John

style=’font-size:26.0pt’>Places You Should Go

to Find
News Fast

Al Tompkins/Poynter href=”mailto:tompkins@poynter.org”>tompkins@poynter.org)  727-821-9494

 

style=’font-size:14.0pt’>See Al’s Book “ href=”http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1566251761/qid=1076465249/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2/102-6033918-6669712?v=glance&s=books”>Aim
for the Heart”

style=’font-size:14.0pt’> src=”links_files/image001.jpg”>

style=’font-size:14.0pt’>Get Story Ideas From Al by E-Mail at 7am M-F

width=202 height=23 src=”links_files/image002.jpg”>

href=”http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=2″>http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=2

 

 

Index

Things Google Will Do href=”#prosports”>Sports

Find People/Places href=”#blogs”>Tracking Blogs

href=”#publicrecordsdatabases”>Search State Public Record Databases href=”#news”>Tracking News Coverage

Investigating Politicians href=”#RSS”>RSS Feeds

Health Resources href=”#calculators”>Calculators

Aviation, Trucking, Rail, Ship
Information Economics
Airplane Crash Resources and Pictures href=”#hurricanesquakes”>Hurricanes and Earthquakes
The Internet Archive href=”#weatherdisasters”>Weather and Natural Disasters

Military Resources href=”#CrimeCourts”>Crime and Courts

Useful and Fun Sites href=”#forpay”>For-Pay Sites

Translation Tools href=”#investigatecharity”>Investigate Charities

Who Owns That Website? href=”#forpay”>Junk Science and Hoax Busting

Census and Local Data

 

 

style=’font-size:20.0pt’>Things You Can do With

Run Google and Yahoo at the same time href=”http://twingine.com/”>http://twingine.com/

DoubleTrust.net Here is another version that shows what Yahoo and Google
agree on and what each finds that the other misses. href=”http://www.doubletrust.net/”>http://www.doubletrust.net/

 

http://clusty.com/ a new
search engine that returns answers in clusters

 

src=”links_files/image004.jpg”>http://accoona.com/
brand new search engine site. This one lets you sort news results by state,
county, by time or date published. It is a GREAT tool for journalists.

 

Yahoo also has a new
news search system-will search for recent
news stories on any word or phrase you select.

Searches
MSN, Google and Yahoo and allows you to “weight” the search to favor one engine
over the other. http://www.huckabuck.com/

Tracking Terror href=”http://www.globalincidentmap.com/home.php”>http://www.globalincidentmap.com/home.php

href=”http://www.youtube.com/index”>http://www.youtube.com/index  Citizen
posted video on every imaginable subject

height=68 src=”links_files/image007.jpg”> href=”http://www.blinkxtv.com/”>http://www.blinkxtv.com/ Search for
podcasts, online video,  TV news clips and other video bits from more than two
dozen sources, including ABC News, BBC News, Fox News, ESPN and C-Span style=’font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial’>.

src=”links_files/image008.jpg”>The Free Version of Lexis/Nexis href=”http://www.lexisnexis.com/news/”>http://www.lexisnexis.com/news/

 

Google news- little
known but very cool, spiders post automatically without humans being involved
in story selection http://news.google.com/

Google News also has href=”http://news.google.com/news?meta=ned=es&hl=es”>a Spanish edition
of Google News. It also has many other languages and country specific news
crawlers. Just look for the small dialogue box near the top of the page.

I need a picture of somebody or something style=’font-size:10.0pt’>http://images.google.com
or try this one based on Lycos http://www.mamma.com
(Mamma also searches audio and video files)

http://www.flashearth.com/ style=’font-size:10.0pt’>compares Google, Yahoo, NASA and other maps with one
click

NEW Google maps style=’font-size:10.0pt’> be sure you include a test drive of the local feature.
http://maps.google.com/maps

height=53 src=”links_files/image009.gif”> This is the new 4.0 version released June 12, 2006 http://earth.google.com/ must
download program first  click here to find out when the images were taken of
most US cities http://earth.google.com/coverage/coverage_list.pdf

href=”http://sketchup.google.com/”> href=”http://sketchup.google.com/”>This is a brand new product. It is a modeling
program that enables you to explore the world in 3D. With just a few simple
tools, you can create 3D models of houses, sheds, decks, home additions,
woodworking projects – even space ships. And once you’ve built your models, you
can place them in Google Earth, post them to the href=”http://sketchup.google.com/product_3dwh.html”>3D Warehouse, or print
hard copies. href=”http://sketchup.google.com/products.html”>Quick demo page style=’font-size:10.0pt’>

Brand new-it is the easiest way to make a customized Google Map href=”http://quikmaps.geotripping.com/”>http://quikmaps.geotripping.com/

href=”http://local.live.com/”>http://local.live.com/

Google’s book index
http://www.print.google.com/

NEW Google Search history style=’font-size:10.0pt’> https://www.google.com/searchhistory/login

New Google video style=’font-size:10.0pt’>-search for video and submit video href=”http://video.google.com/”>http://video.google.com/

New “Google Suggest” style=’font-size:10.0pt’>-the search engine tries to anticipate what you are
looking for

New - style=’font-size:10.0pt’>Google Scholar-searches scholarly papers abstracts,
technical reports from many academic publishers, scholarly societies and
colleges. http://scholar.google.com/

 

src=”links_files/image013.jpg”>Uncle Sam
looks just at government sites http://www.google.com/unclesam

 

src=”links_files/image014.jpg”>http://www.google.com/ig/usgov
a government news site

Google Hacks (list by href=”http://www.lifehack.org/”>www.lifehack.org)

 

• href=”http://www.ahding.com/cheapgas/”>CheapGas style=’font-size:10.0pt;font-style:normal’>“Getting best prices in your
  city. It is comprised of 170 gas price information web sites that help
  consumers find low gasoline prices. Powered by GasBuddy.”
• href=”http://www.geobloggers.com/”>Geobloggers style=’font-size:10.0pt;font-style:normal’>“Geobloggers is a site that’s
  built upon two great technologys. Google Maps takes care of the mapping
  side and Flickr takes care of the image hosting, scaling, and so on.
  geobloggers mushes those two together.”
• href=”http://traffic.poly9.com/”>Google-Yahoo Traffic-Weather Map style=’font-size:10.0pt;font-style:normal’>Combined with Yahoo Traffic
  Feed with Google Map to show traffic condition.
• href=”http://www.weatherbonk.com/weather/index.jsp”>Weather Bonk style=’font-size:10.0pt;font-style:normal’>“Weather maps lets you view
  real time weather information on a google map. This can provide some very
  interesting information, particularly in areas with microclimates, such as
  San Francisco. For example, summer in San Francisco can be particularly
  cold and foggy, and this map can help you to find a sunnier area of the
  city to visit. Clicking on the web cams give you a visual observation from
  a given location. Looking at wind direction can help you locate
  approaching weather fronts.”
• href=”http://www.globalcoordinate.com/”>Global Coordinate style=’font-size:10.0pt;font-style:normal’>“The idea behind
  globalcoordinate.com is to take a number of common but different web
  applications and put them together. You will find here an atlas, weblogs,
  photo-blogs, travel guides, weather reports, news sources, etc. The
  objective is to let users find the synergies between these concepts.”
• href=”http://www.cellreception.com/”>Cell Phone Reception and Tower Search
  “ style=’font-size:10.0pt;font-style:normal’>Consumers can search for the
  best carrier in their area. And with our graphical tower location search,
  users can pinpoint nearby tower locations. Even to the exact rooftop with
  satellite imagery and the help of Google Maps!”
• href=”http://www.housingmaps.com/”>Housing Maps style=’font-size:10.0pt;font-style:normal’>Powered by Craigslist. This
  Google Maps visualize where to buy houses, rent rooms around US
• href=”http://www.tagzania.com/”>Tagzania style=’font-size:10.0pt;font-style:normal’>“Tagzania is about tags and
  places. If you register and log in, you can add places, points, to create
  and document your maps. When you add a point, you may tag it with
  keywords. That way, Tagzania is not only a place to build and keep your
  own maps, shared territories are created as well.”
• href=”http://www.chicagocrime.org/”>ChicagoCrime style=’font-size:10.0pt;font-style:normal’>“This is a non-profit, freely
  browsable database of crimes reported in Chicago. It is not affiliated
  with the Chicago Police Department or with Google Maps. It is not an
  official source of crime information for the city of Chicago. Rather, it
  is an alternative view of public record that is available elsewhere. At
  any given point, this site contains crime-report information spanning a
  90-day period. After 90 days, the crime data is removed.”
• Find a sex offender in
  any zipcode-Family Watchdog href=”http://www.familywatchdog.us/ShowMap.asp”>http://www.familywatchdog.us/ShowMap.asp
  
