Thanks again to Michael Barone for linking to the 10 Regions of American Politics. But Barone did say that some of the regions "don’t make much sense to me." That’s […]
What went into deciding the 10 regions?
Posted inThe Download, Uncategorized
Casino culture
Despite last week’s burying of Gov. Deval Patrick’s casino bill, don’t look for the gambling industry to go quietly into the good night. The Boston Herald reports today that casino […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
Will Massachusetts turn red in November?
Dave Leip’s Atlas of Presidential Election now has separate maps showing current state-by-state polls for an Obama-McCain matchup and a Clinton-McCain race. For what it’s worth, the aggregate of polls […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
Ralph Martin out, John Dingell still in
The Boston Globe is reporting today that Ralph Martin will not run for mayor next year, and the story by Stephanie Ebbert and Sacha Pfeiffer ends with a quote that […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
The 2004 Bush swing and the 2008 Democratic primaries
Welcome, Michael Barone readers. (My copy of his Almanac of American Politics is always near my computer.) To elaborate on the point that Barack Obama seems to be doing best […]
Posted inEconomy, The Download
Public vs. private pensions
I’ve finally read my copy of January’s Notes, the monthly newsletter from the Employee Benefit Research Institute. (They need more exciting covers.) It features lots of charts on how educational […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
Rejecting and denouncing rejecting and denouncing
The Atlantic’s James Fallows can’t resist blogging about the American presidential campaign from China. This particular post is about the audacity of the Clinton campaign in getting its messages out […]
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Births vs. deaths
The Census Bureau recently published county-by-county data on population changes from 2006 to 2007 (see previous post), giving us lots of opportunities for cartographical noodling. The two maps below (one […]
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What’s the matter with Kansas now?
USA Today has a cool set of maps based on county-by-county population trends from 2000 through 2007. The most striking thing is that Kansas and other Great Plains states are […]
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Holyoke goes back to the garden
Corby Kummer writes about Nuestras Raices, a community gardening program in the "Gateway City" of Holyoke, in the new issue of the Atlantic magazine. Read Kummer’s piece, but also check […]
Posted inEducation, The Download
Fudging high school graduation rates
Fans of The Wire already know how police departments cook crime stats. Today the New York Times reports on how school systems use fuzzy math to come up with graduation […]
Posted inEconomy, The Download
Arkansas cracks down on high interest “payday loans”
Via Governing.com, the attorney general of Arkansas is ordering the shutdown of 156 "payday lending outlets" that make personal loans, with extremely high interest rates, against a borrower’s future paychecks. […]
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Which Washington Street?
The Boston Globe’s Maria Cramer reports that police responded to a homicide call by going to the wrong Washington Street. The mistake underscores the confusing nature of Boston’s road patterns, […]
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Fever-induced presidential campaign questions
I’m home sick today, perhaps because my body can’t deal with the sudden halt in presidential debates and primary returns, but I do have two fever-induced questions about the Democatic […]
Posted inThe Download, Transportation
Subway use up 3 percent nationally, down 8 percent in Boston
Ridership numbers for the year 2007 were posted yesterday by the American Public Transportation Association, which noted that trips on public transit totalled 10.3 billion in the US, or 2.1 […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
Milford cracks down on flashers
Danielle Ameden at the Milford Daily News reports that the Massachusetts town of 28,000 is cracking down on "flashy" signs such as the one at Dunkin’ Donuts on South Main […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, The Download
Hateful geography
Today’s Washington Post illustrates a census of hate groups in the US, compiled by the Southern Poverty Law Center in Alabama. The group claims that the total has risen from […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
The 10 Regions of Democratic primary politics
The chart below shows how the two leading Democratic presidential candidates, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, have been faring in our 10 Regions of US Politics. The figures include all […]
Posted inEducation, Politics, The Download
Who can change the Electoral College map?
Michael Barone says that an Obama/McCain match in November could radically change the red vs. blue map of 2000 and 2004. The Boston Phoenix’s Steven Stark is more skeptical that […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
Six more weeks of pointless arguing?
You can’t open a browser this morning without stumbling onto some election analysis, so I won’t go over the minutiae from the exit polls from Ohio and Texas. But it […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
Completely unsubstantiated VP speculation
There’s chatter about Clinton and Obama (presented here in alphabetical order) forming a unity ticket to bring this interminable Democratic primary campaign to a close, the problem being that both […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
Disasters on the horizon?
Slate.com’s Daniel Gross discusses the high number of natural disasters — that is, snowstorms, tornados, and the like that are declared disasters by the federal government — during presidential election […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
As the Bay State crumbles
Governing magazine and the Pew Center for the States give Massachusetts a "C" in their annual Management Report Card. Only New Hampshire and Rhode Island got lower grades for how […]
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Gaming the casino job numbers
Today’s Boston Sunday Globe features a front-page story by Sean Murphy questioning the Patrick administration’s claim that 30,000 construction jobs would be created if the governor’s proposal for three casinos […]