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A dozen sites
I'm diggin'

1. "She's like a moose going after a cabbage." A fun piece watching the Palin speech with locals in Alaska.

2. Track Hannah with these storm tools I created on Ning.

3. Stay on top of Hannah with this site that includes radar, satellite, tracking maps, warnings and more.

4. The coolest storm tracking site I have seen in a while.

5. The site watches TV and Web mentions of candidates. It also monitors Tweets and more.

6. Instead of scheduling meetings by e-mail, everybody can work out a time and date online.

7. Here are tons of GREAT tools that will help you find anything on flickr.

8. Vloggerheads fights back against YouTube chaos.

9. YouTomb is where videos go after they're booted off YouTube.

10. The evolution of voting in America is shown by interactive mapping.

11. I have never seen anything like this amazing "Swan Lake" performance. [Flash]

12. This is my current home page.

All of my Diggin' sites are saved on Poynter's del.icio.us page.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Al's Morning Meeting is a compendium of ideas, edited story excerpts and other materials from a variety of Web sites, as well as original concepts and analysis. When the information comes directly from another source, it will be attributed and a link will be provided whenever possible. The column is fact-checked, but depends on the accuracy and integrity of the original sources cited. We will correct errors and inaccuracies when we become aware of them.

Long-Term Nursing Home Facility for Sex Offenders

You may recall back in 2005 I told you about an investigation in Oklahoma that showed there were dozens of registered sex offenders who were living in nursing homes and other long-term care facilities there. Hundreds of sex offenders were living in nursing homes nationwide.

Now, years later, Oklahoma's governor has signed legislation that establishes separate long-term care for sex offenders.

The Tulsa (Oklahoma) World reports:

Currently, there are between 30 and 60 registered sex offenders in Oklahoma nursing homes, according to Steele. But that number is expected to increase as the number of registered sex offenders rises.

The Department of Corrections estimates that 2,250 inmates convicted of sex crimes will be released from prison in the next 10 years. Twenty-six percent of those convicts will be 51 years old or older and potentially in need of long-term care, Steele said.

In October, Wes Bledsoe (head of a group called A Perfect Cause) documented 30 registered sex offenders in nursing home facilities in the state -- 16 in nursing homes and 14 in residential care facilities. Twelve were listed by the Department of Corrections as aggravated and two were identified as habitual sex offenders, he said.

He has documented over 50 murders, rapes and sexual and physical assaults by criminal offenders while living in long-term care facilities across the nation, including several cases of rape and assault committed by offenders living in Oklahoma's long-term care facilities.

Bledsoe dropped me a note to say Congress will take up this issue July 23. He has been invited to testify.

How big is the problem?

In March 2006, the U.S. Government Accountability Office said:

"GAO identified about 700 registered sex offenders living in nursing homes or ICFs-MR (intermediate care facilities for the mentally retarded) during 2005. Most identified sex offenders were male, under age 65, and living in nursing homes, and represented 0.05 percent of the 1.5 million residents of nursing homes and ICFs-MR. About 3 percent of nursing homes and 0.7 percent of ICFs-MR housed at least 1 identified sex offender during 2005. However, these estimates are understated due to data limitations.

Posted by Al Tompkins 4:08 PM June 16, 2008

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