Getting Real News instead of Newzak

The Top of the List
Newspapers
Computer and Tech
Science
Year 2000
Radio
Zines
Research Tools
Ministries of Truth
"Right Wing Nuts"
"Left Wing Nuts"
Conspiracy Theorists
What They Tell the Kids in School
Yugoslavia
"Something completely different"
Military and Police

The Top of the List

Slashdot "News for Nerds, stuff that matters" (to nerds). Like a Freerepublicfor the technically inclined.

Sierra Times

KeepAndBearArms.com. News from the battle for your constitutional rights.

WorldNetDaily. "A Free Press for a Free People" From their FAQ: "Like its parent company, the Western Journalism Center, WorldNetDaily believes the central role of a free press in a free society is to serve as a watchdog on government. That's why you will see more stories about government fraud, waste, corruption and abuse in WorldNetDaily than in your typical conventional daily paper. But we also like to have fun. Some of our stories are chosen simply because we like them." On Bill Clinton's Enemies List, with the tax audit to prove it. Sort-a libertarian, sort-a conservative outlook. You can sign up for email notification of updates. Updated weekdays. 

Rumors, bargains and lies (Matt Drudge). News, rumor, low scandal in high places, anonymous sources, sometimes stuff that turns out to be just plain wrong--just like the "real journalists" that hate his guts. How's Matt Drudge different? He's often first, and tells us what the other guys won't. Not a general purpose news source--look at Drudge for the one hot story of the day. Updated more or less daily. 

Free Republic main page. This site is essentially a big BBS. Registered uses can post news stories that they find interesting, and other registered users can comment on them. No registration is needed to lurk. Updated continually.

"FR is full of foaming-at-the-mouth Republican conservatives with unbelievable egos and attitudes, but as they (by the rules of the site) start every thread with an attributed article from a newspaper or some such, you can gather an AWFUL lot of hard news that doesn't hit the national wire." --Hunter

Worldnet Daily, Drudge and Free Republic also have plenty of links to conventional news sources.

Undernews at The Progressive Review "Washingtons most unofficial source" Sam Smith's a "progressive" type leftist who's been feeling alienated from liberal circles of power. Consistently interesting. Check the site every few days. New stuff accumulates on top of old in a kind of news midden.

Liberty Forum Freerepublic for Libertarians. Doesn't look to be nearly as big or raucous.

Devilcratic Underground

Civil Liberties at the Mining Company. J. D. Tuccille digs up a lot of rights and civil liberty related news from all over, not just the U.S. He also runsLibertyNow Daily News Updates at Free-market.net. Main stories are updated roughly weekly, new news links daily. You can sign up for email notification of updates to both the Civil Liberties site and Liberty Now Daily News.

Black OP Radio National Paranoid Radio. Archived RealPlayer audio.

Sightings on the Radio web site. X-files type stuff. Outlook is "gnostic"--think of it as alternative epistemology. Lot's of interesting news items (often with attribution) in with the black choppers and aliens. Appears to be updated daily.

Newspapers, domestic and furrin' (net presence of traditional print newspapers)

The Electronic Daily Telegraph. The electronic version of a British newspaper. Ambrose Evans-Pritchard (who has got to be on the Clinton Enemies List) has written for them. They want you to register with them to get past the main page. Updated daily.

The Village Voice

Haight Ashbury Free Press (remember them)

The Economist "the Economist has a great web page where they give free access to a lot of good articles from their print version. They also have free weekly digests on world news, one on politics and one on business. I wouldn't characterize the Economist as libertarian, but they're very free-market. Their news coverage is excellent and a refreshing break from the myopic US-only coverage of most American news." ---the Bee (?) I haven't been able to look into this one--it takes a looooong time to load.

South China Morning Post "Hong Kong's Leading English Language Newspaper since 1903"

The Washington Times The other DC paper is a conservative daily.

