oDesk

oDesk is a homeshoring marketplace in which anyone can randomly take free certification exams, then become an oDesk "provider" working on tasks in a variety of fields.

I did some brief browsing to see about this homeshoring category, since I suspect it may be "a winners take all" niche where 1 or a few leaders dominate & end up getting more of the volume. It appears that eLance leads in volume, & oDesk is growing fast. Other sites like guru exist, but seem to have less volume than these aformentioned 2 sites. oDesk seems to provide more statistics than eLance about average hourly rates by skill & country, etc.

If anyone has experience with any of these homeshoring sites, pls hit up the comments with your $0.02.

Politifact

Politifact reports on the truthfulness of statements made by politrickians.

Checkbook.com

Consumers Checkbook aka checkbook.org is a site with local metro area consumer info, published by the same Consumers Union group that publishes the magazine Consumer Reports.

Richard Florida "How the Crash Will Reshape America"

urban studies professor Richard Florida article

Ian Welsh @ Firedoglake

UPDATE, apparently now Welsh does most of his writing on his own ianwelsh.net, while still posting somewhat on Firedoglake

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Ian Welsh @ Firedoglake blog, is a 40s-yo Canadian in Toronto with a great broad take on US economic/politics topics, with an ability to take long historical perspective, ala Thom Hartmann.

I stumbled upon 1 of Welsh's posts. Welsh is great, I'll likely become a regular reader because this guy is dropping too much insight to be slept on.

Here's an example post labeling 3 groups in US political spectrum
reactionaries (Rethugs)
conservatives ("centrist" Dems like Obama)
liberals (very few exist in House & Sen)

Political Calculation

interesting blog with quantitative spreadsheet-like estimates on various economic & social matters.

AvaxHome

Good ebooks site AvaxHome

eBook search engine

This custom google search engine scans 100s of eBooks sites.

Booktraining

This site Booktraining.net fileshares many instructional videos for computer-related training, which is a focus I haven't seen. Like many other sites, it also shares many pdf eBooks.

MN Latino Economic Development Center

MN Latino Economic Development Center (link)