Tom Lowe's favorite websites

Holding our contributing editors in high esteem as we do, we figured that you, our readers, might like to check out their favorite websites, so you could see whether any of them become your favorite websites too.
    Today we're letting you know Contributing Editor Tom Lowe's favorites, and we'll give you a week to check them out.
Then, next Saturday, we'll tell you Ken Marks's favorites.

Alternet. Wide-ranging articles on current issues and events from a left/liberal point of view.
Corey Robin. Author of The Reactionary Mind (a must read), Robin takes a critical look at conservative/liberal writings and American left history.
Counterpunch. Founded by the late Alexander Cockburn, a go-to place for essays on politics and social issues.
Crooked Timber. Essays on a variety of current intellectual and academic ideas by a mix of writers.
Firedoglake. Another left/liberal site for viewpoints on current events. I check their News Desk’s "The Roundup" daily to see what outrage I’ve missed.
FiveThirtyEight Blog. Nate Silver’s analysis of current polling results for the 2012 election. Silver is a professional statistician with a good analytical track record. [A New York Times blog.]
Frank Rich. A former New York Times columnist, now with New York Magazine, monthly articles sometimes on politics, sometimes on culture.
Informed Comment. A Middle East observer, Juan Cole of the University of Michigan is fluent in Arabic and Farsi as well as in Islamic studies, and is a critical analyst of the mainstream view of events in that region.
Naked Capitalism. Yves Smith’s site for articles on economics (some fairly technical) and daily links to economic news.
Pharyngula. One of the “New Atheists,” P.Z. Myers is a biologist and associate professor at the University of Minnesota. He has a sharp sense of humor and the science background to intelligently criticize Creationists. He also loves octopi, hence the title.
Robert Reich. The University of California at Berkeley economist, Secretary of Labor in the Clinton Administration, writing on politics and the economy.
Salon. A mainstream liberal site for political and social comment. Andrew O’Hehir is my current favorite film critic.
Truthdig. Robert Scheer’s current base of operations, with writings on current events from Chris Hedges, Scheer, Juan Cole, Amy Goodman, and Richard Schickel, among others.
Whirled View. Two former U.S. women diplomats commenting on current world diplomacy and politics.
Wikipedia. One of the best inventions of the internet, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia maintained by a core of writer/editors, but also modifiable by outside contributors. This is both a virtue and a flaw—articles can be hacked by outside interests. The editors have a running battle with Scientology, for example, over the accuracy of the article on that subject. To protect the site's integrity, the editors flag for reliability and lack of citations, giving some basis for judgment, but letting readers make up their own mind.

Mostly Fun Stuff

Ars Technica. Well-written tech news, everything from hardware to games.
Boing Boing. A mix of arts, emerging cultural trends, creative uses of technology, new and non-mainstream writers, in an updated daily mix.
KCSM FM. Jazz 24/7—very knowledgeable programmers. I hear something surprising every day.
Not Coming to a Theater Near You. Writing and criticism on forgotten, or less known, films from around the world.
Pandora. Online music site, you indicate your musical interests, they make a mix based on that. Often you get unexpected artists songs.
Reddit. A window into the world of twenty-somethings. User-posted links, photos, video, etc. Eclectic, trivial, narcissist, and all points in between.