The Wordsmith's Forge

... with fish and reefs and all kinds of cool pictures and descriptions. Go see.

I was delighted to find the PolitiFact website, by way of Redneck Liberal. The site is described:

PolitiFact is a project of the St. Petersburg Times to help you find the truth in American politics. Reporters and editors from the Timesfact-check statements by members of Congress, the White House, lobbyists and interest groups and rate them on our Truth-O-Meter. We’re also tracking more than 500 of Barack Obama’s campaign promises and are rating their progress on our new Obameter.

Site services include a Truth-O-Meter indicating statements as True, Mostly True, Half True, Barely True, or False; an Obameter showing the President's promises as Kept, Compromise, Broken, In the Works, Stalled, or No Action; and various other informative goodies. The Truth-O-Meter is even available as a blog widget. This seems to be a nonpartisan site calling out Republicans, Democrats, and other people for stretching the truth; and indicating where people are indeed telling the unvarnished truth.

I think this is the kind of stuff that newspapers could be doing to keep themselves, and journalism, relevant in the information age. We need facts, and we need them not to be treated like hockey pucks or elastic waistbands.

This week's posts over on Hypatia's Hoard of Reviews were:

Guest Review of The Priestess and the Slave
News: “Writers Workshop of Michael Knost”
Excerpt: “Oysters, Pearls, and Magic”
Copyright Alliance Letter
Discussion: Friday Favorites 9-18-09
Author News: “Holly’s Tip – Be An Actor”

I have decided to start doing some more active promotion of cyberfunded creativity through Hypatia's Hoard of Reviews. This will include excerpts of ongoing serials with links to their homepages. I may also include reprints of shorter works if the creators are interested in such. The first excerpt is up, with more to follow later this week.

According to the LJ Stats Wizard, these are the most frequent posters on this blog:

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Here are some fun bits of space news.

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