Anyone can reproduce the studies and use their own data, or even anonymize the existing data. Guarantee anonymization and/or privacy of personal or proprietary information and put funding in the bill to cover all costs associated with release of the data and there won't be a problem, along with an exemption for data more than X years old to allow for long term studies where the raw data may have already been condensed.

Or just put the burden of proof on those who disagree with study findings, requiring that they pay for the data to be cleared or reproduced. But Corporations have already paid their fees in lobbying money and don't want to have to pay more.

Of course it allows it - but does it *fund* it? That's the chloroform in the rag. Unless the original study authors spent the money up front to carefully anonymize the data, it all has to be re-hashed from scratch to ensure that no identifying data is released to the public, but that all the records are intact. That costs money, and I'm going to bet a donut that there's not a single cent allocated to pay for that data. And every single study would be required to be anonymized whether or not anyone else is going to look at it. It's a ruse to make access to the research which is out there simply unaffordable to use. And if you can't pay for it, you can't cite it.

Game. Match. Set.

Every single study which involves health records would be forbidden to be used, because the RAW data is not available to the public. It's the perfect knot - previous law prevents the release of personally identifiable medical data, and this law makes it illegal to base any regulation on any study for which the raw data (in this case, personally identifiable - as it must be able to be 100% independently verified) is not released to the public.

This is about neutering the EPA's ability to "prove" that any particular pollutant causes harm to humans. If you can't provide the raw data that asbestos has led to lung cancer - patient records going back decades - you aren't allow to regulate it. Black lung? Chromium compounds in drinking water? Sorry, unless you publically release the medical records of every single person in every study you cite, it's "secret data" and junk science.

You know that what you're looking for is the flouide ion, right - that's what strengthens teeth, not the other parts of the chemistry? And that both sodium floride and Hexafluorosiliic acid both dissociate in water to release F- ions? And that half of the free flourine in water is naturally occurring? And the pitchers and counter top/faucet filters don't remove flourine (it generally requires reverse osmosis)?

It's nuts. We don't have many private school options near us (and zero that aren't in some way religious based), so we moved to one of the best districts/strands in the public school system and we actively participate. It's not a panacea - there are still good and bad teachers - but where they are weak, we supplement. I'm always amazed at how many parents have no idea what their kids are doing in school, and more amazed at how few even care.

Yeah, not really.

High Fructose Corn Syrup (typ when used in soda) 55% fructose and 42% glucose. Sucrose is 50% fructose and 50% glucose - that's what actually hits your system once your stomach separates the disaccaride into its constituent monosaccaride parts.

The taste is slightly different - there's no doubt - but metabolically you would have to ingest way more sugar (of any type) than you should in a decent daily routine in order to have any sort of unbalancing effect from the slightly shifted mix.

Oh, and beware of most fruits/fruit juices - they can be 80% or higher in fructose/glucose ratio.

You should pay more, didn't you know. Without an and increase in copyright royalties, those dead authors will have no incentive to write any new songs.

I mean, have you heard anything new from those dead songwriters since internet streaming took off? Of course not - that's proof that the royalties aren't high enough to make it worth their while.

Terrestrial radio pays only the songwriter, not the performing artist. And the songwriter fees are exceptionally low per listener (far lower than Pandora). Worse yet, only the top n songwriters get paid at all based on total plays; if you're not in high rotation, there's no distribution to you.

Radio stations pay exactly zero to the performing artists. What they pay are royalties to the songwriters. And compared to Pandora, those rates are insanely low per "stream" - i.e. per event coming out of a receiver. They may be paying $0.60-$1.00 a spin at a large metro station, but with 100,000+ average listeners for a top-of-market station, that's less than 1/10 of what Pandora pays.

Unfortunately, that is the crux of the problem. The cost of any service or product that requires real human interaction is skyrocketing when compared to other fields. Every technology sector job is based on one human producing a product which will be used by thousands to millions of people with almost no incremental cost. Electronics are assembled more and more by machine. Mineral exploration and energy production is becoming automated. Factory farming and staple goods production is the culmination of 200 years of industrial revolution efficiency.

