Big Bird

[shatto]

"The United States is the first nation in history whose democracy has evolved to the point where its leader is provided with a wide-body transatlantic jet in order to campaign on the vital issue of public funding for sock puppets." Mark Steyn

[jamieooh]

don't for get the rest of the quote because it is just as good.
Sure, Caligula put his horse in the senate, but it was a real horse. At Ohio State University, the rapper will.i.am introduced the president by playing the Sesame Street theme tune, which oddly enough seems more apt presidential-walk-on music for the Obama era than “Hail to the Chief.”

[shatto]

And..................The IRS says Big Bird's Net Worth is about double that of Mitt.

[jamieooh]

damn that evil 1%er lol wonder what elmo is worth?
and could you donate $100 to you local pbs station?
no let them have commercials

[mrfrosty]

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/page/286613_How_the_Privatization_of_NASAs
-excerpt-

[...a public funded example of PBS like station being defunded and privatized existed before. What can we learn from that?

People forget or did not know that once upon a time The Learning Channel

was founded in 1972 by the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare and NASA as an informative/instructional network focused on providing real education through the medium of TV; it was distributed at no cost by NASA satellite. Then it was privatized in 1980 (See Reaganism) and was then named the Appalachian Community Service Network. In November 1980 this name was changed to “The Learning Channel”, which was subsequently shortened to “TLC.”

From then on we have a sad decline to the abomination of child and poverty exploitation of the TLC’s current hit freak show “Here Comes Honey Boo Boo”.

The channel back then mostly featured documentary content pertaining to nature, science, history, current events, medicine, technology, cooking, home improvement and other information-based topics. Low ratings and low profits. Smarts don’t sell.

By the early 1990s, The Learning Channel was a sister channel to the Financial News Network (FNN) which owned 51 percent of the channel with Infotechnology Inc. After FNN went into bankruptcy in 1991, the Discovery Channel’s owners went into talks of buying The Learning Channel. An agreement was made with FNN and Infotech to buy their shares for million. The non-profit Appalachian Community Service Network owned 35 percent of the network, and was also bought out.

The Learning Channel continued to focus primarily on instructional and educational programming through much of the ’90s but began to air shows less focused on education and more themed towards popular consumption and mass marketing; these would be later expanded.

In 1998 the channel began to distance itself from its original name “The Learning Channel”, and instead began to advertise itself only as “TLC”.

So when Mitt Romney and the Republicans talk about how much better off PBS would be de-funded, remember what privatization did to TLC and how TLC went from NASA beaming information into student classrooms to the disgraceful programs it runs today (many of which exploit children).]


FRONTLINE has got to be the best series on PBS.
They actually talk about and visit warzones to interview different people, instead of just re-posting crap off the internet.
when shit was kicking off in Syria, Libya and Yemen FRONTLINE had guys go in with cameras and interviewed activists, insurgents and the military, months before the big news organizations started to notice.