The Weekly Update, war fallout and more:
(Gone to the mountains where there'll be no Net connection. See you next week)

Lost Treasures from Iraq: compilation from University of Chicago.

Iraq's real most wanted, card deck of lost antiquities.

Search AP database of coalition casualites: search by name, type, place, etc. via Detroit Free Press.

Knight Ridder war blog shuts down.

Government views of Iraq links from City College, NY library.

US military casualties, Operation Iraqi Freedom list on SLA news division site, by state.

And more useful links....

Reference

Sixties City history, lists, trivia, statistics, etc. from the 1960s from a British perspective.

National Ocean Service new NOAA site.

Search National Geographic Society publications. Includes journals, books, CD-ROMs.

The Handbook of Texas Online great online encyclopedia of history, people, towns, places, institutions.

Institute for the study of international migration at Georgetown.
Journalism

Periodistas en coma new journalism forum in spain.

Institute for War and Peace Reporting

RAM Project: Refugees, Asylum seekers, and Mass media. in UK.
Tools:

Google proximity search (within 1,2, or 3 words). This isn't available directly from Google: the only search engine with proximity is AltaVista, which has a 'near' search. (Note, AltaVista still has BabelFish -- the translation site is 5 years old!).
News:

Modesto Bee archive of Laci Peterson stories

SARS Updates Agonist weblog is posting news/comments/links on SARS.
Governments/Politics:

State budget cuts created child welfare crisis report from Children's Defense Fund.
Statistics, Business, Public Records, People, Florida: no links this week.

Some Interesting stories/Weblogs:

The real story behind the Iraq playing cards on Sheila Lennon's blog on Providence Journal website.

Site Lines: a blog about Web searching.

Story on The state library of Florida and effort to save it, in Governing magazine.

Hartford Courant travel columnist Dennis Horgan ordered to stop his Weblog.

The battle for American science fascinating story in The Guardian. Similar story in Washington Post.

New Times on George Zirwas, the ex-priest murdered in Havana.
Fun/Entertaining:

Bush regime playing cards.

Rocky Top:
Rocky Top
By Boudleaux and Felice Bryant

Wish that I was on old Rocky Top,
Down in the Tennessee hills.
Ain’t no smoggy smoke on Rocky Top,
Ain’t no telephone bills.
Once I had a girl on Rocky Top,
Half bear other half cat.
Wild as a mink but sweet as soda pop,
I still dream about that.
Rocky Top, you’ll always be,
Home sweet home to me,
Good ol’ Rocky Top
Rocky Top Tennessee.
Rocky Top Tennessee.
Once two strangers climbed ol’ Rocky Top,
Lookin’ for a moonshine still.
Strangers ain’t come down from Rocky Top,
Reckon they never will.
Corn won’t grow at all on Rocky Top,
Dirt’s too rocky by far.
That’s why all the folks on Rocky Top,
Get their corn from a jar.

I’ve had years of cramped-up city life,
Trapped like a duck in a pen.
All I know is it’s a pity life
Can’t be simple again.
Copyright 1967, House of Bryant Publications

Felice Bryant died Tuesday in Gatlinburg: Knoxville News obituary.

Going to Rocky Top this weekend. Will do the Saturday morning update tomorrow but then probably no postings for a week. Got to get away from this cramped-up city life.

In library blog news
Jessica Baumgart has a Weblog. It's a baby blog so far, but the news librarian who works for Harvard's news service is getting the best of advice, from Harvard's Dave Winer, and considering the work Jessica has done in the past (she's Webmaster of the News Division of SLA), this will be a doozy.

And: Christian Crumlish is at the Jazz Fest. Nice photos.

Today's random browsings
Interesting front page on The Independent, today:

I guess we're not the only ones with corporate problems. (via Sky News).

Iraq's real most wanted, for those who still care about lost antiquities....

And, I just can't help it: "Peep Research: a survey of small fluffy creatures and library usage." (Found by Tish.)

