In what they called a ‘landmark agreement,’ former President Bill Clinton and the American Heart Association announced Thursday the launch of a national initiative on childhood obesity, aimed at getting up to 6 million American kids covered for routine visits to both primary care physicians and dietitians. ‘I think we want the children of America to know, No. 1, that we want them to be healthy, we want them to grow up healthy, and we want them to start now,’ Clinton told reporters at his foundation’s headquarters in New York City. The new collaboration, which Clinton called ‘a really big deal,’ links medical organizations like the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Dietetic Association with insurance companies such as Aetna, WellPoint, Blue Cross of North Carolina and of Massachusetts and private companies like PepsiCo, Owens Corning and Paychex. This, Clinton said, is ‘the first time our three stakeholders have come together to tackle childhood obesity in a comprehensive way.’ The current initiative aims to address the obesity-related healthcare needs of almost 1 million children in the program’s first year, by reimbursing doctors and registered dietitians for providing health care and in-depth nutritional counseling to kids on […]
In an online survey sponsored by Mobil Industrial Lubricants, Renewable Energy World magazine asked readers where they think wind power is headed, and where the threats and opportunities lie. Readers across Europe, the Middle East and North Africa responded to give their views on the future of wind power. Quizzed on issues related to policy, costs, public perception, threat from non-renewable ‘carbon-free’ technologies, potential markets, and more, the responses reveal much about the industry perceptions of future across more than sixty countries. A lack of policy leadership is still the most important single factor holding back the development of the wind industry in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, according to a recent survey of more than 1000 readers of Renewable Energy World magazine from throughout (greater) Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. The group also identified the current high prices for conventional electric power and gas as key drivers behind the growth in wind power. Poor policy leadership was cited by respondents as the single largest barrier faced by the wind industry – despite the fact that many of those replying came from EU countries which are subject to renewables targets. Both EU member countries […]
To borrow from the old quip on giving up smoking: Fixing public schools is easy — we’ve done it hundreds of times. Even with the billions of dollars in economic stimulus aid, public schools stand no chance of getting better until we dispel some empty theories about how to help them. 1. We know how to fix public schools; we just lack the political will to finish the job. Wrong. For the past 25 years, K-12 education has been at or near the top of most politicians’ domestic agendas. Candidates vie to become the ‘education’ president, governor or mayor. The public cries out for better schools and is even willing to pay higher taxes to get them. There is no shortage of strategies for education reform, either. The most famous (or infamous) is the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, with its federal mandates for rigorous student testing. School districts across the country have been flooded with other initiatives, too. Conservatives generally advocate breaking up teacher unions and privatization, while liberals call for more money, less testing and greater teacher autonomy. But nothing has succeeded. In 2006, experts at the Harvard-based Public Education Leadership Project concluded […]
Ethanol production used less than 5 percent of the nation’s corn in 1990-91, or 333 million bushels, but used as much as 24 percent – 3.1 billion bushels – by 2007-08, a South Dakota State University economist says. SDSU research associate Yonas Hamda’s article, ‘Dependency on the Ethanol Industry, is included in a recent issue of the SDSU Economics Commentator. It’s available online at an SDSU Department of Economics Web site, http://econ.sdstate.edu/Research/Commentator/No503.pdf. Hamda includes some discussion of domestic corn used for ethanol. The figures show that the top five states in ethanol production – Iowa, Nebraska, Illinois, South Dakota and Minnesota currently account for two-thirds of ethanol production capacity – are channeling a substantial share of their corn into ethanol processing. About 60 percent of South Dakota’s corn went into ethanol production by 2007-08, the highest proportion of any state. In Iowa the figure was 50 percent; in Nebraska, 40 percent; and in Minnesota and Illinois, 30 percent. The increasing rate of corn for ethanol use has affected the availability of corn for feed and exports. Research in 2008 by SDSU economists Bashir Qasmi, Yonas Hamda and Scott Fausti suggested the share of corn going […]
WASHINGTON — For the first time, some airline passengers will skip metal detectors and instead be screened by body scanning machines that look through clothing for hidden weapons, the Transportation Security Administration said Tuesday. An experimental program that begins today at Tulsa International Airport will test whether the $170,000 body scanners could replace $10,000 metal detectors that have screened airline passengers since 1973. Airports in San Francisco, Las Vegas, Miami, Albuquerque and Salt Lake City will join the test in the next two months, TSA spokesman Christopher White said. The scanners aim to close a loophole by finding non-metallic weapons such as plastic and liquid explosives, which the TSA considers a major threat. The machines raise privacy concerns because their images reveal outlines of private body parts. ‘We’re getting closer and closer to a required strip-search to board an airplane,’ said Barry Steinhardt of the American Civil Liberties Union. Privacy advocate Melissa Ngo fears that passengers won’t understand that the scanners take vivid images that screeners view. FIND MORE STORIES IN: San Francisco | Miami | Las Vegas | Salt Lake City | Transportation Security Administration | American Civil Liberties Union | Albuquerque | Homeland Security […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
