Category: Uncategorized
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McDonnells May Have Shot at Appeal
By Peter Galuszka Robert F. McDonnell, the only Virginia governor ever to be found guilty of corruption, may actually have a good shot at having his convictions reversed on appeal, according to some legal experts. I have the story in this week’s Style Weekly. The issue, which has been tossed around many times, involves how…
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The City by the Bay
Feel-good music video about Norfolk. A snappy tune that stays in your head and great pictures of familiar places. I love to see expressions of local pride like this. — JAB
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How to Reform Virginia’s Conservation Tax Credit
by James A. Bacon The state of Virginia spends $100 million a year in the form of tax expenditures to place conservation easements on land parcels around the state. Could the state get more for its investment? Amy Murphy, an environmental studies major at the University of Richmond, thinks so. In a paper presented to the Climate Change…
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The Tangible Economic Value of Biodiversity
by James A. Bacon From the oceans to the rain forests, from the wetlands to the Virginia Piedmont, wildlife habitats around the world are under tremendous pressure from human activity. One reason that environmentalists get alarmed about global warming is that a rapidly changing environment adds one more source of stress to many species. In a…
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Non-Coal Jobs Thriving in Energy Sector
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in Business and Economy, Disasters and Disaster Preparedness, Economic development, Energy, Environment, Infrastructure, Labor and Workforce, Land use & Development, Media, Money in politics, Planning, Politics, Property rights, Public safety & health, Regulations, Gov’t Oversight, Science & Technology, UncategorizedBy Peter Galuszka Is there a real “War on Coal” or is it part of a natural transition to more non-polluting and less destructive forms of energy? One way to find out is to track job creation. A new study at Duke University shows that since 2008, more than 49,000 jobs in the coal industry…
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Scandal at the Royal Academy of Arts!!!!
by James A. Bacon So, the Bacon family visited the Royal Academy of Arts today to pay respects to a statue of Sir Francis Bacon, the brilliant philosopher who first articulated the scientific method and laid the foundation for all human progress ever since. With the possible exception of a certain charismatic, 1st-century Jewish holy man…
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In Praise of Whimsical Statuary
Yes, it’s true, London has more statuary per square mile devoted to dead kings, lords, generals and admirals than any other city on the planet. (One cathedral, Westminster Abbey, has more statuary than entire states in America.) It’s all very serious and patriotic, and of considerable interest to foreign visitors. Perhaps the most best known monument is that of Lord Nelson, victor…
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Old and New
This image tickled me. Nothing better illustrates how the old and new live side by side in London than this view, near the Earl’s Court underground station, of a classic, red telephone booth and a newer booth that says, “WiFi here.” We saw a number of the red booths around the city — but never…
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Serious Bad-Asses
No Bacon family trip to London would be complete without a visit to the British Museum, which has one of the greatest collections of antiquities in the world. And no visit to the British Museum would be permissible without a couple of hours devoted to the Greco-Roman section. I learned two things from my visit…
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A New, Improved Ken Cuccinelli?
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in Business and Economy, Economic development, Education (higher ed), Education (K-12), Electoral process, Energy, Entrepreneurs and Innovation, Environment, Federal issues, Government Finance, Government workers and pensions, Gun rights, Health Care, Immigration, Infrastructure, Insurance, Labor and Workforce, Land use & Development, LGBQT, 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, UncategorizedBy Peter Galuszka Is one-time conservative firebrand Ken Cuccinelli undergoing a makeover? The hard line former Virginia attorney general who lost a bitter gubernatorial race to Terry McAuliffe in 2013 is now helping run an oyster farm and sounding warning alarms about a rising police state. This is remarkable switch from the man who battled…
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Ignorami and Elitists
Once upon a time, liberal opinion leaders deemed that the lack of a college education made a politician a “man of the people.” As an example of how inessential a sheepskin was, they often pointed to the performance of President Harry S. Truman, architect of post-World War II containment policy of the Soviet Union. But times…
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Dominion’s Clever Legerdemain
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in Business and Economy, Courts and law, Demographics, Disasters and Disaster Preparedness, Economic development, Energy, Environment, Federal issues, Health Care, Immigration, Infrastructure, Insurance, Labor and Workforce, Land use & Development, 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, UncategorizedBy Peter Galuszka You may have read thousands of words on this blog arguing about the proposed federal Clean Power Plan, its impact on Dominion Virginia Power and a new law passed by the 2015 General Assembly that freezes the utility’s base rates and exempts it from rate reviews for five years. All of this…
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Film Rips Climate Change Deniers
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in Business and Economy, Consumer Protection, Courts and law, Crime, Corrections, Law Enforcement, Disasters and Disaster Preparedness, Energy, Environment, Infrastructure, Labor and Workforce, Media, Money in politics, Planning, Politics, Public safety & health, Regulations, Gov’t Oversight, UncategorizedBy Peter Galuszka A just-released documentary “Merchants of Doubt” seems tailor-made for the readers of Bacons Rebellion. The film by Robert Kenner explores the profession of doubting climate change in which the energy industry quietly hires “scientists” to debunk the idea that carbon dioxide emissions are creating global warming that could have catastrophic consequences. The…
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Why Clean Energy Will Be Cheaper
By Peter Galuszka The Sturm und Drang to which utility executives, coal companies and politicians have subjected Virginians as they oppose President Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan to reduce carbon emissions has always been a deliberate distraction from what’s really happening. According to them and their confederates at the State Corporation Commission and the state…
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Why Sweet Briar Is Shutting Down
By Peter Galuszka Sweet Briar College, the all-female college sprawling on more than 3,000 acres of former plantation land north of Lynchburg, will be closing after 114 years. The news March 4 stunned students and faculty alike. Forbidding trends, however, had been in place long before. Demographics, declining enrollment and funding quagmires are besetting colleges…