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Clearinghouse: Just the Facts.

14:34 / 29.06.04

I thought it might be useful to collect a few links for purveyors of facts.

There are plenty of political analysis sites out there on the left and on the right, but not so many who supply raw data (or at the very least, who footnote scrupulously).

Have you got a favorite watchdog? Found a site dedicated to popping balloons and raining on political parades? Please add a link. If they're ideologically motivated, please make a note of it in italics. (As a personal note, I'm most interested in those on the right, just because most of Barbelith currently skews left.)

Here are a couple I've found useful.

* FactCheck.org.
Funded by the Annenberg Foundation, this group aims to "monitor the factual accuracy of what is said by major U.S. political players in the form of TV ads, debates, speeches, interviews, and news releases." They seem to be without bias, nailing both the Bush administration and MoveOn.org.

* OpenSecrets.org.
This site follows the money, scrupulously documenting and charting political contributions in America. It's supported by grants from foundations that you hear all the time on public radio as "this program made possible by..." (like the Ford Foundation, Pew Charitable Trusts, Carnegie Foundation, etc.). It's an amazing service -- you can find out who's making the biggest donations in your area by entering your zip code, or search by donor name or recipient name to find out who's receiving how much from what individuals and what corporations (and what corporations various donors work for). As part of that service, it also includes family trees for major conglomerates like AOL Time Warner.

* The Daily Mislead. Democrat/Left
This watchdog organization offers a daily report of misleading statements from President Bush and the Bush administration. That's a lie (or set of lies) a day, every day. If Bush doesn't win the next election, I'll be interested to see what will become of this site. At any rate, they do include plenty of footnotes and links to sources to back up all of their claims.

15:46 / 29.06.04

* Donkey Rising. Democrat/Left.
This is a blog with, lately, a heavy emphasis on analyzing poll data. Mainly useful for election issues, and obviously very, very Kerry friendly/Bush unfriendly -- but the numbers seem dispassionate enough.

17:12 / 29.06.04

* GlobalSecurity.org.
This organization took over the policy-watch (and conflict-watch) duties from the Federation of American Scientists. Basically, it's a useful source of summaries for any recent conflict or potential conflict -- what units served where, what policies led to what results, and what technology was used by either side. These reports often include projections about the future implications of current events. They also have a very useful newswire, and analyze stories in terms of technological or national security trends.
It attempts to be bias-free and scientific. According to the Mission Statement, GlobalSecurity.org "seeks to reduce reliance on nuclear weapons and the risk of their use -- both by existing nuclear weapons states and those states seeking to acquire such capabilities. GlobalSecurity.org aims to shift American conventional military forces towards new capabilities aligned with the post-Cold War security environment, and to reduce the worldwide incidence of deadly conflict. The organization is working to improve the capabilities of the American intelligence community to respond to new and emerging threats, reducing the need to resort to the use of force, while enhancing the effectiveness of military forces when needed. GlobalSecurity.org also supports new initiatives utilizing space technology to enhance international peace and security."

18:11 / 19.07.04

* CIA World Factbook.
If you want to know anything about any country anywhere -- what the average salary is, what the landscape is like, what languages they speak, how happy people are with their government and what religions they adhere to -- this is the source. It's geography in a nutshell, with lots of census data, geology, maps, flags, you name it. As you might expect, the language is a little skewed in favor of capitalist democracy, but not all that much.

flufeemunk effluvia

20:17 / 19.07.04

The CIA World Factbook is also availiable in a delicous printed flavor, for those who like looking smart with books.

15:03 / 28.07.04

* Fundrace.org

Does the same thing OpenSecrets does, only limited to the presidential campaign 2004, and with a simpler interface that includes beautiful maps. All in Republican red and Democrat blue.

15:40 / 28.07.04

* Polling Report.
Just like it says, collates polling data from a lot of different polls covering a lot of different issues (America specific). Want to know what America thinks about Laura Bush? O.J. Simpson? Gasoline prices? The direction the U.S. is going? This place has the answers.

* PollKatz
Also collates polling data, but is mainly focused on the election and includes lots of material analyzing and explaining data. Slightly less clear in design, but the words go a lot farther in telling you what exactly the numbers might mean.

13:51 / 17.08.04

An American (non-partisan) watchdog of political rhetoric- Spinsanity.

14:08 / 15.07.05

Just found this rather interesting (if slightly dated) collection of links:
Politics 1.

It's a database describe who goes where, ideologically, in American politics. Seems remarkably unbiased.

The blog is regularly updated. Some of the info pages don't seem to have been updated in any major way since before the 2004 election, but even those have still got all kinds of great information. That link actually goes to their "parties" page, and the stuff there on America's third parties is really fascinating. So's the "issues" page -- lots of links to people involved with environmental issues (both corporate rights groups and greenies), pro-life/pro-choice groups, all kinds of stuff, organized very clearly.

Almost all the links I clicked on were still alive, too.