Insight on the Newsonline "Insight On The News is a national weekly newsmagazine published in Washington, D.C., by The Washington Times Corporation. . . .Our focus is simple: Report news others won't or can't. We follow the story wherever the facts lead and regardless of who's involved."

The London Times you have to register before they let you see anything. updated daily.

The Independent another British paper

The New York Times you need to register with them and get a password.

Science News. A small weekly magazine covering science. If you'd been reading Science News, you would have read story after story about unusual problems with homosexual mens immune systems years before the AIDS story hit the big time. And yes, they include references. The web site does not include everything in the print edition (full text of selected articles). Updated weekly.

UniSci Science & Research News more science news. News about science is news about the real world.

ScienceDaily yet more science news. "ScienceDaily is a free, advertising-supported online magazine that brings you breaking news about the latest discoveries and hottest research projects in everything from astrophysics to zoology. The magazines articles are actually news releases submitted by leading universities and other research organizations around the world. Each news release is posted in its original form, with a contact name and link to the organizations home page." Sounds good to me.

Junk Science Homepage (they're agin' it, not for it.) "It has hundreds of articles (and adds a dozen daily), primarily to give intellectual ammunition against scaremongering of "the Left" in order to pass more regulations (...and more, and more, etc.) against everything under the sun." --Michael Nichols

MIT Technical Review

New Scientist a British science newsweekly

Conservative News Service "The Right News Right Now" " CNS debuted on June 16, 1998 as an on-line, primary news source for citizens, news organizations and broadcasters who put a higher premium on balance than spin. Study after study by the Media Research Center, CNS's parent organization, clearly demonstrate both a liberal bias in the American news media and a frequent, liberal double-standard in editorial decisions on what constitutes 'news.' . . . Also unique among news services, CNS may be used, reproduced, rebroadcast and/or republished by any private or public news organization at no cost. (so have at it. --cb) We ask only that appropriate editorial credit be assigned as a professional courtesy."

Heads Up "the most significant newsletter in America"

The Alamance Independent, official newspaper of the Vast RightWing Conspiracy.

The New American I think this is from the John Birch Society (oh, them). Excerpts (and compete table of contents, so you know what you're missing) from the print version.

IANews Issue Action News ("updated daily") "You will find news that the national controlled mass media will not or are not allowed to print or bring to your attention. " Appears to have a "Patriot" sovereign type conservative, Christian orientation (classic "right wing nuts"). Kind of cluttered looking (unlike the deliberately spare appearance of my page :-), lots of stuff there.

Very on target words from this site. They should be engraved in stone somewhere:

"*CAVEAT LECTOR* This means, "READER BEWARE!" In other words, it is up to the reader to form her/his own judgments as to the truth or value of the information in the articles below. The purpose of this page is not necessarily to publish the truth, although there is much truth here, it is to get you to stop, look and listen to what is going on in the world around you. Everything is not what it seems."

The Other Side of the News "If you're sick and tired of only hearing CNN (Clinton News Network) ABC (All Bill Channel) NBC (Nothing But Clinton) & CBS (Clinton Broadcasting Service) always tell you just one side of the news--the liberal side, then "The Other Side of the News" is for you. TOSN is a homespun, alternative source for news and information with a decidedly Christian message that is SOOOOOOOO CONSERVATIVE we make Rush Limbaugh look like a FLAMING LIBERAL." (Emphasis and cute flaming graphic in the original. ) " 'a still small voice' (for now, but we're getting louder all the time) originating from the sanctity of the rural cornfields near Monmouth, IL (Boondocks, USA) " He said it, I didn't. Monmouth, BTW, ain't too far from Princeville. What's happening in West Central Illinois?

The Spotlight Hey, these guys are still around! The Spotlight Newsbureau

Etherzone "Americas Conservative News Magazine" located in Princeville, IL, a little town a few miles past Peoria into the corn and soybean fields. Updated daily, so they say.

All Texas.net Texican RWNs

Rumor Mill News

Republic Radio International

Conspiracy Nation News Service off the wall. Something about living in Champaign-Urbana, IL must drive some people batty. Appearantly on hold -- nothing new since May 1999.

