Last thoughts of 2003:
Happy New Year, all! On this last day of 2003 it's nice to know that the South Florida stories keep coming. Today it's the 'Most Wanted' Florida man who killed a UK cop the other day (although this story mistakenly says it was in London. It was Leeds).

I'm very sorry I won't be in Brasstown tonight for the annual 'lowering of the possum'. But hope to be there by tomorrow night, so there won't be any postings for the next few days, unless I hit the public library. Keep safe!

And a setrec: I mistakenly said in an earlier post that Lex Alexander had worked for the Charlotte Observer. It was the Greensboro News & Record, of course. I hate it when I do that.
I apologize for all the mistakes I've made here in the last year. Hope it hasn't been too many.....

Bad blogspot:
I know no one's going to be able to read this, since Blogspot seems to be down. But the publishing page does come up, so I'm going to try this anyway. I posted something earlier today, though, and it doesn't seem to be here. I know it's not just me because other blogspot blogs (like Dave Barry's) are also going to the main Blogger page...

(4:30): OK, that worked. Seems to be back.

And, on blogging:
Tom Mangan has some interesting comments in reaction to the USA Today article on blogging.

"Hype and anti-hype aside, blogging is worth doing well, it's just not especially easy to do well."

(Later: Link fixed, apologies....)

Paper, bits, or PDF?
There's a very interesting conversation going on between J D Lasica and Vin Crosbie on the value and meaning of digital reproductions of newspapers. Crosbie takes issue with Lasica's depiction of PDF fans as having "old-time media inclinations". Fascinating. As a 'old-time' newspaper reader who loves online but also really likes the chance to see a newspaper as it ran, ads, layout and all (at least occasionally), I'm enjoying this debate.

More great research news:
To me, this is one of the best things to happen in news research since I started in this business a loooong time ago.
First the New York Times, now The Washington Post is putting its historical archive on the Web. Searches covering 1877-1986 are free, with a standard $2.95 charge (same as recent electronic archives) to read/download/print full text of a story. (Discounts available for larger purchases.)
This is a dream come true for those many of us who may have access to only one newspaper's microfilm, in many cases unindexed.

Strutting:
Today's the King Mango Strut in Coconut Grove, Miami. Definitely worth visiting the Web site if you can't get to the parade.....

New blog noticed on Blogger:
Media Mayhem, St. Louis-based.

"Born to Blog
After applying three times for openings at the Post-Dispatch in the last year -- and not even being provided the courtesy of a form letter rejection in return -- I have decided I was born to blog. "

Weekend update: The weekly reference collection/research gleanings:

The list is quite short this week; not much new comes up on holiday weeks, and I've already posted much of it, here and on the Herald blog. Among things I posted there this week: Holiday Travel tips.

In the midst of the mad cow stories, a couple interesting things: UPI has been trying to get BSE test info from USDA for months, and Did the Canadian case come from the U.S.?

More useful links....

Reference :

Airline logos: 75 pages of them, from Aerosite.net.

Educator's Reference Desk great education source directory from creators of ERIC database.

Festival Network Online search for art and music festivals, shows, craft fairs, etc.

Libdex: an international library guide, find info about a library, including branch libraries; also has a directory of library blogs, a Publishers search and a directory of online newspaper lists.

A Sightseeer's Guide to Engineering 7 'sights' in Florida, none in S. Fla.
Florida:

UPDATE, S. Fla. Historical Soc. magazine now is putting some stories online. The link is to an index of all issues. Highlighted stories are available, like this one: Lost in the Everglades by The Herald's late Earl DeHart.
Tools:

The National Map Viewer: this is a new mapping service from USGS: I like this pretty well, you can zoom in down to street level but all maps show topography as well as other features and you can customize it in a lot of ways.
Journalism:

SinColumna.com a site for writers who don't have their own columns (in Spanish).
Business, Statistics, Governments, Politics, Public Records, People, News, no links this week.

Some Interesting stories/Weblogs:

Satan's Laundromat, a photoblog from New York.

Letters from Iraq: a soldier blog from one who participated in Operation Red Dawn.

New Blog: John Perry Barlow.

Marilyn Thompson on her 20-year pursuit of Strom's daughter
Fun/Entertaining:

The Foolish Dictionary

G.W. Bush as Gollum, from bushrecall.org.

Another thing:
Just a thought about the Iran earthquake: the casualty counts started out high (10,000), then went down (4,000 to 5,000); now they're talking about 20,000 people dead! This is puzzling, after seeing this page on the city of Bam. According to this, the city was mostly abandoned, so where did all those people come from? I guess a new city must have built itself up around the outskirts. And seeing pictures of the ancient buildings, it would be no wonder if it all fell down. Beautiful but very fragile looking.