And: George W. Bush's Nigerian spam letter

Our legislature, at work:
Lots of concern about this bill (Miami Herald story) (S2416) chugging through the Florida Legislature. It will require drivers to opt in if they want information on their records available to public records vendors. A hot email campaign has been convincing Floridians that not having this is a violation of the federal driver privacy act. Not sure this is so, but I think the claims -- that your personal information is sold to anyone who wants it -- are exaggerated. The state has always sold driver license lists to certain public records resellers, who sell it to other vendors who severely restrict who has access to the information; in cases when lists are resold as mailing lists most of the info has been deleted. Nothing new. And people have had the option of opting out for a few years now, and now can do it directly from the DHSMV Website.
But obviously, this campaign is having an effect. According to this story, about a million and a half people have opted out in the last few months.
Journalists who need to be able to verify people's identities, are already having a hard time getting access to enough information to be useful, and are very restricted on how to use it: we can only use it to verify IDs, not to publish information or use to contact people. Passage of this bill will probably mean the end of access to these records at all. The Florida First Amendment Foundation is working against this bill.

Deep Throat, again:
Bill Gaines' investigative reporting class at University of Illinois, after a 4-year investigation, announces their finding: Fred Fielding was Deep Throat.
A credible choice, and very well presented. Worth a read. Check the gallery, media section for reaction from newspaper editors (and Carl Bernstein, who went ballistic on them), and archive of other Deep Throat revelations, too. (Thanks to Gary Price for the heads up in NewsLib.)

Random thoughts:
Sometimes you only learn about people by reading their obits. For a long time, E.L.Gold's name came through on messages to the NICAR-L listserv, with useful tips or interesting questions on computer assisted reporting. Only now, after his death from a heart attack this weekend, at 49, have we learned his interesting life story.

Somehow the idea of Earthday.gov seems facetious, in light of this: Administration has declared war on the environment (an oped from Greenpeace). Better, try here: Earthday.org.

All your base (Iraq) are belong to us: a new twist.

Think you know your way around the Muslim world? Try this map game. I needed several tries for some of these countries.

Oh, and one other thing:
Leonard Pitts wrote about Ali -- and the others-- again this week...
"But I suspect that a man who knew Ali back when he was a 6-year-old Korean boy bleeding in the back of an ambulance would agree with me that his story is not about this war.
It is about all wars."

The Weekly Update, Iraq and more:
This week lots of stuff on occupation/rebuilding, more on treasures of Mesopotamia...

The Law of Belligerent Occupation: Analysis from Crimes of War Project.

Postwar reconstructions: the Guardian resurrects stories from their archive on German, Japanese rebuilding. Also here: original Achille Lauro stories, Basra in 1991, more.

Rebuilding Iraq: the contractors special report from OpenSecrets.org, lists contracts and political contributions.

More basic reference guides:

Library of Congress Portals to the World: Iraq

Virtual Library: Iraq great resource links.

Iraq National Museum, Baghdad click on "Stock" or "Erdgeshoss" and then click on rooms with red text to see images of things in the galleries......

University of Chicago: Archaeology and War in Iraq has links to stories on the looting.

Mesopotamia: history, culture, etc. from British Museum.

Gateways to Babylon: more on Iraq history, museums, looting.

BBC story on reopening of the Baghdad history museum in 2001; CNN story.

The Iraqi history museum: before the destruction, guide to the treaures from a Baghdad tourist agency.

And more...

Iraq and the Media links to articles from FAIR.

Syria's military capability analyis from Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Why we didn't remove Saddam by George H.P. Bush and Brent Scowcroft, in Time, 1998.

The 10 plagues of Iraq interesting analogy at Passover....

An account of Marines' incredible gestures from an 'embedded' reporter for Arab News. "I can honestly say that seven weeks as an embed has changed me forever. And I have often found many similarities between Marines and Arabs."

Most Wanted: Iraq the Defense Dept. playing cards.


And more useful links....

Reference

Pacific ethnology database beautiful objects from Bishop Museum in Honolulu.

Holiday Resources good links (Passover and Easter, included) from Librarians' Index to the Internet.

Military women veterans: this page has lots of resources on women in combat, etc.

Weather.gov: National Weather Service has clickable map to go straight to local weather forecasts, warnings; lots more.

Aneki.com World Rankings: what country has the most beautiful women? The most Muslims? highest defense spending?

...and of course, for more lists there's Gary Price's List of Lists.

GLBTQ Encyclopedia of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transexual & Queer culture....

Online Sibley Guide to Birds can search, locate bird names, drawings. Subscription required for full access.

Search USDA Nutrient Database; or download Nutrient lists (in PDF) by type of nutrient; or Download the entire nutrient database. More food composition links.

Commencement Speakers: who's speaking where?

