talkingDigital

Election season is in full swing and nothing irritates me more than thinking about all of the voters who go to the polls armed only with the claims of their favorite candidate. I believe that we should be anxious to research all sides of every issue and never let one candidate’s claims dictate how we feel about the other candidates or themselves.

While I tend to lean ever so slightly right in my political views, I still read news and information from both sides of the aisle. Here are a few websites that will help. Some are essentially neutral while others are very slanted. No matter where you stand, I would encourage everyone who votes to vote informed and armed with the truth no matter who is telling it.

Mostly neutral sites –
FactCheck.org – this is a great site for looking up the facts and figures used by candidates to show both their own strengths and their opponents weaknesses.
FactCheckEd.org – Sister site of the above but designed more for teachers.
Politifact.com – a similar fact checking site, but Politifact has a cool feature called the Truth-o-meter that measures candidates claims on a scale from True to False.
Politico.com – does a reasonable job at trying to stay balanced although its left-slanting writers and polls are more often cited.

Left slanted news (mainstream news agencies have been omitted for space) –
DailyKos.com – A site that doesn’t even pretend to be balanced or unbiased. Their site description in Google is “Daily weblog with political analysis on US current events from a liberal perspective.”
TalkLeft.com – Describes itself as “The Online Magazine with Liberal coverage of crime-related political and injustice news”
ThinkProgress.org – Pictures of the president and supporters always taken mid-blink while liberals are shown pointing fingers or in publicity shots.
Thedemocraticdaily.com – Perhaps the only liberal news site you need to know as it is a feed of all of the other liberal news sites and blogs.
MediaMatters.org – Organization that monitors right wing news and blogs.

Right slanted news (talk radio sites omitted for obvious reasons) –
Humanevents.com – website of the official conservative newspaper – Ann Coulter, Newt Gingrich and Phyllis Schlafly all contribute.
WorldNetDaily.com – poorly designed site, but one of the more cited sources for conservatives.
NewsBusters.org – Comparable to WorldNet in content, but much better design and more multimedia content.
Hotair.com – my personal favorite, lots of great stuff and a fun read with a good sense of humor.
NewsMax.com – written like a mainstream  news site, but uses obvious right slant.

I am still all worked up about eBay raising its final value fees.

When I first began with eBay their philosophy was to stay out of the transaction as much as possible and allow the community to self regulate. No one really cared that eBay took a small percentage from every sale because it was less than five percent and the listing fees were cheaper than a classified ad.

Over time eBay has raised their fees again and again in order to increase profits. How can they be shocked to see profits and membership declining?

I mentioned in the article above that eBay began as an experiment in capitalism. It is fast becoming an example of how over taxing kills off a society. Rather it is proving that capitalism works by demonstrating what happens to a market when capitalism is removed.

In addition to higher final fees, eBay also announced more restrictive selling policies. The company has resorted to babysitting its users. A complete 180 degree turn from the original hands-off governing policy.

It is sad to see eBay die, but I really hope that someone else sees the open door and starts up an eBay killer. For over a decade, other companies have tried to compete with eBay, hopefully a few brave folks are still out there because this would be the perfect year for eBay to meet its match.