The weekly update:
Traveled to Bradenton this week where some Herald reporters and I talked to newsroom staff at The Bradenton Herald. I've always liked Bradenton, it still has the feel of an old Florida town, where the main industry is still citrus, but has a lively downtown, and a good newspaper. It's always encouraging to talk to journalists outside the big-paper mainstream. They're involved in their community and dedicated. I like that kind of journalism, too.
To Herald folks checking this site, hope you're finding useful stuff here: I'm updating the Florida public records list and have found a few more links to be updated: the addresses on handout may be correct if you find bad links here. I'll get those all updated in a few days.

So although I spent only a couple days this week browsing the Web, some interesting things showed up:

Reference

Discover Peru a good country guide (history, etc.)

JapanReference.com guide and directory of Japanese websites.

CDC page on Cruise ship illnesses and sanitation.

Sky Chart from Sky and Telescope, see the night sky in your area.

Fuel Economy.com search car brands and find fuel ratings. Data recently updated.

Yahoo! Year in Review: 2002

AutoIndex a giant database of cars and car topics from all over the world.

Gang Rule has a database of organized crime figures and gangs; lots of images, including of original newspaper articles; documents and articles; and bibliography, links, and contact info. So far not a comprehensive database by any means, but interesting nevertheless...

National Poinsettia Day is December 12.

Federal land patent records redesigned page, easier to search and display. These records include Florida land patents previous to 1908. Later records may also have been added.

The Official (UK) Charts track pop music hits in the UK going back 50 years.

The Writings of George Washington now online at U.Va.
Statistics

U.S. Racial and ethnic segregation, 1980-2000 from Census.

Crime stat links from Sree Sreenivasan at Poynter. One nice list I haven't seen before: Criminal Justice Journalists' Information Center.
Journalism

How they Got the Story new feature on Poynter features stories or series from various newspapers.
Governments/Politics

Saddam Hussein: crimes and civil rights abuses British Foreign Office pamphlet in PDF.

Homeland Security Information Center

The Fiscal Survey of States new report from National Governors Association.

Federal Lobbying Directory improved page from Political Money Line (FECInfo). Has searches, rankings, and legislative info.
Business

Labor Contracts Database browse lists of contracts by state or union. From Inst. of Industrial Relations, UC Berkeley.

DIALOG Domain Names Database this new file in Dialog (file 225) carries both current URL records and historical ownership records for Internet domain names. The source matches records held in WhoIs and WhoWas files. Records can contain as many as 78 fields; more than 50 are fully searchable. Fields include registrant name, domain name, e-mail address,
phone number, ZIP code, etc.
Tools

OldVersion.com can't make the newest version of your favorite software work on your old machine? You can download older versions here.

Specialty search engine directory from SearchEngineWatch.
People, News, Florida, Public Records: no links this week.

Some Interesting stories/Weblogs:

The Writer's Almanac website of the Garrison Keillor radio program on Minnesota Public Radio has daily entries.

Irish bookmaker Paddy Power is taking bets on next Pope.

Virtual Tours Tired of traveling? Visit world landmarks without leaving your computer. 360-degree tours. Includes several Miami landmarks...or for even more unusual travel, tour the U.S. with Mr. Toast.

Fun/Entertaining:

We Didn't Start the Fire a Caltech programmer created this nice accompaniment to the Billy Joel song....

Torture a Spammer: get it off your chest.

Advent Calendar 2002 every day a new treat.

Tate's 2002 Advent Calendar. This one tells the story of Tate, a French cheese shop cat, day by day (so start with Dec. 1) and is available in several languages.