Weekend update: The weekly reference collection/research gleanings:

You saw it here first (maybe): Dave Barry's annual Gift Guide. We always love this for the photos of Herald staffers in strange situations. Although the classic will always be the photo (from 3 years ago?) of Dave himself, sitting, pants down, on a pickup-mounted toilet in the middle of South Dixie Highway (U.S. 1). Too bad that's not included in photographer Chuck Fadely's online portfolio.


The useful links....

Reference :

National Christmas Tree Association has lots of info on trees and tree care, and lookup to find trees by place/type. There's even a section on where to find trees over 30 ft. tall; several retailers in Florida carry these (none in Miami). Also a recycler directory.

On the Snow: a guide to ski areas nationwide. Shows current conditions by state, latest snow dumps, information including accomodations, etc. on individual areas.

Latin America on the Internet: a Webliography from ALA.

University Policy Handbook Index search policies of nearly 700 colleges and universities.

PACA Search (Perishible Agricultural Commodities Act): companies importing fruits and vegetables.
News:

The Times has increased circulation since offering a tabloid version.
Tools:

WHOIS Finder simple Whois search, finds international as well as U.S. domains.
Public Records:

FCC: search of comments database includes PDFs of some of the letters, or at least brief descriptions.

New U.S. Courts rule will delete Social Security numbers from all Bankruptcy files online.

Florida Health Dept licensure: look up licensees at this new address.

Miami-Dade County Recording Index is now providing images of some documents. (Subscription.)
Florida:

CoolJunkie Miami

Guardian's report on Terri Schiavo in PDF. Difficult to load, I had to hit 'refresh' to see it.
Statistics:

Where the jobs--and paychecks--are: study from MSN ranking cities, counties by number of jobs, salaries.

Centennial of Flight: Facts from U.S. Census, interesting stats on aviation.

The Arab Population, 2000 from Census.

Official Yearbook of the UK, 2004 latest stats; government, economic info.

Treating 3 million by 2005: from World Health Organization. Long report in PDF.

AIDS Epidemic Update December 2003, from UNAIDS and WHO.

AIDS information fact sheets from U.S. Dept. of HHS.
Governments, Politics:

U.S. Wine Laws from Wine Institute.
Business, Journalism, People: no links this week.

Some Interesting stories/Weblogs:

UM law prof Michael Froomkin's Discourse.net

Joanne Jacobs: former Mercury News columnist writes a great blog on education.

Great report on starting a library Weblog from Info Today.

Whatever happened to Hayes Modem--and the people who founded it? Fascinating story in the Atlanta Journal Constitution.

Talk story: Advance Media's Jeff Jarvis commented about ladies' restrooms the other day and got a heckofa reaction. Read the "Comments" to see the conversation it inspired.

It's all in the telling: Dead Parrot Society finds Newsmax's coverage of a Dean comment twists it a little bit. Interesting: Charles Krauthammer had a similar take to Newsmax's....did he read it first there?
Fun/Entertaining:

Shel Silverstein: the author of songs like 'A boy named Sue' and many Dr. Hook songs, now writes children's books. This is a site for children but clever enough to take a look...

The American Package Museum

The Prelinger Archives of 'ephemeral films'. Hosted by Internet Archive with the Smithsonian. Download films in many categories.

Also: ScreenOnline: films from the British Film Institute archive.

SleazyBars.com: if you're looking for one, this will help you find it. So far not too many bars here, only 35 in the U.S...and none in Florida -- yet.