Penn & Teller: Bullshit!

http://www.sho.com/site/ptbs/home.do

I figure now is the best time to post this one. They kicked off their seventh season just a few weeks ago and they're still going strong.

The idea behind the show is to tackle a topic or organization and expose the truth behind it. They go after the usual suspects such as Astrology, War On Drugs, Profanity, Hypnosis, etc. However, they also go after a number of topics that are all but universally supported, such as Recycling, College, the Obesity Epidemic, etc.

This post is coming with a disclaimer, though. I don't always agree with them or support their stance on certain topics. It is considered a documentary show, but it is by no means unbiased. They take a certain stance on a topic and tend to make the other side look deliberately bad to either support their stance or just for comedic effect. So the show is always to be taken with a grain of salt. What this show does do, though, is give you the side of the story that you're not likely to hear. This is a show to not be taken totally on face value, but to give you a unique perspective on a number of topics, and allow it to serve as a jumping-off point into the topic if you do want to learn more about it.

I have to be fair. You're not getting that much out of this week's link. You'll be able to watch some brief video clips, and usually the most recent episode, but other than that, this link is really just meant to make you aware of a quality show that fits in here. The first six seasons are out on DVD, or you can download them from iTunes.

Prison Radio

http://www.prisonradio.org/

A good and unique organization, but seemingly disorganized. It is part of a larger organization started by environmental activist Judi Bari in 1994. It'd be hard for me to tell you a whole lot about what the organization does, because the website does not keep up regular updates on the various things it claims it is involved in. The main aim of the group seems to be, as they put it, to "help shift public opinion toward a more humane view of prisoners." That is done through giving prisoners a voice "into the public dialogue on crime and punishment." I'm not sure how all they do this, but their main way (and the sole reason this website made it onto The Noise Network) is through weekly recordings from Mumia Abu-Jamal. You may know him as the man put on death row over two decades ago for the alleged murder of a police officer, who is most likely innocent of any crime. He does a weekly recording about current events, done with his unique insight and historical perspective included (which you can also subscribe to as a podcast on iTunes).

Columbia Journalism Review

http://www.cjr.org/

It's about time we had another news posting, I say. Keep this in mind: if you're reading something that is classified as a peer-reviewed journal, there's a good chance that it's a reliable source on the topic. It appears they want to make it very clear that you are reading exactly that. I bumped into this publication's site by accident one day and was quite impressed with the quality of the reporting and the writing. From what I've found across the net, the publication seems to be universally respected by journalists. Besides being an excellent news source, they have other features that I've started checking out more and more often. The one that introduced me to the site was the "Who Owns What" resource, that lists major corporations and all of the companies that they own, and it's quite fascinating. Besides that, they've got several sections of the website dedicated to various topics from the economy, to information overload, to transparency, and so much more.

The Autonomie Project

http://www.autonomieproject.com/index.html

We've done things focused on television for the last couple of weeks, so I figured I'd go a different direction this week. I'm happy to post a link to a company dedicated to following high ethical standards. They offer shirts, shoes, flip-flops, handbags, and more. All of their products are Fair Trade certified, vegan, and made from organic cotton and other eco-friendly materials. They also keep a blog with links to other websites and products that follow their ethical standards. Go check out what they have to say and what they have to offer!

News Hounds

http://www.newshounds.us/

This is one of the websites that inspired me to start my own, so it was bound to make it into own of my early postings.

Here's the lowdown: they watch Fox News all day every day. Not only that, but they also keep constant watch on the Fox News website. They are a watchdog group that monitors when and how Fox spins the news to reflect conservative ideas. They do multiple blog postings every day, seven days a week. This is not the website where you go to get balanced news by any means, but you can go here to find out what many conservative citizens and politicians are thinking and feeling.

The Daily Show/The Colbert Report

http://www.thedailyshow.com/

http://www.colbertnation.com/home

Blow these shows off if you want as being for (as Bill O'Reilly put it) "stoned slackers," but for nearly a decade now, the people behind these shows have gone above and beyond being mere political satire. They have been instrumental in exposing some of the ludicrous actions of the major news networks, the lies of the Bush Administration, the failures of Congress, and have had some of the best guests with some of the most interesting debates I've ever seen on national television. I won't tag this is as a news posting, but what these shows really are are infotainment, which can be one of the most powerful tools in the spread of information. They can take news segments from the day or the week and spit it back at you as funny and hard-hitting as Dr. Strangelove. Of course, always take these shows with a grain of salt. They're not news, so they're certainly biased. They are both left leaning in their philosophies, but they happened to also be owned by Viacom (one of the big media corporations).

The main reason I post the links to their websites is that you can watch nearly every single thing they've ever aired--updated daily--and some things that weren't aired including longer, unedited interviews and extra segments.

Quote #2

"Silence is consent."

-Unknown