A potpourri of Tuesday goodness

Not feeling the desire to do a long diatribe-style entry for today. And while the tighty righties are making a big stink about the whole Obama/Limbaugh thing (which just plain reeks of faux outrage), and with a bunch of little things going on, here's yet another one of those catch-all entries:

You've got four more months

Okay, so you've been procrastinating and haven't sent away for the DTV converter coupons yet. Well, it looks like you got lucky. Yesterday, the Senate voted to delay the much-ballyhooed analog-to-digital television conversion until June.

The reason for the delay is that the $1.5 billion government program designed to send out the coupons ran dry of funding and is awaiting a fix to get it all taken care of. Currently, an estimated 6-8% of homes nationwide would be left in the dark come February 17 as it now stands.

Obama himself called for a postponement of the switchover date, in order to satisfy demand for the converter box vouchers. The extra money is due to come from President Obama's proposed $825 billion dollar stimulus package.

Again, if you have an older TV and get your signals via an antenna on the top of your set or on your roof, you may just need that converter box. If you already have cable, satellite or the equivalent, you need do nothing. If you currently have a newer TV set that can obtain digital signals, you should be in the clear, but should also check and make sure.

If you realize that yes, indeed you do need a DTV converter box, well, get off your dead ass and apply for one (or two, if needed). Stop procrastinating!

You can find out more here or here. And here's a few common questions answered in this USA Today column.

Status quo at Marti

Right-wingers can bitch all they want about the Obama Administration's desire to spend money on stuff like (gasp!) health care. But I rarely see a peep out of them about ridiculous government sinkholes that they support. Like Radio Marti.

I caught a little blurb yesterday on AllAccess about the station, who's sole reason for being is to pump propaganda into Cuba. Nevermind that Cuba jams the signal, making it all a lost cause. But Pedro Roig, the Director of the U.S. Office Of Cuba Broadcasting, which operates Radio and TV Marti, has been asked to stay on by the Obama Administration at least temporarily.

Radio and TV Marti have both long been criticized. Aside from reception issues in Cuba, Cuban exiles and dissidents have complained that the stations do not bash the Cuban government enough over suppression and assorted human rights abuses. Many also don't see the whole excercise as being worth its $250 million spent on the operation over the past decade. Hey, the Pentagon can get a toilet seat for that!

In the future, all radio will be sports

As Super Bowl week has arrived, sports is a big story in the radio industry as well. Clear Channel always has some sort of uninspired gimmick up their sleeves, and now, it appears to be their FOX Sports division (Clear Channel's syndication arm, Premiere Networks, owns it, but licenses the name from you-know-who). Last week, they flipped former progressive talker KLSD in San Diego to an almost wall-to-wall feed of the network. Stations in Los Angeles and Detroit basically got the same treatment.

And now, another former progressive talker, WYTS in Columbus (formerly WTPG), has dropped their right-wing talk format and flipped to wall-to-wall FSR. And there have also been rumors that a future prospect for an automated FOX Sports outlet is another liberal talker, WINZ (940AM) in Miami. But so far, it's all rumor, and most of it is FSL-type message board cranks that like to pull rumors out of their asses. So, best to not bet the farm on this until you hear it from a better source.

In the meantime, sure wouldn't hurt to let station management know you're listening. Or at the very least let their advertisers know.

Oh yeah, that Obama/Limbuagh thing

I really didn't feel the need to spill anymore electrons over this. Am I really the only person who doesn't think it's a big deal? And I typed out a couple paragraphs on this so-called 'controversy' only to have my browser crash and erase it all. An omen, perhaps?

It started innocently enough. President Obama invited some top Republican lawmakers to the White House, to try and sell his stimulus package. Now that in itself is notable, since the previous president, while enjoying a majority in Congress, would merely tell Democrats to go pound sand and just deal with it. At least Obama is listening to his opponents.

The whole thing started innocently enough. He even got off a rather funny line. "You can't just listen to Rush Limbaugh and get things done," he told them. In other words, it's time to get beyond partisan sniping. Of course, invoking the name of His Tubbiness is enough to stir up a virtual shitstorm of fabricated outrage. Sure enough, faster than Brian Maloney can affix his lips to Limbaugh's ass, two of the biggest purveyors of phony hostility, the Drudge Report and the New York Post, went nuclear, and turned what appears to be a molehill into Mount Vesuvius.

Of course, much of it is coming from Rush Lowbrow himself. He thinks it's all about him. And, in what appears to be the beginning stages of an all-out meltdown, is going out of his way to start some kind of high-level fued with the president. That attitude, coupled with comments such as "I hope he fails," is making him look even more like a complete fool. Especially when he claimed that it is Obama that wants Limbaugh to fail. Is this yet another shark jumping moment for the Round Mound of Obnoxious Sound? Are people finally rolling their eyes at this reclusive, drugged-up, loud-mouthed millionaire former disc jockey and his neverending attempts at playing the victim?

Thankfully, Obama isn't taking the bait. He's ignoring Limbaugh, as he should. Obama's the big gun now. Limbaugh's small potatoes. Let him implode on his own.