4 ms·

Sure am glad that we didn't just cut $9 billion in funding towards PBS and other public broadcasting institutions that aired Reading Rainbow.

whycome 1y ago
$9B?! Path to everything being private. Don't they want to also break up NOAA and National Weather to make them basically just data services? Private companies would then be the ones to publish it. Want to know the weather? Subscribe.
- camblomquist 1y ago
  They aren't breaking up NOAA just for the sake of privatization, reliable weather reporting also makes it harder to ignore Climate Change. From Project 2025 "[NOAA offices] form a colossal operation that has become one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry and, as such, is harmful to future U.S. prosperity."
  - falcor84 1y ago
    > climate change alarm industry I would actually like to buy a climate change alarm clock
    - evilkorn 1y ago
      10 minutes till midnight. Put it right next to your nuclear clock
    - whycome 1y ago
      We just keep hitting snooze. That's how we got into this mess. (It's a future generation's problem, right?...)
      - fknorangesite 1y ago
        > We just keep hitting snooze. Hah I wish - hitting snooze would at least push it back. We're just putting our heads under the pillow to try and ignore the blaring alarm.
      - h2zizzle 1y ago
        Gonna make one of those novelty clocks themed around the financial boom-bust cycle, where, to silence it, you have to get out of bed and literally kick a can.
  - malfist 1y ago
    > is harmful to future U.S. prosperity So is sticking your head in the sand and ignoring the coming disaster. Next quarter thinking should not be the government policy.
    - andsoitis 1y ago
      Don’t look up!
  - xorcist 1y ago
    > main drivers of the climate change alarm industry This is clearly dog whistle langauge and not intended to be taken literally, but it is starting to be a common trope and it makes me very curious as to how this industry operates? What's their main source of income, who benefits from it, and how? And what is the supposed goal of it? Raising the alarm about a conceieved threat could be a way to raise money for more research, which might indirectly benefit those scientists. But we haven't really seen a corresponding massive increase in scientists employed, and even if we did, they would have to find some way to leak money through publicly funded research to their own private enterprises because so far no one has suggested that we pay scientific researchers too much. The way to combat that would be to demand more transparency from universities, but they're already pretty good about that. It also doesn't match very well what those scientists are actually saying. Which is mostly that the basic science is indisputable since the past century and more research is not required but action. Had the climate scientists been siphoning public money through alarmists schemes, wouldn't they rather say that things are very dire but "don't touch! We need much more expensive research before we can give any concrete advice"?
    - aerostable_slug 1y ago
      I don't think the allegation is that the scientists themselves are who benefits. Rather, I think the allegation is that it's those involved in renewable energy development schemes that result from the raised alarm, from product vendors to site developers to construction contractors to energy trading firms to... See also: politicians pushing Green New Deal type policies. The scientists are enablers, not the primary beneficiaries, at least as I understand the allegations.
      - xorcist 1y ago
        That's a real issue with several real life examples, but not really related to the issue of climate change or climate alarmism, is it? There's been plenty of extended circles around political interests that has lined their pockets in matters of alcohol and drug prevention, abuse prevention and health care, but very few people seem to be taking the local step to actually, alcohol are good for you and anyone that says otherwise should be labelled alcohol alarmists. It's pretty unique to climate research. I seem to remember that there were was a enormous backlash against CFC bans, and lots of talk about how it would lead to the spread of preventable illness and economic disaster, but it never reached nearly the same levels of anti scientific discourse as we see today.
- nimbius 1y ago
  These services are irreplaceable. once they are gone, they are gone. as for NOAA, China could decide to undermine the profiteering of weather in the US (as it did with AI using DeepSeek) by simply expanding the Fengyun satellite constellation to cover the globe (as it did with beidou) thereby providing weather forecasts for North America as well via the web, social media, and mobile app free of charge as a form of Kissinger style "soft power."
  - roywiggins 1y ago
    satellites are one thing, but they can hardly replace American radiosondes (well, without getting them shot out of the sky anyway)
- lenerdenator 1y ago
  Didn't you hear? Sesame Street is old hat. The new way to have kids learn stuff is with Little Beasts, a Mr. Beast YouTube series brought to you by Prime Energy and Feastibles. Like I'm joking but that's the idea.
  - theGnuMe 1y ago
    At least we have the Australian's to give us Bluey and the UK for Peppa pig.
    - noir_lord 1y ago
      For now, We (the UK) seem as usual to be on your path just a decade or so behind. Reform is our version of MAGA and just as odious.
      - lenerdenator 1y ago
        I'd say the UK does things at the same time, just in a different order. See Brexit in 2016, same year as Trump being elected.
