Sonny’s legacy

Gov. Sonny Perdue leaves office in a week but Georgians will spend the next two decades paying off some controversial hometown projects he pushed.

Taxpayers will spend almost $4 million annually paying off Perdue’s Go Fish aquatic wildlife and fishing education center, some new equine and livestock facilities at the Georgia National Fairgrounds near his home and the purchase of the Oaky Woods conservation property at a price some lawmakers considered excessive. All are in Houston County, where Perdue was born, raised and plans to return when he leaves office.

The state is making debt payments on those three projects — worth a total of $60 million — at a time when legislators are approving tight budgets that forced teacher furloughs and layoffs, and brought spending cuts on everything from economic development efforts to health care.

The three projects are part of the about $1.2 billion a year the state is now paying on long-term debt, up about 60 percent from the year Perdue took office.

A complete accounting of Sonny’s eight years in office.

Thank you, Billy Zabka

Blogging host WordPress just crunched my 2010 numbers:

The Louvre Museum has 8.5 million visitors per year. This blog was viewed about 110,000 times in 2010. If it were an exhibit at The Louvre Museum, it would take 5 days for that many people to see it.

That’s good to hear, though I’m sure those Louvre visitors came away underwhelmed.

Your busiest day of the year was January 5th with 966 views. The most popular post that day was Cap du jour, 80s pin-up edition.

The subject of that post? Quintessential 80s mean girl Billy Zabka, who, surprisingly enough, played a character named Chas only once. His first film role was in “Valley Girl” as “Boy helping with prom decorations.”