Author: Brendan Barry

  • The US as an Energy Exporter

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    Brendan Barry
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    Several days ago OPEC, the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, announced a cut in production to raise the price of oil. This was big news because Saudi Arabia and others had kept the price low in an attempt to undercut the nascent American shale oil and gas industry. Well…that didn’t work. In this article…

  • Populism Marches on in Europe

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    Brendan Barry
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    By just a hair under 20 percentage points, Italian voters—with a 70% turnout rate—voted down the reform package of soon-to-be-former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi. While the election was focused narrowly on a set of political reforms for Italian government, e.g. reducing the number of senators, the vote was unofficially seen by many as a test…

  • Great Britain by an American

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    Brendan Barry
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    I am forever an Anglophile. Credit for the piece goes to Randall Munroe.

  • The David Petraeus Clusterfuck

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    Brendan Barry
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    This is sort of an early Friday post that follows up from my post on David Petraeus yesterday. Today’s comes from Hilary Sargent, once of the Boston Globe. It diagrams the network that ultimately resulted in the conviction I mentioned yesterday. For President-elect Donald Trump’s campaign to run so heavily against Secretary Clinton for mishandling classified…

  • David Petraeus for Secretary of State—No

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    Brendan Barry
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    I am very closely following the transition of power from President Obama to President-elect Trump. And one of the very surprising news stories has been that Trump is considering David Petraeus for Secretary of State. Given the controversy and campaign rhetoric against and surrounding Hillary Clinton for alleged mishandling of classified information as Secretary of…

  • Diversity in America

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    Brendan Barry
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    Today’s post is a choropleth map from the Washington Post examining diversity in the United States and how fast or slow diversity is expanding. Normally with two variables one goes instantly to the scatter plot. But here the Post explored the two variables geographically. And it holds up. The colours are perhaps the only part…

  • Trump’s Potential Conflicts of Interest

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    Brendan Barry
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    President-elect Donald Trump was correct when he stated that the president is often exempt from conflicts of interest while in office. However, he is not exempt from the emolument clause of the Constitution. Put simply, the president cannot receive money or gifts from foreign governments. The whole not being beholden to a foreign power thing.…

  • Andy Murray

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    Brendan Barry
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    A changeup from the political coverage, here we have sportsball! And by sportsball I mean tennis, if you did not get that from today’s post title. Andy Murray won the ATP World Tour finals, and with it won the number one seed in tennis, displacing Novak Djokovic. Nothing super fancy going on here, just a line…

  • Mexican Immigration

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    Brendan Barry
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    So following on from my Wednesday post, let’s take another look at the “problem” of Mexican immigration. Because as these graphics from the Pew Research Center show, it’s not really a problem these days. Instead, immigration is down. Credit for the piece goes to the Pew Research Center graphics department.

  • How Healthy Is It?

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    Brendan Barry
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    Happy Friday after the election. Now that we have had our fill on sweets and bitters, we probably need to move towards a more balanced, more moderate diet. A couple of months ago the New York Times put together this scatter plot from the difference between public and nutritionist opinion on whether certain common foods are…