Bacon's Rebellion

  • The Big Christmas Chill Was a Wakeup Call

    Posted on

    by

    Robin Beres

    by Bill O’Keefe

    As temperatures dropped dramatically over the Christmas weekend, Dominion Energy’s advice to its customers — those who still had power — was to turn down their thermostats. Virginia was not alone. PJM, the regional grid management organization covering 13 states and the District of Columbia, made the same request because its gas plants couldn’t get enough fuel to meet the demand for home heating.

    According to The Wall Street Journal, rolling blackouts were averted because PJM ordered some businesses to curtail power while switching some generators to oil. The large regions served by both the Tennessee Valley Authority and Duke Energy experienced rolling blackouts. And for the second year in a row, Texas faced a grid problem as wind power plunged and demand doubled.

    The Wall Street Journal also noted that, “While there wasn’t a single cause for the power shortages, government policies to boost renewable energy snowballed and created problems that cascaded through the grid. There have been warnings about grid vulnerability for years but this Christmas proves that these warnings have not been taken seriously. The climate lobby blames climate change and greedy energy companies for this year’s problems but there have been colder Christmases — 1980 and 1983 for example. And, there have been colder Decembers that were survived without a grid breakdown or near breakdown.

    The problems faced by utilities should be a warning and a reason for reassessment. Will Dominion heed that warning or will it continue on its present course? How will it prevent more serious problems as the demand for electrical power continues to increase and electric heat pumps are promoted and subsidized as responsible replacements for gas- and oil-fired furnaces?

    That Dominion had to urge its customers to turn down their thermostats indicates that it did not have sufficient surge capacity to meet the demand caused by low temperatures. We need to know why. It could be the result of the 2019 decision to shutter all of its coal-fired capacity as part of its Net-Zero 2050 commitment and the General Assembly mandate to do so by 2024.
    (more…)

  • Offshore Wind Turbines in International Waters Raise Big Defense Issues

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    sherlockj

    By James C. Sherlock

    Courtesy U.S. Navy

    The Department of the Interior (DOI) is unlikely to be expert in the diplomatic issues and defense vulnerabilities inherent in building wind turbine farms in international waters.

    The DOI is, however, greatly concerned with “viewscape” – whether the turbine blades can be seen from shore.  By the wealthy who live there and those who visit.

    DOI’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), which will issue or deny in March a construction permit to Dominion Energy to build its Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind (CVOW) project in international waters, may understand the fact that the United States is a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

    They may or may not be aware that the U.S. has done more to enforce UNCLOS than any other nation on earth.

    They may or may not fully understand that UNCLOS will severely constrain U.S. rights surrounding wind turbine projects in international waters in ways that will bedevil us constantly, drive up national defense costs and threaten the long-term viability of the projects.

    If they do understand the implications, they may consider that the business of the Departments of Defense and State.

    So do I.  Those two departments have dropped the ball.

    DOI may not understand that all of those issues are greatly mitigated if the turbine farms are within 12 miles from the coast.  But DoD and State should.

    And Congress should.

    The House Armed Services Committee should hold hearings before the CVOW permit is approved.

    (more…)

  • Bacon Meme of the Week

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    James A. Bacon

  • RVA 5×5 – New Year’s Nuggets

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    by

    Robin Beres

    by Jon Baliles

    Left In The Cold

    The Richmond Free Press Editorial Page ends the year batting 1.000 and goes two for two this week. The main editorial covers the disgraceful lack of attention, urgency and concern by the mayor and the administration for those in need of shelter during last week’s arctic blast. It opens with two sentences any “leader” should be ashamed of:

    “Here’s the good news: So far, there have been no reports of unsheltered people freezing to death in the arctic blast that hit the Richmond area just before Christmas. With private and city-supported shelters full, people were left in the cold.”

    It goes through the debacle over the past few months (you can read more here and here) and questions why zoning and special use permits were held out among the excuses as to why shelters in certain parts of town were unable to open. I recall a time not too distant when the mayor used “emergency powers” for numerous other issues during the pandemic; I guess emergency shelter for the homeless in 10-degree weather does not qualify.

    The editorial also notes that the Council approved a special use permit two years ago for a shelter by a different operator in the same spot on Chamberlayne Avenue in Northside, but this year they are still waiting to get through the red tape.

    “It would seem simple enough to create a legal fig leaf that would have allowed CCC (Commonwealth Catholic Charities) to fully open. No, it was more important that CCC gain its own permission slip, even if that took forever and left desperate people in the cold.”

