Even if you’ve been living under a rock on the other side of the globe with your eyes and ears taped up, you’ll still be aware that today America goes to the polls and, unless some sort of mass voting machine breakdown occurs, Barack Obama will very likely be voted the next president of the United States.

Although it seems this election has been in the news for the last four years, there’s little mention of Obama or McCain on the images of Google Earth. However, we can find messages to the skies about the soon-to-be ex-President.

Underneath the approach to McCarran International Airport, someone has scrawled a message on the roof urging you to “Vote Bush” which, luckily, America is prevented from doing this time around.

In contrast, we find a “No W” logo in Lakewood Park, Massachusetts. It’s possible that this person is simply expressing their hate for the twenty-third letter of the alphabet, but the symbol is more commonly used to protest against George W Bush.

Whoever you prefer, we urge our American readers to stop messing about on the internet and go and vote.

Thanks to Brian LaPointe & SpiderX22

Avast Ye! ‘Tis only turned ou’ t’ be International Talk Like a Pirate Day again! Arr! We got a bucketload o’ Street View sights for you scurvy dogs, gar!

This pirate’s ship gone an been turned int’ a landlubber’s restaurant – Ye should walk t’ plank for this sin! Gaaar!

Har be some scallywag buccaneers guardin’ a shop full o’ tourist tat, they should be sent t’ Davy Jones’ locker!

Aar, this be more like it – a giant jug o’ grog! And ‘t be a stripper bar! Shiver me timbers!

Yaar, also ye can see Talk Like A Pirate Day 2007.

I be thanking Virtual Seatrotting! Yaaaaar.

Well it’s been a while since we had a real Friday mystery!

So, who can tell us why this group of people seems to have randomly formed a circle in the middle of the road in downtown Las Vegas?

Thanks to Claude Warren.

This gigantic image of the KFC Colonel was constructed from 65,000 1-foot-square tiles laid out in the Mojave desert.

The advert took six days to construct, and was announced to the public almost exactly a year ago. However the images were not available on the Google Earth default layer until now.

As part of the publicity stunt it was widely claimed that this was “the first logo to be visible from space”. Of course, regular readers (and owners of our book) will be well aware that this is a complete pile of utter nonsense.

For the truth about the first, and largest logo visible from space (or not, depending on how you define “visible” and “space”) see our post on the subject from last year.¹

Thanks to Rhodri Metcalfe Davies.

Avast Ye! Today, it be Talk Like a Pirate Day an’ we’ve got a barrel-load of piratey-themed sights fer ye landlubbers!

Las Vegas’ Treasure Island be havin’ a daily pirate battle, ‘ere the swashbucklers by defeated by th’ booty-shaking o’ “the sirens o’ ti”. Not yer usual kind o’ booty neither!

Them “Pirates of the Caribbean” movie-films wi’ buccaneer Johnny Depp, they be based on a children’s ride! Those children orta be workin’ the sail and swabbin’ the decks! Arrr!

There be a swashbuckling ship maze on the Isle of Wight! Shiver Me Timbers!

This even be a plane in middle o’ Santa Cruz, ‘ere they be callin’ it ‘Th’ Pirate Plane’! Flyin’ Pirates? Whaterenext!

Be seein’ you also The Pirate Skull of Vegas.

Thanks to these scurvy dogs: Juan Manuel Gil, bruv, Virtual Globetrotting and Munden.