Independent media
http://www.commondreams.org (updated daily)
http://www.mediachannel.org
http://boston.indymedia.org

Essays:
http://www.petersingerlinks.com/famine.htm Peter Singer's essay 'Famine, Affluence and Morality'
http://people.brandeis.edu/~teuber/singermag.html Peter Singer's essay from the 1999 NY Times
http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/GOF208A.html Stan Goff essay that breaks down the role of oil and the dollar in war

Blogs:

General:
http://www.dailykos.com
http://blogs.salon.com/0001282/ (Toby Sackton from Lexington's blog)
http://wilsonhellie.typepad.com/ For the Record
http://pbd.blogspot.com/ Progressive Blog Digest
http://www.zmag.org/weluser.htm Z-magazine's news/resources page

Topical:
http://tubbydev.typepad.com/ukraine_revolution/ ukraine_revolution
http://www.orangeukraine.squarespace.com/ Orange Ukraine

Non-US-based News:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/ Guardian Unlimited [UK]
http://www.independent.co.uk/ The Independent [UK]
http://www.scotsman.com/ The Scotsman [UK]
http://www.dawn.com/ Dawn [Pakistan]

DOD Info:
http://www.globalsecurity.org ( John Pike's site)
http://www.csbaonline.org (Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment)

Data:
http://www.mastats.com nice visualizations of tons of data about massachusetts
http://opensecrets.org campaign contribution data