Cluster bombs

An Economist graphic points out that despite a broad treaty banning the use of cluster munitions, 17 non-signatory countries including the United States continue to produce them.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2011/11/cluster-munitions

Both Thailand and Libya used cluster munitions this year. Cluster munitions put civilians at risk because they spread over  a wide area and can leave unexploded submunitions.

The source of the graphic is the Landmine and Cluster Munition Monitor, which is affiliated with the Nobel-winning International Campaign to Ban Landmines.

http://www.the-monitor.org/index.php

In addition to maps and lists on landmine and cluster munitions producers. The monitor produces reports and maps of civilian casualties, and locates areas that are contaminated with cluster munitions and landmines from past or ongoing conflicts.

 

Political prediction market

President Barack Obama has a 51% chance of being elected, according to the Intrade market, in which bettors buy and sell shares that pay off if their predictions are correct. How accurate is the collective wisdom of the market on political matters? More accurate than political pundits, according to the Washington Post and the New York times. http://tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/24/bettors-beat-pundits/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/post/does-intrade-matter-political-betting-explained/2011/10/12/gIQAHqpdhL_blog.html
While the Intrade market has been a more accurate barometer than public opinion polls, its data only occasionally gets used in news graphics, such as the New York Times chart above.

To read Intrade data as a percentage, you just convert the dollar amount so that, for instance, $6.70 is 6.7%.

In addition to a market on Obama’s chances, Intrade has odds on each GOP presidential candidate, House, Senate and Governors’ races, and whom Sarah Palin and Jim DeMint will endorse.

Halloween statistics

Each year the National Retail Federation releases a survey on how much Americans plan to spend on Halloween, how they plan to celebrate and what costume they will wear. They survey offers a chance to create some interesting charts. Above is an example from The Wall Street Journal. Below is a graphic from the Columbia Missourian (http://www.columbiamissourian.com/multimedia/graphic/2011/10/23/chart-halloween-celebration-2011/)

Lord’s Resistance Army

When the Obama Administration sent troops into Africa to help the fight against the Lord’s Resistance Army, I needed to produce a map showing where they LRA operates—and fast. I immediately turned to Reliefweb, which coordinates information from humanitarian aid organizations, and to OCHA, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs at the U.N.

Reliefweb and OHCA provide detailed and up-to-date information on all kinds of humanitarian crises, including atrocities and displacement brought about by the LRA. OCHA frequently updates the map shown below with details on the LRA’s attacks and their effects.

http://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/map_1044.pdf

http://www.unocha.org/

 

Gay rights

I usually turn to Human Rights Campaign for chart data on gay rights, so I was happy to learn a couple of new sources from this New York Times graphic, which ran on Oct. 8, 2011, with this story on same-sex marriage in Portugal: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/09/opinion/sunday/bruni-same-sex-marriage-in-portugal.html
The first is Freedom to Marry http://www.freedomtomarry.org/resources/all/c/international, which offers info on gay marriage around the world. The second is the ILGA http://ilga.org/, which provides info on countries that punish couples for being gay.

Visual conceit

Adonis Durado, the design director of the Times of Oman has employs what he calls “visual conceit” to drive his pages. For a presentation on visual conceipt, go here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/66821299/Visual-Conceit-Handout

Arab-Latin mashup

A crazy mashup of Middle-Eastern and Latin styles has emerged from the infographics coming out of the Emirates. Peruvian designer Luis Chumpitaz, at the Arab Media group, lies at the heart of this trend. Check out his portfolio: http://www.onemoregraphic.com/

Gallup daily poll on economic conditions

Each day, Gallup polls Americans on how they view economic conditions. The percentage saying the economy is poor shot up by 10 points around the time of the congressional battle over raising the debt ceiling.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/110821/Gallup-Daily-US-Economic-Conditions.aspx

You can download the data and build your own chart. Unfortunately, these figures only go back to 2009, so they don’t capture the period before the recession that began in December 2007. I suspect you could get older figures by contacting Gallup directly.

S&P sovereign credit ratings

Standard and Poors just downgraded the U.S. credit rating a few hours before I posted this, so I haven’t seen any news graphics posted about this subject. But you can go to this link to see where the U.S. ratings stand compared with other countries. The down grade puts us below Canada, on par with Belgium and above Japan.
http://www.standardandpoors.com/ratings/sovereigns/ratings-list/en/us?sectorName=Governments&subSectorCode=39

The ratings bring the U.S. credit-worthiness from “extremely strong” to “very strong” based on its political and economic profile, which I find kind of funny despite the seriousness of the situation.

Debt limit

On the same day, the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post published graphics highlighting tough choices the federal government would need to make if the debt ceiling isn’t raised by Aug. 2: The U.S. would need to decide which bills to pay and which to skip. The Wall Street Journal’s graphic is above and the Washington Post’s is below.

The Washington Post also published an interactive graphic in which the user can chose which federal bills to pay with the limited funds that would be available.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/federal-debt-limit-you-choose-who-gets-paid/?hpid=z2

Both publications turned to a recent analysis by the Bipartisan Policy Center, which estimated daily receipts and payments based on publicly available data from daily Treasury statements. The report provides specificity that brings home what this crisis could mean for our country.

http://www.bipartisanpolicy.org/library/staff-paper/debt-limit-analysis