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Via Eclectic Iconoclast, I read that PBS is going to start interrupting its programs to air commercials. A Time article anticipates PBS’s defense: “They [PBS] still make programming that commercial TV can’t or doesn’t sustain. Put as many car commercials in it as you want, CBS is never going to air Nova on a weeknight.”

Perhaps I am missing something, but I think that this is perfectly true: PBS cannot be said to be just like the other networks, even now. Clearly, they are still attempting to put on programming that the other networks would find it unprofitable to air, and so their plan appears to be: act like the other networks, only make less money.

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I read the Newsweek article about Americans doing poorly on the citizenship test. One quote from the article I take issue with:

“The world has changed. And unfortunately, it’s becoming more and more inhospitable to incurious know-nothings—like us.”

To date, I have seen little evidence of this. The know-nothings seem to get by just fine. It’s mostly the know-somethings who suffer.

(Hat Tip to Thingy for the Newsweek article)

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 “Views in favour of dictatorship, xenophobia and anti-Semitism are increasing in popularity” in Germany. (Hat Tip to Little Green Footballs)

I am reminded of this quote from a Tom Lehrer song:

“Once all the Germans were warlike and mean,/But that couldn’t happen again/We taught them a lesson in 1918/ And they’ve hardly bothered us since then.”