They tell me it’s college football season, so I have to wonder how in the world there’s a homeless English Bulldog anywhere in Georgia, but sure enough, Cherokee George is still looking for his forever home. The folks at Cherokee County Humane Society write that:

George is a superbly awesome 6 yr old 66 lb English Bulldog. He came in to a local animal control as a stray and sadly no one came to claim him. Even sadder, no one was waiting to adopt him either so we took him into our foster program. While at some point in time someone cared for George, his needs have been neglected for quite a while now. Sweet George came to us with a severe ear infection, bad eye infection, a broken tooth and a scrotal mass. Despite all this, he is a perfectly wonderful, sweet as pie Bulldog.

He does have KCS ( also known as dry eye) and will require affordable daily eye drops for life and of course a loving forever home that will make sure his needs are never neglected again!!

George is a typical laid back lazy boy. He loves getting his belly rubbed! He loves loves loves his squeaky toys! He is crate and housetrained. He seems fine with other dogs and oblivious to the cats but we suspect George would be quite happy as an only child and the center of attention. Since we do not know his history, a home without small children is what he seeks!! George is vaccinated, neutered, heartworm tested negative and microchipped!

If you just can’t adopt a dog right now, you might also want to consider a donation to support George and his caretakers.

For a best friend on a budget, you can head over to Gwinnett County Animal Shelter, where black and majority-black dogs and cats are on sale for “Black Friday.” Total adoption fees come to $30 today and they’re often pretty liberal in defining black dogs to mean, “I think we can find some black on this one.”

This low-rider basset hound mix might not have enough black fur to qualify, but if you adopt him this weekend, we have a sponsor will will give $60 toward his fees to bring his adoption cost down to $30. Email us if you’re interested.

In North Georgia, here are three Rottweiler-mix puppies available for adoption from the Floyd County Animal Shelter.

Finally, we have “Cotton” a gentle giant Great Pyrenees available for adoption from the Floyd County Animal Shelter.
If you thinkyou might like to adopt a Great Pyrenees, Great Pyr Rescue of Atlanta is a great resource for learning about these big guys.
Georgia Politics, Campaigns & Elections

We are 18 days from the General Election in which Mitt Romney will be elected the 45th President of the United States. Early voting continues statewide. Click here to find out where you can Advance Vote locally.

As of 5 PM Wednesday, more than 260,000 Georgians had early voted. More than 1800 of those came on Monday and Tuesday in Savannah, where the Savannah Morning News wrote:

A long, steady steam of voters at the Chatham County Board of Elections building throughout the day Wednesday convinced officials the program’s success would continue throughout the three-week period.

“It’s going very well,” said Sandra Williams, the director of Chatham County’s Voter Registration Office that heads early voting. “We’re getting a whole lot of people here ready to vote for the November election a little early.”

Although the day’s count of voters was not available Wednesday evening, Williams expected similar numbers to Monday and Tuesday.

“I’m not surprised (at the turnout),” she said. “We had long lines when we had early voting in 2008, so that’s what we expected.”

Carter Kessler is the Republican nominee for State House against Democrat Spencer Frye in House District 118. He will be having a fundraiser headlined by Republican Caucus Chair Rep. Donna Sheldon (R-Dacula) and House Appropriations Chair Rep. Terry England (R-Auburn). The event will be held Monday, October 22 from 5:30 to 7:00 PM at The Foundry Park Inn, 295 East Dougherty Street in Athens, Georgia 30601.

But if you attend, just don’t tell Speaker David Ralston. Blake Aued at Flagpole writes:

One audience member asked why Ralston isn’t supporting Carter Kessler, the Republican candidate for an Athens House seat. “I’m not really familiar with his campaign, except I saw (Tuesday) where he said the leadership in Georgia is crooked,” Ralston said. “That might have something to do with it… I guess it’d be hard to get people excited helping you if you call them crooked.”

But Ralston said he’ll welcome Regina Quick, the Republican who ousted state Rep. Doug McKillip, R-Athens, and has said she won’t carry Ralston’s water. He said he backed McKillip because he always supports Republican incumbents. “We’re going to welcome her and respect the decision the voters have made… and work with her to be successful,” he said.

Given what happened with the Ralston-backed Rep. Doug McKillip, disowning Kessler might be the kindest thing Ralston could do for Kessler in liberal Athens.

A visitor to Macon from Oregon was disappointed to learn that Rep. Paul Broun (R-Cray Cray) believe in creationism.

As a sincere seeker of the divine (in my youth I wanted to be a monk) as well as a decades-long student of environmental science, I was disappointed by the statements a congressman from your area made to his church members recently — that the Earth is 6,000 years old and the universe was created in six days.

I have insufficient space here to offer a cogent rebuttal to the congressman’s statements. I know that many sincere Christians, people of good character, believe those two statements as well as others that are in contradiction to the established findings of science — in particular, the evolution of humans from “lower” species and the oncoming tragedy of human-caused global warming.

