Month: April 2007
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In Virginia, Medicaid HMOs Are Working
A rare piece of good news on the budgetary front. It looks like payments to Medicaid HMOs will plateau next year — a welcome respite from the 4-percent to 7-percent annual increases that have been typical in recent years. As David Ress reports for the Richmond Times-Dispatch, an outside consultant is crunching numbers to set…
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The Greening of Fairfax County
Gerald E. Connolly, chairman of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, wants to make Fairfax County more green. In the “Cool Counties” initiative he launched two weeks ago, Connolly aims to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases that result from automobile emissions and coal-fired power plants that generate electricity. He has taken on a formidable task.…
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Studying Illegal Immigration and Crime
People have a lot of opinions about illegal immigration, but there’s precious little data to back up their views. That’s about to change in Virginia. The Virginia State Crime Commission, according to the Associated Press, is establishing a task force to study the effect of illegal immigration on the state’s criminal justice system. State lawmakers,…
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Train a Grande Vitesse
It’s not often that I give the French credit for anything other than their wine, but this is too good to ignore: A new train with a 250,000- horsepower engine and special wheels has broken the world speed record for conventional trains. Reaching 357.2 miles per hour on a 125-mile run between Paris and Strasbourg,…
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Kaine Backs Green Measures in Electric Rereg Bill
On the subject of electric reregulation (see previous post), it’s going to happen whether we like it or not. Last week Gov. Timothy M. Kaine implicitly endorsed the framework of the electric reregulation bill passed by the General Assembly, although he did amend it to promote conservation and renewable fuels. According to the Governor’s website,…
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Is Virginia Dumping Electric Deregulation When It Can Finally Do Some Good?
I’m less than impressed with the quality of thinking brought to bear on the issue of electric deregulation and reregulation in Virginia. Deregulation of the electric power industry in Virginia, almost everyone has concluded, was a failure. The question that no one deems worthy of asking is this: Why was deregulation a failure? Could it…
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Party Poopers
So my first BR column is up. And of course, there’s a lot more I’d like to add to it. Like a different photo of me. One where I don’t look like Garrison Keillor’s bastard son. But more to the point, after doing some additional reading on conservatives and their discontents, I stumbled across this…
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Brain Games
In past posts, I’ve highlighted the systemic problems in Virginia’s educational system — an industrial-era model laboring to keep pace with a knowledge-era economy. The problems run deeper than the bureaucratic, top-down funding and administration of our public schools, which answer to masters at three levels of government: local, state and federal. The problems run…
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Rebellion Lite
The April 2, 2007, edition of Bacon’s Rebellion has been published. You can view it online here. Never miss an issue — sign up for a free subscription here. The Rebellion has fallen into temporary torpor, as several regular columnists were unable for a variety of personal and professional reasons, to deliver a column this…
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The Emerging Debate over Impact Fees
The Washington Post is the first Virginia newspaper to explore the significance of the impact-fee amendments that Gov. Timothy M. Kaine inserted into the transportation bill likely to be approved tomorrow by the General Assembly. The measures would allow local governments to raise money not only from developers requesting rezoning for their projects but by-right…
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Save Money, Conserve Energy, Protect the Environment — Buy a CFL Today
I’m so proud of myself. I finally did it: I installed my first two energy-efficient compact fluorescent light bulbs. Talk about a great Return on Investment! The CFLs I purchased at Wal-Mart (note to Ed Risse: This was a neighborhood Wal-Mart, I didn’t have to drive across town to get there!) cost about twice as…