Open source, procurement, and gov tech.
From Rep. Robert Hurt’s e-mail newsletter today: Last week I also visited with the owner of an auto repair shop in Appomattox. He told me that he first started his business back in 1987. Back then, he was able to get his business up and running in one day. One day was all it took …
Continue reading “Hurt: It takes 150 times longer to start a business now than in 1987.”
Sean Connaughton probably won’t sleep very well tonight. A FOIA request reveals that he low-balled the estimate for building Charlottesville’s proposed Western Bypass, which might help explain why he pushed through approval of the thing, getting a four-person majority on the Albemarle Board of Supervisors to hold an unadvertised midnight vote to sign off on …
Continue reading “Did Connaughton lie to the CTB and Albemarle about the Western Bypass price tag?”
I’m wondering what to do with the news that the Federal Highway Administration has provided preliminary approval for Virginia to toll I-95. There’s so much that I don’t know about transportation funding. Here’s some of what I’d like to know: The funding from this can only go to 95, right? How much of the cost …
Continue reading “Some of the questions raised by the approval to toll I-95.”
Remember last week, when George Allen criticized Tim Kaine for raising money out of state? Well, today George Allen was at a fundraiser in Newport Beach, California. That took exactly one week. It was a dumb-ass criticism from Allen in the first place. He got burned making the same criticism of Webb in 2006, and …
Continue reading “It only took Allen a week to prove himself a hypocrite.”
From the Daily Progress, covering George Allen getting a haircut at my barber today (seriously): Allen criticized Kaine for his spending time with Obama in Chicago, rather than campaigning in Virginia. “While I’m here in Charlottesville, at Staples Barber Shop, he’s up in Chicago with President Obama’s big money bundlers, in Chicago, and I’d rather …
Connie Brennan announcing her 2007 campaign. Good news for my friend Connie Brennan: a conservative independent has become the third candidate in the race in the 59th House of Delegates district, which will surely split the vote on the right. This is the race for Watkins Abbitt’s seat, the conservative Democrat-turned-independent (caucusing with Republicans) who …
Continue reading “An independent has joined the 59th House race.”
I was surprised to see that a group of professional geologists are backing uranium mining in Pittsylvania County. These are the people who I’d anticipated opposing this Canadian company’s proposal. The name of the organization rang a bell. The American Institute of Professional Geologists. I’ve heard that name. Oh, right, here’s where: In August 2009, …
Continue reading “These geologists who support Virginia uranium mining are familiar.”
Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli issued an advisory opinion on firearms on campuses (PDF) a few days ago. Before I even read it, I knew I’d be torn about his conclusions, whatever they would prove to be. I own a few firearms (long guns, not handguns), and I paid close attention to Heller a few years …
In perhaps a misguided effort, I started work a few months ago to create a site to round up all of the APIs for government data in Virginia. That inglorious website is Open Virginia. It’s easy to catalog all of them, because right now, I know of exactly two: Richmond Sunlight’s legislative API and my …
The Republican Party of Virginia, February 2010: If it’s cold, there’s no such thing as global climate change. It’s very hot, therefore global climate change is real. Just a reminder of the logic brought to you by the Republican Party of Virginia.