HARVARD VOTES TO BANISH BOTTLED WATER

Harvard University students agreed by vote that plastic single-use water bottles should no longer be sold on campus, leaving the fate of plastic water bottles in jeopardy at the Ivy League institution.

While campus administrators cannot be forced to go along with the student vote’s outcome, organizers of the ballot measure say they expect cooperation from Harvard officials, who will be lobbied by the student government to comply.

“We will be working with the administration to make sure student wishes are met,” Katrina Malakhoff, chairperson of the Harvard Environmental Action Committee, said in an email to The College Fix.

Sixty-four percent of students who voted in Harvard’s fall referendum late last month supported “ending the sale and distribution of plastic non-reusable water bottles on campus (including at Harvard cafes and Crimson Catering events) and making drinking water more accessible through the installation of additional water fountains and reusable water bottle filling stations.”

Harvard University officials did not respond to phone calls and emails from The College Fix asking if they would support the student referendum’s majority vote to end the sale of bottled water on campus.

Malakhoof, in her email, said “now that students have shown their support, we are optimistic that these stations can be installed within the next few months.”

Funding for the new water stations will be shouldered by a grant the environmental action committee received, as well as support from the Harvard Office for Sustainability and other campus coffers, Malakhoff said.

Single-use plastic water bottles are the latest environmental trending cause. Critics contend the environment is polluted once to create the plastic bottles, then again when they clog landfills, and further tout tap water as just as good if not better than bottled.

Via: The College Fix

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IBD Poll: 65 Percent of Americans Oppose Bailing Out Insurers If Obamacare Can't Draw Enough Young Customers

The front page of Friday’s Investor’s Business Daily carried bad polling news for Obamacare. John Merline reported: “The public overwhelmingly opposes any ObamaCare bailout of the insurance industry, the latest IBD/TIPP Poll found, even as the Obama administration is paving the way to do just that.”

You might not see this poll elsewhere, but it found that 65 percent oppose a federal bailout of insurance companies if their profits take a hit because not enough young, healthy people sign up for ObamaCare plans.

Opposition is widespread, the poll of 907 adults found, with 51% of Democrats, 71% of Republicans and 76% of independents against it. It's opposed by every age and demographic group as well.

Although few people knew about it until recently, the health law contains a three-year "risk corridor program" designed to bail out insurers if costs were higher than anticipated from too few young people enrolled.

The administration planned on 2.7 million young enrolling in the first year. Early data show that relatively few are doing so. And a Harvard University survey found less than a third of young uninsured say they plan to buy an ObamaCare exchange plan.

Merline added that Gary Cohen, a top official at HHS, told the industry not to worry, since, as he put it in a letter to state insurance commissioners, "the risk corridor program should help ameliorate unanticipated changes in premium revenue." He concluded: “Translation: Taxpayers will bail the industry out of any costs created by Obama's ‘fix.’”

Via: Newsbusters.org

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These 11 universities are awful and should be demolished down right now

The Great Recession has put a lot of people out of work and has taken a huge bite out of the value of pretty much everybody’s real property values. It bankrupted some historic companies, too, including Lehman Brothers and General Motors.

Education is a sector of the economy — a pretty large sector — that has managed to survive the malaise mostly unscathed. American colleges have been able to hang on, virtually en masse, with the tenacity of cockroaches — thanks in no small part to federal largesse in the form of Pell Grants and subsidized student loans.

That’s sad, really, because many public and private colleges and universities are delivering a sloppy, unfinished product. The 2011 “Pathway to Prosperity” study conducted by Harvard University found that only 56 percent of students complete four-year programs in fewer than six years.

Graduation rates don’t always accurately reflect the dropout rate. Some students don’t graduate because they leave at the first opportunity for better schools, for example. Also, students who obtain two-year degrees get missed in any four-year graduation count.

Still, way too many public and private nonprofit schools produce deplorable results — leaving dropouts on the hook for student loans and with little else, and leaving the government out billions in wasted grant money.

The slideshow below presents some of the worst offenders. Hopefully, your alma mater isn’t on the list. It’s probably not, though, because graduation rates are so low.

Via: The Daily Caller

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The Des Moines Register endorsement: Mitt Romney offers a fresh economic vision

Ten months ago this newspaper endorsed former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney for the Republican nomination for president. An overarching consideration was which of the party’s candidates could we see occupying the White House, and there was no question that Romney was qualified for the job.

Now, in the closing days of the general election campaign, the question is which of the two contenders deserves to be the next president of the United States.

Both President Barack Obama and Governor Romney are superbly qualified. Both are graduates of the Harvard University Law School who have distinguished themselves in government, in public service and in private life. Both are devoted husbands and fathers.

American voters are deeply divided about this race. The Register’s editorial board, as it should, had a vigorous debate over this endorsement. Our discussion repeatedly circled back to the nation’s single most important challenge: pulling the economy out of the doldrums, getting more Americans back in the workforce in meaningful jobs with promising futures, and getting the federal government on a track to balance the budget in a bipartisan manner that the country demands.

Which candidate could forge the compromises in Congress to achieve these goals? When the question is framed in those terms, Mitt Romney emerges the stronger candidate.

The former governor and business executive has a strong record of achievement in both the private and the public sectors. He was an accomplished governor in a liberal state. He founded and ran a successful business that turned around failing companies. He successfully managed the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.

Via: Ten months ago this newspaper endorsed former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney for the Republican nomination for president. An overarching consideration was which of the party’s candidates could we see occupying the White House, and there was no question that Romney was qualified for the job.

Now, in the closing days of the general election campaign, the question is which of the two contenders deserves to be the next president of the United States.

Both President Barack Obama and Governor Romney are superbly qualified. Both are graduates of the Harvard University Law School who have distinguished themselves in government, in public service and in private life. Both are devoted husbands and fathers.

American voters are deeply divided about this race. The Register’s editorial board, as it should, had a vigorous debate over this endorsement. Our discussion repeatedly circled back to the nation’s single most important challenge: pulling the economy out of the doldrums, getting more Americans back in the workforce in meaningful jobs with promising futures, and getting the federal government on a track to balance the budget in a bipartisan manner that the country demands.

Which candidate could forge the compromises in Congress to achieve these goals? When the question is framed in those terms, Mitt Romney emerges the stronger candidate.

The former governor and business executive has a strong record of achievement in both the private and the public sectors. He was an accomplished governor in a liberal state. He founded and ran a successful business that turned around failing companies. He successfully managed the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.

Via: Des Moines Register

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