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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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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With recent news that the much loved Sim City franchise will receive a reboot after a ten year absence, much focus is being directed to a new multiplayer function that will place the cities next to one another and force the players to cooperate when dealing with inter-jurisdictional problems like climate change and renewable energy. As one blogger saw it, gamers will have to work together or “compete greedily for resources and to hell with Mother Earth.”
I’ll withhold judgment on the game itself until it’s released but the idea itself is intriguing. As a nerdy kid, one of my favorite Sim games was SimSafari which, from what I can remember, did a decent job of simulating the balancing act of wilderness park management including community outreach, tourist accommodations, and poaching. If the newest iteration of Sim City takes a similar, balanced approach and recognizes the limited effect that localized planning can have on a global phenomenon, it could be an effective educational exercise. What would be disappointing is if the issue was simplified to such a degree that the only way to stop hurricanes would be to build solar panels. [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: 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 hydraulic fracturing. 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: A Florida vouchers program for disabled students is under fire for instances of fraud and abuse. Special-education lawyer and former teacher Allison Hertog joins the podcast to analyze the John M. McKay scholarships, special education, and abuses of public funds. She notes that Florida has reached the second phase of widespread school-choice reforms: refinement and discovering better accountability mechanisms. Listen here.
ON ENVIRONMENT: Todd Wynn, director of the Energy, Environment and Agriculture Task Force at the American Legislative Exchange Council, explains why hydraulic fracturing is a environmentally friendly means of producing natural gas. Listen here.
ON TECHNOLOGY: Two bills looming in Congress aim to curtail copyright infringement but go too far by violating Internet users’ freedom of speech. Parker Higgins, an activist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, explains why the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect Intellectual Property Act are bad legislation. Listen here.
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The girl in pink will not be changing into a blue dress after all. AT&T finally threw up its hands after months of wrangling with the Federal Communications Commission and the U.S. Department of Justice. It has dropped its $39 billion bid to merge with T-Mobile.
AT&T will instead pay $4 billion to T-Mobile’s parent company, Deutsche Telekom — money obviously better spent building out wireless broadband for consumers.
Kicker #1: Deutsche Telekom will unload T-Mobile one way or another — and now likely in a way that would not have benefited the public as much as letting the deal go through with AT&T.
Kicker #2: AT&T, which is just about maxed out on high-speed wireless spectrum, has watched its competitors make deal after deal to expand their spectrum. The latest is Verizon (emphasis mine):
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Good stuff from Heartland’s podcasts this week, including a discussion on Medicare’s quarter-billion dollars spent on penis pumps for elderly men. 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: Americans are the most generous givers in the developed world, and research has shown the more a person believes in private enterprise and personal freedom, the more likely that person is to give more of his or her income to charity. Jonathan Butcher, education director at the Arizona-based Goldwater Institute, joins the School Reform News podcast to discuss one way individuals and businesses can sponsor a good education for a needy child. Listen here.
ON HEALTH CARE: Ben Domenech discusses Medicare’s quarter-billion dollars spent on penis pumps for elderly men, how this is indicative of larger Medicare fraud, and how lobbyists perpetuate the system. Listen here.
ON ENVIRONMENT: James Taylor discusses global warming and Climategate on The Jason Lewis show. Listen here.
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According to the Congressional Budget Office, the PROTECT-IP/Stop Online Piracy Act (PIPA/SOPA) bill currently gaining momentum in Congress will cost taxpayers $47 million a year. In this video above from Fight for the Future, other major drawbacks beyond costs of PIPA/SOPA are enumerated, including empowering government and corporations with the ability to censor the Internet under the guise of protecting creative works.
RELATED STORIES
Under the bill, sharing a video with any copyrighted material could be considered illegal copyright infringement, subjecting the site to a shutdown without any recourse to the site owner.
PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.
Good stuff from Heartland’s podcasts this week, including a discussion of the impact of global warming on the 2012 elections. 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 ENVIRONMENT: Marc Morano explains his fear that Republicans will nominate a candidate who agrees with Al Gore on global warming. Listen here.
ON TECH: Berin Szoka, founder of TechFreedom, and former senior fellow and director of the Center for Internet Freedom at The Progress & Freedom Foundation, explains the need for reforming the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act. Listen here.
ON BUDGET: Despite a flurry of newspaper editorials, lobbying by the nation’s largest retailer, and Internet taxation bills from Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin of Illinois and other lawmakers, there’s little chance we’ll see a national bill become law, says Dean Zerbe, managing director of Alliantgroup and former tax counsel for the Senate Finance Committee who helped shape the 2001 and 2003 federal tax cut laws. Listen here.
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Good stuff from Heartland’s podcasts this week, including a discussion of Steve Jobs’ legacy in technology and his overall place in the pantheon of American industrialists. 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 TECH: In this week’s podcast, Jim Lakely, director of communications and co-director of the Center for the Digital Economy for The Heartland Institute, discusses the legacy of Steve Jobs. Listen Here.
*Related Article: Steve Jobs, Capitalist, R.I.P
ON ENVIRONMENT: Energy analyst Tom Tanton explains the shortcomings of wind and solar power. Listen Here.
ON BUDGET: Politicians on the Right and the Left display hypocrisy when they agree to subsidize billionaire sports teams owners, says Taxpayers League of Minnesota President Phil Krinkie, whose organization is fighting for local citizens to have a vote on a proposal for a local sales tax to build a new stadium for the Minnesota Vikings. Listen Here.
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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.)
