My 5 favorite Political News Sites

Before you read this, note that the sites that I visit most often have a bit of a liberal bias and focus primarily on U.S. politics.  I'm often overwhelmed by the amount of news and research on the internet, so it can be difficult to find a few sites that are consistently interesting.  All of the sites are also free.

• The Huffington Post has a great politics section with intriguing headlines and pictures to go with the newest articles.  It gives the option of a quick view so that you can read the first few sentences of an article before opening it in a new tab, and it offers many short clips from youtube, television and news stories that are accompanied with a few paragraphs describing the video.  This way if you don't have time or the ability to use sound on your computer all of the time, you still get a good description of the video along with some thoughts on its impact..  It also links to various other news sites, so you do have various perspectives available on many topics.

• Media Matters frequently targets Fox News, and rightly so, but they also expose any lies recently covered on other popular news outlets.  They include clips of the TV news shows that they write about, and provide concrete evidence of any political bias and deception. They also have a great weekly radio show on the Sirius XM Progress Channel.

• Think Progress has articles on all types of interesting topics that affect Americans every day, and always have something worth reading that includes facts and statistics to back up any theory.  I'm a fan of their Tumblr site for the excellent infographics that entice you to read their articles.

• The Nation offers a weekly print edition that I subscribed to for awhile that certainly offered interesting reads, but now I visit their website instead.  Their articles are well written and well researched, and are often on topics that mainstream newspapers and news sites choose to ignore.  I really appreciate their willingness to report the truth even when it is uncomfortable.

• Politifact.com is not perfect and is sometimes a bit lenient on what they allow politicians to call "the truth," but if you want a quick analysis of a lie from a campaign commercial or an often repeated lie by any officeholder, this is a good site to reference.  If you are sick of someone you know touting a lie to discredit a politician that you support, a link to this site will often give you enough evidence to (at least) keep them from repeating the lie again in your presence.

I tend to keep up with my favorite news sources by following them on Twitter and Google+.  To read through headlines quickly and open up articles that seem interesting, I have created a Twitter list of my favorite news sources.  I've found that Twitter is the best place to get an an overview of what is in the news without getting too much commentary, pictures or opinions which can take awhile to look through. Google+ is great if I want to get pictures and details of the news stories before I read them, so I tend to be more selective in the news sources that I choose so I am not scrolling forever without finding many unique stories.

If you have a Kindle and haven't downloaded the "Send to Kindle" button for your browser, I definitely recommend doing so.  You can send any article that you don't have time to read at the moment directly to your Kindle allowing you to read it later.  This allows me to save articles as I see them and then curl up in the evening with my Kindle to read all of the articles I didn't have time to read earlier at once.

Zoey's Favorite Things

 As I've posted before, Zoey is a bit of a scaredy-cat and slightly overweight, so he isn't the most active kitty.  He's afraid of dogs, so he spends a lot of time in our bedroom away from the rest of the family.  Worse yet, we have to cage him at night and when we are gone so that he doesn't get into everything and pee everywhere.

Zoey eats everything: any type of cat food or treats, dog food, human food and anything that looks like it might be edible.  He once ate part of our fake Christmas tree.  You might think we don't feed him enough but we feed him multiple times daily and more than our other cat, Seph.  Worse yet, we get yelled at by our vet for him being overweight (he is 13 lbs on a good day), but if we limit his food he just finds other things to eat that are worse for him.


The only time he ventures out into the family room is while the dog is outside so that he can eat any dog food that may be left out.  He knows that he has a limited amount of time before I notice and remove the food bowl, so he walks low to the ground very slowly, fill his mouth with as much food as possible, and then runs into another room so that he can dump the food and eat it at his leisure.  His leisure, of course, is about 2 gulps without chewing done within a 30 second time span.  I'm not thrilled about this trait as dog food is not good for cats, is more expensive and it certainly doesn't help solve his weight problem.

 There are a few more things that make Zoey happy.  One is a laser pointer.  However, he can only play with this for a short period of time before he gets tired and simply watches the laser rather than chasing it.  He chases balls and other cat toys for about the same length of time.  He likes to hide and jump out at Seph in an attempt to catch him in a surprise.  Seph is very observant, however, so I've yet to see Zoey successfully surprise him.  Both Zoey and Seph enjoy sitting in front of a window watching birds, squirrels and bunnies, so we put a bird feeder near 2 of the windows to increase the animals' visits to our yard.  This is what we call "TV for cats" and it can keep them busy for hours.  Zoey has a habit of pushing Seph off of the perch to make more room for himself, and Seph typically takes this in stride and finds another window to look out.


