Unemployment hit a 16 year high. The shooting goes on in Gaza. The governor of Illinois is impeached for putting a U.S. Senate seat on his private version of E-Bay and now the greatest crisis of all ... some folks might miss an episode of The Biggest Loser if Congress doesn't act and act quickly.
The economy be hanged ... it seems a bunch of folks haven't gotten with the program -- the digital TV program, that is -- and on February 17 their old sets are going to have more snow than a North Dakota blizzard, and not much else. It seems that, despite a law passed in 2005 (that's going on four years ago folks) and well over a year of really tedious talk about getting the $40 off coupon for a digital converter an uncomfortable lot of people remain analog and unconverted and because they haven't yet seen fit to haul their hinders to Best Buy or the neighborhood Wal-Mart store we need an act of Congress to put the whole she-bang on hold so nobody misses an installment of Days of our Lives...
Phooey.
We're talking about TV, people -- nobody ever died from Wheel of Fortune deprivation. How is it Congress is more concerned about kids not seeing Sponge Bob Square Pants than about kids not seeing a doctor? It's more important to ensure access to the Food Channel than to adequate food?
I suppose there's no real harm in letting the old analog broadcasts continue past the announced drop-dead date ... house plants won't wither and die nor will small, cute children mutate into toads ... but that's not the point. If, as a nation, we can't deal with procuring and attaching a fairly simple widget between the rabbit ears and the TV set with over a year's lead time to accomplish the same ... how can we hope to avoid becoming a wholly-owned subsidiary of Beijing, Inc.?
Best start learning Mandarin.
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