If you enter your (or any) zipcode at EnviroMapper, this EPA site generates a map depicting your local environmental quality, including “drinking water,
toxic and air releases, hazardous waste, water discharge permits, and Superfund sites.
EnviroMapper also links to text reports, which provide even more information.” They’ll also give you the code to display an EnviroMap on your website.

Thanks for Jorn Barger at Robot Wisdom for pointing to this update on the progress of Martin Amis’ novels to film. No word yet about my favorite, London Fields; not sure it would translate that well (or that anyone would go to see it if it did). Here‘s a feature from the New York Times archives about Amis, including a collection of reviews of his books and links to articles about him.

Bottom Dollar: “The ultimate in sophisticated swabbing products has just been launched by US sanitary
giant Kimberly-Clark. The busy boffins at K-C have been beavering away to bring the
world “Cottonelle Fresh(TM) Rollwipes — America’s first and only dispersible,
pre-moistened wipe on a roll!”

Yep, you guessed it. Now you can buy a roll of wet toilet paper; highly useful for
achieving that squeaky clean feeling.” And for your littlest ones: “For parents wishing to do away with the smell and mess
of wet, leaky diapers, wrapping their baby in mashed fish
may be the answer. A food scientist at the University of
Wisconsin, Madison, believes that we should extend our
recycling consciousness to embrace dead, unwanted fish,
and in so doing reduce both waste and diaper rash.” Beyond 2000