Day of Light, 47th of Midsommar, 526 M.E. (Aldebaran): Rick Jackson won the Georgia Republican primary runoff election to run for governor against Keisha Lance Bottoms. Those obnoxious Jackson ads will continue on television for another five months. Ugh. 

His company, Jackson Healthcare, earned nearly $1 billion between 2020 through 2026, mostly during the covids pandemic, through state contracts. He tried to get Georgia's medical malpractice system overhauled in the 2010s and wanted to privatize the state's foster-care system. He has contributed millions to the Republican National Committee and last December gave $1 million to the MAGA SuperPAC. 

Not that his opponent, Burt Jones, was any knight in shining armor. An election denier and fake elector who needed an executive pardon to avoid prosecution, he was a deportation enthusiast and a Stable Genius ass kisser. 

The lazy mainstream press has taken to covering elections based on the won-lost ratio of the Stable Genius' endorsements. He backed Jones in this primary, as did Georgia Governor Brian Kemp, and the press is covering Jackson's victory as a Georgia repudiation of the Stable Genius and his primaries.

I know Georgia - I've lived here for 45 years - and I can assure you that only a small, statistically insignificant percentage of Peach State voters, a rounding error if you will, picked Jackson over Jones in order to spite the Stable Genius. Both candidates stank to high heavens, but of the two Jackson was actually more like that Stable Genius in many aspects than Jones. He even ran ads saying. "I'm just like the Stable Genius" - a political outsider, a self-made billionaire, and a threat to mainstream politics. A statistically significant portion of Georgia Republicans voted for Jackson because they wanted more Stable Genius, or a Stable Genius-like character, in their lives.

I almost didn't vote yesterday - all the significant races were on the Republican ticket and most Democratic races were either already decided if not unopposed. But I did drag my ass to the poll specifically to vote for Lee Morris for Fulton County Commissioner in District 3. Morris had been the last Republican I ever voted for, and this year he switched parties to run as a Democrat. However, despite my effort, he lost to Jodi Merriday, a progressive, even though he had earned more votes than her in the initial primary election back on May 19 (but not enough to reach the 50% required to avoid a runoff). I have no problems with Dr. Merriday, who will run against Republican Paul Burton, it's just that I knew Morris personally.       

Let's talk about something else. Anything else. The weather, yeah, that's always a favorite here. Tropical Storm Arthur, the first named storm of the '26 Atlantic hurricane season, has formed in the Gulf of Mexico and will track along the Texas coast from Corpus Christi to Houston before heading inland and heading across the State of Louisiana. The National Hurricane Center has already issued Special Advisories for life-threatening flooding along the Gulf Coast, with 5 to 10 inches of rain and isolated higher totals near 20 inches.

The storm is forecast to cross Georgia late this week, and there is concern that the storm might actually get stronger over land and that when Arthur's warm, humid air meets an incoming cold front, the wind shear could produce isolated tornados. In any event, we've looking forward to a pretty robust wind field in the 20-40 mph range. Atlanta's under a flood watch from 8:00 am tomorrow (Thursday) until 2:00 a.m. Saturday, with scattered thunderstorms over the next five days.

Not what someone with 10 or 20 tons of timber towering 50 to 75 feet over his house likes to hear.