Nerds like blogs, tools, maps and such. I'm a nerd. Here are some new and new-to-me resources that have come across my desktop:

World Bank's Google Map/Project Data Mashup: Want to know about the projects the World Bank has in, say, Egypt? Head over to this nifty little tool and you can click on a country, check out some basic economic data, review WB projects and press releases, and even find the address of the Bank office to plan a visit.

Another new resource (though much more of a dry, technical one) is the Public Financial Management blog from the International Monetary Fund. Why is this worth mentioning? Well, it is the IMF's first foray into the blog-world and while the content includes such scintillating pieces as "Corruption and Tax Revenue Generating Capacity Draft Paper," they also hear about new data resources and, for instance, pointed us to the next item on this list.

Check out the World Freedom Atlas, an extremely data-rich graphical statistics modeling tool that allows users to crunch data from dozens of sources onto a world map interface, mouse over individual countries and build a solid understanding of, say, the relationship between the World Bank's governance ratings and Freedom House's press freedom index to see if well-governed countries tend to have more free communications institutions.