Weekend update: Other things I found this week:

More links on the big topics of the week: I have already posted a lot of Haiti links here, and have added more to the reference links, and a lot of reaction on same-sex marriage and The Passion on the Herald blog, but here are even more interesting things on these topics I ran across during the week:

Haiti:

Bob Graham on Haiti: Wash. Post oped piece.

Directory of organizations working in/for Haiti: long list with contacts, phone numbers, Web sites, from Haiti Reborn.

Haiti's rebel leaders: profiles in Haitireborn.org.

Haiti's Lawyer: Ira Kurzban, in this profile from Democracy Now.

The Progress Report has Haiti news links, analysis.

MADRE (campaign for women)'s backgrounder on Haiti with criticism of anti-Duvalier (that's Aristide!) leaders.

Narco News on Haiti: discusses various scenarios for Haiti's problems, including the drugs issue.

Same Sex Marriage:

State-by-State same-sex marriage laws from Stateline.

Bush's war on gay marriage: the first of several joint Rolling Stone/Salon investigative stories. Also on Salon site, but need to subscribe or read ads.

Alliance for Marriage has text of proposed federal marriage amendment. Thoughts on the amendment as written from Jack Baklin, Constitutional Law prof. at Yale.

Lots of background info on same-sex marriages on Canadian site, ReligiousTolerance.org.

And, on the Mel Gibson Passion movie:

Crucifixion in Antiquity: a historical study.

Why is it called The Passion? Historical explainer in Slate.

More useful links....

Reference :

The Phrase Finder has origins, definitions of over 2000 English phrases. Searchable.

National Institute for Sports Reform

Leap Year: how it works.

Air Force Stats database from recent issue of Airman magazine, has military strength, bases, pay, grades, lots more.

A Visual Dictionary of Fashion

Time Life Images: galleries show some of 425,000 images available for licensing.

American history picture collection
Tools:

Fagan Finder's Google Interface gives you advanced Google search features from one search form. (Via Hidden Google Tools, article by Mary Ellen Bates on AskSam's Web site.)

Sort by Date: new news/blog search lets you get date you want.

JiWire Wi-Fi Hotspots Database: find wireless connections nationwide. A downloadable version is available for PDAs and cel phones. This seems to be best of all the directories I've tried, it finds 8 sites within 2 miles of my ZIP code in Miami, mostly Starbucks and Mail Boxes Inc. sites. But it doesn't find the public library with Wi-Fi in my NC town, so this may only list commercial Wi-Fi. I also tried the Google Labs' location search, which many people are recommending as a good way to search for Wi-Fi connections, but find it gets an awful lot of false hits.
Governments, Politics:

Electing a President: nice explainer from Detroit Free Press. First of several?

The best campaign interactives: Cyberjournalist' s list of Campaign 2004 news sites.

Security companies doing business in Iraq from State Dept.

Foreign Terrorist Organizations: latest report for Congressional Research Service.

FCC Search Tools: search FCC's website.

2003 Human Rights Reports from Dept. of State.
Florida:

DiscoverBiscayneBay.org: environmental news. Also: A Bright, Great Bay: PDF of report on history of the Bay from Biscayne Bay Partnership.

CUES: Center for Urban and Environmental Solutions: site of FAU's Anthony Catanese Center, has S. Fla. development news.

Seisint's MATRIX is still out there: Florida ACLU asks people to petition the Legislature against it.
People:

World's richest people, from Forbes.
News:

NHL/CBA News: collective bargaining news from the NHL.
Statistics:

Most stolen cars, by state from National Insurance Crime Bureau.
Public Records:

South Carolina State Salary Database on the Columbia State's Web site.

Secret No More: an activist releases FBI file names to make it easier for people to do FOIA requests...Also: FBI Central Records System file classifications.
Journalism, Business: no links this week.

Some Interesting stories/Weblogs:

Elmore Leonard's 10 rules for writers.

Castro's game of chicken in Slate.

The coming RSS revolution in Forbes.