S.S. United States Foundation. Available here: link to NCL purchase info, history, celebrity sailing photos, passengers' stories, and ship store.
Journalism

APME update this newsletter for managing editors has a nice mention of this blog. (Thanks to Laura Soto for finding this and mentioning on the NewsLib list.)
Statistics:

Fastest growing counties in the US from Census.

Survey of state procedures related to firearms sales, 2002 latest report from Justice dept.
Tools:

Inflation calculator from BLS. Has dollar value from 1913-present.
Business:

Global Edge from Michigan State U, site with news/resources for international business...Recommended by Gary Price on FreePint.

2003 Baseball team evaluations from Forbes. (Marlins rank 29, Expos 30).
News:

Net News Tracker use this to monitor mentions of a company, etc. in Usenet news groups.

Entire Christian Science Monitor archive from 1908 has been digitized, along with New York Times and Wall St. Journal.
Governments/Politics:

Military budget request, fy2004 from Center for Defense Information, breaks down Bush's budget.

Canada Cabinet conclusions search database of Cabinet decisionmaking from 1944-1972. From the National Archives of Canada.

What you missed Capital Eye reports on what's been going on in Washington while we've been watching the war.

Georgia Reporter newsletter on Ga. politics. Lots on the flag controversy.

Presidential Candidate Fundraising: Opensecrets.org has compiled Contributions by state of Democratic candidates. Highest contributions to Bob Graham? Coral Gables (ZIP 33134). Also: FECInfo (Political Moneyline) and Dwight Morris have posted raw FEC filings from the candidates.
Public Records:

New public records in Nexis: voter registrations in Alabama, Montana, Nevada, South Carolina; Motor Vehicle registrations in North Dakota.
People:

CNN's advance obits exposed temporarily on a public server, grabbed by FARK and The Smoking Gun....
Florida: no links this week.

Some Interesting stories/Weblogs:

The extent and patterns of usage of Agent Orange and other herbicides in Vietnam research published in Nature finds levels are higher than reported.

London Bridge Tower a 1016-ft. tower in Southwark?

Amitai Etzioni's blog.
Fun/Entertaining:

Tour of Dave Barry's office on Dave's Website.

IraqiInformationMinistry.com

Another victim of the war:
Since I don't see enough of this kind of reporting in most news sites, I feel compelled to continue drawing attention: this one by The Herald's Meg Lauglin, on a little girl....

And another topic I've been obsessing on, lately:
(Someone has to , and who better but librarians?) The looting of the Iraq museum The Art Newspaper has scanned a 1970s catalog and put images of all 300 objects there online.

I include this because, in how many U.S. papers would you see a column like this? Strong stuff: A prayer for George Dubya from SF Chronicle columnist Mark Morford. "All sources are telling me that you are more than a little outta control. Way out of line. Off-leash and lost and drunk on dreams of global supremacy and in deep need of major karmic spanking, a divine colonic.". Followed by: The Warmongers were right.

We had a pilot whale stranding in South Florida today: Short-finned pilot whale from Cetacea.org, info on whales, dolphins and porpoises.

Today's browsing:
Fascinating obit of Sir Paul Getty in The Guardian. And in The Times.
Rebuilding Iraq: the contractors special report from OpenSecrets.org, lists contracts and political contributions.
Another Ali...this one is only 4 years old....
UNESCO news page has links to info on Iraq museums, etc. And: UNESCO: Culture crisis in Iraq.
University of Chicago: Archaeology and War in Iraq has links to stories on the looting.

Strange days, cont.:
Who will benefit from the Baghdad looting analysis (with lots of links) from Bryan Pfaffenberger at U Va.
What the loss of Iraqi antiquities means to our religious heritage. from Frontpage magazine.
Tim Robbins' speech to National Press Club.
Joseph Heller moments...from the war in Iraq. From History News Network.
Another family tragedy in Iraq. From BBC.
Iraq war's unsung heros: profile of mortuary affairs team in Business Week.
Web Shouldn't Avoid Horrific Images more discussion from Steve Outing at E&P.

A small step:
Ali recovering after operaton in Kuwait, in the Mirror.
And in The Times.
Queen Rania of Jordan pleads for help for other wounded Iraqi children.

The Memory Hole is posting stories about the lost library in Baghdad.
UggaBugga weblog is collecting editorials, comments on the library and museum looting, including this timeline of the looting, and comments from conservative FreeRepublic website.....

