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I don't entirely disagree with the general criticism, but here it seems to be misplaced. First of all, these were not interviews, but more like an audio op-ed. Thus, just like the Op-eds found in the newspaper, or the opinion pieces presented on the numerous "news magazine" shows (and other cable news infotainment) there is not questioning of the speaker. He isn't even being interviewed; it's a speech.

Also, NPR seems like an odd source to focus on in this criticism. If anything, they provide more critical, factually based coverage than any other (non-print) US news outlet. In other words, they're better than just about everyone else in the US media. Try watching The Today Show, CNN, or Fox News and then you'll really see interviewers swallowing obvious loads of crap. On NPR, factually incorrect or dubious statements often are challanged by interviewers. For example, I think it was in this story (I can't listen to it now to be sure) that the interviewer very politely tore apart a GM executive's argument for why many families "need" an SUV. Now, I'll agree that sometimes interviewees aren't challanged as strongly as I might like, but misleading or false statements do get challanged. Not only that, but they also air "letter to the editor" type comments that point out errors in their coverage or the statements of guests. That's a hell of a lot more than most media outlets do.

In essence, I agree with your sentiment, but it's directed at the wrong people.

http://www.npr.org/contact/

let them know what you think about letting shills on their programs.

This thread reminds me of the bumper stickers they handed out at work, which say, "I WORK FOR FORD, I DRIVE A FORD."
When I see one on a car I can't help thinking that members of the general public must think that it really means:

I'm only driving this horrible piece of crap because I work there.

It reminds me of an http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?story Id=5454155NPR story about signs that ask people not to pollute, steal, etc, but have the opposite effect.

as my belief in God faded my sense of obligation to benefit family, future, and species only increased ... Then you are unique

I have to disagree - every atheist I've known says that their sense of moral obligation was increased by their lack of belief. Take a look at Penn Jillette's "This I Believe" essay on NPR, especially the part about "Believing there is no God gives me more room for belief in family, people, love, truth, beauty, sex, Jell-O..." and "Believing there's no God means I can't really be forgiven except by kindness and faulty memories. That's good; it makes me want to be more thoughtful. I have to try to treat people right the first time around."

it seems that every atheist I meet has problems with a father or with grandparents lurking in their past.

Well, not me. I get along great with my entire family.

Interesting- so you'd disagree with Nietzche then?

I've never found a philosopher that I completely agree with, but I've learned something from all of them. Nietzche's idea that we should take control of our own destiny seems to hold some wisdom, but his overwhelming sense of dispair seems to be a result of his psychological problems, and I don't think that life is "pointless" the way he does.

that is belief in the evils of contraception and abortion and divorce ... willing to sacrifice other species to see humanity get ahead

Now you're just mixing vaguely related ideas at random. Plenty of die-hard Christians are strong environmentalists, use contraception and get abortions and divorces. On the other hand, Penn Jillette (our example atheist), has publicly stated that he would kill every chimpanzee on earth with his bare hands to save one person's life. I don't know any "divorce and abortion should be banned" atheists, most think that these are "best of a group of bad options" choices that should be kept as a last resort. As for contraception, there's only a very small (but very vocal) group people that don't like contraception in general, most people are only concerned about giving condoms to kids and questions about where the line between abortion and contraception is and other issues like that.

On a personal note, it's good to see that a strongly Roman Catholic "socially conservative and fiscally liberal" person (per your last journal entry) can have a reasonable conversation with an atheistic socially liberal and fiscally conservative person like me. All too often tempers flare up and all hope of a meaningful discussion disappears. I look forward to your thoughts.

Just last Monday, NPR's Fresh Air program featured investigative reporter Sharon Weinberger, who has just written a book titled Imaginary Weapons: A Journey Through the Pentagon's Scientific Underworld. In the interview, Weinberger breaks down how the US Military has gone from bad to worse in terms of science, rejecting even its own internal peer-review system (including the JASONs) in favor of administration-pleasing junk science and "imaginary weapons".

Of course, the problem isn't new -- she points out in the interview that the Clinton administration was just as quick as anyone else to slam the door on global warming results that didn't match their polices. And in fact, the first two-thirds of the interview are studiously neutral in tone. But by the end, after host Terri Gross and Weinberger have laid the factual foundation, the Bush administration comes out looking pretty pathetic. With the current administration's secrecy, paranoia (the Wen Ho Lee fiasco at Los Alamos gets particular attention), and general disregard for the scientific method, it's pretty clear that if Los Alamos falls, it didn't jump -- it was pushed.

