National Educ. Assoc. Doubles Fee on All Member Teachers, Funds “Progressive” Media Group
Teachers and other education employees who belong to a union affiliated with the Colorado Education Association automatically contribute a portion of their dues to the NEA headquarters in Washington, D.C. ($166 per full-time member in 2010-11). As the Education Intelligence Agency reports in the latest edition of the Communique, it looks like that figure is […]
Massachusetts health care mess
In a study that’s likely the first of its kind, the Beacon Hill Institute at Suffolk University near Boston took a look at health care costs in Massachusetts and found that they have increased significantly since RomneyCare became the law
Henry J. Is Spinning in His Grave
To find everything that is wrong with American transportation, you only need to look at the process for replacing the Interstate 5 crossing of the Columbia River. Planning for a new bridge or bridges between Portland and Vancouver began at least six years ago, and planners have so far spent well over $130 million without […]
Entitlement Bandits Rob Medicaid/Medicare
Giving Medicare enrollees vouchers for private insurance and block-granting Medicaid (as passed by the House of Representatives but defeated in the Senate) would reduce the crushing levels of fraud in Medicare and Medicaid.
The China Mystique Breaks Down
At least 35 people killed in a Chinese high-speed rail crash–caused by lightning? This doesn’t make any sense at all. Electric rail technology is more than a hundred years old; how could China’s trains not be safeguarded against this common phenomenon? Plus, the second train ran into the first train simply because the first train […]
The Unintended Constitutional Mistakes of “Cut, Cap, and Balance”
When you write a constitutional amendment, the devil is in the details. “Cut, Cap, and Balance” prescribed some details for a Balanced Budget Amendment (BBA). But those details were poorly thought-out, and might have given America a devil of a problem. Fortunately, Senate liberals—too short-term greedy to recognize their own long-term political interest—defeated Cut, Cap, […]
NCTQ Student Teacher Study Raises Valid Questions for Colorado K-12 Education
If you’ve read this blog for any length of time, you know I have a great deal of respect for the work of the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ). As I pointed out a few months ago, NCTQ has been spearheading an important review of the university programs that prepare teachers for K-12 schools […]
American Know-How: Get Less for More
Three years ago, Oregon politicians managed to get an earmark for an Oregon company to manufacture streetcars. Now it turns out those streetcars are–surprise!–more expensive than anticipated as well as delayed by at least five months. For the original price of six cars, the company will make just five. Not to worry, says company president […]
England’s NHS ‘creaking at the seams’ as waiting lists rise
The Telegraph (UK) reminds us that single-payer “universal” health care is really universal misery: “A senior doctors’ leader has warned that the NHS is “creaking at the seams” as official figures showed almost a third more patients are waiting too long to be treated in hospital.”
Obamacare Pseudoscience
Last week, the Antiplanner noted in passing a study that found that making people live in “walkable neighborhood” won’t make them any healthier. Since then the Antiplanner has encountered another research paper that found that “the effects of density and block size on total walking and physical activity are modest to non-existent, if not contrapositive.” […]
School District Sending Flyers + Kids as Props (- Permission) = Bad Tax Hike PR
Good thing my parents don’t have any kids enrolled in Brighton Public Schools. Nothing per se against the school district northeast of Denver. But I can only imagine my mom and dad’s reaction if they got one of those tax hike-supporting political flyers in this year’s school information packet. Probably something like what one mom […]
NREL's fuel fantasies
The Wall Street Journal published published a brief editorial titled “Cellulosic Ethanol and Unicorns” blasting the government’s unrealistic expectations about the commercially mythical fuel cellulosic ethanol, “second-generation fuels made from stocks like switchgrass or the wood chips that George W. Bush invoked in his 2006 State of the Union.” At the time of Bush’s speech, […]