As if the museum weren't enough:
Now the library is gone, too.....
On broken bodies, history more in the Washington Post on the museum, Ali.

Stranger and stranger....
I'm puzzled. Have Americans become unusually sensitive? Why is everything these days construed as an attack on America? For example:
Reader reaction to Iraqi civilian casualty photos: In the Oregonian (Poynter story); in the Richmond Times-Dispatch; in the Hartford Courant.
Or this: I was only asking. Michael Wolff, in the Guardian, on why he asked what was the use of briefings at the $million press center in Doha, and how he got 3000 hate emails in response.
Next historians will be attacked for caring about this: The 2003 Iraq War and archaeology: about the looting of museums. Stories and photos. (added Tuesday: Yes, it it is happening. E.G. this message in reaction to an article on History News Network:
"You idiots who are are trying to demonize one of the most noble actions ever taken by this nation just can not stand it that you were ptoven wrong. Yes it is tragic that priceless antiquities have been lost. But out army was a little busy for the last few weeks. We just defeated one of of the greatest mass murderers of our time. The Iraqi people for the most part seem pretty happy about it. And all you clowns can do is whine and carp. Well you were wrong about the war and you lack the guts to admit it")
Very few seem to care about this: Will Ali die anyway? BBC story says he needs airlift--now.
But lots care about this: National thank you card for Jessica Lynch: sign up online.
And what about this? Cost of the war in Iraq a running total.
Strange days.

More Herald links:
The Herald's Juan Tamayo was one of two reporters on the plane with the rescued POWs; photos by Juan too. Great details.

War coverage questions:
Herald World Editor Juan Vasquez writes on differing coverage in non-U.S. newspapers, and use of graphic war photos.

Annoying housekeeping announcement:
After assuring me that although my email address was changing, I wouldn't have to change anything on my Web space, Earthlink now tells me that the address of my Website is changing too. GRRRR!
So, here's the plan: If you have any of the links pages in the left-hand column bookmarked (addresses at home.infi.net/~edonovan), they all must be changed. Change them to edonovan.home.infionline.net or home.infionline.net/~edonovan. I have changed all the links on this page but I could have missed some. Let me know if they don't work. If you have my infi.net email address in your address book, change it to infionline.net, or use the new hotmail address. All the old addresses are good for one more month.

But note: address of this Weblog stays the same. (So far).
Thank you for your patience. I have little with Earthlink right now.

The Weekly Update, more war links and more:

Iraqi Timeline from the Washington Post, day-by-day timeline of the war with links to stories.

What Iraqis want by assassinated Shiite leader Abd al-Majid al-Khoei in the National Review.

Who's who in Iraqi opposition: From BBC; from PBS.

Saddam and the destruction of Iraqi society, a BU dissertation from 1997.

British casualties in Iraq list w/ bios from Times.

4/8 casualty list (includes journalists) from Reuters. (This seems to be last full casualty list. For daily updates, go to main Reuters Iraq pageand look for 'latest Iraq snapshot'.)

And more useful links....

Reference

Charting and Navigation links to maps, charts, etc. from NOAA.

Top Ten Reasons to use a library or information center from SLA.

National Archives' Archival Databases 50 million documents scanned and online.

Online catalog of Jamaican records from National Library of Jamaica.

Classic Reader read, search download, annotate fulltext classic books online.

Google Movies: someone has used Google technology to create a movie review search.

Summer gasoline outlook.
Journalism

For Fact Checkers and Copy Editors nice guide/resource list from Barbara Semonche at UNC Journalism library.

International Federation of Journalists: on the journalist attacks in Iraq.

Newspaper minority employment study for ASNE by Steve Doig and Bill Dedman.

Americanphotojournalist.com "for journalists, by journalists".

Pulitzer Prize winners links to available stories online compiled by Gary Price.

News University new journalism training portal from Knight Found/Poynter (under construction).

Doug Clifton, Editor of the Year.

Hold on to your notebooks! UT pays $5 million for Woodward and Bernstein's
Florida:

Florida Department of Health: SARS
Statistics:

The New York State Social Indicator Project: Mapping New York.
Tools:

The New Yahoo! Search more like Google? a preview.

Yahoo! Products Search like Froogle from Google, search for products to buy online with comparative prices.

