Mapping the 2012 Election - Win Scenarios by Electoral State

Neat interactive pictorial display of potential scenarios for the 2012 Presidential race.

I particularly like the "rescrambling" of electoral wins to outplay certain voting events...

Full credits to the New York Times Politics e-page for "Electoral Map: Building a Path to Victory".

Mapping the Republican Delegate count - A Race to 1144

Here is a good link to the Republican Delegate count race to 1144 - the number required to win the GOP nomination.

Watch this space .... the interactive "play historical gains by state" make it a neat way to monitor change is delegate voting preferences by candidate & region of the country.

NY Times - Republican Delagate count

Taken from the NY Times Politics section for the 2012 election.

Mapping New Nations - South Sudan

While it happens more often than you think, new nations are not "born" every day.  South Sudan has joined the ranks of the world's newest nation, obtaining independence on 9 July 2011. Below are some images and links to the latest references and population of South Sudan.  It should come as no surprise, forming a nation is just the beginning (and no guarantee of permanence).  While I wish the South Sudanese well in their independence, here is a list of former sovereign states (Wikipedia - List of former states)...
CIA Factbook - Listing by Nation:


 
CIA Factobook by Country

Continent/Country Listing - CAI Factbook

CIA Factbook of South Sudan:


CIA Factbook page for South Sudan

South Sudan country page - CIA Factbook



Specific to population cartograms, here is a quick "cut and paste" of a interesting population analysis of the now subdivided region:



"The following gridded population cartogram shows the population distribution within and between these two nations, giving every person living in the region the same amount of space. For the much smaller population in the south it will be hard work ahead in building a new nation.... (Guardian news article - "South Sudan: a nation in the making" )

Sudan Population Cartogram  South Sudan - Views of the World

Full credits to Views of the World for brining this top my attentions. In particular special map creation credit to: The map was created by Benjamin D. Hennig and is property of the Sasi Research Group (University of Sheffield). PhD research project of Benjamin David Hennig, University of Sheffield supervised by Professor Danny Dorling, Dr Mark Ramsden, Dr Dimitris Ballas.



Anthropomorphic and zoomorphic maps - When Depictions of Life intersects Location

Neat blog post on Anthropomorphic and zoomorphic maps. Credits to The Map Room and Donna Seger's The Streets of Salem of bringing this to my attention.


From her post " ... The shift from conceptual to more realistic cartography in the early modern era is a very evident and important trend, but early modern mapmakers retained a bit of whimsy when they produced maps in the form of plants, animals and humans in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries...."

 German theology professor Heinrich Bunting’s Travels according to the Scriptures (1581): 

Specific to this image, " ...Another lively early modern map is the “Dutch Lion” map (Leo Belgicus, Leo Hollandicus ) issued in a succession of variations from the late sixteenth century, contemporaneously with the Dutch Revolt against Spain. The rebellious Dutch provinces are shown in the form of a lion, roaring in the face of the powerful Spanish Empire...."

"Leo Hollandicus", JC Visscher, 1648

Just Released - Death & Taxes 2010

For all of you not familiar with "Death and Taxes", this is a site that produces an interactive graphical display (posters also available) now three years running of the federal budget. It contains over 500 programs and departments and almost every program that receives over 200 million dollars annually. The data is straight from the president's 2010 budget request and will be debated, amended, and approved by Congress to begin the fiscal year. All of the item circles are proportional in size to their spending totals and the percentage change from 2009 is included to spot trends and disproportion.





Its a great way to compare NASA to the NSA, Homeland Security to Healthcare, etc. - from a budget expenditure perspective.

Another $800 Billion visual perspective

As I continued to research, I came across another more detailed visual portrayal of the economic stimulus plan.

Again credits to FlowingData and the Washington Post

This one has a better temporal dynamic on the axis showing the impact over time from fiscal year 2009 thru 2019.

In particular, the large numbers from Medicaid provisions, state fiscal stabilization and health insurance for the unemployed are now "top of mind" political topics in their own right.

The Obama Stimulus Plan - A Visual Refresher

As funny as it sounds in today's economic times, I need a refresher on where the $800 billion stimulus plan went .... So I dug up some visual displays of Obama's economic plan.

This particular collage comes from InfoGraphics - as first seen on FlowingData

You would think after only six months of spending this type of cash each 100 million would be etched into our brains, but alas .... even nearly a trillion is but a fleeting memory.

I was mostly interested in reviewing the ratio of tax cuts to aid to local/state governments given the State of California's recent budget debacle.

As always, the visual provides some clarity (at least as to the categories of spend) on how to interpret the data.

Cool Geo-Politic Pic: Pan & Zoom Inauguration

Try to find me, I dare ya (I wasn't there).

Credits to http://gigapan.org

Count how many Supreme Court Justices are sleeping.

Geo-Mash up in Florida politics

Here is a nice example of using google mash ups to geo-visually communicate political information. While I have my presidential leanings in this year's election, this is not to sway anyone to toward either candidate - more to highlight the example of the slick technology for purpose (benefit or sly persuasion - you decide) for communicating local legislative issues via the map. My guess is the RNC is as good at it as the DNC. Its a wonderful way to tie regional issues in a "browsable" format.



For the full website - click here

To see Click2Map's google mash-up tool - click here

The Click2Map blog has some interesting posts on GooCar and Geo-Targeting.