As Gore pointed out in a recent interview with Terry Gross on NPR, during the 2000 campaign there wasn't much obvious difference between the policies advocated by him and Bush. Bush, after he took office, just happened to reneg on many of his campaign promises -- or perhaps they were just insinuations:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?story Id=5439305

A notable example of Bush's political disingenuousness was his reversal on a campaign pledge to curtail power plants' carbon dioxide emissions. (http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/environment/jan-ju ne01/co2_3-14.html) It's easy to forget now, but Bush ran as a centrist in the 2000 campaign.

Don't forget about Science Friday and NPR: All Songs Considered.

There is also Car Talk which is not free.

You're supposed to use a podcast reader. You take the URL of the podcast's RSS feed (in this case it's here and you add that into your favorite reader. If you're using Linux, most well-featured music players will have the ability to read it, including Rhytmbox and amaroK. IIRC, Akregator may have done podcasts too even though it's not a media player. Macs have iTunes and I have no idea what's out there for Windows. Anyways, if you really wanted to get the audio without using a reader, just point your browser at the feed and read it. It's XML so it's sort of human-readable.

P.S. Pointing my browser at this feed, they intercept your request and redirect you to a download page. Convenient.

The greatest one of all however is Filmspotting (formerly Cinecast), a movie podcast which frankly is the best reviewers in all of media. A normal review contains what, 3-4 minutes of discussion, maybe 6-7 if it's an article. The Filmspotting guys routinely talk for seventeen (17!) minutes about a movie, incredibly smart and intellectual discussion that really dives deep into actors, scripts, direction, theme, etc. of every movie it reviews. That is what makes podcasting great, by not being contrained by a corporation, people are free to create their own formats, and have complete creative control. Most often that means it's gonna suck, but when it doesn't you get something like Filmspotting which is frankly unparalelled in quality.

The greatest one of all however is Filmspotting (formerly Cinecast), a movie podcast which frankly is the best reviewers in all of media. A normal review contains what, 3-4 minutes of discussion, maybe 6-7 if it's an article. The Filmspotting guys routinely talk for seventeen (17!) minutes about a movie, incredibly smart and intellectual discussion that really dives deep into actors, scripts, direction, theme, etc. of every movie it reviews. That is what makes podcasting great, by not being contrained by a corporation, people are free to create their own formats, and have complete creative control. Most often that means it's gonna suck, but when it doesn't you get something like Filmspotting which is frankly unparalelled in quality.

NPR also ran this story earlier today saying that people who drink 2 cups of coffee are better listeners than those who don't. We've been drinking this stuff for how long and we're just now figuring this stuff out? What will they find out next?

Even a "Made in the USA" label is most likely made in sweat-shops in US territories.

Did not know about it, did ya?

Ms. magazine reporter Rebecca Clarren and executive editor Katherine Spillar discuss the latest issue's cover article about the sweatshops of the Northern Mariana Islands.

But it is so cool to bash Apple and pretend to be "compassionate".

I heard an article on NPR this morning, about Afghan Culture Gap Widens. In it, they mentioned that people in the City want nice shirts, Television, and a modern lifestyle. They said that the people in the rural areas want things to revert to the old ways, and make their decisions based on religeous teachings. This got me thinking -- that is what we have here in the US, and I am sure it is a common argument throughout time: the old vs. the new.

Also, coming from Pennsylvania, I know the Amish are a peaceful lot. I understand that they keep to their own, and don't meddle with other people's affairs. I thought I read that they generally vote Republican, but I didn't see it in the Wikipedia article about the Amish.

Don't get me wrong. When I first heard that GWB was attempting to place a ban on embryonic stem cell research, I was very upset. This would put the US behind the ball with respect to many other countries who were already so advanced in the field. Not to mention what this would do to the economies of California and (especially Cambridge) Massachusetts, who have established themselves as biotech powerhouses.

But then the research started pouring in, showing that there were alternative methods to obtaining stem cells, illustrating that the potential benefits could be reaped without all of the controversy.

Bottom line: I think stuff like this should be decided on a state-by-state basis (that's one of the reasons why we have states in the first place, or so I thought); but sometimes it's good to force the issue, 'cause them smrt people usually find another way if you force them to.

