Things continue to deteriorate in eastern Ukraine. And along the other borders of Ukraine, NATO is boosting its presence with planes, ships, and soldiers. This graphic from Jane’s details the recent deployment of aircraft to the theatre.
Credit for the piece goes to IHS Jane’s Defence Weekly.
Rebels in Syria have recently acquired American-made anti-tank missiles. But for those who don’t know how exactly the TOW missile system works, the Washington Post illustrated it. In theory, these weapons will give the rebels an advantage over Syrian armour.
Credit for the piece goes to Richard Johnson.
As troops and tanks and rumble around the Ukrainian–Russian border, I was left to wonder just how NATO has been doing with defence spending. So I took defence spending as a share of total GDP. In general, NATO countries have been spending less since the end of the Cold War. The Baltic states are a bit of an exception. I would guess that is based on their fears of their big Russian neighbour. A fear that, as Ukraine shows, is not entirely irrational. The United States, of course, has been spending a lot because of Afghanistan and Iraq. As for Russia, after the collapse of its economy in the late 1990s, it’s been spending more and more on the military.
The data comes from the World Bank.
Today’s post is a small interactive map—nothing fancy there—about indoor plumbing. As it turns out not every home in the United States has it. Of course, last weekend I ended up driving through those dark counties in western Pennsylvania. And I can believe it. And I can definitely say I saw a few outhouses.
Credit for the piece goes to Christopher Ingraham.
Baseball is back. And thankfully the New York Times has mapped out most of Major League Baseball’s fans. The glaring exception is, of course the omission of Canada/Ontario, home to the Toronto Blue Jays. The piece maps the data of Facebook likes down to the zip code and then offers details on a few border regions in particular.
And apparently back home, I am not the only person cheering for Boston.
Credit for the piece goes to Kevin Quealy, Josh Katz, David Leonhardt, and Tom Giratikanon.
To get a better understanding of the difficulties facing the divers working on the wreck of the Sewol, the Wall Street Journal published this illustration.
Credit for the piece goes to the Wall Street Journal’s graphics department.
In fact, don’t do this ever. Today’s bad chart comes from the Philadelphia Mayor’s Office of Transportation and Utilities. I saw it and could only shake my head and wonder why.
Something more like this much more easily communicates the story.
Credit for the original piece goes to the Mayor’s Office of Transportation and Utilities.
On a day when I am going to be travelling across the Midwest for a holiday on Monday (hint, that means no post), what better topic than Cameron Booth’s interstate map as a subway map? Well, how about his most recent project? In it he combines both interstates, e.g. I-76, and US highways, e.g. US-30 and US-202. In his own words, though, the result becomes so complex that it is more akin to a simplified road map than a subway map. Regardless, it’s still pretty impressive.
Credit for the piece goes to Cameron Booth.
Well, okay, actually there is. But the cultural reference would have made even less sense if I omitted the negative. Anyway, in honour of the two baseball games I am seeing this week—last night’s and tonight’s Red Sox games—here comes this piece from Pew Research Center.
It’s a simple but fairly clear graphic. We are looking at the ethnic breakdown of baseball since 1947, when Jackie Robinson broke the colour barrier. My only qualm, as ever, with this stacked area chart is that while you can see the clear trend upward in white share, it is a bit more difficult to see the directions the other ethnicities are moving.
Credit for the piece goes to Pew Research Council.
After shootings in Kansas City, the Washington Post looked at hate crimes versus poverty. It turns out there is a somewhat positive correlation.
Credit for the piece goes to the Washington Post graphics department.
