The Political Block

"Funny Districts"

Every decade the United States conducts a census, as prescribed for in the Constitution. Today, this process is used to allocate federal funding and find out numerous statistics about the nation. However, the Founder's purpose of this process was to equally divide representation among the various states. Pennsylvania, and every other state/commonwealth, use statistics to re-apportion their Senate and Legislative districts. The process in Pennsylvania is nearing its conclusion, with a final vote set for December 12th. Here is a link to the proposed maps (scroll down to the interactive maps): http://www.redistricting.state.pa.us/Legislative-Redistricting.cfm

Each State Legislator will be representing approximately 62,000 people while Senators will represent around 250,000. Due to population shifts two legislative districts and one senate district will be "moved" to the Southeast. Inevitably, people will complain/question about three things:

1. Why does the southeast gain while we lose?
2. Why are the districts not just big squares?
3. Why do some municipalities/school districts have multiple Representatives/Senators?

The answer to the first should be obvious: districts are determined by population and the southeast presently has greater population growth. (I believe this has great opportunity to change in 2020 with the expansion of the gas industry.)

The second and third are valid questions. But have you ever thought how difficult it is to draw 62,000 into an area without dividing communities and counties? I'm assuming not so you can try for yourself here: http://playthisthing.com/redistricting-game

Pennsylvania's communities and counties are anything but perfect squares so if you merely combined Township A with Township B and City X this might get you to the 62,000 but it would not be a perfect square.

Conversely, Township A might have a population of 62,000 so make that its own district right? But, Town Q with a population of 10,000 is right in the center of the township, now what do you do? Remember districts have to be contiguous so you'll have to divide Township A into two districts and try to reach 62,000 another way.

No doubt there are many cases of gerrymandering but everyone needs to stop and think about all of these considerations before complaining about districts "looking funny".

NOTW (Nostalgia of the Week)

THE MUPPETS ARE BACK!!!!

Very small spoilers
Now I know those of you who actually know me in real life and have heard me suggest movies in the past will take this post with some hesitation...

But...I swear, if you were a fan of the old muppets television show and even the muppets movies of old, then you should, for all intents and purposes, enjoy the new Muppets movie. If you plan on seeing it, prepare yourself for plenty of songs, old fashion muppet hilarity, classic 80s montages, plenty of celebrity cameos, possibly the best acting of Jack Black's career, and a sense of nostalgia that doesn't go away.

Personally, I was always more of a fan of the actual television show with all of the different skits rather than the most of the movies. The great thing about this movie is you get the best of both worlds. There's a great Blues Brothers mentality of getting the band back together to do one last show...which leads up to the resurrection of a special edition of The Muppet Show!!!

Pure Awesome!!!

Science Talk

Guess what global warming...we just found another planet that may be able to support life...so suck it!!

Granted it would take about 20 light years to get, but hey it's a goal right? (For all of you playing out there...20 light years is a distance and it would take us 20 years to get there if we were constantly traveling at the speed of light...yea that's pretty far).

We can't completely tell whether or not there is actual water there as of yet, but we know that it resides within the important "Goldilocks zone", which is the region of space around a star that a planet must reside in order to allow water to survive in its liquid form. We know that it does reside in this zone, so now we just need to identify whether or not it does have water, as Dr. Kaku explains in the following interview:

HOTW (Hero of the Week)

Aaron Dobson defies physics (figuratively speaking)


I'll be completely honest...I don't watch college football...I don't shout "We Are Marshall"...and I have no idea who Aaron Dobson is.

Let me rephrase that...I had no idea who Aaron Dobson was...but I do now. It's kind of hard not to gasp in awe of a real life superhero! Take a look...