Shaun Kenney

That’s really the thrust of what former Virginia Governor Doug Wilder is trying to say regarding both President Obama’s leadership and DNC Chairman Tim Kaine’s leadership for the Democratic Party:

This is worth watching, if not to see Governor Wilder’s criticisms of Kaine, but to really see the depth this man has.  Every time I listen to Doug Wilder, the more I like him.  In fact, if you go forward and read his editorial slamming the DNC leadership, you can tell how measured Wilder really is in his criticism — what Wilder doesn’t say speaks almost as clearly as what he does say:

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This was Interstate 64.  No joke — unless you know how to drive in the snow and ice, stay off the roads.

According to TIME it does:

There is some evidence that climate change could in fact make such massive snowstorms more common, even as the world continues to warm. As the meteorologist Jeff Masters points out in his excellent blog at Weather Underground, the two major storms that hit Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington, D.C., this winter — in December and during the first weekend of February — are already among the 10 heaviest snowfalls those cities have ever recorded. The chance of that happening in the same winter is incredibly unlikely.

But there have been hints that it was coming. The 2009 U.S. Climate Impacts Report found that large-scale cold-weather storm systems have gradually tracked to the north in the U.S. over the past 50 years. While the frequency of storms in the middle latitudes has decreased as the climate has warmed, the intensity of those storms has increased. That’s in part because of global warming — hotter air can hold more moisture, so when a storm gathers it can unleash massive amounts of snow. Colder air, by contrast, is drier; if we were in a truly vicious cold snap, like the one that occurred over much of the East Coast during parts of January, we would be unlikely to see heavy snowfall.

Excellent!  Then these clowns can point to all those heavy-hitting snowfall amounts in North Carolina over the last 50 years!

Climate models also suggest that while global warming may not make hurricanes more common, it could well intensify the storms that do occur and make them more destructive.

So first global cooling, then global warming, then to climate change, then to hurricanes in the aftermath of Katrina, and now snowfall is the new global warming trend — before or after we fudge the data, which is totally irrelevant when political principle is on the line, right?

Of course, outliers such as these are precisely that — anomalies that should have no real impact on science or policy.  When millions of dollars of research funding is on the line in a tough economy… well, a little bit of emotive doesn’t hurt us peasantry one bit.

When alarmism sells, when principles are held without reason, and when an undereducated and overtitled populace is easily swayed… well, anything can be sold to people saturated in a materialist ethic.

…seems they are more connected than you’d imagine:

The researchers compared the women’s responses to 12 people with undamaged brains. They noted this kind of study usually involves only a few people as it is not possible or ethical to deliberately damage a person’s brain to see what happens.

The volunteers were asked to make gambles in which there was an equal probability they would win $20 or lose $5 (a risk most people will take) — or would win or lose $20 (one most people will reject).

The two patients with damaged amygdalas fearlessly risked a $50 pot.

“We think this shows that the amygdala is critical for triggering a sense of caution toward making gambles in which you might lose,” Colin Camerera of University College London, who worked in the study, said in a statement.

The interesting part is that this totally flies in the face of game theory, where gambling is predicated as a rational act. Fear of loss being the prime motive, the game becomes something much more than doing X to achieve benefit Y. Rather, one is overcoming fear to do X, perhaps as a coward is urged to perform brave acts. You do X to show you are an X-doer or X-producer. If you want to gamble safely, websites like https://www.bcasino.co.uk/ allow you to do this. Why use a site you’ve never heard of before that will probability just steal your money? Go with a trusted provider. Or even just stick with the games you know exactly how to play. Games like scratch games are much more popular and easy to use compared to things like poker.

Doing X — gambling in this instance — is a method of showing how one will take risks, however calculated they may be. But the calculation is fear of loss… not profit or loss, so maybe you want to keep this is mind the next time you head on over to your fantasy news and get tempted to place a bet. Of course, sports gambling is so popular these days. It’s difficult to stay away from putting a bet on, especially when it’s on your favourite sports team. Placing sports bets can be extremely tempting, which is why many people struggle to stay away from sites like Kickoffbet! Sports gambling doesn’t have to be scary or dangerous if users are responsible.

So how do you overcome this fear? Not by showing the results, but rather by removing the obstacles producing those fears.

Bearing Drift has the great news:

Currently, when a taxpayer believes he is being overcharged, he faces an uphill battle because the government’s assessment is presumed to be correct in any appeal. Iaquinto’s bill would lift that burden off the taxpayer by simply requiring the government official to demonstrate how the assessment was calculated.

Ironically, your friendly Virginia Association of Counties is opposing the bill because it places undue pressure on local government, who will then have to justify their assessments.

