You don't want to miss this information session at the Holiday Inn. It may be the last one you get. This academy is authorized by the Georgia State Board of Education. After graduation from high school you can continue your higher education on your I phone. Thanks Georgia State Board of Education. And thank you Georgia Tech for approving a masters on line service for Apple fans. Could someone from the Banner Herald report on how much of our tax money is going to support this wonderful 'corporate' charter school, based in Baltimore, MD? Is it actually tuition free and a "personalized education"? And while you're investigating this corporation in Maryland see if you can determine how much it spent lobbying in Atlanta last year before the big crack down. Does anyone know how to get a list of the stockholder's names?

Note the quote on mpd0.59: "It’s the first budget in recent memory that allowed all legislative spending proposals to remain." Education came up about a billion dollars short and that's just K-12. How did UGA fare? Were legislative spending proposals more important than education? Maybe an article on the legislative proposals would help us appreciate the education cuts. They would also be an indication of the seriousness of those lobbying reforms. There are more furloughs coming. Is our government really as bad as it looks?

Ethics legislation? Now that 'over the table' bribery is capped does anyone want to look under the table? Oh-brother is right. We need campaign reform to the extent of public funded elections. That funding should be so low that radio and TV adds, yard signs and bumper stickers are history. Let the public media do their job, for a change, with honest interviews and debates on issues rather than all the garbage corporate America throws at the ignorant public to buy elections. Let's see which politicians vote for and against this. The business of spending hundreds of millions of dollars on smear campaigns and 'one-liners' during elections is a mockery of democracy. Maybe some progress could actually be made in this country if politicians represented the citizens, but to get there the special interest money has to go. It's time all of Congress accepts the responsibility for the pathetic condition of this country instead of dividing it further by blaming the other party.

Thank you mcdawg.

"The project was pitched to the Southwest Georgia Regional Commission, a government group, by a team of environmental lobbyists, financiers and developers." This is just great. This is the same $$$$ group that over developed, inflated housing values and caused an economic disaster. They made money with no regard for the damage they caused. They were not punished as bribery was re-defined as lobbying by our Supreme Court. Atlanta is already too big. There are too many people everywhere. The urban heat island is a big part of the reason this area has gotten dryer as Atlanta has gotten larger. Watch the radar as the storms approach Atlanta from the Southwest. At least these people are smart enough to know they need to steal water from somewhere to continue over-developing. Now they're going after the secret underground water supply at their own recommendation. It is past time to get all the money out of politics and get rid of the lobbyists. We should have public funded elections with no private money allowed. We need to rid ourselves of appointed commissions and committees that waste money to screw things up. These anonymous puppets remove accountability from the dictators who appoint them. The kind of growth these greed eaters are after makes me wonder if none of them have children.

@ ppensyl: "The politicians are happy to have them at each others throats, it keeps their attention occupied on each other so they can steal us blind.

The two parties are actually in it together, I think they giggle their arses off behind closed doors as they split up the money 50/50."

I couldn't agree with this statement more. It's the most disgusting part of the blown economy and the advent of twitter and facebook. These jerks have not only crippled the country, they have turned families and friends against each other.

"Officials say the Air Force is offering 57 acres of Robins Air Force Base property to Georgia Power Co. for their 2013 advanced solar initiative, which is looking for new solar development opportunities in the state."

What a strange partnership this is. We have the military with huge budget cuts, closing bases all over the country, now giving 57 acres to a corporation whose interest in solar power is most questionable. Then we have the National Park Service giving out grants to private cemeteries to assess conditions and trees. I'm curious about what conditions they are assessing other than trees and more curious about what all the other government agencies are doing that's totally unrelated to their mission.

"Backed by a $12 million TV advertising campaign financed by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, gun control groups scheduled rallies around the country Thursday aimed at pressuring senators to back the effort. President Barack Obama was meeting at the White House with gun violence victims."

I'm sure their intentions are good. Why then does our government give automatic weapons to people they don't know to kill people they don't know?

"Aided by the U.S., Mideast powers unfriendly to Assad have dramatically — and covertly — increased weapons shipments to the Syrian opposition."

People here get in trouble with bb guns, but we can send fully automatic weapons all over the ****world. We can't have any of those but we the taxpayers have to pay trillions of dollars for our government to arm entire countries and hope that they like us better later.

An issue I have heard little about is the availability of ammunition for what few guns law abiding citizens may have. I couldn't buy ammunition for a squirrel gun last week. 12 Ga. buckshot was sold as high velocity low-recoil in which both the powder and shot were cut 1/3rd of what was sold five years ago to kill game. What's with that? I'm not against background checks and limited magazine capacity as long as the same rules apply to those in the government that we pay to protect us. Well they don't.

The Dept. of Homeland Security recently released thousands of illegal immigrants due to not being able to afford incarceration, yet our government spends approximately 1 billion dollars a year housing marijuana smokers. That's only 46,000 Americans in state and federal prisons, not including city and county jails. How much is spent nationally on law enforcement, courts and lawyers to hopefully lock up all of these drug criminals? How much US currency goes to Mexican drug cartels just for pot? Anyone want to guess on how many pot dealers there are in this country that aren't in jail and don't pay tax on their income? How much money could the government save if marijuana were legalized, state controlled and taxed? There are more zeroes in that number than my calculator can handle. There are certainly more zeroes in it than our brilliant leaders can handle. That's the financial part of the problem.

