Category: Uncategorized
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Another Flight from Reality
by James A. Bacon A debate is brewing in Richmond over how much money the Commonwealth of Virginia and local governments should contribute to the Virginia Retirement System, and a key issue revolves around which actuarial assumption to make regarding future VRS financial performance. According to Times-Dispatch writer Michael Martz, Gov. Bob McDonnell and his…
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“The Iron Lady”
By Peter Galuszka “The Iron Lady,” a biopic starring Meryl Streep, has brought fresh attention to the policies and philosophies of Margaret Thatcher, the ground-breaking leader who served as Great Britain’s Prime Minister for 11 years – from 1979 to 1990. Always controversial, Thatcher pioneered much of the conservative framework still in play today, such…
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The Ultrasound Abortion
By Peter Galuszka Abortion is always a very unpleasant topic just as it must be horrendous for a woman to be in a position to make such as choice. Still, it is her constitutional right, the law of the land. So, after years of trying, Virginia’s conservative legislators are on the verge of putting themselves,…
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Does Vlad Have the Right Idea?
By Peter Galuszka As conservatives argue about cutting deficits and keeping low taxes for the rich both in Virginia and nationally, a bigger question is coming up: does Vladimir I. Lenin actually have the answer? Sounds strange, I know, but not if you read Britain’s center-right weekly business newsweekly, The Economist. In a leader titled,…
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Everything Tastes Better with Bacon
While I labor ingloriously to ignite a second Bacon’s Rebellion here in Virginia, a Bacon Revolution has taken the United States by storm. The United States has developed a craving for bacon that cannot be satiated. We now have bacon ice cream, bacon-infused whiskey, bacon soap and, my personal favorite, served at a birthday party…
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Good Move on Uranium
By Peter Galuszka Gov. Robert F. McDonnell has punted on the uranium controversy and that’s a good thing, assuming the General Assembly doesn’t lift the mining ban anyway. There are simply too many unknowns about mining the tract owned by Virginia Uranium near Chatham and the state has no knowledge or regulations about mining the…
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Do Panic!!
Some readers may have taken note of Standard & Poor’s Friday downgrade of the long-term debt ratings of France, Italy and Spain as well as assorted minor European countries such as Austria, Cyprus, Malta, Slovenia and the Slovak Republic. To some, that development may seem distant and irrelevant to Virginia as legislators struggle to assemble…
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Grrrrrr….
My posting might be light the next couple of days. My PC died yesterday and I had to buy a new one. Now I’m focused on the laborious process of downloading all my old software and files. Fortunately, I backed up my files on Carbonite.com, a cloud service. But the darn thing tells me it…
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Virginia: Mother of Bad Ideas
By Peter Galuszka The Mother of Presidents is back at it again. Through some legal quirk — typical for the Old Dominion — only Mitt Romney and Ron Paul will be on the ballot for the March 6 Republican primary. Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry did not meet the state’s onerous requirement for 10,000 petition signatures…
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And a Happy Unpacking-and-Repacking Season to You!
Once again, Times-Dispatch columnist Bart Hinkle proves himself to be an acute observer of the human condition. Today he writes: The Hinkle household is a blended one, which is to say that half the management is male and the other is female. This usually works out fine until around Christmas, when certain politically incorrect gender…
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Core Confusing Word: “City”
Here comes another idiot list: Men’s Health has produced a list purporting to rank the happiest cities in the United States. By “happiest,” the magazine really means “least unhappy,” as measured by the percentage of the population using anti-depressant drugs and feeling the blues all or most of the time. It turns out that among…
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Almost Heaven — Western Virginia
Wahoos lament! According to Business Week, the best place to raise kids is… Blacksburg, Va. Between the Alleghany Mountains and the Blue Ridge, Blacksburg is an upscale college town that is home to Virginia Tech. The area is known for education and lays claim to seven great public schools for the younger students.
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What’s McDonnell Up To With Transportation?
By Peter Galuszka The McDonnell Administration is taking a chain saw to policies that promote smarter, more efficient growth by axing reforms to make neighborhoods connected and pushing design contracts that fast-track road construction and discourage public input. Such are the conclusions drawn from two blog postings by David Alpert of Greater Greater Washington and…
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The Wonk Salon, November 7, 2011
Firearms Flow from States with Weak Gun Laws to States with Stronger Gun Laws National Bureau of Economic Research Gun-tracing data shows that guns flow from states with weak gun-control laws to states with stronger laws, creating cross-state externalities — a finding that strengthens the case for tighter federal regulation. Public Transit as an Emission…
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The Wonk Salon, October 28, 2011
How to Shrink the Prison Population National Governors Association With the cost of incarcerating the average prisoner running around $29,000 a year, states are looking for ways to reduce their inmate populations. Among the recommended remedies: use evidence-based practices to reduce recidivism and tailor release decisions on individual risk factors. An Ounce of Prevention Is…