More good links on the Iran situation from Iranian Truth blog. This site says 80,000 people lived in Bam. (via Jeff Jarvis.)

More on this and lots more topics on the other blog.

Getting more on the news from photo blogs:
Hampshirecam has photos of the QMII arriving in Southhampton.
Much more than the BBC had, even on BBC Southhampton.

Marlette speaks:
This has been mentioned a few places, but I didn't click on it until I saw the excerpt on Lex Alexander's Blog on the Run: "I was a tool of Satan", by Doug Marlette, now with the Tallahassee Democrat, in Columbia Journalism Review. Alexander, who worked on the Greensboro News Record's breaking investigation of Tammy and Jim Bakker and PTL, pointed out (Charlotte Observer cartoonist at the time) Marlette's lovely response to a reader complaining about a cartoon done on the subject:

""They try to screen for tools of Satan," I explained. "[Parent corporation] Knight Ridder human resources has a strict policy against hiring tools of Satan.""

Hmmm. Being with a KR paper, I wonder.......

There's breaking news:
...And Poynter's Al Tomkins has already posted good earthquake and Iran links for coverage of the disaster there.
Of course, Iran Full Coverage from Yahoo also has the breaking news and lots of good links.

Lazy Christmas day:
...And a good day for a walk through some undeveloped areas, ' future park land' along Biscayne Bay in Coral Gables. Unfortunately, we found junk thrown everywhere along this about 2-mile path. Nice day anyway:

(They call this Florida Holly.) More photos...

Sometimes the 'just published blogs' list on the main Blogger page leads to some intriguing blogs. Today the one that caught my eye was "Wisdom of the Ages, or Three Whiney Old Women". Subtitle is "Madness or Genius, We aren't Sure". How could I pass that one by? Turns out to be entertaining, with Christmas doggerel and cute descriptions of the three women: a "potter extraordinaire, soon to be ex of one stupid man"; a "writer and reader of great things", and an "eternal idealist and optimist". I'll be looking back at this one.

Hope your day was enjoyable.

Adding to my list:
A couple new things: Smart Mobs, and The Progress Report.

Cold Mountain:
I blogged links to local information, if you want to know about the real Cold Mountain and other places where it really happened, on the Herald blog.
Note there are a couple fun Christmas reading links there too, via suggestions from copy editor blogs.

Yes, Santa, please?
Rhetorica.net's Andrew Cline has a list of things he wants for Christmas. I really like number 5:

"5) I'd like the chattering classes to realize that, unlike most pundits, average Americans do not routinely polarize and demonize their friends and neighbors of opposite political opinion."

Of course, number two is pretty good too:

"2) I'd like the talking-head TV pundits to shut up. America can't hear itself think."

Quake!:
As usual, the research community responds. At least two places to go, so far, for help with covering the earthquake:

• IRE: Resources for covering California earthquake.
  
• Earthquake resources from Al Tompkins at Poynter.
  (Added later:)
  
• Doc Searls has posted useful links and commentary on the quake, too.
  
• Links from Jonathan Dube (Cyberjournalist)
  

Public Library databases, again:
Gary Price keeps reminding us, and I've linked to similar resources in Florida. But it's worth harping, over and over, that you can get access to great databases through many local public libraries. Here's another example, in Knoxville. Access to NewsLibrary! ReferenceUSA! But you have to have a library card. These things are like gold, these days.....

A couple more fun finds:
From my list of things to check out, here's a wonderful new site called Food History News, Web site of a magazine by same name. There's a blog-type Editor's Notebook with fun links on food and food historians. I found there the Guardian obit on Alan Davidson, fascinating man who died a couple weeks ago of the flu. I've owned his Mediterranian Seafood cookbook for many years. And a link to Anson Mills, a place where I've heard they grind the best grits around. This is going on my list.
Also on this site: a page of food history resources.

And, via email, notice of a site called Diplomacy Monitor, from St. Thomas University here in Miami. Main page has current diplomacy news, but inside there's an archive of news categorized by topic/country, etc. This looks to be a very useful resource.

Weekend update: The weekly reference collection/research gleanings:

My backyard birds have disappeared in the last 6 weeks or so. Have yours? I thought it was due to the loss of trees in my neighborhood, where several older houses are being replaced with much larger buildings, but then I found recent stories in the Orlando Sentinel and Providence Journal that report it's happening in lots of places, at least reduced numbers.....Project Feeder Watch keeps track.

