EdCone.com

RALEIGH, Sept 21 -- North Carolina legislators rushed back to the state capitol today for an emergency session after learning that male squid are, like, tentacling each other with alarming gayness in the briny deep.

"This natural behavior is unnatural," said House Majority Leader Paul Stam, R-Wake.

Speaker Pro Tem Dale Folwell, R-Forsyth, wants to add a ban on calamari to the anti-gay-marriage amendment on the ballot in May.

Reached for comment in Bikini Bottom, celebrity cephalopod Squidward responded, simply, "Eat me."

UPDATE: City press release says, "Greensboro City Council’s public hearing on a proposal to award a contract to Gate City Waste Services for the City’s municipal solid waste services, originally scheduled for tonight’s meeting (agenda item No. 10), has been cancelled. The City received a letter from Gate City Waste Services representatives earlier today requesting that the company’s bid for managing the City’s municipal solid waste, including White Street Landfill, be terminated."

end update

From a letter to Bill Knight from D.H. Griffin, Sr:

I am writing on behalf of Gate City Waste Services (Gate City) to respectfully request that our bid for the referenced services at White Street Landfill be terminated. As a lifelong resident and businessman in this community I had sincerely hoped to do something positive for the White Street Landfill neighborhoods, and the people of Greensboro. Those actions no longer appear possible.

In retrospect it is clear that a very painful process has taken place; one that has affected many of my fellow citizens...Given the litigation and associated activities surrounding the recent RFP process it is clear that we have no other palatable option

Rashad Young writes to the Mayor and Council: "Tom [Pollard] and I will confer as to how this impacts tonights (sic) agenda and get back with you. I suspect it renders the necessity for a public hearing null."

Horrible jobs: These folks sweat it out in an Amazon warehouse, these guys watched Ashton Kutcher on 2.5 Men and the roast of Charlie Sheen.

Old guys say racing used to be better, are correct.

In retrospect, it seems that NASCAR died with Ironhead.

Previously: Junior Johnson, amateur physicist and Obamaphile.

"When politicians or celebrities raise alarms about vaccines, even false alarms, vaccination rates drop."

This reminded me that I had meant to post this:

Imagine for a minute that, instead of discovering a diamond planet, we’d made a breakthrough in global temperature projections...

...Instead of sitting back and basking in the glory, I suspect we’d find a lot of commentators, many with no scientific qualifications, pouring scorn on our findings.

A couple of thoughts on this letter to the N&R from my friend David Grimes.

One, governments have been shedding jobs. That may be a budgetary necessity, but it's also part of the grim unemployment picture.

Also, mentioning your summer in Aspen in a letter calling for other people to be fired is not a great way to build support for your position.

Tomorrow night's City Council agenda includes a "Public Hearing to receive public comment on the following: Proposal to award a contract to Gate City Waste Services, LLC to perform push and pack solid waste disposal operations in Phase III of the White Street Landfill and potentially construction and debris disposal in Phase II."

But there won't be an actual contract upon which to comment.

Deputy City Manager Bob Morgan says, "There will be no contract for consideration tomorrow night. The State statute does not require it. We have the RFP and the  proposal from Gate City. The contract will be ready by the second reading.

"Tom Pollard indicated that this is the process they used in Wilmington and he is comfortable with this process."

Makes about as much sense as anything else in this circus.

RK reports on Saturday's showing of Gasland:

Packed house at Kathleen Clay Edwards branch! I counted 7 rows of 10 chairs, all full, with several extra chairs brought in for latecomers. Steve Sumerford had invited someone from Piedmont Natural Gas to speak in rebuttal, but they just sent a recommendation--which was announced--that everyone see a video, "Debunking Gasland," which I assume is by the Energy-in-Depth crowd who did the lengthy textual attack by the same title.

The crowd was very positive to the film--no pro-frackers spoke out, if any were there.

[A]n orderly euro exit will be hard. But watching the slow disorderly implosion of the Greek economy and society will be much worse.

