Thanks, JJ! Please refer to my answer to Noel below for a text-based graphic. Referring to your spinning globe, please imagine the lady's image projected to a cylindrical projection that would distort her image such that her correct proportion would maintain over the poles of the sphere. This would require the user to pay attention to spacing only to the extent of not losing information at the decreasing edges of the image as the projection widens the image toward the poles to avoid sphinctering.
I am actually shopping for a graphics application that will accomplish this.
Thanks again!
-Johnny