Good news for anybody not ready for the switch to digital broadcast TV, as the Democrats were successful in passing a delay. Folks now have until June to get a converter box, and hopefully they’ll actually be able to get their $40 coupons now. The local Meals-On-Wheels people are taking boxes donated by church groups and installing them. Makes me think I ought to do more to help people out. And when I say “more,” I really mean “something.”

Otherwise, it’s another cold day here. Especially for the 1,400 employees at New Process Gear. The parent company – Magna Powertrain – wasted little time yesterday in announcing they will be initiating a “wind down” plan for permanently closing the plant, now that workers rejected their “take it or leave it” contract renegotiation.

Not good news for the school district where the plant is located, either; they get 2% of their revenue from property taxes paid by the plant. That amounts to over a million dollars they’ll have to come up with elsewhere (or cut from their budget). That’s on top of the cuts that our Governor wants to make to school aid.

One more big empty factory to go along with Carrier, GE, and Pass & Seymour, just to name a few. The only thing left here is SU and the hospitals (and of course the Governor wants to close half the hospitals, too). Oh, and the Shopping Malls, where you can get all kinds of great deals at Circuit City’s going out of business sale this weekend.

Kinda sucks.