Out-Foxed by Sirius!

This year the only gift I really wanted for Christmas was a Sirius satellite radio. I have enjoyed listening to Howard Stern for years and thanks to Sirius I can continue listening to him without George Bush and his cretinous stormtroopers at the FCC getting in the way. God I long for the return of the land of the free; maybe this year's elections will give us the chance for a good ol' American impeachment! We can all hope.

In the months leading up to Christmas and my anticipated Sirius gift, I would, from time to time, check out the list of programs available on Sirius, besides Howard Stern. I was very pleased to see that they had two different progressive talk channels: Sirius Left and Air America. Since I listen to Air America most days, I felt pretty good about all this. However a few months ago Air America made an exclusive deal with Sirius-competitor XM and dropped Sirius as an outlet. Personally, I think this was a mistake on Air America's part but, not running the company, what I think doesn't mean much at Air America.

The dropping of Air America left Sirius with only one progressive talk channel but two conservative channels. On top of that they also carried the White House propaganda outlet known as Fox News. I began to think that maybe this satellite radio wasn't such a good idea after all. Then I got my first New years' gift.

Sirius dropped Fox News! I couldn't have asked for a better gift. Fox is a disingenuous enterprise at best and an un-American fraud at worst. First, it is not a news channel. They don't do news. They parrot White House talking points. They spread propaganda. That is not the same as reporting news.

The "personalities" (and boy do I use that term loosely) on Fox are not reporters. Reporters search for and report the truth. Fox people have no use for the truth. I could give you dozens of examples, but I'll just go with one. The ever repulsive Bill O’Reilly has repeatedly railed against the efforts of liberals to remove Christ from Christmas, and to protect his God Bill is not above bearing false witness (lying) to get his point across. Bill recently complained (and repeated the complaint on the David Letterman Show) that:

In Dodgeville, Wisconsin, the Ridgewood Elementary School has changed the song Silent Night to Cold in the Night and forced the kids to sing the lyrics, “Cold in the night, No one in sight, Winter winds whirl and bite,” to the tune of the original Silent Night.

O’Reilly seems completely unconcerned that the story is a total fabrication, so much so that he repeats it whenever he can. He wishes only to stir up his supporters, even if he has to make up the charges (sounds a lot like the squatter in the White House). So I say, good riddance to pathetic right-wing propaganda and long live the real American free press.

And thanks Sirius for the great New Years' gift!