A nation turns to frugality.
I read a pair of articles about the economy today that are surely bad news, but that give me hope in the long run. The New York Times reports that carmakers worry that this is the new normal, that the go-go car sales day of the past 15 years was a bubble. This was the [...]
Goode promised nonexistent funding to Southside groups.
Former congressman Virgil Goode went on a little goodbye check-handing-out tour of the district, telling them that he’d gotten them federal funding. The trouble is that he hadn’t gotten the funding at all; the bill didn’t pass. Goode left these groups high and dry. He knew that the money wouldn’t come through, and didn’t tell [...]
Del. Frederick says he doesn’t plan to run for reelection.
Jeff Fredrick says he’s not running for reelection. There’s time for him to change his mind, but it’s look like Shaun Kenney is going to win our bet, meaning that I’ll need to donate $100 to the RPV.
“Nevermind that unitary executive thing.”
John Bolton and John Yoo aren’t so sure about this unitary executive thing, now that Barack Obama is going to be president. Let’s see who gets themselves twisted up more: Democrats who come to embrace the Bush/Yoo philosophy of President as King, or Republicans who suddenly don’t think it’s such a hot idea. My bet [...]
Looking back on Goode.
A couple of Fifth District papers are taking a look back at former congressman Virgil Goode’s history as a career politician. In the Roanoke Times, Janelle Rucker finds that Goode isn’t saying what he’ll be doing next. I can’t imagine he’d do real well as a lobbyist; he was so ineffective in Washington, and was [...]
McAuliffe is a candidate now, for reals.
I cannot understand why it’s news when somebody announces they’re thinking about running for office and when they’re going to announce whether or not they’ll run for office and then when they announce. It’s just goofy. Anyhow, Terry McAuliffe has made it official that he’s running for governor, not that there was any question about [...]
Fishwick exits AG race.
Via a press release, I see that John Fishwick has decided not to pursue the Democratic nomination for AG. Sen. Creigh Deeds once told me that he’d like to see Fishwick run against Goodelatte in the Sixth District. Maybe that’s in the cards for him. But, hey, I just like to say Fishwick.
Saturday’s drive.
View Larger Map We’ll be in Covington about lunchtime. Can anybody suggest where to eat? And any places that we should stop at, views that can’t be missed, etc?
Unanimity in the legislature.
Fun fact: of the 1,177 floor votes held in the General Assembly last year, 321 were unanimous, and 887 had at most very light opposition. Just 25 votes were seriously contested, by which I mean the final vote was within 5% of 50%. The legislature is, in a lot of ways, a pretty boring place.
Gov. Wilder has taken to blogging.
Wilder Visions is Gov. Doug Wilder’s new online home—he’s entering the realm of Former Politicians Who Blog. Though normally such blogs are so shallow and vapid as to be irrelevant, I think we can count on Wilder’s to be something more like a series of cringe-inducing moments.
Congress matters.
Daily Kos contributor and all-around good guy David Waldman has a new blog: Congress Matters. The site says they’ll “pull back the curtains on how Congress conducts its business, both public and “private” (i.e., within the party caucuses and conferences), explain floor procedure and rules, and even throw in a little gut feeling when appropriate [...]
My top 2008 listens.
My ten most-listened-to artists in 2008: They Might Be Giants Hayes Carll The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band Willie Nelson & Wynton Marsalis Tom Waits Dave Matthews Band Mike Doughty Cake Suzanne Vega Vince Guaraldi Trio I accidentally stopped using my tracking software for the middle half of the year, so this isn’t perfect. (This is [...]
Albemarle’s useless DUI checkpoint.
DUI police checkpoints aren’t just unconstitutional, they’re also ineffective. Albemarle’s stopped 545 vehicles last night, and found two people who above the limit. That’s a 0.3% success rate making it, by any rationale, a total waste of time. More effective? Watch the cars go by and pull over the people who are driving badly. That [...]
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Waldo Jaquith (JAKE-with) is an open government technologist who lives near Charlottesville, VA, USA. more »
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