• href=”http://www.gvisit.com/”>Track visitors to your website using Google
  Maps “Lets you track the visitors to your website using Google Maps.”
• href=”http://www.speakeasy.org/~endico/maps/usgs.html”>Earthquakes in the
  last week “Earthquakes of magnitude 2.5 or greater in the last 7
  days. Click on the menu bar to choose a new map view or create your own view
  by clicking to re-center the map and then zooming in to get a closer look.
  Click ‘link to this page’ and then bookmark the new url so you can return
  to your new custom view.”
• href=”http://www.parsec.it/whereis/index.php”>Whereis style=’font-size:10.0pt;font-style:normal’>“Geolocate where the server is
  on Google Maps from an URL.”
• href=”http://www.toeat.com/”>toEat.com: Where do you want to eat?
  “toEat.com aims to be
  the central point for hungry people and restaurants to congregate. Our
  first release is the restaurant browser system, which is only a small
  piece of what is on the toEat.com roadmap.”
• href=”http://www.beenmapped.com/”>beenmapped.com “ style=’font-style:normal’>Never forget the location of that awesome place
  again. Bookmark it on BeenMapped.com!”
• href=”http://www.mapbuilder.net/”>MapBuilder style=’font-size:10.0pt;font-style:normal’>“MapBuilder lets you build your
  own map with number of location and generate GoogleMap source code for
  this map. So you will be able to paste it directly into your web page and
  use it with your API key requested at Google style=’font-style:normal’> href=”http://www.google.com/apis/maps/signup.html”>http://www.google.com/apis/maps/signup.html.
  After
  creating your own map you will be able to save all locations with related
  information for future use. It means that you’ll be able to make some
  improvements for your map later.”
• href=”http://creativebits.org/webdev/google_maps_on_your_website”>Google
  Maps on your Website A how-to guide on putting a interactive map on your
  site
• href=”http://www.developer.com/java/web/article.php/10935_3528381_1″>Integrating
  Google Maps into Your Web Applications style=’font-size:10.0pt;font-style:normal’>Tutorial on how to integrate
  Google Maps.
• href=”http://googlemapsmania.blogspot.com/”>Google Maps Mania style=’font-size:10.0pt;font-style:normal’>“An unofficial Google Maps blog
  tracking the websites, ideas and tools being influenced by Google Maps.”
• href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_maps”>Google Maps on Wikipedia
  Good
  set of information on Google Maps by Wikipedia
• href=”http://groups-beta.google.com/group/Google-Maps”>Google Maps Group
• href=”http://www.googlesightseeing.com/”>Google Sightseeing style=’font-size:10.0pt;font-style:normal’>A blog introduces some
  interesting place to look at by using Google Maps’ screenshots

href=”http://www.google.com/help/features.html#cached#cached”>Cached Links               style=’font-size:10.0pt’>View a snapshot of each page as it looked when Google
indexed it-great for finding sites that no longer exist.

 

href=”http://www.google.com/help/features.html#calculator#calculator”>Calculator                     style=’font-size:10.0pt’>Use Google to do math expressions.

 

href=”http://www.google.com/help/features.html#definitions#definitions”>Definitions                    style=’font-size:10.0pt’>Use Google to get glossary definitions gathered from
various online sources.

 

href=”http://www.googlealert.com/”>GoogleAlert.com          style=’font-size:10.0pt’>The site then runs daily Google searches for you and
e-mails you the results. The first e-mail includes up to 50 results from
Google, many of which you’ve probably seen before. But after that, the e-mails
only include new results that have not appeared before. That’s the truly useful
part.

 

href=”http://www.google.com/help/features.html#froogle#froogle”>Froogle                        style=’font-size:10.0pt’>To find a product for sale online, use Froogle -
Google’s product search service.

 

href=”http://douweosinga.com/projects/googletalk”>Google Talk                 style=’font-size:10.0pt’>Ever wondered what Google would say if it could talk?
Enter three or four words and Google will finish your thoughts by searching for
what comes next after these words.

 

href=”http://douweosinga.com/projects/googledate”>Google Date                 style=’font-size:10.0pt’>Google Date lets you enter a date and then searches
using Google for what happened on that date and shows three results. Since
Google isn’t very good at sorting documents for relevance when it comes to
dates, it usually doesn’t give you a list of big events, but of the things
happening in the lives of random people.

 

href=”http://douweosinga.com/projects/googlehistory”>Google History             style=’font-size:10.0pt’>Use Google to find out in what year something
happened. This works for events between 1800 and now.

 

href=”http://www.google.com/help/features.html#local#local”>Local Search                style=’font-size:10.0pt’> New! style=’font-size:10.0pt’>      Search for local businesses and services in the U.S. and Canada.

 

News
Headlines Enhances your search
results with the latest related news stories.

 

href=”http://www.google.com/”>Google Questions         style=’font-size:10.0pt’>Ask a question and Google tries to figure out the
answer you are looking for. Such as “Who was Abe Lincoln?”

 

href=”http://www.google.com/help/features.html#number#number”>Search By Number       style=’font-size:10.0pt’>Use Google to access package tracking information, US
patents, and a variety of online databases.

 

href=”http://www.google.com/help/features.html#related#related”>Similar Pages                style=’font-size:10.0pt’>Display pages that are related to a particular result.

 

href=”http://www.google.com/help/features.html#sitesearch#sitesearch”>Site Search                   style=’font-size:10.0pt’>Restrict your search to a specific site.

href=”http://www.google.com/help/features.html#spell#spell”>Spell Checker               style=’font-size:10.0pt’>Offers alternative spelling for queries.

 

href=”http://www.google.com/help/features.html#stock#stock”>Stock Quotes               style=’font-size:10.0pt’>Use Google to get stock and mutual fund information.

 

Street
Maps Use Google to find U.S. street maps.

 

href=”http://www.google.com/help/features.html#travel#travel”>Travel
Information        Check the status of an
airline flight in the U.S. or view airport delays and weather conditions.

 

href=”http://www.google.com/help/features.html#translation#translation”>WebPage Translation    style=’font-size:10.0pt’>Provides English speakers access to a variety of
non-English web   pages.

 

Who Links To You? style=’font-size:10.0pt’>Find all the pages that point to a specific URL.

 

Absolutely everything (almost) you
would want to know about professional sports
from attendance history to revenue to historic ticket prices to player salaries
by sport. href=”http://users.pullman.com/rodfort/PHSportsEcon/Common/OtherData/DataDirectory.html”>http://users.pullman.com/rodfort/PHSportsEcon/Common/OtherData/DataDirectory.html

style=’font-size:20.0pt’>
Tools to Find Stuff/People/Places

height=74 src=”links_files/image015.jpg”>I need to find a website that has been
offline for years-or how can I find out what a website looked like on a certain
date? This site has logged 10-billion pages
(yes, you read it right-Billion) going back to 1996.  It is the only site of
its kind. http://www.archive.org/index.html

src=”links_files/image016.gif”> Find the Hidden subdirectories of any url style=’font-size:10.0pt’> http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/

src=”links_files/image017.jpg”>Find video or audio from movies, TV, radio and
internet www.singingfish.com

Easy to find state and
national links to over 28,000 searchable public records databases style=’font-size:10.0pt’>http://www.searchsystems.net/
Use this site to look up licenses for doctors, lawyers, dentists, lawn care
companies, Psychologists you name it.  This is a gold mine!

State and Local Government Website Index style=’font-size:10.0pt’> (http://www.statelocalgov.net/index.cfm):
Perhaps the most comprehensive online directory to government websites, this
index provides the user with links to every department website imaginable for
each level of government. The user is brought one step closer to the public
records sought by being connected with the appropriate government agency, from
statewide offices to the smallest branch of a city or township.

target=top>Public Records Online Search
state-by-state criminal records, real estate information and more.

What Licenses do States require of any given profession
or occupation? Enter by profession or by
state  http://www.acinet.org/acinet/lois_start.asp?soccode=&stfips=

Property Tax records for any county in the United States. See who owns what property and how much
tax they paid.  You can also learn about renovations, additions and basic
mortgage lien information on any property. href=”http://indorgs.virginia.edu/portico/personalproperty.html”>http://indorgs.virginia.edu/portico/personalproperty.html

href=”http://www.zillow.com/”> border=0 width=191 height=47 src=”links_files/image018.jpg”>Look up
the estimated value of any property http://www.zillow.com/
(Note, plenty of people have arguments with Zillow’s estimates.)

Search records
for every public school in every state in America. href=”http://www.schoolmatters.com/”>http://www.schoolmatters.com/

height=24 src=”links_files/image020.jpg”> Find backgrounds on millions
of individuals-free : href=”http://networking5.zoominfo.com/PeopleSearch/AdvancedSearch.asp?nlb=4%2F13%2F2005+8%3A05%3A54+PM”>http://networking5.zoominfo.com/PeopleSearch/AdvancedSearch.asp?nlb=4%2F13%2F2005+8%3A05%3A54+PM

New style=’color:red’> src=”links_files/image021.jpg”>   By far the most complete free phone,
address and people search tool because it uses many engines at once.
Requires a free download. href=”http://www.argali.com/”>http://www.argali.com/

Zabasearch.com style=’color:red’>NEW Another people
finding software. The basic search is free, deeper searches cost $20-$100 href=”http://www.zabasearch.com/”>http://www.zabasearch.com/

height=48 src=”links_files/image022.gif”> http://www.peoplefinders.com/

Annual Reports for Investors ( href=”http://www.annualreports.com”>http://www.annualreports.com): style=’font-size:10.0pt’>Annual reports are accessible in their original
formats. The user can search by company name, ticker symbol, industry, or
sector. There is also an alphabetical index of all companies providing reports.
All reports are free, and no registration is required.

