Dark Smudge All That Remains of Sandy Island

I was intrigued by the saga of Sandy Island, an island that never did exist in the south Pacific between Australia and New Caledonia. To summarize this article from the Telegraph (U.K.), some scientists took a ship to this island and discovered when they got there that it wasn't there.  But the island appears on Google Maps.  Or it did until it was apparently erased, according to the article.  Curiousity sent me looking for the island on Google Maps and found that it hadn't yet been entirely erased.

From a zoomed out level, you can still see it pretty clearly, though it is unlabeled so you have to know what you're looking for.




















But as you zoom in on it, the island mysteriously disappears.




















But switching to satellite view reveals something interesting.




















 This inky black smudge is all that remains of Google's satellite data around the former Sandy Island. It resembles something that was hastily erased in Microsoft Paint or something.




















The eye of Sauron pierces all shadows!

Romney's Zero-Vote Precincts in Oklahoma: There are Actually Three!

If you've been poking around the right-wing media looking for some of their excuses for why Republicans lost the election (or if, like me, it was brought to your attention by reading this Dave Weigel article), you would have stumbled across this fact nugget: 59 precincts in Philadelphia and 16 precincts in Cleveland tallied zero votes for Mitt Romney.  Zero!  How is it possible that not a single Romney voter lived in any of those 75 precincts?  You could come to one of two conclusions: that the votes recorded are an accurate count of the will of the electorate reflecting the popularity of the current president and/or the deep unpopularity of Mitt Romney specifically and Republican policies generally; or, FRAUD!!!!!11!!

It's not hard to see that these are likely legitimate totals.  Black people make up somewhere close to 100% of the population in these precincts, and 96% of black people went for Obama in Ohio.  There isn't a comparable monolithic voting group on the right, so one wouldn't expect to find as many precincts recording zero votes for Obama as there are precincts that record zero votes for Romney.  Even the reddest county in Oklahoma (Cimarron County, way up in the panhandle) recorded some votes for Obama (9.4%).  So this got me thinking, did Oklahoma have any zero vote precincts for either candidate?  Yes!

Using data from the Oklahoma State Election Board, I made a spreadsheet and some charts.  This was the distribution of precincts in Oklahoma that voted for Obama.  The largest block of precincts (725) gave Obama between 20% and 30% of the vote. 

This is Romney's distribution.  As you'd expect from a state that allows no write-in candidates and no third-party ballot access, it is basically a mirror image of the Obama chart.

But as you can see, four non-empty precincts recorded no Obama votes, and three recorded no Romney votes. Where are these precincts?

Here are the precincts with 100% Romney support (maps adapted from OU's Center for Spatial Analysis).

Kay County, precinct 407 - Romney 34, Obama 0 - wedged between Newkirk and Ponca City on Hwy. 77.






















Wagoner County, precinct 105 - Romney 6, Obama 0 - A couple of farmhouses northeast of Broken Arrow






















Woodward County, precinct 104 - Romney 6, Obama 0 - Northwest Oklahoma, rural precinct not near anything

Woodward County, precinct 303 - Romney 2, Obama 0 - Northwest Oklahoma, rural precinct not near anything

For those four precincts, it's Romney 48, Obama 0.


Oklahoma County, precinct 237 (near the boathouses) - Obama 4, Romney 0 - There's maybe one house left in this precinct since the new crosstown expressway, the boathouses, Lincoln Blvd.'s realignment and the Boulevard's construction has taken every other property.























Oklahoma County, precinct 188 (the state fairgrounds) - Obama 3, Romney 0 - I guess the three homeless people living on the fairgrounds all like Obama.






















Cleveland County, precinct 90 (Moore, north of NE 27th, between I-35 and Eastern) - Obama 1, Romney 0 -  It could have gone either way.




















For those three precincts, it's Obama 8, Romney 0.

But this all doesn't tell us much.  Besides that Kay County precinct, these are all fringey precincts with very few people that all have a pretty good chance of voting unanimously just by random chance. What about precincts where the candidates get 95% of the vote or more?

Beaver County, Precinct 13 (way up in the panhandle northeast of the town of Beaver, north of Slapout) - Romney 119 (95.2%), Obama 6 (4.8%) - Over 250 square miles, and only 6 people voted for Obama.

Harper County, precinct 303 (the next county over from Beaver County, east of Buffalo) - An even bigger precinct, even fewer Obama voters. Romney 107 (98.2%), Obama 2 (1.8%)
















Kingfisher County, Precinct 303 (between Kingfisher and Okarche, northwest of Oklahoma City) - Romney 110 (95.7%), Obama 5 (4.3%)

Kingfisher County, Precinct 106 (between Kingfisher and Crescent, but near nothing at all) - Romney 79 (95.2%), Obama 4 (4.8%)
























Logan County, Precinct 301 (next to Kingfisher precinct 106) - Romney 167 (96.0%), Obama 7 (4.0%)























That's it for Romney's 95% precincts.  They're all rural precincts in the northwestern part of the state that happen to be just a couple of percentage points redder than their surroundings.

Obama has more 95% precincts than Romney, and they are all more populated and all in Oklahoma City or Tulsa (with one exception).

