At this point in the year, I’m more in the mood for a Santa tracker than American politics.  Still, choosing someone to run our country for four years is an undeniably important process, so it’s good to see Google paying some attention to the issue.

“[S]tay up-to-date on the latest campaign maps, news, videos and blog posts from the election trail,” encouraged Brittany Bohnet on the Google LatLong Blog.  “Add the gadget to your iGoogle homepage to follow the race.  You can choose the candidates you want to follow, or keep tabs on them all.”

Also, “Make sure to check out the maps tab of this gadget to view candidate event trails.  Try searching for your own city or state to see which presidential hopeful will be campaigning near you!”

Expect to see a lot more stuff like this coming from Google – it had an absolute overload of tools related to the Australia’s recent elections, and the company is, of course, based in the U.S.  Also, Bohnet’s title provides a clue; she probably wouldn’t be the Elections Project Manager if one gadget was the end of things.

If the air in your area is hazy or smells odd, the product of this partnership – a KML file – may help you find out why.  With hourly updates, it shows not only the levels of air pollution, but also the sources of all the unpleasantness.

“Select a given location and view placemarks of all of the companies in the area,” writes Google’s own Steve Miller on the LatLong Blog.  “Tilt the earth until you’re at ground level and check out the collection of placemarks; they vary in height based on pollutants emitted at their particular location.  Click on a company of interest to read about their eco-history.”

The companies that are being “outed” by this development aren’t likely to appreciate it, but the move should make Google (and/or Google Earth) even more popular with environmental types.  It also puts the EPA in what might be a more friendly and accessible position than it was in the past.

Lastly, there’s a pleasant surprise when you actually look at the KML file: much of the U.S. appears to be in better shape than one might expect.

“[F]or your next party (or any other occasion), you can move the marker for your address to show the exact entrance of your house,” writes Seth LaForge on the Google LatLong Blog.  “Just search for your address, click ‘Edit,’ click ‘Move Marker,’ and drag the marker to your front door.”

There’s no reason to fear that someone will say you live at the city dump – an option allows users to see the original placement of any marker.  Also, businesses can “claim” their listings and cement their markers so that no shifty customer redirects take place.

The system’s pretty neat; in fact, I actually plan to use it later tonight.  It won’t exactly revolutionize online mapping, yet it should make getting to places just a touch easier.

Different traffic laws, non-English road signs, unfamiliar parking places – who needs ‘em?  It’s much easier to ferried about by an established company or a country’s own government.  So, although coverage isn’t universal, Google’s off to a nice start, with “information for the following places and transport companies”: Travel South East (in the UK), SBB and VBZ (in Switzerland), and Turin and Florence (in Italy).

On the Google LatLong Blog, Christopher Oehler assures readers that Google will lengthen this list.  He also writes, “Try it yourself: type your start and end address in the ‘get directions’ boxes.  The default results are driving directions, but in the areas that we have transit routing coverage, you can simply click on the ‘Take Public Transit’ link.”

The Google Transit trip planner should save tourists a few bucks (compared to rental cars or cabs) and will allow them to find that all-important “local flavor,” as well.  Based on their constant proximity to the transit systems, Europe’s resident could reap even greater benefits.

Google Transit is, by the way, also useful in Vancouver, Japan, and about 20 parts of the U.S.

A site known as the MDG Monitor was great, thanks to the involvement of Google, Cisco, and the U.N.  The one problem was that it was available at MDGMonitor.org, and not, say Google.com – not a lot of people were likely to wander its way.

Now, although Google.com has retained its basic setup, the MDG Monitor has gone live within Google Earth.  “You can find it in the ‘Global Awareness’ folder on the left-side panel,” writes Google’s own Megan Goddard in a LatLong blog post.  She then gives some background information on the whole project.

“Back in 2000, all of the countries of the world agreed to reach these goals by 2015.  We are now halfway there, and while many countries have made excellent strides, there is still a long way to go.  The MDG Monitor makes it easy to track the progress, so we encourage you to take a look at the layer and find out more about what governments around the world are doing (and sadly, in some cases, not doing) to improve the health and well-being of their citizens.”

Google’s definitely playing its part – and then some – in all of this.

“[W]e’ve published a large amount of new high-res imagery around the world,” writes Matt Manolides on the Google LatLong Blog.  “[T]his release has mostly aerial (higher-resolution) data, as well as some medium-resolution imagery for large swaths of land.”

It’s at this point that skeptics might raise an eyebrow; what, exactly is “large”?  After all, Google claimed to have hit 130 countries in its last update, and 54 in the one before that.  If a person made the bad assumption that there was no overlap, this would leave very little of the world left over.

Manolides lists regions in a large number of counties, states, countries, and continents, however, once again giving the impression that a lot of work went into this.  Also, he states that there is now “2.5m imagery for the entire countries of . . . Tunisia, UAE, Jordan, Syria, Lebannon, and Israel.”

So, yeah – get out your glasses and eat plenty of carrots.