June 19, 2008Enough with the fractional gas pricesThe editorial writers over at The (Fredericksburg) Free Lance-Star have a great suggestion for Virginia gas stations. Drop the .9 cents on the price of a gallon of gas. They argue it doesn't make sense when a gallon costs more than $4. Maybe the General Assembly could pass a bill requiring whole-cent pricing when they meet next week. It's not like they're going to do anything about transportation. June 17, 2008Christiansburg's council electionsCarol Lindstrom over at DepotDazed suggests Christiansburg move its council elections to November. Blacksburg decided to do so recently. Lindstrom's argument for the change is primarily fiscal. It would cost less to run the actual election and there would be aggregate fuel savings for citizens. Stop by her site to see to the full argument. Personally, I think it's a good idea if handled right. April 4, 2008Dominion's power plantOver at Bacon's Rebellion, Jim Bacon muses about the opposition to Dominion's proposed coal-burning power plant in Wise County, and wonders why Dominion's customers aren't upset about the higher rates the plant will cost them: "Dominion plans to spend $1.8 billion on construction, and the SCC is granting the utility a 12.12 percent return on equity. As I observed last year, the project was far more expensive on a cost-per-KW-hour basis than other clean-coal facilities on the drawing boards around the country. Among the more obvious inefficiencies is the legislative requirement to buy expensive Virginia coal, and the necessity of wheeling the electric power across the entire state, suffering transmission losses along the way. "I estimated last year that Dominion rate payers could wind up paying $650 million more than they would otherwise -- and that was based on a $1.6 billion cost figure, which has somehow moved up to $1.8 billion. I am stupefied that not a single public figure in Virginia has raised a fuss. Are there no populists among us anymore?" I find it interesting that he complains about the location of the plant. The location - very near two other major polluting power plants - is the main reason we oppose it. But what do you think would happen if Dominion proposed plopping those big, belching smokestacks in NoVa - or near enough to pollute Richmond, for that matter? Something tells me the plant would face somewhat higher regulatory hurdles. March 28, 2008Agreement from on highIn case you wondered, Jerry Fuhrman at From On High doesn't always disagree with us Not always, but usually. March 21, 2008Patrick Henry English class engages the blogosphereHank Bostwick, an 11th grade English teacher at Patrick Henry High, launched a blog for his class, "English Eleven Online." The blog scored a bit of a coup recently when it got Gov. Tim Kaine to post a comment after his recent town hall meeting at PH. You can read about it here. March 14, 2008Godwin's lawGodwin's law states: As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one. The law has been extended to blogs, and rightfully so as Jerry Fuhrman shows at From On High. He manages to compare Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama to both Adolf Hitler and Chairman Mao. So you're a McCain man, then, Jerry? Or are you on the Hillary bandwagon? I'm all for a little rhetorical flourish now and then, but sheesh. March 10, 2008A financial educationI was struck by an insightful comment to an interesting post over at TPM Cafe. The post was discussing the impact of the collapse of the $8 trillion housing bubble on the economy. The commenter laid out a vicious cycle: A debt-supported spending frenzy by consumers led to inflated prices for certain goods, including homes. Inflated home prices allowed homeowners to borrow more against equity, given them more borrowed money to spend. As the poster summed it up: "The financial services and consumer products industries both encouraged this bad behavior and many economists and government officials blessed it. But still, at the heart of the problem, are ordinary Americans who, in large numbers, demonstrated remarkable ignorance of basic finance and also a surprising lack of self-control. Ultimately, I think the best thing that could come out of this recession is a new push to educate Americans about the basics of finance. The collapse of the housing bubble is bad, but there are looming crises in retirement savings and health care that will be much worse than our current problem if Americans don't start making better financial decisions." (emphasis mine) I think the poster, a self-described "fiscally conservative liberal" who goes by Purple State, makes an excellent point. American consumers desperately need an education in basic finance. But even those who are supposed to be experts help make the housing fiasco worse. March 5, 2008TransportationJerry Fuhrman over at From on High, responded to this morning's transportation editorial with this post that included a pie chart showing where state money goes.
As I told Jerry in a comment on his blog, something seems off with that chart. As the text on the page he linked to says, "Looking at total operating funds from all sources, the majority of the money goes to education (39 percent), health and human resources (26 percent), and transportation (13 percent)." Subsequent charts show transportation getting 13 percent of general revenue and 23 percent of nongeneral revenue.
