RSSMove to fast-track DTV delay fails in the House
By Scott M. Fulton, III | Published January 28, 2009, 2:57 PM
A move to suspend the rules of the House in order that the DTV Delay Act would be brought to the floor immediately, was defeated minutes ago. Although a majority voted in favor -- 258-168 -- a two-thirds majority of aye voters is necessary in order to pass a suspension of house rules.
As a result, the bill will not be fast-tracked, though it has yet to face total defeat. Rather, it must now be processed in the usual manner by the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Its ranking member, Rep. Joe Barton (R - Texas), led the fight against the rules suspension and is currently against the bill.
Two weeks ago, outgoing Sec. of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez advised Congress against a delay of the February 17 transition date. With the new leadership of that department still to be determined, its NTIA administration, according to the Associated Press, is going ahead with plans drawn up under the previous administration to expedite the printing and distribution of new coupons redeemable toward the purchase of converter boxes. If all goes as planned, those coupons will continue to list February 17 as the transition date, and their expiration date will be based on that milestone. It was the NTIA that on January 4 set up the waiting list for applicants who claim not to have received coupons.
FOR MORE: House Republicans invoke bin Laden to expedite DTV transition
1. All tuners are not created equal.
2. All antennas are not created equal.
Got it? Good...
I spent a lot of money on some high dollar Samsung tuners way before these little DTV tuners hit the market. They were OK, but not great.
The tuner in my 19" Insigna HDTV worked better.
So a lot comes down to the equipment you pick to use.
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|Only a fraction of the country has cable. Satellite and cable don't make since for those who only use TV for news, emergency and weather. Radio is worthless for those purposes, since syndicated radio does not have anything other than alerts, which by that time the towers are already down. Can you say "Katrina"? CB does not work for more than a couple of miles during solar flare cycles According to sjc001 (and, no, I don't have indoor plumbing -- which I guess makes me a third class citizen), I guess everyone living in remote areas should just abandon their homes and move to the city, to get hundreds of channels of brain rotting TV broadcasting. And, most of us in rural areas do not fill out census forms, therefore that theory is incorrect. You should use some common sense. "Don't you have cable TV in the country at all?" -- ROTFL ;-) It all boils down to " I got mine, I could give a &^$&^% if you don't get yours. -- A pretty common attitude for GOP brainwashed people.
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|*laughing*
Ask your parents how it was done prior to the internet.
Ya might learn something.
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|I live in the country too but I have cable now. Took them 5 years to get here but now I have had cable for over 5 years now, so Derrecho your point really is not true anymore for the vast majority!
And it "works well" for the majority as well. Majority always and should always win!!
So I hope this can all be forgotten come Feb.. And if you cant afford $10 then you should not even have a TV!! I got a box for my father and it only cost him $10 with the coupon. And he has now had his box for 6 months.
People hand plenty of time to get them and save up!! So live with it!!
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|"Derrecho your point really is not true anymore for the vast majority!"
BOLOGNA - I live fourty miles from Washington DC and I can not get CABLE, and I can not Get HIGHSPEED ACCESS.It really is a joke with dial up at my house in the country.
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|*LAUGHING*
I guess it *is* about entitlement.
My bad...
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|Not good. Not good for Americans who can't afford the hardware, especially when it doesn't work all that well. City dwellers might think it's great, but those in fringe areas, who get analog just fine for emergency broadcasts and weather, won't be getting anything. This is being shoved down our throats. Any delay is good.
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|Don't you have cable TV in the country at all? Maybe you should try indoor plumbing as well? You do know that the vast majority of people in North America live in either cities or urban areas.
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|There's this new-fangled invention: Radio.
Failing that: CB.
Sure, it's not what we "city-dwellers" get, but...you live in the sticks, you get the sticks. You want the benefits of living in the urban areas? Move.
This is called Common Sense. You may not have heard of it. It's not a "city-dweller" concept, just one that has fallen out of style in the past several years.
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|I prefer urban life, but it's not for everyone -- and rural Americans are also Americans. (Americans who already find themselves held up, all too often, for ridiculous rates for cable and the like because they live in areas that are served by just one provider. ) The "majority always rules" comment, meanwhile, is great for playgrounds but not how we do representational democracy. Some of the rhetoric in this thread is making we wonder if some of y'all are trolling. Not that that EVER happens in Betanews threads, of course... ;-)
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|PC_Tool, my friend, we should get some farmers up in here to tell you about how modern agribusiness -- even on the family-owned-and-operated farm -- relies on Net access, modern meteorology, and real-time commodity-market data, to name but a few technologies on which farm life relies. You'd be amazed at what you find down home these days. I always am.
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|Satellite.
My point is that it is not as though they don't have options. Though it may amaze you to find out, I have several family members who, until recently, had farms in both Wisconsin and Iowa.
Somehow, they survived prior to internet, and they did well enough after it. The only real reason they aren't still doing it (in their own words) was that it had come to the point where they knew their children would not follow in their footsteps, shrugged their shoulders, and let it go. It was harder for one of the families (they couldn't find a buyer for years), but it certainly wasn't due to "lack of internet access".
The "majority rule" bit almost makes me start thinking you're about to head down the "entitled" road... Never thought I'd see *you* go there.
They got by without it, and did well. They have options (some might say they have more realistic options than *we* do...try getting your landlord to allow you to throw up a dish on your balcony ...or someone elses if you're facing the wrong direction).
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|Good.
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