I'm a news junkie. I spend countless hours flipping through the 10 or so news stations my cable service provides. I'm the only person I know who gets drunk and tunes into C-Span at two in the morning. For a man such as myself, cable news has been the only alternative to incoherent Dan Rather rambling or idiotic network "news magazines," in which "news" means the latest heartwarming sick-three-legged-dog-walks-cross-country-to-find-his-family story. There's a mess of these all-news stations, but the three biggies are FOX News, CNN, and MSNBC.

Now, FOX is transparently biased to the right. Sometimes the newscasters admit this bias, other times, they stick to their "Fair and Balanced" line of crap. Memo to Rupert, you ain't fooling nobody. I used to watch FOX quite a bit, but I've mellowed from my more reactionary youth, so the constant bias usually just irritates me. Bill O'Reily, FOX's ratings baby, is a dirty populist demagogue, and I hate dirty populist demagogues. Plus he has a very punchable face. Picking up Geraldo didn't help the network in my opinion either. Neil Cavuto is the only FOX on-air personality I like.

CNN has been completely unwatchable since the end of the Gulf War, and is a wholly owned subsidary of the left. It tries to hide its bias, but it's obvious to anyone. Whether it's the constant verbal felatio given to Clinton throughout his tenure, or the never-ending, monotonous, Larry King interviews, CNN blows baboons. What can be expected from the creation of a man who married a Vietcong blowjob machine, and put his worthless fucking Braves on 50 channels? Havana Ted and Hanoi Jane are truly traitorous pieces of filth, and the network they gave birth to shows it. In the world of CNN, the US and Israel are always wrong, and anyone to the right of Teddy Kennedy is a jackbooted thug.

And any network that gives Paul Begala a full-time job deserves to be destroyed. I can see Carville, sure he's evil, but he's wiley. Begala is just a whiney little bitch. Jihadable offense if you ask me. Fucking infidels.

Now, when it comes to my personal viewing preferences, I've been watching MSNBC pretty consistently for a couple of years now. I like Tim Russert and Chris Matthews, even though they sometimes irritate me. Their normal news staff are far less irritating than the amateurish staffs of FOX and CNN. It always seemed to me that MSNBC's editorial bias was far less than either of the other two networks. Their guest choices always seemed more balanced: choosing opposing guests that are both smart, rather than one smart one and one dumb one to suit your political agenda.

After 9-11, MSNBC was great. They had all the best analysis, all the best discussions, all the best interviews. And they even got rid of Geraldo, and anyone who know me knows I just can't stand Geraldo. But things started going wrong. It started with Dr. Bob "video games cause violence" Arnot, on the scene in Afghanistan. Next came Christian-right blowhard Alan Keyes getting his own show, allowing him to lecture dumb college students he invites on for debates. And then they replaced the lovely Chris Jansing in the morning with a stupid and ugly team of New York radio talk show hosts.

However, I could have lived with all these changes, since MSNBC is still less maddening than the alternatives, but now they've gone too far. Yes, on July 15, one of America's great shit-for-brains returns to television. Yes, after backing Nader in 2000, the once mighty Phil Donahue is returning to television with his own show. The only good television Donahue ever produced was when Ayn Rand, not long before her death, would come on and take his ass to the cleaners. My mom was a big Phil fan in the mid 80's, so summer break between kindergarden and first grade, I watched a lot of the bastard (mom was stay-at-home). Rand came on several times, and although I wasn't sure who this crazy old lady was, I sure liked watching her embarrass Phil and his entire audience. It wasn't till I was almost done with college that I understood why.

But Ayn Rand is dead, and without her I don't know who will shut Donahue up. It's an intolerable situation, and I don't see any alternatives for my TV news fix. Right now I'm considering just saying screw it and watching China Central TV's channel that the cable service added. Sure it's propaganda, but its foreign propaganda, so maybe it won't be so domestically partisan in its news coverage. Whatever I do, I'm almost certainly going to watch a lot less MSNBC.