Look at anything where costs are increasing fast and you'll find people - one on one interaction - is at the root. Unfortunately, public education is under the thumb of reduced municipal revenues at a time when more and more is expected. We can't go back to a one room school house and school finishing up at a 3rd grade level for 90% of the population, which is where much of the current "overtaxed" public seems to feel we should go.

I don't see this ending well.

When 1/4 of the class flunks a college intro to bio class, they pay the university another $15,000 and they take it again - or they look for a major which doesn't require bio. When a 1/4 of a 5th grade class flunks a standardized test, the teacher can get fired.

See the difference?

It has everything to do with dollars. Top private schools can spend $30k a student on teachers and amenities. Public schools have 1/3 of that, and the most challenging students to deal with.

The 1% and the educational experts know the same thing: Education is an intensive, hands-on process which is by its very nature an expensive endeavor. They know that it's more efficient if you can weed out poor educational candidates before they enroll. They know that the educational success of a student is highly correlated to the involvement of the parents in the process.

Public education isn't looking for a better way to educate people. That's easy. What they're looking for is a way to educate the worst learners with the least parental support using 1/3 of the money that top-notch education would cost. Is it any surprise that they're going this direction?

We may not have flying cars, but we already have a one-size-fits-all educational system. Mainstreaming, where slower learners and those with reduced cognitive function are added to classrooms (with and without aids, depending on severity) brings up the bottom, and all but the brightest on standardized are discouraged from entering "gifted and talented" programs. Teaching is aimed at producing the maximum number of passing grades on standardized tests.

The top and bottom 2% are weeded out - charter schools or G/T at the top, traditional special ed for those who will never achieve. The other 96% are lumped together and the teacher is salary-bound to make as many of them pass as possible. That means standardized worksheets and test prep pretty much from day one. The result? The bottom 10%, which would require extraordinary help to pass, are dropped as a waste of effort, the next 30% get most of the attention to try and get them to make the grade, and the rest of the class pretty much floats for the year with little or no real instruction because they learn well enough from the books and videos to get a passing grade. Anyone in the top 30 percentile points is bored to tears.

There are exceptions to this, of course. Some teachers put in lots of extra time and effort, others are the truly gifted teachers who weave engaging lesson plans and get the kids interested enough to retain the knowledge and pass the tests without crazy drilling. But, for the most part, when your job depends on hitting a number and there's no accounting for whether you have the smart class or the dumb class you're going to get a rhythm down and stick to it. At least if the test scored come back poor, you can open you planner and show all the drills and fact sheets you went over showing you covered the material.

It's pretty damned sad.

(Oh, and as for private schools...have you seen the cost? It's unlikely a family with 2 children who aren't in the top 10% of wage earners are going to be able to afford 12 years of private education. The opportunity is there, but the consumers to support it are pretty thin.)

There's a lot of truth in that. I have a Dodge Grand Caravan. I hate it with every fiber of my being, but it is the ideal vehicle in many ways except self esteem. It can carry longer items (up to 10') easier than my truck, it can carry more things inside than most SUVs - and all the back seats fold down to make a large flat cargo space in under a minute. It gets mid-20s gas mileage on the open road. It will *comfortably* seat 6 adults and still have room for a weekend of luggage, or four golfers with a weekend of luggage and 4 sets of clubs.

The only real down sides are
      it is not good in snow/ice conditions. Though, to be fair, my wife's Subaru is still better in bad weather than my 4WD truck.
      it cannot compete with a small car for fuel efficiency (if you're travelling with 4 or fewer passengers)
      it sucks the very life out of your soul as a driver and owner

Yeah, I made that mistake. Never again. And it has nothing to do with being obsolete.

The difference between Panasonic's "Smart TV" apps and the cheapest plug in sticks (FireTV/Chrome) or puck STBs is absolute night and day in terms of functionality and responsiveness. We've given up on the embedded apps entirely because they're so slow and buggy.