Profits at the Washington Post newspaper operation plunged in the 2nd quarter of 2007, led by a 13 percent decline in print advertising revenues, according to the Washington Post Company’s most recent quarterly report. Revenue declines were particularly brutal in classified ads and in all types of real estate advertising. Meanwhile circulation of the print…

Virginia faces a $1.2 billion budgetary gap in the next two-year budget, warns a new report by The Commonwealth Institute, “The Other Side of the Coin,” and the reason is… no, not soaring government spending that has boosted state spending by 51 percent between FY 2003 and FY 2008… no, not anything done during the…

The crackdown on illegal immigration continues to spread. First Prince William County… then Loudoun County… now Culpeper County. Meanwhile, Hispanics aren’t taking the Prince William resolution — which “instill[s] in the Latino community an atmosphere of terror, desperation and a feeling of discrimination” — sitting down. A coalition of Hispanic organizations are preparing business boycotts…

I’ll give the Burger King/Simpson’s team an “A” for creativity in ginning up the “Simpsonize Me” website, which transforms photographs into Simpson-style cartoon art. But I was disappointed with the result — a “C” for execution. I ran a photo of Gov. Timothy M. Kaine — one showing the infamous “eyebrow” — through the program,…

Bacon’s Rebellion is stirring once more. The July 30, 2007, edition of the e-zine is now available online. Don’t miss a free issue — click here to subscribe for free. Here is today’s commentary: Libraries as LiberatorsLibraries of yore were quiet, musty places run by schoolmarms. Today these hot properties pack in the visitors, create…

Jim Gilmore has a new blog, “The Virginia Patriot.” He hasn’t posted much content yet, but it looks like he’s maintaining an interest in Virginia-specific issues. Among the links to articles and resources are these: “Civil Remedial Fees Repeal Petition,” “Unelected Taxing Authority,” and “Immigration Data: Virginia.”

There’s a flip side to the commentary I posted yesterday, “Good Idea: Deporting Criminal Aliens,” in which I argued that it makes sense to deport illegal aliens convicted of crimes and sitting in Virginia jails — a position I still support, by the way. However, focusing on the criminality of a relatively few illegal aliens…

It may not matter…because of the possibility that time doesn’t really exist. Regardless of how expertly we think we can arrange, measure, quantify, identify and categorize the world, nature always seems to have the last laugh. It’s playing by rules we still don’t understand.

People make all sorts of excuses why we should let illegal immigrants stay in the United States. But there should be one thing most Virginians can agree upon: If illegal immigrants are already in jail — if we already have them in custody — we should go ahead and deport them. The logic is doubly…

Virginians supposedly believe in transparent government. We don’t pass restrictive laws on how much money people can donate to political campaigns, or how and when they lobby legislators. But we do require everyone in the political process to report what they’re spending, and what their financial interests are. As the saying goes, sunlight is the…

The new “Agree to Disagree” columns from Thad Williamson and some other guy are now online at Richmond.com. Our topic this month is health care reform. Did I mention I was a high school senior in Colorado when Gov. Dick Lamm made his famous “duty to die” speech?

While I’m promoting the musings of regular Bacon’s Rebellion readers (see previous post), I dare not forget the column authored by Becky Dale: “FOIA Fiddle-Faddle.” Becky is devotee of Virginia’s Freedom of Information Act and she keeps everyone, including the Attorney General and the Virginia Freedom of Information Advisory Council on a short leash. This…

The July 16, 2007, edition of Bacon’s Rebellion is now online, once again inflicting reason upon the irrational, logic upon the illogical, and facts upon the uninformed. To view the edition, click here. To make get a free subscription and ensure you never miss a future issue, click here. This week’s commentary includes: The Next…

This YouTube video shows a couple of wisenheimers at Chantilly High School passing around a petition to “end women’s suffrage.” Such is the ignorance of history in Virginia, like the rest of America, that the jokesters had no trouble finding young women to fill up the petition page. Chantilly was listed in Newsweek in 2004…

The Daily Press and the Virginian-Pilot covered the Blogs United conference that I missed because I can’t keep my schedule straight. I’m still kicking myself. As reported by the DP’s Kimball Payne, here’s the money quote from Del. Brian Moran, D-Alexandria: [Moran] told bloggers that they have morphed from a fringe group into an important…