I can's see how that could possibly average out to less than 3 percent of total funds. October 11, 2007Fact-checking the blogsThere are a bunch of bloggers online who think their job is to fact-check the media. That's fine. Everyone makes mistakes. But who's fact-checking the fact-checkers? As this excellent piece on The New Republic's The Plank shows, bloggers don't always get it right, either: This is the story of how some bloggers on the right tried to undermine a popular government program, disparage a Baltimore family, and discredit the mainstream media -- and how it ended up validating all three in the process. It's a story that starts earlier this month, after Congress had passed a substantial expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP). As readers of this space know--skip down to the break if you can recite chapter and verse on S-CHIP already--the program's purpose is to make sure low-income children get health insurance. But it doesn't target the poorest of the poor, since the most destitute children already qualify for Medicaid. Rather, it focuses on those children in families too wealthy to qualify for Medicaid but still too poor or otherwise unable to buy insurance on their own. Give the whole thing a read. It's worth it. October 1, 2007Dilbert on newspapersScott Adams has a fascinating entry on his Dilbert Blog about the future of newspapers. I was with him on the technology front (though I think he's overestimating the end of the print newspaper by a generation or so). But I hope he's way off on this vision of the future of news: "So I see printed newspapers lasting until you upgrade your phone two more times. But the newspaper business can thrive online if it changes how it gathers and edits content. And clearly there will be massive amounts of consolidation. There won't be 3,000 newspapers online. There might be a dozen. And local news will come from hometown bloggers who self-syndicate to all of the newspapers." Newspapers do need to change how we gather and edit content. But turning over the news-gathering function to hordes of bloggers would be a horrible mistake, unless bloggers as a whole take a quantum leap in quality, reliability and accuracy. March 22, 2007From On HighJerry Fuhrman, former Roanoke Times columnist, thought we missed the mark with today's editorial calling for White House aides to testify publicly and under oath about the politically motivated firings of eight US attorneys. In his From On High blog, Jerry wrote: We don't need to go through all that, fellas. Let me explain it to you in a few crisp words: That Justice Department that you found to be working closely with the White House IS PART OF "THE WHITE HOUSE." Moving on ... The Justice Department is an executive office branch. That doesn't mean Congress doesn't have the right - and the duty - to investigate attempts to oust prosecutors who weren't found to be sufficiently loyal "Bushies." As 19th Century British philosopher John Stuart Mill wrote, the most vital function of the legislature isn't making laws, but "to watch and control the government; to throw the light of publicity on its acts; to compel a full exposition and justification of all of them which any one considers questionable; to censure them if found condemnable." That includes the White House. February 28, 2007War supporter says 70 percent of Americans are duncesAlton over at "I'm Not Emeril" had this to say about polls that show 70 percent of the American people question the Iraq war: I reconcile it with the fact that the other 70% knows the names of every contestant and judge on American Idol, but can't name their own two Senators and their Representative. I really thought Alton was better than that. I'm in the 70 percent that think this war is a tragic error, and I can name both senators, my representative and most the rest in the state, and the entire U.S. Supreme Court. And I can only name a couple of the contestants on American Idol. I can name all the judges, though, I have to admit. It may be comforting in some weird way to think that the 70 percent of the American population that disagrees with you are all ignorant rubes. But it isn't true. February 15, 2007How to settle a disputeFor an interesting take on the transportation committee's progress, check out Not Larry Sabato's blog. December 15, 2006TransportationOur friend and weekly columnist, Jerry Fuhrman, had a strange criticism of Gov. Tim Kaine over at his From On High blog. He quoted a story about Kaine's proposal to use half-a-billion dollars of the state surplus for one-time transportation needs, then he criticized Kaine for, well, for not shifting surplus dollars to transportation. That left me scratching my head. I left the following comment for him: November 21, 2006Is a newspaper bad because you don't agree with its editorials?I used to work across the hall from Don Surber back in my days at the Charleston Gazette. I worked for the liberal morning paper. He was an editorial writer for the conservative afternoon Daily Mail. We'd trade good-natured barbs every once in awhile. After I moved to Roanoke, I found his blog. So now we continue to trade good-natured barbs occasionally. But I agreed with what he had to say in this post: Scott Johnson at the Powerline blog asked the musical question, “Is your newspaper America’s worst?” Good question. I would like to see which town suffers the most pedestrian civic-booster newspaper in the country. Instead, all that is listed are big-city newspapers that dare to be liberal on their editorial pages. Surber's main conclusion - "Isn’t it childish (and dangerous) to read only things with which we agree?" - is one I couldn't agree with more. Judging from my e-mails, many readers of The Roanoke Times only want to read opinions that mirror their own. Our editorials offend them not because of poor writing or inadequate research (our editorials suffer neither malady), but merely because the reader takes an opposing point of view. That's kind of sad. |
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