Flight Tracker has changed its address since CheapTickets.com bought Trip.com. Use this to track a flight by flight number or cities. Use graphical version to see flight on map. Another recommended site: Flyte.com, also has Canadian flights. (via Gary Price).
Business:

Baseball Salaries: searchable database from USA Today.

Digging for Data on Subsidiaries Information Advisor newsletter on how to find company data online, in PDF.
News:

History News Network from GMU Center for History and New Media.

Medline Plus: SARS News, guidance, links from NIH.

SARS Watch: a Weblog collecting news/info from around the world.

SARS headlines from around the world, from 1st Headlines.
Governments/Politics:

Cuba: Massive Crackdown on Dissent Amnesty International report issued 4/3/03.

DisasterHelp.gov
Public Records, People: no links this week.

Some Interesting stories/Weblogs:

The secrets of Drudge, Inc Business 2.0 on how he makes his money (a lot).

Blogosphere.us tracks trends, has news about Weblogs.

Making the News Dan Gillmor (Siliconvalley.com, Merc News) is writing a book about how online is changing journalism. He wants input.

Was the Saddam statue scene staged? there's some discussion.....

Wesley Clark: political ambitions? in American Prospect.

Back to Iraq: journalist/blogger Chris Albritton has made it to Kirkuk.

Free Mike Hawash!

Broward New Times story on South Florida anti-war workers threatened.
Fun/Entertaining:

New Iraqi dinar?

Saddam's Weblog

Saddam, Iraq souvenirs on EBay

Iraqi Acres Get your share!

Meanwhile, in our hemisphere....
Cuba executes 3 hijackers(Miami Herald's Al Chardy)... a week after the crime. (The Herald's Elaine de Valle talks to family members in Cuba.)

Religious coercion?
Lots of reaction to The Herald's Meg Laughlin's report a few days ago about a U.S. military chaplain requiring soldiers to get baptised if they wanted access to water. Today, Knight Ridder correspondents report the chaplain is being investigated.

Remember Ali Ismail Abbas:
Leonard Pitts does.

For a little light relief:
RummyCo: new animated cartoon from Mark Fiore.
And: Hippo Girl: another disgusting musical animation from Rathergood.com. (Or, as Metafilter poster says: " A celebration of accepting whatever hand the universe deals you."

Where are the victims?
Lots of discussion these days about how much war reality to show. Some thoughts, stories, and some of the photos we're not seeing in US newspapers, networks:
Images of war: Which ones do you show? oped piece in USA Today by Peter Howe.
E&P on coverage of civilian casualties.
When "precision bombing" isn't article by prof. Marc Herold, creator of Iraq Body Count; this story contains graphic photos of civilian casualties.
BBC on wounded children being helped in Kuwait (graphic photos). Also: In pictures: the human cost of the war.

For a firsthand account: Northern Iraq Weblog by Stuart Hughes, BBC producer who lost a foot in a land mine incident.
And more on Lori Piestewa: profile in the Guardian of first US woman casualty, Jessica Lynch's roommate.

Dirck Halsted's Visual Journalist website has great photo galleries and photojournalists' stories from Iraq.

A day of stories
The Marine who provided flag placed on Saddam statue was in Pentagon on 9/11:
"Watching from the sidelines, Lieutenant McLaughlin took his Stars and Stripes out of a sealed pouch, so that it could be wrapped around the statue’s hollow metal head.
The 25-year-old Russian language and poetry graduate explained later that a broken leg had taken him to room 5E678 at the Pentagon, where he was working as a general’s aide on September 11, 2001.
“I had just gone for my morning run and I was right at the Jefferson Memorial when the plane hit the Pentagon. I sprinted back because my older brother also works there. After I searched for him and found he was all right I spent the rest of the day at Ground Zero, helping out the ambulance and firefighting guys.
“In the days following that I had to determine what to do after my leg healed, so the general offered me this job. He said I wouldn’t be going to Afghanistan because it was too soon but after that I would get a chance to go and . . ” He searches for a euphemism . . . “stop people doing harm”.
He continues: “I know Iraq didn’t have anything to do with September 11, but I think that, given the opportunity, a person like Saddam Hussein would certainly be capable of trying to hit London or Paris or New York.
“This flag was given to me on September 11. Now it is in Baghdad and now I am happy.”"
...in Times Online.