New Iraq links:

The big news from Iraq found several new links to add to your Iraq list:

• Poynter's Al Tompkins has ideas for local coverage of the Saddam story.
  
• INDICT international organization dedicated to setting up tribunals in Iraq.
  
• IraqNet: blog-style news and information on Iraq. U.S. based.
  
• Coalition Provisional Authority
  
• Future of Iraq portal (large page of links).
  
• The Saddam Hussein Sourcebook from National Security Archive, has documents from past U.S. relations with Iraq.
  
• Operation Red Dawn: Centcom Powerpoint presentation on the capture. Lots of maps, charts.
  
• The Osama Clock

More useful links....

Reference :

Collection of "Best of 2003" lists.

International Religious Freedom report, 2003 from State Dept.

A roadmap to African American resources from Santa Fe Community College.

Kennedy and Castro: the secret tapes and documents from the National Security Archive.

TheatreHistory.com: history of theater around the world, and a script archive of plays or monologues in the public domain.
Florida:

Dear Florida Hero: send a holiday message to a National Guard member.

Demographic profile, Miami-Dade County, 1960-2000 Census data from county planning department. More data, including Miami-Dade Facts, a 62-page compilation of stats.
Statistics:

Preliminary Uniform Crime Report, Jan-Jun 2003 from FBI.

Foreign-Born Population of the U.S., 2000 Census report.

Institute for the Study of Homelessness has lots of stats, reports.
Tools:

Google Print is a new beta test search that searches fulltext of books. This link leads to FAQ page. Sample search. (I searched my name and found out there's been a character in a romance novel. Hmmm.)

JAlbum: highly recommended (by Scout Report) free photo album software: save albums on your hard drive or publish to the Web.

More software recommended by Scout Rept: WebAssistant lets you download Web pages to read or use when not online.
Business:

Cable Industry statistics from Natl Cable and Telecom. Assn.

Job Watch: Economic Policy Institute, tracking jobs and wages.
Journalism:

News Page Designer a place for designers to show off their work, info about design.
Governments, Politics, Public Records, People, News, no links this week.

Some Interesting stories/Weblogs:

Coaches who prey: amazing series by Seattle Times.

Mention on UM law prof Michael Froomkin's blog: 100 interesting math calculations for kids. Fun for the holidays?

Philly Inquirer has a story on bloggers' reactions to Saddam capture.

Fla's Bill Nelson says he and other senators were told Iraqi missiles could hit U.S. in Florida Today.

OK, here's an environmental problem I never heard of before.

Scary story about a Nigerian scam from Guardian's Paula Toynbee.

Newsweek debunks the Telegraph story that said Atta was in Baghdad in summer of '01.
Fun/Entertaining:

Tales of the Holy Cow: a fake 'priest' milks one of the Nigerian scammers...

Mistletunes: in case you can't remember all those old rock 'n' roll Christmas songs.

Radio Lovers: free old-time radio shows in MP3.

Modern Humorist: Best of the Web

Photo/poems: these are beautiful.

Pong story: how the whole video game thing got started.

Lots of Blogging:
In that other place today.

New today in the Guardian:
Special Report on Weblogs. Includes British blogging awards, guide to blogging software, analysis and news.
Note the art by Hugh McLeod. He's the one who does those cool back-of-business-card drawings.

New on Blogger today:
How to get a book deal with your blog.

Big news for us:
Alonso Mourning is getting his kidney transplant.

Where we work:
Is still important. Just in the last two days, I've noticed some interest in seeing where the process happens. John Battelle leads his blog with a picture of his desk. Note you can click on the photo for a larger view. And a very fine desk it is, with huge tree-filled windows in front. I want a space like this.
Mike Wendland posted a photo of his home office the other day, responding to requests.
Why would people be interested? Creative people surround themselves with things they like. Or maybe, it's just that people who spend all day in one place plopped in front of a computer have to have reminders of the outside world around them. At any rate, people stop by my desk at work often to tell me how much they like my work area. It's pretty much a cubicle, but it catches eyes. Wish I worked in a home office with trees, though.....Oh, right, I do have a home office with trees. But the windows in my 1953 hurricane-proof home are not exactly expansive. Can see the mango and grapefruit trees, but not much.

