When I was a kid, I used to imagine that digging a tunnel from my backyard in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania would take me to China, or maybe Australia. Good thing I never pursued the project. Now that I have a tool to identify where I’d be coming out, I see that I would have wound up all wet and far out to sea in the Indian Ocean.

Hat tip to Glenn Reynolds.

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As this Politico map again demonstrates, outside a few urban enclaves, this is basically a Republican-voting center right country.

Who realized that Madagascar is as large as Britain?

“Scariest thing you’ve ever seen.” says my wife who sent me the link to this map illustrating the impact of the recession county by county.

Strange Maps:

This map shows Europe dominated by three so-called ‘alcohol belts’, the northernmost one for distilled spirits, a middle one for beer and the southernmost one for wine. Each one’s existence and extension is determined by a mix of culture and agriculture.

It seems oversimplified to me, aquavit and vodka are hardly identical, and surely Scotland is misplaced.

I think a more detailed New World alcohol map would be interesting. You’d have grain alcohol in Canadian Indian Reservation woods, followed by a long Maritime Rum belt. Flavored gins in French-speaking Quebec. Scotch in the BosWash coastal corridor. A swatch of Rye from Pennsylvania down through Maryland. Bourbon in the South. Canadian Whiskey where? Michigan and Upper Canada, possibly. Beer in the Heartland. White Wine in the suburbs.

Hat tip to Andrew Sullivan.

Displays terrorism events and suspicious activities. link

map

A blog much worth visiting devoted to maps. Today’s lead entry is an 18th century German map of “the Empire of Love.”

Hat tip to Matthew MacLean.