Fresh Loaf

Not exactly a blog, but it deserves a shout out. Staffers at UGA’s student-run newspaper the Red and Black worked overtime to provide coverage of Saturday’s shootings. Read their follow-ups here, here and here.

Ben at Terminal Station rips into state Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine’s idea to consider privatizing MARTA.

Jim Walls of Atlanta Unfiltered uses the words “Tyler Perry,” “Tupac Shakur,” and “comp time” all in the same blog post as he delves deeper into the firing of former DeKalb Police Chief Terrell Bolton.

Christa at Pecanne Log spots the hottest trend in spring fashions during historic economic collapses! Recycled ethernet cables! Yay!

Garrett Vonk fires back at Twitta-hatas.

Jason Pye, who says he’s never taken a puff, says decriminalizing marijuana should be on the table. Also: Legalizing marijuana is now more popular than the Republican Party.

Veteran TV journalist and Live Apartment Fire blogger Doug Richards today will pull the tarp off the magical news van to pull a one-day shift in the 11 Alive newsroom. Here’s exclusive video of him training for the adventure.

Travis Fain at Lucid Idiocy wonders if lawmakers have already been forgiven for failing to make progress on transportation funding this year.

Decatur Metro. Leon’s Full Service. And late-night drunken bocce. Discuss.

FlackAttack bids adieu at Tondee’s Tavern.

Other exciting links feel free to post them in the comments.

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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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Christa at Pecanne Log says I say someone else says Bill Murray is loose in Atlanta. One night he’s at Loca Luna buying drinks for strangers. Another night he’s watching the Hawks play the Cleveland Cavaliers. Supposedly, he’s filming this flick. I’m still waiting for him to get a pedicure with me.

Buzz Brockway at Peach Pundit says the site’s bloggers won’t retaliate against state lawmakers who voted for Senate Bill 31, a controversial piece of legislation they adamantly opposed. The complex bill would allow Georgia Power to recover financing costs in advance for two proposed nuclear reactors at Plant Vogtle. The Punditeers got into a tiff with the Georgia Public Policy Foundation, a free-market think tank, about the issue. No hard feelings, the bloggers say, but they’d still like a clear explanation of the foundation’s stance on the issue. (Just one more: Jason Shepard at the site finds Georgia’s facebook page shows an unexpected “friend.”

Remember #atlgas? Grift links to a Nightline report in which the Twitter hashtag that saved Atlanta’s ass is mentioned.

Decatur’s wi-fi cloud is “complete,” Decatur Metro reports.

Jim Galloway at the AJC’s Political Insider sneaks a peek at preliminary numbers which show Georgia’s rush of newcomers — aka the growth industry, the state’s bread and butter — might be slowing. He writes a powerful post about the subject.

Want solid political commentary recorded here in Atlanta? The new Kudzu Vine podcast is posted and available for download.

Doug at Live Apartment Fire points us to a recent piece by Tom Jones, the WSB-TV reporter who won’t work for nobody but you. Jones covered the search for a man who’s allegedly been flashing children in the Grant Park area. The suspect’s ripped a page from afterschool specials and is offering candy to the tykes.

Travis Fain wants the old Speaker Glenn Richardson back. I second that.

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Juliana at Blog For Democracy points out that U.S. Rep. Tom Price, R-Springfield, need not kvetch that the stimulus plan includes $30 million to save some mice. After his theatrics, which included waving around what looks like a cat toy, it turns out the stimulus, in fact, does not earmark money for the rodents.

Decaturite wonders how blogs can be robust tools to connect communities as newspapers continue to dwindle in size and shape.

Sara agrees that “video lottery terminals” are not what a casino make. Griftdrift brings the thunder on the issue and wins 10 points for best blog post title of the day. Two points for great art, too.

Atlanta Business Chronicle columnist and blogger Maria Saporta says not to believe the Georgia Department of Transportation and Amtrak’s assertion that much-needed commuter rail running into a still-unbuilt downtown train terminal doesn’t have to run along tracks for the Beltline near Piedmont Park.

Ben at Terminal Station has a bunch of good posts. Most recent: He’s not too upbeat about the fact that Atlanta City Councilmember Mary Norwood leads in a poll for the next mayor.

A giant bowl of strawberries in your bathroom. Style, indeed!

Jim Galloway posts a moving account of Freddie Norman, a Cobb County police whose patrol car was struck by a drunk driver 21 years ago. Norman, who was left nearly comatose from the accident, died this weekend.

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Back by popular demand!

• Pecanne Log’s Christa, who’s been on fire the last few weeks, documents the mysterious senior citizen daredevils who putter around the city on what seem to be Segways — with seats! What are these baffling people movers and where can I purchase one?

• The deadline for the Urban Land Institute’s Urban Design competition was last week. Ben at Terminal Station was part of a Georgia Tech team that submitted a redevelopment vision for Denver. I had the opportunity to review his group’s proposal — a multi-phase smart-growth model — and it’s awesome. He’s posted photos and info about his team’s submission.

• Grift continues his hilarious live-blogging series of Georgia Public Broadcasting’s Lawmakers, the daily rundown of state Legislature news. So far we’ve seen talk of taxes, Sunday booze, Minoo! and transportation. Pretty soon, they’ll get to the boll weevil. Fingers crossed, folks.

• ATLMalcontent points us to a video about Elwin Wilson, a South Carolina man who in 1961 attacked a young Civil Rights activist — and future U.S. Representative — named John Lewis. Wilson, beset with remorse over the incident, recently visited Lewis’ office in Washington, D.C. to apologize. According to the Associated Press, Lewis “offered forgiveness without hesitation.”

• Leon’s Full Service, a new Decatur pub from the same owners who brought you the Brick Store, pours its first brew today at 5 p.m. Decatur Metro has the details, including a blow-by-blow account of the eBay auction for that first beer that’s raised more than $2,500 for employees of Trackside and 5th Earl.

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While I was up in Washington, D.C. and New York City on a fact-finding mission, it looks like y’all had a helluva time. Mayor Shirley Franklin asked the feds for a life preserver, the Georgia Department of Transportation decided years-old e-mails of a lascivious nature weren’t grounds for dismissal (use Gchat, Gena!), Buckhead was — gasp — called overdeveloped, and the DeKalb County Courthouse was visited by Peter, Ray and Egon. Oh yeah, and some guy who lost a presidential election visited. And there was also this news.

Sure, all I have to show for my hedonistic jaunt are a lot of blisters and FedEx receipts because I shipped all my books, DVDs and tiger-taming gear from my old NYC apartment to Decatur. But it’s good to be back. I’m eager to get back into covering the U.S. Senate and Public Service Commission races and all the other sordid beats. And finally getting the pedicure that I, being the “prominent journalist” that I am, promised a lucky lady. Viva Atlanta! Viva Creative Loafing! Viva chaos!

How was your week, Atlanta?

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A report created for the U.S. Conference of Mayors shows that Atlanta’s GMP (Gross Metropolitan Product) will decline 0.6 points to 3% (a loss of $954 million) thanks to the current correction taking place in the real estate market.

– Decatur Metro on the drag real-estate and mortgage markets are having on the local economy

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This is a good AJC article showing Doraville as more than a good-ole-boy haven and immigrant wasteland, which is how we’re usually depicted.

– BubbaRich at Dora-Blog on an AJC story about new Doraville Councilman Brian Bates, the state’s first openly gay Republican elected official

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Five skinny women tell you how to stay thin during the holidays. If they’re skinny, they must have all the secrets, right? Not just skinny parents.

– Christa T at pecanne log is less than pleased about an obnoxious feature on AJC.com about staying skinny during the holidays.

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