Goddards Journal " IAN GODDARD'S ANTI-AUTHORITARIAN JOURNAL asking the 'wrong' questions, challenging the official story" Updated infrequently.

Infowars.com

The Konformist

"The goal of The Konformist is very simple: to make a lot of money and get a lot of hot chicks by cashing in on a bandwagon.

"Actually, the goal is more noble than that. The inspiration for this online magazine came from the observation that there is a huge amount of information being ignored and covered up by the Korporate Media. Disturbed by the level of deceit that passes for "news", the editor of The Konformist, Robalini, disguised as mild-mannered reporter Robert Sterling, embarked on a campaign to expose these silenced voices that have been silenced for too long, a magazine for those who, in some way, are opposed to how things are, and have decided that it is time for the truth to be told.

" Having said that, it must be noted that some of the information in The Konformist may not be true (unless it was written by Robalini, that is.) Some of this may be due to well-meaning mistakes. Others may be due to the unwitting passing of falsehoods from others. Some of it will even be outright disinformation and/or lies."

New Dawn "Alternative News and Information" The web site of an Australian bimonthly print magazine. Haven't had much chance to look at it. Updated infrequently.

In These Times

Eat The State "Eat the State! is a shamelessly biased political journal. We want an end to poverty, exploitation, imperialism, militarism, racism, sexism, heterosexism, environmental destruction, television, and large ugly buildings, and we want it fucking now. " Leftists from Seattle.

The Nation The Internet presence of an old lefty rag.

MoJo Wire not so old lefty rag. Mother Jones magazine web presence

Essential Information "A Ralph Nader Production!" Because of the name behind it I'm putting it in this category till I know more about it.

The Real News Page "The Real News Page critiques the media, promotes media activism, and calls for media reform. We come from a progressive point of view. "

Brasscheck

Gary North's newest Y2K links. Gary North is a Y2K "doomsayer". He thinks it's all going to go splat and we'll have no political entity bigger than a county past Y2K. (2000-Mar-9 Nothing new's been added since 2000-Feb-4. Looks like it's no longer maintained.)

Sanger's Review of Y2K News Reports " The sole aim of this website is to provide, each day, links to and intelligent summaries of the most important news articles about the Year 2000 problem, in their order of importance." (2000-Mar-9 No longer maintained.)

Beyond 2000

Geek News

Slashdot "News for Nerds, stuff that matters" (to nerds). Like a Freerepublicfor the technically inclined.

InfoWorld not quite as worthless as most of the computer industry trade rags.

Newsbytes.com "Newsbytes News Network, a division of Post-Newsweek Business Information, Inc., is the only independent news service focusing solely on information technology."

The news your kids get

Channel One These people feed news to captive audiences in school. This site is a web resource for teachers using Channel One: "Channel One's new, free service on the World Wide Web (http://www.teach1.com) connects educators to Channel One News and to each other every day. The site offers daily lesson plans, direct links to national standards, resources on all major academic subjects, and discussion groups with easy-to-use E-mail to communicate with professional colleagues around the country."

Sam Smith's Progressive Review reports:"-- CHANNEL ONE, which uses the compulsory school attendance laws to make about 8 million children watch two minutes of ads in 12,000 schools a day. One marketing ad for Channel One boasts, 'Channel One doesn't just deliver teen viewers -- it delivers the hardest to reach teen viewers.'"

Scholastic News Pretty innocuous stuff.

Time for Kids

U-Wire Today Universities, higher edjookashun.

Ministries of Truth state owned or supported news outlets and/or official mouthpieces of some state or other

Islamic Republic News Agency Iranian Ministry of Truth. Different. Since Iraq is one of the places Glorious Leader Bill is trying to start a war, it seems prudent to stay on top of what's happening in the area.

The BBC NEWS online. The Brit's Ministry of Truth. Looks like you can get it in Spanish, Russian, Arabic, Cantonese, Mandarin and Welsh (!) too.

