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)