The Bureau of the Census has issued its estimates of the population changes in Virginia and its 133 jurisdictions since the 2020 census.
They are always of interest, but perhaps more so since 2020-2022 spanned the COVID years.
The categories of change calculated by the Census Bureau are total change, natural change (births minus deaths) and migration. They provided the raw numbers.
In the attached spreadsheet, I let Excel calculate the percentages, which I find more meaningful. Some are surprising given that it was only a two-year period, but perhaps not, since it spanned the COVID years.
Upon hearing that the Fairfax County Police Department had scrapped conventional shotgun shells in favor of “bean bag” projectiles, my initial reaction was to mock the change. Bean bags? What’s the next tool in the police arsenal — pillows? Given the approving tone of the article in The Washington Post, I was tempted to dismiss the idea as the latest excrescence of politically correct dogma.
After further examination, I have reconsidered. Tasers are one non-lethalย alternative, but they don’t always work, especially if the target is pumped up on drugs. Does anyone remember Rodney King?ย The bean bag projectiles aren’t perfect — they can cause injuries or in rare circumstances kill. Still, they inflict a lot less damage than bullets or buckshot. The Fox News clip above shows how Atlanta police used bean bag rounds to disarm a man with a hatchet and axe.
Giving police alternatives to beating recalcitrant suspects into submission is always a good idea.ย — JAB
(This was first published today by the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy)
by Barbara Hollingsworth
Members of the General Assembly who voted for aย bill in 2021 mandating that new vehicles sold in Virginia must be all-electric by 2035 forgot to do the math to show exactly how that would work in real life.
As the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy noted in February when we unsuccessfully made the case for repeal of this ill-advised legislation, the Commonwealth simply does not have the technological capacity to make such a massive switch from internal combustion engines in such a short period of time.
Nobody told Virginians that the level of subsurface mining required to manufacture the millions of new batteries required to store electricity generated by wind, solar and other โrenewableโ energy sources will dwarf current production levels, scarring the earth.
John Butcher’s recent article on the relationship of SOL reading scores and funding per pupil prompted me to examine the most recent (2022) 3rd grade reading scores of students in Henrico County, where I live. The scores for disadvantaged students, particularly Black students, are awful.
I decided to present my findings to the school board and confront them with the failure of the schools they oversee. However, at their meeting this past week, I had only three minutes to speak. I do not talk fast enough to get much said in three minutes. Accordingly, I have sent them copies of the prepared remarks set out below.ย I do not have hope for much of a response. (more…)
If you are traveling through the middle of the Commonwealth this summer and want a break for some ice cream, this is the place.
Just north of Culpeper on Rt. 29 is Moo Thru.ย The claim is that the operators make the ice cream using fresh milk from cows in the region.ย It is very good and they have a wide assortment of flavors.
You can drive through or order from the window and eat on picnic tables under an open shelter.ย ย It is a popular place and, on weekends, there are usually cars backed up for the drive-through and people lined up at the window.
Weโve been hearing about the post-COVID declines in scores on the National Assessment of Educational Process (NAEP) tests. The NAEP database offers some (in fact, an abundance of) details.
Here, as a small sample, are the 4th and 8th grade reading and mathematics data for the nation and Virginia.
Itโs no secret that I was thrilled to watch Glen Sturtevantโs name replace Amanda Chaseโs on the election night ticker. However, this isnโt about my disdain for Chase, nor my approval of Sturtevant; I donโt even know him.
This is about simple math and what I believe to be a last-ditch effort at a con job by a professional.
Iโm sure not many people expected Amanda Chase to do the right thing and concede with grace. No, most of us expected some post-primary cry of foul. I did expect, however, that her foul cry would be based on something that made sense, and it doesnโt.
Since Tuesday, Chase has hit the airwaves and social media with the claim that the early voting in Chesterfield County was rigged. This accusation is ridiculous on its face to anyone who knows about elections in Chesterfield. The registrarโs office has been run like a Swiss watch for years, but even that doesnโt matter in this case. (more…)
Credit: Bing Image Creator. Sacagawea scratching her head, in the style of Frederick Remington.
by James A. Bacon
In the spring of 2022 University of Virginia alumnus Warren Lightfoot emailed Rector Whitt Clement, a fraternity brother, to share the experiences of a friend and friend’s daughter during a university tour. Among other negative observations about UVa, reported Lightfoot, the student tour guide had made a point of noting that the university was built on land taken from Indians, that it was built by slaves, that its plans were “stolen” from slaves, and that the University had caused little but harm to the residents of Charlottesville over 200 years. “Needless to say, my friend and his daughter were unimpressed, shocked and offended,” recounted Lightfoot, who, as a former student tour guide himself, had been proud of the institution he represented.
Clement thanked his frat brother for the email. “I have heard similar, but less disturbing, accounts. I am going to look into this โ totally unacceptable.”
True to his word, Clement talked to Greg Roberts, associate vice provost of enrollment and undergraduate admission. The Office of Undergraduate Admissions coordinated with the independent, student-run Student Guide Service to brief prospective students about the university. Typically, officials with the university would meet with prospects and their parents, and then turn them over to guides for tours of dormitories, student amenities and Thomas Jefferson’s architectural masterpiece of the Lawn.
Reporting back to Lightfoot, Clement reiterated his concerns. “I have expressed my dismay about this tour guide and am told it is an isolated event and that the guide is gone. This episode is totally unacceptable. Even if the tour guide program is part of student self-governance, which I am told is the case, then they must do a lot better job in self-selection and with the content of their tours; otherwise, serious intervention and changes would be in order in my opinion.”
