Bacon's Rebellion

  • Oppression of the Drinking Class

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    Source: The Tax Foundation

    It’s time to proclaim a new class of the “oppressed” in the pantheon of society’s victims — bourbon drinkers and other imbibers of liquors. Virginia’s tax system engages in systemic bias in favor of the teetotalers.

    It’s not just that drinkers in Virginia must purchase their spirits at government-owned ABC stores or that they must pay excise taxes for the privilege of acquiring their sustenance. As the Tax Foundation points out, state governments utilize many other means to extract wealth from the drinking class. These include case and bottle fees, special sales taxes on spirits, wholesale taxes, and retail and distributor license fees. 

    When you measure the impact of all these add-ons, the Old Dominion imposes the third-highest implied tax of any state in the country, says the Tax Foundation.

    The states of Washington and Oregon are the two highest. The lowest? Wyoming, state motto: “the equality state.” (more…)

  • Factors Impacting Teacher Vacancies

    Posted on

    by

    Bob Rayner

    by Matt Hurt

    Last week Jim Bacon published an article about the fact that our teacher vacancy rate problem is not all about salary, and I agree that other factors also contribute to this problem.  Jim also posited that “It’s caused by teachers dropping out of the profession because they think their jobs suck,” and recent data seem to support an approximation of this idea.

    This spring some of my colleagues and I were able to obtain and investigate the annual School Climate and Working Conditions Survey results from 2023. We specifically focused on the teacher results and were able to confirm a major tenet in the educational world: climate matters!

    The survey questions were categorized as indicated in this spreadsheet. There were significant, positive correlations among all of the categories and SOL performance both at the school and the division levels of analysis. Conversely, these correlations were significant and negative with teacher vacancy rates. One singular question — overall, my school is a good place to work and learn — had the greatest overall correlation with both SOL outcomes and teacher vacancy rates. In other words, teachers were less likely to leave divisions in which they wanted to work, and those divisions produced better student outcomes.

    Table 1 below attempts to better illustrate these relationships. Most of the questions were presented in a Likert scale with a range of answer options from one to six (six being the most favorable response). These results were aggregated by region, and the statistics below indicate the percentage of possible points for each category of questions. All values are color coded as follows: green most desirable, red least desirable, and yellow most central.

    Table 1: Aggregate teacher survey results, teacher vacancy rates, and SOL pass rates by region in 2023.


    (more…)

  • A Curmudgeon Counts His Blessings on Memorial Day

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    It’s Memorial Day, and I should be choosing an uplifting and patriotic image like an American flag to accompany this post. But I’m feeling more than ordinarily cranky this morning, so I’m using this image of an old man shouting at birds and the rain. That’s me, alright.

    Set aside my irritability for a moment. I am profoundly grateful to the thousands of Americans who gave their lives or lost their limbs in wars to win independence, end secession, conquer fascism, contain communism, fight tyrants and terrorists, and make the world a better place. Their sacrifices have given me the gift of freedom, comfort and prosperity.

    I think of my mother’s cousin Mark, long deceased, whom I remember as a taciturn man who never got married and lived with his mother and uncle until his dying day. He was severely wounded at Iwo Jima when a Japanese artillery shell destroyed the halftrack he was riding in. He was the only soldier to survive. He never cared to talk about his experience. (more…)

  • Remember and Honor

    Posted on

    by

    Dick Hall-Sizemore

  • EVs More Likely to Kill Pedestrians, Damage Roads and Bridges

    Posted on

    by

    Bob Rayner

    by Hans Bader

    “A recent study published by the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health found that drivers of electric vehicles (EVs) and hybrids are twice as likely to hit pedestrians compared to those driving traditional gas-powered cars, potentially leading to more fatal accidents. This conclusion came from a review of British road accidents. The study examined 32 billion miles of EV travel and 3 trillion miles of combustion-engine car trips,” reports Straight Arrow News:

    The findings align with earlier studies conducted by U.S. federal agencies. In 2017, the Department of Transportation reported that EVs and hybrids pose a 20% greater risk to pedestrians. This risk increases to 50% during low-speed maneuvers such as turning, reversing and coming to a stop.

    Researchers partly attributed these elevated dangers posed by EVs and hybrids to the relative quietness of these vehicles. Unlike traditional combustion-engine cars, battery-powered automobiles produce little to no noise, sometimes leaving pedestrians unaware of an approaching vehicle….The heavier weight of EVs makes the problem worse. Electric cars often weigh 30% more than their gas-powered counterparts. This is because of their large batteries, which can add upwards of 2,000 pounds in some models. This added weight increases the likelihood of fatal outcomes in pedestrian accidents.…Being hit by a car with an additional 1,000 pounds of weight increases the chance of a fatality by nearly 50%.

    (more…)

  • Civil Disobedience Without Consequences

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    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    The anarchists who organized the UVA Encampment for Gaza are clamoring for the University of Virginia to reverse its No Trespass Order (NTO) against nursing student Mustafa Abdelhamid. The circumstances behind the sanction are absent from the brief Instagram post by the anarchist collective, but the restriction was imposed for actions relating to the Virginia State Police crackdown on the pro-Palestinian tent “encampment” on May 4.

