In the previous article I began a reassessment of the results of the 2016 Presidential Election in Pennsylvania, about which I have written a few articles already, as it was regarded before the election as a critical state in the election and, in fact, proved to be exactly that. I had examined the evidence and… (read more)
In the immediate aftermath of the November election I re-examined my predictions for the Presidential Election in Pennsylvania using the data available at the time. Subsequently the official election results have been published by the Pennsylvania Department of State along with the final registration numbers for November 8, 2016, allowing me to revisit the question… (read more)
Everglades City, Florida. Inauguration Day, January 20, 2017. I promised myself that I would spend the week of the inauguration camping and birding in the remotest parts of the Everglades, free from the news and distractions and aggravations of the assumption of power of the person (and his minions) who poses the greatest threat to… (read more)
Not As Many Friends in Pennsylvania As Clinton Might Have Hoped ‘I have a deep-seated and, hopefully, irrational fear that somehow I am under-estimating the role vitriol, class and racial hostility, basic human stupidity, and cupidity play in elections and that this map might be not generous enough to the forces of darkness, but I… (read more)
As Election Day approaches all manner of wild and crazy claims are made in a desperate hope to get one group or another to the polls or, as I discussed in previous entries, to entice some voters to stay home. One of the major methods of attack is to cite polls showing one or the… (read more)
Better Know A Precinct #2. Ward 14, Precinct 3. As I waited for luggage at the Terminal A baggage carousel in Logan Airport recently, I noticed a promotion on a nearby wall for Boston’s Grove Hall neighborhood. The poster advertises all the great things waiting to be discovered in the neighborhood. Visit Franklin Park Zoo!… (read more)
Better Know A Precinct #1. Ward 6, Precinct 9 Recently fishermen on a boat off the coast near Beverly found a rare blue lobster in one of their traps. According to the Lobster Institute at the University of Maine, blue lobsters turn up about once for every two million lobsters harvested. The carapace (shell) of… (read more)
“Boston State-House is the hub of the solar system. You couldn’t pry that out of a Boston man if you had the tire of all creation straightened out for a crowbar.” Oliver Wendell Holmes, The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, 1858. This quote recorded by Holmes is the source of the famous nickname… (read more)
In my most recent post I examined the election results of the largest cities in America. I chose the 26 largest cities based on US Census Bureau data, cities which each had a population of more than 600,000. I also discussed some problems with the data set, as I also did in a post from… (read more)
Boston has a reputation as a very liberal city. I have been a student of Boston elections for over two decades and my research suggests that the city is not as liberal as its national reputation warrants. Is it possible to determine the relative “liberalness” of Boston? Part of this project is dedicated to analyzing… (read more)
