Year: 2012
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Ballot Referenda: Virginia Could Do Better
Periodically, Virginians are called upon to vote on proposed constitutional amendment on topics ranging from taxes to eminent domain. Sometimes the proposals are clear, sometimes the amendments are so obscure and the language so tortured that I have no idea what I’m voting on. As someone who blogs about Virginia public policy for a living,…
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Talking the Talk, Walking the WalkUp
Momentum is shifting decisively from the traditional model of auto-centric development associated with “suburban sprawl” to WalkUps, the term that urbanist Christopher B. Leinberger has coined for Walkable Urban Places. Not only that, contends Leinberger in a new paper, “D.C.: The WalkUP Wake-Up Call,” but the Washington region stands at the vanguard of the national…
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A Small Victory for Virginia in the Space Race
Awesome! The Virginia Commercial Space Flight Authority (VCSFA) has inked a deal with Dulles-based Orbital Sciences Corporation under which the state of Virginia will fund completion of improvements to the Wallops Island space-launch facility and Orbital will launch 10 Antares rocket missions from it. The rocket launches include one test flight, one demonstration flight and…
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Eating the World’s Most Delicious Philly Cheesesteak at the Reading Terminal Market
by James A. Bacon When the Bacon family visited Philadelphia this weekend to watch the Eagles play the Baltimore Ravens, there was only one thing I wanted out of the trip. I had to chow down on an authentic Philadelphia cheesesteak sandwich. I’d tasted ersatz cheesesteak hoagies in Virginia but that was like ordering grits……
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Sen. Stanley Now Says Uranium “Call” Was His Idea Alone
By Peter Galuszka State Sen. Bill Stanley has told a Southside newspaper that he “misspoke” when he brought up the name of Gov. Robert F. McDonnell during his Aug. 31 telephone call that was taped recorded by Pittsylvania County Supervisor Jerry A. Hagerman. Stanley admitted that he “misspoke” when he told Hagerman that McDonnell had…
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Questions Surround Bizarre Telephone Call on Uranium Mining Resolution
By Peter Galuszka Many questions surround the bizarre situation in which a Pittsylvania County supervisor taped and caught in an apparent lie prominent Republican State Sen. Bill Stanley who made a late night call to urge that a resolution involving uranium mining be shelved. It raises questions about the integrity of Stanley, who is one…
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Taped Senator’s Call Links McDonnell to Uranium Mining Controversy
By Peter Galuszka Jerry A. Hagerman, a supervisor in Pittsylvania County which is at the center of a battle over proposed uranium mining, says that State Sen. Bill Stanley (pictured) told him that Gov. Robert F. McDonnell asked Stanley to lobby the county Board of Supervisors to shelve a resolution regarding uranium at its Sept.…
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Decline of White Patriarchal Privilege at UVa?
by James A. Bacon The privilege enjoyed by middle-aged white males in American society is a source of great consternation to liberals and progressives everywhere. Ironically, the places where middle-aged white male privilege runs the deepest is in the very set of institutions that decries middle-aged white privilege the loudest, those centers of liberal and…
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How Team Obama-Bernanke Oppresses the Poor
If you’re truly a defender of the “1%” and indifferent to the plight of the poor in American society, don’t waste your vote on Mitt Romney. Barack Obama is your man. While the president proposes addressing society’s unequal distribution of income by raising tax rates on the wealthy, his administration stealthily enriches the rich and…
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Laboring in the Garden of the Lord
A church in Richmond’s inner city does more than minister to the homeless and hungry. Volunteers tend an urban garden to feed them fresh, healthy food.
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Did McDonnell Help Quash Pittsylvania Uranium Mining Resolution?
By Peter Galuszka For months, Pittsylvania County has been a hotbed of controversy as Virginia Uranium tries to get a decades-old moratorium on uranium mining lifted so it can mine and refine a rich, 119-million pound deposit of the radioactive material near Chatham. The latest intrigue involves a Board of Supervisors meeting in early September…
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Immigration Fuels Virginia’s Population Growth
Immigration from other states and from abroad continues to boost Virginia’s population growth, and the Demographics & Workforce Group of the Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service has the details in a new analysis. Between 2005 and 2009, an estimated 283,000 people moved into the state from other parts of the U.S. while 253,000 left,…
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More Proof that K-12 Education Is Broken
Read the title of a new study by State Budget Solutions, “Throwing Money at Education Isn’t Working,” and you’ve read the main conclusion: Higher spending does not guarantee better student performance. In 2010, the United States spent $809 billion on K-12 education, which represented twice as much per pupil as the nation spent in 1970.…
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The Most Dysfunctional Board in the Country?
by James A. Bacon Talk about a crazy situation… After months of delay, the Washington, D.C., City Council is scheduled October 2 to approve amendments to a bi-state compact with Virginia that would expand the board of the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority (MWAA), giving the Old Dominion greater representation. The amendments were based upon legislation…
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Online Learning on a Roll: Picture a Steamroller that Accelerates like a Ferrari
Sophia Naide, a high school student in Northern Virginia, is studying Computer Science 101 with her mother. Is she taking a high school course? No. Is she enrolled in a community college? George Mason University? The Virginia Tech satellite campus? No, no, no. She signed up for a free, online course with Coursera, the online…