    Abdelhamid is the only arrestee whose No Trespass Appeal (NTO) appeal was denied, claims UVA Encampment for Gaza.

    Even though the protester is identified as a Piedmont Virginia Community College student, Encampment for Gaza asserts that the order prohibiting him from entering UVA Grounds is “preventing him from pursuing his nursing studies. Please join our appeal by endorsing our letter and telling UVA administration to let Mustafa nurse,” says the Instagram post.

    Maybe Abdelhamid should have pondered the potential consequences before doing whatever it was that he did that got him in trouble. (more…)

  • Jeanine’s Memes

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    Yup, this is how I look most of the time.

    From The Bull Elephant.

  • Data Centers Are Good for Virginia. Predictably, Opposition Is Mounting.

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    Location of Virginia data centers. (Three data centers in Southwest Virginia not shown). Source: Piedmont Environmental Council Geohub.

    by James A. Bacon

    Data centers have become such big business in Virginia that the industry has formed its own trade association, the Data Center Coalition, Unsurprisingly, that group is headquartered in Leesburg, smack dab in the middle of the largest cluster of data centers in the United States if not the world.

    You know the industry is really big here in Virginia when a coalition of environmental and conservation groups — the Virginia Data Center Reform Coalition — has mobilized to constrain it.

    The Reform Coalition (VDCRC) urges lawmakers to implement “common-sense regulatory and rate-making reforms” addressing the impact of data centers on the electrical grid, water resources, air quality, and land conservation efforts.

    “Utilities are legally obligated to serve these data centers, no matter how much energy they require or the impact to the transmission grid. Virginia ratepayers are currently subsidizing this buildout for some of the largest and wealthiest companies in the world – which is patently unfair,” states the VDCRC website. (more…)

  • Investor in Dominion Wind Buys $150M Island

    Posted on

    by

    Steve Haner

    Experience in Iowa just proved this earlier destruction of an onshore turbine was a harbinger of things to come. See below.

    By Steve Haner

    One of the leaders of investment firm Stonepeak, which is buying a 50% share in Dominion Energy’s Virginia Virginia Beach wind project, just bought a private island.  The story is reported by the New York Post, which mentions his role in the major investment firm but doesn’t make the connection to the 176 turbines now under construction.

    I’d love to share the photos but don’t want to test the copyright limits. Check out the story and luxury home pics on the Post website yourselves.

    I’m sorry, aren’t we being told that we have to have that multi-billion dollar boondoggle to protect us from a horrible future destroyed by climate change? That without offshore wind displacing natural gas, the sea will rise faster than a soufflé and hurricanes will be more frequent and far more powerful? This bright guy getting rich off Virginia ratepayer money doesn’t seem to buy that hype.

    To be fair, the deal between Dominion and Stonepeak is still under review at the State Corporation Commission. Stonepeak has plenty of other profitable investments that paid for this house. (more…)

  • Apologies (Once Again)

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    by

    James A. Bacon

    You may have seen some garbage posts on the blog and, if you are a subscriber, in your in-boxes. My apologies. I’ve been experimenting with ways to apply Artificial Intelligence to summarize the content of Virginia news and opinion on blogs and websites free from paywalls. Let’s just say that I could use some AI to help me implement the AI. It was a mess. I did not realize that my experiments were being published. Hopefully, I’ve cleared all the junk off the blog, but the possibility of more mis-steps cannot be discounted. Please bear with me. — JAB

  • Four Years In, Energy Subsidy Helping Very Few

    Posted on

    by

    Steve Haner

    From Dominion’s brochure on the PIPP program.

    By Steve Haner

    Four years after approval, a state program to provide lower electricity costs to low income families is still struggling to get going.  Administrative costs have far exceeded any actual benefits to utility customers to date.

    It is called the Percentage of Income Payment Program (PIPP) and was created by the 2020 General Assembly as part of the Virginia Clean Economy Act. Almost three years ago, both Appalachian Power Company and Dominion Energy Virginia received permission to charge extra on their customer monthly bills to fund it.

    Both companies have now filed updates with the State Corporation Commission and are seeking to adjust the amount they collect from general customers.  Dominion, which had enrolled 8,600 PIPP beneficiary accounts as of late March, is seeking to eliminate its monthly charge for a while. Appalachian, which still had zero customers enrolled by the time of its report, has applied to raise its surcharge.

    Both are relatively tiny amounts so far. Just how large and how expensive the program might become over time remains anybody’s guess, but as utility costs grow so will the total amount of subsidies and surcharges. The intention is to limit a poor family’s electric bill to 10 percent of income if they use electricity for heat, and 6 percent if they use some other heating source.

    So, another cost driver for the long term will be the continued push from government to eliminate the use of anything but electricity for heat. Natural gas and heating oil are squarely in the crosshairs of the Biden Administration and others who accept the climate catastrophe narrative and blame it on carbon-based fuels. (more…)

  • Two-Mile Moonscape in Virginia Beach: Thanks, Bureaucrats!