Hiawatha Bray: the Boston Globe's technology writer has a blog.
Fun/Entertaining:

Ladies United for the Preservation of Endangered Cocktails, with a Women's History Month theme.

On the other blog:
I'm posting Reactions on the Howard Stern, Passion stories, along with a fascinating piece of Key West history, among other things.

Don't miss:
Nick Spangler's delightful story about a cow who lives in a vet's office.

(Miami Herald photo by Nuri Vallbona)

More on Haiti:
It's always a good tip to check outside the usual sources when looking for international information. Checking for Haiti information on the Le Monde Web site, I found several new Haiti information sites that were never mentioned on any sites I looked at before. A few (all in French):

Haiti Press Network Nouvelles en francais, from Haiti by Haitians, it appears.

Haiti Info Links to news stories (AP, AFP) and other relevant links.

France--Republique d'Haiti French government information on Haiti.

Haiti links:

(Miami Herald photo by Peter Bosch)
As things get more and more serious and this crisis may be coming to a head, here are some of the things I'm using in this constant barrage of Haiti news:

Miami Herald has several reporters and photographers on the scene. Haiti correspondent Michael Ottey also does a Q&A for readers.

Yahoo! Full Coverage: Haiti has current news stories covering last several weeks, plus links.

Haiti blogs: A couple new ones so far: Haiti Pundit news from Haiti compiled by a Haitian-American ; Haiti2004.info, news blog; Closer Step is a blog from Cap-Haitian, with photos, by a young visitor.

Haiti en Marche news online from the national newspaper and Radio L'Haitienne. Also has good links within Haiti.

Agence Haitienne de Press en ligne news from Haiti.

Haitian Times U.S. newspaper in English.

Haiti-Progres newspaper in French, Kreyòl, English. Has archive back to Aug. 99.

Palais National President's site.

Haiti Parlement

Ministère des Affairs Étrangères

Haitian embassy in Washington with good Haiti links.

Haitian Consulate of New York

Bob Corbett's Haiti page large searchable directory.

Sad commentary:
From The Herald's Jim Morin:

On comics:
The Miami Herald is trying to make some changes on its comics pages. Since the September redesign that put the comics on tabloid pages, they've been squished. Comics Survivor is an online poll that will let readers choose which four comics to eliminate and which of two new ones to add. Readers can also vote by mail. How other papers do this seems to be a fairly frequent topic on Newslib.

On blogging:
If you haven't come across a link on one of the many other journalism blogs that've linked to this, be sure to read Tom Mangan on blogging journalists in this interview with PJNet.

"Blogging is a natural way to report the news, I say that because every time big stories break, blogs pop up out of nowhere. We've been slow to realize this, but eventually almost all news will be posted blog-style. "

My own blogging has been mostly on the other blog so far this week. Today so far, it's on pancakes. More random stuff yesterday.

Weekend update: Other things I found this week:

I posted a lot on the other blog this week, lots of postings yesterday. But there are always more reference links I didn't post, so this is the usual Saturday roundup:

With a release due this week of lots of stats on Catholic clergy abuse (see earlier posting this week for Religionwriters.com resource page), and the release of Mel Gibson's film, Catholicism will be a hot topic. Some more resources:

Sexual Abuse in Social Context: Catholic Clergy and Other Professionals a report from Catholic League for civil rights.

Beliefnet: the Passion covers the Mel Gibson film controversy. Lots and lots of resources here.

The Passion: another site on the movie, from Lifeway.com.

More useful links....

Reference :

A Dictionary of Measurement.

Bottleneck study from U.S. Highway Users Alliance.

Brown vs. Board of Education: a digital archive from U. Mich. library.
Tools:

Blogdigger: a search engine for Weblogs, also finds other RSS news feeds.

How to make your CDs and DVDs last longer: Don't write on 'em! ....and other hints from NIST.

Spy Stoppers: good article in PC Magazine on keeping scumware out of your computer.

