That sounds like a lot.

That is not a lot.

The very first flat-screen TVs were plasmas that came out in that time frame, and they were super-expensive. Miles Finch brags about having one in Elf, that came out in 2003.

My turn to be pedantic. What's the call sign of that station? Because CPB isn't a TV station.

Great point! If it's valuable people will happily pay for it.

You're right, I should have said funded. Same argument. Should the federal government be subsidizing television stations?

Teachers don't want to teach full books. I don't know why. Most of the English teachers I've talked to think it's a waste of time. They seem to want lessons that can be taught entirely in one class session, so no long-form anything. My son's newspaper teacher says it's a huge problem, as students aren't used to doing anything that takes more than an hour or so to complete, and newspaper articles can take days to finish.

I went to school in the same time frame in the US and I probably read a dozen full books as required reading, complete with book reports. For one high school class I had to read three books over the summer. I can almost remember them all in order: Rascal, A Wrinkle in Time, Johnny Tremain, Shane, Beowulf, Uncle Tom's Cabin, The Great Gatsby, 1984, Great Expectations, A Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Walden, and a few more I can't remember :)

My son, who is graduating soon, I think has read two entire novels. He has read a lot more on his own, but required long-form reading has absolutely decreased since my time in school.

Does anyone besides Trump think Truth Social is a good idea?

It's much simpler than that. There is a list of stuff the government should do. Running television stations isn't on that list for a lot of people. Nor radio stations. Nor newspapers. Nor publishing companies or social media networks.

Notice they are saying "inequality" and not poverty. The prevailing wisdom of the last couple of decades is that, in even fairly prosperous societies, the mere fact that there are very rich people makes others miserable, even if all of their needs are being met. So, the reason there is crime in places like Finland and Sweden, with fairly robust social safety nets and worker protections, is because rich people live there, too. It doesn't make any sense, but it's a Marxist reading of complex socioeconomic factors, that boils everything down to class and assumes little else matters.

Not sure how this is allowed as ITAR covers a lot of this ground already.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Horsecrap. Reading makes you a better writer. If you need to communicate with other humans, the more you read, the better you are at communicating with them. In general of course. If you read garbage then that's what you are learning from.

https://www.masterclass.com/ar...

Ah, you're right, I completely misunderstood your argument. You don't understand the most basic of economic principles. Got it.

So your argument is that the art that artists create has no inherent value, and others can reproduce it and profit off of it as much as they want and the artist who created it should get nothing?

I agree with the general concept that copyright law and enforcement is screwed up and should be reformed, but copyright itself serves an important purpose.

One of the big local chains has stopped checking to see if you have bought a ticket when you walk in. I think they do a cursory glance at the theater and that's it. I've heard rumor that they make so little money on ticket sales it's more profitable to have a well staffed concession stand than to bother checking tickets. The flip side is that they play some good old movies (I've only cared to see one new movie in the theater this year) so I'll happily shell out to see a cool old movie in the theaters rather than the new shlock they are putting out.

LOL, I think the DOJ itself has been caught fake-redacting legal documents before. There was a mini-scandal a few years ago IIRC.