Never let it be said that I’m unwilling to ignore evidence that contradicts my pet theories, in this case my argument that speculation is driving much of the increase in Northern Virginia property values. Today’s Clarke Times-Courier quotes George Mason University regional economist Stephen Fuller to the effect that super-heated job creation in Northern Virginia…

Yesterday’s Richmond Times-Dispatch published the seemingly alarming news (“Virginia is for Dumpers“) that shipments of trash from other states to Virginia increased 18 percent in 2004, reaching 7.8 million tons. That includes everything from household trash and construction debris to medical waste and treated human waste. Virginia now retains the dubious distinction of being the…

If first you don’t succeed… Well, I’m going to try to stir the pot for a second time. The Washington Post reported, Bill Bolling said, “I look forward to competing against my opponent, Ms. Byrne,’ Bolling said in his usual conversational style. ‘And I want to encourage her to invite the candidate for president that…

Yo! Phil! You got to surface sooner or later. Come out! Come out! Give us the spin! Shall we set loose the nosy hounds?

Oh double democratic hockey sticks! Former DPVA chair Paul Goldman dissed Byrne back in 2002. Holy cow! Has the Democratic LG seat been sold down the James River!………………..https://www.baconsrebellion.com/Issues/11-11-02/GilmoreGoldman wrote:“They call me Governor Gridlock! Who gave me that name, that guy Goldman with the big mouth? He put the “Tax Governor” tag on Baliles, desperate to…

Since Tuesday, Kilgore is having the darnedest time figuring out where he wants to be in the political spectrum. He can’t run on the Right after the shellacking laid on Grover Norquist’s candidates. He can’t run as a centrist, because that aligns him with Mark Warner. And the ‘liberal’ slots are already taken. And now…

Washington Post columnist Marc Fisher apparently was deluged with anti-Russ Potts comments prior to his online chat today. Fisher had written a piece on Tuesday that crossed the line from opinion journalism to hagiography. This question and response went to the heart of media’s role: Saltville, Va.: Why don’t you just admit upfront that Russ…

In an editorial today, The Wall Street Journal has come up with a more optimistic interpretation of Tuesday’s primary election results than I did. American elections are so rigged in favor of the incumbent, the WSJ notes, that any ejection of entrenched office holders is significant. In that light, the low-tax movement made significant progress:…

I am totally dumbfounded by today’s Tyler Whitley story in the Richmond Times-Dispatch: “Kilgore refuses to debate Potts.” I guess the Kilgore campaign knows what it is doing, but it’s hard for me to understand why they were willing to revive the debate ducking charge, the performance anxiety issue, and give more free publicity to…

The study by the Joint Center for Housing at Harvard (and MIT, that is why it is “joint”) that Jim Bacon noted in the 14 June posting “Housing Bubble Watch…” was also covered by WaPo. Their spin is that the Joint Center does not see any sign of the housing bubble bursting yet BASED ON…

Eric Janszen, a columnist with Always On, offers a less dire scenario than I do for the collapse of the housing bubble. Rather than popping like the stock market bubble, he suggests, the housing bubble will slowly deflate — over 10 to 15 years. Why will it take so long? Because “the government will step…

This quote comes from The Washington Post’s round-up on the primaries: “The races are somewhat a test case of how viable this anti-tax movement can be,” said Mark J. Rozell, a professor of public policy at George Mason University and co-editor of “The New Politics of the Old South: An Introduction to Southern Politics.” “If…

So much for the anti-tax revolt. Actually, it wasn’t even a revolt — it was more of a listless disorder, easily quelled. Voters, clearly, were not fired up about the issue. Turn-out was incredibly low. Only one of six challengers campaigning under the anti-tax banner, Chris Craddock, defeated an incumbent, Del. Gary Reese, R-Fairfax. George…

The latest warning comes from the “State of the Nation’s Housing 2005” report released Monday by Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies, as reported by SmartMoney.com. The bubble in prices is most acute in California, southern Florida and New York, the article says, but graphic information in the article indicates that the surge in…

I strolled into the Tuckahoe Elementary School in Henrico County around 9:15 a.m. to exercise the mother of all civic rights and vote. There were no lines. Voting took about two minutes. One poll attendant said that only 120 people had voted so far, compared to 500 or more during the presidential election at the…