Microsoft security update disk...free: If you need to get all the security patches for your Windows 98, XP, or 2000 PC, instead of downloading Microsoft will send you a free CD. Order here.
Governments, Politics:

The Juvenile Death Penalty Today: a study from Ohio Northern University.

UN Human Rights report on Cuba (in French).

Youth'04: new political site for recruiting young voters.
Florida:

St. Augustine's Black History: nice series of stories, permanently posted on the Web site of The Record.

The Cost of Living Here: incredible package of stories on housing costs in St. Petersburg area, from the Times.
People:

Isaac Bashevis Singer: Centennial of his birth. (He died in Miami Beach in 1991).
News:

Iraqi Press Monitor: from Inst. for War and Peace Reporting, has translated stories from Iraq media.

Don't want to register to read online stories from the Tribune papers, WashPost or NY Times? Here's a solution. Someone has set up IDs to log in as freethepresses.
Journalism:

The danger of citing Google searches in news stories in Mediabistro.

The New York Times uses a cell phone camera photo to illustrate this graphic on Cingular/ATT merger.
Public Records, Business: no links this week.

Some Interesting stories/Weblogs:

Sports Law News: a new blog.

New information, details on 9/11 flights in this article by Gail Sheehey in the NY Observer.

Fascinating Newsday story on 1971 Kerry photo says it took only two weeks from when photog. shipped the negative to Corbis for it to turn up -- doctored -- in anti-Kerry emails. See more links on this, including a Snopes report (under 'debunking rumors').

Columbia students attempt to investigate Alex Polier story, come up short.

Paperchase: Legal/public records news blog from Jurist.

Here's one good use for all those closed circuit cameras they've mounted EVERYWHERE around Britain.....

Dan Kennedy on the Kerry attacks in the Boston Phoenix.
Fun/Entertaining:

Tesselations: on art in an M.C. Escher style.

Frosted Windows: 300 years of St. Petersburg thru Western eyes.

It's Library Lovers' Month: this site tells you how to love your library. Here's a really hot topic among librarians: Librarians in the movies.

New resources:
From the News Division of the Special Libraries Association. Jessica reports that there's a new Election '04 resource page, and it looks incredibly complete. Also, the International news archives page has been updated. More news on NewsliBlog.

News librarian takes up challenge:
Check out Jessica Baumgart's description of the research she did in response to a challenge from someone who wanted to know if a librarian could do a better job than Google Answers. I posted a little more on this on the other blog.

Feeding:
Continuing the topic of RSS feeds from the other day, yesterday I created my own My Yahoo! page so I could try their beta feed reader. I have to say I like the page, which has a lot of fun bells and whistles, with local weather, tonite's TV schedule, my local movie theater schedules, news, and lots and lots of other things I could add to it if I wanted. Of course, signing up also gets you a Yahoo email account, which I probably should have done a long time ago, and will probably use now, since there's a quick link on the page to show if there's new mail.
I also did this because it makes it easy to use the new Yahoo search, which I want to try out more. It's at the top of the page too.
The RSS feed reader is actually a very nice feature. You just enter the URL or keywords about the site you're looking for, and Yahoo finds it for you and prompts you to enter it. Or, if you do a Yahoo search, there will be a link in the results to "add to My Yahoo" if a feed is available. It then shows up in the reader, at top of the news section of your page. There's a limit to 25 feeds. Because I read more than that, I'll probably end up using this just for the blogs that I don't regularly check every day. It just shows headlines, so you have to click to read still.
There's a good RSS FAQ page if you want to know more.

I've been trying feed readers (Amphetadesk, FeedDemon, Feedster.....) for awhile, and it just hasn't caught on with me. I still prefer to click on a list of links every day to go directly to the blogs and news sites I read (I like seeing the source). But if anything can, this My Yahoo reader function (it's still in beta) might change my mind, if I get in the habit of using this page daily. Because it only shows headlines, it is an easy way of finding out if a page has been updated, so I can still click on the link if I want to go to the main page.
Note, My Yahoo's reader will read Atom feeds, so this blog's feed will work there....
If you still haven't gotten into this RSS/XML/feed thing, this looks like a good way to get your feet wet.

