To Our Leaderz and Betters in the Village, $650 million dollars is chump change, barely worth a guffaw at a Beltway cocktail party joke, a rounding error in the DoD budget, peanuts. But it's not to me. It has been more than 12 years since I've given the broadcast, cable or satellite people a single dime of my money, and if I have my say, they can take my money from me out of my cold, dead hands.

I'll admit to hypocrisy. I rent movies and watch them on my computer sometimes. Most recently, I watched "Sicko" and a little while before that "The Battle of Algiers." Go on, uberpurists, beat me up for it. I'm sure there's something evil about Netflix and I'm just sticking my head in the sand. Guilty, I am.

But right about now, when I'm reading about 93yo retirees freezing to death because the power company has shut off their heat for unpaid bills, or children in Gaza starving to death while trapped in a bunker with the corpses of their dead mothers, or...you get the point. This is one of those moments when being polemical is only going to get me in trouble. Instead I'll ask: do you think you could do "more good" with $650m of taxpayer money (borrowed, at high interest, etc) than paying for people's HiDef converter boxes?

Gah. There's just so much wrong with this it's hard to start. Please, don't even try to argue that people "need" teevee. Just don't. And don't tell me to 'Be Happy!' that the same push also includes billions for internet coverage. Not the same thing, not by a long shot, and no need to group it all together. Hundreds of millions for teevee is *obscene* at a time like this. It's just fucking obscene. For once (perhaps not just once?) I get to say "Bush did a better job," as according to the article, he only allocated $250m for this shit.

I'll keep it simple: on the balance, what do these supposed poor, benighted rural people who 'can't afford' converter boxes watch, when they watch teevee? Same deal with the poor- what are they tuning into, that helps Dems and progressive causes in general? Can anyone tell me that? Or here, I have an idea: why don't we spend close to a billion dollars improving AM radio reception in rural areas, so they can listen to Rush with better quality and regularity? Is that a smart idea or what?

Feh. It's been a while, but I suppose I should thank Obama for reminding me of just how much I hate teevee. And giving me a new reason to bash it.

A little bitchy, but what's not to love about that? John makes the important point clearly:

There's been a marked recent increase in the number of people asking me to write about their organization, campaign, or client. Whether it's a non-profit with some new-fangled incredibly-esoteric project, a politician promoting their latest highly-interesting-to-them but-kind-of-boring-to-you policy proposal, or a public relations firm being paid big bucks to push the lame ideas of yet another client, the volume of "give me free publicity" requests has skyrocketed of late.

Interestingly, at the same time, the number of ads these same groups are running on blogs has plummeted.

...

My point isn't that the blogs should be bought, or can be bought. My point is that the blogs should be supported by the larger progressive community, and they're not. Liberal non-profits, political operations, and companies interested in reaching either a progressive audience or an inside-the-beltway crowd wouldn't think twice about spending $60,000 on a Washington Post ad, spending a good chunk of change on an ad in The Hill or Roll Call, or paying a PR firm a $20,000+ a month retainer to get their news on the blogs, among other venues (NOTE: the very best way to get me NOT to cover a story is to have a PR firm contact me). But the notion of spending $800 (or hopefully, several thousand dollars) on a blog ad gives them serious pause. Then they turn around and expect favors.

Because liberals already know when his lips are moving, he's lying. If you have Republican friends, pass this on:

FACT CHECK: President Bush on Iraq Funding

President Bush suggested a funding crisis is imminent. "In the coming days, our military leaders will notify Congress that they will be forced to transfer $1.6 billion from other military accounts to cover the shortfall caused by Congress' failure to fund our troops in the field. That means our military will have to take money from personnel accounts so they can continue to fund U.S. Army operations in Iraq and elsewhere." (Remarks, 4/10/07)

FACT: President Bush is manufacturing a funding crisis -- the Congressional Research Service shows that the Army can fund the war through July.

It's pathetic, truly. I'm not going to bother taking apart yet another example of the Beltway's Finest Journamalism, but take a look at this quote:

Party leaders in the House are likely to present a proposal for binding legislation to the Democratic caucus next week, according to lawmakers in that chamber. But lawmakers and senior Democratic aides said Murtha's plan would have to be scaled back dramatically, after a week-long Republican assault.

Murtha, chairman of the Appropriations defense subcommittee and a leading critic of the war, had intended to fully fund Bush's $100 billion war request for the remainder of this fiscal year. But under his plan, those funds could be spent only to deploy combat troops deemed fully rested, trained and equipped.

After nearly four years of combat, most military units would not be able to meet those standards. Although the war would be fully funded, the policy would prevent some of the 21,500 additional combat troops from being deployed, and some troops already in Iraq would have to be sent home.

But that approach may be all but dead, according to several Democratic lawmakers. Murtha doomed his own plan in part by unveiling it on a left-wing Web site, inflaming party moderates.

Liz has the whole story, but I'll assume most of you have heard that places like the Museum of Obsolete Computers in OH is getting some of the money that could've been used to protect unimportant places like say, Wall Street. There are more reasons than that for a New Yorker to be pissed off, as she details, but to me this sums it all up best:

And all along Hillary said that she would look into why the WH told the EPA to cover up their air quality findings after 9/11 and said she make sure NYC got adequate anti-terror funding. Feh. Useless.