Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Alan Feuer writes about New York City's brilliant use of "big data" to connect the dots in making public policy. And the examples look like a rather compelling reason why we should be looking to expand public-sector data collection and analysis as part of any remotely viable regulatory structure - rather than following the right-wing model of reducing the public sector to checking whether private-sector actors have filed paperwork claiming to have complied with the law.

- Chantal Hebert theorizes that the Harper Cons may be facing their seven-year itch. Alison's updated list of Perps with Perks offers an obvious reason why Canadians are indeed getting sick of Harper's stay in power.

- But then, Lana Payne notes that having been caught in so many electoral violations (and egregious cover-ups), it's long past time for the Cons to face some legal consequences to go with public-opinion concerns.

- Joan Bryden's coverage of the Libs' leadership race highlights the failure of the Libs' "supporter" model: even having eliminated any membership requirement for leadership voters, the Libs will still have less eligible voters than the NDP did in the vote which elected Tom Mulcair. And that failure to achieve significant follow-through on widely-trumpeted sign-up number - even with Justin Trudeau receiving fawning media coverage throughout the campaign - suggests the change in relative positioning signalled by the 2011 election continues to apply.

- And finally, Sixth Estate offers some compelling reasons to give up on the Globe and Mail as a general source of editorial content.