More on Feedpaper builder:
(See Tuesday's post.) from Researchbuzz. Also, Steven Cohen reported his Feedpaper is working.

Customized feeds:
Hard to tell exactly what this will mean for researchers, but Feedster's new Feedpaper 'blogosphere' feeds are pretty fascinating. Here's the Feedster Politics page with links to Feedpapers for the presidential candidates. These are RSS feeds from blogs and news sites about the race. You can add them to your blog, if you wanted to. In the most cited example, there's a Feedpaper feed on the John Kerry site. This is also creating some confusion, as, for example, Dave Winer wondered why his blog posts were showing up on Kerry's site.

Or, even better, you can create your own feeds, according to Steven Cohen of Library Stuff, who attempted to set up his own. So far, he said, it hasn't worked yet though. Here's the Feedpaper builder. This is all pretty interesting.

Resources for priest abuse statistics:
A kind person on the NICAR-L listserv notes that a massive release of stats is coming out Feb. 27, and Religionwriters.com has a nice page of resources to help report this story.

New take on news:
Memeorandum posts news stories, with links to what bloggers are saying about them. Most popular stories remain at top, and move down page as interest wanes. According to this, the Kerry affair rumor story is still on top today.

My Wire Service is another new online news aggregator that lets you get customized news feeds.

New reporter/editor blogs:
300 Words: Orlando Sentinel writer/blogger Joe Newman (First-n-Main) is soliciting short essays on places.
Banned for Life: another blog from Merc copy editor Tom Mangan (Prints the Chaff), listing copy editors' pet peeves.

And:
I've posted on Moblogging, and Haiti (including a couple new Haiti blogs) today, and more, on the Herald blog.

Libraries and searching:
In another case of a blogger getting to report on a 45 minute interview that led to 'a few words' of a story, Gary Price discusses Joel Achenbach's story in the Washington post on Web searching, Search for Tomorrow. Gary says, " I wish journalists would stop making it an either libraries OR Google thing", and goes on to emphasize his thoughts about why stories about Google often miss the point.

But Achenbach (a serious researcher himself) has created a fascinating story about how information has changed:

" Information escapes confinement. Information has been able to break free from monasteries, libraries, school-board-sanctioned textbooks, and corporate publishers. In the Middle Ages, books were kept chained to desks. Information is now completely unchained.
It has a life of its own -- and someday perhaps that won't be just a metaphor. "

I'd have to agree with Gary, though, that unless these stories also explain that there are library directories and researchers out there that filter information, reading about access to 'unchained' information doesn't help you much.

Color!
Just posted, some new photos, around Miami:

Updates:
Added to the reference links (in left-hand column, or on Behind the News links page): New links collections on Election 2004, and Florida politics.

Signs of spring:
The robin is singing, and the daffodils in full bloom, on Cornwallcam. There are daffs on Lakelandcam too.

Weekend update: Other things I found this week:

It's getting harder to categorize the links that I'm finding. Seems like blogs are making a lot of the news, these days. See, for example, the work Calpundit's doing on the Bush National Guard questions (This is just one good post. There have been several this past week). Or the stuff CJR's Fact Check is doing.
Then you find a blog like this: Real Clear Politics, and how do you describe it? A news service? a blog? Or should it be under Politics? All three?

On the Bush question, I pulled together a bunch of links a couple days ago, there's more by today, I'm sure. (Also see Yeoman of the Service: Slate creates a timeline of GW Bush's National Guard service.)

More useful links....

Reference :

Links to military personnel statistics databases on Resourceshelf.

Virtual Motor City: over 15,000 historical photos from Detroit from the Detroit News' collection.

New Georgia Encyclopedia: nice to see states doing this. Wish there was a Florida encyclopedia.

History of Valentine's Day from History Channel.

Mathematics of the African diaspora

End of Life Choices: newly launched site for dignified death information.

