Tag: politics

  • British Parliament Timeline

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    Brendan Barry
    in

    For those of you who don’t know, the British Parliament was dissolved today ahead of the 7 May elections. In other words, it is now election time. Last week the Economist published a small interactive piece that allows you to look at the composition of the British Parliament from 1870 through today. While many (some?)…

  • Yemen’s Tangled Web

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    Brendan Barry
    in ,

    Did you see the news about Saudi Arabia bombing Yemen. Are you confused about what is going on in Yemen? And how that relates to what is going on in Iraq? And the rest of the Middle East? Well, so am I. But, I also only had time to research and work on one graphic…

  • Lee Kuan Yew Built Modern Singapore

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    Brendan Barry
    in

    Lee Kuan Yew died this weekend. He is lately responsible for designing and implementing the policies that transformed Singapore from a poor fishing village to a commercial hub. The transformation came at a price of course. Singapore enjoys limited free speech and the country is effectively a one-party state, with the one party now controlled…

  • Presidents Day Popularity Contests

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    Brendan Barry
    in

    Yesterday was Presidents Day and I had the day off. So today’s post is a bit late, but it still works. Pew Research Centre pulled together data they had on presidential popularity from Eisenhower to Obama. The data point was job approval. Credit for the piece goes to the graphics department of the Pew Research…

  • Chris Christie Is Well Know But Not Well Like

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    Brendan Barry
    in

    As election season begins to heat up, Five Thirty Eight looks at the probability of a Chris Christie candidacy. The scatter plot below examines the favourability and name recognition. The public knows the “brand” of Christie. But they do not have a favourable view of him. I would be curious how much of that is…

  • Five Ring Circus

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    Brendan Barry
    in

    Today’s piece comes from Five Thirty Eight and it looks at the increasingly crowded Republican field for 2016. Credit for the piece goes to Nate Silver.

  • The Perception vs Reality of Islam in Europe

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    Brendan Barry
    in

    Last week’s terror attacks in Paris highlight the tension in Europe between secular Europe and those believing in Islamist values. The Economist looked at some of the available data and noted the gap between Europe’s perception of Islam and its reality. A quick figure called out for France, French respondents thought 31% of the French…

  • After the Curtain Dropped

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    Brendan Barry
    in

    Last week we covered the fall of the Berlin Wall and the lasting impact in former East Germany vs. former West Germany. This week we look at a piece from Bloomberg Businessweek that looks more broadly at Eastern Europe. The piece scrolls with the charts updating based upon the available text. And within that text…

  • The UK’s Two-party System Continues to Decline

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    Brendan Barry
    in

    If you missed it, last week the United Kingdom held a few by-elections. For we Americans, those are like special elections for seats in the Senate or the House that are not part of the regular Congressional elections. Anyway, the big news was that the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP)—think Tea Party wanting out of…

  • The State of Gay Marriage in the States

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    Brendan Barry
    in

    I have been fairly out of the loop of the news the last few weeks, but I did at least catch one of the headlines: gay marriage in the States is more legal than ever. Between Supreme Court stays and Appeals Court rulings, gay marriage is now legal in more than 50% of the country—at…