@Thomas,
yeah, bizarre, that. any idea how this hunchbacked snake of a shape benefits your congressman/woman?
@nimh,
Well, the dent between Edison and Plainfield coincides with the "Metuchen Golf and Country Club" and the fancy neighborhoods around it. The dent South of Sayerville hosts a rich gated community. The stretch of coast West of Long Beach is a community of very beautiful beach houses from the early 20th century. Many of them of them sit on a mountain side and have a view across the Atlantic and Staten Island all the way to Manhattan -- stunning!
Are you surprised to learn that my House representative is a Democrat?
But I don't understand, in seat-maximizing terms, why the district's shape is so long and slim.
@Thomas,
Thomas wrote:
But I don't understand, in seat-maximizing terms, why the district's shape is so long and slim.
The art and science of district gerrymandering is as old and complex as the mystical science of alchemy.
@tsarstepan,
Much more profitable though.
Actually, it might be fun for a jobless nerd like myself to write a gerrymandering program. Just go to the census website, mine it for income and occupational statistics by zip code, correlate those statistics with a propensity to vote for a particular party, and cobble together your Congressional districts from the Zip code areas. Then sell your services to some evil political action committee or something. Hmmmmm ....
I don't understand why people go on shooting rampages, but if they are going to happen, I understand why the United States Postal Service is an over-represented venue.
I'm not lazy, but there is an inverse relationship between the amount of time I have to complete a given task and the amount of energy I am able to summon to tackle it. As a result, I am capable of completing daunting and complex projects when given a strict and short deadline, but without any time constraint I can barely be bothered to tackle the simplest task.
Yesterday, for instance, I completed 25 surgeries back to back because my technician arrived 2 hours late, all while mildly febrile and hacking up lung butter under my mask, because it had to be done.
Today, I've managed to wash the dirtiest of my dogs and halfheartedly vacuum half of one floor of the house and don't know if I can stomach any more activity.
So much of human activity, especially in a nation of excess, is perfunctory, pro forma, essentially unnecessary.
It's still winter here, in case anybody is wondering.
@patiodog,
I'm sick of winter too.
(Lung butter? Evocative...)
@sozobe,
I'm a big fan of found poetry.
@patiodog,
All right, after acquainting myself with the "Amber Lamps" meme, I feel the need to do something productive, however unnecessary.
I've heard so many guys complain about how women like bad boys and overlook the good guys, but I've seen less about the corollary: I'm seeing it play out amongst the elementary set and it reminds me that I've seen it happen plenty of times in other (more mature) settings too... the males who go ga-ga over the flighty, emotional, bitchy females and overlook the good ones.
I guess the "neg" idea goes both directions.
@patiodog,
all that makes total sense.
@Thomas,
Hey Thomas, I came across a doozy here:
http://www.opencongress.org/wiki/PA-12
(Scroll all the way down for the map)
@nimh,
[eyes widening] It's beyyy-utiful!
Hey I'm on Yahoo's logo (those things have a name but I forget what they're called, Google started it)
www.yahoo.com
Why? Anyone know?
edit: oh, it's women's day tomorrow. yay women.
@sozobe,
hey i thought women's day was the 8th. there was an event at our university and everything.
yeah, eighth of march:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Women's_Day
@nimh,
Yeah, for some reason they (still?) are commemorating it now, though. Maybe they've been doing it all month and I only just noticed? This is what I'm taken to when I click on the Rosie-featuring Yahoo logo:
http://events.yahoo.com/womensday/2010/
That said "March 21st" at the top (and when I clicked on it the day was March 20th) so I thought it meant that's when women's day fell, but in the body of the text it agrees with you, March 8th.
Stop me before I pedant again.
On FB I'm lecturing a doctor about the healthcare bill.
<slaps self>
@sozobe,
Why slap yourself? You are quite likely to know more about the bill than many doctors.
@dlowan,
I don't really, though, he's asking good questions. I'm mostly slapping myself because I was lecturing within 15 minutes of accepting his friend request. "Stop me before I pedant again" came to mind and I had to put it somewhere.
