Coffeespoons

Tag: politics

  • Germany’s Political Coalitions

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    Brendan Barry
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    Two weekends ago, Germany went to the polls for their federal election in which they chose their representatives in the Bundestag, or legislature. Germany, however, is not a two-party system and no single party won a majority of seats. Consequently, the parties need to negotiate and form a coalition government. That could take a number…

  • Covid Vaccination and Political Polarisation

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    Brendan Barry
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    I will try to get to my weekly Covid-19 post tomorrow, but today I want to take a brief look at a graphic from the New York Times that sat above the fold outside my door yesterday morning. And those who have been following the blog know that I love print graphics above the fold.…

  • Misleading Graphics Aren’t Limited to US Elections

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    Brendan Barry
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    Last week I wrote about how CBS News’ coverage of the California recall election featured a misleading graphic. In particular, the graphic created the appearance that the results were closer than they really were. This week we had another election and, sadly, I find that I have to write the same sort of piece again.…

  • 2020 Census Apportionment

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    Brendan Barry
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    Every ten years the United States conducts a census of the entire population living within the United States. My genealogy self uses the federal census as the backbone of my research. But that’s not what it’s really there for. No, it exists to count the people to apportion representation at the federal level (among other…

  • Can We Pop Our Political Bubbles?

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    Brendan Barry
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    It’s no secret that Americans—and likely at least Western communities more broadly—live in bubbles, one of which being our political bubbles. And so I want to thank one of my mates for sending me the link to this opinion piece about political bubbles from the New York Times. The piece is fairly short, but begins…

  • Politicising Vaccinations

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    Brendan Barry
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    Yesterday I wrote my usual weekly piece about the progress of the Covid-19 pandemic in the five states I cover. At the end I discussed the progress of vaccinations and how Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Illinois all sit around 25% fully vaccinated. Of course, I leave my write-up at that. But not everyone does. This past…

  • Biden’s Cabinet

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    Brendan Barry
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    Note: I wanted this to go up on Inauguration Day, but I had some server issues last week. And while I got everything back for Friday and Monday, I didn’t want to wait too long to post this. You’ll note at the end that I have questions about General Austin and whether he could be…

  • 2020 Election Results…

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    Brendan Barry
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    Via xkcd. It’s Friday and we’ve made it all to the end of the week. A little while back xkcd posted about the 2020 US election, showing where the votes for both candidates are approximately located. This isn’t quite funny like I normally might post on a Friday, but it felt appropriate after this week…

  • Impeachment 2: The Insurrection

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    Brendan Barry
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    Like many Americans I closely followed the outcome of yesterday’s historic vote by the House of Representatives to impeach President Trump for his incitement of an insurrection at the US Capitol in a failed coup attempt to overturn the 2020 election. Words I still never thought I’d write describing an American election. So at the…

  • Red Shift, Blue Shift

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    Brendan Barry
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    Last night I published a graphic on Instagram that I think people may find helpful if they try to follow Election Day results on Tuesday. I wanted to explain the concept of a red shift or blue shift. (I’ve also seen it described as states having a red mirage or a blue mirage.) For my…