It seems that President Bush is getting closer and closer to emulating President Nixon, to the point that he is now proposing slashing the funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. This is a tired oft-used Republican strategy that seems to crop up every time they feel that PBS' and NPR's reporting of political news is too close to telling the truth.

Usually, we hear slogans like "PBS (NPR) is becoming too biased on the left side," which the folks at Fox News grab and run with. Then, the calls for putting more "balanced" (read, "right-biased") programming on the service. Fact is, PBS and NPR are, by design, supposed to be completely free from political influence, and the CPB was designed as a "firewall" to keep the balance in the programming.

The final tactic in the strategy involves threatening to defund the CPB. As someone who grew up with programs like Sesame Street, Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood, The Electric Company, and Zoom, I can tell you with no sense of hyperbole that they made a significant impact on me. While I understand that we have many priorities the most current budget seeks to address, I refuse to accept that providing quality educational and informational programming to children and adults is not a high priority. I can understand that some may consider an educated and informed public a threat if that educated and informed public also begins (shock, horror) to think for itself. What's next? People actually challenging what they are shown and told to see if it is true? Oh, the humanity!!!!

Cutting the CPB's funding in order to keep funding the military for a failed Iraq war, possible future action against Iran, and possibly something in Venezuela is the wrong choice, and "We, the People" must exercise our sovereignty (we are the sovereigns, not the President) to preserve the important investment in our future that the CPB represents. MoveOn.org is organizing a petition to be delivered to Congress to ask them not to allow the defunding of the CPB. If you support this action, please follow this link to add your name to the petition. While you are there, please pass on the issue to people you know. Let's make a difference for the next generation!

Ok, this is an interesting concept. The guy actually wants to see how many people will call him if he posts his cellphone number on the internet. He shows no sign of stopping any time soon, so let's all give him a call, eh?


Oh, and for his sake, I hope he gets one of the sponsorships this followup talks about.



And, here is a really hot guy who seems to be quite the admirer of Scott...



You gotta love the capabilities of the internet...;-)