New to me:
John Battelle's Searchblog, full of the kind of news we can use. (via Jeff Jarvis.)
A link from this to Tim Bray's Ongoing, with this wonderful post: Arab potatoes.
Back at Battelle's, something to think about:

"...USA Today has come up with another moniker: The Google Generation. The author of this article, a child psychologist, makes a good point: "As members of the Google generation, today's children have facts at their fingertips. They don't need information fed through toys. They need to play and to become creative problem solvers." "

Reporters in the news:
A fun story in the Asheville Citizen-Times about their reporter who missed the Wright flight in 1903.

"He gave up the idea of remaining longer, and on that morning, Dec. 17, decided enough was enough. He trudged back over the dunes to the boardinghouse and hired a vehicle to take him back to Elizabeth City. The next morning, he caught the Asheville-bound train, much relieved that his ordeal was over.
When he boarded the train, he did not believe that the Wright Brothers or anyone else could ever fly."

Those voucher stories that got the Palm Beach Post banned from Jeb's presence.

It's not that I haven't been busy:
....have just been blogging at the other place.

Time to figure this out, I guess:
CNN and Time have a special report, Wireless Society, that explains what it all means. Especially useful: this chart that lists the differences between the different types. Wi-Fi, GSM, 802.11b....a little clearer now? More on Time's site.

Another paper is punished:
See This Editor & Publisher story:

"The Orlando Sentinel reportedly lost a major and long-standing advertiser after a home builders' association pulled its annual Parade of Homes guidebook and some of its members' advertising from the paper following a newspaper series that exposed problems with new homes in Central Florida. "

First the Pensacola News Journal, now the Orlando Sentinel. It's dangerous to publish news stories in Florida, I guess.

(Later)...Oh, yeah, then there's this in Jacksonville.

Keeping up on Saddam:
More news and blogger links on the Herald blog.
And Al Tomkins at Poynter has lots of ideas for local reaction coverage.
An interesting new site with lots of links to bloggers in/about Iraq, news sites, and lots lots more: Future of Iraq Portal.
Also, for today's front pages worldwide: Press Display, among others (see left-hand column).

Stranger than fiction:
Florida Blog's been mentioning this trial going on in Pensacola, but the story sounded too strange to be real.
But Friday, a jury awarded a developer $18.3 million from the Pensacola News Journal because they wrote a story about him that said he had killed his wife, and didn't say that it was ruled an accident until two sentences later. The plaintiff, politically influential founder of the Anderson Columbia paving company, claimed he was denied financing for a giant cement plant because a company official read a shortened version of the story in Nexis, and concluded he was a murderer. A Lexis Nexis representative testified no such version exists in their database, but the jury found that Anderson was denied his contract because of the story. Further action for punitive damages against News Journal parent Gannett may still proceed.
From the News Journal story, quoting an plaintiff's attorney:

"The Gannett Co. has a lot of power and, buddy, when they set out to get you, they get you," Gary said.
Madison McClellan, another Anderson attorney, struck the same theme when he argued that the newspaper, already determined to tell everything that was wrong with Anderson and his company, then saw an opportunity to "sex up" the story with violence and a shooting.
"That's National Enquirer. That's tabloid," McClellan said. "But it sells."

That Saddam story:
For background: Yahoo Full Coverage has latest news, links to opinion/analysis, and good background links. Plus, a Special Coverage page with lots of video llnks, etc.

Saddam will overshadow everything:
But it's worth noting some of the hopeful stories, too. Today in the Miami Herald: Kevin Baxter's story about former major leaguer David Valle and the loan system he's set up in the Dominican Republic to help those in poverty get a start on a better life. A story about something that makes a difference.

Weekend update: The weekly reference collection/research gleanings:

This week I posted some useful links to the Herald blog, including links on flu and aviation history. Also several fun links, many holiday-related.


The useful links....

Reference :

Equinox and Solstice: site on celebrations of these annual events.

Brown@50 Howard University site celebrates 50th anniversary (2004) of Brown v. Board of Education.

All About Snow.

An Atlas of the Universe.

Holiday Trends from Journalists Toolbox, has lots of links for retail/shopping stats and lots of other stuff (holiday movies, etc.)

Food and Nutrition national country profiles from UN's FAO, includes info on Latin American countries.
Public Records:

Southern District of New York: Finally online! Now available thru PACER. (via Genie Tyburski.)
Florida:

Expertnet: Florida's researchers, finds experts in Florida state universities.

Quick Link to Florida County Websites
Statistics:

Facts about Christmas fun statistics from U.S. Census.
Tools:

WHOIS.sc, a really easy-to-use new WHOIS search, now gives you an image of the Web site of a domain, as well as good description.