*insert snarky laughter here*

What’s more entertaining is that VACo insists that the current system works just fine for challenging unfair reassessments… but that shifting the burden of proof would require more staff, more time, etc. thereby making a good process for government… a bad one for taxpayers?  What gives?

Fluvanna County is still smarting from rushed reassessments, and I know staff is not relishing the idea of another reassessment done at 30,000 feet and 120mph.

Done fairly, there is no need for the doomsday scenario VACo imagines.  Frankly, our Commissioners want it done fairly as well, and there’s no better way to determine the best value of a property than from property owners themselves.

I support HB 570 as honest reform, and take a bit of exception that VACo would assume they speak for every local elected official on the matter.  Let’s hope the Senate supports the reform as well.

…is more like lemmings off a cliff.

I just finished reading the book, given to me as a gift along with a copy of the U.S. Constitution.  While I readily recognize some of the theories in there as a recasting of certain John Birch Society materials, the author commits the error of taking 18th century men, cramming them into a 1950’s era mold, baptizing them in modern evangelical theology, and allowing it to cool in a modern day environment.

In short, it’s poor history compounded by an anti-communist viewpoint (the book was written in 1981) and dolled up with 1950’s era charm.  In fact, the whole book reads as if it were a Second World War publication handed to new immigrants or Boy Scouts.  Emphasis on the Founding Fathers as mythical men influenced by their Christianity and left remarkably untouched by the French, British, and Scottish enlightenment thinkers, the author spins a handful of quotations into a tapestry of 28 specific propositions.

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Government knows better than you. Didn’t you know that?

Of course, I tend to believe that individuals are best fit to sort out their own lives, without the government telling you or coercing you into how you should live — whether that’s regulating fast food or telling a business whether they should allow smoking or not.

When it comes to gambling, I have no qualms. When it comes to elected officials telling their serfs constituents what’s best to the Washington Examiner… well, I have a problem with that:

Sen. Paul Pinsky, D-Prince George’s, called the bill “way, way premature,” saying lawmakers have yet to see any effect from slots — like a rise in crime or prostitution — since none of the approved slot machine parlors is open. He said table games would tempt Maryland’s poor to dump their savings on gambling, more so than slots.

“It’s like putting crack cocaine in front of a recovering drug addict,” Pinksy said. “You don’t do that.”

First, you have an entire economy driven towards forcing people to spend and disincentivizing the poor or anyone else from saving their money. Why put $20 in the bank for 1.5% interest? That doesn’t even beat the rate of inflation!

Second — and perhaps most galling — is that no legislator has this crystal ball to predict, cajole, steer, or even recommend the actions of the people who elected them. That’s not their job.

Riverboat gambling in Virginia last saw the light of day in 1994, when it was roundly defeated. Yet the revenues from such enterprises are unmistakably positive for every state that has enacted them. Many gambling facilities and casinos, whether old school brick and mortar casinos or the newer online casino alternatives such as https://casino-korea.com/ as just one example, often tend to take in a lot of money as profit. The states that have made gambling illegal won’t be able to benefit from taxed and regulated profits from legal and licensed gambling game providers such as these if you were to try and find a selection of some of your favorite casino games. Whether it be slots, bingo, blackjack, there are a selection of games available. Not to mention the fact that gambling is accessible online now on sites like swankybingo.com. Which can be perceived as a good thing as it is more likely to be done safely, and in moderation than if you were in proper casino. Perhaps it’s time we open up the debate again about which businesses are permissible — and whether government has the right to restrict those businesses — and which ones are verboten in the cradle of liberty?

From the WaPo, Virginia’s Senate rejects the health care mandate from Washington, with five Democrats voting with the GOP minority.

Supporters argued that the bill was not about health-care reform but whether the government can mandate that a citizen purchase anything. “If they can mandate this, they can mandate anything,” said Sen. Frederick M. Quayle (R-Chesapeake), sponsor of one measure.

Good to see Virginia still has the ability to lead the nation when it comes to defending our liberties.  Now if they could only do something about that pesky smoking ban…

Tertium Quids expounds on the Hanover County School Superintendent’s resistance to reform. The article from the RTD that inspired the reaction is a fairly good overview:

And in this General Assembly session, bills have been introduced that address charter school policies statewide. One submitted by Del. Robert G. Marshall, R-Prince William, would withhold state funding to school systems that deny applications from charter schools deemed acceptable by the state Board of Education.

The amount would be based on the average daily student membership proposed within the charter application. The bill says funding would continue to be denied until the local division approves the previously denied application.

Currently, local school divisions have the final say when it comes to approving charter applications in their districts. Applicants may send their applications to the state board to make sure they contain the right information, but that board cannot provide a recommendation.

Hanover’s superintendent was not amused:

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