Tag: BBC

  • Out with the New, In with the Old

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    Brendan Barry
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    After twenty years out of power, the Taliban in Afghanistan are back in power as the Afghan government collapsed spectacularly this past weekend. In most provinces and districts, government forces surrendered without firing a shot. And if you’re going to beat an army in the field, you generally need to, you know, fight if you…

  • You Thought That Was All China Was Doing in Its Western Deserts?

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    Brendan Barry
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    Yesterday I wrote about some new ICBM silos China is building in its western desert. These things clearly interest me and so I was doing a little more digging when I found this even more recent article, this one from the BBC about an entirely different ICBM silo field that China is building in another…

  • Biden’s English Ancestry Revisited

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    Brendan Barry
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    Last week I posted about an article in the BBC on the English ancestry of American president Joe Biden. And these types of article are a bit pro forma, famous person has an article about their personal ancestry with a family tree attached. Interestingly, this article did not, just the timeline I mentioned and a…

  • Biden’s English Ancestry

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    Brendan Barry
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    We all know Joe Biden as the Irish American president. And that’s no malarkey. But, go back far enough in your family tree and you may find some interesting ancestry and ethnic origins and that’s no different with Joe Biden. Keep in mind that our number of ancestors doubles every generation. You have four grandparents,…

  • Back to the Office, Back to Basics

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    Brendan Barry
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    Two weeks ago I posted about an article from the BBC that used graphics about which I was less than thrilled. Inconsistent use of axis lines, centring the graphic were two of the things that irked me. Two weeks hence, I do want to draw some positive attention to another article in the BBC. This…

  • On a Line. Or Not.

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    Brendan Barry
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    Two weeks ago I was reading an article in the BBC that fact checked some of President Biden’s claims about the economy. Now I noted the other day in a post about axis lines and their use in graphics. Axis lines help ground the user in making comparisons between bars, lines, or whatever, and the…

  • The Super Short European Super League

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    Brendan Barry
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    Sunday night, news broke that a number of European football clubs were creating a rogue league, the European Super League. My British and European readers—and Americans who follow football—will know the names of Manchester United, Liverpool, AC Milan, Juventus, Real Madrid, and the others. To put this in perspective for my American readers, imagine the…

  • And Up We Go Again

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    Brendan Barry
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    Yesterday I wrote about Covid-19 here in five states of the US. I mentioned how I am concerned about the levelling out of new cases in certain states, notably Pennsylvania and New Jersey. In Italy, the government issued a new round of lockdowns in an attempt to contain a new wave before it swamps their…

  • Another Look at 500,000

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    Brendan Barry
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    Yesterday we looked at how the New York Times covered the deaths of 500,000 Americans due to Covid-19. But I also read another article, this by the BBC, that attempted to capture the scale of the tragedy. Instead of looking at the deaths in a timeline, the BBC approached it from a cumulative impact, i.e.…

  • Difficult Descendancy Charts

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    Brendan Barry
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    The holiday break is over as your author has burned up all his remaining time for 2020 and so now we’re back to work. And that means attempting to return to a more frequent and regular posting schedule for Coffeespoons. I wanted to start with the death of Diego Maradona, a legendary Argentinian footballer. He…