Suggestions for your daily info diet. You are what you read!

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Summary:  Here are my favorite sources of information.  You might find some of them of use.  In the comments post your favorite sources of information.

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Contents

  1. Economics
  2. Military Affairs
  3. Online magazines for a general audience
  4. Politics and Geopolitics
  5. Science
  6. General News agencies — my favorites
  7. Other sources useful for research
  8. Special interests
  9. For More Information

My top recommendation: subscribe to the FM Twitter feed: FabiusMaximus01 (button at top right of the menu bar).

(1)  Economics

For more see Reliable sources of information about Economics.

(2)  Military Affairs

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(3)  Politics and Geopolitics

For more sources see A guide to sources of geopolitical insight on the Internet.

(4)  Science

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(5)  Online magazines for a general audience

(6)  General News agencies — my favorites

  • Financial Times, New York Times, Reuters, Der Spiegel

(7)  Other sources useful for research

(8)  Special interests

Where to go to follow this unusual solar cycle:

(9)  For More Information

About the mainstream media:

  1. A time-saving tip when reading the daily news, 2 January 2008
  2. Only our amnesia makes reading the newspapers bearable, 30 April 2008
  3. “Elegy for a rubber stamp”, by Lewis Lapham, 26 August 2008
  4. “The Death of Deep Throat and the Crisis of Journalism”, 23 December 2008
  5. The media doing what it does best these days, feeding us disinformation, 18 February 2009 — About sea ice
  6. The magic of the mainstream media changes even the plainest words into face powder, 24 April 2009
  7. The media – a broken component of America’s machinery to observe and understand the world, 2 June 2009
  8. We’re ignorant about the world because we rely on our media for information, 3 June 2009
  9. We know nothing because we read newspapers, 12 October 2009 – About mythical numbers
  10. The Raymond Davis incident shows that we’re often ignorant because we rely on the US news media.  There is a solution., 18 February 2011

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21 thoughts on “Suggestions for your daily info diet. You are what you read!”

  2. Thomas More

    AFAICT, “Next Big Future,” like slashdot and so many of the other techno-utopian sites, operates primarily in order to paint rosy visions of a fabulous yet strangely never-quite-arriving future in order to pacify the gullible millions. “Sure, my husband just got fired and my wages just got cut again and my son can’t find a job after graduating from Northwestern, but none of that matters because in another 15 years we’ll have fusion power and True AI and humanoid robots and the Singularity!”

    In short, these outlets provide the same service that the Catholic Church did to the elites of past eras: keeping the hoi polloi in line by feeding them fairytales about Pie in the Sky by and by.

    Reply
      1. Fabius Maximus

        jonh,

        The comments section here is home for pedantry and over-the-top rhetoric! Such are always in order, so long as stated as personal views — or verdicts supported by some scaffolding of facts.

    2. Fabius Maximus

      Next Big Future is on our blogroll. Providing a vision of hope, with some factual basis (it’s not sci-fi) is a valuable service.

      To this day I remember the thrill of watching on TV “The Twenty-First Century” (sponsored by Union Carbide, 1967-1970), seeing the wonders of the future. I don’t recall what they describe. Probably much of it remains in the future, but the optimism it provided was IMO valuable.

      Reply
  3. Charles Yaker

    I would suggest you check out Mosler Economics. An automobile manufacturer , economist and Hedge fund operator

    And New Economic Perspectives — The Economics department of the University of Missouri Kansas City

    You may disagree with them but you shouldn’t ignore them especially Bill Black Cheif prosecutor during the Savings and Loan clean up.

    Reply
    1. Fabius Maximus

      Yaker,

      (1) As I’ve repeatedly said, we’ve gone over this material many times here. Giving yet another link to these sites is a reading FAIL.

      You might find it worthwhile to read the posts about MMT. You’ll see I provide ample references for anyone interesting in learning about MMT. Also, you’ll see that these issues were debated at extreme length.

      (2) The two points I made, repeatedly stated, are consistent with MMT.

      Reply
      1. Fabius Maximus

        Yaker,

        My apologies. I didn’t see that your comment was on the new post. It looked like a comment in an on-going discussion on another thread!

        It is, of course, quite appropriate here!

      2. Charles Yaker

        Thanks. I am new to this site and hadn’t seen any references to MMT. I especially like your correction. Too many people can’t admit when they are wrong so they ignore it, it’s refreshing when I find I am not alone.

      3. Fabius Maximus

        Writing in comments is largely a process of making mistakes in expression and formulation. It’s like chatting at the pub — with a stenographer recording for all to see every wrong and silly sentence.

      4. Charles Yaker

        I try telling that to my Grandkids. Never put in writing what you would be embarrassed to see on the front page of the New York Times. Amazing how some never get it.

  5. KARA

    would suggest reading john pilger and Arundhati Roy both are very passionate, opinionated, informative and moving.

    Reply
    1. Fabius Maximus

      Kara,

      Thanks for the recommendations!

      John Pilgar: an Australian journalist based in London. See his website!