    And then, the brilliant denouement:

    “Mayor Stoney has lectured everyone about how this city’s goal is to create One Richmond and equity for all. Apparently, you had to read the fine print on his messaging: Legal niceties are more important than people. Alas.”

    Jon Baliles is a former Richmond City Councilman. This column was published originally in his blog RVA 5×5 and is republished here with permission.

  • After Arctic Blast, Do We Still Want to Californicate Our Grid?

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    by

    Bob Rayner

    by Scott Dreyer

    An old saying goes, “You don’t miss the water till the well runs dry.”

    In modern days that might be, “You don’t miss the electricity till you lose the lights. And heat. And hot water. And wifi. And TV. And microwave. And phone charger. And electric blanket, and The Roanoke Star….”

    Around here, blackouts were common over Christmas weekend. Some lost power for a day or two, but one friend today told me her Roanoke Valley suburb lost juice Thursday night and didn’t get it back till Monday evening. Those extended power outages, combined with the brutal temperatures, high winds, and the fact that it was Christmas weekend, caused misery for many. The death toll nationwide from the storm is already 60, and might climb higher as more bodies are found.

    One Roanoke insurance agent told me her office has been flooded (pardon the pun) with calls from policy holders reporting frozen pipes and now water damage.

    At my home office, it was 6 degrees Saturday morning. Ironically, friends of ours were in upstate New York for Christmas, where it hit a low of 7, so it was colder here than there. A friend in southwest Roanoke County recorded 2 degrees. At Paint Bank, on the western edge of Craig County near the West Virginia line, it was -5.

    Another feature of the storm was its magnitude. Last Friday, some 240 million people were under a weather warning or advisory; that was more than two-thirds of the entire U.S. population of 330 million. The map of wintry hazards “depicts one of the greatest extents of winter weather warnings and advisories ever,” the National Weather Service said.  It was freezing in Atlanta and flurrying in Miami.

    I would be remiss not to point out the incredible irony. Granted, one weather event–no matter how extreme–does not prove a trend. However, it’s remarkable how, after years of being warned the world is getting hotter and hotter, we just endured a storm that broke record lows in some places. In March 2000, the British newspaper Independent warned that, due to Global Warming, it was likely that in the near future English children would never see real snow.

    The extreme cold should have showed us (again) the need to have affordable, reliable energy. (more…)

  • New Census Bureau Numbers and the Southern Border

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    sherlockj

    Joe Biden. Official Photo Why is this man smiling?

    by James C. Sherlock

    I just received my “Happy New Year 2023” message from the Census Bureau.

    “As the nation prepares to ring in the new year, the U.S. Census Bureau today projected the U.S. population will be 334,233,854 on Jan. 1, 2023.

    Happy New Year 2023!

    This represents an increase of 1,571,393, or 0.47%, from New Year’s Day 2022.”

    It may prove useful to compare that to the number of people illegally crossing the southern border in that same period. NBC news reports 2.76 million. But who knows?

    But the celebration, certainly any toast, is premature pending the near- and long-term consequences of the madness there.

    This represents kind of an “in your face, America” comment from the Biden administration.

    We have come to expect that.

    Perhaps, in one of his stories, he will refer to himself as the new father of his country.

  • Medicare Care Compare – The Only Way to Find the Best Home Health Services in Your Area

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    sherlockj

    The Medicare Compare Lady. Courtesy CMS.

    by James C. Sherlock

    I have been using Medicare Care Compare ratings in my research and writing for 15 years.

    Regular readers are familiar with my work on hospitals. I published in this space an extensive series on Virginia nursing homes. For quality ratings and consumer survey data, there is absolutely no substitute for Medicare Care Compare.

    This article is about home health services.

    There are other rating “services.” Ignore them. None has the timeliness or volume of objective data available on Medicare Care Compare.

    The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has built the Care Compare website as a decision aid. I find it to be the easy-to-access, convenient and up-to-date official source of information about provider quality that CMS intends. It gets better all the time.

    This website displays for Medicare-certified home health agencies both data compared to national and state norms and star ratings for:

    1. clinical measures compiled from the Outcome and Assessment Information Set (OASIS) Prospective Payment System (PPS); and
    2. the results from the Home Health Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers & Systems (HHCAHPS) surveys.

    Results are based on data from the last four quarters and are updated each quarter.

    CMS assigns weights to each measure, calculates the results, adjusts for patient mix, and awards quality and consumer stars on a Bell curve. Across the country, most agencies fall in the middle with 3 or 3½ stars.

    It represents a very tough cut. Which is what makes it so useful.

