I am composing this off of xomba, so I should not lose it! A) Why should the government be supporting any communication outlets, Les, regardless of their merits? B) How is government support of these failing entities consistent with our constitutional right to free speech? X. Normally I would have wondered too, wondering why vote for the support any funding for a system of public information. Then I realized, these were about the most intelligent communications I was listening to, and there really was no "left" bleeding heart liberal bias. That line was from the fox-brain thieves and skimmers of the system attempting to put more advertising on the air, or more "why are we funding a 'public' frequency or outlet?," pretending to be libertarian in their words. Okay. You (me) and they use the 'public' roads and the skimmers are trying to sell them out from under you. (indiana tollway?, or is that some public road in ohio?) You own the airwaves that a cellphone company says they bought from the government and such and such bandwidth the FCC auctioned off to them, and we do not mind selling off parts of these technologically accessible frequencies of communication. But I do object that the truth is not told on them. I object that the users slant and taint and lie through their use of the public airwaves. MY PRODUCT is SUPERIOR to YOUR PRODUCT ACCORDING to THESE TESTIMONIALS. Pepsi is better than Coke. We know that is BS. However, PBS and NPR are not Propaganda outlets, or perhaps they are if they promote "truth and knowledge" about what the rest of the media ignores because of vested investments. Like FOX, who should be banned as failing to meet it's public service agreements to use the airwaves in a balanced and impartial manner. -- (Yeah, if I were dictator, I would simply shut them off, and I would jail those who want the smut of lies and murdoch even posted, the continued misuse and abuse of the 'public' trust. Yeah. As a dictator, I would not have a bit of use for these malefactions, Not! in my society! I want the TRUTH dirty and as offensive as it might be, and verifiably as close to it as a scientific approach can come. Questions like the number of christians or atheists or muslims ghosts that can dance on pinheads or rise up in the second coming just aren't going to be part of the public broadcasting use of the public airwaves unless they are balanced second by second with open truthful information about the world, the universe or some non-commercialized investigstive report into what actually happened to the bodies of the people on flight 93. what local jurisdiction had the responsibility? A real report with the fingerprints, and the DNA used, and tewstimony from those Families who survived and what they have done with the money they recieved from us for the "death"caused by the 9-11-01 'terrorist' attack. ("loose change", see the video) and the sworn and filmed efforts of the investigators doing the actual and documentary work, so you see the bodies of loved ones like the skeletal remains of those at Auschwitz, and the detailed honest accounts of the nazi's in their records of jewish persecution and inhuman inhumanity. (My father was with Patton and detailed to the recovery of some of the concentration death camps records; he never doubted what America was about during those times in Europe before the end of WW II.) My reason for wanting my tax money spent on truth and good reporting is that there is damned little of it reported on the local or national news that is not propaganda or advertising telling me coke is better than pepsi (which is true.) The war in Iraq was NEVER about 911. Never about Saddam's WMD, Biological, Chemical or whatever, and never realy about Oil, though there is an awful lot of oil money coming from there. The war in Iraq is the neocon BS with the Multinationasl military industrial complex IKE warned about coming with bid-free blessing of Chaney's Halliburton to feed at the us TREASURY. The war is a way to milk the american people for the wealth of a few, and the president and vice president and billionaires club and all the presidents men and alberto and condi and on and on are in on it. Powell is the only one who had a spine, and he has always known the truth. The war is just about transferring money from our treasury to a bunch of mutinationals to get rid of any supposed surplus that might let Americans smarten and educate their young in the future, or fix their infra structure. . .. This is not what I wrote the first time. see www.foavc.org, and www.cc2.org, and www.article5.org What has this got to do about the Constitution? and free speech, which are illusions now? Well look at and learn about Article V. It is the last bloodless way to recover America from the new multinationals heading us into the North American Union, abandoning the US like traitors (and your Congressmen and Senators are a part of this business team) to create the wealthiest economic chip in the world game. That depends only to a small degree on the amount of money being bled from us on Iraq. But more upon the continued deceit of American "leadership" betraying the public trust and not being hung as traitors. SO when I see what this Admin is funding to steal from us, I say give NPR and PBS the funds sent to Iraq for a month and they would be funded 'til the end of the 21st century. And we might get a better idea of the truth, if they are the reporters. Lame as it is it is a hint of what is really going on and how the dumbing down has been a successful ploy by scum we have allowed to steal our leadership. I think the worm will turn, and soon.