Caxton's Chaucer: from British Library, see images of the pages of two editions of this original printed text.
Tools:

Seekscan: New meta-search engine searches several engines at once, and allows you to refine search to 'Weblogs' and 'Reference' as well as news, images, and multimedia. (It also seems to search letter combinations within words.)

Queryster: choose a search engine to search, then click on another and search it. There are 10 engines to search from. Try them all (the directory stays on screen as results change). This is cool.

Free GIS data: from GeoCommunity, download mapping data on various topics. Not all free, though...
Governments, Politics:

The Price of Loyalty: the Bush Files from collection of former Treasury Sec'y Paul O'Neill, source docs for his book with Ron Suskind.

Dan Froomkin's White House Briefing: Wash. Post compilation of White House news.

Real Clear Politics: a handy compilation of latest political news.
Statistics:

School Results: from No Child Left Behind program, look up individual schools, districts and get stats. Florida is one of few states so far available.

U.S. Statistical Absract, 2003: latest edition.

2003 Green Book, now online, this is House Ways & Means collection of stats on govt programs (SSN, Medicare, etc.)

Mini Historical Statistics from U.S. Census/Uncle Sam's Reference Shelf.

Canada E-Book from Statistics Canada.
Florida:

Historic Preservation Miami from city Planning dept.

Miami Beach 411 directory of hotels, restaurants, M.B. history, and more.
Public Records:

Massachusetts court search: state Supreme Court and Appeals Court.

Pennsylvania Docket Sheets: search Appellate and Court of Common Pleas.

New databases on National Archive include Vietnam unit records, naval combat gunfire data, defense contracts 1975-2000.

VINElink has offender searches by state. This site allows victims to register to be notified when a specific offender is due for release.

Delaware Secy of State: services including a search of corporate registrations.

Florida Vehicle Registration check: put in VIN or Title number, get current status of vehicle.
People, News, Journalism, Business: no links this week.

Some Interesting stories/Weblogs:

Change for America: new blog from former Dean campaign manager Joe Trippi.

Here's a story I always suspected:Channel 2 in Cape Coral discovers citrus canker eradication workers actually spread the disease.

Music for America a social issues blog.

The Food Section: another food blog.

SixBillion.org: an 'online magazine of narrative journalism' with some interesting stories/projects online.

Ad Campaigns that have made a difference from Ad Council.
Fun/Entertaining:

Official BBC office time waster.

Busy blogging day:
...on the Herald blog. Also, note there's been a design change on the Herald.com site so the archive search is more prominent at top of screen (this search works well for blog entries), and the archive and description links have been moved closer to the top. The only thing I don't like is the big banner ad that moves content text down the page, AND the even bigger "Sponsored links" box, but hey! Can't complain about ads there....

I also changed the "About" page on the Herald blog to add a longer blogroll (pretty much identical to the one on left, although I may make some changes there later).

Also, a new News Library News with a nice article on RSS by Harvard News Service's Jessica Baumgart, is out. Link to the PDF is posted on NewsLiBlog, and on the News Division Web site.

The real Iraq Casualty link:
OK, I screwed up the link to Iraq Coalition Casualty Report. I thought the lunaville.org/warcasualties link would work, but I put a www in front of it, and it's not needed. Just lunaville.org gets you there just fine. Unfortunately the NY Review article excerpt I cited also had a bad link.
To emphasize our good experiences with Lunaville: I've used it to pull out stats on helicopter deaths, Florida soldiers killed, and just for quick totals. In totaling up all the statewide casualties, I checked Lunaville's names against the lists published by Defenselink, CNN, and Military City and they were right on every time (although a little more up-to-date than some). A couple of our reporters have contacted the folks at Lunaville and found them very responsive, including doing particular calculations.
Thanks to Margot for pointing out my bad link.

Amazing KR news:
Dave says Knight Ridder will soon be moving his blog to a KR site. Hmmm. Says here, comments will be activated. That's something I'm not sure I want to see on Dave's blog, just the posts are more than enough.

