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I know, I know — facts; who has time for that?

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Forbes took a close look at the most recent data on domestic migration — that is movement within the U.S. between metro areas — between 2010 and 2014. We ranked the nation’s 53 largest metropolitan areas based on their annualized rates of population change attributable to migration. What we found is that to a remarkable extent, Americans still seem to be whistling Dixie. Eight of the 10 fastest gainers were in the former Confederacy, led by Austin, Texas, which gained 126,296 more migrants over that time span from other parts of the country than it lost in outmigration, accounting for an annual increase in its population of 1.69%. No other metro area in the country enjoyed anything like this rate of in-migration.

Funny thing about that: Nobody is moving to Michigan. Not that I blame them, you understand….

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Inquiring minds want to know.

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Nuclear war isn’t the end of the world. Ask the people in Hiroshima.

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Sometimes the old ways are best.

I’d have included the Tres Riches Heures of Jean, Duc de Berry, but it’s really a matter of taste.

Steve Sailer can’t help but notice.

Of course, if they had been white, this would be widely denounced by the Usual Suspects as institutionalized racism.

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The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, established in 1949, has 28 members devoted to the idea of collective security. Prediction: By the time President Obama leaves office in 2017, the NATO pledge of mutual defense in response to aggression will have been exposed as worthless. Objectively the alliance will have ceased to exist. The culprits? Vladimir Putin—and Barack Obama.

Color me indifferent. The reason for NATO went away once Communism disintegrated in Eastern Europe. All it does now is make Russia feel threatened, and drag the U.S. into situations that are none of our business, and allow Eurotrash to piggyback on our defense spending so they can use their budgets to buy votes through social programs. I see a lot of pain and not much gain by continuing NATO.

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I used to joke that it costs as much to house an inmate in the California state prison system as it would to send the same person to Stanford, but that sending the inmate to Stanford (at least in the humanities) would be bad for the inmate.

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Why were elite Harvard students “caught off guard”? The simplest explanation is that they suffered the defect of an elite university education, whereas the prison inmates had the challenge of thinking for themselves. Golly—the private sector might do a better job of educating kids? Yes indeed, that is an unheard-of idea at Harvard. I think there’s a broader lesson here about how ideologically monochromatic universities do a great disservice . . . to liberals.

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Hint: Unions + Democrite Politicians

Steve Sailer asks a question of which I had not thought but to which I would love to know the answer.

The fine 1990s parody of the Star Trek phenomenon, Galaxy Quest, had a lot of fun with how random casting events set extremely actorly actors on the path to sci-fi stardom. For example, the 1984 sci-fi cult film The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai appears to have launched John Lithgow and Jeff Goldblum into being regulars in sci-fi films, even though I doubt they have much more than a professional interest in the genre. Actors tend to be extreme People Persons, while sci-fi tends to attract readers at the other end of the spectrum.

Daniel Hannan reminds us that fascism is indeed a left-wing thing.

Why do we downplay that memory? Largely because it doesn’t fit with what happened later. When Hitler attacked the USSR – to the utter astonishment of Stalin, who initially ordered his soldiers not to shoot back – it was in everyone’s interest to forget the earlier phase of the war. Western Communists, who had performed extraordinary acrobatics to justify their entente with fascism, now carried out another somersault and claimed that the Nazi-Soviet Pact had only ever been a tactical pause, a moment when Stalin brilliantly stalled while building up his military capacity. Even today, the historiographical imprint of that propaganda lingers.

To the modern reader, George Orwell’s depiction of how enmity alternates between Eurasia and Eastasia seems far-fetched; but when he published his great novel in 1948, such things were a recent memory. It suited Western Leftists, during and after the War, to argue that Hitler had been uniquely evil, certainly wickeder than Stalin. It was thus necessary to forget the enthusiasm with which the two tyrants had collaborated.

John Derbyshire, Patron Saint of Dyspepsia, is not afraid to ask the hard questions.

I am not at all susceptible to white guilt myself, but I know people that are.  It’s obvious to me from observing them that white guilt delivers great psychic rewards.