Thin Ice, an analogy. (via Warfilter)

And, please, let's not forget Ali Ismail Abbas. Donations through the Limbless Association.

International Committee of the Red Cross: Iraq Special has more information on casualties, humanitarian movements.

Religion Newswriters Assn has a site on covering war casualties. Lots of great links, experts, statistics here.

Take a break:
With beautiful photos from the orchid show at Fairchild Tropical Garden this weekend, from Mark Kevin Hall at Hidden City.

Pulitzers:
Gary has compiled Pulitzer Prize winners: links to available entries online.

Florida State Library: not over yet?
Florida Blog links to this Orlando Sentinel story: 30 State Library workers could switch departments...
"Barrett Wilkins, who retired as head of the library in January, said the move would sever longtime working relationships between State Archives and records-management employees who help scour former government documents for historic treasures.
"It's sad if they move it over there," Wilkins said. "I know exactly what they're going to do. They're going to outsource it. While I was still there, they had people come over to look at how they would run it.""

"The war is not over yet":
Very interesting post at The Daily Kos. One line strikes this Miami resident:
"The only exiles with power are the Shia. The rest, Cambridge (Boston and UK) dillitants with no real coherent organization or planning. Ahmed Chalebi is Washington's man, which makes him the Jorge Mas Canosa of Iraq (the late Cuban exile leader who thought he would be President of a Castro-free island). "
Several other worthwhile reads in the blog in last few days, too, including this one, which you should read if you're using Stratfor for military/strategy analysis. The writer, Steve Gilliard, recommends Open Source Solutions, among other sources, instead. This one is new to me but looks worth a look.

First woman U.S. combat casualty
Lori Piestewa, identified today (along with 7 others -- one not yet identified). (More on Lori).
Last week I linked to a claim that Jessica Lynch had that distinction; that was proven wrong, so today, instead of a small-town West Virginia teacher in training, we mourn a Hopi mother of two.

The Weekly Update: good news on the Florida Library:
The Florida House has killed the governor's plan to dismantle it.
"The Broward County Commissioners said they didn't want it. So why take something we want here and put it somewhere where it's not wanted?" said Kilmer, whose North Florida district encompasses much of Leon County, home of the state capital.
"It's a dead issue,'' Kilmer said. ``Isn't that cool?" "

And, of course, another war dump:

Today's Cartoons from Arab media via Al Jazeera.

Metaphor and War fascinating analysis.

Americans look to the Web for war news analysis, link to the Pew report.

Good, HUGE Baghdad map JPG from Sky News.

Mother of all war Websites news feeds from Mideast, etc.

English Al-Jazeera website now back online after hacker attacks took it offline for days.

International Committee for the Red Cross: Iraq has daily bulletins.

Reference Guide to the Geneva Conventions from SPJ.

Iraq's Cultural Heritage report with photos from Guardian.

Political cartoons abroad Wash Post links to several on war.

More cartoons at Darryl Cagle's site on Slate.

Military online: story with links to units in Iraq/Mideast, from Washington Post.

World Reax Weblog tracking world opinion on war from MSNBC.

Peter Arnett's first column for the Mirror: This war is not working.

How the war unfolded day-by-day chrono of the war from Daily Telegraph.

National Commision on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States.

War with Iraq: costs, consequenses long report from American Academy of Arts and Sciences, December 2002.

Who is Jay Garner? the man who will run Iraq? in the Observer.

Iraq Around the Clock roundup of 24-hour news and other useful Websites for war coverage, from Information Today.

Cheney and Halliburton: making money on war/terrorism? story in Moscow Times with links to lots more news/magazine articles.

And more useful links....

Reference

Storm Events Database from NOAA. Search for storms by state, type, date. Covers storms from 1950 through 2002.

Experts on SARS from Newswise.

Yahoo! Full Coverage: SARS

FirstWorldWar.com incredible history page.

Time Covers 80-yr database now joins the database of Life covers. Search or browse by date.
Journalism

Pulitzer finalist list? from E&P.

LA Times photog fired for combining two photos: the photos.
Florida:

MyFloridaHouse.com new legislature Website.

Jesse S. Wooley's Florida photographs taken by a visitor from New York in 1896 and 1920s and 1930s.

Miami Dade city clerks list from county elections dept. has links to city websites.
Statistics:

National Transportation Statistics, 2002.
Public Records:

Exemplaris: purchase federal court transcripts online.