I am tired of companies insisting that there is nothing they can do. When a company in the US wants a US law changed, they spare no expense.

I am also tired of the bullshit claim that businesses are soulless entities that have no responsibility to the public and only to their shareholders. Businesses are made up of individuals who make the decisions (e.g., to sell out Chinese journalists) which have real life effects on people. It is possible for businesses to make decisions that are not based only on the bottom line. Oscar Schindler owned a business and he found a way to help people.

Maybe Yahoo should stop crying "poor me there is nothing I can do" and start lobbying to improve the situation in China.

Hopefully this boycott and all the negative publicity that Yahoo will receive because of it will help them pull their head out of their ass and start doing the right thing.

here's a link to the mp3:
http://podcastdownload.npr.org/anon.npr-podcasts/p odcast/330/510053/5440699/WBUR_5440699.mp3

Talk of the nation, may 26

Nina Totenberg on NPR explained it this afternoon. The gist of it is that Souter's dissent read much like an opinion as though he had been assigned to write it had O'Conner stayed around. It's explained better in the audio clip, though.

This is basically the same story that National Public Radio broadcast almost a year ago. Some of the interviewees even seem to be the same.

Sounds like
  1- USA Today wanted some filler, and recycled a year-old NPR concept & story
or
  2- the Gentleman's Fight Club decided they needed more publicity

Check the NPR archives. http://www.npr.org/templates/rundowns/rundown.php? prgId=7&prgDate=30-Jul-05. "Making Something Out of the 'Fight Club' Trend"

Nothing to see here, move along.

See you can't stick with one topic, you're all over the place and your argument is incoherent.

Thanks for being so specific. I'm addressing the points you brought up.

We're not wiretapping everyone. I assume in your most recent post you're talking about the gathering of phone call records, which wouldn't use much bandwidth. I was referring to the bandwidth and storage costs of "wiretapping everyone". You're shifting the topic around to suit your point (as vague as it is).

I take it you did not bother to read this thread in context? What the hell did you think we were talking about? The topic was wiretaps without warrants. This includes and number of kinds of wiretaps from complete capture of voice, to relational databases of who talks to whom, to a system that combines the former with trageted instances of the latter.

Johnson and Nixon were both ratted out by the people doing the wire taps.

Yeah the taped lock in my imagination. As for King, the FBI made him aware of its activities anonymously while trying to influence him with recordings of his associates, not because the FBI came clean.

It's much harder to find who placed a bugging device than it is to trace these centralized wire taps, you are obviously wrong on that point.

Yeah, right. someone has to go to every location to place a physical bug. That means more manpower and more chance of discovery. It also means a lot less deniability. In the case of a centralized monitoring system it can always be some minor person who exceeded their authority and added a single entry. In the case of physical wiretaps that is much less believable since it is commanding significant manpower.

What the fuck does one have to do with the other? You're a computer guy AND a fucking NSA expert? This is wearing away at your credibility...

I never claimed to be either, only that I am knowledgeable about networks and network monitoring systems, both ours and our competitors and potential competitors (like Narus whose system is in place at AT&T).

When you say it is unobserved, you are making a blanket statement. What you really wanted to say was "why don't we get the courts involved?".

Did you sleep through your 3rd grade social studies class? Separation of powers means different branches of government have different powers. Checks and balances means each branch of government observes and can stop inappropriate actions of the others. The executive branch policing itself is the same as the anybody else policing themselves, not useful for a real problem. That is why they have to get permission from the judicial branch to perform these activities. And given the current state of the government only the most outrageous abuses would be denied anyway. No, refusing to get a warrant is only useful if they are hiding illegal or potentially illegal or incredibly unethical behavior.

Why don't we have civil rights attourneys follow around police officers to prevent the occasional white officers beating black guy down?

We do have a judicial check on the police, its called the courts, you know where the police have to bring people after they arrest them? And if there are abuses the courts can rebuke the police, order them arrested, or award fines. In this way the police are prevented from running wild. What makes you think the NSA should not be held to the same standard as required by the constitution?

Do we get the courts authorization before we go blow up some house in Afghanistan?

No, the legislative branch gets that right, as only they can declare war, which the executive branch then directs.

found a reliable source of news who has a little to say on it: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?story Id=4756403 .

