Atlanta blogs today August 21 2008

 — Over at Lucid Idiocy, Travis is amused that state school superintendent Kathy Cox has agreed to appear on a game show called “Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader?” Let’s hope she does better than Georgia’s students just did on their standardized tests.

— The Daly Briefing checks in from Iraq, where it’s 110 degrees in the shade, the weather forecasts include sand storms and the new commanding officer wants everyone to work longer hours. And so it goes.

— The state faces a massive budget shortfall and Gov. Sonny Purdue froze $428 million earmarked for local governments. Atlanta Public Affairs notes that Purdue essentially just raised everyone’s taxes without telling them since local governments will either have to raise property taxes or slash their own budgets to cover the decrease in state funds.

— We’ve missed our “Morning Wooten,” but DriftGrift delivers a tale from his college days when a philosophy professor put the smackdown on a freshman college student who was unwilling to challenge her religious views.

— Duane Moody is all ga-ga over a new singer named Lady GaGa. And he also throws in his two cents worth at a record executive he ran into who thinks downloading music is evil. Well, of course he does. The Internet, coupled with record company greed and stupidity, has killed the big record labels.

— And finally, love = rings and Maigh just received one and she’s so happy that a trip to Sweetwater State Park seemed almost magical.