Author: Brendan Barry

  • Twinkle, Twinkle, Little—Damn That’s Bright.

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    Brendan Barry
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    We’ve had a lot of the rough and gritty politics of late. So now for some  bright and starry-eyed idealism. Well, maybe less idealism and more stars. Lots of them. Courtesy a Google Chrome experiment.

  • Turkey

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    Brendan Barry
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    No, Turkey is not having an election this week. Instead, we start to transition out of election coverage. By moving into Thanksgiving. The New York Times created a flow chart that looks at different turkey cooking options. Credit for the piece goes to Alicia DeSantis and Kevin Quealy.

  • Election Stuff You Might Have Missed

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    Brendan Barry
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    The United States is not the only country in the world to have an election this November. It isn’t even the only big country. China is/had elections to replace the top leadership in Beijing. That’s right, it’s that about that time once every ten years when the Chinese political leadership is replaced. The Wall Street…

  • Electoral College Victories

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    Brendan Barry
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    Despite the claims of a select few, President Obama’s victory in the electoral college last week was not narrow. While it was not a blowout landslide, it was a clear and convincing win. But to show how it compared across American political history, I quickly charted electoral college results since the time of George Washington.…

  • History of Congress

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    Brendan Barry
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    Today is Election Day. Did you vote yet? If not, why the hell not? But you are not just voting for president, you are also voting for senators (in some states at least, like Pennsylvania), your congressman or congresswoman, state assemblies, ballot initiatives, &c. And in that spirit, this last pre-vote result post comes from…

  • The Paths to 270

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    Brendan Barry
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    There is one day to go until the presidential of 2012. But despite what many say and a fewer number want, the United States is not a democracy. It was never meant to be. Instead it is a democratic republic. We elect people who make decisions for us. Perhaps one of the most misunderstood ways…

  • Sandy’s Winds

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    Brendan Barry
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    Hurricane Sandy also brought quite a lot of wind. Before the storm landed just south of Atlantic City I was travelling east on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. And as the map below from the New York Times illustrates, I was driving through not insignificant winds (with quite a few more powerful gusts). In the first few…

  • Electrical Outages from Sandy

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    Brendan Barry
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    Hurricane Sandy hit the Jersey shore before moving northwest through southeastern Pennsylvania. These were two maps from two different electric utility companies providing information on the number of outages. This first and smaller graphic is from PECO. The second and larger is from FirstEnergy. The graphic from FirstEnergy breaks into the township level when zoomed…

  • Drone Wars

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    Brendan Barry
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    This is a small interactive piece by the Washington Post that looks at the drone wars being waged by the United States specifically in Pakistan and then Yemen/Somalia. Clicking on a specific date in the timeline brings that date into focus with articles about the attacks in question. What would have perhaps been interesting is…

  • My Electoral College Prediction

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    Brendan Barry
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    So my airport card still is not working on my laptop. And I am heading back east into the cold embrace of Sandy so who knows if I’ll have access to the internet while on holiday. But because of those two things, this is my official forecast for the election on 6 November. Granted, a…