News & Research Portal

↓ Current:

↓ Fact-based, Independent, People-oriented, & Progressive:

• Fact checking:
  • Fact Check
  • PolitiFact
• Alternet
• ACLU: Scorecard
• Amnesty International: news
• Arts & Letters Daily
• COA News: independent news portal (links to news sites)
• Common Dreams
• Council on Hemispheric Affairs: mostly Latin American and Canadian relations
• Democratic Underground
• Democracy Now
• Editor & Publisher
• Federation of American Scientists
• Free Press
• Governing: states & localities
• Grist: environmental news and commentary
• Guerilla News Network
• Indy Media (US, UK)
• The Nation
• The New Republic: American culture, foreign policy, and politics
• The Progressive
• Oh My News
• The Raw Story
• The Real News Network: videos
• Salon: subscription or ad-viewing required
• Truth Out: videos
• United for a Fair Economy

Blogs & Magazines:

• American Prospect
• Crooks & Liars: links and videos
• Democratic Underground
• Firedoglake
• Research Buzz
• TPM Muckraker
• Volokh
• Wonkette
• Left Coaster

↓ Topical & Ongoing Stories:

• Climate:
  • Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
  • RealClimate.org
  • Climate dashboard (global)
  • NASA: Evidence, Causes
  • Coal is Dirty
  • Louisiana's Coast washing away
  • World Temperatures: Earth-Policy, NASA, Plot your own (1880-present), Climate change arguments, US National Academy assessment
  • Disinformation campaign
  • Scientific consensus that humans cause global climate change
  • Graph of birds harmed by human activities
• Food & Water:
  • Managed water helps humans, somewhat, but hurts other species
  • Map of aquifers
  • Small farms are more efficient than large farms, but are being phased out by big business and governments
  • Bees worldwide are dying in large percentages
  • ETC Group: power, technology, & diversity
  • Pet food ingredients
  • Dolphin-safe tuna isn't safe for other fish
• Energy:
  • Carbon Offsets
  • Post-oil America
  • Recycling myths
  • Wind vs. Coal
  • CO₂ FAQ
  • DSIRE: financial incentives for energy efficiency in the US
  • End of Growth (book)
• War:
  • 10 Reasons Iraq may be improving defenses
  • Back to Iraq: indy blogger covering Middle East countries
  • Inside Iraq: blog
  • Iraq Veterans Against the War
  • World opinion of US government, 1999-2006
  • Al Zaytouna: west Asian strategic studies
  • Timelines:
    • Iraq war timeline: who said what when, 1990-2003
    • Iran timeline
  • US and Iraqi death counts:
    • Opinion Business Research: 1 000 000 as of 2007 (more here)
    • The Lancet: 650 000+ as of 2006; see also: critique, British backtrack on Iraq death toll,
    • Iraq Family Health Survey (151,000 from 2002 to 2006)
    • IraqBodyCount.org: around 100 000 as of early 2009
  • They Thought They were Free: gradual acceptance of atrocities
  • Military Advantage in History
  • B'Tselem: Israel and Palestine
  • Israel tried to sell nuclear weapons to South Africa (1975)
  • US cluster bombs still killing in Laos; 20 493 people need artificial legs ($200 per person); current estimate is 3000 years to clean up US bombs
  • Torture:
    • Psychologist's notes on resisting (which were then reverse-engineered for performing)
  • Gulf War Syndrome Cause?
• Network Neutrality:
  • $200 Billion Broadband Scandal
  • Net Neutrality keeps your Internet bill the same, no matter what web site you visit. Your cable and DSL provider want to charge based on what you do online. This is what your bill will look like, more or less, without net neutrality
  • What's one of the reasons cable companies want to limit your access to the Internet? “Cable's broadband gross margins are about 95 percent versus 60 percent for video, according to Moffett.”
  • Cell phone data prices
• Public Opinion:
  • World Public Opinion: Program on International Policy Attitudes (U. of Maryland, well-respected), Political misinformation campaigns and “news” stations (2010), Iraq war misinformation campaigns and “news” stations (2003, brilliant summation)
  • Opinion Research Business
  • PEW research center: public opinion polls (PEW Trusts)
  • Pollster: US politics polls
  • SurveyUSA
• Social Antagonisms:
  • Health
    • Radiation comparison chart
    • World's largest diet study; 772 families
    • European Influenza Surveillance Scheme
    • Genetically Modified Foods and Human Health —Pusztai
    • High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS):
      • Rats fed equal calories of sugar and HFCS gained more weight on the HFCS
    • United States:
      • Safe water questions
      • When 1 out of 3 medical patients receive better care (have fewer complications or die), that's called a "dip." How does one accomplish dips? It's simple: have your surgical team introducing themselves to each other. Add the surgical check list and you've got something. See also: Sleep-deprived surgeons.
      • Hormone therapy pushed by ghostwriters (Slashdot discussion, NY Times)
      • Pharmaceutical companies spend twice as much on advertising as research and development
      • Average (median) income for physicians: $186,000 (specialists? $339,738)
      • You do not have health insurance
      • What's the best way to make a drug look good in tests? Selectively publish trials that support desired conclusions
      • Injury Board: mostly health-related news
      • Where is the US in the health care list for industrial countries? Not in the top 25.
      • Why USians spend more for healthcare
      • Dartmouth Atlas for Healthcare (don't miss the atlas collection)
      • Anesthesiologist fakes data that benefits drug manufacturers and harms patients
      • Healthcare inequities between hospitals: results and finances, discussion