      Arundhati Roy: an Indian author and political activist who was best known for the 1998 Man Booker Prize for Fiction winning novel The God of Small Things and for her involvement in environmental and human rights causes.

      Reply
  6. Eric Pierce

    “Billionaires Warn Higher Taxes Could Prevent Them From Buying Politicians“, Andy Borowitz, The New Yorker, 8 December 2012 — Opening:

    Introducing a new wrinkle into the already fraught fiscal cliff showdown, a consortium of billionaires today warned that if their taxes are raised they will no longer have enough money to buy politicians.

    The group, led by casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson, commissioned a new study showing that the cost of an average politician has soared exponentially over the past decade. While the American family has seen increases in the cost of food, health care and education, Mr. Adelson says, “those costs don’t compare with the cost of buying a politician, which has gone through the roof.”

    The casino billionaire points to his group’s study, which puts the cost of purchasing an average House member at two million dollars and an average senator at several times that. “And let’s say you buy a senator like Jim DeMint and he decides to quit,” Mr. Adelson says. “Good luck trying to get your money back.”

    Reply
  7. T. Greer

    I come to this question with an interesting personal perspective.

    Near two weeks ago I concluded two years of service as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (‘Mormons’). As with other LDS missionaries, I did not read newspapers or non-religious books, use the internet (except to e-mail family), watch television, or engage in real political discussions for the duration of those two years. Spending two years ‘unplugged’ is one of the best things that I – a “digital native” – have ever done. It has fundamentally changed the way I think about the world and how to best attain knowledge.

    From this technology-dry experience I learned a great lesson: unplugging improves our ability to study, ponder and synthesize. I can scarcely believe how much my capacity to analyze, concentrate, and remember what I come across has been improved during my time away from the busy, scattered, condensed world of the internet. The practical application: read less blogs and more books. Reading one or two more books a month and 20 or 30 less posts is worth it.

    I like the way one social commentator put it:

    “What we seem to be sacrificing in all our surfing and searching is our capacity to engage in the quieter, attentive modes of thought that underpin contemplation, reflection and introspection. The Web never encourages us to slow down. It keeps us in a state of perpetual mental locomotion.

    It is revealing, and distressing, to compare the cognitive effects of the Internet with those of an earlier information technology, the printed book. Whereas the Internet scatters our attention, the book focuses it. Unlike the screen, the page promotes contemplativeness.”

    Nicolas Carr, “Is the Internet Making Us Stupid?” Wall Street Journal, 5 June 2010.

    A Mormon eccleastical leader makes a similar point in a humorous sermon:

    A homely story contains a warning. I like this story because it translates easily into different languages and cultures.

    Two men formed a partnership. They built a small shed beside a busy road. They obtained a truck and drove it to a farmer’s field, where they purchased a truckload of melons for a dollar a melon. They drove the loaded truck to their shed by the road, where they sold their melons for a dollar a melon. They drove back to the farmer’s field and bought another truckload of melons for a dollar a melon. Transporting them to the roadside, they again sold them for a dollar a melon. As they drove back toward the farmer’s field to get another load, one partner said to the other, “We’re not making much money on this business, are we?” “No, we’re not,” his partner replied. “Do you think we need a bigger truck?”

    We don’t need a bigger truckload of information, either. Like the two partners in my story, our biggest need is a clearer focus on how we should value and use what we already have.

    Because of modern technology, the contents of huge libraries and other data resources are at the fingertips of many of us. Some choose to spend countless hours in unfocused surfing the Internet, watching trivial television, or scanning other avalanches of information. But to what purpose? Those who engage in such activities are like the two partners in my story, hurrying to and fro, hauling more and more but failing to grasp the essential truth that we cannot make a profit from our efforts until we understand the true value of what is already within our grasp.

    A poet described this delusion as an “endless cycle” that brings “knowledge of words, and ignorance of the Word,” in which “wisdom” is “lost in knowledge” and “knowledge” is “lost in information” (T. S. Eliot, “Choruses from ‘The Rock,’” in The Complete Poems and Plays, 1909–1950 [1962], 96).

    We have thousands of times more available information than Thomas Jefferson or Abraham Lincoln. Yet which of us would think ourselves a thousand times more educated or more serviceable to our fellowmen than they? The sublime quality of what these two men gave to us—including the Declaration of Independence and the Gettysburg Address—was not attributable to their great resources of information, for their libraries were comparatively small by our standards. Theirs was the wise and inspired use of a limited amount of information.

    Available information wisely used is far more valuable than multiplied information allowed to lie fallow.

    Dallin Oaks, “Focus and Priorities”, Conf Report of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, April 2001.

    While my own personal experience does not carry the weight as a double-bling controlled experiment, it matches what these men say. The title is true. We are what we read. So read a book!

    Reply
  8. Cathryn Mataga

    My suggestion for info diet — learn a language, not just enough to walk around and say hello, but at least to the level where you can read the news and the political debates overseas. Then, you get another perspective outside of the Anglo bubble.

    Side note: Mr. T. Greer, you make a very interesting point about disconnecting from the internet.

    Reply

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