Just when you thought things couldn't get any more ridiculous

[fizzana]

The Bush administration has decided that people with bad hearing have bad judgment, too, and need special guidance from the federal government. So the U.S. Department of Education is declaring about 200 television programs inappropriate for closed-captioning and denying federal grant requests to make them accessible to the hearing-impaired.

The department made its decisions based on the recommendations of a five-member panel. Who the five members are, only the government seems to know, and it isn't saying. But the shows they censored suggest a perspective that is Talibanesque.

The government is refusing to caption Bewitched and I Dream of Jeannie, apparently fearing that the deaf would fall prey to witchcraft if they viewed the classic sitcoms.

Your government also believes that Law & Order is too intense for the hard-of-hearing. So is Power Rangers. You can rest easy knowing that your federal tax dollars aren't being spent to promote Sanford and Son, Judge Wapner's Animal Court and The Loretta Young Show within the deaf community. Kids with hearing problems can forget about watching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, classic cartoons or Nickelodeon features. Even Roy Rogers and Robin Hood are out.

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/opinion/content/auto/epaper/editions/sunday/opinion_0442326e064c624b0099.html

These people have truly flipped.

[burrowowl]

1. They are joking

aren't they?

[fizzana]

2. It doesn't sound like it.

n/t

[johnlal]

3. Here's a thought...

This sounds like another giveaway to the rich. I think the networks should have to provide closed-captioning for all of their programming at no charge in order to maintain their licenses. These huge companies have enough money to provide the captioning. Why should our tax dollars have to pay it. It should be required of anybody who is using OUR public airwaves to make their billions of dollars. No more corporate welfare, whether it's Little House on the Prairie or the Playboy Channel.

[jbfam4]

4. Oh, Now I get it....

"The Bush administration has decided that people with bad hearing have bad judgment, too, and need special guidance from the federal government."

so that's why * has such bad judgment.......it's a hearing problem.

I thought he could hear, but he didn't listen.

[ixion]

5. Talibanesque

That's the great irony, of course. Those of us who keep our religion/spirituality to ourselves are now caught in a war between religious extremists (whose religion stems from the same historical figure, I might add) and who simply won't be happy until the world has been trashed beyond recognition.

Do you remember the Taliban destroying a centuries old Buddha not too long ago? That's precisely the type of thing these right wing fundie whackos would like to see here in America, but in the name of Jesus rather than Allah.

And again I restate my thesis:

More people die and more sorrow is caused by religion than by any other concept, IMO. Truly, the world has lost its collective mind.