congress

OK, is it possible to find a weirder picture? Maybe if we had a picture of President Bush, Carrot Top, Adam West, and Jessica Simpson together it would be more bizarre, but this one's pretty good. In the pic: IM aficianado Mark Foley, Lou Gossett, Jr., Kelly Clarkson, producer Terry Likona, and American Idol judge Randy Jackson. It was taken earlier this year at a Grammys on the Hill dinner.

Foley and Likona look really, really happy, Gossett and Clarkson look like they don't know what's going on, and Jackson looks like he really doesn't want to be there at all.

Foley...out!

[via Gawker]

"Paged Heat": Groans for the "GOP BBQ and nude Cub Scout wrestling" joke. Well, actually, the reaction for all the Mark Foley coverage can probably just be summed up in one massive, disgusted groan. How could Jon have possibly been surprised when the audience got all grossed out from his joke about Foley finger-banging two sophomores from Model UN on the catwalk of the rotunda? Eww.

Dick Wolf, who has brought NBC success with various versions of the Law & Order franchise, has two comedy scripts lined up for NBC. One is a single-camera comedy about a fumbling U.S. Congressman and the staff that try to handle him. The other is a medical sitcom about ER docs and paramedics. I think I've seen both of these shows before, they were called Spin City and Scrubs. Right now, neither show has a title.

I'd be interested to see what Dick Wolf's sense of humor is like. The man's entire resume is made up of crime dramas.

They've been kicking it around for years, but the House of Representatives has finally (and barely) approved a budget legislation that requires all broadcasters to get rid of their analog signals and switch to a digital format by February 17, 2009. The new legislation also results in "modest cuts to Medicaid, Medicare and student-loan subsidies and adds $10 billion in new revenue from auctioning television airwaves to the highest bidder."  

The transfer to DTV will allow broadcasters to have one of two channels in HDTV or several channels in standard definition. Broadcasters are being told to ditch their frequencies this year, or when digital TV reaches eighty-five percent. In addition, congress will be setting up a program in which a family may be eligible for up to $80 to convert their sets to digital.