Way to stay current. That is what was discovered as of about a year ago and is way

See you can't stick with one topic, you're all over the place and your argument is incoherent.

But that's the point. This isn't wiretapping "suspected terrorists." This is wiretapping everyone, and then looking through the info gathered, supposedly to see if people are terrorists and with all oversight removed. Will this data which has been gathered be misused because their is no oversight? It has been every time we're aware of this same situation happening in the past.

We're not wiretapping everyone. I assume in your most recent post you're talking about the gathering of phone call records, which wouldn't use much bandwidth. I was referring to the bandwidth and storage costs of "wiretapping everyone". You're shifting the topic around to suit your point (as vague as it is). Johnson and Nixon were both ratted out by the people doing the wire taps. It's much harder to find who placed a bugging device than it is to trace these centralized wire taps, you are obviously wrong on that point.

I work at a company that builds devices that do broad scale monitoring of internet traffic for major ISPs...... I know how easy it would be to add a list of congress person's and political rivals' phone numbers to the "listen to list" for spot checking by the NSA

What the fuck does one have to do with the other? You're a computer guy AND a fucking NSA expert? This is wearing away at your credibility...

Now let me ask you. What valid reason is there for keeping this monitoring unobserved?

When you say it is unobserved, you are making a blanket statement. What you really wanted to say was "why don't we get the courts involved?". All that is needed is a set of guidelines, no judicial review. Why don't we have civil rights attourneys follow around police officers to prevent the occasional white officers beating black guy down? It's a complicated answer, you can probably imagine why I would rather the courts didn't get involved in national security, but if you want the legal reason, because it's a matter of national security and not civil rights. Do we get the courts authorization before we go blow up some house in Afghanistan? Should we? I don't see what good it would do, in fact I see it doing a lot of harm.

The only way I can think of you would be unaware of them is if you only read US news, from certain, specifically biased sources.

I did what you suggested "patriot abuses" in google. I found a reliable source of news who has a little to say on it: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?story Id=4756403 . No I'm not going to start reading european tabloids. All the cases of patriot act "abuses" (by any rational person's standards) were Muslim American's being held without cause after being suspected of involvement with terrorists. Your information regarding drug dealers is from a congressional report, reported by the NY Times. Congressional reports are always political in nature, FYI. A congressman can go up with a sign that says "chicken hawk" and start blathering about how bad war is. These things are not all related to the patriot act. Law enforcement has always had tools at it's disposal to investigate suspected drug dealers (watch cops) that are MORE intrusive than anything they'd use to investige any other civilian crime. The only difference now is that they may have access to national intelligence resources, which is not a violation of civil rights in and of itself (despite what the ACLU may tell you. The ACLU can be criticized on multiple levels of political pandering). Furthermore, if the patriot act is used to snatch heroin/opium smugglers, it IS related to the war on terror. The patriot act has been used to perform warrant-less searches in more drug investigations than it has "terrorist" investigations. PLEASE SITE THAT QUOTE.

The Philippines exports 15,000 nurses a year, and it's estimated that 1 in 10 Filipinos now works abroad. The nursing drain could have a crippling effect on the Philippines healthcare system.

I heard an article on NPR that spoke of the book version selling in China.

What was interesting is that the Chinese publisher knew it was being pirated and seemed to take it as a given. From what I read/hear about China I would bet that any product made there has about a handful or more of people/companies making exact, unauthorized duplicates.

Sure, save some money in production. While you're at it make copies of the schematics and plans and air drop them as well.

Keep in mind there is a current trend for cosmetics and supplements to use the word "nano" in front of all thing marketing-speak. The concern from this trend is from having the particles penetrate the subdermal layer and travel throughout the body.

see concern story here and a rebuttal here for examples

This morning on NPR, they interviewed a guy from the CATO institute (not exacty a bastion of left-wing liberalism) who said that while the NSA program, on initial review, appeared to meet the letter of the law, it certainly wasn't implemented in the "spirit" of the 4th Amendment to the US Constitution.

I completely agree with this thought. It may or may not be a legal program, but whatever the legality, it is wrong on so many levels.

Well this seems to have slipped past British ferocity.