Herald story:
New York Times and Cyberjournalist on The Miami Herald's Willie Williams diary's impact. Leading, of course to his arrest on probation violation yesterday.

On the other blog:
Bush National Guard, Beatles 1964 trip links.

Oh yeah, and the mayor lost.

In case you needed to know:
How to network using Blogger.

A great service:
I've been a big fan of the Iraq Coalition Casualty Count and have used it and recommended it to reporters for awhile. Nice mention of the site in Editors Weblog, referring to a NY Review of Books piece....

America the beautiful:
I wish I'd been able to take out my camera this morning to take pictures of the scene at my local city hall where we voted for mayor and commissioners. The City of South Miami has had a lot of recent controversy over its government, and yesterday the incumbent mayor was arrested for taking a large political contribution in his city office.
The parking lot in front of city hall was filled with people holding campaign signs, there were a few video trucks, and you had to run a gauntlet of people pushing their candidate and handing out flowers as you went in to vote.
There was such demand for parking spots I didn't have a chance to get the camera out of the trunk and take pictures. As I pulled out, the police officer directing traffic thanked me for voting: "It's the American Way", he said, in a thick spanish accent.
Leaving the scene, I passed banners for the Saturday farmer's market and the upcoming art festival; also a store selling "rain forest parquet" (pretty blatant) and the Booby Trap (strip club which somehow got approved last year). The good and the bad of our little city of 10,000.....
What a country.

Missing from last week's list:
Editors Weblog from the World Editors Forum.

Florida public records:
Kudos to the 29 Florida newspapers that participated in a project organized by the First Amendment Foundation, testing how local governments in many counties reacted to requests for public records from reporters acting as private citizens. The main story is from the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, which led the project. Joe Adams collects links to most of the stories. Great work.

It's about time....
Doc & Merle Watson honored at the Grammys. Profile in Asheville Citizen Times.
(added Monday): Beautiful portrait of Doc and Rosa Lee Watson on Blue Ridge Blog, along with links.

New pictures:
Flowers, greenery, boats and palm trees
.

Mainstreamed:
Have you noticed the Rathergood guys now have a TV commercial....for Quiznos? It's the We like the moon song.

Daffs in Cornwall:

The photo, from Cornwallcam, has expired.

February 7, 2004:

Weekend update: Other things I found this week:

With a Sarasota murder and a UM recruit with criminal records, it's been a busy week. The UM story reminded us how important it is to background everyone we write about, even juveniles. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement background check now shows juvenile records. Worth remembering.

More useful links....

Reference :

Cuban Heritage Project at UM: New Web site has lots more information available via CHC Digital: will include digital images of holdings (a few available now). Also links to good bibliographies like UM library's Lyn MacCorkle's Cubans and Cuban Americans on the Internet.

On military funerals facts from Dept of Defense.

Carbohydrates: going with the (whole) grain from Harvard School of Public Health.

Languages from BBC online courses, phrase lists, lots more.

Brown v. Board of Education: 50th anniversary facts from Census.

Avian Influenza: background from WHO.

Sept 11/War on Terrorism Sourcebooks from National Security Archive, has documents...
Journalism:

BusinessJournalism.org: new site for business writers from API.

OpenAirWaves.org new site from Center for Public Integrity has database of media outlets' ownership by locality.

Top 100 newspapers in the world from World Assn. of Newspapers. Note, also, newspaper history links.

PB Post editor Sears is E&P editor of the year.
Business:

Using Reuters Finance to get industry rankings: how to from Gary Price.
Tools:

Remember Mamma? This meta-search engine (searches several engines at once) claims to have improved searching, with quotes for phrases, keywords highlighting, and calculations built in.

FindSounds.com: new search engine will search for sound effects in MP3s, WAVs, more.
Governments, Politics:

Elections 2004: great links from U.Mich library.

Prosecutor info has addresses, web links, etc. to district attys, state attys, attys general....

