What if you opened Pandora’s Box and Rush Limbaugh flew out? Well, I’m pretty sure his ilk did fly out of the original box, leaving poor Hope all cold and shivering in the corner. So maybe mythology is repeating itself.

The popular web radio service Pandora has been undergoing some financial difficulties recently due to the new ruling that it is not a “broadcast”, but rather a “performance” and must therefore pay royalties unlike it’s more profitable airborne radio brethren, which coast along for free. In an effort to mitigate those costs, Pandora has jumped into bed with Clear Channel radio. Yes, that Clear Channel. The folks who bring you Rush Limbaugh and all the rationality that the far-right wing-nuts have to offer.

Granted, this is only an advertising deal. Minimally this means we should expect more ads on Pandora, which was kind of inevitable anyway. But the ads pay the bills. Hopefully the light-sucking ooze that is Clear Channel will not seep into the content of Pandora. I may run periodic audio scans of the stream anyway just to be sure there’s no subliminal messaging or anything untoward being broadcast performed just to be safe.