One of the nice things about traveling is that sometimes you have no idea what’s going on, and so when you’re faced with ads and slogans, you have no choice but to take them at face value.

Here in St. Vincent, there are numerous large red signs, sometimes adorned with large looming faces, with a slogan that’s hard to argue with:

Better than what, I have no idea. Than the alternative, I guess. Or better than ULP used to be. Or better than being mauled by a rabid cougar, maybe. But ULP is better, anyhow. By far. All over the island. Three exclamation points.

Turns out ULP is a major political party, and yep, they won the last election. Possibly because they were better. Than being mauled. By far. !!!

Actually, I find this preferable to political marketing in the US. Phrases like “clear skies,” “healthy forests” and “war on terror” actually invert reality, the same way 1950s TV tobacco ads dressed actors as doctors to make smoking look healthy. “Better by far!!!” is so direct, sincere, and inspecific that I find myself feeling almost wistful. If they were also “new and improved,” I believe I could live here happily.

I also love that the ruling political party’s acronym is a word used in cartoons to indicate a sudden realization of doom.

In a lot of countries, that’s damn near truth in advertising.

The most validating sign I’ve seen in a long time:

There should be signs saying this on every street corner in the world.

Bowler James Anderson of England leaps for joy — or, possibly, just to block umpire Rudi Koertzen’s face from the camera.

And yes, both England and Bermuda dress like Domino’s Pizza delivery people.

Not really Freddie and Monty, although some kids had fun pretending:

still weird to my US-embedded eyes. Hundreds of these racks in an airport, and nobody bats an eyelash…

Researchers have created a visual map of the romantic interactions at one US high school:

The labcoats figured there would be more connections, and especially a few more highly-connected, er, hubs — hey, there’s a new epithet — but nope.  There’s one guy with eight female connections, and one female with six, but those are statistical outliers.  And note that the isolated pair occurred 63 times, so it’s visually way under-represented here.

I doubt the diagram is complete, for obvious reasons.  But still.  Pretty cool.

More here.

From Russia, a peek behind the curtain: empty streets, dilapidated cement structures, and lots of giant statuary.

Also spooky: the site’s auto-generated content links.  Roll over the word "democratic," and you’ll be offered the chance to meet "attractive democratic singles in USA & Canada."

Which is the main reason I’d visit a montage of pictures of North Korea.  To meet hot babes.