Google number searches New! You can search by number for things like tracking numbers, airplane registrations and patents.
Governments, Politics:

Court Tech Forum: site from Florida's 9th Circuit focuses on technology and the courts.

Web Watch from Governing.com, this site finds interesting government Web sites. Latest: a teacher monitoring database from Vermont.

More Election 2004 links from Gary Price

Color of Money: another project on campaign finance, from the Fannie Lou Hamer Project. Find contributions from metro areas, ZIP codes, racial/ethnic groups.

Good summary of Supreme Court decision on campaign finance law from FECWatch (Center for Responsive Politics).

Campaign Finance Institute's EGuides

Fullcoverage of campaign finance from Yahoo.

United States Counties: from NACO, National Assn of Counties, click on a map to get information on a county, including demographics and lists of officials, and a link to the Web site. More useful searches from NACO (includes finding county by city, finding coastal counties, population range searches, etc.).
Business:

SBA Pro-Net database: search for small businesses by location, type, ownership, etc. I checked 'services' in local area code and got 5 businesses with lots of info including owners names.
People:

Western States' historical marriage database: search historical records from several states (mostly pre-1900).
News, Journalism: no links this week.

Some Interesting stories/Weblogs:

Your Right to Know: an FOI Weblog from Society of Environmental Journalists. (via Cyberjournalist.)

Powerful animation on Dennis Kucinich Website.

Did the 'blaster' worm cause the August blackout? from CNet.

A new IE flaw: Allows creation of a Web site with a supposedly valid URL in the address field. See how it works.

James Nachtwey: The photojournalist injured in Iraq. Amazing photos.

The Saudi Connection: huge investigative report by US News and World Report on how Saudi money financed terrorism.
Fun/Entertaining:

Talking Heads news and pictures for cable news anchor fans.

The Museum of London: includes a large photo gallery.

The Non-Verbal Dictionary: definitions of body language.

Have you heard about the "GoogleBombing" of G.W. Bush? Snopes explains how it works.

Key Ingredients: traveling Smithsonian exhibition on how America Eats, has a history of American cooking, a cookbook (with stories about the food), and "Eating from Coast to Coast", recommending restaurants, festivals and markets.

Newspaper history:
Annabel Colley's column in the FreePint newsletter points to this fascinating destination for news fanatics: Guardian Newsroom. This is an archive and visitor center devoted to history of London's Guardian (once the Manchester Guardian) and Observer (Sunday) newspapers. Includes links to info on one-time Guardian writer George Orwell, and a timeline, Interactive or text version. This sounds like a really fun place to visit physically, even more than online. There's even a cafe on site. (Wow! another excuse to travel to London!)
Besides the Newsroom, there's also a site, Guardian Century, celebrating 100 years (Guardian was founded in 1899). This site provides partial text of stories covering major or interesting events of the century.

More fun police news:
Sheila Lennon links to a new compilation of police blotter items from the Bozeman Daily Chronicle.

Speaking of competition:
I should mention the Palm Beach Post series, Modern Day Slavery. Kudos to those responsible -- especially the 4 former Herald writers involved in this project (Christine, John, Jane, and Connie).

Nod to the competition:
Haiti: Eroding Nation the Sun-Sentinel series anticipates Haiti's January bicentennial. There's a Multimedia version too.

On the issues:

Creative Loafing Atlanta did a profile of Choicepoint called Big Brother's Little Helper. The link is no longer working, though; and so far only the old link shows up in search. Worth looking for later, though, on the company that owns Autotrack, a long-time researcher favorite, whose image has changed since 2000 election fiasco.

Good summary of today's Supreme Court decision on campaign finance law from FECWatch (Center for Responsive Politics).

On same topic: Campaign Finance Institute's EGuides .

New today:

Philly.com now has RSS feeds.

Back To Iraq Journalist Christopher Allbritton has started a new campaign (Back to Iraq 3.0) to gather enough funding to go back to report from Iraq permanently.

First Draft's Tim Porter calls This the 'best blizzard photo ever'. Never say Bostonians aren't tough.....

Various things:

Interview with Orlando TV reporter who found the Wal-Mart 'victim' had sued many times before by Poynter's Al Tomkins. (via FlaBlog.)

Did you know that the Proquest Historical Newspapers project which digitized the entire New York Times archive (from 1851 to 1995) can now be searched on the Times' Web site? And stories downloaded in PDF for $2.95? I didn't. WOW! (via Cyberjournalist.)

Florida Press Club is offering another of Joe Adams' wonderful public records seminars at the Sun-Sentinel, Jan 17.