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Twenty or thirty years from now we shall have figured out how reading Ta-Nehisi Coates or denouncing racial crimethink sets off floods of pleasure-inducing neurotransmitters in so many white people’s brains.  Until then white guilt will wax strong, whatever happens with demographics.

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Indeed it could.

Texas has always divided opinions. It prides itself on being the best, brashest and most bloody-minded slice of America, a cowboy state easy to caricature that is loved and loathed in equal measures. “I hate that place,” said a New Yorker friend of mine when I mentioned I was going to spend some time there. “It’s the asshole of our country.”

His view typifies that of liberal America, which finds strong echo in Europe. The Lone Star state is seen as callous and corrupt, the backward birthplace of a virulent form of crony capitalism filled with bible-bashers. It is infamous for poverty and poor schools, for locking up people and unhealthy enthusiasm for executions. No wonder it produced George W Bush and his disastrous presidency.

The reality is rather different. Those cartoon stereotypes hark back to nineteenth-century roots when an independent republic sought annexation by Washington, which originally rebuffed the overtures. It is the second biggest state in the union; it is also the most misunderstood. Far from exemplifying the worst aspects of the world’s most powerful nation as critics claim, Texas is in many ways a model of success and modernisation.

Dallas has been called ‘the buckle of the Bible Belt’. Yet I discovered the city is home to the country’s sixth biggest lesbian, gay and transgender population after arriving there on the weekend of its pride parade – although in typical Texan style, the celebrations are at a different time of year to the rest of the US. The current sheriff of Dallas County is a gay Latina woman while three hours down the road in the oil capital of Houston, often seen as a haven for ultra-conservatives, a thrice-elected lesbian mayor was the first openly-gay person to run a major American city.

Yeah, well, we don’t put that in the brochures.

Sacramental: An outward sign of inward grace.

Tattoo: An outward sign of inward disgrace.

Can’t get more symmetrical than that.

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Comment Volkswagen, one of the world’s biggest car groups, is in serious trouble this week as it turned out that millions of its diesel engines have been emitting vast, prohibited amounts of polluting nitrogen oxides (NOx).

The fact is, however, that the Volkswagen story is only a small part of the NOx story – in which the human race is busily poisoning itself in a pretty much pointless quest to cut back on emissions of carbon dioxide.

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In short, Barratt finds that:

1. speakers born before about 1970 hardly use on accident at all;
2. speakers born between 1970 and 1995 use on accident and by accident (sometimes even an individual speaker will use both);
3. speakers born after 1995 use on accident to the near exclusion of by accident.

This is not just speakers in one region; she surveyed speakers in Indiana, Michigan, California, and Georgia, from different socioeconomic classes.

Gavin McInnes is not afraid to ask the hard questions.

Westerners used to just barge into countries, take them over, and make them better. Before the British invaded, India was just a really hot homeless shelter. The U.K. left in 1947 after trying to sort out India’s Muslim problem and the infrastructure they built immediately began to crumble. The same happened to Haiti after 1804 and Jamaica after 1962. It was obvious the West was the best. Today, however, when foreigners fly planes into our skyscrapers and rape our children, we apologize. What the fuck happened?

I remember on September 12th, 2001, in NYC’s Union Square there were people holding signs that said “Justice Not Revenge.” The first instinct for much of the country seemed to be avoiding Islamophobia. To this day we have a crippling fear of it. Islamophobiaphobia is so severe, any Muslim circus clown can send his kid to school with a fake bomb and instead of charging the father with child endangerment, we invite the boy to the White House. When this first happened, I assumed Obama was duped. Now I’m not so sure. I don’t think he cares if the clock looks like a bomb. He saw #IStandWithAhmed trending and decided he’d like to be part of it. It’s like black people still wearing T-shirts that say “Hands Up Don’t Shoot.” They don’t care about the truth. They just like the story.

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It’s trickier than you might think.

