Author: James A. Bacon
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Grrrr. Pit Bulls.
by Kerry Dougherty Harrowing. Bloodcurdling. Horrific. Those are the only words I can find to describe the latest two pit bull fatalities. Last Wednesday afternoon two children, a 2-year-old girl and a 5-month-old boy, were savaged to death by their family dogs in Millington, Tennessee. Their mother was mauled into critical condition trying to save…
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Norfolk’s Self-Defunding Police Force
Shootings are becoming such a problem in downtown Norfolk that city officials are cracking down on nightclubs that violate city ordinances — inspiring charges of racism in the process. Good luck holding down the homicide rate, guys. If you shut down a nightclub, you don’t eliminate demand for partying and booze. Local businessmen will set…
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A Virginia Novel of Politics and Scandal in the Age of Wokeism
by James A. Bacon David Shephard, publisher of The Virginia Gentleman blog, has followed politics in the Old Dominion for many years, and he has long admired the Garrett Epps novel, The Shad Treatment, a fictional rendering of the 1973 gubernatorial contest between Mills Godwin and Henry Howell. Shephard’s recently published book, Elections Have Consequences,…
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Richmond Pols Flapping Jaws About Crime
by Jon Baliles If this were an election year and the crime we are currently experiencing was occurring the way it is, then you would have outrage and brimstone from politicians, and promises to combat and reduce crime and find the perpetrators. In the last three weeks, three teenagers have been shot. One was killed…
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Is This a Wise Expenditure or Not?
A news release from the Northern Virginia Transportation Commission touts the the fact that it’s Commuter Choice transit program, funded by tolls on the Interstate 66, Interstate 94 and Interstate 395 corridors, has eliminated 3.5 million single-occupancy vehicle trips over five years. Wow, 3.5 million trips sounds significant. But, wait. That’s only 700,000 trips per…
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Enrollment Winners and Losers
by James A. Bacon The fall 2022-23 enrollment numbers are in for Virginia’s institutions of higher education. Collectively, the state’s public colleges and universities held their own in a year in which enrollment continued to decline nationally. The community colleges staunched their bleeding after a couple of years of severe losses, keeping numbers stable, while…
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Boiling Blood, Aching Heart
by Jon Baliles This appalling story will make your blood boil with rage and your heart ache with sadness, followed by gratitude for those that work to defend the defenseless. I have said before and again reiterate that people who abuse helpless animals deserve and hopefully receive a non-stop express ticket to hell. I’ll put…
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A Tale Of Two Bridge Projects
by Kerry Dougherty Some would say it’s not fair to compare the rapid repairs to a hurricane-damaged bridge in Florida to the desultory progress of the Laskin Road bridge project in Virginia Beach. I don’t care. For those of us getting our cars realigned every few months and learning to zigzag as we attempt to…
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Coming Soon to a School Near You: “Equitable Grading”
by James A. Bacon The inexorable logic of “equity” has come to the dispensing of grades in Virginia public schools. Having effectively abandoned the hard work of raising the educational achievement of minority students, Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) is lowering standards — implementing “equitable grading” practices in order to combat “institutional bias” and eliminate…
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Virginia as Tech Worker Paradise?
There is good news and bad news in a recent ranking of the best places in the U.S. “to work in tech” by Zurich, Switzerland-based SmallPDF, a company that converts PDF files to Word files. The good news is that Virginia ranks at the top of the list. From the press release: The research found…
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The Shockley-Goldsby Debate: The Rest of the Story
by James A. Bacon In August The Cavalier Daily ignited a furor over Bert Ellis, a conservative businessman whom Governor Glenn Youngkin appointed to the University of Virginia Board of Visitors. In a lengthy article, the student newspaper detailed Ellis’ role, as a tri-committee chairman of the University Union, in bringing Nobel Prize winner William…
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Graph of the Day: Virginia CO2 Emissions
For the record: Virginia’s electric utility sector reduced its carbon dioxide emissions by 43% between 2010 and 2020. Globally, CO2 emissions continued to increase during that decade. The vast majority of the decline can be attributed to the shift from coal- to gas-fired generation. As of December 2021, only 3% of the state’s power supply…
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Disabilities and Discipline
by James A. Bacon The American Institutes for Research has published a review of the Fairfax County Public Schools special-education programs for students with disabilities. Here’s the lead paragraph of The Washington Post: “Students with disabilities in Fairfax County Public Schools are more likely than their peers without disabilities to be suspended and to fail…