Hi David–

If only…

Cheers–

MRE

I believe it’s Australia that allows only a two week window before an election to give speeches and run ads. That way, candidates and interest groups don’t interfere with the actual running of the government. The need to be constantly trolling for campaign financing is at least as detrimental to governing as the corruption that is being unveiled every time we turn around.

As to the journalists I read on a regular basis, for the quick and dirty there is buzzflash.com, cursor.org, truthout.org, truthdig.com. This is were I start looking. For individuals there’s Sidney Blumenthal, Juan Cole, Sy Hersch, Mark Crispin Miller and Steve Gilliard at stevegilliard.blogspot.com –he’s the journalist who’s every prediction about Iraq has come to pass. Standouts are Paul Krugman for ecomomic analysis, and Greg Palast. He’s a journalist for the BBC who studied directly under Milton Friedman for his graduate work, and then became an incredible investigative journalist. See gregpalast.com–you’ll recognize his books when you visit the site. Relatively new to me are Glen Greenwald at glenngreenwald.blogspot.com, a litigator, and americablog.blogspot.com, who are a group of Beltway consultants–there’s inside info!

I hope Dr Mike, that you’re already acquainted with http://www.scienceblogs.com. Lots of people interested in both science and politics. You may recognize Chris Mooney, the young science writer who wrote the book, “The Republican War on Science” a very interesting read. He makes the point that almost all administrations have tried to manipulate the sciencific messages of their day, but that this administration made a quantum jump in interfering with scientists themselves.

It’s a good thing that I’m a speed reader and I start very early in the morning.

Hi LCforevah–

Thanks for the list. Some I was familiar with, others I wasn’t. I especially appreciate the referral to the science blog; it looks tremendously interesting.

Just to pass my own recommendation on, I recently finished Andrew Sullivan’s book, The Conservative Soul, which I found to be one of the better books I’ve read this year. His last chapter is a masterpiece. The title doesn’t begin to describe what this book is really about. I’ve always considered myself a libertarian/conservative, but have been unable to articulate beyond that what my gut feelings really are, especially since the Bush disaster. Sullivan’s book put them into words for me. I have a few tiny quibbles here and there, but name me any two people whose political philosophies are identical. I wish he had not used the term ‘conservative’ in the title because it turns off people who don’t consider themselves conservatives, but would get much from the book. The book has been savaged by all the Theocons and Neocons, which recommends it well. It even has nutritional implications. The first chapter defines fundamentalism, which, I didn’t realize until I had read this chapter, fingers all the carbs are holy group and makes their hatred of the low-carb diet at least understandable.

Thanks again for expanding my reading horizons.

Best–

MRE