Pay attention now, technically challenged readers.

Pay attention now, technically challenged readers. There are two common ways to transmit masses of information: analog and digital. Analog transmission uses waves, the information coded by varying the waves' frequency (how many times per second the wave goes from peak to trough) or amplitude (the height or depth of peaks and troughs). Digital information is a stream of zeros and ones, offs and ons. Why should you care? Because the nation's TV broadcasts will change from all-analog to all-digital by April 2009. If you are one of the 85 percent of Americans getting TV via cable or satellite, you are already digital-capable. If not, you can buy a converter gadget for less than $100. And guess what? Congress has passed legislation that will give you a voucher to cover most of the cost! George Will calls this "No Couch Potato Left Behind." We would like to name it the "Affirmation of Spending Insanity Act." Whatever the name, it is another illustration that the notion of fiscal restraint is now, in the minds of our legislators, as antiquated and irrelevant as the phlogiston theory of combustion.