Observations

azspot:

Global Attitudes Toward Homosexuality

This full article is really excellent - lots of good data and charts and things.  A great global view of things.

azspot:

Just in case you need evidence about sports

I wish they had more years on this, but otherwise this is actually a pretty cool chart.  Yay LastFM!  

And Anna, look!  People are apparently getting better about waiting until after Thanksgiving for Christmas music.  Turns out, everything is not terrible.

shortformblog:

election:

The Words They Used At The National Convention

I’ve pointed out “women” because one of the bigger impressions I got from the DNC was that the Democrats clearly think they can use the divide on women’s rights (see: Akin, Todd) to their advantage. One of Obama’s biggest rhetorical flourishes last night involved a girl growing up to be president. Almost every speaker spoke to the issue of gender equality as it related to choice and occasionally as it related to equal compensation. I was surprised at how much they seem to feel they have the advantage pressing the attack there. The only thing that surprised me more (at least as far as speech content was concerned) was the repeated, frank mention of voter suppression — maybe a bit cynical on my part, but I assumed that was an issue the media would complain about but would not be spoken about on a national political stage. 

- Jason

This chart also includes a nice list of excerpts where some of the words were used. Pretty rad.

This is a Good Chart. I was hoping for something like this, and this is a very excellent, clear representation.

Update: I just clicked through, and they give you a listing of the context for every time the word was mentioned by whom when you click on the circle.  And you can ADD YOUR OWN WORDS and they analyze them right then and there and drop a circle in for you.  On mentions of “cheese”, Dems are up, two-zip.  This just got so much more awesome.  This is a Really Good Chart.

motherjones:

nationalpost:

Mitt Romney in commanding lead as Florida polls open
Florida’s Republican voters go to the polls on Tuesday in a high-stakes presidential primary election, with former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney holding a commanding double-digit lead in polls over rival Newt Gingrich.

Florida is the largest state to hold a presidential primary so far this year and a Romney victory would give him a big boost in the state-by-state battle to decide who will face President Barack Obama in the November election.

Polls opened at 7 a.m. and close at 7 p.m. local time. Most of the state is on Eastern Time, except the western Panhandle region, which is on Central Time and where polls will close an hour later.

Still the best chart we’ve seen on the 2012 race.

Yes!  I’ve been waiting for an update to this chart.  It is far and away the best picture of the primary race I’ve seen, and just a beautifully done chart.  Seriously, click through and look at the full size.