How the Parties Are Killing Competition – The New York Times

‘Taking the Voters Out of the Equation’: How the Parties Are Killing Competition – The New York Times

WASHINGTON — The number of competitive congressional districts is on track to dive near — and possibly below — the lowest level in at least three decades, as Republicans and Democrats draw new political maps designed to ensure that the vast majority of House races are over before the general election starts.

With two-thirds of the new boundaries set, mapmakers are on pace to draw fewer than 40 seats — out of 435 — that are considered competitive based on the 2020 presidential election results, according to a New York Times analysis of election data. Ten years ago that number was 73.

While the exact size of the battlefield is still emerging, the sharp decline of competition for House seats is the latest worrying sign of dysfunction in the American political system, which is already struggling with a scourge of misinformation and rising distrust in elections. Lack of competition in general elections can widen the ideological gulf between the parties, leading to hardened stalemates on legislation and voters’ alienation from the political process.

“The reduction of competitive seats is a tragedy,” said former Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., who is chairman of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee. “We end up with gridlock, we end up with no progress and we end up with a population looking at our legislatures and having this feeling that nothing gets done.” He added: “This gridlock leads to cynicism about this whole process.”

Any spatial dataframe you create in R, such as with tidycensus can be exported with write_sf to a shapefile

Any spatial dataframe you create in R, such as with tidycensus can be exported with write_sf to a shapefile.

I know this isn’t rocket science but it is a big time and headache saver. Sometimes joins don’t go quite right in QGIS due to your own silliness but if obtain the spatial data right at the same time as Census data using tidycensus geometry=True then you don’t have to manually join the data, deal with type issues or the wrong year TIGER line.

For example for the PA Poverty maps I poste on the Facebook:

library(tidycensus)
library(sf)

income <- get_acs(
geography = 'tract',
variables = 'S1701_C03_001',
state = 'PA',
geometry = T)

write_sf(income,'/tmp/pa_poverty.shp')

How Solitude Can Improve Your Mood

How Solitude Can Improve Your Mood

2/8/21 by NPR

Web player: https://podcastaddict.com/episode/118851749
Episode: https://play.podtrac.com/npr-510338/edge1.pod.npr.org/anon.npr-mp3/npr/lifekit/2021/02/20210208_lifekit_solitude_life_kit__-_rerun_020821_-_final.mp3?awCollectionId=510338&awEpisodeId=964439306&orgId=1&d=888&p=510338&story=964439306&t=podcast&e=964439306&size=14185089&ft=pod&f=510338

Everyone needs a little alone time, but these days, you might have either too much “me” time or not enough. Here’s how to find a balance and get the restorative benefits of time by yourself. (This episode originally ran in July 2020.)

Mostly for shits and giggles, πŸ’© 🀣 I wanted to subscribe to the Joe Rogan podcast only to found out it’s not available using most normal podcasting applications — he no longer provides an RSS feed that you can use in your normal podcasting app of choice, mine being Podcast Addict

Mostly for shits and giggles, πŸ’© 🀣 I wanted to subscribe to the Joe Rogan podcast only to found out it’s not available using most normal podcasting applications — he no longer provides an RSS feed that you can use in your normal podcasting app of choice, mine being Podcast Addict. 🎧 I am a big advocate for open platforms, and I’m not going to install yet another app on my phone — Spotify, so I said forget it.

Probably the same ol’ drably from a conservative whining about stupid COVID-19 conspiracy theories.

I already have enough that from the podcasts I currently subscribe to, so I think I can pass on that. Yes, I’m talking about James Howard Kunstler. That said, I do like to hear alternative views and viewpoints on issues of concern today, but it seems like somethings in this world are just dumb.