Years ago NPR discussed a "killer satellite" project. NASA and the DOD had teamed up and actually built a laser capable of destroying or disabling spy satellites, but I distinctly recall the gentlemen saying that they had decided not to go through with the project. They did not want to start an expensive, pointless war in space with nations that we aren't at war with. I suppose if the USA and China or Russia really did go after each other the night sky would light up, but up to this point any intelligence gathered by other space-capable nations doesn't directly harm us.

This might be the story...I'm not sure, and I don't have time to listen to old radio broadcasts.

Sorry, I didn't RTA.

Perhaps you were listening to one of NPR's excellent reports on the environmental costs of electronics "recycling". You can read or listen here

So NPR ignores positive news in Iraq? Subtle and devious. Of course, I'm sure you checked your fact with a simple web search.

Oh wait...

Rate of New U.S. Deaths Declining in Iraq

Now, I don't mean to be a complete jerk by pointing this out. Just 80 percent jerk. The other 20 percent wants people to actually go and read, listen, or watch the news source before they criticize it.

Informed opinion makes the discussion more interesting, and civil.

I don't know how old you are but I have a very clear memory of the arab world hating America well before the US invaded Iraq and, wait for it,... even before Bush was elected.

This may surprise you but the majority of the middle-east is poorly educated and there is no semblance of what we would call a free press. Combine that with extremely strong fundamentalist religions beliefs and the people will believe whatever it is their religious and political leaders want them to believe. (story on conspiracy theories in middle east) No amount of US goodwill or aid can change the mind of common men if their religious leaders are telling them that US soldiers are raping muslim women - or flushing Korans down the toliet - or that not a single Jew was in the World Trade Center on 9/11. The governments of countries with rampant socio-economic and corruption problems have and will always blame others for their misfortune to draw attention away from their own missteps.

...is that the Chinese government does respond when people make noise about human rights abuses. It's just that companies like Yahoo are bottom-line oriented, and thus afraid to risk antagonizing the officials they have to work with.

As a side note, NPR had an interesting piece on pebble bed reactors just this morning.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?story Id=5345501

Older piece from '04, on Living on Earth:
http://www.loe.org/shows/shows.htm?programID=06-P1 3-00008#feature3

Any claim to the first link's S.African detractor/environmentalist that pebble beds create more nuclear waste per killowatt generated? Can the spent fuel of a pebble bed reactor recycled?

The wiki doesn't seem to answer either question (yet).

I wondered this as well, and a NPR story revealed the unstickable substance at the end of the report. I believe it won't bond to an incomplete form of the same bacteria. I'd verify this with a non-audio link but I couldn't find one.

The Discovery Channel site claims the discovers are working on an release enzyme.

They should have waited a few weeks, then they could have called it the MayBerry. They could have launched the product as an homage to the town's peacekeeper.

(I would have linked to his official site but the site blurb still mentions "upcoming performances". Whoops.)

NPR was skeptical of the WMD claims, until it came time for them to scoop the rest of the media with a WMD "discovery" that quickly turned out to be false. The NY Times also claims they were skeptical and printed stories questioning the WMD claims. However, I felt that, like the Times, NPR lead with the administration's point of view and buried the counterclaims. Astute listeners like yourself were able to pick the wheat from the chaff. At the time Democracy Now was leading with stories from Iraqi exiles and weapons inspectors that said there were no WMD. They convinced me, they got it right, and I stuck with them. Now I get their podcast and they get my public radio dollars.

Let me amuse you some more. How different is NPR from Fox News? Maybe you can help me out. Does Mara Liasson work for NPR or Fox News? What about Juan Williams, NPR or Fox News? This is one of those trivial things FAIR has complained about, and NPR Ombudsman Jeffrey Dvorkin agrees with them for the most part:

"I think [FAIR founder Norman] Solomon and Abunimah are substantially correct -- but only up to a point. NPR reporters, hosts and ombudsmen should not be in the business of making their own opinions known about matters of public controversy. When they do, the public quickly senses that NPR compromises its ability to report in a fair manner."

I'll do my best to keep it entertaining. In the meantime, I prefer that my public radio not include corporate sponsorships (that's what corporate radio is for), and I prefer to get my news from journalists who don't work for Fox News.