Florida Press Club is sponsoring another of Joe Adams' great public records seminars, on April 26 in Tampa. You can register here. This is highly recommended. (Note: another one will be coming up May 17 in Naples, according to an email from Joe....)

Miami-Dade county's civil court search now has "Premium Search" available. It allows more specific searching, and downloading of images of selected filings. Sign up for subscriptions starting at $5. Also available: Recording Index (but no images yet). Traffic is to come.
Tools:

News Desk new RSS/XML reader from Wildgrape.
Business:

Fortune 500 latest list online.
News:

Terrar Fresh Search claims to search just latest news, Weblogs, etc.

WiseEye new news site search searches just headlines.
Governments/Politics, People: no links this week.

Some Interesting stories/Weblogs:

Paperfrog Florida-based blog (Pensacola).

Shattered Buddha another Florida-based weblog.

News Gorilla new Weblog by author of BONG: Burnt-out Newspapercreatures Guild.....(Charley Stough).

How affirmative action helped George Bush in Time.
Fun/Entertaining:

Military humor: some pretty funny photos.

The poetry of Donald Rumsfeld in Slate.

Beautiful photographs of the globe in the old NY Daily News bulding lobby....

Lots of photos of you-know-who:
In a changeover that happened this morning, I think, the Florida Legislature site at www.leg.state.fl.us/ now leads you to a separate link to the House's website, www.myfloridahouse.com, the new site heralded by Speaker Johnnie Byrd. Speaker photos are prominent, here, to say the least (our Florida leaders like to put their photos on their Websites).
There is some new stuff on this site (including bill tracking by email subscription), but in general, not sure why this was necessary. The old "Online Sunshine" site gave us all we needed from the legislature in one place. I don't even see a link to the Senate here; the Senate's website, at www.flsenate.gov/ retains the Online Sunshine look (without any personal photos).
(Note, links from MyFlorida.com still go to the old House page.)

More scary Florida news
Ann Coulter is moving to Miami. Some reasons:
"I need to sit on the beach and drink piña coladas with little umbrellas for a while to recuperate. Perhaps I will have a cigar with my piña colada -- which is still legal in Florida. And of course, [gossip columnist] Matt Drudge is in Miami -- as well as lots of swarthy, patriotic Cubans: the nation's best Americans."

World's heritage, threatened:
Cradle of Civilization at Risk lots of background info on Iraqi historical treasures.

More coverage from the front:
The Herald's Juan Tamayo on the man who tipped the military about Jessica Lynch's whereabouts.
And Meg Laughlin with another heartbreaking story about combat wounded. More from Meg.
More Herald coverage.

War!
War. huh! Look out!
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothin'! Listen to me.

Ahhh war.
I despise, cause it means destruction of innocent life.
War means tears to thousands of mothers' eyes,
when their sons go off to fight and lose their lives.

....RIP, Edwin Starr.

Online, your way:
The Miami Herald announced today the arrival of MyHerald, a new way of reading the newspaper online. It gives you two choices: choose Digital Edition, a PDF version of the entire paper so you can read it exactly as it appeared in print; or a Quickbrowse Edition, which gives you a story list to check stories you want to read, and provides the chosen stories in one easy-to-scan browser page.
Access to MyHerald is $5/month, but you can get a free 2-week trial now.
Using a dialup connection at home, I'm finding the main Herald page (herald.com) slower and slower to load with all the graphics. The myherald.com page, however, is simple and easy to load; I don't know if the PDF version would be feasible on dialup, but Quickbrowse has always had the advantage of fast loading.
I can see how I might consider subscribing to myherald if I didn't already get the paper edition.......

Heartbreaking....
Story by Miami Herald's Meg Laughlin, who interviewed family members of the 11 killed at checkpoint....They were just trying to be safe.

And:
Amazing graphic on Independent's front page....(via Sky News)

Political cartoons abroad Wash Post links to several on war; More cartoons at Darryl Cagle's site on Slate.

Reference Guide to the Geneva Conventions from SPJ.

Also heartbreaking:
Effect of Gulf War on migratory birds from Birdlife International. (via Pressetext Europe).

And in Florida news:
A committee of the Florida Senate recommends ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment, despite Gov. Jeb Bush dismissing it as a 'retro subject...like bell bottoms' . Hey, Jeb, bell bottoms are in again!