U.S. Budget 2005 documents.

Congressional Directory, 108th Congress

Yahoo! Election Resources

Governors database: from Natl Governors Assn, get lists or info on governors of states. Search by lots of variables.

2004 Election links from Librarian's Index to the Internet.

Vote by Issue Quiz from Online News Hour, take the quiz to find which candidate agrees with you on the issues.

Wisconsin Advertising Project studies campaign advertising.
People:

GoogObits: another obituary Web site, with links on recent dead. Similar to Blog of Death.
News, Florida,Public Records: no links this week.

Some Interesting stories/Weblogs:

Jimmy Carter's Weblog from Africa.

The Nub a blog about workplace issues. Seems to focus on the news business frequently.

Tumor Diary: BBC reporter with brain cancer continues his online diary, as news gets worse.
Fun/Entertaining:

1913 Armory Show the University of Virginia hosts this online exhibition which reproduces the shocking modern art show held in NYC. The biggest sensation: Duchamp's Nude Descending a Staircase.

SalsaWeb "World's largest online salsa magazine".

Google bombing heats up: the tables are turned now, when you type 'Miserable failure' in Google it now brings up sites on Michael Moore, Jimmy Carter, Hillary Clinton, etc.

Photo London: historic photo collections.

Janet Jackson's breast cupcakes. Not to mention the lawsuit.

Don't you love Florida?
Check out this post from Florida Blog.

Noteworthy today:

BusinessJournalism.org: new site for business writers from API.

Ricin facts from CDC.

Ricin information from Al Tompkins at Poynter. (OK, this was yesterday.)

Nevermind...maybe:
Of course, right after I posted below, the files suddenly became available.....after at least an hour or so of nothing....

Files unavailable:
the photos at top and the Toolbox (Behind the News) files on my Earthlink site are not coming up because something's going on with Earthlink. The site has been pretty reliable after a terrible few months last summer, so this is disappointing. Took a little digging thru Earthlink's site to find the status report, but it says scheduled maintenance may cause files to be unavailable. Glad to know it's there. According to this, the downtime should only last til 8 p.m. (Eastern) today.

Oh, wait: this maintenance is supposed to take place TOMORROW! Arghhhh!

Our Hero:
Nice photo and blurb about Gary Price on John Battelle's Searchblog. Mostly focusing on Gary's campaign to inform people that they can often get access to expensive databases for free on their local public library sites. Gary's never cited this service, though, which gives access to anyone with a Florida-issued library card. An amazing public service. (We also have access to even more databases through the Miami-Dade Public Library.)

Knight Ridder and blogging:
Tom Mangan discusses.

More Blogs:
Found in Blogspot's recently published list today, Legislature.com, a blog following the Missouri legislature.

And, Common Sense Journalism, a blog by U of South Carolina journalism prof. Doug Fisher. Lots here about the SC Primary Blog, the moblogging project by students with the NewsPlex. Note the tribute to 'news resourcers' (news researchers in new media). (Via a tip to NewsLib from Nora Paul. Guess I missed it on E-Media Tidbits yesterday.)

Fractal Google:
...for Gaston Julia's birthday. Here's something you don't hear about every day:

Another Election blog:
Hot off the Trail, from Knight Ridder correspondents. Interestingly, hosted on Blogspot. (Maybe that's what I should be doing with the Herald blog, at least then I could have a feed).
Note to whoever at KR is doing this: activate the Atom Feed. People want feeds.

Not sleazy:
The Herald's Fred Grimm writes a lovely column about Eleanor Holm, who was thrown off the Olympic team in 1936.....for drinking champagne with reporters. Holm died the other day.

Flowers in February:
In a Cornwall garden. From Cornwallcam (photo has expired).

The other Super Bowl phenom:
Too bad most people didn't get the AOL commercials. I thought they were the best thing about the game (besides the exciting finish).