NPR was skeptical of the WMD claims, until it came time for them to scoop the rest of the media with a WMD "discovery" that quickly turned out to be false. The NY Times also claims they were skeptical and printed stories questioning the WMD claims. However, I felt that, like the Times, NPR lead with the administration's point of view and buried the counterclaims. Astute listeners like yourself were able to pick the wheat from the chaff. At the time Democracy Now was leading with stories from Iraqi exiles and weapons inspectors that said there were no WMD. They convinced me, they got it right, and I stuck with them. Now I get their podcast and they get my public radio dollars.

Let me amuse you some more. How different is NPR from Fox News? Maybe you can help me out. Does Mara Liasson work for NPR or Fox News? What about Juan Williams, NPR or Fox News? This is one of those trivial things FAIR has complained about, and NPR Ombudsman Jeffrey Dvorkin agrees with them for the most part:

"I think [FAIR founder Norman] Solomon and Abunimah are substantially correct -- but only up to a point. NPR reporters, hosts and ombudsmen should not be in the business of making their own opinions known about matters of public controversy. When they do, the public quickly senses that NPR compromises its ability to report in a fair manner."

I'll do my best to keep it entertaining. In the meantime, I prefer that my public radio not include corporate sponsorships (that's what corporate radio is for), and I prefer to get my news from journalists who don't work for Fox News.

NPR was skeptical of the WMD claims, until it came time for them to scoop the rest of the media with a WMD "discovery" that quickly turned out to be false. The NY Times also claims they were skeptical and printed stories questioning the WMD claims. However, I felt that, like the Times, NPR lead with the administration's point of view and buried the counterclaims. Astute listeners like yourself were able to pick the wheat from the chaff. At the time Democracy Now was leading with stories from Iraqi exiles and weapons inspectors that said there were no WMD. They convinced me, they got it right, and I stuck with them. Now I get their podcast and they get my public radio dollars.

Let me amuse you some more. How different is NPR from Fox News? Maybe you can help me out. Does Mara Liasson work for NPR or Fox News? What about Juan Williams, NPR or Fox News? This is one of those trivial things FAIR has complained about, and NPR Ombudsman Jeffrey Dvorkin agrees with them for the most part:

"I think [FAIR founder Norman] Solomon and Abunimah are substantially correct -- but only up to a point. NPR reporters, hosts and ombudsmen should not be in the business of making their own opinions known about matters of public controversy. When they do, the public quickly senses that NPR compromises its ability to report in a fair manner."

I'll do my best to keep it entertaining. In the meantime, I prefer that my public radio not include corporate sponsorships (that's what corporate radio is for), and I prefer to get my news from journalists who don't work for Fox News.

NPR supports its operations through a combination of membership dues and programming fees from over 780 independent radio stations, sponsorship from private foundations and corporations, and revenue from the sales of transcripts, books, CDs, and merchandise. A very small percentage -- between one percent to two percent of NPR's annual budget -- comes from competitive grants sought by NPR from federally funded organizations, such as the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, National Science Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts.

NPR supports its operations through a combination of membership dues and programming fees from over 780 independent radio stations, sponsorship from private foundations and corporations, and revenue from the sales of transcripts, books, CDs, and merchandise. A very small percentage -- between one percent to two percent of NPR's annual budget -- comes from competitive grants sought by NPR from federally funded organizations, such as the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, National Science Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts.

I am an NPR junkie. I have a one-hour commute every day. I no longer listen to the radio and just to the shows I downloaded from NPR on my non-Apple MP3 player. My routine is this:

1. Once a week, I go through the npr.org and scpr.org (Southern California Public Radio -- my local NPR station) and download the .smil or .ram files for the specific shows I want to listen to. I skip the ones where I can get as podcasts already, such as Science Friday, since I can already download them as MP3 files. This takes about an hour a week.

2. I run a script that downloads and converts the .smil and .ram streams into .mp3 files. This gives me enough listening material for about a week. I run this script overnight, since it can take a while.

3. When I've exhausted the current audios on my MP3 player, I copy the new shows over.

I do contribute to KPCC, my local NPR station, so I do not feel like I'm "stealing" the shows. Below is the script I use. It requires mplayer (with Real codec), sox, and lame. If you use this script, I kindly ask that you contribute to your local NPR station as well.