      • Health of Nations: facts and opinion
      • Medicare for All: some stats with a proposal (2007-01-17)
      • If America's So Great, Where's Our Health Care (2006-09-23)
      • Medical malpractice facts
      • 100 Years of Medical Robbery (?)
      • About BPA test results: “She [Dr. Birnbaum] and other scientists said studies by university labs tended to find low-dose effects, and studies by government regulatory agencies and industry tended not to find them.”
      • Tax Shelf: proposals to increase taxes fairly
  • Law
    • List of 800+ laws which corporations are telling state politicians to rewrite
    • Kafkaesque: “I'm not aware of any agency with the authority, responsibility or a process in place to coordinate all these interagency and commercial activities,... The complexity of this system defies description.” —Lt. Gen. John R. Vines on national security
    • Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA): timeline, Leaked January 18th 2010 text, 90 experts' analysis
    • What credit card skimmers look like, another skimmer.
    • Canadian Taser&tm; use database
    • FBI on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and more; your MySpace data is already available at InfoChimps
    • In arbitration, how many rulings favor companies over individuals? For one firm companies win 19 out of 20.
    • About 1 in 6 times juries and judges get verdict wrong, majority of mistakes harm the innocent
    • Execution methods
    • Election issues
    • Pornography unrelated to sex crimes (original paper)
    • National Security, just what does this general term refer to? Some examples:
      1. the act of showing (whistleblowing) technical flaws and cost overrums of a government program (more from Greenwald)
    • DNA:
      • DNA's Dirty Little Secret: things to keep in mind when DNA tests are used for identification
  • Wealth:
    • Wall Street Money machine
    • How corporations avoid taxes, Hidden tax cuts for the rich
    • The top 1%
    • Choosing the (US) Nation's Fiscal Future
    • Who Rules America: Wealth, Income, and Power
    • G20, currency wars, and multiple meanings of “free market” Ha-Joon Chang interview
    • Table of approximate tax rates on the rich
    • Bank stats: Troubled asset ratio, FDIC stats
    • Economy and regular people: Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI)
    • The next economic bubble (U.S.)
    • Bank of America and Countrywide mortgage problems
    • Does Income Inequality Matter?: discussion
    • Tax Act: do your own taxes online or offline; also Tax Cut, Turbo Tax, and the (new-to-me) Tax Slayer
  • Work:
    • US unemployment (U-6 is most accurate since U-7 is no where to be found)
    • US is the most over-worked of all industrial nations
    • Industrial Workers of the World news (IWW)
  • Education:
    • Where is the US in the top 25 lists for match, science, and reading? Nowhere.
  • Drugs:
    • The US war on drugs has resulted in increases in drug use and prison population. Apparently the goal is not to decrease drug use. If that were the goal, a better practice is to legalize drugs as Portugal proved.
• Corporate (financial, industrial, manufacturing, media, retail), Government, and Military Complex:
  • Plans for selling your credit card history: “you are what you buy.”
  • On money and morals
  • Lobbying earns $220 in profits for each $1 spent
  • Can We End the American Empire Before It Ends US?
  • Corporate Competition - Ownership of content and delivery systems: perceptive comment on why TV shows and cable operators, also Internet Service Providers and telephone services, have conflicts of interest with themselves and especially the public
• Politics & Propaganda:
  • The war on wikileaks and why it matters
  • Election fraud toolkit: free PDF describing what can be done during voting abnormalities
  • HB Gary: “According to an embedded MS Word document found in one of the HBGary emails, it involves creating an army of sockpuppets, with sophisticated "persona management" software that allows a small team of only a few people to appear to be many, while keeping the personas from accidentally cross-contaminating each other.”
  • US military presence in most countries
  • Change Congress
  • AAAS comparison of US presidential candidates for 2008 elections
  • Effects on wildlife of the US-Mexico segregation wall
• Liars:
  • News station fires reporters for telling the truth about Bovine Growth Hormone: then sues reporters for telling the truth when news organization prefers to knowingly lie (to benefit advertisers).
  • Vancouver police pose as journalists: discussion
• Privacy:
  • Facebook:
    • Edit the new privacy-invading facebook options. (2010-04-23)
    • Privacy timeline: 2005-2010
  • Cell phone habits for sale
  • Prefer to keep your Verizon Wireless phone call info private? Call the number and opt-out. (Verizon is offering to sell your: “services purchased (including specific calls you make and receive), related local and toll billing information, the type, destination, technical configuration, location and amount of use of purchased services.”
  • Surveillance Self-Defense
  • What do government officials say when it is their privacy that is invaded? “You know,” he said, with a Clint Eastwood gaze, “it's none of your business.”
• Culture:
  • David Foster Wallace: Harper's articles, Metafilter, Uncollected DFW
• Solutions Cause Problems:
  • Ponds dug to slow flooding disturbs carbon, which mixes with sediments that then leach arsenic, which then drains into tube wells, which were dug to provide supposedly clean water instead of diarrhea-causing surface water.