Find a person in the US or Canada. style=’font-size:10.0pt’>My favorite is style=’font-weight:normal’>http://www.infospace.com
Let’s say you want to know more about this person but don’t want to call them
yet—maybe you could call a neighbor.  Under  the “look up addresses” box, enter
in the person’s street without his/her house number and you will get all
addresses and phone numbers on the street. Choose the ones nearest your
target.  also try: http://whitepages.com/
and try http://www.anywho.com/

You have a phone number-who does it belong to? style=’font-size:10.0pt’>http://www.anywho.com/rl.html

Find a person or business’ phone number style=’font-size:10.0pt’>http://www.switchboard.com/

Find the number for a pay phone somewhere
in the world http://www.payphone-project.com/

Zip Code lookup and address information style=’font-size:10.0pt’>http://www.usps.gov/ncsc

WhoWhere href=”http://www.whowhere.lycos.com/”>http://www.whowhere.lycos.com

Is that person dead? A
place to look.  They also list names of people who have been reported to be
dead, but are ALIVE http://www.dpsinfo.com/dps/index.html

Look up death records by social security records style=’font-size:10.0pt’> href=”http://www.ancestry.com/search/rectype/vital/ssdi/main.htm”> style=’font-weight:normal’>http://www.ancestry.com/search/rectype/vital/ssdi/main.htm name=”_Hlt26595904″>

Biographies of famous people.
This dictionary covers more than 28,000
notable men and women who have shaped our world from ancient times to the
present day. http://www.s9.com/biography/

href=”http://politicalgraveyard.com/”>http://politicalgraveyard.com/
thumbnail IDs of long-ago politicians

Find a person in state, local or federal government office style=’font-size:10.0pt’>http://www.whowhere.lycos.com/Govt/main.html

Officials in every county government in every county in the United States href=”http://www.naco.org/counties/counties/index.cfm?CFID=265389&CFTOKEN=24197800″>http://www.naco.org/counties/counties/index.cfm?CFID=265389&CFTOKEN=24197800

Business and Company
Information

BRB Publications Free Resource Center (http://www.brbpub.com/pubrecsites.asp):
More than just a directory to free public
records searching, the Free Resource Center also provides links to articles to
assist users in public record searches. In addition, the “Public Record
Newsroom” lists current items in the news relating to public records of
all types.

Lists of every known professional and business
association in America href=”http://en-nav.besthotels.com/org/alpha/list-alphai_10.html”>http://en-av.besthotels.com/org/alpha/list-alphai_10.html

Construction Weblinks: Public Records ( href=”http://www.constructionweblinks.com/Industry_Topics/Public_Records/public_records.html”>http://www.constructionweblinks.com/Industry_Topics/Public_Records/public_records.html):
This is a directory of mostly free websites to
help the user learn different types of information about specific companies in
the United States. Websites are arranged alphabetically and include bankruptcy
data, earnings reports, pending litigation, and license suspensions.

Pretrieve ( href=”http://www.pretrieve.com”>http://www.pretrieve.com): This resource
serves as a gateway to services on hundreds of websites that provide public
records free of charge. Searches can be conducted by personal name, business
name, address, or telephone number. For businesses, it provides financial,
legal, trade-related, and research records, many as scanned images of
originals. The user can view property records and even satellite imagery of
both business and residential properties.

Who Exports What to Where (state by state) TradeStats
allows you to see what each state exports and to whom they ship the stuff. Pick
your state, pick a product and click the start button. height=3 src=”links_files/image023.gif” alt=spacer>The site is presented by the
Office of Trade and Industry Information (OTII), Manufacturing and Services,
International Trade Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce. href=”http://tse.export.gov/SEDHome.aspx?UniqueURL=flskea45au4e4p45lyaxqu45-2005-5-10-16-0-23″>http://tse.export.gov/SEDHome.aspx?UniqueURL=flskea45au4e4p45lyaxqu45-2005-5-10-16-0-23

Public Records Finder ( href=”http://www.publicrecordsfinder.com”>http://www.publicrecordsfinder.com):
Both business and personal public records are indexed in this comprehensive
database. Nationwide searching is available, broken down by categories
including business records, corporate tax forms, legal research resources, and
professional licensing information.

src=”links_files/image024.jpg”>Search SEC and business filings using the new Hoovers site: http://www.hoovers.com/free/

target=top>National Association of Secretaries of State: Corporate
Backgrounders good for researching
businesses

Find a business near this address-great for breaking
news: href=”http://www.infospace.com/info/neighbor.html”>http://www.infospace.com/info/neighbor.html name=”_Hlt9071047″>

Find a toll free number for a person or
business http://www.anywho.com/tf.html

Internet Address Finder – E-mail
Directory http://www.iaf.net

Area code listing, by number http://www.bennetyee.org/ucsd-pages/area.html

style=’font-size:20.0pt’>Investigating Politicians

src=”links_files/image025.gif”>Who is influencing my Congressman? style=’font-size:10.0pt’> href=”http://www.fec.gov/”>www.fec.gov run by the federal election
commission. You can search individual contributors, individual candidates or
races. http://www.opensecrets.org name=”_Hlt536334726″>-nonprofit/non-partisan
site-crunches Federal Election commission figures to show you who is giving
and receiving what from whom. Put in your zip code and find out who is
donating to the presidential campaign.

State contributions-state races- style=’font-size:10.0pt’>http://www.followthemoney.org/

height=26 src=”links_files/image026.jpg”> State Lawmaker’s Personal
Financial Disclosures Online href=”http://www.publicintegrity.org./oi/search.aspx?act=canddisc&cycle=2004″>The
Center for Public Integrity has collected and posted the new personal
disclosures for state legislators in America.

href=”http://www.publicintegrity.org./oi/search.aspx?act=searchm”>The center
has a page that allows you to search by name, zip code, or you can put in a
name of a company or organization and see which lawmakers are linked to
that name. It would be especially interesting if, for example, a company landed
a big contract and you wanted to know who has ties to them. You can also search
by industry to see which lawmakers have interests in what business.

527’s-the
silent Power in Elections.  See who is
really paying for the campaigns that spend hundreds of millions of dollars in
races. http://www.publicintegrity.org/527/

src=”links_files/image027.jpg”>Get Local on contributions – style=’font-size:10.0pt’> href=”http://www.politicalmoneyline.com/cgi-win/x_stateguide.exe?DoFn=&sYR=2004″>http://www.politicalmoneyline.com/cgi-win/x_stateguide.exe?DoFn=&sYR=2004
Here is one of the most useful databases I have seen for drilling down to big
players in cities. Click on states, then cities and you will see a list of the
largest givers.

Who is giving what to whom in power—Politicalmoneyline- style=’font-size:10.0pt’>even has a search engine to investigate donors by
name. Enter a zip code and you can find out who in that zip code donated to
federal elections. This site is the site that monitors every move at the
Federal Election Commission.   http://www.tray.com/fecinfo/

Fundrace 2004 Neighbor
Search-easy to use and fun –includes
a mapping program by city. http://www.fundrace.org/neighbors.php

height=82 src=”links_files/image028.jpg”>www.vote-smart.org name=”_Hlt514727104″> - style=’font-size:10.0pt’>a nonprofit/non-partisan group- details how
congressmen vote on bills and issues. Now they are tracking platform
positions taken by candidates on state and federal levels. You can also track
legislation-extremely useful site.

src=”links_files/image029.gif”>FactCheck.org
helps to fact check candidates, parties and election ads nationwide.  href=”http://www.factcheck.org/default.html”>http://www.factcheck.org/default.html

 

GovTrack follows your
elected federal officials, tracks legislation and is RSS ready to update you on
whatever you want. http://www.govtrack.us/

 

Congress.Org
Includes issue positions of Presidential
candidates, state information on voter registration and upcoming elections, and
links to Congressional races by state, with background information available on
Congressional voting records.

http://www.congress.org/congressorg/e4/

 

Electionline style=’font-size:10.0pt’>includes a reference guide to laws and regulations,
and state and local election administration, as well as commentary on best
practices and areas for electoral reform.
http://www.electionline.org/

 

Green Papers style=’font-size:10.0pt’>Facts, figures, tidbits and commentary on the U.S. election campaigns
http://www.thegreenpapers.com/

 

Politics1 style=’font-size:10.0pt’>Links to all aspects of elections

http://www.politics1.com

Polls Online-public opinion and surveys
from Gallup, news organizations and Pew href=”http://www.people-press.org/otherpolls/”>http://www.people-press.org/otherpolls/ name=”_Hlt9070989″>

src=”links_files/image030.jpg”>PollingReport-tracks all sorts of new polls
constantly http://www.pollingreport.com/

Charities and Non-Profits

src=”links_files/image031.jpg”>Charity Check-you need to know where all the
money is going-every charity that takes in
$25K has to file an I-990 form. They are the mother lode of information and
they are open for your inspection. Go to your local charitable solicitations
board, your secretary of state or, now, online to see these forms. A great new
site www.guidestar.com has almost a
million of these forms on file. They are constantly being updated and soon will
include millions of I-990 forms.  (Hint-when looking for a specific charity,
put the name in quotes.)

Charity Navigator rates charities and non-profits. href=”http://www.charitynavigator.org/”>http://www.charitynavigator.org/

src=”links_files/image032.jpg”>The Better
Business Bureau also has a rating
service for charities called www.give.org

Foundation
Giving by state and year –a list from The Foundation Center

 

style=’font-weight:normal’>Network for Good — style=’font-size:10.0pt’>which is powered by the Guidestar database includes
financial snapshots

The style=’font-weight:normal’>American Institute of Philanthropy
is a “Charity Watchdog” that offers a
rating guide to roughly href=”http://www.charitywatch.org/azlist.html”>500
charitable organizations to its donors. However, a list of
the top-rated charities
is available for free online.

The IRS provides a page of href=”http://www.irs.gov/charities/article/0,,id=129028,00.html”> style=’font-weight:normal’>links to information about state agencies
that regulate charities and other non-profits. For
example, the Florida Division of Consumer Services offers a href=”http://www.800helpfla.com/giftgiversguide/”>database that contains “financial summaries of
charitable organizations which are registered with the State of Florida.”

For tax information, style=’font-weight:normal’>IRS Publication 526 covers
charitable contributions.

height=33 src=”links_files/image033.gif”> Who Owns that Website? style=’font-size:10.0pt’> Search the ownership of any website in
the world. Try this site called href=”http://www.networksolutions.com/en_US/whois/index.jhtml”>allwhois.com.

