Distracting Asides

I don't feel like writing about politics today. I'm so angry about too many Dems fiddling while Rome burns that I'd probably only depress you (more than you already are) with my premonitions about the dwindling prospects of real change anytime soon. Hypocrisy and beside-the-point fakery seem to be everywhere. So instead I'll offer some visual flotsam and jetsam to amuse and distract:

• A website called Strange Maps offers a map of the U.S. with the names of states replaced by those of nations that have comparable GDPs. For starters, New Mexico is renamed Hungary and Texas becomes Canada. Note that America remains the nation with the highest GDP in the world -- projected to be $13,22 trillion (or $13.220 billion) in 2007, almost as much as the economies of the next four (Japan, Germany, China, UK) combined.
• Go visit Frans Lantin's marvelous . Relax and float downstream.
• The Magnum Festival '07 website has a of 60 years of evocative photographs by top-notch photogs, one for each year. There's also a second 60-year collection by Magnum.
• Here's an intriguing video of 500 years of Portraits of Women in Western Art morphing into one another (to music).
• Trek Earth has a myriad of photos taken in New Mexico (and around the world).