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Short takes

Quick views on some of the week's news

Bet you think this bill is about you

"There are no grades of vanity, there are only grades of ability in concealing it" -- Mark Twain.

Virginians aren't about to conceal theirs.

Right now, across the commonwealth, 830,000 vehicles are decorated with vanity license plates, making our drivers among the most boastful in the nation. What prompts so many Virginians to wear their schools, professions and personalities on their cars? The price. The current fee for a personalized license plate is $10, among the cheapest in the nation. ...

State must spend money wisely

There are predators on the Internet trying to seduce young children. Virginia Commonwealth University's chief of police was just charged with that crime.

But a new report by the Center for Safe and Responsible Internet Use found that the danger to children has been overblown. The vast majority of sexual abuse of children is by family members or friends, not Internet predators. That reality, not emotional appeals by political candidates, should guide the state as it decides whether to pour more resources into task forces that seek out predators. ...

A TransDominion Express train wreck

Rail advocates in central Virginia are aghast that state Sen. William Wampler has proposed a budget amendment to block state funds for any part of the TransDominion Express until "funding for all sections of the corridor from Bristol to Washington, D.C./Richmond is included in the Statewide Rail Plan." ...

A little help from Virginia Tech

Everywhere you look these days, some public agency suffers under the state budget shortfall. K-12 schools and law enforcement have been making the most noise and receiving the most attention.

Meanwhile, colleges and universities have been more stoic. Virginia has been shortchanging them for years, and tuition is bound to jump again next year. Been there, done that. ...

Read more.

Don't limit credit options for stuggling families

Tim Miller

Miller is the communications director at the Center for Consumer Freedom, a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting consumer choices.

The credit crunch has made getting a loan more difficult than ever, which is bad news for struggling businesses and individuals trying to make ends meet. As if that weren't bad enough, legislators who are being pressured by anti-credit activists have filed legislation to further limit the financial options of borrowers who need them most. There is a new push in the Virginia General Assembly to tighten access to short-term credit, on top of the restrictions introduced last year.

Read more.

Read today's letters here.

Editor's note: This post originally linked to a commentary from Friday about Rush Limbaugh. It has been updated with the commentary from Saturday. Sorry about that.  -- CT

Now what starts with the letter 'C'?

'Cookie' starts with 'C'!

Let's think of other things that starts with 'C'!

Uh. . .Uh. . . Who cares about da other things?!

'C' is for Cookie that's good enough for me.

What's good enough for you this weekend?

We've been waiting for this for years. Christiansburg has finally launched its new Web site. The town's old one was just terrible. Check out the new site. What do you think?

A few immediate thoughts, having explored the site for all of five minutes.

• It's too wide. I had to resize my browser to see it all. Minor design quibble, but still annoying.
• The town code and comprehensive plan are there. About time citizens could see what the laws were.
• Unfortunately, they are both in bulky pdfs and are not easily searchable.
• Agendas and minutes for council meetings are there.
• It does not appear that the town will offer audio or video of council meetings.

Overall, I give it a C. I'd hoped for more, but got about what I expected.

Over at The Shad Plank, a Daily Press blog, they picked up on Tweet Congress, a site that monitors who in Congress uses twitter. They checked on Virginia's delegation and found out that several of our representatives and one of our senators remain blissfully unaware.

Most surprising (read distrubing), Southwest Virginia's own Rep. Rick Boucher does not twitter. He recently took over the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, and he is a co-chair of the House Internet Caucus.

Rep. Bob Goodlatte also does not twitter. He too is a co-chair of the Internet Caucus.

What gives, guys? If you're going to play overseers of the Internet, maybe you should be involved in what's going on on the Internet. When lawmakers don't know what their dealing with, bad policy often results.

Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal has a story about Republicans playing catchup when it comes to the Internet.

And of course, you can follow the RT twitter.

Martin Feldstein, a conservative economist who advised President Reagan, has an interesting and substantive critique of the current stimulus bill in today's Washington Post. Though he made news by supporting President Obama's call for a substantial stimulus package, he is not enamored with the package that came together. He said it would be better to delay a vote, even for a couple of months, in order to get things wrong. As he bluntly says, "We cannot afford an $800 billion mistake."

It's worth reading.

A budget correction for corrections?

Virginia has no money to keep offenders behind bars needlessly. Its budget woes should lead to more use of alternatives.

Limbaugh knows not of which he speaks

Robert E. Dixon
Dixon is retired and lives in Bedford.

Rush Limbaugh's latest gaffe about the current state of the economy is over the top. Here is a man with absolutely no credentials in anything. He is not an economist, CEO or a scientist. He did go part way through the first semester of junior college before dropping out. And like Al Bundy, he played high school football. This does not stop him from making pronouncements on weighty matters. Instead of looking at all sides of an issue, he draws a conclusion and then finds an "expert" who agrees with him to prove his point.
Read more.

Obama promotes a culture of death

John Stec
Stec, of Covington, is an engineer.

Many dirty deeds are not done in public, so with little fanfare or protest, President Obama quietly vetoed the so-called Mexico City policy. Under this policy, groups promoting or performing abortions overseas would be denied government money. As of Jan. 23, one day after the annual Right to Life March in Washington, D.C., our tax dollars now pay for international abortions, courtesy of Obama.
Read more.

Read Friday's letters here.

What do you want to talk about today?

We thought Republicans had managed to kill the delay to the transition to digital television, it turns out they probably only delayed the delay. The first vote was an expedited measure that required a two-thirds majority. Democrats now say they'll come back next week to try again under normal procedural rules that will allow a bare majority to implement the four-month delay in turning off analog signals.

In an editorial scheduled for Monday, we'll advise Democrats to reconsider.