↓ Investigative Journalists & Reporters:

• Charles Lewis: founder of The Center for Public Integrity, W
• Noam Chomsky: blog, AlterNet, W (world & domestic policy)
• Greg Palast: columns, W
• Amy Goodman: Democracy Now!, Common Dreams, W
• George Monbiot: W
• Phillip Knightley: W
• Bruce Schneier: Crypto-gram, blog, W (security issues)
• Glenn Greenwald: W
• Michael (Mick) Smith: blog (defence and security issues)
• Peter Arnett: W
• Allan Nairn: W
• Ken Silverstein: Harper's, blog
• Naomi Klein: The Guardian, The Nation, Shock Doctrine resources, W
• Danny Schechter: blog, W
• Greg Mitchell: The Nation
• Larisa Alexandrovna: blog, W
• Helen Thomas: Boston Channel, Common Dreams, W
• Laura Rozen: American Prospect
• Robert Dreyfuss: blog, W
• Arundhati Roy: Outlook India, W
• Barbara Ehrenreich: blog
• James Bamford: W (secrecy issues)
• Steven Aftergood: Secrecy News
• David Corn: blog, W
• Maude Barlow: World has Divided into Rich and Poor (speech), W
• David Brancaccio: Now, W
• Howard Zinn: (historical context)
• Bill Moyers: W
• Molly Ivins: Alternet, Star-Telegram, W (1944-2007)

