Million Puppet March in DC to support continued funding of PBS

Agence France-Presse:

Puppets urged politicians Saturday to keep up federal funding for US public broadcasting after Republican presidential challenger Mitt Romney threatened to pull the plug on Big Bird and friends.

Organizers of the Million Puppet March on Capitol Hill in support of Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) television and National Public Radio (NPR) put the turnout at around 1,000 people, three days before the US presidential vote.

Characters from the children’s show “Sesame Street” — a PBS staple since the network’s founding in 1970 — figured prominently, including two Big Birds, many Kermits and Elmos, and a Miss Piggy grooving to “Dancing in the Streets.”

But the family-friendly rally on a chilly and cloudy day also attracted a frisky marionette of President Barack Obama and a blue-suited protester in a Mitt Romney mask jammed into a trash can with Big Bird on his back.

There was no shortage of sometimes witty placards, like “Keep your Mitts off Big Bird,” “puppets for peace” and, on the arm of a middle-aged gentleman with a skunk puppet, “Romney smells funny.”

“We’re just making it clear that public media matters and it’s something that we want to see supported and we still want to see federal funding of,” said co-organizer Michael Bellavia, a Los Angeles animation producer.

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News Roundup for 4/1/11

Most Americans' view of the federal budget

-Headline of the day-
"Poll: Americans Wrongly Estimate $178 Billion In Fed. Budget Goes To Public Broadcasting."

That's right, yet another poll showing that -- despite holding strong opinions about the federal budget -- most Americans have no idea what's actually in it. When CNN asked how much of the federal budget was spent on the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the "median guess" was 5%. 20% of respondents believed it was 10% of the budget, while 5% thought half of all money spent by the feds goes to NPR and PBS.

"The survey also underscores how clueless Americans are about where the budget goes in general," we're told. "For example, Americans on average thought foreign aid took up 10% of the budget; it really makes up about 1%."

How much does CPB actually get? It's "approximately one one-hundredth of one percent," according to the report. One penny out of every hundred dollars?

Outrageous! (Talking Points Memo)


-The world's gone mad!-
Today, Scientific American announced it would begin to balance their science reporting with creationist and global warming denier viewpoints. Reddit got all moldy. Google announced that you can now use body English in Gmail. Huffington Post announces a pay wall that only applies to people who work at the New York Times. And PBS hires rightwing nutjob Ann Coulter, other rightwing nutjob Mark Levin, and nonpartisan nutjob Lindsey Lohan.

Weird day, huh? (Scientific American, Reddit Blog, Google, Huffington Post, American Spectator)


-Bonus HotD-
"Mike Huckabee Wants Every American To Be 'Forced At Gun Point' To Learn From Radical Historian."

'Cause that there's what you call "liberty!" (ThinkProgress)