    Posted on

    by

    Bob Rayner

    by Kerry Dougherty 

    Virginia Beach politicians are doing their happy dance. Earlier this week state officials gave them good news: they’re “near the finish line” on the Laskin Road project.

    Oh, please.

    We’ve seen this movie before.

    Let’s review, shall we?

    In 2019 construction began on the two-mile-long road widening project through the heavily traveled Hilltop corridor of Virginia Beach.

    (more…)

  • Open the Books Digs Up 100 More DEI Employees at UVA

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    Adam Andrzejewski

    by James A. Bacon

    Back in March, Adam Andrzejewski and his team at Open the Books, a non-profit dedicated to transparency in government spending, concluded that the University of Virginia is spending $20 million in payroll for 235 employees (including student interns) on work relating to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.

    Describing Andrzejewski’s numbers as “wildly inflated,” UVA officials countered with a count of 55 employees earning salaries of $5.3 million.

    So, Andrzejewski sent his researchers back for a second look. As it turns out, Open the Books concluded, their initial findings were far off the mark. They were way too low. The organization has identified 100 additional employees across 80 offices and departments who have been sucked into the University’s DEI vortex.

    These are employees who, in addition to their primary roles at the university, contribute variously as DEI deans, directors, project leads, coordinators, representatives, fellows, council members, faculty advisors, ex officio members, and even “JEDIs” (Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion personnel), Andrzejewski writes in a column published in City Journal. (more…)

  • Money Alone Won’t Solve Teacher Shortage

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    Virginia, like other states, is facing a teacher shortage. The debate over how to reverse the thinning of the ranks has been mind-bogglingly superficial. As a consequence, there is little prospect of solving it.

    The root of the problem is that the Virginia Education Association (VEA) and its ideological allies in the mainstream media define the problem as insufficient pay — a problem that can be addressed only by boosting teacher salaries. VEA rarely if ever makes an issue of poor working conditions.

    Thus, we read in the Virginia Mercury that Virginia teacher pay “gets a boost in budget, but it’s still projected to fall short of national average.” The two-year budget signed last week includes $540 million for 3% salary increases each year. Predictably, the VEA says it’s not enough to keep Virginia salaries competitive.

    The article delves into a discussion of methodological differences between the VEA and the Youngkin administration on how to calculate average teacher pay so it can be comparable across the 50 states.

    Here’s what the arcane budget debate ignores: the teacher shortage in Virginia isn’t caused by teachers picking up and relocating to states with higher pay. It’s caused by teachers dropping out of the profession because they think their jobs suck. (more…)

  • UVA Groups Are Hamas Proxies, Lawsuit Contends

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    Matan Goldstein, a first-year Israeli-American student at the University of Virginia, has filed a lawsuit against President Jim Ryan and Rector Robert Hardie, alleging that they stood by and did nothing while pro-Hamas groups subjected him to harassment, intimidation and abuse for his religious and ethnic identity.

    Goldstein drew attention as one of the only Jewish students at UVA willing to publicly defend Israel after the Hamas terror attack on Oct. 7, 2023. He was insulted, ostracized and spit upon. His pleas to the administration went unheeded. According to the lawsuit, Ryan and Hardie declined to intervene even when the president of the UVA chapter of the Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) sought to silence him by filing bogus Honor Code charges against him.

    “Pro-Hamas students have turned what once was a beautiful bastion of enlightened freethinking and tolerance into a trash-laden wasteland of antisemitic and anti-Israeli hate, and Defendants UVA, Ryan, and Hardie allowed it to happen,” states the lawsuit, which was filed May 17. Goldstein is represented in the case by the Charlottesville law firm Brown & Gavalier PLLC.

    For a quick overview of the lawsuit, read the article in Virginia Business magazine. But that story skims the surface. The lawsuit consolidates a vast body of material about antisemitism at UVA, much of which will be familiar to Bacon’s Rebellion readers but some of which is new. Anyone deeply interested in the subject should consult the lawsuit itself, a highly readable document expressed in colorful language.

    There is far too much detail to include in a single article, so I shall address major themes in separate posts. Today I will explore the lawsuit’s argument that the expressions of pro-Palestinian support at UVA were orchestrated by pro-Hamas groups, at least in part, as part of a broader propaganda campaign rolled out in conjunction with Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, assault on Israel. (more…)

Now Available

Book cover of 'Dust Mites: A Second American Revolution' by James A. Bacon, featuring astronauts planting a flag with a blue and white emblem on a lunar landscape, with Earth visible in the background.
For sale on Amazon.com

The year: 2075. The American colonies on the Moon are getting restless under Washington’s tyrannical rule….

This second edition of “Dust Mites” has a snazzy new cover, includes helpful lunar maps, and is 5,000 words tighter than the original. The sequel, “Trogs,” is scheduled for publication this summer.

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Bacon’s Rebellion is Virginia’s leading politically non-aligned portal for news, opinions and analysis about state, regional and local public policy. Read more about us here.

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