• Also, try href=”http://www.networksolutions.com/cgi-bin/whois/whois”>http://www.networksolutions.com/cgi-bin/whois/whois
  Also try http://www.samspade.org/t
  if all you have is an ISP number, can trace backward to identify the user.
  Very useful in decoding who is posting to a listserv or bulletin board.
• href=”http://www.visualware.com/personal/products/visualroute/index.html”>VisualRoute
  Tracker- this is a for pay service that will backtrack who owns a
  website and who owns a serve hosting it. For serious investigative
  projects like tracking child porn or fraud.

WatchThatPage.com style=’font-size:10.0pt’>is a service that enables you to automatically collect
new information from your favorite pages on the Internet. You select which
pages to monitor, and WatchThatPage will find which pages have changed, and
collect all the new content for you. The new information is presented to you in
an email and/or a personal web page.

Unravel IP addresses, host or name servers style=’font-size:10.0pt’>to figure out who is writing or hosting what. This is
a one-stop shopping center. href=”http://www.networksolutions.com/cgi-bin/whois/whois”>http://www.networksolutions.com/cgi-bin/whois/whois name=”_Hlt536331300″>

href=”http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/eco_eco_aid_don_percap-economic-aid-donor-per-capita”> style=’color:black;text-decoration:none’> src=”links_files/image034.jpg”> href=”http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/eco_eco_aid_don_percap-economic-aid-donor-per-capita”>http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/eco_eco_aid_don_percap-economic-aid-donor-per-capita
the world in statistics

src=”links_files/image035.jpg”>Product Safety Recall site by the Consumer
Product Safety Commission. Alerts are listed
as soon as they are announced by the federal government. href=”http://www.recalls.gov/”>www.Recalls.gov.  Includes downloadable
video and interviews.

 

href=”http://www.ancestry.com/search/rectype/vital/ssdi/main.htm” target=top>Social
Security Death Records

New Easy to use Census
site: http://www.censusscope.org/

Find out the basics about any city or town style=’font-size:10.0pt’> http://www.citytowninfo.com/

Census.gov vital facts-
quick click for basic facts on any city, state or county href=”http://www.census.gov/”>http://www.census.gov

 

src=”links_files/image036.jpg”>FactFinder is
the Census’ site that helps you get microspecific data, even map it. It is very
easy to use. http://factfinder.census.gov/home/saff/main.html?_lang=en

 

SECinfo.com style=’font-size:10.0pt’>It is a free site that monitors Security and Exchange
Commission filings.  The site will even send you an email when the company you
are tracking files something new. Fantastic.

src=”links_files/image037.gif”>Read the EPA drinking water inspections style=’font-size:10.0pt’> in every water district in America. href=”http://www.epa.gov/safewater/dwinfo/index.html”>http://www.epa.gov/safewater/dwinfo/index.html

Who is release toxic stuff in your community? style=’font-size:10.0pt’>  EPA has an easy to use tracking site. You can watch
toxins, water, air pollution, land (dumping) and more. Just plug in a zip code,
city, or state.  http://www.epa.gov/enviro/index.html

Online Polls-from political to topical
polls, this site finds them and posts them daily href=”http://www.pollingreport.com/”>http://www.pollingreport.com/

 

style=’font-size:20.0pt’>Tracking News Fast

1stHeadlines.com-a great journalism site style=’font-size:10.0pt’>. href=”http://www.1stheadlines.com/”>http://www.1stheadlines.com  is a fast
and easy to load site that summarizes the leading headlines for hundreds of
newspapers and online news sites around the world.

border=0 width=91 height=17 src=”links_files/image038.gif”>Create your own news
page with MyYahoo and RSS feeds style=’font-size:10.0pt’>.  You can select from more than 150,000 websites and
then arrange them on your page. The RSS feeds are constantly updated.  If you
do not want to use MyYahoo, consider an RSS directories/display tools such as href=”http://beta.onfolio.com/”>onfolio 2.0 or href=”http://www.feedster.com/”>Feedster. Feedster indexes over 1 million
syndicated sources and adds approximately 5,000 new feeds daily. This includes
over 50,000 professionally published sources such as the New York Times, BBC,
CNET, IDG, and Wired. Feedster also also continually monitors the leading
weblog change notification sites such as www.blo.gs,
and others to make certain that the information from the blogosphere is as
timely as possible.

src=”links_files/image039.gif”>A fantastic tool for watching local news
coverage: http://www.topix.net/
Topix spiders yours and more than 3,000 other local news sites. Its users can
enter one of your local ZIP codes and see a page showing all local news from
you and your competitors.

 

SpeakWire-Listen to a Newspaper’s RSS podcast href=”http://www.speakwire.com/”>http://www.speakwire.com/

WatchingAmerica.com a daily collection of headlines
from around the world, many of them from Arabic speaking countries, often very
critical of the US. http://www.watchingamerica.com/

 

European news portal
Newsnow-which searches nearly 10,000 news sites every 5 minutes.  Here is a
collection of international news sites including tons of live streaming sites
from around the world.  http://tv4all.com/portal.htm

 

Get a jumpstart on University studies and releases style=’font-size:10.0pt’>http://www.ascribe.org/

Encyclopaedia Britannica
more than 70 newspapers and a directory of Web links, evaluated by Britannica
editors. http://www.britannica.com/ name=”_Hlt953795″>

Links to every known local newspaper in the United States href=”http://www.newspapers.com/usa_news.htm”>http://www.newspapers.com/usa_news.htm

src=”links_files/image040.gif”>Highbeam free research href=”http://www.highbeam.com/index.asp?homepage=y&ctrlInfo=Round18%3AMode18c%3ASR%3AHdr%2EHome”>http://www.highbeam.com/index.asp?homepage=y&ctrlInfo=Round18%3AMode18c%3ASR%3AHdr%2EHome

Top 99 Newspaper websites online-ranked by traffic style=’font-size:10.0pt’> href=”http://www.top9.com/top99s/top99_newspapers.html”>http://www.top9.com/top99s/top99_newspapers.html

Newspaper front pages from around the world style=’font-size:10.0pt’>-updated daily href=”http://www.pressdisplay.com/pressdisplay/viewer.aspx”>http://www.pressdisplay.com/pressdisplay/viewer.aspx
http://www.newseum.org/todaysfrontpages/

Links to Most Popular magazines online href=”http://newslink.org/mtopus.html”>http://newslink.org/mtopus.html

Very fast loading list of most major papers in US and Worldwide-use this
when you are in a hurry  style=’font-size:10.0pt’>http://www.dailyearth.com/

 

Newspaper archives from Special Library Association. Search
newspapers by state. Some of the archives are subscriptions, some are free. href=”http://www.ibiblio.org/slanews/internet/archives.html”> style=’font-size:10.0pt’>http://www.ibiblio.org/slanews/internet/archives.html

Spiders and skims from alternative papers style=’font-size:10.0pt’>http://www.alternet.org/

Collections of alt weeklies nationwide href=”http://aan.org/gbase/Aan/publicationDirectory”>http://aan.org/gbase/Aan/publicationDirectory

Links to Business newspapers in the United States href=”http://www.newspapers.com/results.asp?category=32″> style=’font-size:10.0pt’>http://www.newspapers.com/results.asp?category=32

Links to International Newspapers indexed by country href=”http://www.newspapers.com/country.htm”>http://www.newspapers.com/country.htm

Links to religious newspapers worldwide href=”http://www.newspapers.com/results.asp?category=512″> style=’font-size:10.0pt’>http://www.newspapers.com/results.asp?category=512

Native American News websites
Indianz.com
style=’font-size:10.0pt’>Native Times
href=”http://www.healthfinder.gov/justforyou/justforyou.asp?KeyWordID=220&branch=1″> style=’font-size:10.0pt’>Native American health issues site href=”http://www.nativeweb.org/”>Nativeweb.org
href=”http://news.yahoo.com/fc?tmpl=fc&cid=34&in=us&cat=native_american_news”> style=’font-size:10.0pt’>Yahoo Native News Index href=”http://www.indiancountry.com/”>Indian
Country Today

A huge collection of special interest online journals
http://gort.ucsd.edu/newjour/a/

Middle East News    aljazeera
in English – http://english.aljazeera.net/HomePage

style=’font-size:10.0pt’>Afghan Daily href=”http://www.ahram.org.eg/weekly/”>Al-Ahram
Weekly style=’font-size:10.0pt’>Debka.com href=”http://www.haaretzdaily.com/”>Ha’aretz
Indian
Express style=’font-size:10.0pt’>The Iranian href=”http://www.janes.com/index.shtml”>Jane’s
Defense style=’font-size:10.0pt’>Military.com href=”http://www.estripes.com/”>Stars &
Stripes href=”http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/”>Times
of India

style=’font-size:20.0pt’>

style=’font-size:20.0pt’>Blog Tracking

What are Blogs linking to? http://www.blogsnow.com/
Scans more than 100 blogs a minute and constantly updates.

Tons of blogs: style=’color:#0B2269′>Browse by
Topic Browse by Location

Blogs sorted by state href=”http://www.globeofblogs.com/?x=location&region=8″>http://www.globeofblogs.com/?x=location&region=8

 

 

 

name=translationtools>Translation Tools

src=”links_files/image041.jpg”>Translate almost any language into almost any
other language. If you are trying to read a
Spanish language page in English, for example, try this: also href=”http://www.freetranslation.com/”>http://www.freetranslation.com and
this site is a “real time translator” meaning you could have a conversation
with a person who is speaking another language href=”http://babelfish.altavista.com/”>http://babelfish.altavista.com/ name=”_Hlt9070895″>
http://www.babblefish.com/babblefish/bfish_lang.htm name=”_Hlt9070839″>

src=”links_files/image042.jpg”>Polly Glotto-
type in a word or a phrase and Polly will translate and even say your phrase in
any of 13 languages. http://www.pollyglotto.com/index8.php

Google also has a very nice translation
tool http://www.google.com/language_tools name=”_Hlt20882115″>

Hotspot List style=’font-size:10.0pt’> find a public wireless (WiFi) hotspot by logging in
and entering city, street, zip
http://www.wi-fihotspotlist.com/

style=’font-size:20.0pt’>

style=’font-size:20.0pt’>Health News Sites

src=”links_files/image043.gif”>CDC’s WONDER page. href=”http://wonder.cdc.gov/”>http://wonder.cdc.gov/ This is an interesting
page chocked full of story entry points-I find ideas here all the time.

