DTV transition delay fails
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Just a quick update on the attempt by Congressional Democrats and other parties to delay the transition from analog to digital television transmissions: epic fail. The legislation which would have delayed the mandatory cutoff from February 17th until June 12th, passed the Senate unanimously a few days ago, fell short of the necessary 2/3rds majority needed to pass the bill presumably under special house rules.
My knowledge of those rules is nearly non-existent, but I'm pretty sure that the only times that a bill needs 2/3rds of the chamber to vote for it in order for it to pass is when the bill has already been vetoed by the sitting President, or when the House votes on special rules before actually taking up the bill in question.
It's weird, but it does happen from time to time.
On a personal note, to the six million people who rely on analog over-the-air broadcasts but don't have the converter boxes yet, I'm sorry that you'll miss the half hour nightly news which is next to worthless, and American Idol, but you've had four years to get with the program and your predicament is nobody's fault but your own. It's time to stop wasting money on the flawed converter coupon program and to stop forcing broadcasters to run both analog and digital transmissions at the same time unnecessarily.
This is it, if you don't have a converter box or subscribe to cable, satellite, Verizon's Fios, or AT&T's U-Verse service, you're on your own come mid-February.
January 28, 2009 6:03 PM | Reply
Oh well..