Category: Science & Technology
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Is It Time to Say Goodbye to Virginia Coal Exports??
By Peter Galuszka Oilprice.com, a petroleum trade newsletter, has a story that could spell more bad news for the faltering Virginia coal industry. For many years, the most valuable product from Virginia’s coal fields was coking or metallurgical coal that is exported to other countries for use in steel making. China has been a crucial…
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Mark Zuckerberg, Call Your Lawyer
by James C. Sherlock “You don’t need a Weatherman To know which way the wind blows.” — Bob Dylan, Subterranean Homesick Blues. Consider this: “Facebook was hit with twin lawsuits by the Federal Trade Commission and attorneys general from dozens of states on Wednesday, in one of the most serious challenges ever to the Silicon Valley…
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The Learn-What-You-Need-When-You-Need-It Education Model
by James A. Bacon I stumbled across an ad on the Washington Post website that attracted my attention. AWS (Amazon Web Services) was advertising its cybersecurity certification training. Click on the ad and you land on an extensive website promoting the company’s cybersecurity curriculum. “Start your security training journey,” proclaims the header. Explore the paths…
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Virginians Are Loading the COVIDWISE App. Does It Make a Difference?
by James A. Bacon Virginia leads the nation in the percentage of citizens who have downloaded the COVIDWISE smart phone app that alerts users when they might have been exposed to the virus, reports Virginia Business. The state has spent $1.5 million promoting sign-ups. Jeff Stover, executive adviser to the health commissioner, says that downloads…
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EPA: PM 2.5 At Current Levels is No Threat
By Steve Haner “Everything is a poison, nothing is a poison. It is the dose that makes the poison” – Paracelsus (1493-1541 AD) A micron is a tiny thing. A grain of beach sand is about 90 microns, and a human hair 50 to 70 microns in diameter. In the coming session of the General…
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Northam Administration Information Technology Failures Continue
Help! WJLA is reporting that the State of Virginia is using a 35-year-old computer system to process unemployment checks. The system has buckled, leaving 70,000 Virginians without their unemployment benefits. In a stunning admission, Bill Walker, Director of Unemployment Insurance with the Virginia Employment Commission says, “We are right at the first of July now”…
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Shellenberger’s “Apocalypse Never” Lessons for VA
“Climate change is real but it’s not the end of the world. It is not even our most serious environmental problem.” By Steve Haner That statement opens the dust jacket summary for “Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All” by Michael Shellenberger, once named “Hero of the Environment” by Time magazine. It remains the…
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Does Northam Have a Plan to Battle a COVID Resurgence in Virginia?
by DJ Rippert The second (or third) time around. America’s polarized political situation has all eyes on the upcoming presidential election. Millions are voting early and millions more will vote by mail. There is a good chance that the final results will not be known on the morning after Election Day. If true, America’s attention…
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Our Technology Future: SkyNet… or the Stone Age?
I’m having a bad day. First I couldn’t figure out how to auto-post Bacon’s Rebellion posts to Facebook. OK, I’m technically challenged, so I’ll hire someone to do it. Then I updated WordPress, which I do know how to do, but all the comments disappeared. I didn’t know how to fix that but, thankfully, my…
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The Tell Tale Heart: Racism in Richmond Medicine
By Peter Galuszka On Saturday, May 25, 1968, the Medical College of Virginia, now part of Virginia Commonwealth University, made medical history. A surgeon recruited from Stanford University a couple of years before successfully transplanted the heart from one middle-aged man to another. MCV officials in Richmond officials were ecstatic. Organ transplants were a hot,…
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About that Shiny New Contact Tracing App…
by Kerry Dougherty After months of being next to last nationally – in COVID-19 testing – Virginia is finally first in something: A brand new contact tracing app. Yippee! “Virginia officials on Wednesday launched a smartphone app that uses Bluetooth technology to alert people when they have come in contact with someone who has tested…
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Construction: Virginia’s Quiet, Strong Man
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in Agriculture & forestry, Blogs and Blog Administration, Business and Economy, Civil Rights, Individual Liberties, Consumer Protection, Culture wars, Demographics, Economic development, Energy, Entrepreneurs and Innovation, Environment, Federal issues, Government Finance, Government Transparency, Infrastructure, Labor and Workforce, Land use & Development, Poverty & income gap, Property rights, Public safety & health, Race and Race Relations, Science & Technology, Social Services and Entitlements, Taxes, Telecommunications, TransportationBy Peter Galuszka For all the complaints about the COVID-19 pandemic in Virginia – the shut-down restaurants and (temporarily) closed beaches – one industry has been working steadily and quietly all along – the state’s construction sector. Builders haven’t missed much of a beat since the “state at home” orders started going out a couple…
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Reopening: Know and Avoid the Risks
By DJ Rippert The Bromage Broadcast. Erin Bromage is a professor of biology and a blogger. She will tell you that she’s not an expert epidemiologist but she recently wrote a blog entry that proves she is an eloquent writer when it comes to explaining the physics of Coronavirus to the layman. As Virginia reopens…
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WTJU Podcast: COVID-19 and the Economy
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in Agriculture & forestry, Bacon and Pigs, Blogs and Blog Administration, Business and Economy, Charity, Philanthropy, Nonprofits, Civil Rights, Individual Liberties, Consumer Protection, Corruption and Scandals, Culture wars, Disasters and Disaster Preparedness, Economic development, Education (higher ed), Education (K-12), Efficiency in Government, Elections, Electoral process, Energy, Entrepreneurs and Innovation, Environment, Federal issues, General Assembly, Governance, Government Finance, Government Transparency, Gun rights, Health Care, Housing, Immigration, Infrastructure, Insurance, Labor and Workforce, Media, Money in politics, Planning, Politics, Poverty & income gap, Property rights, Public safety & health, Race and Race Relations, Regulations, Gov’t Oversight, Science & Technology, Social Services and Entitlements, Taxes, Telecommunications, TransportationBy Peter Galuszka Here’s is the twice-monthly podcast produced by WTJU, the official radio station of the University of Virginia. With me on this podcast are Nathan Moore, the station general manager, and Sarah Vogelsong, who covers, labor, energy and environmental issues across the state for the Virginia Mercury, a fairly new and highly regarded…
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Screwing Workers On Safety and Liability
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in Bacon and Pigs, Business and Economy, Civil Rights, Individual Liberties, Consumer Protection, Corruption and Scandals, Economic development, Environment, Federal issues, General Assembly, Government Finance, Health Care, Money in politics, Public safety & health, Regulations, Gov’t Oversight, Science & Technology, Social Services and Entitlements, TransportationBy Peter Galuszka At 4:30 a.m. on April 27, about 100 workers of the Greater Richmond Transit Company — half of the total – failed to show up for work. Worried about the health of its membership, Local 1220 of the International Amalgamated Transit Union demanded additional safety measures such as full personal protection equipment,…