pitpatagain 1y ago
Just for full accuracy: $9b is the total in the claw back bill. About $1.1b of that is CPB (PBS+NPR).
- lenerdenator 1y ago
  So what you're saying is, Trump or Elon could, in theory, write a check and fund it for the next fiscal year?
  - CamperBob2 1y ago
    If you want to go back to the medieval patronage model, that's certainly a possibility. There were good reasons for moving away from that model, though.
    - manwe150 1y ago
      Surely you don’t think it could be that bad if we were to sell all of our news media to a few rich companies in what some have called an oligopoly
  - nilamo 1y ago
    Someone could also fund it forever, with a donation large enough such that the endowment's dividends exceed yearly costs. But no one has.
  - disposition2 1y ago
    Based on the text of the legislation passed by the Senate, it looks like the ~$1 billion was for 2026 & 2027 fiscal years. > (20) (A) Amounts made available for “Corporation for Public Broadcasting” for fiscal year 2026 by Public Law 118–47 are rescinded. > (B) Amounts made available for “Corporation for Public Broadcasting” for fiscal year 2027 by Public Law 119–4 are rescinded. https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/4/text https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/4/te...
echelon 1y ago
That's just the PBS stuff everyone knows about. Back in the 90's and 00's, PBS had a show called "Irasshai" [1] aimed at high school students. It was a complete two year Japanese language education class filmed in conjunction with Georgia Tech. They produced 140 30-minute lessons and produced two 500 page text books and teacher lesson plans. Study materials, homework, tests - everything. It typically aired at 4 AM, so they asked you to set your VCR to record. If you couldn't do that, they could mail you the entire VHS boxed set of episodes. But that's not the cool and powerful part. They actually let you register for classes and conference call in with an actual teacher. Twice to three times a week with class sizes of 4-6 students. Everyone took turns reading, answering questions, practicing dialogue. All year long. There were tests and grades, and regular 1-1 proctored verbal exams. It was incredible. The entire program was offered for free. It was one of the coolest ways to learn Japanese and it was incredibly effective. This was such an amazing program for high schools that typically only offered Spanish lessons. And now that's gone. [1] https://www.gpb.org/irasshai https://www.gpb.org/irasshai
- WalterBright 1y ago
  Thank you for the link. The videos are there on the web site, not gone.
  - mulmen 1y ago
    The videos may be there but the program is gone.
- syndeo 1y ago
  Wow. I would've absolutely done that had I known about it. (I was in high school in the very late 2000s/early 2010s, so perhaps I was already too late, but yeah, wow.) Thanks for that link though, a commenter says the vids are still there. (I'm too busy learning Chinese at this point though, I'm afraid!)
- drdec 1y ago
  What is the case for funding this via a public television station instead of via schools? We already have infrastructure and a wider reach for education in schools? Wouldn't the money have been better served creating a Japanese language program in Georgia high schools?
ninetyninenine 1y ago
The obvious thing to cut is the goddamn military. I’m not even talking about cutting things off to make the military weaker in a world that largely doesn’t need a powerful military. I’m talking about actual insane over spending. But even Elon couldn’t do that. I don’t know if any president can. Something is deeply wrong here.
- shigawire 1y ago
  >Even Elon I think that is the wrong framing. I'd be more surprised if someone with no real government experience has much success with that venture. I'd rather have someone with years and years of experience with DoD budgets and the expertise to prioritize the right cuts.
- watwut 1y ago
  Of course a guy with zero knowledge of how things work, but a lot of confidence and ideaologically fueeled ressentment could not cut spending. Then again, goal was to destroy and harm and that was achieved.
- tracker1 1y ago
  I'm all for cutting the military spending to less than half... that said, it's still much smaller than entitlement spending at this point... there needs to be a lot of effort to reduce fraud and increase competition in medical/pharma space. Why there aren't licensing and dual sourcing requirements for medications is beyond me. Let alone allowing commercials that nowhere else in the world allows.
  - sorcerer-mar 1y ago
    Pharma companies already aren't very profitable and it's getting worse and worse every year (called "Eroom's Law" for the reverse of Moore's). The US's uniquely fucked healthcare situation is thanks to 1) administrative overhead of tons of competitive and extremely complex distinct health plans, and 2) the labor cost of doctors, much of which gets captured by the extremely consolidated health systems that employ them. The US needs to dump money into training a lot more doctors. Not by subsidizing student loans, but by directly creating public medical schools that train doctors on the cheap and let them escape with no student debt.
deadbabe 1y ago
I will miss PBS SpaceTime on YouTube :(

whycome 1y ago

$9B?! Path to everything being private. Don't they want to also break up NOAA and National Weather to make them basically just data services? Private companies would then be the ones to publish it. Want to know the weather? Subscribe.

