Fair Warning - Her Maj, babies, and corgis
Hello! What a weird week it's been. Thursday was an upsetting day because I received some not-great personal news.. And... the Queen also died the same day.
Please check in on your British friends, this is a very strange time for us. I found myself silently weeping at a bus stop in Brooklyn on the way to meet a surgeon, thinking about my gran, and the Queen driving trucks during WWII. Like I said... Weird time. It feels like the end of a lot of things and it's hard to explain.
Some interesting non-data things I've enjoyed lately:
A text asked millions of Californians to save energy. They paid heed, averting blackouts <- almost like most people are good citizens :)
The Johnny Rotten tweet was kind of unexpected but I guess you do chill out as you get older
No private jets, no helicopters, and a bus to Westminster Abbey "Can you imagine Joe Biden on the bus?" I just love this so much.
On the home front
Data dive: How we name babies — www.axios.com
Baby names will always be my favourite dataset because of how utterly absurd it is and how much it can tell you about cultural cut-through.
60 Percent Of Americans Will Have An Election Denier On The Ballot This Fall
"FiveThirtyEight reached out to every single Republican nominee for House, Senate, governor, secretary of state and attorney general in 2022 to determine whether they accepted or denied the results of the 2020 election."
Views of Supreme Court Far Less Positive After Abortion Ruling Reversing Roe v. Wade — www.pewresearch.org
"Partisan gap in views of Supreme Court now wider than at any point in more than three decades."
Over the pond
Churchill, Auriol, Mao, Kohl, Trump… : combien de grands dirigeants ont côtoyé Elizabeth II ? — www.lemonde.fr
Nice look at how many presidents, PMs etc she had to meet with. Pretty impressive how long she reigned.
Charles will succeed Queen Elizabeth II: Royal succession plans, explained — www.washingtonpost.com
Just in case you don't have the line of succession MEMORISED in your head.
"What's your favorite royal corgi name"
A family tree of all the corgis the Queen has owned since she was 18. Personally I don't understand the appeal of corgis, they look like tiny stumpy idiots to me.
Odds and ends
Summer Movie Season Fizzles Out, With Few Blockbusters to Count On This Fall — www.wsj.com
Nice chart in here showing summer blockbusters and over the last few years. I must say there's nothing really compelling me to go to the cinema (sorry, "movie theater").
Ukraine Maps: Tracking the Russian Invasion
I have been seeing talk about this, and it sounds like Ukraine has made a huge push forward. "Russia’s front lines have collapsed in a crucial pocket of northeast Ukraine, ceding a wide area to a surprise Ukrainian offensive."
That's everything I have this week. It's a little short, I know. Thanks for reading! See you next week.