Nice, clean headline on Roubini's column, too: "Greece should default and abandon the euro."

Netflix says, Sorry for the abrupt price hike, let us make it up to you by dis-integrating our streaming and DVD services in ways you will hate.

Credit Reed Hastings for trying to keep up with user comments, but his responses are not encouraging:

Kenneth Kufluk · San Francisco, California

If a film I search for on Netflix is not available for streaming, will the website still tell me if the DVD is available?

Or must I search twice?

Reed Hastings · Top Commenter · Netflix

ouch. You'd have to search the second place if we didn't have it in the first place.

Thanks to Fred for the pointer.

Syracuse and Pitt reportedly applying to join ACC.

The college sports industry is undermining my interest in college sports.

Not a lot in this week's report from the Manager, unless I'm missing something, which is entirely possible.

Judge denies Gate City request for injunction, Vaughan can vote.

Arguments started around 9:30 this morning in the Guilford County courthouse, wrapped up around 11; Judge Ronald Spivey spent about an hour considering what he'd heard and seen, said the declaratory judgment act -- the legal vehicle used by Gate City -- wasn't applicable under these cicrumstances, and, even if applicable, in this instance case law would not support recusal.

Pollard said Gate City was trying to dictate the outcome of the vote.

No discussion of Matheny.

Nancy Vaughan: "The city prevailed."

The debt crisis has one silver lining: Falling prices for vacation homes in Greece, Spain, Portugal and even Italy.

When the revolution comes, this article about awesome bargains on luxury real estate may be remembered as the spark.

Even the simplest of concepts—how much capital a bank has—is a number based on countless calculations that, let’s face it, are not much better than guesswork.

If you can't dazzle them with brilliance...

To be fair, banks do file mountain ranges of disclosure documents...

...Day after day, they push out news releases that run to dozens of pages. They prepare reams of special presentations for investors, the most recent of which from Wells ran to 51 pages, on top of a 41-page news release. The SEC filing from the quarter was 162 pages.

The numbers and presentation differ slightly in all of them and often differ from other banks’ presentations...No professional admits this publicly, but many investors and analysts privately acknowledge that they can’t fully track the data gushing each quarter from the nation’s banks.

I wonder how much of the Netflix backlash is due to the way it hiked its prices, rather than the actual current cost of the service.

It's still cheap compared to premium cable or going out to the movies or renting DVDs from a video store, if you can find one. And now they're having a sale on the stock, too!

From the SCSJ's motion to intervene in the Gate City suit: "Proposed Defendant-Intervenors contend that recusal is inappropriate and that Councilwoman Nancy Vaughan must vote on a proposed contract put forward by Plaintiff to operate Phase III of the White Street Landfill."

Rhino sez:

The reason the city is where it is as far as using the White Street Landfill for the disposal of Greensboro's garbage is because the opponents of using the landfill filed a successful lawsuit in May blocking the planned use because the city had not complied with state law on opening Phase IV and Phase V.

Should read:

The reason the city is where it is as far as using the White Street Landfill for the disposal of Greensboro's garbage is because the city had not complied with state law on opening Phase IV and Phase V, leading opponents of using the landfill to file a successful lawsuit in May blocking the planned use.

The FBI is teaching its counterterrorism agents that “main stream” [sic] American Muslims are likely to be terrorist sympathizers; that the Prophet Mohammed was a “cult leader”; and that the Islamic practice of giving charity is no more than a “funding mechanism for combat.”

If the goal of terrorism is to scare us into abandoning our values and common sense, it seems to be working pretty well.

The real scandal is what's legal: Not saying rogue traders aren't bad for business, but they're hardly the biggest danger in the modern banking system.

I invoked this old commercial during a coffee break at a recent meeting, but nobody else knew what I was talking about.

When I am drooling into my gruel and no longer remember my children's names, I will still know my '70s television.

And all the words to Rapper's Delight.

Previously: Hooray for Valleydale.