camblomquist 1y ago
They aren't breaking up NOAA just for the sake of privatization, reliable weather reporting also makes it harder to ignore Climate Change. From Project 2025 "[NOAA offices] form a colossal operation that has become one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry and, as such, is harmful to future U.S. prosperity."
- falcor84 1y ago
  > climate change alarm industry I would actually like to buy a climate change alarm clock
  - evilkorn 1y ago
    10 minutes till midnight. Put it right next to your nuclear clock
  - whycome 1y ago
    We just keep hitting snooze. That's how we got into this mess. (It's a future generation's problem, right?...)
    - fknorangesite 1y ago
      > We just keep hitting snooze. Hah I wish - hitting snooze would at least push it back. We're just putting our heads under the pillow to try and ignore the blaring alarm.
    - h2zizzle 1y ago
      Gonna make one of those novelty clocks themed around the financial boom-bust cycle, where, to silence it, you have to get out of bed and literally kick a can.
- malfist 1y ago
  > is harmful to future U.S. prosperity So is sticking your head in the sand and ignoring the coming disaster. Next quarter thinking should not be the government policy.
  - andsoitis 1y ago
    Don’t look up!
- xorcist 1y ago
  > main drivers of the climate change alarm industry This is clearly dog whistle langauge and not intended to be taken literally, but it is starting to be a common trope and it makes me very curious as to how this industry operates? What's their main source of income, who benefits from it, and how? And what is the supposed goal of it? Raising the alarm about a conceieved threat could be a way to raise money for more research, which might indirectly benefit those scientists. But we haven't really seen a corresponding massive increase in scientists employed, and even if we did, they would have to find some way to leak money through publicly funded research to their own private enterprises because so far no one has suggested that we pay scientific researchers too much. The way to combat that would be to demand more transparency from universities, but they're already pretty good about that. It also doesn't match very well what those scientists are actually saying. Which is mostly that the basic science is indisputable since the past century and more research is not required but action. Had the climate scientists been siphoning public money through alarmists schemes, wouldn't they rather say that things are very dire but "don't touch! We need much more expensive research before we can give any concrete advice"?
  - aerostable_slug 1y ago
    I don't think the allegation is that the scientists themselves are who benefits. Rather, I think the allegation is that it's those involved in renewable energy development schemes that result from the raised alarm, from product vendors to site developers to construction contractors to energy trading firms to... See also: politicians pushing Green New Deal type policies. The scientists are enablers, not the primary beneficiaries, at least as I understand the allegations.
    - xorcist 1y ago
      That's a real issue with several real life examples, but not really related to the issue of climate change or climate alarmism, is it? There's been plenty of extended circles around political interests that has lined their pockets in matters of alcohol and drug prevention, abuse prevention and health care, but very few people seem to be taking the local step to actually, alcohol are good for you and anyone that says otherwise should be labelled alcohol alarmists. It's pretty unique to climate research. I seem to remember that there were was a enormous backlash against CFC bans, and lots of talk about how it would lead to the spread of preventable illness and economic disaster, but it never reached nearly the same levels of anti scientific discourse as we see today.
nimbius 1y ago
These services are irreplaceable. once they are gone, they are gone. as for NOAA, China could decide to undermine the profiteering of weather in the US (as it did with AI using DeepSeek) by simply expanding the Fengyun satellite constellation to cover the globe (as it did with beidou) thereby providing weather forecasts for North America as well via the web, social media, and mobile app free of charge as a form of Kissinger style "soft power."
- roywiggins 1y ago
  satellites are one thing, but they can hardly replace American radiosondes (well, without getting them shot out of the sky anyway)
lenerdenator 1y ago
Didn't you hear? Sesame Street is old hat. The new way to have kids learn stuff is with Little Beasts, a Mr. Beast YouTube series brought to you by Prime Energy and Feastibles. Like I'm joking but that's the idea.
- theGnuMe 1y ago
  At least we have the Australian's to give us Bluey and the UK for Peppa pig.
  - noir_lord 1y ago
    For now, We (the UK) seem as usual to be on your path just a decade or so behind. Reform is our version of MAGA and just as odious.
    - lenerdenator 1y ago
      I'd say the UK does things at the same time, just in a different order. See Brexit in 2016, same year as Trump being elected.