Finally, Zoey loves to cuddle.  This is my favorite part of his sometimes frustrating personality.  The best part of Zoey's day is when I am in the bedroom reading my Kindle or watching television because He can lay on my stomach and put his nose to my face.  I assume this is his way of expressing affection, but I could do without a cold nose against my own nose or forehead.  He also purrs and puts his neck out so I can rub his chin.  Despite the fact that Kita is our pride and joy and that Seph is a lot more well-behaved and is always around, at these moments I can see the gratitude and true loyalty that he has to me and I know that he loves me more than he loves anyone or anything in the world.  Something in his big eyes at these times says it all. His frustrating qualities are somehow forgiven and I know that I'm very lucky to have him in our lives.

Many people would not put up with Zoey's five years of bad behavior, and many people told me to give him up over the early years.  That's the thing about pets: they can drive you crazy when they are younger, but most of them settle down eventually.  We give them toys, food and attention, and that is typically paid back at some point.  So frustrated pet-parents and people put off by the expense and the amount of work that they require, hang in there, because they add more to your life than they can ever take away and their gratitude and loyalty last forever.  Don't give up on them.  Right now, Zoey and my kindle are waiting for me to come and relax, and any further blogging can be postponed for another day!

    Find Zoey on

Share my Love of Reading

I love my Kindle that I got a year and a half ago, but I have always loved books.  A good book can make you rethink everything you ever thought you knew. When people insist that they need to have a book in their hands and can not switch to a Kindle  I disagree for a few reasons.  It isn't the feel of the pages that makes a book come alive.  It is the words of the author.  Storytelling has existed much longer than books have been around, whether spoken, sang or shared on other materials.  E-Readers give us the luxury of being able to have hundreds (or more) of books at our very fingertips, the advantage of being able to buy a new book the moment it is released without fighting in the stores, and the ability to choose a book
with a simple flick of the finger.  I can now get books for free without waiting months for the library's copy to become available.

There are, however, legitimate reasons to be wary of this type of technology.  Namely, the way that they and similar materials (I-phones, Androids, etc.)  are produced and their effect on human rights worldwide.  This is not the fault of the technology, but the result of corporations opting to save money for themselves rather than to help boost the lives of their workers.  Corporations in this aspect are wrong, both for outsourcing their work to other countries to save a buck, and by refusing to take responsibility for the working conditions in their factories overseas.  Instead of feeling guilty for having these luxuries at such an expense, make up for it by spreading the word of these abuses.  Visit Change.org and sign petitions calling on corporate responsibility; become familiar with organizations such as Oxfam that challenge these practices, and spread the word to the corporations on your own social media sites that their recklessness has to stop.  Wouldn't we all agree to pay a few more dollars for this amazing technology if it meant saving the lives of the people making them?  I know that I would.



Above are only some of the books that I have enjoyed over the years.  What books have had the largest affect on your life?  If you use the social networking site Goodreads, please look for my profile here.

Save Time & Money on your online Purchases with just a few Tricks

I hate paying more than I have to for anything, but there are so many sites out there that either make you fill out a lot of personal information or download something in order to get coupons. These are some sites I found that make it really easy to be cheap without having to cut coupons or buy cheaper versions of what you want.

Priceblink: you can download this as an add-on for your browser and it will alert you whenever it finds a lower price for the item that you are currently looking at.  This is great for expensive items, because you can find the lowest price or you can tag it and Priceblink will email you when the price is lowered to your price range.

Amazon's been around forever, but it really can't be beat.  They almost always have the lowest price, you can get free shipping if you spend enough, and they deliver fast!  Since I get a lot of items from Amazon (gifts, household items, cleaning supplies, pet supplies, and more), I regularly add the items that I know I will need to my wishlist, and then I filter my wishlist to show only items that have recent price drops.  Then I wait until the price is within an acceptable range.

You should also click on Today's Deals on Amazon's Main Page.  There you will find low priced items, but you will also find coupons.  All you have to do is click on the coupons for the items you might want to buy, and then when you add that item to your cart it will apply the coupon automatically.  The coupons last for awhile too, so you don't have to buy the item right away.

If you have a Kindle, you can also add eBooks that you want to your wishlist and wait for the price to be lowered.  If you are just looking for something to read, check out their free books.  They change regularly and are ranked, so you can find books from lesser-known authors that have 4 or 5 stars and get them for free.  I have found some great authors this way, and have gotten to read many books for no cost at all (and without having to travel to the library).  If you follow @amazonkindle on Twitter, they tweet links to free books and books that are marked down to $1.99 every day.  All of the tricks I just noted for Kindle also work for mp3 albums that you can purchase and download on Amazon.

If you love to read but have trouble finding appealing books, check out Goodreads.com.  There you can rate some books so that they give you recommendations and you can join book clubs with people that have similar interests as you.  The site also lists Amazon prices for the books, so once you find a book you want, you can purchase it on Amazon.

If you have other suggestions on how to save money doing online shopping, I'd love to hear them.  Feel free to enter a comment or contact me directly!