 

href=”http://www.statehealthfacts.org/cgi-bin/healthfacts.cgi?”>Easily compare
state health statistics-Kaiser
collection let’s you know how any state ranks on  infant mortality, percentage
of insurance or uninsured population or percentage of population infected with
HIV, just for example. This is a wonderful and easy to use database.

State Health Facts- on
one website (by Kaiser) you can find out about health coverage and costs for
every state, state by state listings for AIDS, Medicare, income, and more. href=”http://www.statehealthfacts.org/”>http://www.statehealthfacts.org/

Kids Count-state by
state data on the health and well-being of children. href=”http://www.aecf.org/cgi-bin/cliks.cgi”>http://www.aecf.org/cgi-bin/cliks.cgi
includes ranks.

Mega health and medical site from the government  href=”http://medlineplus.gov/”>http://medlineplus.gov/

Nutrition stats
for fast foods, recipes and such http://www.nutritiondata.com/

A Smallpox primer style=’font-size:10.0pt’> href=”http://kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=15222″>http://kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=15222

Redflagsweekly- a very
aggressive site run by a former ABC News Health writer href=”http://www.redflagsweekly.com/”>http://www.redflagsweekly.com/ the
site often takes on conventional wisdom and what it calls “press release
journalism.”

Health Facts-state by
state including % uninsured, HIV-AIDS and more href=”http://www.statehealthfacts.kff.org/”>http://www.statehealthfacts.kff.org/

Healthwatch-topical
health stories of the day href=”http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/health/main204.shtml”>http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/health/main204.shtml

Medscape-you choose
the areas you want to search http://www.medscape.com/

Intelihealth-from Harvard href=”http://www.intelihealth.com/IH/ihtIH?t=7228&p=~br,IHW|~st,333|~r,WSIHW000|~b,*|”>http://www.intelihealth.com/IH/ihtIH?t=7228&p=~br,IHW|~st,333|~r,WSIHW000|~b,*| style=’font-size:9.0pt’>

Journal of the American Medical Association href=”http://jama.ama-assn.org/”>http://jama.ama-assn.org/

Dozens of Environment related websites href=”http://www.health.gov/nhic/NHICScripts/Hitlist.cfm?Keyword=Environmental%20Health”>http://www.health.gov/nhic/NHICScripts/Hitlist.cfm?Keyword=Environmental%20Health

Kids Health issues -updated
daily- excellent and easy to use: http://www.kidshealth.org/

src=”links_files/image044.jpg”>Who is dying from what- style=’font-size:10.0pt’>The CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality weekly report- href=”http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/”>http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/ style=’font-size:14.0pt;color:red’>

Find any physician in the United States from AMA. style=’font-size:10.0pt’> href=”http://www.ama-assn.org/iwcf/iwcfmgr206/aps?1168216196″>http://www.ama-assn.org/iwcf/iwcfmgr206/aps?1168216196

style=’font-size:18.0pt’>Calculators

The coolest calculator/converter site I know of, style=’font-size:10.0pt’>converts everything from grams to ounces, you name it.
http://www.megaconverter.com/mega2/

Cost of Living Calculator Uses the Consumer Price Index and is useful in comparing budgets,
income, spending from one year to another. href=”http://www.newsengin.com/neFreeTools.nsf/CPIcalc”>http://www.newsengin.com/neFreeTools.nsf/CPIcalc

How much did something cost years ago-
a great primer http://www.gti.net/mocolib1/kid/foodfaq5.html

Online Conversion – tons
of other calculators href=”http://www.onlineconversion.com/”>http://www.onlineconversion.com style=’font-size:10.0pt’>
everything from distance to weights and measurements wind chill.

Try this site for calculating percentages- style=’font-size:10.0pt’>(what is _% of __.)
http://www.onlineconversion.com/percentcalc.htm

Math calculators for journalists http://www.webmath.com/

Automatically converts numbers to Roman Numerals href=”http://www.onlineconversion.com/roman_numerals_advanced.htm”>http://www.onlineconversion.com/roman_numerals_advanced.htm

How old is somebody in dog years? style=’font-size:10.0pt’> style=’font-weight:normal’>http://www.onlineconversion.com/dogyears.htm

Distance as the crow flies-worldwide calculator http://www.indo.com/distance/

Driving distance between two cities calculator: href=”http://www.mapquest.com/”>http://www.mapquest.com or style=’font-size:10.0pt’> href=”http://www.onlineconversion.com/drivingdistance.htm”>http://www.onlineconversion.com/drivingdistance.htm name=”_Hlt536331602″>

name=transportation>

style=’font-size:20.0pt’>Investigating Aviation, Trains, Truck and Bus Crashes,
Cruise Ships

style=’font-size:10.0pt;color:red’> href=”http://www.transtats.bts.gov/exit.asp?URL=http%3A//www.uscgboating.org/statistics/accident_stats.htm”>http://www.transtats.bts.gov/exit.asp?URL=http%3A//www.uscgboating.org/statistics/accident_stats.htm
All federal statistics on deaths,
injuries, accidents for rail, ships, planes, bikes, pedestrians, pipeline,
trucking and highways

border=0 width=118 height=64 src=”links_files/image046.jpg”>A plane
crashed in my area-I need information-quick-go
to www.landings.com
it helps to identify problems with airlines and with individual planes. This
powerful site will give you pilot backgrounds, aircraft safety records,
specific maintenance records of planes (if you have a tail number) and tons of
other details. Get familiar with this one-you will use it. href=”http://www.faa.gov/”>www.faa.gov is a helpful site too.

Fantastic resource for covering crashes style=’font-size:10.0pt’>  http://aviation-safety.net/index.shtml
they often even have a schematic drawing of the crash site and quickly track
the safety records of that kind of airliner.

 

src=”links_files/image047.gif”>The NTSB site

href=”http://www.ntsb.gov/NTSB/query.asp#query_start#query_start”>Database
Query – interactive search capability for
the NTSB database, updated daily; see the href=”http://www.ntsb.gov/NTSB/HELPFILE.HTM?x_form=#General_info”>general
instructions before using the form for the first time.

Monthly lists
- accidents sorted by date, updated daily.

Completed
investigations - periodically updated list
of cases scheduled for release of probable cause.

Downloadable datasets
- one complete dataset for each year beginning
from 1982, updated monthly in Microsoft
Access 95 MDB format; this FTP site also provides weekly “change”
updates and complete documentation.

GILS
record – complete description of the
accident database, including definition of “accident” and
“incident”.

FAA incident database
- complete information about incidents, including
those not investigated by NTSB, is provided by the Federal Aviation
Administration.

NTSB href=”http://www.ntsb.gov/Publictn/publictn.htm”>Accident Reports
NTSB Annual Review of
Aircraft Accident Data
NTSB Aviation Accident Database
NTSB Most Recent Accidents
/Older Accidents/ href=”http://www.ntsb.gov/Publictn/A_Stu.htm”>Studies | href=”http://www.ntsb.gov/Publictn/A_Stat.htm”>Statistical

Get
pictures of thousands of commercial airplanes listed by N number: href=”http://www.airliners.net/”>http://www.airliners.net/

Other aviation photo sites to check include; PlanePictures.Net,
PlaneSpotting
Network, JetPhotos.Net

The Federal Register-this is the official
US Government notification site where all  advisories, alerts, notices and so
on are listed daily.  Type in the name of the aircraft, for example, to see
airworthiness advisories or mechanical advisories href=”http://www.gpoaccess.gov/fr/index.html”>http://www.gpoaccess.gov/fr/index.html

Look up international registrations style=’font-size:10.0pt’>(Australia, UK, South Africa, Italy, Ireland, Japan
and so on) href=”http://www.landings.com/evird.acgi$pass*48271342!_h-www.landings.com/_landings/pages/search/reg-world.html”>http://www.landings.com/evird.acgi$pass*48271342!_h-www.landings.com/_landings/pages/search/reg-world.html

Look up Crash information by aircraft,
registration number or date of event or crash href=”http://www.airsafe.com/events/accbymod.htm”>http://www.airsafe.com/events/accbymod.htm

Real Time Flight Tracking – see where an airplane is during flight. A remarkable mapping system
that is great when you have to meet someone at an airport.
href=”http://www.cheaptickets.com/trs/cheaptickets/flighttracker/flight_tracker_home.xsl”>http://www.cheaptickets.com/trs/cheaptickets/flighttracker/flight_tracker_home.xsl

Every commercial airport in the United States style=’font-size:10.0pt’>by city href=”http://www.frequentflier.com/ffp-APO1D.htm”>http://www.frequentflier.com/ffp-APO1D.htm

Airports of the world by city href=”http://www.frequentflier.com/ffp-APO1I.htm”>http://www.frequentflier.com/ffp-APO1I.htm

src=”links_files/image049.jpg”>Investigate Train Crashes. style=’font-size:10.0pt’>You can try the National Transportation Safety Board
but it can take many months and up to years to get real investigation
information. The National Railroad Administration sometimes provides
information faster and has 9 regional offices that do inspections, so it might
be a better route to take after a crash href=”http://safetydata.fra.dot.gov/officeofsafety/”>http://safetydata.fra.dot.gov/officeofsafety/
They have an online site which is new, that allows you to look up crashes by
date

NTSB’s Train Accident Investigation style=’font-size:10.0pt’> site href=”http://www.ntsb.gov/railroad/railroad.htm”>http://www.ntsb.gov/railroad/railroad.htm

NTSB Railroad href=”http://www.ntsb.gov/Publictn/R_Acc.htm”>Accidents | href=”http://www.ntsb.gov/Publictn/R_Stu.htm”>Studies

NTSB Pipeline href=”http://www.ntsb.gov/Publictn/P_Acc.htm”>Accidents | href=”http://www.ntsb.gov/Publictn/P_Stu.htm”>Studies

NTSB Hazardous Materials href=”http://www.ntsb.gov/Publictn/Z_Acc.htm”>Accidents | href=”http://www.ntsb.gov/Publictn/Z_stu.htm”>Studies

src=”links_files/image050.jpg”>Investigate the inspection background and crash
history of a commercial trucking or bus line. Dot safety ratings list  http://www.safer.fmcsa.dot.gov/

You will need the federal DOT number of the
vehicle involved.  It will look something like this: USDOT-246045  .You will
usually find the number on the vehicle itself. Often on the door/drivers’ side.