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Mr. Brewer, whom the president described in a statement as having a “brilliant mind, a big heart, and an insatiable desire to give back,” was participating in a Ride to Conquer Cancer fundraiser on Saturday when the accident happened. He lost control of his bike at a turn in Mt. Airy, Md., north of Washington, crossed a double yellow line and collided with an oncoming car, police said.

Think of it as evolution in action.

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Son of Your Father

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I know I am.

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Don’t think that there isn’t anyone making money off of the ‘refugee crisis’, chiefly at taxpayers’ expense.

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And just a touch of fennel and a dash of oregano….

That’s why the Mediterranean people’s rule the world! Oh, wait….

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I have a Casper mattress. It is superb.

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Yet another reason to avoid flying.

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When they tell you America is steeped in a history of racism, you can’t help but check the tag on the racists they’re talking about. It said “Democrat: Do not remove under penalty of law,” but someone tore it off.

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Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism eloquently documents the “secret history of the American left from Mussolini to the politics of change.” Thomas Jefferson wanted to free all the slaves but the 200 he owned. Andrew Jackson saw America as a “country for white men.” The KKK was all Democrats. The segregationists were Democrats. The Civil War was Democrats vs. Republicans, and Lincoln was a Republican. FDR put Japanese Americans in internment camps. He appointed many racists to the Senate and made KKK member Hugo Black a Supreme Court judge. President Truman said, “I think one man is just as good as another so long as he’s not a nigger or a Chinaman.” They were all Democrats.

Jim Goad turns over a rock.

I’ve seen such behavior from African, Indian, Mexican, and Asian immigrants to America, and it only seems to be intensifying. What’s baffling is the fact that even though I’m supposed to be a rude insensitive xenophobic intolerant racist dick, it would never occur to me to move to Africa, India, Mexico, or Asia and act with anything beyond respect, gratitude, and even caution. I certainly wouldn’t start running my neck about how the culture of my new host nation sucks and how it needs to be tossed into the dustbin of history and how the majority needs to quickly become a minority or justice will never be served. I simply can’t find it within myself to be that much of an asshole. And I certainly wouldn’t expect my new hosts to tolerate five seconds of such behavior.

Yet many if not most native-born white Americans not only put up with this nonsense, they feel it’s their moral duty to be as obsequious, masochistic, and suicidal as possible. It doesn’t matter if their standard of living is noticeably worse than it was for their parents. Doesn’t matter if full-time jobs with benefits are harder to come by. Doesn’t matter if their country’s media and educational institutions insult them incessantly and openly gloat about their demographic extinction. You’re supposed to suck it up and smile while they’re laughing and kicking you in the teeth, or else you’re a bad person.

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I can understand that. He certainly acts like one.

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Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

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As Puerto Rico grapples with crippling debt and double-digit unemployment, a far-fetched idea to tackle the US territory’s economic woes may be gaining modest traction – one that would see Puerto Rico break off from the United States to re-join Spain.

“By returning to Spain, we’ll have autonomy,” said José Nieves Seise, who in 2013 founded the group Reunification of Puerto Rico with Spain. “With autonomy Puerto Rico could have sufficient powers to boost the economy and attract foreign investment.”

I like it.

Better yet, give it to Cuba.

“The secret to happiness is low expectations.” — Patrick Rothfuss

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A useful piece of journalism from the Huffington Post. I guess even a blind pig can find an acorn now and then.

Can the government treat some people differently than others on the basis of sheer favoritism? It seems like an obvious question, but decades’ worth of unwarranted judicial deference in constitutional cases have made the answer uncertain. This week, a federal judge gave a rousing negative answer, holding that the Secretary of Health and Human Services could not exempt organizations designated as “religious” by the government from an Affordable Care Act mandate to provide contraceptive coverage without also exempting non-“religious” groups that object to certain contraceptives on the basis of their moral convictions. In refusing to treat the so-called rational basis test–the default standard of review in constitutional cases–as a “rubber stamp” and invalidating a government classification that made “no rational sense,” Judge Richard Leon demonstrated the kind of judicial engagement that is necessary to protect all Americans from regulatory favoritism.

