Kudos!: . . . To Dish Network.

For the last few months, I've been getting only local channels on my Dish Network, by my own choice. But Dish has been generous--during the Olympics, they offered many of the channels covering the events for free during the run of the games.

Now, during the election countdown, they're offering all the news channels for free, presumably as a service to those of us who vote. It's a grand gesture, and much appreciated.

I found a few things interesting, though--included in their free "news" channels are Comedy Central and MTV, so that the youth, who are to "hip" for propaganda like CNN, can have their propaganda in bite-sized chunks.

I have also found myself, for the first time, able to watch FOX News, and I found myself surprised, much as I was the first time I heard Bill O'Reilly on the radio, by how . . . how can I put this? . . . less than completely partisan it was. I'm not saying there wasn't a partisan undercurrent, that there wasn't an underlying right-wing tilt, but it wasn't the all-out extreme nutso stuff I've heard it made out to be.

As an example, here in California, one of the upcoming ballot initiatives involves amending the "Three Strikes" law to make it less severe on criminals. Being a right-wing organization, it would be mandated for them to spin against this law. However, the strongest interview they had was with the grandfather of Polly Klaas, the little girl whose murder led to the three strikes law, who was arguing in favor of this initiative.