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Comment by tapertaper | Hacker News Reader

This is more about slavery than plankton.

Fertile land does not equal Obama votes.

Fertile land in the south did definitely correlate with Obama votes, as the article made clear.

Yeah, just like slabs of thick bedrock in lower New York correlate with Obama votes, since it enabled large highrises to be constructed in a small, densely populated area. How far back are we willing to go to draw these correlations?

IT was more than a correlation. He traced the connection. What has bedrock to do with New York voters? I'd be interested to hear that story.

Exactly, it's a story at best. The article claims that Plankton -> Soil -> Slaves -> Black People don't move -> Obama support. The first 2 connections are obvious, but the second two do not necessarily connect in any rational way. It's like saying Bedrock -> Highrises -> ???? -> Obama. The first connection works, but the other two would be pure speculation at best.

You read it as more than a storey. Ok.

What's mysterious about people staying in the same place for generations? My people have been in Iowa since the Civil War too.

Indeed, most people don't move. I won't be able to put my finger on it now, but several years ago, I read a statistic that a huge percentage of people are born, live, and die within a 20 to 30 mile radius. College attendance, military service, sightseeing vacations and travel for work all bring us out of that circle for a time, but we tend to return to it afterward.

My brother has his radius whittled down to about 10 miles. I, on the other hand, live about 800 miles from where I was born and grew up, and have no expectation of returning, but then, I always was the black sheep of the family.

Well, it not only implies that black people don't move, but white people DO move. Either that or it assumes that the ratio of black to white was much greater than it likely was. It also assumes a lot of other things.

Was it Samuel Clemens that observer, what a harvest of speculation you get from a little statistics?

Check an electoral map. Urban centers are democratic strongholds. In fact they are the only part of the map that matters for dems. The black belt has no impact on the presidential election. I have no idea why the author is calling sparsely populated, poor minority counties a "secret weapon."

I guess nancy pelosi has the formation of gold in northern California to thank for her success?

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