My Morning Wooten

As we near the end things just get plain weird.

When Atlanta traffic cameras produce 49,322 citations in one year at one intersection Freedom Parkway and Boulevard), you’ve got to wonder whether the real problem’s motorists, designers or a quick camera. Second-most citations (19,101) are issued at Cobb Parkway and Windy Hill Road in Marietta. All intersections with traffic cameras should have a timed count-down warning to approaching motorists. While that law’s being drafted, a section should be added to prohibit the use of mobile radar cameras, which have triggered road rage in other states.

Uh, Jim. We already have a "count down warning". It's called a yellow light. Unfortunately for us all, somewhere in the recesses of time, a peculiar gene was bred into Atlantans causing them to speed up when they see yellow. Thus, the ridiculous amount of citations.

First lady Michelle Obama, following in the footsteps of predecessors who took up causes, appears to have settled on improving D.C.’s schools. A better idea: Promote marriage.

How? By getting married again? Improving a school system isn't good enough because it's not Jim's pet project. Welcome to bizarro-land.

The great mystery of the subprime mortgage debacle is how reform, however structured, can both protect people from themselves and make loans “affordable” to people — whatever their income — who have been irresponsible with money and credit. The left’s solution is to force lenders to write-down debt and to force responsible borrowers to subsidize the irresponsible. AJC reporters Carrie Teegardin and John Perry nail it with this observation in Sunday’s analysis : “Subprime borrowers and investors bet heavily on rapidly rising home prices and cast aside the basic rule of lending: making sure the borrower could afford to repay.”

A classic Jimism - say something is spot on then ignore the parts that don't jibe with your pet theories. Let me repeat the salient passage with the assistance of the cap lock key: "Subprime borrowers and INVESTORS bet heavily on rapidly rising home prices". In Jimworld not only did the left force lenders to give to unqualified borrowers but they also forced them to gamble in unstable markets. The power of the left. It never ceases to amaze.

New cars may be losing their allure, as some urban-dwellers suggest. But it’ll probably take more than one San Franciscan selling her 2006 Toyota Corolla and using a car-sharing company to make the argument convincing. Much of what passes for prognostication is people wishing-in their agenda.

I'm a fairly voracious consumer of news and I have no idea what this is about. Sure would be nice to have one of those link things.

I don’t know which new chain stores coming to Atlanta to go ga-ga over. AJWright opened its first three stores here and nobody gushed breathlessly at the prospect of cheaper clothing, as they’d done for Ikea’s cheaper furniture and Trader Joe’s cheaper wine.

I have no idea what the point is here. That people like booze and beds better than clothes? Told you this was a weird one.

USA Poultry & Egg Export Council Vice President Toby Moore, formerly of Wadley, is among those speakers of native Georgian “distressed to the point of insanity” about those who mangle the pronunciations of our beloved towns, cities and counties, especially those in the metro area. His guide to newcomers: “McDonough is pronounced MAC-DON-uh. It is not MIC-DUN-uh or mic-DUN-uh. … Coweta County is a matter of inflection: COW-EAT-a. It’s not cuh-WEET-a.”

Don't forget luh-FAY-ette, KAY-roe, BURR-lin, VIE-inna and all the other weird Georgia town pronunciations. At first, I thought to myself, this is a pretty weird bullet and even weirder that it was coverted into the headline. Then, I decided given the strange tone of the whole day, it fits just right.

Selah.