National Public Radio Online The U. S. Ministry of Truth. Home of the relentlessly liberal All Things Considered. They also have a Realaudio feed. I've been listening to them much more lately (on the road, and the only other choices are top 40, "lite rock" (an oxymoron if there ever was one), and talk radio on a painfully staticy AM radio.

Iraqi News Agency (supposed to be there, no response), Iraq UN Mission, and a newspaper Al Zawra "Al-Zawra is among the important Iraqi publications owned by President Saddam Hussein's eldest son, Uday, who is an inside advocate for technology in Iraq. Some reports say that it's a source of conflict within the family. " --Wired

Virtual Reference Desk

Duff Wilson's Reporters Desktop

The Center for Responsive Politics

FEC Info "Follow the money" Who's buying what politician. A project of publicdisclosure.org "Our specialty: Making government documents public and easy to access via the World Wide Web. . ."

The same question from a different angle. Enter a zip code or name, and find all the donors who match, and how much they gave to whom.Politicaljunkie.com

Reverse Phone Number Lookup

Full Disclosure

knowx.com

Freeedgar.com

taxrecords.com

Realty Trac

Secret Subjects

Untested -- YMMV: " You can find charters, control messages, and FAQs if any, for any group on the Usenet. Just type: ftp://ftp.isc.org/pub/usenet/control/{heirarchy}/{groupname}"

Form 990 is the federalista form no-profit tax free orgs do to report donors. Who gives to HCI?

guidestar.org

idealist.org

990 online

form990.org

Just a Lot of Talk Internet accessible talk radio. "It's a fairly nice guide to the talk radio shows available on the net. Talk radio was already a powerful force, and the proliferation of shows that are making themselves available on the web can only add to their impact." --Hunter

Pirate Radio something with potential to be useful, but I'm probably not going to have time or equipment to look into it. If someone wants to write something up re getting news from pirate radio, I'd appreciate it.

Clandestine Radio Intelligence Web "Clandestine radio monitoring is a unique and difficult aspect of the shortwave listening hobby. To be successful, you need all the available information at your disposal, and that's where we come in. CRI is the premier on-line stop for the latest news on radio stations funded and operated by guerilla groups, opposition parties, and intelligence agencies around the world. " looks potentially interesting--will have to wait till I get a shortwave and a lot of time. Clandestine Radio Watch.

How to be a Radio Pirate web page. This should be under "Doing Freedom"--it's about setting up to broadcast, instead of setting up to listen. I don't have the technical background to evaluate the advice here.

Free Radio Berkley. "This site connects you to the movement to reclaim the airwaves. Welcome to RADIO 4 ALL" Micropower radio.

Alfa Lima International "The biggest pirate radio station in Europe"

The Neil Boortz Show News Page "Americas Rude Awakening" daily notes for his talk radio show. Neil's Main Page.

Proactive News Hour with Bill Brumbaugh. " We shall be dealing with issues ranging from current political crisis and foopahs, spanning the gamut through current and ancient technology, and how God's Holy Word indicates the closing of this age of man."

Art Bell Talk radio-gotta look into it one of these days

Ken Hamblin the Black Avenger. more talk radio.

Antiwar.com Committee Against U. S. Intervention

Tanjug News Agency of Yugoslavia

Press Now

Links to other sites related to Bosnia & Herzegovina

ITAR-TASS of Russia

St Petersburg Times of Russia

Moscow Times

Not Quite the Real News

"And now for something completely different." The Onion -- comic relief.

Bogus News Network -- more comic relief.

Pigdog.org just plain weird

Military and Police

USDefense.com "Daily News, Views and Issues About Today's U.S. Military Forces" "This site will feature daily entries and links to the most recent military and foreign policy related news articles from a variety of sources. It will also feature a variety of military-related commentary and viewpoints. We also invite our readers -- current military, former military, analysts, foreign policy buffs, experts -- to let us know your opinion on the current state of U.S. Defense and military policy."

