The president of the British Cartographic Society has been in the news for her statement that Internet mapping is destroying the historical and geographic legacy of the United Kingdom. Mary Spence of the British Cartographic Society said that online maps are good for driving but that they leave out cultural and physical features that help people understand the geography of a place. The BBC reports that, "Ms. Spence said landmarks such as churches, ancient woodlands and stately homes were in danger of being forgotten because many internet maps fail to include them." My colleague Caitlin Dempsy of GIS Lounge provides a nice rebuttal.

Formed in an era with a climate much different from ours, pluvial lakes covered wide swaths of the planet. Learn all about pluvial lakes and their remnants from this latest article from Amanda Briney.

Hurricane Ike intensified in strength from Tropical Storm Ike to dangerous Category 4 Hurricane Ike with winds of 145 miles per hour in less than 18 hours! As of Thursday, Hurricane Ike remains 550 miles northeast of the Leeward Islands. Current projections have this monster of a hurricane on a path toward the Bahamas by early next week but it still could go anywhere. Hurricane Ike is not currently expected to reach Category 5 status and, in fact, may decrease in intensity to a Category 3 before it returns to a Category 4. Meanwhile, Tropical Storm Hanna and Tropical Storm Josephine pose threats to North America in the coming days. For maps and forecasts, check out Weather Underground.

There are three tropical storms in the Atlantic Ocean as of Wednesday morning and they're all headed toward North America. Tropical Storm Hannah, Tropical Storm Ike, and Tropical Storm Josephine are the ninth, tenth, and eleventh named storms this season. For details and tracking maps for these storms, visit Weather Underground or the National Hurricane Center. My colleague Rachelle Oblack has a ton of great hurricane information on her Weather at About.com site.

The members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a Asian security organization that includes Russia, refused to support Russia in their aggressive military actions in Georgia. The SCO was formed as a military partnership between Russia and China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. The SCO lack of support for Russia is a setback for them on the world stage. The New York Times has the story.

BRIC has been in the news as of late in regards to Russia and China being on the world stage. BRIC is simply an economic term that refers to the four countries that make up its acronym - Brazil, Russia, India, and China.

The Google Earth and Google Maps blog describes and shows how to find the latitude and longitude coordinates for a place using the software or the site.

Despite the fact that Bolivia is a landlocked South American country, it does have a navy. The Guardian reports on Bolivia's efforts to professionalize this branch of the military, which aspires to the high seas but remains stuck on rivers and Lake Titicaca. Bolivia lost its ocean access in its 1879-1884 war with Chile and wants that access returned.

As of Sunday evening, Hurricane Gustav is a Category 3 and is expected to make landfall in Southern Louisiana on Monday. Hurricane watches and warnings are in effect for Southern Louisiana and tropical storm warnings and watches are in effect for much of the Gulf Coast. New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin has ordered New Orleans evacuated and is calling Hurricane Gustav "the mother of all storms." Contraflow (where all lanes move in one direction) began on highways on Sunday morning. President Bush has declared a state of emergency in Louisiana.

Here are some important Hurricane Gustav resources...

• Hurricane Gustav at Weather Underground - Great Maps
• FEMA: Hurricane Gustav
• Louisiana Governor's Office of Homeland Security & Emergency Preparedness
• American Red Cross: Hurricane Preparedness, Evacuation, and Donation Information
• 2008 Hurricane Names
• Overview of Hurricanes
• Hurricane Categories
• National Hurricane Center - Maps and Information

The Population Reference Bureau is reporting that we may be in the midst of a new Baby Boom in the United States, "Provisional figures from the National Center for Health Statistics report more than 4.3 million births in the United States in 2007—which would set a record for most registered births in a calendar year. This marks the eighth consecutive year that births had exceeded the 4 million mark, which is the longest stretch since the peak years for the post-World War II baby boom in the mid-1950s."