Fresh Loaf

Jason at Peach Pundit hammers House Bill 614, legislation that he says would violate your privacy.

Maria Saporta says the state needs to stop plotting takeovers of MARTA and Jackson-Hartsfield International Airport.

Ben at Terminal Station has a rundown of Saporta’s report on an Urban Land Institute mayoral candidate forum.

Doug at Live Apartment Fire spotlights veteran reporter Don McClellan. The still-at-it newsman reported on — and ran in — this weekend’s ING Marathon.

Speaking of the ING Marathon, Dave at inDecatur has video and photos from the race.

Good news for Georgia’s reputation and any hope of having a biotech industry here. Jim Galloway reports that a House committee chairman says the controversial stem-cell bill won’t move out of the lower chamber.

The Atlanta Business Chronicle’s Urvaksh Karkaria reports on a top-secret meeting of tomorrow’s media overlords at Kennesaw State University professor Leonard Witt’s home. There are photos!

I can’t believe it’s taken me so long to post this. Christa, the mysterious scribe behind Pecanne Log, found a 1967 issue of GQ that’s all about Atlanta. She has photos and pullquotes.

And just because, a helping of Griftdrift’s My Morning Wooten from Friday.

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Last week, the Georgia Senate passed Senate Bill 169, legislation that would outlaw embryonic stem-cell research in the state. In the op-ed below, state Sens. Doug Stoner, D-Smyrna, and Tim Golden, D-Valdosta, call the bill a knee-jerk reaction to President Barack Obama’s initiatives and say it sends the wrong message to the scientific community and people living with diseases stem-cell research could one day help cure.

More than 5 million Americans suffer from Alzheimer’s disease. Another 1.5 million are Parkinson’s disease patients. Hundreds of thousands more are living with the results of spinal cord injury or disease, with that number growing by 30 newly injured people each day.

But their problems, and those of their loved ones, are not the concern of the Republican members of the Georgia State Senate – not a single one. With haste rarely seen at the State Capitol, Senate Republicans rushed last week to introduce and put their stamp of approval on legislation designed to ensure that medical research that could lead to effective treatments or even a cure for Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, spinal injuries and many other diseases will not take place in the state of Georgia.

The legislation, SB 169, would outlaw embryonic stem cell research in our state. SB 169 passed the Senate in a strict party-line vote, despite testimony in opposition from the medical, scientific and academic communities.

Without a doubt, this legislation is a knee-jerk reaction to President Barack Obama’s lifting of the ban on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research a few days earlier. Also without a doubt, the proposal was aimed at appeasing a powerful special interest group whose support is considered vital to Republican electoral success.

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BUDGET BUDDIES Richardson and Perdue at this morning's legislative breakfast.

Tuesday morning, Gov. Sonny Perdue, Lieutenant Governor Casey Cagle and state House Speaker Glenn Richardson, speaking before a banquet room filled with business heavies, lobbyists and fellow lawmakers, outlined their legislative agendas for the session at the Georgia Chamber of Commerce’s annual “Eggs and Issues” breakfast at the Georgia World Congress Center.

There, over plates of eggs, sausage, and some hashbrown-stuffed tomato concoction, the elected officials said that, even with the state nearly $2 billion in the red, progress would take place.

After the jump, what Perdue, Cagle and Richardson said, in fancy bulletpoint style, about the upcoming legislative session.

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