APBOnline "The source for police and crime news, information and entertainment."

Citizen Soldier "We are an international grassroots group of active, retired, and reserve defense professionals and civilians united by a desire to educate our colleagues and fellow citizens about the U.S. Constitution and our nation's Judeo-Christian founding principles."

Covert Action Quarterly Slow news about the spooks.

Just the Facts "A resource for independent thinkers"

Shallenberger.com "Daily current events commentary with a progun slant"

Counterpunch Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair. "Tells the facts and names the names." Infrequently updated, but they come up with some good stuff.

David Bresnahan

Media Reality Check "A weekly report on major news stories distorted or ignored."

Goodbye "The Journal of Contemporary Obituaries", subtitled "an opinionated bimonthly magazine that chronicles the dead, famous, infamous and nonfamous"

Planet Times "The PlanetTimes is a weekly variety magazine, with an emphasis on variety. We deal in political opinion, intriguing commentary and current events."

Freedom Forum Online press reports page.

Safetrek's Global Preparedness Alert survival related news

AmericanNewsNet

Real Mensch "Daily Antagonism" "Editorially, Real Mensch leans libertarian in our politics, traditionally conservative in our social values, and old world or craft brew in our beer tastes." 1999/6/9 Down for the count. Good news/ bad news: "Due to ever-growing responsibilities at WorldNetDaily, I?m going to have to pull the Real Mensch plug for the foreseeable future."

What passes for news.(AP. This must be where your local paper gets the little stories on page 6.) Updated daily but who cares? AP Top News. AP International. AP Washington. This is the baseline of mainstream news.

Not For Publication "An independent critique of the press and public policy unlikely to be found in conventional print media"

NRA Live Someone else is going to have to evaluate this--my setup isn't quite up to it. Requires Real player, Shockwave, lots of RAM, good fast modem. Explicitly an end-run around the mainstream media, where the NRA can't evenbuytime to tell it's side. "After decades of being belted on the chin by mainstream media anti-gun bias, the NRA has leveled the playing field with live Internet webcasting at www.nraLIVE.com."

The Consortium for Independant News

Russia Today

Accuracy in Media "For Fairness, Balance and Accuracy in News Reporting"--conservative group that's been around for a while. Has a sister group called Accuracy In Academia.

GovExec.com Alien Mindset Alert! "A service of Government Executive magazine."

USA Journal "America's Independent Weekly Newsmagazine"

Jewish World Review

Fortean Times more news of the weird. Selected stories from the print edition, and a monthly email update.

The Obscure Store and Reading Room

Zines

The Partisan "partisan" as in "the resistance" that we cheer for in WWII movies. Infrequently published.

The American Partisan "partisan" as in "partisan politics". right/libertarian (or so it appears to me) opinion zine. (not related to The Partisan)

Frontpage Magazine

Sierra Times J. J. Johnson's new (1/2000) news zine.

Capitol Hill Blue "Because nobody's life, liberty or property are safe while Congress is in session"

Newsmax Chris Ruddy

The Emperor's New Clothes (available in a variety of European languages) " We contend that NATO, led by the U.S. and Germany, is engaged in an aggressive drive to the East. We contend that humanitarian rhetoric is used to justify military and economic attacks on weaker nations. We contend that the execution of these attacks requires a misinformed public. Therefore, by helping people see the media in a critical way, we can strengthen the opposition to unjust and dangerous foreign adventures. "

Spintech Magazine "A monthly challenge to the prevailing culture."

The Smoking Gun "The Smoking Gun brings you exclusive documents -- cool, confidential, quirky -- that can't be found elsewhere on the Web. Using material obtained from government and law enforcement sources, via Freedom of Information requests, and from court files nationwide, we guarantee everything here is 100% authentic. The Smoking Gun is a Pierre Salinger-free zone."

Laissez Faire City Times Their mission statement. Five or six articles each issue. News and commentary. Updated weekly.