Weekend update: Other things I found this week:

I've been intrigued with 'Wikis' for awhile, and think it sounds like an excellent tool for sharing information. Seems like this could be great for Intranets, investigative projects, news libraries. But it's still a pretty unknown concept. Here are a couple things that've been going on with Wikis that demonstrate what they can do:

Wikipedia, the online volunteer-created encyclopedia, is up to 200,000 articles. I've always wondered if this would ever be reliable enough to use as a research tool, but Dan Gillmor wrote about it this week and believes it's amazingly accurate. Collaborative reading/editing works, because contributors are constantly checking others' work.

WikiTravel: a collaborative online travel guide. Lots of sections still need input, anyone can contribute. I checked a few places and there's lots of work to do here. I'm tempted to make some contributions, though....

Blogs, RSS and Wikis is a directory of all sorts of resources on these topics.

More useful links....

Reference :

Military Spot: huge portal with links to military info, news, etc., including blogs.

Whole Health MD: nice site on natural health, supplements, diet and recipes, etc.

Oscars Press Kit

Purportal search several Urban Legends sites from one page. (Could have sworn I linked to this weeks ago....)

World License Plates

AllRefer has a dictionary, gazetteer, and other refrence links online.

Mad Cow Facts from Center for Global Food Issues.

Super Bowl television commercials: will be available here after the game; 2003 and 2002 commercials here now.
Journalism:

What do people want from their newspaper? LOCAL NEWS! Tim Porter reports on a new study.

Ethics Advice for Journalists from Loyola Chicago.

Copy Editors: the readers' advocate from American Press Institute.
Business:

The New War Profiteers: package of stories from the Institute for Southern Studies.
Statistics:

City-data.com this site might be useful for finding details about a small town somewhere.

Bankruptcy Statistics from U.S. Courts.

Projections of Education Statistics to 2013 from NCES.

The State of Literacy in America a new study with searchable databases.
Tools:

Gigablast search engine is now adding links to archived Web pages via The Wayback Machine. You'll see links next to results to 'older versions'.

U.S. Cert: sign up for virus and other computer system attack alerts.
Governments, Politics:

Politics news sites good list of online newsletters and blogs covering politics, from Jon Dube at Poynter.

Times on the Trail a 'continuously updated' page of news on Campaign 2004, from Times correspondents. Sounds -- sorta -- like a blog.

Clarkbot: feeding links to news about Wesley Clark.

Election Reform, 2004: What's changed, what hasn't:report from electionline.org.

New Hampshire Political Library has historical primary results.

Rule of Law and Cuba at FSU. Includes bio, photos and info on dissidents.

Reconstruction of Afghanistan from NYU.

Transitional Afghan State: on the new Afghan constitution.

Government views of Iraq: a great reference guide from CCNY library.
News:

AM NY: the new free Tribune (Newsday) tabloid also available for free PDF download daily.

Get NIH news by email: sign up for health alerts, notices of new disease collections, etc.
Florida:

Florida Auto Trails history of Florida's great roads.
People:

Database of National Security experts from Ploughshares.org.
Public Records: no links this week.

Some Interesting stories/Weblogs:

The Smoking Gun guys get a gig on the Today Show. Not bad for a couple journalists who came up with an alternative to working for big media....at least for a while.

Gene Weingarten on the Weekly World News

The 101 dumbest moments in business from Business 2.0.

New phenom on EBay: Imaginary girlfriends.

Philly Inquirer will run columns from politics blog 'Spinsanity'.

Last minutes of Columbia shuttle from Newsday.

37 soldiers report rape by other soldiers in Iraq: from Denver Post. Result of a study on military sexual assault. More stats.

A campaign reporter's dissent: interesting discussion on Jay Rosen's Pressthink blog based on a letter from a small-town newspaper reporter trying to cover the presidential campaign.
Fun/Entertaining:

Drawing from Life: a Smithsonian exhibit of caricatures.

Vanishing Georgia, from the Georgia Digital Library, has 18,000 historical photos scanned.

Live view of Cold Mountain (the real one). (via Smoky Mountain Journal.)