United States of the Environment

New York has the lowest per capita energy consumption, I'm sure because so many of us in the City don't have cars. And Pennsylvania (where I was born) grows the most organic mushrooms. Ewwwwww ... I HATES mushrooms.

What's going on in your state?

Source: Joe.My.God

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BREAKING: I'm Moving To Venezuela!

... or to Bolivia. Or maybe Columbia. Possibly Hungary ... or Cameroon. Any of those, really. Click on the map above to enLARGE and find out why.

Source
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Interactive Census Maps

I have always loved geography and maps - so THIS handy dandy interactive tool from the New York Times is right up my alley. It contains census data from 2005 to 2009 for every community in the U.S. - just plug in a zip code and go. The above map is the racial breakdown of NYC - and as you can see, my city is quite segregated.

Here is my current neighborhood (rectangular box on the right side - 'Tract 61')...

Notice the percentage of Black people? WTF?? I thought I was imagining things when I moved here and didn't see many black faces - but I guess not. And check out the lily-white Upper East Side of Manhattan all the way on the left side of the map.

Here is where I grew up, which hasn't seemed to change much. My childhood neighborhood is/was the only one with much diversity - the rest of the area was/is overwhelmingly white ...

Check it out for yourself and let us know what kind of results you get.

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Where Do You Buy Groceries In Wisconsin?

Bars vs. Grocery Stores in the United States.  Red = more bars than grocery stores.  Yellow = more grocery stores.  As you can see - there seems to be a lot of drinking and very little food shopping going on in vast portions of the mid-west.

Via Joe.My.God

Soda, Pop, or Coke?

Joe.My.God posted this neat map, which shows how people in different parts of the country refer to our favorite fizzy carbonated beverages. Pennsylvania, where I grew up, is split - people in Western PA (Pittsburgh) say "pop", but people in Central PA (where I'm from) and Eastern PA (Philadelphia) say "soda". We also call it "soda" in New York. Click on the map to enlarge.

Tell me what you call 'soft drinks' in the comments...