American Bus Association: href=”http://www.buses.org/safety/”>http://www.buses.org/safety/

NTSB Highway Accident investigations href=”http://www.ntsb.gov/Publictn/H_Acc.htm”>Accidents | href=”http://www.ntsb.gov/Publictn/H_Stu.htm”>Studies

src=”links_files/image051.gif”> The NTSB ship accident/safety investigation
site http://www.ntsb.gov/Surface/marine/marine.htm

 

Cruise Ship Schedules and
Sailing information http://www.cms.udel.edu/ships/
(not a gov’t site.) The US Coast Guard conducts safety inspections of cruise
ships. In fact, you can find

Inspections
on virtually all passenger vessels. The link is href=”http://cgmix.uscg.mil/psix/psix2/”>http://cgmix.uscg.mil/psix/psix2/

style=’font-size:10.0pt’>

style=’font-size:20.0pt’>Weather and Natural Disasters

style=’font-size:14.0pt’>
height=51 src=”links_files/image052.jpg”>The mother lode of disaster
planning contacts and information- href=”http://cbsnews.cbs.com/network/htdocs/digitaldan/disaster/disasters.htm”> style=’font-weight:normal’>http://cbsnews.cbs.com/network/htdocs/digitaldan/disaster/disasters.htm

150 years of hurricane tracks from NOAA style=’font-size:10.0pt’> href=”http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2004/s2258.htm”>http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2004/s2258.htm

One of the coolest parts of
the site is that you can enter a zip code or a city and query historical storm
tracks for that community. So when a storm
is heading for a location, you can find the history of storms to that location
in a click or two. http://hurricane.csc.noaa.gov/hurricanes/

Coastal Population tool-this
is a wonderful tool you can use to map how many people live on any coast line
and what the population trend has been for that area. It is vitally important
to predict evacuation size and damage estimates. Just pop in a state and
county.  http://hurricane.csc.noaa.gov/hurricanes/

Real time imagery of storms, saffir-simpson hurricane
scale explained and more resources href=”http://hurricane.csc.noaa.gov/hurricanes/links.htm”>http://hurricane.csc.noaa.gov/hurricanes/links.htm

Billion Dollar Weather Disasters-a page full of
information on the worst storms href=”http://lwf.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/reports/billionz.html”>http://lwf.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/reports/billionz.html

 

Regional Climate Centers href=”http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/regionalclimatecenters.html”>http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/regionalclimatecenters.html

 

State Climatologists href=”http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/aasc.html”>http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/aasc.html

Another Disaster collection-ham radio operators use this style=’font-size:10.0pt’> style=’font-weight:normal’>http://www.disastercenter.com/

A listing of major international disaster relief efforts
going on
style=’font-weight:normal’>http://www.disasterrelief.org/

Volcano watch- style=’font-size:10.0pt’>real time space views of some of the world’s most
active volcanoes from Michigan Tech href=”http://www.ssec.wisc.edu/data/volcano.html”>http://www.ssec.wisc.edu/data/volcano.html

A library of every recorded weather event style=’font-size:10.0pt’>-county by
county some data going back to the 1800’s. It is a remarkable tool href=”http://www4.ncdc.noaa.gov/cgi-win/wwcgi.dll?wwEvent~Storms”>http://www4.ncdc.noaa.gov/cgi-win/wwcgi.dll?wwEvent~Storms

Disaster Finder – A
Who’s Who of disaster resources, from comets that could hit the earth to how to
deal with animals when you have a big fire, earthquake or hurricane. href=”http://disasterfinder.gsfc.nasa.gov/”>http://disasterfinder.gsfc.nasa.gov/

A site fire Firefighters and EMT issues- style=’font-size:10.0pt’>excellent http://firehouse.com/

Airport maps, live traffic cams and traffic- style=’font-size:10.0pt’>road conditions updated constantly href=”http://www.quickaid.com/”>http://www.quickaid.com/

Live weather radar-every NEXRAD sweep in the country style=’font-size:10.0pt’>http://www.wunderground.com/radar/map.asp

Science.gov-a new
science website that lists and finds reliable government science information href=”http://www.science.gov/”>http://www.science.gov/

 

name=economics>

style=’font-size:20.0pt;font-family:”Albertus Medium”‘> Crime/Courts

Find a sex criminal in any neighborhood. http://www.familywatchdog.us/

A listing of thousands of police departments style=’font-size:10.0pt’>http://www.usacops.com/

style=’color:black;text-decoration:none’> src=”links_files/image053.jpg”> href=”http://www.odmp.org/browse.php”>A listing of virtually every police
officer killed in the line of duty in Americ in the last 100 years.

Possibly the best collection of crime data sets on the
web-includes international data too href=”http://www.lib.msu.edu/harris23/crimjust/stats.htm#city”>http://www.lib.msu.edu/harris23/crimjust/stats.htm#city

Crime Stats direct from the gov’t. style=’font-size:10.0pt’>A mega site includes everything from Interpol to DEA
most wanted—you will use this one! href=”http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/oiafug/fugitives.htm”>http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/oiafug/fugitives.htm

FBI most wanted list
and photos : http://www.fbi.gov/mostwant/fugitive/fpphome.htm

The Journalist’s Toolbox ( href=”http://www.journaliststoolbox.com/” target=cglink>http://www.journaliststoolbox.com),
managed by journalist and former Northwestern University instructor Mike
Reilly, includes some 15,000 links, from the sublime to the silly. Choose from
a list of “beats.”  ( href=”http://www.journaliststoolbox.com/newswriting/crime.html” target=cglink>http://www.journaliststoolbox.com/newswriting/crime.html).

Criminal Justice Journalists ( href=”http://www.reporters.net/cjj/” target=cglink>http://www.reporters.net/cjj/)
is a national association of crime, court and prison writers, editors and
producers.

Legal news: outstanding site that links you to top
stories involving courts, suits and issues.  Often provides original documents
online http://news.findlaw.com/

Courts online-including state federal and appeals
connections: href=”http://www.ncsconline.org/D_KIS/info_court_web_sites.html#federal”>http://www.ncsconline.org/D_KIS/info_court_web_sites.html#federal

 

Court sites-every state/many counties href=”http://www.ncsconline.org/D_KIS/info_court_web_sites.html”> style=’font-size:10.0pt’>http://www.ncsconline.org/D_KIS/info_court_web_sites.html
America Most
Wanted

Police
Departments

style=’font-size:10.0pt’>Child Predators

Scanner
Frequencies

Federal Courts online href=”http://www.uscourts.gov/links.html”>http://www.uscourts.gov/links.html

AboutTerrorism-a one
stop website for journalists with Q and A about terrorism issues, groups and
policy. http://cfrterrorism.org/home/ name=”_Hlt15301138″>

The website ( target=cglink>http://www.policeforum.org) of the Police Executive
Research Forum, a national association of law enforcement bosses from large
cities and based in Washington, D.C., has convenient links to most important
criminal justice agencies. PERF’s site also has scores of web links to the
departments of its members, as well as research reports on topics such as
racial profiling.

The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press website
(http://www.rcfp.org) offers
several good tools for journalists, including a section on access to electronic
records and a helpful state-by-state guide to shield laws and reporter
privilege. The RCFP site offers information on access to public and private
property for journalists, as well as a thorough FOIA primer. Its section
entitled Tapping Officials’ Secrets offers a state-by-state information guide.