Religion has comforted uncounted billions of human beings throughout the ages. I can tell you from personal experience that acquiring the knowledge of science I refer to may disturb that comfort, deeply. But it has not destroyed my faith, and I still love my Bible — it commands me to love, but also to put away my childishness. Accepting scientific fact has also re-invigorated my search for a new understanding of a creation full of marvels, of a Creator who is the author of love and who pulls me towards a new understanding.

Also disappointed in Congressman Broun? Charles Darwin himself, whom some have suggested as a write-in against Broun.

But the laws of political science hold that Broun will likely win re-election to a fourth term. He has no Democratic opponent and Georgia law requires write-in candidates to register by early September. That, and Darwin is long dead.

“Dr. Broun welcomes Mr. Darwin as a challenger and is particularly looking forward to the debate portion of the campaign,” Meredith Griffanti, the congressman’s spokeswoman, said in an email Wednesday evening. “We’re sure it will be very lively.

Congratulations, Meredith Griffanti, you have won Quote of the Week here at GaPundit. Your prize is a free subscription.

Also giving good quote (and good hair) was Congressman Tom Graves (R-Ranger) last night at the Georgia Republican Party Victory Dinner. Noting that President Obama’s campaign has adopted “Forward” as its slogan, Graves suggested it might be more appropriate to refer to the last four years as “Barackward”.

If you plan to stay up election night until all the votes are counted, plan on being awake until November 9th.

Lane Price and Lorenzo Heard — along with the rest of Dougherty County — will have to wait until Friday, Nov. 9 — three days after election day — to learn who the winner of the highly-contested race will be, election officials say.

A memo sent from the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office to county registrars and election officials across the state instructs them not to tabulate the results of write-in races until after both the touchscreen results and all of the paper ballots have been received.

“Please remember, write-in candidate reports should not be generated until after you have uploaded all valid provisional ballots and have counted all (military) ballots that have been timely received and postmarked no later than Election Day,” the memo states.

The memo goes on to state that “you will need to combine the number of votes for each valid write-in candidate cast of optical scan ballots (paper ballots) with those cast on touchscreen ballots because the … generated report only provides the vote total of those cast on the touchscreen units. (It) does not add the total votes for write-in candidates cast through the optical scan units to those cast on the touchscreen.”

Dougherty County Elections Supervisor Ginger Nickerson says the message from the state to her office is clear: on write-in races, you must wait until Friday for the mailed-out ballots to be received so you can tabulate them with the touchscreen results.

Rev. Joseph Lowery is none too fond of Republicans.

Lowery said he has watched the Republican Party evolve into one of lies and limbo, of one wrapped up in the hatred of racism and one resistant to help the whole of the people.

“If Obama was white, there would be no question on who was going to win,” Lowery said.

More than 200 people gathered at the Henry Brigham Center on Thursday for the Richmond County Democratic Party’s Get Out the Vote Rally for Democratic candidates.

Shocking, said nobody. Ever.

Not sure how I feel about Richmond County Democratic Sheriff Candidate Richard Roundtree’s walk-up music. Of course, he may not have chosen it.

Sheriff candidate Richard Roundtree, who was escorted to the lectern to refrain of Bob Marley’s I Shot the Sheriff, said voters should get excited about a new Augusta. He said that Augusta’s dynamics are on the verge of change but that voters have to push it.

Republican David Hopper, challenging Democratic State Rep. Earnest Smith, is profiled in the Augusta Chronicle.

On Saturday, the DeKalb County Republican Party welcomes Congressman Lynn Westmoreland (R) to the DoubleTree Hotel at l-285 and LaVista Road, from 8 to 11 AM. Tickets are available online. I’m not going to lie, I probably won’t make that breakfast, as our niece has a soccer game, and I’ll be trying to get to Braselton sometime this weekend for the Petit LeMans.

Democrat Congressman Sanford Bishop (12) and Republican challenger John House agree that jobs are an important issue in the district. In fact, House hopes to help Bishop seek alternative employment.

“People are leaving this district to find work elsewhere,” House said. “Congressman Bishop has fallen short bringing jobs here.”

House credits any local job growth to Base Realignment and Closure at Fort Benning and says Bishop had little to do with that.

House feels business growth is being held back nationally by too much government interference.

“Government regulation is the No. 1 complaint I hear as I travel through the district,” House said.

House said he hears that from people in all kinds of businesses, from Republicans and Democrats, blacks and whites.

House insists the stress of doing business must be reduced.

“Businesses create jobs, not government,” House said.

It is important for government to create an environment to encourage businesses to provide a stable work force, an environment that encourages people to start small businesses, House said.

The former Army colonel believes a reduction in income taxes and corporate taxes will grow business and help keep companies from moving work overseas.

Bishop said the economy here and elsewhere is improving.

He points to a report showing the nation’s unemployment rate on Sept. 30 at 7.8 percent.

At the same time a year ago, it was 9 percent and the year before 9.5 percent.

he new jobless rate is down from 9.2 percent in August.

The rate declined because Georgia had the fewest new claims for unemployment insurance benefits in five years — before the start of the Great Recession, said Georgia Labor Commissioner Mark Butler.

The number of manufacturing jobs from August to September grew by 1,900. That represents the largest such increase since 1994.

“I have no reason to believe that manufacturing will not continue to grow,” Butler said in an interview Thursday.