Inside the track:
If you go to a NASCAR race at Homestead-Miami Speedway you won't get to see much of anything except the grandstand. If you go to local motorcycle races, you get the run of the place. Some photos from yesterday:

(Some Florida sports fans were sitting in piles of snow in Foxboro, or yelling in front of the TV. Which is better?)

More on Herald blog.

Getting a look at the snow:
If you're in the northeast right now, I guess you don't want to see anymore. But for us in Florida, the closest snowy place is usually the Southern Appalachians. I've found a few blogs -- and a couple cams -- that can give me an idea of what the weather's like up there. I really love good photo blogs, so these are welcome:
Smoky Mountain Journal photoblog; Blue Ridge Blog (By ‘a hillbilly photographer”, from Boone/Sugar Mountain area.; Fragments from Floyd (Virginia, one of my favorite places--only occasional photos here though); Mountain Photos from near Boone; and two Smoky Mountain National Park cams, Look Rock and Purchase Knob. (The two cams have shown nothing but gray the last couple of days; the former is closest of all these to our place.)

Sidebar: the "hillbilly photographer" at Blue Ridge Blog is also a journalist (wouldn't you know), and has some interesting comments in today's post on homogenization of the news and Poynter's influence. Food for thought. (note, slight clarification in her next post.....)

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.

Friday:

On That Story about the woman being trampled in a Florida Wal-Mart: Apparently she's a serial litigator, according to local TV news. (via Jeff Jarvis, Lost Remote.)

Some fun things on Herald blog.

More good stuff:

Florida Electronic Library Free databases (news articles, magazines and journals, World Almanac, etc.) available to all Florida residents. Must have Florida library card number to access.

Research 101 nice tutorial from library at Washington U.

Polk News Watch: this is very cool. The Lakeland Ledger scans the Net for news of their area they may have missed. Perfect blog material.

Random links:

UNC is offering a Weblogs in Journalism seminar. The schedule and lists of speakers/demonstrators sounds great. Several journalist bloggers like Ed Cone, and founder of Tarheel Bloggers, among many others. Very cool. In January. (via Jeff Jarvis)

Doc Searls mentions the always intriguing police log in the Arcata (CA) Eye. Excerpts:
Tuesday, October 28 10:41 p.m. Replicating the example of our visionary world leaders on a more intimate scale, menfolk battled with sticks in front of an I Street store.
Thursday, October 30 7:50 p.m. Sunflower again claimed she was assaulted on the Plaza. And again she didn’t stick around for police to deal with it.
For more entertaining police blotter stories: Bar Harbor Police Beat.

FAQs on HIPAA from Radio/TV News Directors.

Why Do People Read Newspapers? new study from NAA and ASNE, at AJR. What They Like:
"Making a newspaper 'easy to read' is the single highest potential area for growing readership," an institute study asserts.
Surprisingly, the research says, ease "does not center around design or placement of articles." ...readers want such things as "more 'go and do' information in stories," including phone numbers, times, dates, addresses, Web sites and the like.
Also related to reading ease: more health, home, food, fashion and travel coverage; more stories written in a feature style; and more effective promotion of content in the paper.
This sounds a lot like what the Miami Herald did this September.

Reporting Civil Rights Timeline and stories from the Library of America. About the time, and about the people who reported the stories.

Keeping up:
Reaction to the FTAA protests in Miami is getting stronger: Miami's police coming under more and more scrutiny. I posted some links to the Herald blog.

I'm now getting access to scanned documents on Miami-Dade County's recording index. Need to subscribe for access (under Premier Search).

Blogging LA: Several Los Angeles-based bloggers are posting to this site, including Wil Wheaton, who announces a new book deal here. Will this be LA's Gawker? Couldn't every decent-sized city use this?

In an interesting public records inquiry, the Daily Business Review of South Florida finds the local circuit court is 'supersealing' some court files. Unfortunately, subscription required, but the story will be in Nexis. Tip from the DBR's Neil Reisner.

First Draft's Tim Porter reports on a story by the Brownsville Herald: reporters went as private citizens to request public records from local government agencies. There's a place to post comments at bottom of story, too.

This is cool:
The Blog from City Hall by the city manager of Eden Prairie, MN. The domain is edenprairieweblogs.com, so there may be others....

Blogging the meeting:
Info Today Blog covering the Online Information conference in London, going on now.

If your library isn't doing it yet....

Great report on starting a library Weblog from Info Today. All the nuts and bolts and howtos.