In the post on flu vaccination rates and Trump’s 2024 vote, I was asked on reddit what the relationship was between gas prices and Trump’s approval rating. I told them that this data was not available on the county level but it was available on the state level. AAA keeps track of average gas prices […]

The news has been good locally with COVID case numbers coming down.  Unfortunately, the news overseas has has dampened these good feelings.  Watching the Russian invasion of Ukraine unfold I cannot help but think of parallels and differences between what is happening now and what was happening 19 years ago when the U.S. invaded Iraq. […]

Watching the developments of the past week were surprising even to me. Were the up swelling of protests over the death of George Floyd and the corona virus pandemic totally unrelated?  Is Trump’s generally incompetent leadership a factor?  The mostly peaceful demonstrations have been occurring just as the turbulent restriction from the pandemic are being lifted.  Do people […]

In the press conference following the horrific shootings at the Tree of Life Synagogue which climed 11 lives, Wendell Hissrich, Pittsburgh’s director of public safety, said “these events usually occur in other cities, today the nightmare has hit home in the city of Pittsburgh.”  The video clip above details six other mass shooting events (defined […]

Trends in Poverty in the US, CA, MS, NH, and PA Recently I did a post on The Hill Talk on how a writer for the National Review falsely claimed that California had the highest poverty rate in the US.  The data from the Census Bureau for the Small Area Income and Poverty Estimates (SAIPE) […]

The horrific attacks in Paris have sent a wave of fear around the world.  As of this writing, 28 governors in the US have said that they will not accept refugees from the civil war in Syria for fear that ISIS members will sneak into their states.  26 of these 28 governors (84%) are Republican.  […]

I know I’ve been away for awhile between my last post and the one before that.  Hope you had a good time on the 4th.  There has been some podcasts in conjunction with the holiday.  The first was on NPR’s science Friday where Dr. Edward Frenkel discusses how understanding math enables citizens to better question […]

This is a follow up on the last post on the number of hate groups (such as the Ku Klux Klan and the Westboro Baptist Church) in each state that are being watched by the Southern Poverty Law Center.  Some may not agree with the inclusion of African American separatists like the Nation of Islam.  […]

The Southern Poverty Law Center has issued a report listing the total number of hate groups per state which they track.  The categories followed include, the Ku Klux Klan, Neo Nazi, White Nationalist, Racist Skinhead, Christian Identity, Neo-Confederate, Black Separatist, and General Hate. California is shown to have the most hate groups followed by Florida […]

The Census Bureau has two estimates of the uninsured that comes out every year.  One for the national and state level which is based on the Current Population Survey and the other for the State and County level which is the Small Area Health Insurance Estimates or SAHIE that I’ve written many posts about here.  […]