#!/bin/sh

export SOX=sox

for i in $*
do
echo $i
filename=`echo $i | sed 's/\.ram//'`
filename=`echo $filename | sed 's/\.smil//'`

# download real stream and save as WAV file
mplayer -playlist $i -ao pcm:file=$filename.wav -vc dummy -vo null

# extract the largest volume adjustment without clipping
VOLUME_ADJUST=`$SOX "$filename.wav" -t .wav "$filename.tmp.wav" stat -v 2>&1`
echo "VOLUME ADJUST: $VOLUME_ADJUST"
# perform the volume adjustment
$SOX -v $VOLUME_ADJUST -t .wav "$filename.tmp.wav" "$filename.wav"
# remove temporary file
rm -f "$filename.tmp.wav"

# reduce to mono for size
$SOX "$filename.wav" -c 1 -t .wav "$filename.tmp.wav"
mv -f "$filename.tmp.wav" "$filename.wav"

# convert from WAV to MP3
lame $filename.wav $filename.mp3

# remove wav file
rm $filename.wav
done

You would run the script like this:

./npr.sh *ram *smil

Ok. I am a selfconfessed NPR junkie. I will commute to work longer if only I get to listen to it more often. My aboslute favourites are CarTalk, MarketPlace and Morning Edition.
When I first stumbled across NPR few years back, I was abolutely amazed that something of this quality could exist just on the voluntary donations from the listening public.(Ok they do get some money from the govenrment but thats a small fraction). Its a miracle really. The only other organization that comes close is the BBC, but then BBC collects its funds from the License fees it charges from its users. Now that is coerced. But it also leads to great programming cause you are independent from the government and the corporations.
The point being that we need media that is independent both from the government and the coporations who may pull their advertisements out cause they didn't like your reporting. Most of the media outlets that depend of advertising, may pretend that they have complete editorial control. But they don't.
For me NPR is truely "Fair and Balanced". Its an absolute antidote to the partisan propaganda of Fox TV. For me one of the joyous moments was the unraveling of Mr Oreilly on Fresh AIR ( http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?story Id=1459090)

There's some evidence that NPR has a conservative bias. Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting periodically studies the NPR guestlist to determine if NPR "promote[s] personal growth rather than corporate gain" and "speak[s] with many voices, many dialects" as it purports to do. FAIR has a page dedicated to NPR that includes all their criticism of NPR programming. Was FAIR fair to NPR in their study of conservative bias? NPR Ombudsman Jeffrey A. Dvorkin says "The FAIR study seems about right to me with a couple of exceptions."

Long before podcasting, I ripped NPR programming from their RealAudio streams and crunched it down to MP3s. I stopped giving money to NPR when they killed low power FM. I felt that the corporate sponsors were (and still are) using NPR to greenwash their reputation, but I still enjoyed a lot of the programming. But NPR never strayed far enough from the administration's line for me when they covered the Iraq War, and when they "scooped" the rest of the media with their phony WMD claim, I gave up on them entirely. I turned to Democracy Now, and I use their podcast service. I also contribute more to them than I ever did to NPR, since they're free of corporate sponsorship.

There's some evidence that NPR has a conservative bias. Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting periodically studies the NPR guestlist to determine if NPR "promote[s] personal growth rather than corporate gain" and "speak[s] with many voices, many dialects" as it purports to do. FAIR has a page dedicated to NPR that includes all their criticism of NPR programming. Was FAIR fair to NPR in their study of conservative bias? NPR Ombudsman Jeffrey A. Dvorkin says "The FAIR study seems about right to me with a couple of exceptions."

Long before podcasting, I ripped NPR programming from their RealAudio streams and crunched it down to MP3s. I stopped giving money to NPR when they killed low power FM. I felt that the corporate sponsors were (and still are) using NPR to greenwash their reputation, but I still enjoyed a lot of the programming. But NPR never strayed far enough from the administration's line for me when they covered the Iraq War, and when they "scooped" the rest of the media with their phony WMD claim, I gave up on them entirely. I turned to Democracy Now, and I use their podcast service. I also contribute more to them than I ever did to NPR, since they're free of corporate sponsorship.

I love NPR but I admit I donate sporadically. NPR is especially great at the office here when I have to do something relatively mindless or tedious and I can load up the latest Science Friday and feel like I'm getting something out of it.

Like other commentors here, I don't mind donating to NPR -- it makes me feel good, too. I do hate the pledge-drives, but the main reason I don't pledge more regularly is just plain laziness or inconvenience.

