Streaming Election Night Broadcast TV? 396
kakapo writes "A couple of years ago, we dumped our cable TV, and don't have much luck getting old-fashioned broadcast where we live. That's fine — we can download or netflix almost anything we want to see, and it is great not to pay the Comcast tax every month. Problem is, now I want to watch the election live, complete with talking heads, pundits, glitzy graphics and all the rest, rather than reading about it on a website. So, is there any way to download network TV / CNN / MSNBC in real time — I don't mind paying. And yes, we could visit friends, but ideally our kids would watch the first part and then go to bed — and a sitter would be expensive if we have to wait until late for the result."
Really? (Score:3, Insightful)
Why watch at home? (Score:5, Insightful)
Screw that... (Score:4, Insightful)
I think I'm going to take a sleeping pill right after work and try to sleep through the whole thing. There's no point in watching it "unfold" - the next day my guy will either be President Elect or not, and my watching breathless talking heads constantly reanalyzing the same data isn't going to change it one way or another.
Re:Listen instead (Score:5, Insightful)
I totally agree and plan on finding out what Americans do on Election Day via shortwave radio from BBC or Radio Sierra-Leon or some other non partisan source on my antique Halicrafters. I am by the way IN the US and a US citizen. Ever consider some other country could run a propaganda station? they might call it..oh I don't know... " Voice of America"...or something....
Re:Screw that... (Score:3, Insightful)
Comcast Tax? (Score:3, Insightful)
I mean seriously. If you were to go to McDonalds and buy a Big Mac would you be paying an Big Mac tax?
It's a price.
Re:Yes (Score:1, Insightful)
I'll spoil the election for you: McCain wins.
Re:Really? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Yes (Score:3, Insightful)
I'll spoil the election for you: McCain wins.
I think we lose regardless of whichever of the two wins. (It would take a miracle for any of the 3rd party ones to win.)
Re:Yes (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Anything for non americans? (Score:5, Insightful)
If Obama or McCain really mess up we fire them in four years and get a new president.
Like we did with George W Bush?
Sigh. Only 6 more days of this BS (Score:2, Insightful)
Enough with the Obama rumor nonsense. It isn't so much that nobody believes the stories that he's an adulterous socialist cryptomuslim alqaida mole whose really a citizen of Queen Maud Land. (Though you have to admit that the evidence is, to put it mildly, laughable.) It's just that nobody cares.
Why should they? He's different from the idiot who's now in power and the senile fool who's the alternative. That's all anybody cares about.
Re:Anything for non americans? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Anything for non americans? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd agree with most of what you say were it not for Sarah Palin. That woman puts the fear of God in me, and I'm an atheist! Can you imagine someone in the President's seat who doesn't even know what the Bush Doctrine is without having to phone a friend? We had a retard in the oval office for 8 years and it has been an unmitigated disaster. Lord help us if the American voters once again show disdain for educated people as 'elitists.'
Re:Comcast Tax? (Score:4, Insightful)
If I went to McDonald's and the only way to get a Big Mac was with Fries, a Coke, and a Sundae (with wonderful "extra" options like salad, milk, and coffee available only if I purchase a "base" value meal), you sure as hell can bet I'd see it as a "tax".
Of course, the solution is to not go to McDonald's. Right up until I realize that McDonald's has been granted a monopoly in my area. Going to Burger King requires that I MOVE 30 miles away because they can only serve local residents. Worse yet, nice restaurants have all been driven out of business by a government-sponsored monopoly. So my options are currently go to McDonald's and pay the McTax, or don't go out to eat.
THAT is how Comcast is a tax.
Re:Anything for non americans? (Score:2, Insightful)
Let's be more explicit. It isn't Bush's fault to start with.
Bush has been trying to get Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac regulated with respect to poor risk loans for the last 8 years. He's been prevented by congressmen who are getting money from both organizations. Obama is just one of them. Frank is another.
The PROBLEM started back in Carter's presidency, with the CRA -- forcing banks to make loans to less qualified borrowers so they could continue to make loans to qualified ones. The problem got worse under Clinton, who strengthened the requirements for minority loans. This was supposed to be a good thing. Look up the word "redlining".
The recent democratic controlled congress has stood in the way of solving the problem. They were denying there was a problem. Now it's a catastrophe. Every one of the congressmen who denied there was a problem and refused to act to prevent it from getting worse is now pointing their finger at Bush, whose attempts they stopped.
Raising taxes on the people who create the jobs and pay most of the taxes already isn't going to solve it.
Re:Sigh. Only 6 more days of this BS (Score:3, Insightful)
Why should they? He's different from the idiot who's now in power and the senile fool who's the alternative. That's all anybody cares about.
Exactly. As a Brit, viewing from overseas, McCain looks pretty much the same as Bush. Old, rich, right-wing guy. So the election looks like: Vote for McCain, because you think Bush did OK. Or vote Obama, and hope that that guy has some intelligence, a more worldly view, and morals. Mind you, I thought in 2004 that the US population couldn't be *that* silly to re-elect Bush. Mind you - fool me once, shame on -- shame on you. Fool me -- you can't get fooled again.
Re:Yes (Score:1, Insightful)
when it means giving up every freedom we enjoy then yes, its a very fucking bad thing.
Re:Yes (Score:5, Insightful)
They don't both support the war(at least not identically, yes both support afghanistan, but Obama wants out of Iraq).
Redistribution of wealth depends an awful lot on how they do it. McCain will continue the usual republican model where they "create wealth" so that rich people can be richer making everyone else comparatively poorer. I'm not entirely sure what Obama will do in the end, a hand out to everyone doesn't work, but providing people with health care, protections at work, free education, and general assistance to ensure that rather than working hard to make someone else rich some of their hard work is rewarded by making them a little bit wealthier is a redistribution of wealth I can get behind.
The current system of wealth distribution is flawed. The folks who do the work get barely enough to get by, the folks who run the companies(even if they didn't build them and don't contribute to them) get paid bucketloads, and the scum sucking stock trading weasels make even more playing the market game at the expense of everyone else(including the companies that the stock market is supposed to provide investment captal for).
Re:Anything for non americans? (Score:2, Insightful)
President Clinton was impeached by the House, but not by the Senate. So, we have recent history showing that impeachment doesn't end the effective term of a president.
I'm not exactly a Clinton fan, and I'm opposed to lying under oath, so despite my quiet opinion that it was a farce from the beginning, I believed he should have been impeached. If you get to the point where you've convicted the sitting president of lying under oath, regardless of the reasons, impeachment makes sense. I remember asking my favorite right wing pundit at the time, what happens if he is impeached by the Republican majority house but not by the majority Democratic senate? He told me that senators have a higher oath than the house and so would feel compelled to uphold it regardless of political affiliation. It did wonders for my faith in my country to hear that the senate would do their job even when it was against their party's political interest.
Looking back to the day they announced that Clinton was not impeached by the senate, I think that was the day that cynicism finally blotted out almost all the last few rays of idealism in my soul. The last few were crushed later when I read about the votes of the Republicans in congress on pork barrel spending. I voted for some of those clowns because I believe in fiscal conservatism. Won't happen again.
(Note: I may still vote for Republican or not, but it won't be because I think they will spend less. I already voted this election, and for the first time in my life "threw my vote away" with third party votes. I decided that some battles were worth fighting even when you expect to lose.)