Welcome to the Heartland’s podcasts. This week, listen to a 
discussion on how to defend freedom in our personal and economic lives. Click the links below to listen, and subscribe on iTunes so you get the latest podcasts as soon as they are produced. (Search for “Heartland Institute” in the iTunes store.)
ON EDUCATION: While education reformers focus on big schemes like Common Core standards and teacher evaluations, little over the several past decades has seemed to change about American education. Author Beverlee Jobrack, a long-time textbook editor for SRA-McGraw Hill, explains in Tyranny of the Textbook that some of the reason why is that textbooks have not changed. Teachers keep teaching the way they always have, and publishers print books that make them happy, whether it’s based on research about how children learn best or not. Jobrack also explains why the Khan Academy and crazes over much education technology are non-research-supported fads. Listen here.
ON TECHNOLOGY: Eric M. Fraser discusses his extensive research and writing on municipal wi-fi systems, finding them to be more expensive and less effective than promised by governments willing to put taxpayers on the hook to pay for them. Fraser also addresses the technical and regulatory limitations of municipal wi-fi systems. Listen here.
ON ENVIRONMENT: International Climate Science Coalition (ICSC) executive director Tom Harris explains how ICSC is turning Earth Hour into Energy Hour.
Listen here.
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This photo is currently circulating around the Internet:
Obama, attempting to be proactive, posted the photo to his Facebook page. He says “Share this chart to spread the word about another reason to like Obamacare: it’ll shut down gender discrimination so that women won’t have to keep paying more for health insurance.”
Here’s what I have to say:
Of course women pay more for health insurance. All insurance is based on risk assessment. Women have higher health risks due to their reproductive health. Women, on average, go to the doctor more due to yearly mammograms, pap smears, and other obstetric care. Women are also more likely to report fair or poor health then men (9.5% versus 9.0%) according to The National Center for Health Statistics. Just like young men pay more for car insurance because they are more likely to get into a car accident and smokers pay more for health insurance because they have higher health risks. What am I missing? Seriously?
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The U.S. Supreme Court this week is hearing arguments about the constitutionality of Obamacare, with a decision is expected this summer. But, as hard as it may be, let’s put aside for a moment whether the law adheres to the Constitution. No matter what the Supremes decide, Obamacare is very bad law — one shoved down the throat of an unwilling American public by the narrowest of margins via budget reconciliation trickery, the Cornhusker Kickback, the Louisiana Purchase, and instantly broken promises to congressional dupes.
Nick Gillespie — whom Heartland hosted for a great book event last summer in Chicago with his Reason compatriot and co-author Matt Welch — outlines just how bad this law is. In short: If it survives Supreme review and is not repealed, any attempt to get back to the limited government our Founders intended is over. As Gillespie says:
There’s no question that if the government can force you to do something simply because you exist and draw breath, then the American experiment in limited government is over and done with. Whether it’s the mandating of eating broccoli or buying insurance, a government that can make you do whatever it wants just ain’t in the American grain.
This is a much-watch video below the fold. Short and sweet (1:44):
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Today marks the second anniversary of the signing of President Obama’s health care takeover, a law which now hangs in the balance before the Supreme Court. But there is another anniversary too, and one far more meaningful in the course of human events.
It was 237 years ago today, in Virginia, that Patrick Henry gave a speech that rang out through the colonies and urged the people to stand up for their liberty. The speech is doubtless familiar to all of you. But there is a line that comes before the more famous conclusion which I have always loved.
In making his case that the colonists should be willing to stand even against the armed might of the British Empire, which had put down so many colonial rebellions in the past, Henry urged the Virginians on, saying:
The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave.
To which I would add: Whether this younger anniversary matters a few years from now depends in large part on us remembering the counsel of the older one.
The Health and Human Services (HHS) mandate requiring all employers to to provide abortifacients, sterilization, and contraceptives to female employees
as “preventative care,” sparked an uproar of criticism. The Obama administration, in response, proposed a potential compromise that would allow religious institutions to be, at least in part, exempt from the mandate, but another administration announcement on the topic has resulted in similar disapproval.
According to The Hill’s, “Healthwatch“, the Obama administration will require colleges and universities to treat students as “employees,” providing them with contraception without copay. It also claimed there will be a religious exemption. [click to continue…]
Welcome to the Heartland’s podcasts. This week, listen to a discussion on how to defend freedom in our personal and economic lives. Click the links below to listen, and subscribe on iTunes so you get the latest podcasts as soon as they are produced. (Search for “Heartland Institute” in the iTunes store.)
ON EDUCATION: The waning days of Virginia’s 2012 legislative session are packed with unfinished education bills, which include far-reaching changes to charter schools, virtual schooling, teacher tenure, and a tax credit for private school tuition. Chris Braunlich, a Virginia board of education member and vice president of the Thomas Jefferson Institute, joins the podcast to outline what’s at stake, how bills have endured the legislative meat grinder, and the politics in play. Listen here.
ON TECHNOLOGY: James Hohman, assistant director of fiscal policy at the Michigan-based Mackinac Center for Public Policy, discusses the recent report that crowd funding site Kickstarter will disburse more money to arts projects this year than the National Endowment for the Arts. Listen here.
