DTV legislation is doomed, senate can't count

I try not to hit you with the same topic multiple times in a single day, but hopefully you'll forgive me before the end of this post. If the DTV transition is so darn confusing to the public, why make it worse with confusing legislation statements?

Apparently, Senator Ted Stevens is supporting a January 1, 2009 hard date for the analog TV
shutdown. Ok, that's clear enough. Senator Stevens even spells it out for us: "With a 2009 hard date, there would be three Christmas buying seasons during which Americans will buy digital television sets."

Now the reality is that by the time the bill is passed, it probably will be three Christmas seasons that people have to buy a digital set. the problem is: I think the public will read the quote, then count four Christmas seasons until 1/1/2009 and wonder what the heck is going on! On the positive side, an auction of the returned analog spectrum could help subsidize analog-to-digital converters. Or are they digital-to-analog, Senators?