Two web sites I’ve been checking repeatedly since neighborhood funny man Gordon Keith recently brought ’em up:

Dallas Fire and Rescue active incidents. From this site you can see all the cases, along with location map links, that Dallas Fire and Rescue are responding to at any given moment. The page automatically refreshes every four minutes or so. For instance, as I write, an emergency childbirth has just occurred on Dilido Road, someone has apparently overdosed near Skillman and Whitehurst and a fire has broken out along Greenhollow Lane in the North Dallas area … you get the point, and it continually updates.  It can become pretty entrancing during the busy time of day.

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Then, here on the Huffington Post Fundrace2008, users can uber-easily look up campaign contributions by zip code, name, company and such. Read the teaser: "Want to know if a celebrity is playing both sides of the fence? Whether that new guy you’re seeing is actually a Republican or just dresses like one? FundRace makes it easy to search by name or address to see which presidential candidates your friends, family, co-workers, and neighbors are contributing to. Or you can se if your favorite celebrity is putting money where their mouth is."

Keith, for example used it to learn (and share) that his KTCK co-worker George Dunham had made a $250 to the Obama campaign. I’m not going to tell you all the people I looked up … it’s so easy. And to think, getting this type of info used to require hard work and special privileges on the part of reporters.