pitpatagain 1y ago

Just for full accuracy: $9b is the total in the claw back bill. About $1.1b of that is CPB (PBS+NPR).

lenerdenator 1y ago
So what you're saying is, Trump or Elon could, in theory, write a check and fund it for the next fiscal year?
- CamperBob2 1y ago
  If you want to go back to the medieval patronage model, that's certainly a possibility. There were good reasons for moving away from that model, though.
  - manwe150 1y ago
    Surely you don’t think it could be that bad if we were to sell all of our news media to a few rich companies in what some have called an oligopoly
- nilamo 1y ago
  Someone could also fund it forever, with a donation large enough such that the endowment's dividends exceed yearly costs. But no one has.
- disposition2 1y ago
  Based on the text of the legislation passed by the Senate, it looks like the ~$1 billion was for 2026 & 2027 fiscal years. > (20) (A) Amounts made available for “Corporation for Public Broadcasting” for fiscal year 2026 by Public Law 118–47 are rescinded. > (B) Amounts made available for “Corporation for Public Broadcasting” for fiscal year 2027 by Public Law 119–4 are rescinded. https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/4/text https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/4/te...

echelon 1y ago

That's just the PBS stuff everyone knows about. Back in the 90's and 00's, PBS had a show called "Irasshai" [1] aimed at high school students. It was a complete two year Japanese language education class filmed in conjunction with Georgia Tech. They produced 140 30-minute lessons and produced two 500 page text books and teacher lesson plans. Study materials, homework, tests - everything. It typically aired at 4 AM, so they asked you to set your VCR to record. If you couldn't do that, they could mail you the entire VHS boxed set of episodes. But that's not the cool and powerful part. They actually let you register for classes and conference call in with an actual teacher. Twice to three times a week with class sizes of 4-6 students. Everyone took turns reading, answering questions, practicing dialogue. All year long. There were tests and grades, and regular 1-1 proctored verbal exams. It was incredible. The entire program was offered for free. It was one of the coolest ways to learn Japanese and it was incredibly effective. This was such an amazing program for high schools that typically only offered Spanish lessons. And now that's gone. [1] https://www.gpb.org/irasshai https://www.gpb.org/irasshai

WalterBright 1y ago
Thank you for the link. The videos are there on the web site, not gone.
- mulmen 1y ago
  The videos may be there but the program is gone.
syndeo 1y ago
Wow. I would've absolutely done that had I known about it. (I was in high school in the very late 2000s/early 2010s, so perhaps I was already too late, but yeah, wow.) Thanks for that link though, a commenter says the vids are still there. (I'm too busy learning Chinese at this point though, I'm afraid!)
drdec 1y ago
What is the case for funding this via a public television station instead of via schools? We already have infrastructure and a wider reach for education in schools? Wouldn't the money have been better served creating a Japanese language program in Georgia high schools?

ninetyninenine 1y ago

The obvious thing to cut is the goddamn military. I’m not even talking about cutting things off to make the military weaker in a world that largely doesn’t need a powerful military. I’m talking about actual insane over spending. But even Elon couldn’t do that. I don’t know if any president can. Something is deeply wrong here.

shigawire 1y ago
>Even Elon I think that is the wrong framing. I'd be more surprised if someone with no real government experience has much success with that venture. I'd rather have someone with years and years of experience with DoD budgets and the expertise to prioritize the right cuts.
watwut 1y ago
Of course a guy with zero knowledge of how things work, but a lot of confidence and ideaologically fueeled ressentment could not cut spending. Then again, goal was to destroy and harm and that was achieved.
tracker1 1y ago
I'm all for cutting the military spending to less than half... that said, it's still much smaller than entitlement spending at this point... there needs to be a lot of effort to reduce fraud and increase competition in medical/pharma space. Why there aren't licensing and dual sourcing requirements for medications is beyond me. Let alone allowing commercials that nowhere else in the world allows.
- sorcerer-mar 1y ago
  Pharma companies already aren't very profitable and it's getting worse and worse every year (called "Eroom's Law" for the reverse of Moore's). The US's uniquely fucked healthcare situation is thanks to 1) administrative overhead of tons of competitive and extremely complex distinct health plans, and 2) the labor cost of doctors, much of which gets captured by the extremely consolidated health systems that employ them. The US needs to dump money into training a lot more doctors. Not by subsidizing student loans, but by directly creating public medical schools that train doctors on the cheap and let them escape with no student debt.

deadbabe 1y ago

I will miss PBS SpaceTime on YouTube :(