↓ International:

• Asia Times
• Current History (subscription)
• Daily News: Sri Lanka
• Deutsch World - Germany
• The Hindu
• International Middle East Media Center
• Irish Examiner
• Mosaic - Middle East news
• News Now: U.K. news portal
• Pakistan Daily Times
• Tehelka (India)
• Upsidedown World: Latin and South America
• Expatica:
  • Belgium, France, Germany, Netherlands, Spain

News Gateways & Portals (mostly corporate):

• News map (+ tech & health)
• News Hub
• News is Free: news collection
• News Directory: links
• Hometown Newspapers: links
• Small town papers: newspaper archive
• News Linx: links
• News Link: lots of links

↓ Critiques:

• Center for Media and Democracy: (AKA: PR Watch) see also Spin of the Day
• Center for Economic and Policy Research
• Center for Media and Public Affairs (CMPA)
• Center for Social Media (best practices in fair use)
• Center for Public Integrity
• Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI): nutrition
• Commercial Alert
• Corporate Accountability International
• Dismal Scientist: economic indicators & analysis
• Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR)
• Free Press: media reform
• Media-Alliance
• Media Channel
• Media Matters: stenography reporters
• Media Transparency
• Poynter Media News: media industry news
• Project Censored: top 25 stories from 2010
• Regret the Error: publishing mistakes & news retractions
• Reporters sans Frontieres: press freedom index (world)
• State of the Media: annual report on American media
• Stay Free magazine: politics of mass media, blog
• Transparency: corruption
• World Privacy Forum
• Angry Journalist
• Defunct?:
  • Media Global Attention Profiles
  • Big Media

↓ Under-reported & non-mainstream news:

• The Memory Hole
• Zmag
• Global Witness: on the exploitation of natural resources (e.g. timber, diamonds, oil) and human rights abuses
• Unknown News
• WikiLeaks.org: whistleblower and other documents (wikileaks.ch, wikileaks.be, mirrors)
• News Making News
• Nuclear Regulatory Commission Event reports
• News Trolls
• Piracy report
• Privacy International
• The Smoking Gun
• Stupid Security
• Transparency International: corruption coalition
• Undernews
• News Meat: politics, headlines, federal campaign contributions
• Bird dogger
• News Insider: (defunct?)

↓ Corporate:

• AOL (page view oriented news, content slave)
• Corporate news owners: (alternate: Frontline)
• AP: News Day
• BBC
• Bloomberg
• Boston Globe
• CNN: International (WTF CNN)
• EurekAlert
• Fox News (Media matters, Fox news early history, can legally lie)
• The Hill: U.S. Congress
• International Herald Tribune
• NY-Times: headlines, Op-Ed
• Real Clear Politics
• Reuters
• Wall Street Journal: free articles
• Washington Monthly
• Washington Post
• Newspaper Association of America: Presstime
• Junk Science

News Opinion Journals

• Cato Institute
• Commentary Magazine
• Economist
• New Criterion
• News Max
• National Review
• Weekly Standard

Military News:

• Debka
• Global Security
• Jane's
• StratFor

↓ Deep Web:

• How to search the deep web
• Complete Planet
• Deep Peep: databases and web services
• Deep Web Tech: science, business, & medicine
• Infomine: scholarly resources
• Incy Wincy
• Info Please
• Intute: academic topics
• Librarian's Index: search
• Librarian's Resource Center: (knowledge management defunct?)
• Public.Resource.org: US government documents and multimedia
• Resource Shelf: a favorite of librarians
• Scirus: science
• Search.com: search dozens of search engines
• Super Searchers
• Tech Xtra: engineering, mathematics, computing
• Free Pint: Direct Web
• Web Archive: cache of old web pages (AKA Wayback Machine)
• WWW Virtual Library
• Darknet Plan
• Search Engines: directory of search engines (defunct?)

