Weekend update: The weekly reference collection/research gleanings:

This week I posted lots of stuff to the Herald blog, so you might want to check what's there too. I've made sure the best reference links are posted here, though, and I've duplicated some, particularly in the 'entertaining' section. Maybe one of these days I'll figure out the perfect format for this......

I do still consider this blog to be for things of interest to journalists and news researchers, along with some personal comments. The Herald blog I consider a more general blog, newsy and full of links to useful tools but not necessarily journalism oriented. I know some might not read it just because the Herald pages often take a long time to load. I hope that is improving.

The useful links....

Reference :

Lancet articles since 1823 are now all available online. There are abstracts of several historically significant articles available for free, including several by Joseph Lister, the first report on malformations due to thalidomide, and a first use of intravenous therapy in 1832. Articles cost $30 for fulltext PDF.

Medical history of U.S. Presidents

Criminal investigation and forensic science: Sources for scholars and aficionados. Very nice collection of links.

Consumer Search find consumer reviews of products by category. Reviews come from varying sources like consumer reports, amazon.com, magazines like Good Housekeeping, etc. This is really handy (via Gary Price and LII).

The Idiom Connection: English idioms.
News:

Harbor Watch News all the news there is about marine issues, waterfronts, boating, fishing, etc. Seems to be pretty current, complete and worldwide.

Google News España en español.
Tools:

Newsletter distribution via RSS: useful to anyone considering an email newsletter...this may be a better alternative. Article from LLRX.

Xywrite was our official word processor for many years and I still know people that use it, even if it's a DOS program. It was an elegant file manager as well as an excellent writing program. This site still has downloadable files and screen shots.
Journalism:

Video: Tony Ridder's speech at National Press Club (Story from Milwaukee Journal).
Governments, Politics:

Election Central blog featuring news about voting machine problems nationwide.

State by state list of Do Not Call registries from FTC.

State photo galleries: directory of state promotional photos and graphics materials from FirstGov; Florida not available.
Statistics:

U.S. Health Trends, 2003 from CDC.

U.S. Transportation Fatalities, 2002: stats from National Transportation Safety Board.

Windows on Urban Poverty has a mapping function to see poverty and changes by state/county/MSA, plus a PDF report. From UT/Dallas.

Smart Growth America: organization provides resources for containing sprawl, including links to news stories. Check the Newsroom section for a source list and a journalists' resource guide. There's also a Data Bank.

Florida Transportation Profile from U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics. Links to other states here too.

State of World Population, 2003 from UN.
Florida:

Boca Raton Airport has a flight tracking service. The system will soon be installed at Martin County airport, too, according to Joe Adams. (I couldn't make this work at work, though....maybe a firewall problem?)
Public Records, Business, People: no links this week.

Some Interesting stories/Weblogs:

Stump: a new politics-and-the-media blog from Poynter.

BushCheney04 Blog: now, an official blog. RSS feeds, linking logos and lots more.

Discourse.net: a new blog from UM Law prof. Michael Froomkin.

Mother Jones has a 'Daily Mojo' blog.

The Media Borg special series on Salon.com on corporate consolidation of the information industries.

Amazon.com butterfly ballot: What?

Words without borders international writers' site offers lots of stories from Iraq.

QM2: all about the new Queen Mary.

Best Drive Thru in America, 2003 ranks fast food. Chick Fil-A comes in first, Taco Bell second.

Kevin Sites
Fun/Entertaining:
(Some of these have already been linked on the Herald blog)

French Ministry of Culture 'erreur 404' page.

"Not Martha" has a great collection of links to Holloween 2003 recipes. Including Mexican sugar skulls and an edible meat filled skull. (via Boing Boing).

Halloween Web links: good collection from URLWire.

Star Spangled Ice Cream "with a conservative flavor". (via Cursor).

Tea.co.uk: the ultimate tea page.

The Online Picasso Project: amazing catalog of every work, day to day chronology of the artist's entire life.

Imagequest has some amazing photos of marine life.

What does $87 billion look like? a visualization.