"Under the NTIA, every household would be eligible for the coupons until slightly less than $1 billion is spent. If that doesn't go far enough, another $500,000 could be released but limited to only those people who depend on an antenna to get their TV." Excerpt from article below
This both saddens and sickens me. It shows how far-reaching and intrusive our federal government has become.
We've come to the place where the feds are willing to give Americans over $1 billion dollars to ease the burden of transitioning from analog to digital TV in 2009.
I realize that the FCC controls the broadcast spectrum but, at least in my opinion, the feds have no interest whatsoever in whether or not a person has access to television, just like they shouldn't have an interest in whether or not someone has health care or a laptop computer.
I've said this before and it might help to explain this nonsense: If television were shut down across this land for about 6 months, we would probably descend into anarchy. Mind-numbed robots unable to obtain their entertainment fix would go stir crazy. What would people do with all those hours?
I refer to TV as the RetardGenerator. Too much time in front of that idiot box will mess up your head. With the consolidation of various media empires, a handful of people can dictate what billions of people on this globe will think and how they will think it. And it's not just the television show. Most of the real "programming" or "re-programming" is done during the commercials. During commercials we learn how to emulate the "beautiful" people, the "acceptable" people, the "important" people. Far more Americans learn societal mores from TV than they do from the Bible or a church.
Think about it. Join me in dumping television completely on February 19, 2009 - or sooner!
R.J.
P.S. I did not consume any broadcast media this past Sunday. I didn't think about it and I never missed it. I didn't even use the Internet much, and that is becoming a parallel universe to television simply delivered over a different medium. Mental retardation can be delivered over analog radio signals, copper cables, fiber optic cables, and satellites.
[Link to full story]
Households to get coupons for digital TV switch
Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business