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Scroggins Crosswired Local News Breaking News Almost as Weird as Reality |
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Scroggins Crosswired Local News Breaking News Almost as Weird as Reality |
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ATLANTA - Consumers looking to the Legislature to supply them with relief from ever-rising natural gas bills will probably be disappointed.
"There's not a whole lot we can do in the short term," said Rep. Robert Reichert, D-Macon. “Sure, we generate a lot gas here in Atlanta, but it’s not the kind of gas that could help prices by increasing supply.”
Nevertheless, thousands of consumers have besieged the Legislature for relief, blaming the high prices on the deregulation of natural gas, which the Legislature unanimously approved in 1997. "The problem," said House Majority Leader Larry Walker of Perry, “is that we can’t find any credible way to blame this fiasco on someone else." Walker said that he has no solution but favors looking into what could be done to find a Republican scapegoat.
There appears to be little sympathy among legislators to re-regulate natural gas sales, at least for now. That attitude, of course, could change if consumers continue to bombard the Legislature with complaints. “This ain’t an election year, we got other priorities like getting parks built in our home towns,” said one unnamed state legislator.
Reichert said the Bibb County delegation is hoping to capitalize on the recent rash of sewerage spills. “If we have so much stinky stuff in Bibb County, there ought to be a way to convert that stuff to usable gas energy,” Reichert said.
The Macon Water Authority is alerting Bibb County residents of another major sewerage overflow to prevent the assumption that it’s another city council meeting or “that dang paper mill.” The latest spill occurred near Mercer University Boulevard and contaminated an unnamed creek leading to Rocky Creek according to an e-mail notice to the media. The water authority's new policy is to protect public health by contacting local media anytime an overflow enters a waterway, especially unnamed creeks. In some cases, the news reports reach residents before the stench.
Authorities are concerned uninformed residents could be exposed to diseases such as hepatitis A or E.coli or its milder cousin, E. grisamore. “E. grisamore contamination could be prevented if residents would refrain from flushing copies of The Macon Telegraph or wrapping their food in it,” said water authority spokesman Al Abammah. Authority crews responded to the spill site after a resident noticed the overflow Saturday while hiking through the woods.
“I thought I had stumbled onto another City Council picnic when the stench hit me,” said area resident Bubba Brogan. “But then I saw there was no smoke or fire nearby and ruled out a City Council picnic. That’s when I called the water authority,” Brogan said.
Crews couldn't get heavy equipment back to the area because of the heavy brush and had to shovel and rake out the sewage instead, said Frank Sanders, the authority's field operations director. "Everything had to be done by hand," Sanders said. “Believe me, everyone cleaned out the dirt from under their fingernails after this detail. I made $50 by selling my extra pair of gloves to one dude who forgot his. Everyone earned his pay today,” Sanders said.
HONOLULU - Two civilian guests were seated at controls of the USS Greeneville when the submarine surfaced and sank a Japanese fishing vessel off the Hawaiian coast, a Navy spokesman said. "There were two civilians at two separate watch stations under the very close supervision of a qualified watch stander," said Lt. Cmdr. Conrad Chun, a Pacific Fleet spokesman. He declined to identify which stations were involved, but said they could include the helm, sonar or the ballast control.
The Navy has refused to identify who was aboard, but Chun said the 16 civilians included local business leaders.
A defense official in Washington said one of the civilians was at the helm. However, there is no indication the civilian played any role in Friday's collision, said the official, who is familiar with the investigation and spoke only on condition of anonymity. “To give you a local analogy, there are fifteen civilian clowns at the helm of Macon City government, 16 counting the Mayor, and no one is making a big deal of it. They could surface at any time and cripple or sink the area's economy. Without a qualified person to supervise, that’s a hazardous situation indeed,” the official said.
February 15, 2001
Sheriff Jerry Modena proposed to the Bibb County Commission that it consider downsizing Bibb employees so that they could fit in smaller more economical vehicles. A discussion on diet programs was tabled for a future meeting.
“We don’t need to buy those stretch limos, six-door Suburbans and humvees any more, but we don’t need to go to the other extreme either and buy Yugo’s as Mayor Ellis has suggested for a city safety measure,” Modena said.
As a safety measure last September , Mayor C. Jack Ellis proposed that the city purchase Daisy air pistols to replace Glock handguns and Yugo compact cars to replace conventional police vehicles. The rationale, of course, was that a Yugo’s top-end speed of 25mph would prevent dangerous high-speed collisions.
Modena added that if the County goes to smaller vehicles and the diet programs aren’t effective, some larger employees may have to hang off the back of vehicles like fire-fighters. Macon-Bibb fire chief Jimmy Hartley, when asked for comment, suggested that “if it’s good enough for fire-fighters, it’s good enough for county bureaucrats.”
Commission Chairman Tommy Olmstead seized the idea enthusiastically. “If Chief Hartley will let us borrow some turnout coats and fireman’s helmets, it’ll be easier to get some department heads to play along…so to speak.”
Hartley stated that the department keeps a supply of red plastic fire helmets for the annual Fire Prevention week in schools. “They can have those, but they’ll need to buy their own rubber bands to hold the hats on their heads,” Hartley said.