    • You will find 240 Medicare-certified home health agencies in Virginia;

    (more…)

  • One-Size-Fits-All COVID Policy Vs. Precision Medicine

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    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    What a revelation. It turns out that a person’s genes have a big influence over how or his or her immunological system responds to the COVID-19 virus. A Charlottesville company, Ampel Biosolutions, has developed a blood test, which it claims predicts with 90% accuracy if a COVID-infected patient is at risk for a serious, life-threatening case.

    Ampel executives say that the test, dubbed CovGene, could help physicians tailor treatments depending upon the patient’s genetic profile. It might make sense, for example, to implement anti-viral therapy such as Paxlovid for someone at acute risk, while patients at low risk could forego the expensive treatments.

    The company based its findings on research conducted in collaboration with researchers at the University of Virginia hospital based on a longitudinal study of two-dozen COVID patients in UVa’s intensive care unit and a study of 100 patients from Duke and Harvard. The results were published in the Frontiers in Immunology journal.

    Ampel officials make no claim beyond the efficacy of their blood test. Their pronouncements do not address broader issues regarding public health policy. Assuming its claims stand up to scrutiny, however, some conclusions about U.S. COVID policy seem warranted. (more…)

  • Poverty and Performance in Virginia Schools

    Posted on

    by

    Robin Beres

    Poverty and Performance in Virginia Schools

    by John Butcher

    A recent study out of Stanford looked at 11 years of district-level National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) data by race and economic disadvantage from all public school districts and concluded that racial segregation is strongly associated with the magnitude of achievement gaps in third grade and the rate at which gaps grow from third to eighth grade. The association of racial segregation with achievement gap growth is completely accounted for by racial differences in school poverty (termed “racial economic segregation”). Thus, racial segregation is harmful because it concentrates minority students in high-poverty schools, which are on average less effective than lower-poverty schools.

    On the subject of economic disadvantage, the Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) database offers Virginia SOL data on a granular level, so let’s look at some of those numbers. In particular, the graphs below present 2022 SOL pass rates by subject, per school, for students who are economically disadvantaged (“ED”) (i.e., those who qualify for the free/reduced lunch program, TANF, or Medicaid) and for their more affluent peers (“Not ED”).

    Notes: The percentage of ED students below is calculated from the number of ED students taking a particular test and the number of Not ED students taking that test. Data are school averages for the subject area for all grades tested, 3-8 and End of Course. The VDOE suppression rules omit data for just over 3.5% of the entries in the 2022 SOL database, primarily for cases where the number of students in a group is <10.

    Aggrieved note: As of 12/20/22 and again on 12/29 (well after I complained), the links on the VDOE Web site to the data dictionary (definition of “economically disadvantaged”) and to the suppression rules, among others, do not work.
    (more…)

  • Is There Something about Restrictive Speech Environments that Attracts Journalism Majors?

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    sherlockj

    An economics major

    by James C. Sherlock

    Most of the best journalists in American history had only a high school diploma.

    Charles Dickens, a voracious reader with a very limited and interrupted formal education, was a journalist and one of the most honored writers ever.

    The Columbia School of Journalism offers, if that is the right word, a masters degree in journalism.

    In 2018 the price tag of the Columbia Journalism School, admitted the Columbia Journalism Review, was $105,820 for a 10-month program, $147,418 for a 12-month program, or $108,464 per year for a two-year program. That was a $216,928 graduate degree, on top of all the costs associated with gaining the undergraduate prerequisites.

    In 2022, in a demonstration of “shrinkflation” worthy of the business school, the cost of the now-9-month graduate journalism degree program at Columbia is $120,000.

    Virginia Tech is a player in the same market.

    But then I guess that depends upon how you define player. (more…)

  • Factoid of the Day: It Still Pays to Work in Virginia

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    by

    James A. Bacon

    In three states — Washington, Massachusetts, and New Jersey — a family of four can earn more than $100,000 annually in equivalent government benefits, according to a study, “Paying Americans Not to Work,” published by the Committee to Unleash Prosperity. The earned income equivalent for the state of Washington is a mind-boggling $122,653 a year, or $31 hourly wage equivalent for both parents working.

    For a family of two parents and two dependent minor children, 14 states pay benefits that potentially exceed median wages earned by school teachers, machinists, electricians and truckers.

    Virginians who believe in reinforcing the work ethic can take some consolation that the Old Dominion is pretty far down the list — 36th. Maximum potential benefits amount to $57,744, the equivalent to paying $15 an hour. That’s less than school teachers, building inspectors, electricians, firefighters, truck drivers, and machinists make — more than retail associates.

    — JAB

  • Will Loudoun Cancel Frances Hazel Reid?

