Links for July 7th

PolitiFact: George Allen changes stance again on ethanol subsidiesAllen was against ethanol subsidies. Then he was for them. Now he's against them. It's got to be dizzying, change positions every time the political wind shifts. PolitiFact: Virginia GOP says Phil Puckett voted against sending EPA a messagePolitiFact finds the RPV's criticism of Sen. Puckett to …

Links for May 25th

Gratiot County Herald Letters To The EditorIthaca, Michigan school superintendent Nathan Bootz wrote an open letter to the governor to ask that his school system be converted to a prison, noting that Michigan spends $30,000–$40,000/year on each prisoner, but only $7,000/year on each student. WVEC: Taxpayers foot the bill when the governor flies on state …

Muzzle Awards announced.

The Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression has announced their annual Muzzle Awards, highlighting the very worst offenders of the right to free speech, and Virginia managed to get two of the eight “awards.” The Virginia Department of Corrections was rightly upbraided for barring a prisoner from buying a buying a legal …

Links for April 12th

PolitiFact: Bob McDonnell says he cut $6 billion from Virginia’s budgetGov. McDonnell keeps claiming that he cut $6B from the budget "by cutting spending, not raising taxes." This is a lie. Spending reductions eliminated just $2.34B from the budget, only slightly more than the $1.9B of funding provided by federal stimulus dollars. (Apparently, federal stimulus …

Links for March 15th

FOIA.govWoot! It's not just open government—it's open government about open government. Virginia needs one of these. Virginian Pilot: Va. House members back redistricting planThe state's House of Representatives delegation have agreed on a redistricting plan that would protect all incumbents. Let's all pause and put on our best surprised faces. Griffith's district grows to take …

Can you identify these Virginia locations?

Because I’m a big dork, when I encounter Virginia place names that I’m not familiar with, I like to look them up on Google Maps and see how many times I have to zoom out until I recognize what part of the state that the place is. Sometimes there’s a highway or a river that …