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One of the most fascinating things to come out of the current We Are 99%/Occupy Wall Street protests is the We Are 99% Tumblr.  At the site, people hold up signs that explain their current circumstances, and it tells the story of a whole range of Americans struggling in the Lesser Depression.  It is highly recommended. DATA The site features pictures of individuals holding their signs, and occasionally the tumblr reproduces the text of the signs themselves underneath the image as html text.  Sometimes the text under the image is blank, sometimes it is a different message, but often it is the sign itself. In order to get a slightly better empirical handle on this important tumblr, I created a script designed to read all of the pages and parse out the html text on the site.  It doesn't read the images (can anyone in the audience automate calls to an OCR?), just the html text.  After collecting all the text on all the pages, the code then goes through it to try to find interesting points. It's a fun exercise, pointing out things I wouldn't have seen otherwise.  For instance, I found this adorable little rascal, pictured below, mucking up the algorithm, as the first version of the code assumed all the ages would have two digits.  I found that he, and the sign his mom made for him as a confessional to her son, hit me a ton harder than any of the more direct signs of despair in this economy:

campaign yard signs, sign design, polling places, buying yard signs

Campaign yard signs are an important element in local campaigning. Over time, a single campaign sign can be seen by hundreds or even thousands of people. Multiply that effect by the total number of yard signs promoting a campaign, and you have a powerful

Campaign Trail Yard Signs is holding a sweepstakes where your political or issue advocacy campaign can enter to win a free professional design for your yard signs. Enter to win!

Campaigns that understand state yard sign regulations will avoid having their signs removed and political attacks from their opponents.

Campaigns that understand state yard sign regulations will avoid having their signs removed and political attacks from their opponents.

Campaigns that understand state yard sign regulations will avoid having their signs removed and political attacks from their opponents.

Campaigns that understand state yard sign regulations will avoid having their signs removed and political attacks from their opponents.

Campaigns that understand state yard sign regulations will avoid having their signs removed and political attacks from their opponents.

Campaigns that understand state yard sign regulations will avoid having their signs removed and political attacks from their opponents.

Campaigns that understand state yard sign regulations will avoid having their signs removed and political attacks from their opponents.

Campaigns that understand state yard sign regulations will avoid having their signs removed and political attacks from their opponents.

Yard sign wires come in two types. Each has their advantages and disadvantages. Learn the differences and why a political campaign would choose one over the other.

Depending upon whether a district is urban, suburban, or rural candidates and campaigns should use different tactics to maximize the effectiveness of campaign yard signs.

If you're running for office to help make laws, you don't want to violate them! Learn the political lawn sign laws in Missouri, so you don't find out the hard way.

Depending upon whether a district is urban, suburban, or rural candidates and campaigns should use different tactics to maximize the effectiveness of campaign yard signs.

With the increase in the number of smartphones, more people have the ability to scan QR codes. QR codes are a two dimension barcode that link to web pages. Political campaigns are using QR codes on election signs to get their message out to voters and capture voter contact information.

Japan and Russia have never signed a peace treaty over World War II. The reason for this is that there is a dispute over four islands off Hokkaido that were occupied by Soviet forces that were once in Japanese hands. A 1956 Japanese-Soviet joint declaration signed in Moscow stated that Shikotan island and the Habomai islets would be returned to Japan after a peace treaty was concluded between Japan and the Soviet Union.

A coalition of 295 legal scholars from universities around the world have signed a letter protesting the torture of Bradley Manning, and published this week in the New York Review of Books. Composed and drafted by Bruce Ackerman, of Yale Law School, and Yochai Benkler, of Harvard, the letter details his treatment, and points out that it is a violation of both the Eighth and Fifth Amendments. "If continued," the letter states, "it may well amount to a violation of the criminal statute against torture, defined as, among other things, 'the administration or application…of… procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or the personality.'"