Recent rulings by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) have serious implications for business owners across Virginia. The NLRB now permits labor unions to form bargaining units from specialized areas of a company rather than the traditional rule of allowing broader categories of workers to be organized. These ‘micro-unions’ represent...
(This column first ran in the Richmond Times Dispatch on September 9, 2012. It is reprinted here with minor edits.)As a member of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) uranium mining study panel, I spent more than 18 months as a volunteer preparing a report intended to objectively inform Virginia...
Virginia appears to be making extraordinary progress in reducing the high school drop-out rate in public schools, according to data released yesterday by the McDonnell administration. The statewide dropout rate fell to 6.5 percent for the class of 2012, compared to 7.2 percent for the class of 2011 — a...
(Publisher’s note: This is a fascinating survey and analysis and is important to understanding the divisions in our country over issues facing us. The survey was conducted by a telecommunications firm inRichmond,VA and the results are important. The whole analysis is printed below.) What do voters truly understand about public...
The duplicity and hypocrisy of environmental pressure groups seem to be matched only by their consummate skill at manipulating public opinion, amassing political power, securing taxpayer-funded government grants, and persuading people to send them money and invest in “ethical” stock funds. In the annals of “green” campaigns, those against biotechnology,...
Regular readers know I have long argued that the best way to pay for the enormous cost of reconstructing and modernizing this country’s aging Interstate highway system is via what I call “value-added tolling.” That means only instituting tolling where doing so provides significant new value for those now being...
One of the hottest debates today among urbanists and economic geographers is the extent to which population growth and development are shifting from the periphery of U.S. metropolitan areas back to their urban cores. The latest contribution to this discussion, “Even after the Housing Bust, Americans Still Love the Suburbs,”...
Students who are just starting with a new semester would do well to think about their future careers. Additional training or education after high school gives students more opportunities in the job market. This fact is reflected in unemployment rates, as those with higher educational levels are much less likely...
(Publisher’s note:Gary Baise is a nationally respected environmental attorney living in Virginia and he owns a family farm in Illinois. Virginia is a major pork producing state and this article shows the pending impact on this industry from the lawsuit described below).If you’re an activist group bent on beating your...
Pick up any 40-year-old science textbook – on chemistry, biology, geology, physics, astronomy or medicine – and you’ll find a slew of “facts” and theories that have been proven wrong or are no longer the “consensus” view. Climatology is no exception. Back in the 1970s, many scientists warned of global...