Oklahoma County:
Precinct 115 - Obama 987 (96.7%), Romney 34 (3.3%)
Precinct 240 - Obama 829 (97.0%), Romney 26 (3.0%)
Precinct 242 - Obama 542 (98.0%), Romney 11 (2.0%)
Precinct 243 - Obama 864 (97.8%), Romney 19 (2.2%)
Precinct 244 - Obama 807 (98.4%), Romney 13 (1.6%)
Precinct 245 - Obama 895 (99.6%), Romney 4 (0.4%)






















These are all the precincts around M.L. King south of Remington Park and north of I-40 in Oklahoma City, the traditionally black neighborhoods.  Out of the 5000 voters in this section of the city, only 100 of them voted for Mitt Romney.  But see precinct 30 and 31 down there in Del City? 1198 Mitt Romney voters live there. I'm just amazed at the sharp contrast in the Obama electorate from its surroundings.

Here's an awesome map from Eric Fischer showing 2010 census race and ethnicity data for Oklahoma City.  Each dot represents 25 people, red dots are white people, blue dots are black people, orange dots are Hispanic, and teal dots are Asian.  Not surprisingly, those blue areas are where Obama's 95% precincts are.

 

Tulsa County:
Precinct 1 - Obama 877 (96.9%), Romney 28 (3.1%)
Precinct 4 - Obama 910 (95.1%), Romney 47 (4.9%)
Precinct 6 - Obama 956 (97.0%), Romney 30 (3.0%)
Precinct 10 - Obama 565 (95.3%), Romney 28 (4.7%)
Precinct 13 - Obama 913 (97.0%), Romney 28 (3.0%)


















 Basically this is all of the Greenwood neighborhood in Tulsa and everything north of it.  Here's Tulsa's dot map.




Logan County, Precinct 310 (Langston University) - Obama 606 (99.5%), Romney 3 (0.5%) - Langston University is Oklahoma's only historically black university.

MAPS for Millionaires

Tomorrow, March 4th, 2008, a few Oklahoma City residents will go to the polls for a special election to decide whether or not to continue a 1% city sales tax so that the 5-year-old Ford Center can be renovated to include some luxury suites and inflatable bouncy things for kids. It is just about the most ridiculous usage of municipal taxpayer money I could imagine.

First of all, some background. The MAPS projects (Municipal Area Projects, or something) are funded by Oklahoma City sales taxes, and they have been around since the early 90's. In the past, they have generally been used for good rather than for evil, funding infrastructure improvements to downtown and certain city streets, and also providing funding for school improvements. A lot of good stuff has happened to Oklahoma City in the past 15 years because of the MAPS projects, including Bricktown, which, despite me making fun of it constantly, actually improves the desirability of Oklahoma City. MAPS was also the impetus behind the building of the sports facilities near Bricktown, including the AT&T Bricktown Ballpark, where the Oklahoma City Redbirds play, and the Ford Center, where the New Orleans Hornets played for two years. Both arenas are fan-friendly venues with great seating located within the walking corridor of Greater Bricktown, and the citizens of Oklahoma City generally approved of their construction even though we still have a perfectly cromulent arena across the street from the Ford Center.

The only winners in the whole Hurricane Katrina debacle were the basketball fans of Oklahoma City. Oklahoma City proved it could host a major league franchise and have better attendance numbers than other larger metropolitan areas, a fact we in central Oklahoma knew for years (higher than average percentage of sports fans + lower than average numbers of other cultural activities = sports teams should do well here). Those two years of success for the mediocre Hornets got the attention of the big brass of the NBA and of the big brass of private oil company barons like Clay Bennett, who now owns the Seattle Supersonics and is blackmailing that city in order to steer the team to the Sooner State. If Clay Bennett can't get taxpayers in one municipality to vote in favor of unnecessary arena improvements (Seattle), he will take the franchise to another municipality, one in which taxpayers will probably vote in favor of unnecessary arena improvements (Oklahoma City).

Now I know sports are generally stupid and frivolous, but I would have been in favor of building a city-owned arena like the Ford Center since Oklahoma City didn't have anything NBA-worthy at the time. I would probably even vote yes to renovate an old stadium with crappy bathrooms and bench seating if it was more than about 30 or 40 or 50 years old. I would not however be in favor of expanding the capacity of a stadium if the sports team that occupied it had created a larger demand than the city had supplied. It should be up to that team to expand and update the stadium at that point. And I'm certainly not in favor of using taxpayer money to put useless upgrades in a stadium that hasn't even lost it's new arena smell yet. The thing was just opened five years ago, and it was supposed to be NBA quality. The dirty secret is that it still is NBA quality. The proposed renovations aren't going to be felt during, say, basketball games, unless you happen to be a skybox donor.

Proponents of the ballot measure have spend $113,000 in an ad campaign to get the public to vote yes on the measure. Opponents have been fairly grass-roots and unorganized and clearly in need of some better web design. But I hope that the public will be able to see that $121,000,000 for some luxury suites, hot dog vendors, foam finger retailers and cushy executive offices won't make a bit of difference whether or not an NBA franchise relocates to Oklahoma City.