ATLANTA - A bill to require a referendum in 2002 on whether to give the Bibb County Board of Education the power to set its own tax rate awaits the governor's signature. The measure was effectively adopted by the General Assembly when the Bibb House delegation agreed to the Senate's version of the measure, said Reps. David Graves, R-Macon, and Robert Reichert, D-Macon.
The County Commission now determines the tax rate for the school board and is the only county in the state to do so.
The move for independence from the County Commission gained momentum last summer when the county approved a school budget $4.1 million lower than the school board's request. The shortfall resulted in the board eliminating jobs for about 50 paraprofessionals, 50 sort-of professionals and 50 almost-professionals - aides who helped with instruction, testing, lunch and bus duty. Thousands turned out to heckle the Bibb commission last June.
The last attempt for the school board to gain taxing power was defeated in a 1993 referendum, in which only about 15,000 people voted. Advocates on both sides of the issue are gearing up for the campaign to pass or defeat the referendum. Opponents are printing bumpers stickers with a photo of the school board and the question, “Would you buy a used car from these people?” Supporters of school board independence are printing the same sticker only with a photo of the county commission. The campaign promises to be brutal but begs the question: Does anyone in Bibb County care enough to vote on it?
February 14, 2001
A vote for stiffer taxi regulations choked Monday in a Macon City Council committee as officials debated whether the cabs should be smoke-free and odor-free.
The Public Safety Committee temporarily shelved Mayor Jack Ellis' taxi ordinance until the entire council can meet in a food-fight session to offer amendments to the six-page proposal.
Committee Chairman Charles Dudley said he strongly disagrees with a provision that would ban smoking inside the taxis. "After conferring with former Bibb Commission Chairman Larry Justice, I think we should construct smoking booths in the taxis," said Dudley, an employee of Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp. "If you take away a cab-driver’s cigars and coffee, we’re going to have a riot on our hands. We could buy old used police cars with the glass partitions that would protect passengers from various odors and smoke." Dudley said the smoking and odor issue should be worked out between the driver and passenger and not city officials.
Other committee members rejected that logic, saying that the council has a long tradition of involvement in smelly issues and smokescreens. Council members Elaine Lucas and Charles Jones want to include provisions to address smoking, bad breath, body odors, body fluids and squawky radios. Councilman Charles Jones, offered one possible solution. "If cab drivers are willing to bust out all four side windows, that would help with enclosed smoke and odor situation, but that would not address the blood, vomit, and other unspeakable body fluid issues," Jones said.
February 13, 2001
Former President Clinton has abandoned plans for an expensive office suite in a tower high above midtown Manhattan and hopes instead to locate in renovated space near the historic Apollo Theater in Harlem, Clinton aides said. They unequivocally denied that the move was related to quotes attributed to Clinton that "Harlem chicks wear shorter skirts."
The planned move to a storied African-American neighborhood and cultural hub, whose decades-long decline into crime and poverty eventually made it synonymous with urban blight, is designed to enable the former president to slither out of one of several controversies that have shadowed him since leaving office Jan. 20.
"Given that the Clinton presidency was X-rated and that his Presidential Library will be, too, we’re glad to hear that his office will be in Harlem. At least there, very few people will see it except for residents and others foolish enough to venture into that war-zone,” said Justin Case, a longtime Clinton critic. “Besides, the Harlem reputation for crime and sleaze is a perfect fit for Mr. Clinton. We recommend that he put the cheap hubcaps on his limo, even if it will be in a guarded parking garage.”
February 12, 2001
LAUREL, Md. - With a thud that no one could hear and perhaps a huge bounce, a nearly out-of-gas NASA space probe slowly crashed into an asteroid Monday - and lived to tell about it.
The $117 million spacecraft, called NEAR-Shoemaker, was designed to circle the 21-mile long, shoe-shaped space rock named 433 Eros and photograph it, but not to land on it. The feat, accomplished by scientists at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory at the end of NEAR-Shoemaker's mission, made it the first human-made piece of gear to touch down on an asteroid.
While Johns Hopkins scientists insisted it was more a "soft-landing" than a crash, the word "crash" got immediate attention from some earth-dwelling organisms.
Attorney Ken Nugent immediately began transmitting radio and television commercials to asteroid 433 Eros announcing that he would help any asteroid resident recover money damages if they were injured in any way by the craft’s landing. “Clearly, there’s a case of negligence here,” Nugent said, “and if anybody’s hurt I want to help them squeeze some bucks out of NASA and Johns Hopkins.”
Joining the list of interplanetary ambulance-chasers were a number of prominent Georgia attorneys. As of press time, none had published their own ads promoting their inter-planetary tort practices.
Disclaimer: The accounts, quotes and stories on this page are wholly fictitious and intended as satire and humor. Although real names may be used and all good humor has an element of truth, this stuff ain't real. If you didn't already know these stories were bogus, then you're not too bright. --Steve Scroggins
Write Your Own Macon News Story
These parodies are frequently featured on the NewsTalk940 WMAC morning show with Kenny B & Jami G.
To read the "real" news that inspires these stories, read The Macon Telegraph online.
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