Also, National Criminal Justice Reference Service
searches 1,500 publications. http://www.ncjrs.org/search.html

 

Juvenile Court laws-a
state by state guide: http://www.rcfp.org/juvcts/index.html

What are your rights as a reporter style=’font-size:10.0pt’>to get into public places and/or private places href=”http://www.rcfp.org/places/”>http://www.rcfp.org/places/

Hatewatch –monitors hate crimes href=”http://www.tolerance.org/newsletter/hatewatch/”>http://www.tolerance.org/newsletter/hatewatch/

Campus crime stats from US Education Dept. href=”http://ope.ed.gov/security/Search.asp”>http://ope.ed.gov/security/Search.asp

Prisoner Lookup for every state and many counties-one
megasite http://www.prisonlegalnews.org/links/Doc&prisoner_lookup.htm

A listing of every state Corrections Department-many
states now have “offender locators” and parole dates for prisoners. href=”http://www.prisonpenpals.com/corrections.html”>http://www.prisonpenpals.com/corrections.html

A website for Prison Administrators which includes hot topics-lots of
story ideas http://www.corrections.com/news/index.html

This is a site that monitors Supreme Court and Appeals
Courts matters-collects stories from around the country daily. href=”http://legalaffairs.org/howappealing/”>http://legalaffairs.org/howappealing/
The site is run by attorney Howard Bashman of Philadelphia

 

name=military>Sports Specific

 

src=”links_files/image054.jpg”>A headline and link to sports pages in
newspapers nationwide href=”http://www.sportspages.com/”>http://www.sportspages.com/
includes regional breakouts –another collection  href=”http://www.ballparkguys.com/links/sportspages.html”>http://www.ballparkguys.com/links/sportspages.html

 

style=’color:black;text-decoration:none’> src=”links_files/image055.jpg”>Bad Jocks is like The Smoking Gun
only for sports href=”http://www.badjocks.com/”>http://www.badjocks.com/

A huge collection of Women Sports resources by sport style=’font-size:10.0pt’> href=”http://fiat.gslis.utexas.edu/~lewisa/womsprt.html”>http://fiat.gslis.utexas.edu/~lewisa/womsprt.html

 

Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports style=’color:#336699′> href=”http://www.bepress.com/jqas/vol2/”>http://www.bepress.com/jqas/vol2/

A Basketball Rumor site style=’font-size:10.0pt;color:red’>http://www.hoopshype.com/ style=’color:red’>

A Football Rumor Site style=’font-size:10.0pt;color:red’> href=”http://www.ballparkguys.com/links/sportspages.html”>http://www.ballparkguys.com/links/sportspages.html style=’color:red’>

NCAA Statistics page href=”http://www.ncaa.org/stats/”>http://www.ncaa.org/stats/

style=’font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:white’>Fall	style=’font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:white’>Winter	style=’font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:white’>Spring
style=’font-size:9.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:white’> href=”http://www.ncaa.org/stats/football/footballMenu.html”> style=’color:white’>Football	style=’font-size:9.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:white’> href=”http://www.ncaa.org/stats/m_basketball/m_basketballMenu.html”> style=’color:white’>Men’s Basketball	style=’font-size:9.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:white’> href=”http://www.ncaa.org/stats/baseball/baseballMenu.html”> style=’color:white’>Baseball
style=’font-size:9.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:white’> href=”http://www.ncaa.org/stats/m_soccer/index.html”>Men’s Soccer	style=’font-size:9.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:white’> href=”http://www.ncaa.org/stats/w_basketball/w_basketballMenu.html”> style=’color:white’>Women’s Basketball	style=’font-size:9.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:white’> href=”http://www.ncaa.org/stats/softball/softballMenu.html”> style=’color:white’>Softball
style=’font-size:9.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:white’> href=”http://www.ncaa.org/stats/w_soccer/index.html”>Women’s Soccer	style=’font-size:9.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:white’> href=”http://www.ncaa.org/stats/icehockey/index.html”>Men’s Ice Hockey	style=’font-size:9.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:white’> href=”http://www.ncaa.org/stats/m_lacrosse/index.html”> style=’color:white’>Men’s Lacrosse
style=’font-size:9.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:white’> href=”http://www.ncaa.org/stats/volleyball/volleyballMenu.html”> style=’color:white’>Women’s Volleyball	style=’font-size:9.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:white’> href=”http://www.ncaa.org/stats/w_icehockey/index.html”> style=’color:white’>Women’s Ice Hockey	style=’font-size:9.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:white’> href=”http://www.ncaa.org/stats/w_lacrosse/index.html”> style=’color:white’>Women’s Lacrosse
style=’font-size:9.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:white’> href=”http://web1.ncaa.org/careerStats/StatsSrv/careersearch” target=”_blank”> style=’color:white’>Archived Team-by-Team Final Statistics style=’color:white;text-decoration:none’> (Search by student-athlete, coach or team)

More statistics than anybody could ever need: style=’font-size:13.5pt;color:red’> href=”http://www.amstat.org/sections/sis/sports.html”>http://www.amstat.org/sections/sis/sports.html

Publications

Published href=”http://www.amstat.org/sections/sis/pubs.html”>articles dealing with
sports statistics.

Sports Data

href=”http://www.amstat.org/sections/sis/sports.html”>Links to sites
containing data for several professional and amateur sports.

Sports Pages

A collection of href=”http://www.amstat.org/sections/sis/spages.html”>websites with general
news and information about sports. Also, a page of Official href=”http://www.amstat.org/sections/sis/teams.html”>Team Websites for pro
teams!

Statistics on the
Web

Links to href=”http://www.stat.duke.edu/sites/academic.html”>academic departments, href=”http://www.stat.duke.edu/conferences/”>conferences, href=”http://www.stat.duke.edu/jobs/”>employers and href=”http://www.stat.duke.edu/stats-sites.html”>more!

Sports
Statistics as a Career

Information about our href=”http://www.amstat.org/sections/sis/career/index.html”>most frequently
asked question

A collection of ballparks and stadiums in America href=”http://www.ballparks.com/”>http://www.ballparks.com/

Database for NBA teams href=”http://www.databasebasketball.com/”>http://www.databasebasketball.com/

A collection of significant golf courses worldwide http://www.golfclubatlas.com/

A collection of surfing information including webcams style=’font-size:10.0pt’>  http://www.surfline.com/home/index.cfm

An exhaustive pro football reference page going back decades style=’font-size:10.0pt’> http://www.pro-football-reference.com/

The exhaustive pro hockey database site style=’font-size:10.0pt’> http://www.hockeydb.com/

Website that monitors high school and college scouting
for sports http://www.scout.com/
includes some video

Website that monitors college recruiting style=’font-size:10.0pt’> href=”http://www.rivals.com/”>http://www.rivals.com/

src=”links_files/image056.jpg”> The watering Hole for sports journalists to
chat href=”http://www.sportsjournalists.com/”>http://www.sportsjournalists.com/

style=’font-size:20.0pt’>

style=’font-size:20.0pt’>

style=’font-size:20.0pt’>Military Resources

Google’s government search engine href=”http://www.google.com/unclesam”>http://www.google.com/unclesam

List of US Naval ships mailing addresses from the US Navy href=”http://www.chinfo.navy.mil/navpalib/ships/lists/ship-fpo.html”>http://www.chinfo.navy.mil/navpalib/ships/lists/ship-fpo.html

style=’text-decoration:none’>

href=”http://www.military.com/Military/Locator/New/Splash/?loc=L2%20″>Military.com’s
personnel finder style=’font-size:10.0pt’>

News about chemical,
biological and nuclear weapons from
Global Security Newswire href=”http://www.nti.org/d_newswire/issues/2005_5_6.html”>http://www.nti.org/d_newswire/issues/2005_5_6.html

Department of Defense site http://www.defenselink.mil/

Jane’s Defense Weekly-an
authoritative voice outside the government style=’font-weight:normal’>http://jdw.janes.com/

The Pentagon href=”http://www.defenselink.mil/pubs/pentagon/pentagoninfo.html”> style=’font-weight:normal’>http://www.defenselink.mil/pubs/pentagon/pentagoninfo.html

Department of Defense Almanac a vast resource with links to all branches of the military, some of
which you have never heard of. href=”http://www.defenselink.mil/pubs/almanac/”>http://www.defenselink.mil/pubs/almanac/

Special search engine that just looks at 1-million military pages style=’font-size:10.0pt’> style=’font-weight:normal’>http://www.searchmil.com

style=’font-size:20.0pt’>Economics

You can use this handy href=”http://www.homefair.com/homefair/cmr/salcalc.html”>calculator to
compare the costs of living in U.S. and selected Canadian cities. style=’font-size:10.0pt’>Find demographic information from government
statistics bureaus in Australia or href=”http://www.statcan.ca/”>Canada.

The definitive one-stop source for information about Latin American nations
can be found by visiting href=”http://lanic.utexas.edu/”>LANIC at the University of Texas.

Download population, housing or economic data for any community in the U.S.
from the Census
Bureau.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics style=’font-size:10.0pt’>has made a variety of useful national economic data
available through its site. The “Economy at a Glance” section offers
monthly employment, inflation and growth numbers for the past 14 months. The
“Data” section offers access to more detailed BLS timeseries
employment data.

Find an expert to help you on a business story style=’font-size:10.0pt’>http://www.gehrung.com/biznet/biznet.html

Examine information about the nation’s taxpayers from
the Internal Revenue
Service.