ON ENVIRONMENT: Energy economist Donn Dears discusses the economic benefits of natural gas fracking and its outstanding environmental record.
Listen here.
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The regulation of chemicals has been an issue of growing importance, as new concerns over the effects of chemicals found in everyday products emerge, a greater emphasis has been placed by governments and consumers on how certain chemicals affect the human body. One chemical that has become a chemical of concern for some environmental groups is Bisphenol A, or BPA.
Chemical BPA is a chemical used in plastics for many consumer products. Amongst other uses, BPA most commonly used in hardened plastics and as part of the safety liner for food and beverage cans.
In a recent piece from the Business and Media Institute Julia Seymour writes about the concerted efforts of the media to brand chemicals like BPA as “toxic” while pushing for regulatory bans on the use of BPA. Seymour argues that these articles and stories do not fit the results that many scientists have found when examining the health effects of BPA.
Fear of chemicals and “toxins” is rampant among the so-called “environmental” left. Unfortunately, that phobia infects national media coverage as well. For more than a decade, the left has been on the attack against BPA, a chemical that is commonly found in plastics and other products.
Anti-chemical groups such as the Breast Cancer Fund and some scientists have crusaded against BPA (known formally as bisphenol A), connecting it to cancer and reproductive problems and claiming that it is “a threat to human health,” despite government agencies that have declared it “harmless” even in baby bottles. Much of the national media have bought in spreading fear of the chemical in ordinary canned goods, on cash register receipts, in dental sealants and more.
The Food and Drug Administration has a deadline of March 31 to respond to a petition by the Natural Resources Defense Council—an environmental group—that seeks to ban BPA. NRDC argues that the FDA should ban BPA on the basis that it causes harm to humans. In making these contentions, they cite animal studies showing potentially negative consequences of the chemical.
Seymour contends that the reports commenting on the negative effects of BPA are receiving more attention from the press, while studies refuting these claims are almost universally ignored.
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Welcome to the Heartland’s podcasts. This week, listen to a discussion on how to defend freedom in our personal and economic lives. Click the links below to listen, and subscribe on iTunes so you get the latest podcasts as soon as they are produced. (Search for “Heartland Institute” in the iTunes store.)
ON EDUCATION: With wickedly funny, deeply poignant prose, Providence College Professor Anthony Esolen‘s new book dissects how current approaches to education and parenting squash children’s imaginations and cheapen childhood. Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your Child discusses forming a child’s mind and heart to wonder at the world around him. “Imaginative children are by nature difficult to herd,” he says. “Schools are built for a certain kind of efficiency and anonymity; they look like factories, and serve many of the same functions.” Esolen both explains why and discusses what to do about it. Listen here.
ON TECHNOLOGY: Author and consultant Larry Downes discusses the spectrum crunch, as well as Federal Communications Commission opposition to legislative efforts to alleviate it by conducting auctions. Listen here.
ON ENVIRONMENT: Emergency medical physician Dr. John Dale Dunn explains how EPA is misrepresenting data regarding lives allegedly saved through regulation.
Listen here.
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Happy 2012 and welcome to the Heartland’s podcasts. This week, listen to a discussion on Obamacare’s interim final rules and regulations. Click the links below to listen, and subscribe on iTunes so you get the latest podcasts as soon as they are produced. (Search for “Heartland Institute” in the iTunes store.)
ON EDUCATION: The current media and government scrutiny of for-profit higher education’s weaknesses often ignores the potential for these institutions to innovate beyond their current startup stages, says Ben Wildavsky, a senior fellow for the Kauffman Foundation. He has recently released a report of in-depth interviews he held with those leading such firms, outlining their experiences in traditional and for-profit higher education and comparing the two. Listen here.
ON TECHNOLOGY: In this week’s podcast, Randolph J. May, president, The Free State Foundation, discusses his newly published collection of essays, which call for free-market reforms of U.S. communications policy. Listen here.
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NOTE: by the American Council on Science and Health.
Andrew Wakefield, the original architect of the phony autism-vaccine scare, has had the chutzpah to file a defamation suit against the journal BMJ, its editor, and a journalist for printing a scathing series of articles last January that attacked him for the ethical flaws in his retracted paper.
In fact, the journal and the writer didn’t stop at that accusation. After comparing Wakefield’s own documents with the published study, they discovered discrepancies between Wakefield’s results and the actual medical histories of the children involved, that bordered on fraud. The articles also suggested that Wakefield deliberately altered facts about the patients’ records in order to support his conclusion, additionally noting that he had financial ties to lawyers aiming to sue vaccine producers.
Back in 1998, Wakefield published a study in The Lancet claiming the childhood MMR (measles, mumps, and rubella) vaccination caused symptoms of autism in 12 children. Although those versed in the scientific method roundly criticized the obvious flaws in the study when it first appeared, The Lancet’s editor, Dr. Richard Horton, justified its publication as a “stimulant for debate.” Although the co-authors denounced the study when they learned the facts of Wakefield’s manipulations and ethical lapses, it tookThe Lancet until 2010 to officially retract this flawed study.
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discussion on how to defend freedom in our personal and economic lives. Click the links below to listen, and subscribe on iTunes so you get the latest podcasts as soon as they are produced. (Search for “Heartland Institute” in the iTunes store.)
