Weekend update: Other things found this week:
It's taken over a week, but I've switched the Herald blog to the new Infomaniac blog on Herald.com at blogs.herald.com/infomaniac. The blogroll still isn't quite right, but I guess that will all shake out eventually. I'll keep a link to the old blog, which won't go away, because it has a good long list of Florida blogs that I've been adding to recently. So far they aren't all on the new blog.

The Florida blog list is also on my my reference page on my Web site, along with a log list of other blogs I read regularly, journalism blogs, and blog tools. Some links may need updating but the Florida blog list there is complete.

The other links:

Reference:

What's that bug? great insect guide and place where folks can send in photos for identification.

EarthSearch: choose a geographic area and get a search form that searches databases of geographic features, like the USGS. Finds latitude, longitude and locates it on a world map. I don't recommend using this instead of the the USGS search since it doesn't have quite the same detail. But fun. And useful for finding things like, there are 3 places called hiwassee and 2 places called hiawassee. (Via Sheila Lennon.)

Most popular baby names: 2005 list from Social Security Administration.

First Person Narratives of the American South from UNC.

Jay Kislak Collection: Cultures & History of the Americas includes lots of Florida and ancient cultures materials, maps,etc.; at Library of Congress.

Say it Plain: Great African-American speeches from American Radioworks.
News:

The Wilson-Plame-Novak-Rove Blame Game: good chronology and background story links from Factcheck.org.

Iraq: in cold blood: abuses by armed groups, report from Amnesty Intl.
Statistics:

World Proved Reserves of Oil and Gas, most recent estimates from Energy Information Administration, DoE.

U.S. nuclear generation of electricity has details by state.

DEA payments to confidential drug informants, audit report from Justice.

Kids Count Data Book 2005 edition of these stats on health, family life, etc.
Governments, Politics:

Spreadsheet of Supreme Court Justices every one from last 100 years, including terms, appointments, years in office. From U. Mich. library.

U.S. Senate Reference has links to lots of good information about Supreme Court nominations over history. (Note link here to biographies of every member of congress ever.)

State legislative history search guides on the Web; by state.

Congressional Research Services Reports: another archive of these reports which the producer, LoC doesn't archive. This one is at library of U. North Texas.
Public Records:

Philadelphia police reports and incidents, searchable.

Our Property UK provides free searches (limited number per month) of UK property records.
Tools:

Are you using the right blogging tool? good discussion at OJR, includes comparison chart.

Thinking outside the search box: Mary Ellen Bates has hints on why just using search engines isn't enough on a research project.

Excel Spreadsheet templates for personal finance from Microsoft. Could be useful in helping learn Excel for work.
Business:

Time to re-dereregulate the airline industry from Natl Taxpayers' Union.

101 Facts on the status of workingwomen, from Business and Professional Women’s (BPW) Foundation" "The gap between median earnings of full-time, year-round workers widened last year, with women’s earnings currently 76% of men’s, down from 77% in 2004. At this rate, it will take another 40 years for women to reach wage parity with men, and over the course of a working lifetime, the average women loses approximately $523,000 due to the wage gap."

Some Interesting stories/Weblogs:

A&E Interactive, a new group blog from Mercury-News' features staff.


Fun/Entertainment:

The Gateway to Astronaut Photography, has hundreds of thousands of images taken from space.