Celebrity gossip left you feeling vapid and shallow? Well, open your web browser this month as OUTinPerth sets its sites to enrich your mind and your cocktail chatter without putting you to sleep. Here we look at news and current event sites more colourful than that drab black and white newsprint.

TED.com (www.ted.com) – Hi, it’s me TED. A wildly elitist, but nevertheless informative and inspiring website that goes beyond headlines to the people and ideas that make them. Started in 1984 as a conference (which today is invite-only and $6000 to attend) for great thinkers and powerful people, I rode the whole tech revolution wave and turned the conference into a site of speeches and other interesting tidbits from powerful people, like the Google duo and Al Gore, as web videos based in three categories – Technology, Entertainment and Design (for those of you who aren’t good with letters that’s TED).

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The Onion (www.theonion.com) – Headline: Citing Poor Conditions, China Refuses to Send Delegation to Olympics.’ Ah, the Onion, this site of faux-news stories is so delicious that peeling away the layers will leave you crying for more.

Slate (www.slate.com) – Slate is the ‘just add water’ way to get informed on anything from the global food crisis to a history of bikinis. While Slate covers the same topics as a print paper, it does so without the word counts and deadlines and articles are typically more in-depth and well-linked for additional reading. Sign up for their daily e-newsletter and opt to receive a ‘Bushism’ of the day, a little inspiration from George Dubya direct to your inbox, like this gem – ‘Throughout our history, the words of the Declaration have inspired immigrants from around the world to set sail to our shores. These immigrants have helped transform 13 small colonies into a great and growing nation of more than 300 people.’ Me and the other 299 Americans in the world are so proud.

Crikey! (www.crikey.com.au) – Well, I’ll be gobsmacked, but it appears Aussies are capable of sarcasm… Crikey! That’s news to me. Speaking of news, Crikey.com.au has it in droves.

THE PRESIDENTIAL SPECIAL

Obama and McCain are duking it out for the White House and from Paris Hilton’s cameos to Bill Clinton’s impertinence, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart’s Indecision 2008 (www.indecision2008.com) covers presidential piss-takes in ‘something approximating election news with something approximating honesty’.

Alternatively, Ariana Huffington and her Huffington Post (www.huffingtonpost.com), huffs and puffs and blogs the candidates down. An independent (as in neither Democrat nor Republican, but a voter who swings both ways, depending on who most strikes her fancy), Ariana knows the candidates and their inner circle personally and covers every (mis)step in the race for the White House.

Extra Credit – If you haven’t done so already, watch the Paris Hilton campaign ad. If you have done so, watch it again. And remember… vote for Paris, I will be!

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Some Damn Yankee