And Now the Next Stop on the Angry Bus

Google Maps weirdly replaces pictures of real, Katrina-smacked New Orleans, with bygone happy days New Orleans, then both backpedals and weasels around some more, which is likely to cause a bicycle crash.

The explanation is improved imagery detail. Also interesting in today's Google Maps: the growing populated area around Chernobyl, the construction of the KingDome, and there were some great shots of the missile bunkers in Cuba, I understand.

Swapping the post-Katrina images and the ruin they revealed for others showing an idyllic city dumbfounded many locals and even sparked suspicions that the company and civic leaders were conspiring to portray the area's recovery progressing better than it is.

After Katrina, Google's satellite images were in high demand among exiles and hurricane victims anxious to see whether their homes were damaged.

Now, though, a virtual trip through New Orleans is a surreal experience of scrolling across a landscape of packed parking lots and marinas full of boats.

Reality, of course, is very different: Entire neighborhoods are now slab mosaics where houses once stood and shopping malls, churches and marinas are empty of life, many gone altogether.

Here's a new kind of sentence: Congress plans to get to the bottom of it.