Yes. The State of the Union address, which is like the Oscars or Super Bowl for politics nerds like me, is tonight. Here’s a look back at President Obama’s speech last year:  And the Republican response from Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell:  Interesting. Both men used “Americans” quite often. Oba... Read more →

(h/t @JasonStoddard) Read more →

Amaztype lets you visualize Amazon’s online catalog by subject title, author name, etc. Here I chose data and visualization: Read more →

A colleague today asked for a spreadsheet copy of the Tribune’s Directory, which has biographical, political and official details about 242 elected officials in Texas (statewide, Legislature, high courts, congress, etc). Turns out only 70 of them are Democrats, whose ranks were thinned consider... Read more →

Another cross-post from my work blog: The 2010 political campaigns are over, but looking back at the fundraising and spending that financed them is now fully possible thanks to records made public by the Texas Ethics Commission after Tuesday’s filing deadline.  With this new data, which cover d... Read more →

A cross post from my work blog: Most people know that Gov. Rick Perry, inaugurated to a third full term Tuesday, has served longer than any other chief executive in Texas history. What’s remarkable, though, is just how much longer than the state’s previous governors — even those who’ve served ... Read more →

My wife and I are moving to Washington, D.C., in the coming weeks. She’ll be working for NPR, and I’m staying in my current job working remotely. Our move got me thinking about this fabulous migration map created last year by Jon Bruner, an editor at Forbes who works interactive projects. Click... Read more →

I’m getting bored with word clouds, but I couldn’t think of a better way to make a visualization in honor of the late Martin Luther King, Jr. Here is his “I Have a Dream Speech”: Also, here’s an interactive word tree: Read more →

“The Green Hornet“ opened this weekend to lukewarm reviews by critics, earning low scores on movie score aggregators like Metacritc and Rotten Tomatoes. Here’s one of my favorites: “A big, sloppy, loud, grating mess of a movie,” wrote the Detroit News’ Adam Graham. Elise wondered how “Hornet” c... Read more →

From Visual Complexity: “This radial convergence interactive graphic shows the money flow from private donators to parties in the German Bundestag.” Pretty fancy:  Read more →