http://www.pol.org

If the average onliner were asked to find some of the best places online for bright, witty, knowledgeable conversations about any topic under the sun, there may be plenty of places they'd think to look, but odds are that one would not be a web site designed to provide information for North Dakota and nearby parts of Minnesota, South Dakota, Montana and Canada. That's a shame, because this site, sponsored by Prairie Public Broadcasting, is as good as they come. It may not be the busiest site around, but the posts tend to be high quality, thoughtful, well-expressed and knowledgeable. Even the conflicts I found here tend to be a definite cut above. Battles are waged less frequently with bludgeons and machetes and more frequently with skillfully wielded scalpels. Topics discussed cover anything that can possibly touch the lives of those in North Dakota and nearby communities, including politics, the arts, recreation, religion, philosophy, computing, business life, and much more. Wit abounds. There's plenty of satire in the political and media conversations. You can find speculation on the "mysterious" appearance of snowballs without any nearby tracks, tips on working out, discussions of all types of music from opera to alternative, and an analysis of the role of dark humor in American society. This is a sharp crowd, and if they represent North Dakota, then the only thing going against the place is the weather. - E.L.

subject matter: general conversation

regional affiliation: North Dakota and surrounding region

format: conferencing

language: English

cost: no cost