Reading at work...

I'm at work, and finished my slides, so now I'm stuck here reading in the interweb pages. What am I reading? Interesting stuff--the following:

1. The Tea Party Patriots, the largest organization of Tea Parties across America, released their "plan" going forward. It's ambitious, at forty years, and includes everything from reforming the Judiciary to taking on culture. So, if anyone had any doubts that the libertarian leanings are bastardized by cultural conservatism, doubt no more, they've outlined their cultural-warrior plans as "lane four" of a four year plan:

   “All civilizations and empires have fallen because their cultures became decadent,” Meckler said. “We need to lift up conservative culture, family values and wholesome things by supporting conservative musicians, writers, artists and producers.”

2. Democrats released a memo analyzing the election results. BLUF: Healthcare Reform is a scapegoat for general economic woes when Democrats lost seats.
3. An interesting article on districting (aka. gerymandering). The article makes the case for an algorithmic definition of districts, and how that could be done. It reminded me of an academic project I read about years ago where a geographer tasked his students to re-do states today if the cultural geography stayed the same. How would they re-define state boundaries taking into consideration the lay of the land as it is. The most interesting one I saw used water sheds, existing population centers and mobility corridors to redraw states. I can no longer find the map, but it was interesting. There were only twenty states, each centered around an urban area, and each with its own (nearly own) water-shed.

What to expect of Republican House Leadership, these are mostly quotes from articles linked below:

1. The GOP plans to hold high profile hearings examining the alleged "scientific fraud" behind global warming, a sleeper issue in this election that motivated the base quite a bit.


2. Both parties have promised to crack down on earmarks, and Republicans will face significant pressure from their base to do so.


3. My Rep, Darrell Issa, will begin issuing subpoenas for White House Staff.



articles here and here.