Search results for: “amazon”
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Loudoun’s Golden Goose Lays Fewer Eggs
by James A. Bacon Data centers may not support a lot of jobs, but they sure do pump up the tax base. In Loudoun County, home to the world’s largest cluster of server farms, the facilities were expected to support $11.2 billion in taxable assets. When the actual number came in $1.1 billion shy of…
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Kendi Blames Capitalism, Prescribes Discrimination
By Steve Haner The book was one the local librarian chose to display on the new acquisitions shelf, my curiosity was high, and by all accounts some leaders in Virginia’s educational establishment are taken with and listening to the author. So I read Ibram X. Kendi’s “How to Be an Antiracist.” I will largely let…
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Yes, CRT Is Being Taught in Schools
by Hans Bader On July 15, a Reuters fact-check claimed that “many Americans embrace falsehoods about Critical Race Theory.” But it is Reuters that embraced a falsehood, not the American people. Reuters denied that Critical Race Theory teaches that “discriminating against white people is the only way to achieve equality,” saying that was a “misconception”…
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Chaos In the Streets, er, In the Sidewalks
by James A. Bacon Sidewalks are going to get very crowded, and now is the time to start thinking about what to do about it. We all know that self-driving cars soon will become a common sight, but a white paper, “The Last Block,” by Canadian Bern Grush, an occasional contributor to Bacon’s Rebellion several …
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A Warning for Democrats
By Dick Hall-Sizemore Ross Douthat, a New York Times columnist, has written a couple of pieces that provide the best synopsis and analysis of the current controversy over teaching race and racial history that I have seen. (The columns can be found here and here.) He starts off with a perceptive comment on the current…
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John Warner’s Verse of Manner and Deed
by Chris Saxman It’s not so much what you do, but the manner in which you do it. John Warner has shown us, once again, that we really are better than we let on. The praise of Warner’s tenure as our United States Senator has been universal and consistent – John Warner was a great…
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UVa’s Latest Lurch Toward Leftism
by James A. Bacon The University of Virginia has bolstered its reputation as a Leftist intellectual monoculture with the announcement that Malo Andre Hutson, director of Columbia University’s Urban Community and Health Equity Lab, will become the new dean of the School of Architecture. At Columbia, Hutson belongs to both the Earth Institute and the…
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Who Hit the Brakes on NoVa Growth?
by James A. Bacon Northern Virginia’s population is growing, but not nearly as fast as before. According to a new study by University of Virginia demographer Hamilton Lombard, Northern Virginia accounted for 66.5% of the state’s population growth between 2010 and 2019, but slipped to 33.7% in the last year. “While Northern Virginia is still…
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An Old Use of Solar Power
By Dick Hall-Sizemore Greenhouses have been used since the time of the Roman Empire. A couple of Virginia Beach entrepreneurs are planning to use this old technology to harness the sun’s energy in a big way. Their company, Sunny Farms, plans to invest $60 million to build hydroponic greenhouses on more than 30 acres, about…
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Virginia’s Math Path Could Erode Equity
by Andy Rotherham Years ago Fairfax County Public Schools superintendent Bud Spillane had a plan to collapse early grades K-2 into an ability group approach. He went around the county explaining the approach to parents. They generally liked it because it offered customization and a more individualized experience. Then, at some point parents starting asking, “but…
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Calculus and Jury Duty
by Joe Fitzgerald Calculus is like jury duty. Everyone agrees that it’s essential, and any sensible human being will try to get out of it if they can. But panicked right-wingers are currently cluttering the internet with claims that a change in high school calculus teaching is the latest threat to Western Civilization. I write…
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Virginia Dems Have More Problems Than They’re Letting On
by Shaun Kenney Let’s start first and foremost with the obscene amount of cash that Clean Virginia — the Michael Bills front group that has donated to many Democratic and even a few Republican candidates — is pouring onto the campaigns of Delegate Jennifer Carroll-Foy, D-Prince William, for Governor and Delegate Jay Jones (D-Norfolk) for…
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The War of Words over Robert E. Lee
A Conversation with Ty Seidule from Washington and Lee News on Vimeo. Washington & Lee University recently hosted a video presentation by Ty Seidule, author of “Robert E. Lee and Me: A Southerner’s Reckoning with the Myth of the Lost Cause.” Seidule grew up in Alexandria, where he says he was raised to think…
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Analysis of State Use of Federal COVID Funds
By Dick Hall-Sizemore (Note: All of the data presented in this post is based on the author’s analysis of raw expenditure data from the state’s accounting system (CARDINAL) for FY 2020 and FY 2021 through 2/22/2021.) As of February 22, state agencies had spent or disbursed $11.9 billion in federal COVID funds. Two major categories…
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Enough
by Kerry Dougherty Oh look. We’re coming up on the one-year anniversary of 15 Days to Slow the Spread. Remember that? The big lie that if we simply shut down the country for just two weeks, it would stop the coronavirus from rampaging coast to coast and allow hospitals prepare for the onslaught. They warned…