But by August 2022 nothing had changed. Frustrated by the lack of concrete action, Lightfoot got back in touch with Clement to say that “the nonsense with the student guides has not stopped at all.” (more…)
Two recent signs of the deterioration of journalism. One is this comment from President Biden to a gaggle of reporters:
I hear some of you guys saying is, โWhy doesnโt Biden say what a good deal it is?โ Why would Biden say what a good deal it is before the vote? You think thatโs going to help me get it passed? No. Thatโs why you guys donโt bargain very well.
The second is this, from Harrisonburg Patch, a news aggregator:
A 33-year-old teacher at James Madison Middle School has been accused of soliciting inappropriate pictures from a student, leading to criminal charges against him. The alleged incident involved the teacher requesting pictures from a student at the school where he was employed, according to the police. The teacher has been arrested.
The first is obvious. Biden mocked the press corps for its reporting skills, and the press corps reported it as a Biden idiosyncrasy instead of as a failing on their part. The second, a little less so. The algorithm saw James Madison and thought Harrisonburg, even though the school is in Maryland. And it showed up in my email as a local story, which is a little jarring considering my wife, Deb, chairs the School Board. (more…)
Virginiaโs November elections for control of the General Assembly may be the most important in a generation.
Will Virginia become Berkeley east? Or will it return to being a sane, moderate commonwealth?
Great news! Tuesdayโs primaries saw the GOP cut loose its clown candidates, while Democrats embraced theirs.
A look at this weekโs primary results are an excellent sign for those on the right who support reasonable restrictions on abortion, school choice and parents rights.
Put simply, Democrats gave the boot to more moderate, bipartisan members of the state legislature to nominate wacky, far-left candidates. Republicans rejected the far right and nominated common-sense conservatives who were endorsed by Gov. Glenn Youngkin. In fact, every one of the 10 candidates endorsed by Youngkin won their races. (more…)
Pred*a*tor: (noun) one who injures or exploits others for personal gain or profit.
The most medically vulnerable of us reside in skilled nursing facilities (SNF).
Nobody plans to be there, but that is where about thirtyย thousand Virginians find themselves at any one time. People who are moved from hospitals to save money for the insurers but are too sick or injured to go home yet. ย
They are supposed to get the skilled nursing the name suggests. Many donโt.
Most are covered by Medicare. The rest by Medicaid or private insurance. It could be any one of us tomorrow.
These patients are at risk by design in some of these SNF’s. Put in danger by a perverted business model, a model that shows that returns can be juiced into double digits by stripping staff. The facilities can then be flipped in a couple of years at a profit based upon increased cash flows.
We will track their investments using government data. We will see a ritual, system-wide understaffing. ย We will also see that the government accumulated and publishes staffing data but there is no evidence they use it for anything.
There are nursing homes in Virginia, for example, that provide less than 30% of the registered nurse hours per patient per day that CMS assesses they require. ย Weekend statistics are worse. Nothing happens.
Today there are large systems not one of which is staffed to CMS norms.
There are real people who are harmed by those calculated violations. ย Exceptionally vulnerable people are regularly denied at least their dignity, often their health and sometimes their lives.
The owners injure and exploit patients for personal gain or profit.
In โA Pirate Looks at Fortyโ Jimmy Buffett describes the dilemma of one for whom the cannon doesnโt thunder: โMy occupational hazard being my occupation’s just not around.โ He could be describing journalists as well.
Journalism and piracy arenโt the only occupations disappearing, of course. The Chronicle of Higher Education and other pricey academic newsletters report regularly that universities are turning out more English and history doctorates than there are jobs to accommodate them. The magazine isnโt as worried about the loss of journalism jobs, possibly because journalists arenโt their audience. A site search of The Chronicle turns up 59 mentions of โjournalism major,โ mostly in job listings, and 268 mentions of โEnglish major,โ including this one:
Becoming an English major means pursuing the most important subject of all โ being a human being. We’re sorry. Something went wrong.
Iโm allowing for the possibility the search engineโs comments may be involved in that response. Still, something has gone wrong. The Daily News-Record is running stories about the Warren County sheriff to fill space with seemingly local stories. Six Virginia dailies will soon publish only three days a week, and by mail. The kid that started out delivering papers and wound up as a reporter will have to go back to the lemonade stand for spending money. (more…)
The Woke Revolution’s takeover of K-12 schools, the criminal justice system, higher ed, the media, the military, the C-suite, museums, and other cultural institutions has been highly visible, playing out in blogs and the media for all to see. The conquest of the healthcare system has attracted far less attention, though arguably it is the most consequential. After all, human lives are at stake.
Many U.S. medical schools have embraced the idea that American healthcare is systemically racist, that White physicians and other providers are infected with racial bias, that racism accounts for the disparities in health outcomes between Blacks and Whites, and that the only antidote to racism is “anti-racism,” warns Stanley Goldfarb, author of Take Two Aspirin and Call Me By My Pronouns: Why Turning Doctors into Social Justice Warriors Is Destroying American Medicine.
Goldfarb bases his critique on his own experiences as a nephrologist at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, an extensive review of the academic literature on racial disparities, and his role as founder of Do No Harm, a nonprofit formed to combat racial essentialism in medicine. Wokeness, he argues, is profoundly destructive. By misdiagnosing racial disparities in health outcomes, the anti-racism movement focuses attention on a nearly non-existent problem and distracts from real causes and solutions.
The predictable result: woke medicine will harm African Americans and other marginalized groups it purports to help. In that regard, it is similar to woke K-12 education, where the racial achievement gap is getting worse; woke criminal justice, which leads to more African American homicides; woke colleges and universities, where African Americans feel less sense of acceptance and belonging than in years past; and woke everything else, the poisoned fruit of which is grievance, resentment, and alienation. (more…)
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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by James C. Sherlock
(This was first published today by the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy)
by Dick Hall-Sizemore
by Kerry Dougherty
