Tag: Dick Hall-Sizemore
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Oh, To Work for the Legislature
by Dick Hall-Sizemore I learned a long time ago that one can come across some juicy nuggets by perusing the amendments to the budget bill. One such nugget I ran across today confirmed something else I have known for a long time: It is nice to work for the General Assembly; legislators take care of…
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Mentally Ill in Jail, Part 2 — State and Local Efforts to Address the Issue
by Dick Hall-Sizemore (Note: This is the second installment of a discussion on mentally ill people in Virginia’s jails. Part 1 of this series set out the scope of the problem.) Although senior policymakers are aware of the large number of mentally ill people in jails and acknowledge the seriousness of the problem, the state…
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Mentally Ill in Jails, Part 1–The Scope of the Problem
By Dick Hall-Sizemore (Note: This was not intended to be a long post, but, during its development, it grew like Topsy. Being painfully aware of my tendency to be wordy and the limitations of a blog regarding long essays, I have broken the post into three parts or installments. The first examines the extent of…
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Driving While Black
By Dick Hall-Sizemore If anyone ever doubted there was a need for society to address the problem of police officers stopping Black drivers, a recent event in the town of Windsor should dispel those doubts. The incident is reported in today’s on-line Virginian-Pilot. Like incidents at Virginia institutions of higher education that have been recently…
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The New Normal
by Dick Hall-Sizemore We are used to hearing and seeing weather temperatures reported as being some number of degrees above or below normal. The definition of “normal” has changed this year. The National Weather Service defines “normal” climate conditions as a 30-year average. New Climate Normals are calculated every 10 years. Before this year, the…
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One of the Good Guys
by Dick Hall-Sizemore Former Del. A.R. “Pete” Giesen died last Friday. He was one of the good ones. He served in the House of Delegates from 1934-1974 and 1975-1996, representing the Staunton-Waynesboro area. He was a moderate Valley Republican. I have somewhat of a bias. He chaired the first legislative committee I staffed when I…
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Democrats Expand Worker Protections
By Dick Hall-Sizemore Many commenters on this blog seem to view Virginia Democrats as elitists (the “Plantation Elite”) who either ignore or look down on the needs of most Virginians or elitists who are absorbed in advancing critical race theory and other woke ideas. While battles against these perceived threats have been raging on Bacon’s…
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Big Brother Has Been Curtailed
By Dick Hall-Sizemore A recent TV series, Person of Interest, centered on the ability to use large databases of personal information coupled with extensive audio and video surveillance to identify any individual and pull up extensive data on that individual. A small team of good guys used this capability to identify threats to individuals and…
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Unthinkable–a Tax Decrease!
By Dick Hall-Sizemore According to a report in the Virginian –Pilot, the city manager of Virginia Beach will be recommending that city council reduce the city’s real estate tax rate. He is also recommending that the city delay a previously approved storm-water fee increase. Last year, the city cut $67 million out of its operating…
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VEC Gets the Booby Prize
By Dick Hall-Sizemore There has been considerable discussion on this blog as to which agency has been the biggest failure in the face of the pandemic. Many have placed the heaviest blame on the Department of Health. I would award the prize for the being the biggest failure to the Virginia Employment Commission (VEC). The…
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Our Throw-Away Society
By Dick Hall-Sizemore I use a certain brand of medium-priced walking shoe. The model that I use has a wide toe box and is the most comfortable for my foot. The top of the shoe is all leather and the sole is rubber. Several years ago, when the heels had worn down considerably (this is…
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On the Naming of Buildings
By Dick Hall-Sizemore The University of Richmond has taken a nuanced, or ambivalent, position, depending on your perspective, in the kerfuffle over building names honoring slaveholders, Civil War generals, or supporters of segregation. Before discussing its position, it may help to provide a brief profile of the school for readers who may not be familiar…
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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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Virginia GOP–The Party that Couldn’t Shoot Straight
By Dick Hall-Sizemore The conservatives on this blog have been spending a great deal of time lamenting what the Democratic majority and progressives are doing to the state’s universities, public schools, and life in general. However, there has been very little mention of the Commonwealth’s other major political party. Frankly, I do not blame them…
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COVID Vaccination Report
The vaccination pace is picking up. My wife and I had our first round of shots last Sunday at CVS. Ironically, my daughter in Northern Virginia scheduled them for us. She had been checking the CVS website and saw that they were scheduling for two days in Richmond. (I had checked the day before and…