Sunday, heading to Boston

I'm catching the train this afternoon to head into the city to do a week of bunny-sitting. Hopefully I'll come out of it richer by one housesitting reference, as I very much want to be able to housesit when I move places. I have all my maps and tickets and packing sorted out, so now I just need to drink my tea and try to wind down. I stayed up too late last night, so everything feels a bit like I'm carrying around a 10 pound pack when I'm trying to do things. Not impossible, but just a bit harder than it needs to be. Tea should help, as should some lunch. 

I've been doing some reading about gerrymandering, which I have previously believed accounted for a moderate effect on why Republicans control the House of Representatives. This study suggests the effect is mild in terms of total seats gained (+1) http://www-personal.umich.edu/~jowei/gerrymandering.pdf but my suspicion is that gerrymandering does effect the left/right bias of the potential candidate. For instance, instead of 10 moderate candidates, you get 10 candidates farther towards the political extremes, and less likely to compromise because their district is more homogeneous. Now that, I do not have a citation for.