Morally, how can we justify criminalizing such a large percentage of our population with an ill informed policy, the majority of our population feels is wrong? This country is running out of freedoms to protect.

"More importantly, the water saved could meet the demands of Atlanta’s population growth for years without having to take from rivers south Georgia cities depend on."

What Georgia needs, particularly Atlanta is NO growth. The population is out of control everywhere, which is why there's a water shortage. Let's set an example for the world. What has happened since "Growth" became a political buzzword? The economy is busted, crime is up, poverty is up, starvation is up, pollution is up, disease is up, health care is down, quality of life is down, except for those very few pushing for more growth.

Too many people still watching Elmer Fudd chase Bugs Bunny.

@MyraBlackmon:

"If we put the energy into actually improving education that they put into vouchers, for-profit charter schools and other schemes, our schools would be universally good."

The governor appoints the state board of education. He can make whatever changes he wants to improve public education. To destroy it or cripple it makes no sense at all when the new plan is highly questionable. We do not need more class warfare, chaos and a new form of segregation. The motive for these new education laws is not good.

The officials were either blind or made some extra money. They should be suspended if not terminated. Georgia won that game. I turned the TV off after 30 seconds of overtime.

@ponsoldt:

Thank you.

From the Telegraph of Macon: "Although investigators originally said she was killed Wednesday evening, they have pinpointed the shooting to between 1:30 p.m. and 2 p.m. Wednesday, after the couple returned from visiting 'HER' daughter in an Atlanta area hospital, Mitchum said. She was pronounced dead about 10:30 a.m. Thursday." The daughter was not 'THEIR' daughter. Doesn't make a lot of difference, unless details are important. Pretty sloppy copy.

Before ACC tried to turn the Stiles parking places into part of the "Downtown Parking Authority" there was no problem. Now the few remaining businesses in that area are suffering from the parking problem. Is the city liable for all the businesses that have closed due to their interference in the situation. Five Points isn't "Downtown". Could there possibly be some ill feelings amongst this group over this dispute? Could that be a conflict of interest?

"In order to coordinate the schedules of the two airlines, they'll need antitrust approval from U.S. and European regulators." Why would airlines who already gouge the working class 400% more for travel over Christmas need further regulation?

"...$57,900 for a program that helps identify opportunities for crash prevention;"

Are there any tailgaters out there who would like this consulting job?

@ autumnlark:

"...and the teachers could only be hired if they have at least a B.A. or B.S. in the subject they teach as well as at least an M.AT or an M.Ed. from research universities."

Thank you. It has been my opinion that this is the best way to improve public schools for over 30 years. I have two degrees in education and taught students from the School of Education for 30 years. The School of Education emphasizes how to teach rather than what to teach. They do this on an undergraduate level with their students as if teaching is a subject. The University of Georgia would greatly improve education in public schools if the School of Education only offered masters degrees and certification to students with a degree in a subject they will teach.

"The special charter schools get a slice of the state budget for schools, but don’t get state money." Last word was that they would be funded only with state money not local money. Does the nut know where the tree is? Does state money come from outer space? The governor already controls the State Board of Education which can change public school curriculum. The State Board can also change requirements for teacher certification. This law would allow for another level of bureaucracy to overturn what the Governor is already in charge of. What kind of less government is that? It is time for some improvement in public education and charter schools aren't it. How many people on the state board of education are former school teachers?

Not mentioned was a Vince Dooley scholarship in the Department of Art, a good number of years before the department became a school.

@Libralady: "Well, we can't keep going down the road we're going. The public school system for the most part is awful!" @Athens HiFi

I agree there could be some major improvements, however the system to improve it already exists with the State Board of Education that has the power and influence to change educational curricula in public schools and also higher education that prepares and certifies public school teachers. This State Board of Education is appointed by Governor Deal. Deal acts like public education is a lost cause and it's necessary to start all over again with schools that are run by corporations rather than teachers. Fix the system that's in place. Having two degrees in education and working with education majors at the U of G for thirty years, I believe all of those students would have been better prepared to teach with more work in their subject area and less work in classes on how to teach.
Education is not a subject.

“It ignores the value of the resource, the land itself,” Adams said. “For me, that has always been more of a land issue.”

The area of Legion pool sits might one day become green space surrounded by student housing, the UGA president said.

Adams did announce another big construction project slated for land near Legion Pool.

@ Decatur Joe: How does one become a member of the State Board of Education that can overrule Governor Deal's appointed commission? If there are improvements to be made in public education it is the responsibility of the State Board of Education to initiate them or to make them. It is the Governor's and the Board's own system they are criticizing. Fix that. The single one thing that would help education the most is to have teachers that know more about their subject and less about how someone else thinks they should teach.

"With all those netbooks, plus the iPads, smartphones and other devices many students already have, he envisions a time when every student in a class will have access to one of the devices." “I’m going to be pretty hard-nosed about it. It’s not an option. This is how we’re going to do business; get on the train,” he said.

I like politicians with an open mind. When's the next election?