The Population Reference Bureau style=’font-size:10.0pt’>provides population resources and world population
data.

style=’font-size:20.0pt’>

style=’font-size:20.0pt’>Useful and Fun

src=”links_files/image057.jpg”>This site collects stories and data about
amusement ride accidents and deaths. http://www.rideaccidents.com/

 

A site where people post pictures from cell phones or
their personal collections. Includes sorting by tags/topics href=”http://www.flickr.com/”>http://www.flickr.com/

About.com-if you are starting from scratch
on a subject and need to find out about it fast, this is a great way to start.
http://www.about.com

Very useful calendar site-what is
the date of Easter two years from now? How many days are there between this
date and that date and so on. http://www.timeanddate.com/calendar/

Create an FOI letter to most government
agencies with a few clicks http://www.rcfp.org/foi_letter/generate.php

The 100 Most Misspelled Words used by journalists href=”http://www.yourdictionary.com/library/misspelled.html”>http://www.yourdictionary.com/library/misspelled.html

The 100 Most Often Mispronounced Words style=’font-size:10.0pt’> href=”http://www.yourdictionary.com/library/mispron.html”>http://www.yourdictionary.com/library/mispron.html

Find a rhyme. Type in a word and you get
results instantly http://www.rhymezone.com/

Find out what acronyms and abbreviations stand for style=’font-size:10.0pt’>http://www.acronymfinder.com/

News for Nerds-Slashdot-believe
me, this is the place that geeks get their news about web stuff href=”http://slashdot.org/”>http://slashdot.org/ name=”_Hlt25558017″>

Cnet-another Internet front
edge site which is a little less nerdy than Slashdot-always out front on
stories http://www.news.com/ name=”_Hlt25558032″>

Iping tool-will call
you and remind you of appointments, wakeup calls, will give you a wakeup call
and read you news headlines.  You program it. href=”http://www.iping.com/”>http://www.iping.com

The most popular search words on the web-ranked
weekly by Lycos http://50.lycos.com/

Search engine that searches thousands of full text books online style=’font-size:10.0pt’> style=’font-weight:normal’>http://www.searchebooks.com/

Who is linked to whom on the web href=”http://www.linkpopularity.com/”>http://www.linkpopularity.com/

The Lost Remote-all
about convergence http://www.lostremote.com/

Editor and Publisher Magazine style=’font-size:10.0pt’> href=”http://www.editorandpublisher.com/editorandpublisher/index.jsp”> style=’font-weight:normal’>http://www.editorandpublisher.com/editorandpublisher/index.jsp

Journalism Ethics Guidelines-Written by
Poynter’s Steele and Tompkins for RTNDF href=”http://www.rtndf.org/ethics/ethicsguidelines.shtml”>http://www.rtndf.org/ethics/ethicsguidelines.shtml

Investigative
Reporters and Editors (IRE) href=”http://www.ire.org/”>http://www.ire.org/ style=’font-size:10.0pt’>
also try http://workingreporter.com name=”_Hlt536332898″> by Jonathan Olsen

Background information on any city or town style=’font-size:10.0pt’>in the US href=”http://www.epodunk.com/”>http://www.epodunk.com/

Online Maps from National Geographic
You can put in just about any city in the world and get a map of it, even
street maps. There are also historical maps, railroad maps, battlefield maps  href=”http://plasma.nationalgeographic.com/mapmachine/”>Check it out

 

Government agencies: There
are several bipartisan and respected sources of analysis in the federal
government. For budgetary issues, the Congressional Budget Office ( href=”http://www.cbo.gov/”>http://www.cbo.gov).

For management issues, the General Accounting Office
(http://www.gao.gov). CBO and GAO sites are
both searchable.

 

Theme Park Insider- a
website that monitors theme park safety href=”http://www.themeparkinsider.com/accidents/”>http://www.themeparkinsider.com/accidents/

The American Fact finder-from the US Census Bureau href=”http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/BasicFactsServlet”> style=’font-weight:normal’>http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/BasicFactsServlet

Can We Tape? A state
by state listing of laws about how and when it is legal for you to tape a phone
conversation or an undercover conversation from Reporters Committee for Freedom
of the Press http://www.rcfp.org/taping/index.html

Cyberjournalist.net MSNBC’s
Jonathan Dube’s site includes tons of search engines, online news and
journalist resources http://www.cyberjournalist.net/

 

In some states you can search vital records such as birth
and death online href=”http://www.vitalrec.com/”>http://www.vitalrec.com/  some of the
records are for pay, but can be worth it if you do not have time to wait for
government agencies to respond, and often government searches cost you money
too.  So online can actually be cheaper.

src=”links_files/image058.jpg”>The Smoking Gun specializes
in finding actual documents from court filings, government archives and FOI
requests http://www.thesmokinggun.com/

6,000 Live Cameras around the world  href=”http://www.leonardsworlds.com/camera.html”>http://www.leonardsworlds.com/camera.html

 

TinyURL.com style=’font-size:10.0pt’>The site header says, “Are you sick of posting URLs in
emails only to have it break when sent causing the recipient to have to cut and
paste it back together? Enter a URL into the text field and the site creates a
tiny URL that will not break in email postings and never expires.”

Hottest
Words on the web href=”http://50.lycos.com/”>The Lycos 50 and href=”http://buzz.yahoo.com/”>Yahoo’s Buzz List

What is everybody else looking at on the web? style=’font-size:10.0pt’> style=’font-weight:normal’>http://www.metaspy.com style=’font-size:10.0pt’>you can watch what key words other people are putting
in-live.  Refreshes every 15 seconds.  Includes a filtered and unfiltered
version.  Choose carefully, the unfiltered version is no-holds-barred and gets
pretty weird.

How much do people working in any occupation earn? style=’font-size:10.0pt’>See
the Bureau of Labor Statistics charts

Day Care Inspections-may
states put these online, searchable by facility and owner href=”http://199.250.30.131/childcare/provider/providersearch.aspx”>http://199.250.30.131/childcare/provider/providersearch.aspx

 

Terrafly-fly over and zoom in on any address. href=”http://terrafly.fiu.edu/”>http://terrafly.fiu.edu/

 

Investigate businesses-use the Better Business Bureau
site to investigate their standing with BBB href=”http://search.bbb.org/search.html”>http://search.bbb.org/search.html

 

I need an expert NOW-http://www.profnet.com/ name=”_Hlt536334776″>- 11,000 professors
listed by areas of expertise, emails and phone numbers. These experts WANT to
help that is why they signed up to be on profnet. Here is some advice on how
journalists use profnet. href=”http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=32&aid=66335″>http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=32&aid=66335

Rapdict a dictionary for rap words and lyrics. href=”http://rapdict.org/”>http://rapdict.org/

 

target=top>Reporter.org: Who is John Doe? Investigative Tools style=’font-size:10.0pt’> From the Duff Wilson (Seattle Times)
Reporter’s Desktop, this is a simple list of resources you can access to get
personal information about almost anyone in the United States. It is a
fantastic tool to learn how to systematically investigate anyone.

 

Other expert sites
Allexperts.com href=”http://linguistlist.org/~ask-ling/”>Ask a Linguist                      href=”http://www.nytimes.com/learning/students/ask_reporters/”>Ask A Reporter                    href=”http://answerpoint.ask.com/”>Ask Jeeves Answer Point
Ask Joan of Art
(Smithsonian) href=”http://www.refdesk.com/expert.html”>Ask the Experts (refdesk)   href=”http://www.askme.com/”>AskMe.com
Capitol Questions
href=”http://www.captive.com/Ask_The_Expert.html”>Captive.com:Ask The Expert href=”http://www.expertcentral.com/”>ExpertCentral         href=”http://www.experts-exchange.com/”>Experts Exchange href=”http://www.askanexpert.com/”>Pitsco’s Ask an Expert Page

A
nice collection of specialized search engines http://www.rbbi.com/links/sengine.htm

href=”http://www.webopedia.com/”>Encyclopedia of Computers name=”_Hlt5415896″>               Encyclopedia
of Mythology
Encyclopedia of Philosophy href=”http://www.divinedigest.com/default.htm”>Encyclopedia of Religion name=”_Hlt5415969″>                    Encyclopedia
of Science

style=’font-size:20.0pt’>Junk Science and Hoax Busters

Purportal.com – style=’font-size:10.0pt’>a one stop shopping center to search for myths and
legends  http://www.purportal.com/

Archeological Hoaxes: href=”http://www.syntac.net/hoax/archforg.php”>http://www.syntac.net/hoax/archforg.php

Computer Virus Hoaxes: href=”http://www.vmyths.com/”>http://www.vmyths.com

Don’t Spread That Hoax: href=”http://www.nonprofit.net/hoax/default.htm”>http://www.nonprofit.net/hoax/default.htm name=”_Hlt9071309″>

Famous Hoaxes: href=”http://www.nonprofit.net/hoax/infamy.html”>http://www.nonprofit.net/hoax/infamy.html name=”_Hlt9071348″>

Health Hoax: href=”http://www.healthcentral.com/Centers/OneCenter.cfm?Center=Internet_Hoax_Watch”>http://www.healthcentral.com/Centers/OneCenter.cfm?Center=Internet_Hoax_Watch

Junk Science: href=”http://www.junkscience.com/”>http://www.junkscience.com

Myths and Legends: href=”http://pubpages.unh.edu/~cbsiren/myth.html”>http://pubpages.unh.edu/%7Ecbsiren/myth.html

Skeptic’s Dictionary: href=”http://skepdic.com/”>http://skepdic.com

Urban Legends: href=”http://www.snopes.com/”>http://www.snopes.com

UFOs: href=”http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Corridor/8148″>http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Corridor/8148

Viruses, Worms and Trojan Horses: style=’font-size:10.0pt’>http://www.sarc.com/avcenter

style=’font-size:20.0pt;color:windowtext’>For-Pay Sites

Lexis-Nexis (http://www.lexis-nexis.com)
– The journalists’ survival site for archived
stories and clippings. The site also, for a fee, gives you government records
and civil court

AutoTrackXP this is a favorite among
investigative reporters and often is worth the price if you need the
information fast. (http://www.autotrack.com/)
– more than 4 billion public records, including names and addresses, vehicle
registrations, drivers license information, business reports, corporate and
business information, booking and arrest information, criminal records,
trademarks, bankruptcies, phone numbers, liens and judgments, property
ownership and professional licenses.
DataQuick (http://www.dataquick.com) –
Sells real estate information online including
valuation, sales, ownership records and titles.  A lot of this information is
available free through your county clerk’s office but this is fast. You pay for
speed.

VitalChek http://www.vitalchek.com/ style=’font-size:10.0pt’>You can buy birth, death, marriage and divorce papers
through these guys from the states.  Of course you could go directly to the
states but again you are paying for speed.