The following is an excerpt from OpinionJournal.com’s “Best of the Web” written by the editor, James Taranto.
Help Wanted
“Lancaster County Sheriff’s Office Looking for Tire Dumpers”–headline, Lincoln (Neb.) Journal Star, Dec. 6
Bottom Stories of the Day
- “Japan Targets 2050 World Cup”–headline, Gulf Times (Qatar), Dec. 4
- “Yemen Loses in Soccer, but Scores a P.R. Victory”–headline, New York Times, Dec. 6
The Opposite of Progress
The lame-duck Congress has something new to quack about, The Wall Street Journal reports:
The Commercial Advertising Loudness Mitigation, or CALM, Act requires TV advertisers to ensure their ads don’t play at a volume louder than regular TV programming. The 50-year global quest to determine what separates a deafening ad from a merely loud ad and devise ways to tame the volume was the subject of a Wall Street Journal feature Wednesday.
The House gave final congressional approval to the bill this evening.
“Consumers have been asking for a solution to this problem for decades, and today they finally have it.” Said Rep. Anna Eshoo (D., Calif.), who sponsored the House version of the bill. The bill, she said, “gives consumers peace of mind, because it puts them in control of the sound in their homes.”
What better time to deal with the scourge of loud ads than a few years after everyone got TiVo or another DVR and with it the ability to skip commercials entirely? Perhaps before the year is out Congress will have addressed the pressing problems of junk faxes and horse manure on New York streets.
For more “Best of the Web” click here and look for the “Best of the Web Today” link in the middle column below “Today’s Columnists.”