UPDATE: Review says, "when he exhibited his third 'Woman' series, the paintings were so outrageous that the art world had to pay attention." end update

Nice to have GSO's own Weatherspoon museum represented in MoMA's big de Kooning show, which features the famous "Woman" painting usually on display at the corner of Tate and Spring Garden.

More here and here.

Photo at left from the Weatherspoon site.

Friday, a weathered idealist at 91, laments the control universities have ceded in pursuit of this money.

Part of the much-talked-about Atlantic article on the rotten business of college sports takes place in Chapel Hill.

Justin Catanoso, via FB, says he's leaving the BizJournal to become director of the journalism program at Wake Forest.

Good for Wake Forest, bad for the BJ.

SCSJ will file a motion to intervene as co-defendant in Gate City's lawsuit, says attorney Chris Brook, on behalf of landfill neighbors, CEEJ, and the League of Women Voters, to defend the position that Vaughan has not just the right but a duty to vote.

A showing of Gasland, 2 PM on Saturday, 9/17, at the Kathleen Clay Edwards Family branch library, 1420 Price Park Rd., GSO, with discussion to follow.

Back during the endless debate over the healthcare bill, I said a few times that any plan that didn't include everyone in some way was broken from the start, since uninsured people would continue to tax the system by showing up in the ER, and that anyway there was no constituency for just letting uninsured people die.

Turns out I was wrong about that last part.

What Zack Matheny told the coup planners:

I did make a comment that I find it very difficult to consider voting on whether or not someone else should have the right to vote, and thus overruling the Attorney for the City of Greensboro, who has been a municipal attorney for around 30 years, no matter what the topic covers, much less one I have a conflict with.

More here:

After a break earlier in the meeting, six members of council reconvened without Thompson, Rakestraw and District 5 Councilwoman Trudy Wade. Rhinoceros Times Editor John Hammer was also outside of chambers...

... Thompson, Rakestraw and Wade rejoined the meeting, looking stone-faced.

Marriage between one man and one woman is the only domestic legal union that shall be valid or recognized in this State.

North Carolinians will be voting not just to ban gay marriage, but civil unions as well.

Also: "[T]he full impact of the amendment is unknown...it might interfere with the rights of unmarried heterosexual couples and invalidate domestic violence laws."

Bad law, badly written.

The Vernon Robinson congressional campaign campaign will host a Machine Gun Social, Monday 9/26 at Eagle Guns in Concord. Steve Arnold is Robinson's campaign director.

Vernon's website says he has actually moved to the district in which he's running this time.

Update 9:21 PM: Didn't happen.

I hear Zack told the mini-majority he wouldn't support the coup.

On to the lawsuit!

End update

In light of the drastic measures requested, the apparent lack of statutory support for Councilpersons voting on their peers’ conflicts, the potential policy implications, and the conflicts facing Councilman Matheny should he be forced to vote, I ask you to delay consideration of any motion to excuse Councilwoman Vaughan until September 20.

From an email to the City Attorney from Chris Brook of SCSJ. Full text after the jump.

Here's the complaint filed by Gate City Waste Servces against the City, Nancy Vaughan, and Zack Matheny.

Why wouldn't we want to do business with a company that sues us before it even gets a contract?

Word is there may be a vote at tonight's Council meeting to force Vaughan's recusal.

So...elected officials could vote to strip the eligibility of a fellow elected official who already has been deemed eligible to vote by the attorney they hired.

If all Council members can vote on this, then Matheny -- conflicted out of voting on Gate City -- could vote to recuse Vaughan, thus handing the contract to the vendor he's not allowed to vote on. No conflict there!

Sources say Matheny doesn't want to vote, but not voting is pretty much the same as voting to recuse Vaughan, so, man up, Zack, and do your job.

UPDATE: I'm told that if the power play to eliminate Vaughan goes through, then the City Attorney will not be able to represent her in the Gate City suit -- so the mini-majority would not just overrule the legal opinion of their attorney, they'd neuter him in the next round as well.