Frontpage Magazine Center for the study of Popular Culture

nexus "NEXUS is an international bi-monthly alternative news magazine, covering the fields of - Health Alternatives; Suppressed Science; Earth's Ancient Past; UFOs & the Unexplained; and Government Cover-Ups." Hmmmm, ye-ah.

Parascope "something strange is happening and you will stand a good chance to see exactly what it is here. This is one of the best sources for news. The coverage of articles and issues the main stream media seems to ignore. "

Political Corrections hard to say what this is.

Stratfor" Stratfor is a private intelligence company, serving businesses globally. It is located in Austin, Texas. We provide for our clients in-depth analysis focusing on geopolitical issues that can affect an organization?s economic interests globally. "

Spinternet tons of news links, headline links

A short discussion on the methods ofDisinformation. Not related to the Disinformation site above.

News of the Weird "Find out how the other half lives by taking a look at the bizarre-but-true news from around the world, edited by Chuck Shepherd. "

Infosubway independent news sources.

Truth In Media" Ever had a friend or a neighbor who waxed nostalgic about the 'good old days' when 'the world used to be so simple?' Who lamented the time when media always told the truth, at least as most readers thought? Who missed the days when patriotism, national pride or 'motherhood and apple pie' weren't cynically snickered at by the 'cool' liberal-globalists as old-fashioned ideas whose time has passed? Or who just thought that 'life was more fun' back then?

"Well, if you're like the millions of Americans who feel that way today; who resent being ruled by the big business elites; who have lost trust in our once democratic institutions; who want to feel proud of their country again - wax nostalgic no more! Join the readers whom Bob Djurdjevic's editorials and columns have been enchanting and often moving to action. " 

Some mailing lists, like the NRA and GOA lists, are for sending news to a self selected audience. Others are small discussion groups carried on via email. Either way, anyone signed up to a mailing list receives a copy of all mail sent to the list. Hints: for high volume mailing lists you might want to get it as a "digest". The first message you get after you sign up is usually from the list moderator, telling you the rules, how to post, who to email if you have problems and how to unsubscribe. Keep that message.

Onelist.com and egroups.com specialize in managing mailing lists, and are host to a lot. The minor downside of letting them handle the technical details of running your list is that they put an occasional ad in the list.

Freemarket.net also hosts a lot of lists.

Blindsided by the latest from the grabbers? Sign up for the Gun Owners of America e-mail alerts mailing list and keep up with what the gummint is up to, vis-a-vis our 2nd Amendment rights.

The NRA's email lists (they have 3: General, Press Releases, and RKBA) cover much the same stuff as the GOA list, but often with quite a bit different spin.

Reason Express, a periodic email update from Reason magazine. Follow the link from the main page.

Scan This News "Scan This News" is Sponsored by S.C.A.N. Host of the "FIGHT THE FINGERPRINT!" web page" Privacy and biometric identification news. Frequent news items.

Sanger's Review mailing list. Y2K news daily or top stories weekly, your choice .

MWC "weekly" news update email list for the Michigan Militia Corps. Very infrequent -- I've gotten one mailing from this list.

Liberty Now Daily News Updates mailing list. If you're too lazy to go the the site you can have them email you new links when the get them. Updates daily or close to it.
 
 

Usenet newsgroups can be source of news. The signal to noise ratio tends to be quite bad especially on "hot button" topic newsgroups like talk.politics.guns. You can use newsreader software to read news via your own ISP's news server or Deja news (a Web site that provides usenet news). Either way learn how things work before you make a fool of yourself posting. Updated continually.

