So I felt motivated to inform myself last night, went searching, and found a decent site: Human Rights Campaign

They have congressional scorecards (who voted for what on key rights issues). I found out one of the Senators in my state has a horrible track record. Well I pretty much guessed he did before, but it's nice to know the facts behind it.

They also have a questionnaire they sent out to all of the 08 presidential candidates, and the comments and positions of those who responded.


I was wondering how everyone else keeps informed, what sites they check up on, and whatnot.

Ah, this doesn't need to be limited to the USA either. How do the rest of you keep informed in your countries, and to what informative/activist groups do you subscribe?

Project Vote Smart

Candidates and elected officials, their bios, issue positions, voting records, etc. Very informative, very accessible and user-friendly. I cannot recommend it highly enough to anyone in the U.S. who wants more information on the men and women making decisions.

I watch the local news. It keeps me up to date. I usually use the Internet for either research for some stupid school thing or for playing games!

Local news broadcasts are notoriously poor sources of information. CNN/Fox/MSNBC are one very tiny step above. If you're going to rely on mass media, stick to newspapers.

There're a few reasons for this. One, in the words of the immortal and infamous right-wing pundit, Rush Limbaugh, it's the "Drive-by Media." It's not intended to educate you. It's intended to provide interesting talking points. More often than not, this means selective reporting to further the political bent of the journalist. (Limbaugh would say that it's all slanted left, but that's not true.)

Two, there's no room for dialogue or elaboration. Newspapers will provide more details, more sources for quotes, usually a Gallup poll or something. Conservative talk radio will open the phone lines for other callers, informed or not, in agreement or not, and provide a better range of possible interpretations. A news broadcast will probably give you a quote and a poll or illustrative graphic for each story. Again, very incomplete. If all you want to know are a couple random events in the world, that's fine. If you're looking to be a well-informed citizen, you're screwed.

Three, and even the news media won't deny this, facts don't sell. Balanced reports don't sell. Fear sells. Reference Christian and Islamic history for a thorough illustration.

I watch Fox News religiously.

I watch Fox News because not only is everything about them ironicly amusing, half the time our cable is kind of whack and you can hear the producers and crap over the anchors, talking about random stuff that is amusing because you have no real context in which to place it.

I watch Fox News too. Their investigators are second to none among the major news channels. Their commentators, however, don't even bother to watch their own reports. The rank and file idiocy is amusing.

Heh, I wasn't serious. I don't actually watch Fox News. Last time I did, they were running a story about how global warming is a good thing - about as much as I could bear.

Odd, I've stopped watching Fox news a while ago.

Every time I turn on the Fox News it is about Paris Hilton, or some other celebrity or some bizzare court case nobody cares about.

My mom used to watch Fox News a lot and then spend the first 15 minutes of every phone call we had complaining about their pointless news reports and blatant right-wing, republican favoritism... and I'd be like "Mom, why watch it if it makes you so mad?" And she'd say "Because I want to know what they are up to."

Best sources I find are radio, periodicals, and newspaper. I refuse to watch the local news. I get most of my news from NPR, the Economist, the Atlantic, the Chicago Tribune, the Christian Science Monitor, and a smattering of RSS feeds.

I get my political news from The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report with Stephen Colbert.

Well, not all of it.

The consensus is pretty clear that global warming would benefit my local economy. So we lose Florida. Eh.

EDIT: Not that I actually believe that the current global warming is human-induced. The graphs don't really support that conclusion...

Hell, even if it's not human-induced - I would still support reducing emissions. Having grown up in a hydrogen monoxide-choked environment long before global warming became an issue will do that to you.

Godamn stupid H2O nuisance - as you can guess, I mean carbon monoxide. There is no such a thing as hydrogen monoxide.

I'd have edited my post, but I'm on mod preview for not petting the happy pink bunny.

Pssh, so unbalanced.

My current google homepage which is where I get all of my news (except KFI and NPR) has the following:
Cnet, Google news, NPR, Fox, IHT, CNN, WSJ, and Reuters. 9 time out of 10, all the headlines and articles are the same topic.

Most of my news is from Witchvox, Slashdot, and Penny Arcade, because it's usually interesting. Anything falling outside of those topics really doesn't bother me, because I realize I'd care, but not do anything about it but get upset a bit before playing WoW or Lusternia or Starcraft. This probably makes me a bad person, but it's probably not going to change.

The HRC will keep you politically informed, but be aware it is through a bias filter. I recommend votesmart.org for an insanely comprehensive view. Note that it requires you to sift through tons of data. Another one that is good but I have seen is sometimes misleading because it abbreviates things would be ontheissues.org. They both track the voting records of politicians. If you want to see an example of how they compare, here is a typical example of the difference in data volume: ontheissues.org vs. votesmart.org. What's good about them is they don't give you any commentary; it forces you to make a decision for yourself.

If you do want commentary, which isn't always bad so long as you recognize it for what it is, then there are lots of good places. HRC is good for certain view points on certain issues. AlertNet is another popular one for a laft angle; there are some people who attend my vegetarian meetup.com meets that like that one. You also have the Heritage Foundation, Cato Institute, etc. for additional angles. There are also web sites that make numeric scores for politicians based on their voting record. I can't recall any, though.

Also, for my news I like news.google.com because it shows things from around the world and from all types of media; this helps filter out the bias you get by sticking specific news outlets. I also will often times just read the headlines and Google snippet, which I think is also good enough to get informed of the essentials while avoiding the commentary and bias every reporter has (concious or unconcious).

I also put in a Google news e-mail alert for the keyword "ohio" from locations in Ohio. This helps me keep tabs on the governor and state legislature, among other misc. things in the state, which is severely lacking if you stick to national news outlets. (And if you don't have Google filter sources from your home state then you get tons of national news articles about the state's sports teams.)

Lastly, when do I want commentary with my news, I listen to my favorite podcast talkshow.

The google headlines are very missleading. If you are going to just be reading headlines, I suggest you click on the link that says "2,500 similar posts" and read a good chunk of headlines (atleast the first 2 pages) because sometimes its the difference between: Governor smokes weed! and Governor suggests using smoke to kill weeds.