↓ Investigative Resources:

• WikiLeaks.be: whistleblower and other documents (wikileaks.org)
• Cryptome: government secrecy, privacy, encryption
• Doc News - government documents
• Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE): journalists helping journalists
• Commons Library briefing papers: UK
• C-Span

↓ Science & Technology:

• Maps & Weather:
  • Climate change reports
  • Latitude & Longitude
  • Multimap
  • Real Climate: (myths, cf. ill-considered)
• Science:
  • Web of Knowledge
  • International System of Units (SI): measurement units
  • National Research Council publications
  • Public Library of Science (PLoS): research papers, journals
  • Union of Concerned Scientists (US)
  • xxx.lanl.gov: open access to 382,237 e-prints in Physics, Mathematics, Computer Science and Quantitative Biology
  • Center for Science in the Public Interest
  • New Scientist
  • Earthquakes (US)
  • Environmental Chemistry
  • Eyebeam: open source & public domain research
  • Material Safety Datasheet list (MSDS)
  • Federation of American Scientists (FAS): ethics, morals, news, social relevance
    • Really Ready: disaster preparation
  • Richard Dawkins: genes & evolution, forum
  • Gary Taubes:
    • Epidemiology, e.g. hormone replacement therapy
    • WNYC interview about epidemiology
  • Bad Science: Ben Goldacre's blog, includes Guardian column
• Technology:
  • Slashdot: timely multifaceted discussions and arguments
    • computers, games, internet, IT, media, networks, politics, privacy, science, & security (tip:)
  • Consumer Project on Technology: knowledge, health

↓ Miscellaneous Info:

Crime:

• Crime Library
• Crime and Victim statistics, Conviction stats (US Fed)
(AKA “brain fingerprinting”)
• Geneva Conventions
• Police World: forum
• Road rage essays
• Sexual Predator Database
• Family Watchdog: predators
• Problems with:
  • Fingerprints as ID
  • Brain waves for ID
  • Polygraphs: info and forum on polygraphs (AKA “lie detectors”)

Drug Policies:

• Media Awareness Project: drug policy reform
• Narco News: Latin America drug war news
• CDC Chatter: forum on the Center for Disease Control

Environment:

• Household appliance energy use
• Right to Know: environmental databases
• Environmental Health Perspectives
• Environmental Working Group
• Corporate air polluters (top 100, U.S.)
• International harzardous wastes and disposal (Basel Convention)
• Nuclear Regulatory Commission: events
• River discharge
• Chernobyl photos

Government & Politics:

• Sunlight Labs: open source analysis of US government data
• Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW, US)
• Political Economy Research Institute
• Open Congress: US Government news, data, & blog
• Washington Watch: Congress' bills (US, public wiki)
• GovTrack: monitor bills and congress (US)
• Congressional Research Service reports (wikileaks)
• First Gov: .gov sites
• Foreign Agents Reporting Act (foreign to US)
• Institute for Policy Studies: progressive think tank
• International Monetary Fund publications (IMF)
• Lobby filing disclosure program (US)
• Money and Politics: contributions and how legislators vote
• Move On: “democracy in action,” civic and political choices as determined by individuals
• Open Secrets: tracks political money
• National Security Archive (U.S.)
• Pentagon Papers: 1940-1968
• Political Activism Resources: links
• Political Wire: polls and news
• Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA)
• Project Vote Smart: voting records and info (US)
• Resource.org: US and state court documents and videos
• SSN FAQ
• UK Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology: briefs and longer reports

Health:

• Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry: e.g. lead

Miscellaneous:

• Action PA: environmental justice
• All Experts
• Bad Astronomy: blog
• British Library
• Charity Navigator: where does the money go?
• Chronicling America: search newspapapers from 1690 to present
• Clocks
• Ctheory: theory, technology, & culture
• Death risk rankings
• Developing Countries & volunteers
• Domesday: U.K. records from 1180
• First Person: letters, diaries, interviews
• Gang info: links
• Harper's Index: trivia
• Help a Reporter Out: somewhat random matchup of reporters and sources
• How products are made
• Karl Hartig's graphics
• Many Eyes: graphs of various studies
• News Inferno: product recalls, defective products, drug side effects, health fraud & concerns
• Resource.org: substantial collection of public resources
• Photographs, find locations of
• Social Issues Research Center (SIRC): publications
• Social Design Notes: the art of social graphics
• SpringerLink social science publications
• Stumpers - questions that almost stump librarians
• Traffic jams
• What's that stuff
• What Works Clearinghouse: collects, screens, and identifies studies of effectiveness of educational interventions (programs, products, practices, and policies)
• Wireless Towers
• Wiser Earth: wiki of non-profit and civil society groups

Religion:

• Religion Facts: stats and descriptions of some 40+ religions
• Sacred Texts' Timeline
• Skeptics Annotated Bible
• Talk Origins: creation and evolution discussion
• see also:

Statistical Info:

• Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA)
• Census (US): NAICS
• CIA World Factbook: (also via Bartleby)
• Gallup polls
• UN Statistics: e.g. CO₂ levels, (alternate)
• US Imports and Exports
• Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development: 2005 US profile
• Gapminder: graph creator (Google)

Alternative internets:

• anoNET

↓ Business & Corporations:

• Bad Bossology
• Business.com
• Business Balanced Scorecard
• Business Owner's Toolkit
• Business tips
• Data Loss database: list of businesses that have lost customer data
• Top 100 economic entities: (about 1/2 are corporations)
• Corporate info wiki
• Data Brokers:
  • Acxiom: Wikipedia article
  • Choice Point: Wikipedia article
• Info USA: business & consumer info
  • Reference USA: library access to business & household info
• Economic Policy Institute (EPI)
• Find Owner Search: lists owner(s) of business(es)
• GuideStar: info on US nonprofits
• Management Consultant Swindle
• Mortgage Lender Implode-O-Meter
• Inflation calculator
• International Trade Forum
• Jigsaw: public & private business executives (name, title, email, & phone)
• Guy Kawasaki: investors
• Paul Krugman: Princeton, unofficial archive (columns), W (economics)
• Mr. Landlord
• Long tail sales
• National Bureau of Economic Research
• Presentation Zen
• Small Business Administration (SBA)
• SEC filings
• I-Squad: hidden marketing, astroturfing, cool hunters, street teams
• Venture Capitalist blog
• Young Entrepreneurs' Organization
• Naming and branding:
  • Igor: blog, Taxonomy, How to choose
  • Transnationale: corporations & brands
• Propaganda, Public Relations (PR):
  • WPP (includes: Burson-Marsteller)
  • Penn, Schoen, & Berland: reports
  • Greenburg Quinlan Rosner Research

↓ Watchdog Groups:

• Corp Watch: “Holding corporations accountable”
• Human Rights Watch (HRW)
• Amnesty International
• B'Tselem: ”Israeli info center for human rights in the occupied territories”
• Privacy International: privacy invasion and surveillance by corporations and governments
• Charity Navigator: info and ratings on charities
• Consumer Watchdog (?)
• The Crime Report: Justice on Trial
• Rate My Cop: US

Environmental Watchdog Groups

• Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility: (U.S)
• Coalition of National Park Service Retirees: park protection advocates (U.S)

Health

• Medicine sans Frontieres International (MSF, Doctors without Borders)
• OxFam: poverty & injustice
• TransAtlantic Consumer Dialogue (TACD)
• Health Action International
• IQsensato (?)

Politics, U.S.

• Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW)
• Whistleblowers: Government Accountability Project (US)
• Project on Government Oversight: accountability and corruption (POGO, US)
• Open Secrets: Center for Responsive Politics
• Sunlight Foundation: informing citizens of political doings
• Taxpayers for Common Sense: reports of wasteful spending
• Citizens Against Government Waste: CAGW [?]
• How to Record the Cops, The War on Cameras