Hints: alt.obituaries and comp.risks are good ones to follow. A decent newsreader will have a "kill file" feature, which lets you filter out people or topics you don't want to see. It's usually pretty obvious who's not worth reading and who posts to cause trouble. Life's too short to mess with them. Filter them out--you won't be missing anything. If you put your e-mail address in a message, use a "spam block" (i.e.. mangle the address in a way that's obvious to a human being trying to respond to you, not so obvious to a spammers bot looking for email addresses). If you don't, your email inbox will be flooded with junk mail. If you post a request for specific information, request that responders also carbon copy their messages to you via email. Some ISPs (like mine) haven't ever really gotten the hang of running a good news server, and messages get lost, expire prematurely or are never seen at all.
 
 

A police scanner can be a good (and entertaining) source of the sort of exciting local news that has to do with cops, fire trucks and ambulances. A lot of what goes on never makes the TV news or the local paper.

Get a weather radio--$20 or so at your local Radio Shack. Useful local weather news, any time, no waiting.

If you've got a local paper, read it.

Shortwave radio. I personally have no experience with it. A correspondent writes:

" a damned sight cheaper than computers (unless you really go over board). For serious shortwave listening I use Kenwood R-2000; an older model that you could probably pick up cheap. For casual listening I have a Magnavox 3805 battery operated portable- full commercial AM & FM bands, covers most standard shortwave broadcast bands from 3.2 to 7.3 MHz and 9.5 to 21.75 MHz. The equivalent is available everywhere, and is comparatively cheap. And unlike fancy units like my R-2000, has its own antenna (don't let antennae worry you either- a long wire run around an attic works well, is cheap, and darned easy).

"If you haven't been an SWL type before... Some news is very good. BBC World Service is worth catching. Even VOA can be decent (these days; I used to listen to it for the comedy value). But often the main value of SW is... in the US it's a media for alternative views (often fundamentalist Christian-and I'll admit now that I'm not particularly religious), in the international scene you'll hear propaganda that has the advantage of offering a point a view that isn't always heard in the mainstream US news media. Take it with a grain of salt, but it can point you in interesting directions.

"I've bought some good used gear (at nice, cheap prices) from Universal radio (http://www.universal-radio.com). They've never ripped me off."

Oh, by the bye, folks, if you want to "Do Freedom of Information and Entertainment" when you don't have access to Cyberspace, here's an article from Glen L. Roberts on how to make a cheap AM/FM Walkman into a shortwave radio:

http://www.glr.com/doing.html

I've found that a little bundled piece of aluminum foil superglued to the wire and the circuit board and placed against the solder points will make excellent contact between the wire and the solder points. Also, if you alligator clip the wire to a metal chain-link fence, you will be _flooded_ with a wide variety of excellent shortwave stations! Best yet, the circuits didn't melt in my hand or in the Sun, unlike the pocket-sized junk sold by that Little Big Brother known as Radio Shack.

While shortwave radio can sometimes be a Kookfest, shortwave radio is a welcome relief from the NewsSqualk format or the-same-top-40 songs format that almost completely rules "the vast wasteland." Fortunately, freedom-lovers can also be found on the shortwave, most notably Glen L. Roberts with his Full Disclosure program and (last I checked) Income Tax protester Irwin Schiff! Shortwave radio is also a valuable tool in learning new languages, and knowledge of new languages can be a great self-sufficiency tool in a changing global economy!

(Your mileage may vary. I haven't tried this.)

"Each man under his own vine and fig tree" minding our own business, living our own lives--that's the ideal that we as individuals strive for. Many people exist in something like that state mentally, however poorly it matchs the reality of their lives. In this life it's an unstable state. Predators exist. You are the prey. We need to know, care and act to defend ourselves.

Humans are rational beings*. We're made to think, to judge and to make decisions. What we want to do, as rational beings, is build a internal mental model of the external real world that's good enough to let us understand what's happening in the world, and act in a way that favors our own ends. To make good decisions we need good information. The ideal is to see for yourself. It's a big world though, and mostly we can't. We rely on others to tell us. Who though?

"When we say "the media," these days, what we're really talking about is a very small group of newspapers and one -- count 'em, one -- wire service that controls nearly the entire flow of mainstream news. That's it. What Americans know from the establishment press is based on the decisions and the reporting