Word is that Gate City Waste Services has filed a lawsuit to keep Nancy Vaughan from voting on the landfill, and to force Zack Matheny to vote.

Developing...

UPDATE: Nancy Vaughan says Pollard told her he would have reaffirmed her eligibility to vote today, had the lawsuit not been filed, which rendered that decision moot.

The suit may be heard as early as Thursday.

Such audacity might be cause for a smile if its potential broader implication were not so grave.

SCSJ attorney Christopher Brook's latest letter on the landfill circus.

At this point the logical assumumption is that the N&R has made a conscious decision not to cover this story in detail. Previously, the daily paper decided not to cover the curb market story in detail. So...why are they abdicating the local government beat?

Crowd estimates from yesterday's anti-anti-gay-marriage-amendment rally in GSO range as high as 2.6 million, although I'd put the number at a healthy few hundred.

Sad day for NC. Putting the amendment on the primary-day ballot in a year with a GOP presidential primary stacks the deck pretty well against the pro-civil rights vote.

UPDATE: Panoramic crowd image from Tom Lassiter.

"We're not worried where the money is going to come from," she says. Now that much I believe.

Tim Tyson on the political logic of the proposed anti-gay-marriage law in North Carolina.

Tonight in GSO: Candlelight Vigil for Equality
7:00 pm – 8 pm
Guilford County Courthouse Plaza

Info on the Facebook. More here.

A new poll has people talking about the gubernatorial and presidential races in our fair state.

Election Day 2012 is far enough away for these numbers to be meaningless, but predictions of close races should influence campaign strategy and fundraising, thus reinforcing the predictions of close races...

More on that Gate City Waste Services ad in last week's Rhino.

Meanwhile, still no mention I could find of the latest news in the local daily, which devoted most of today's paper to 9/11 stories it couldn't fit in yesterday's 9/11 overload edition.

You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?

No, apparently not.

Nor do his German partners in crime.

Dear NFL,

I'm not a fan of on-field celebrations, much preferring a measure of act-like-you've-been-there-before cool, but when a 22-year-old rookie who hasn't actually been there before scores his very first pro touchdown, penalizing him for a little end-zone exuberance makes you look petty and out of touch.

Signed,

How You Like Cam Now?

"How to move away from a model of growth based on very high leverage, while still managing to grow."

That's been the question for some time now, and no easy answers are at hand.

N&R got scooped on the latest White Street recusal news. That was Thursday.

Nothing I could find in yesterday's paper, which I thought was kind of odd.

Nothing I could find in today's paper.

I'm starting to worry.

For my lifelong friend CDC3, on his round-number birthday:

Fifty is not old
For a Galapagos land tortoise

Some species of carp
Last twice that span

And the half-life of Americium-241
Is 432.2 years

But, man, you is getting up there.

Weekly manager's note includes a pitch for $20k to continue a PR campaign for the City, a report on Parks and Rec, and a memo on garbage.

Down Home: Jewish Life in North Carolina runs through September 18 at the GSO Historical Museum. It's been a good draw, and it's worth seeing if you don't know much about the subject.

Also closing this month (Sept 25) is the Matisse and Modern Masters show at the Jewish Museum in New York, which tells its story well and offers a chance to get close to some really nice works of art.

N&R front-page remembrance item:

On Sept. 11, 2001, I stood in a conference room watching television coverage and commented to a co-worker that I thought the attacks would result in a war of substantial magnitude.   

Four years later, I stood in the desert in Iraq, fighting it.   

— Col. Matt Russo,  Oak Ridge

True enough, he was fighting in a war of substantial magnitude, and that war was in some way a result of 9/11, but even now -- especially now -- it's worth remembering that Iraq did not attack us, and did not possess the weapons that supposedly justified our invasion, and that our occupation was for far too long chaotic and disastrous, and that we really should be more prudent about starting wars.

Here's the letter from Gate City Waste Services that could re-recuse Nancy Vaughan.

The N&R got scooped on this story by yesterday's Rhino. It happens. But unless I missed it, there was nothing in today's paper, either.