That said, NPR is probably one of the few online services I would happily subscribe to. If they offered full access to their online archives in return for, say, a $50+ annual donation to my local affiliate, it would motivate me to make my regular donations.

(And for those who think NPR's content is exchangeable with any cable news network out there, pull your head out of your Fox News. Wanna know the difference? See this:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?story Id=5289399)

NPR and PBS do get some limited federal funding, but it is very limited, coming from grant sought by CPB, NSF, and the National Endowment for the Arts as stated on their "About NPR" page under the "Annual Reports, Audited Financial Statements, and Form 990s" link.

From the About NPR (http://www.npr.org/about/privatesupport.html):
"NPR supports its operations through a combination of membership dues and programming fees from over 780 independent radio stations, sponsorship from private foundations and corporations, and revenue from the sales of transcripts, books, CDs, and merchandise. A very small percentage -- between one percent to two percent of NPR's annual budget -- comes from competitive grants sought by NPR from federally funded organizations, such as the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, National Science Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts."

The 13% figure that you quoted as coming from CPB is actually describing where individual public radio stations get their operating funds. NPR (which does not operate individual radio stations) receives less than 2% of its operating budget from competitive federal grants. They compete with any other not-for-profit to receive those grants. Read the page you quoted again more carefully as the information is all there.

You might be interested in reading exactly how NPR works. Check out this link for more information: http://www.npr.org/about/nprworks.html The bottom line is that because individual public radio stations operate independently from NPR, they are (more or less) free to choose their programming. This is why not all NPR content is available on all stations across the US.

To sum up, you can bitch and whine all you want about the feds supporting local public radio. However, NPR itself is a largely self sufficient operation that produced some really great content.

Taft

I already do though, via taxes and watching the commercials

As has been pointed out here already NPR receives very little gov't funding. And what they do receive is through competitive grants that they must work for, competing with other orginizations going after the same funding.

And watching the commercials doesn't exactly qualify as support. How many do you skip while you make a sandwich or use the bathroom? How many do you react to and buy products based on seeing them? Do you tell the vendor that you bought something because of their donation to PR? Of course that's a very subjective argument and the same could be said of most advertising but the point is NPR get's the majority of it's funding through donations.

Check their website for more info.

Anyone who wants to know what is going on in the world need only tune to their channel. In my opinion, they're taking a stab at eliminating ignorance in our nation by bathing everyone in nearly free (and unbiased) information

NPR = unbiased? Interesting thought...

As you can see from their website not a goddamn red cent comes from your taxes.

Let's see... from their website:
On average, public radio stations (including NPR Member stations) receive the largest percentage of their revenue (34%) from listener support, 25% from corporate underwriting and foundations, and 13% from CPB allocations.*

You clearly don't know what the CPB is, do you? It's the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. They get money from the federal government.

Proposed Budget Cuts to Public Broadcasting Budget
http://www.npr.org/about/funding.html
In early June, in an unanticipated move, a House of Representatives Appropriations subcommittee recommended cutting $190 million from CPB's budget for fiscal year 2006, which begins this coming October. This was subsequently approved by the full House Appropriations Committee.

"An overwhelming number of adults in this country (80%) say that they have a favorable impression of PBS and NPR as a whole. Additionally, there are several indicators throughout the survey that demonstrate the extent to which the public values public broadcasting. For example, only 1-in-10 Americans (10%) would say that a per capita expenditure of $1.30 in taxpayer funds is 'too much' for the government to be spending on public broadcasting. Nearly half (48%) say the amount is 'too little' and roughly 1/3 (35%) say the amount is 'about right.'"

Oops... you're wrong!

I'd say it IS the cost - Audible is expensive. It's hard to justify paying so much in advance for a show that you could hear for free. At least Car Talk is available for free for the first week via their website, then by Audible from there.

Which brings up an interesting point - there is no standard model for NPR shows. Some of the local stations just publish directly in mp3 (kuow.org), other NPR shows are just on their website, and others (like previously mentioned) show up on Audible.

I would like to see them offer all shows for free in mp3 off their website for a limited time period, then as a paid download after a week or two. And go a head and throw in a small "this podcast is supported by X company and from donations from people like you..." in the beginning of each downloadable show.

About 2% of NPR's funding comes from bidding on government grants and programs (chiefly the Corporation for Public Broadcasting); the remainder comes from member station dues, foundation grants, and corporate underwriting.