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.

Kita the Copy-Cat

We adopted Kita, our Siberian Husky, when he was about 2 1/2 months old and not much bigger than our adult cats.  I've blogged before about how Kita adores our tuxedo cat, Seph, but there is more to that relationship. Kita, now 5 times larger than the cats, idolizes Seph as a "big brother" figure and thinks that he should be allowed to do everything that a cat can do.  To reach that goal, Kita has taught himself a few tricks and ridiculous habits.

Huskies are intelligent and are also known to imitate others.  Kita takes his imitation very seriously and spends a lot of time perfecting his cat-like abilities.  His size limits some of these abilities but Kita isn't really one to give up easily (or ever).  One part of his body that he has successfully used in ways similar to our cats are his paws.  As you can see in his youtube video, Kita has learned to balance toys in the air with his front paws while laying on his back.  He additionally uses his front paws to grab anything he can't reach, to catch big toys in the air, to cheat at tug-of-war by using both his mouth and paws and to kick around balls with the dexterity of a child soccer player.  If the cat uses his paws for anything at all, Kita is most likely watching him and attempting to find a way that he can also accomplish that task.

Kita thinks that he can climb on any of our furniture since he sees the cat do it.  Obviously every part of a couch, chair or table is impossible to keep a cat off of, but a 65 lb dog attempting to climb from the couch to our living room table is not the least bit graceful nor good for our furniture.  Of course, this hasn't stopped him yet and he continues his attempts to reach spots that are easily jumped onto by our cats.  Seph is allowed to sleep on our bed so Kita thinks he can do the same.  While Seph can fit on the edge of the bed, Kita needs to take up one entire side and put his head on one of the pillows.  We've yet to let Kita stay on the bed for longer than a few minutes, and he instead sleeps in a crate in our bedroom.  Kita is blocked by parts of the house with baby gates, while Seph can easily travel from room to room.  Seph can fit into small boxes (click here to read a post dedicated to Seph's love of boxes) or stand on the top of our couch. Kita is still working on ways to get around these limitation; I'll let you know if he figures any of them out.

Click here to view Kita's page dedicated to dog adoption.  If you have a Siberian Husky or simply love them, join the Siberian Husky community on Google+.

Click here to view Seph's page dedicated to cat adoption. 

Kita's Balancing Act

Siberian Huskies are known to imitate what they see. Kita imitates both
people and cats and wants to use his hands (paws) just like they can. 
After much practice, this is what he has accomplished.

Want to get to know Kita better?  Click here to visit his page!

Help support the Big Cats and Public Safety Protection Act Now!

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Kita LOVES getting wet food as a special treat

About once a week, we give Kita a special treat, like a new nylabone or a "gourmet dinner" that we mix in with his regular food. You can tell by this video that he gets pretty excited about it.



Want to get to know Kita better?  Click here to visit his page!

Reconsidering Youtube Channels

If you created your Youtube channel a long time ago or if you have never set one up, you may want to look into it now.  I edited my channel yesterday in about 15 minutes.  Unfortunately, I don't have many videos to post yet, but I plan to start taking more so I want to make sure that my youtube channel isn't stagnant.

My advice is to add a picture, feature some of your favorite youtubers (mine were mostly nonprofit organizations that I support, admire or work with), and link your other social media sites.  If you have videos floating around in your phone or computer, spend a little time uploading them to the site and see if you get any views.  You can also get analytics of your views to figure out where the viewers are coming from (the site they linked from, the country they are in, the date of their viewing).

It's easier than you think.  You can check mine out for ideas and I'd love new subscribers!

Angela Tombazzi's Youtube Channel