributed this year to MARTA needs: 0

Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution, MARTA, GeorgiaGasPrices.com, Mass Transit Magazine, Creative Loafing

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Estimated City of Atlanta budget shortfall in 2009: $140 million

Percentage of Department of Parks, Recreation and Cultural Affairs budget Mayor Franklin proposes cutting: 15

Positions cut from the parks department in 1993 and 1998 due to budget concerns: 137

Positions cut from the parks department in 2002 due to budget concerns: 127

Approximate number of parks department employees today: 315

City recreation centers that will close temporarily this summer: 11

Recreation centers that will close permanently this summer: 2

Percentage total land in Atlanta devoted to public parks: 4.5

Park-related spending in Seattle per resident in 2005: $266

Park-related spending in Atlanta per resident in 2005: $91

Sources: City of Atlanta, Park Pride, Trust for Public Land

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Percent of Americans who live in counties with unhealthful levels of ozone or particle pollution: 40

Rank of Metro Atlanta among cities most polluted by year-round ozone: 12

Rank of Metro Atlanta among cities most polluted by year-round particle pollution: 6

Rank of Plant Bowen, a Georgia Power coal electricity plant in Cartersville, among national producers of smog-causing sulfur dioxide: 1

Days in 2007 when Atlanta’s air quality was rated “Good” based on Environmental Protection Agency standards: 113

Days in 2000 when Atlanta’s air quality was rated “Good” based on EPA standards: 76

People in Atlanta’s five core counties with asthma or chronic bronchitis: 384,547

Population of metro Atlanta in 2007: 4,029,400

Projected population of metro Atlanta area in 2030: 5,261,534

Sources: American Lung Association, Atlanta Regional Commission, Environmental Integrity Project, Georgia Department of Natural Resources, Environmental Protection Division.

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Cost of one ton of Appalachian coal in 2007: $40

Cost of one ton of Appalachian coal in 2008: $90

Percentage of electricity price increase Georgia Power recently requested from the state Public Services Commission: 3

Number of times Georgia Power has requested rate increases during the past five years: 5

Amount Georgia Power parent company, Southern Co., spent on government lobbying in 2007: $14.5 million

Number of new coal plants planned for Georgia: 2 Amount of energy, in megawatts, the two coal power plants can produce: 2,050

Amount of energy, in megawatts, that one wind turbine among many located off the Georgia coast could generate in clean energy: 160

Sources: Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Augusta Chronicle, Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, Public Service Commission, Georgia Tech Strategic Energy Institute, OpenSecrets.org

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Home foreclosures in United States in March: 234,685

Home foreclosures in Georgia in March: 11,047

Percent increase from February 2008: 44.8

Percent increase from March 2007: 63.2

Number of states with more home foreclosures than Georgia in March: 3

Percentage drop in home sales reported by Atlanta-based homebuilder Ashton Woods in early 2008: 32.1

Number of property liens filed against Atlanta home developer Hedgewood Properties in the first quarter of 2008: 75

Number of liens filed against Hedgewood in 2007: 86

Sources: Atlanta Business Chronicle, U.S. Census Bureau, RealtyTrac.com, 11Alive.com

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Current projected revenue shortfall in Atlanta: $65 million

Amount by which Atlanta exceeded its budget during fiscal year that ended June 2007: $90 million

Amount city overestimated its year-to-year budget surplus since 2003: $241 million

Estimated revenue shortfall city predicts it will face next year: $120 million

Amount of city’s budget shortfall when Mayor Franklin took office in 2002: $82 million

Percent property tax hike imposed in 2002 to cover city’s budget shortfall: 51

Percent by which the city has rolled back property taxes since then: 22

Percent by which all 15 city departments were recently asked to cut their budgets: 25

Sources: Atlanta Journal-Constitution, City of Atlanta Dept. of Finance

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Years since U.S. invasion of Iraq: 5

Total number of U.S. military personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan: 7,284

American troops killed in Iraq: 3,987

American troops from Georgia killed in Iraq: 123

American troops from metro Atlanta killed in Iraq: 36

American troops from Georgia wounded in Iraq: 858

Youngest Georgian killed in Iraq: 19

Oldest Georgian killed in Iraq: 57

Sources: Military Times, Brookings Institution, U.S. Dept. of Defense, National Archives

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Amount Coca-Cola Co. paid former CEO Neville Isdell in 2007: $31.9 million

Amount Coca-Cola paid current CEO Muhtar Kent in 2007: $8.7 million

Average salary of an account manager (sales) at Coca-Cola: $38,327

Amount Home Depot paid former CEO Robert Nardelli in 2006: $13.1 million

Value of Nardelli’s Home Depot severance package: $210 million

People Home Depot laid off from its Vinings headquarters in January: 500

Amount Southern Co. paid CEO David Ratcliffe in 2006: $7.8 million

Annual salary for “utility worker” position advertised on Southern Co.’s website: $24,696

Sources: Atlanta Journal-Constitution, PayScale, Executive PayWatch Database, CFO magazine, Fortune magazine, Athens Banner-Herald, New York Times

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Acres identified as greenspace in 20-county metro area: 170,000

Approximate acreage of DeKalb County: 170,000

Amount of money regional voters have approved for greenspace acquisition since 2003: $2.16 million

Percentage of land in 20-county metro area protected as “greenspace”: 4

Number of acres of trees in metro Atlanta that are lost to development daily: 50

Cost of plot of “greenspace” on DeKalb Avenue area residents want to save from development: $1 million

Price the land was sold for last year: $297,900

Number of condo units planned on the lot: 10

Minimum lot size, in acres, Atlanta Parks and Recreation will purchase: 2

Size, in acres, of the DeKalb Avenue lot: .33

Number of days residents were given to raise that money: 30

Rank of Atlanta, out of 10, for cities with least amount of park space as a percentage of city acreage: 2

Acres of greenspace the Beltline is poised to create: 1,200

Acres of greenspace in Atlanta per 1,000 people: 7.9

Acres of greenspace in Raleigh per 1,000 people: 35.6

Sources: Atlanta Regional Commission, NASA, Trees Atlanta, Beltline, Trust for Public Land, DeKalb County Tax Assessors

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Of the few politicians who write blogs, state Senate President Pro-Tem Eric Johnson does a great job — and I really mean that. Often times the posts legislators write are rambling or appear half-hearted. Sometimes they overuse exclamation points. Johnson writes these bizarrely captivating bullet-point posts about his day and the political process, what it means, and how it works. And believe it or not, they’re actually entertaining. This one yesterday really made me scratch my head, though. I have to wonder if our most recent Add It Up was his muse.

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