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    Frances Hazel Reid. Photo credit: Loudoun Times-Mirror

    by James A. Bacon

    Frances Hazel Reid began working for the Loudoun Times-Mirror in 1921, and remained an employee until shortly before her death in 1994 at the age of 94. Starting out as a secretary in an era when the majority of women did not work outside the home, she rose through the ranks as reporter, treasurer and associate publisher. She founded the Loudoun Business and Professional Women’s Club, and was appointed director of the Loudoun County Historical Society in 1970. She was held in such high regard in her community that an elementary school in Leesburg was named after her in 2003.

    Now she may be canceled.

    Frances Hazel Reid Elementary School is one of nine schools in Loudoun being considered for a name change as part of the school board’s effort, in the words of the Times-Mirror, “to reckon with systemic racism in a county that didn’t integrate its schools until 1968.”

    Reid’s sin: she was one of 14 women who founded the Purcellville chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy (DOC) in 1924. (more…)

  • When the Pursuit of “Equity” Cheats High Achievers

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    by

    Bob Rayner

    by Kerry Dougherty

    Imagine for a moment that you’re a top student in a highly competitive science and technology high school.

    In your junior year you take the PSATs and enter the prestigious National Merit Scholarship Program competing against the elite students in high schools from coast to coast. Imagine that in mid-October of your senior year your school principal is notified that you are a “Commended Student” in that competition, meaning that out of roughly 1.5 million entrants, you scored in the top 3%.

    Applications for early decision to the most selective colleges and universities close on October 31 and this sort of distinction could be the difference between an acceptance or a rejection.

    Now imagine that your school sat on your award and didn’t bother informing you that you are a Commended Student until mid-November, when it was too late to add that to your resume.

    Oh, and instead of announcing your name over the school’s public address system or holding a ceremony to honor you, your teacher simply slapped your certificate on your desk.

    You see, school administrators in your high school are apparently more concerned with “equity” and equal outcomes for all kids than in singling out high achievers.

    Sucks to be you.

    This really happened. At Fairfax County’s Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, perhaps the most prestigious public high school in the country. (more…)

  • Afghan Immigrants and Their Children in Virginia – Part 2 – the Afghan Adjustment Act

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    by

    sherlockj

    Courtesy of Virginia Department of Social Services

    by James C. Sherlock

    When I wrote Part 1 of this series, I promised further investigation into immigration of Afghan allies into Virginia.

    The Virginia Department of Social Services (VDSS), a hero in this story, has been entirely forthcoming in answering my inquiries. I will recount in a follow-up post their work so far. But the federal government has much more to do.

    As a retired Naval officer, I strongly support the bi-partisan Afghan Adjustment Act (the Act) sitting in committees in the House and Senate. We must do the right thing for allies who fought alongside us.

    Neither the House nor the Senate acted upon the bill in 2022.

    The VDSS Office of New Americans, funded by the federal government, is doing terrific work, but needs the help that the Act would bring.

    VDSS is assisting 5,161 Afghan parolees.

    Parole offers only limited, temporary benefits and — unlike refugees and Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) holders — parolees have no clear path to permanent status. Instead, those thousands of parolees live in Virginia uncertain about their options or their future in the United States.

    There are 2,123 additional Afghans in the Commonwealth that already have SIV designation.

    Only California and Texas host more Afghans who have fled their country since the American withdrawal.

    Both SIVs and parolees who qualify as SIVs but await very limited numbers of authorized visas are welcome with our thanks for their service. They can be expected to make major contributions to Virginia.

    We owe them the chance to do that. That is why the Act is so necessary. (more…)

  • If This Doesn’t Get You Admitted to UVa, What Will?

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    @limmytalks

    did you get them right? #collegeapps #collegeadmissions

    ♬ original sound – Limmy 💛

    The producer of The School of Limmy, a Korean-American neuroscience major at Duke University, posts short videos about college admissions on TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram. One of his schticks is reading the qualifications of student applicants and listing the colleges that accepted and rejected them.

    The applicant described in the video above was valedictorian of his class, scored perfectly on the ACT exams and 1550 on the SAT, took several AP and Honors courses, had a 4.7755 grade point average, was captain of the lacrosse team, wrestled, ran cross country, was a Boy Scout troop leader, was a youth council leader, served on student council, and belonged to a math club… which he founded.

    The applicant was accepted to eight universities, including Princeton and Washington & Lee University (which he ended up attending), but was rejected from several others… including the University of Virginia.

    This makes you wonder what UVa is looking for in a student applicant. Obviously, it’s more than SAT scores, the submission of which is now voluntary, and good grades. (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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