Hot off the heels of getting shot down by an appeals court over occasional outbursts of profanity on television, FCC chief Kevin Martin is back to calling for mandatory cable a la carte—in other words, requiring cable providers to offer per-channel pricing rather than the big bundles they currently offer. This is just as bad an idea now as it was when Martin pushed for it at the beginning of last year, not least because an a la carte mandate is likely to raise prices for consumers while giving them fewer channels. Martin always pushes this idea as a “tool for parents,” but parents aren’t exactly at a loss for tools as it is—V-chips and content control settings, just to name a few. And then there’s this crazy thing called the “off button,” which everyone seems to have forgotten about these days…