How Privatization of NASA's The Learning Channel (TLC) Devolved Into A For-Profit Child Exploitation Channel Pushing Honey Boo Boo

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Little Green Footballs in defense of CBS:

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 (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”. … 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 and privatized, 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). I am not saying we should not be capitalists and should be against the for profit model - but we should wake up from the delusion that the private sector can do it better. In some cases, the private sector does it worse and is worse.

Denial

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A recent topic in the news over the last two weeks is how Republicans are in absolute denial that Romney is losing and they have begun to blame the polls saying so as being biased against them. There is even a guy, Dean Chambers, who has made a site that "unskews" the polls. Talking Points Memo wrote an article about this:

Chambers’ project started in July after he noticed an ABC News/Washington Post poll that “just didn’t look right.” An ABC News/Washington Post poll conducted this month showed Obama up over Romney 49 percent to 48 percent. “Unskewed,” however, after applying Rasmussen’s numbers on party ID, Romney leads Obama 52-45 in the poll. It’s like magic. But Chambers insists he isn’t “changing” or “making up” data. “The only thing I’m doing is weighting.” But that’s exactly what most pollsters don’t do. “We don’t have any preconceived notions about the party breakdown of a poll before we conduct it. The only things we make any adjustments for are gender, race, and age,” Democratic-leaning Public Policy Polling’s Tom Jensen told TPM in an email. “It makes sense that as support for Obama increases, more people also identify themselves as Democrats. I know conservatives want to think it’s more Democrats in the poll causing Obama to do better, but it’s actually Obama doing better causing more Democrats in the poll.” “The reality is that (Republicans are) losing, they can’t accept it, and they’re going to find some reason to dismiss every poll that makes them unhappy not matter what its composition is,” Jensen added. “This isn’t really about Party ID, it’s about hardcore denial.” I see this as the fundamental problem with the Republican party in 2012. When something doesn't match their preconceived world view, when the facts do not match their version of reality, they attempt to ignore the facts, or simply make up their own. It is the purest form of denial I've seen. They will continue to lose national elections, where their legislative gerrymandering isn't able to help them, as long as this denial continues. I am very grateful that they are not able to gerrymander the borders of actual states.