Steve Sailer is not afraid to ask the hard questions.

Has the Presidential candidate’s wife learned English well enough in her 40 years of marriage to be interviewed in English without pre-arranged questions?

I, personally, have never found video of the former First Lady of Florida being interviewed in English. I have found video of her uncomfortably reading a two-minute speech in English. But that’s all I’ve found so far.

It’s often said of Columba in the media that she’s a very shy person, and that’s why she avoids giving interviews in English. Yet, I’ve found video of her being charming in a Spanish-language interview. I’ve found video of her giving a speech on national television on the floor of the Republican National Convention … in Spanish. I’ve found video of her doing a TV commercial with her father-in-law, with her speaking Spanish.

I would hope she’s learned English well enough to converse in it in her 40+ years of marriage to Jeb. But I just don’t have evidence of that yet.

The most fundamental issue in politics is “Whose side are you on?” Jeb, who is not a particularly slippery individual, has given us much evidence that primarily he’s on the side of Mexicans, not Americans.

That strikes me as an honorable position, just not one I’d want in my President.

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In 2013, more than 200,000 people on net fled states with Democrat governors for ones run by Republicans, according to an analysis of newly released IRS data by Americans for Tax Reform.

My, what a surprise! Aren’t you surprised? I’m sure surprised.

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Harvey Mansfield remarked a while back that “the job of conservatism is to save liberalism from liberals.” The left may be giving us an unintended assist with this project.  One of the best things to happen to political discourse in recent years is that many leftists stopped calling themselves “liberal,” and adopted “progressive” instead. Even Hillary Clinton for a time, back around 2007, said “I’m not a liberal—I’m a progressive.” And on the leading edge of the left, as on college campuses and other dens of Naomi Klein books, “neo-liberalism” is the avowed main enemy, which can’t be good for un-hyphenated liberalism. Welcome to a world where even John Rawls isn’t left enough.

The Other McCain intrudes science into what was a nice political argument.

Feminists have been fighting this war for more than four decades, and you will be accused of misogyny (woman hating) if you express skepticism about their project of creating an androgynous “equality” by eradicating male/female differences. These arguments about gender roles show how, in so many ways, feminists are trapped in the past, forever fighting battles rooted in the adolescent frustrations experienced decades ago by women who never successfully adjusted to normal adult roles that most people take for granted. The tomboy, the lesbian, the awkward bookish girl who felt marginalized in the high-school popularity competition — we may grant that their grievances against the “system” are real without endorsing their intellectual assault on the social order.

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A movement that began in rebellion against society as it existed in 1968 is ill-suited to address the problems facing young women in 2015 and it may be added that, insofar as feminist ideology originally had any basis in science, that science is now as obsolete as Ozzie and Harriet.

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Exercise — no matter how many gym memberships you buy or how often you wear your Fitbit — won’t make you lose weight.

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A growing body of scientific evidence shows that exercise alone has almost no effect on weight loss, as two sports scientists and I described in a recent editorial in the British Journal of Sports Medicine. For one, researchers who reviewed surveys of millions of American adults found that physical activity increased between 2001 and 2009, particularly in counties in Kentucky, Georgia and Florida. But the rise in exercise was matched by an increase in obesity in almost every county studied. There were even more striking results in a 2011 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, which found that people who simply dieted experienced greater weight loss than those who combined diet and exercise.

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It’s calorie intake that is really fueling the obesity epidemic. But it’s not just the number of calories we’re eating as how we’re getting them. The sugar calories are particularly bad. Stanford University researcher Sanjay Basu recently led an analysis of 175 countries that evaluated the amount of sugar in each nation’s food supply. As sugar availability increased by 150 calories per person per day (the equivalent of a can of cola), there was a 1.1 percent rise in the prevalence of Type 2 diabetes in the population — an increase that was 11 times larger than if people consumed 150 more calories from nonsugar sources — independent of average body mass index and physical activity levels. The experience of Timothy Noakes, a leading sports and exercise medicine scientist, exemplifies those results. Despite being an almost daily runner and completing more than 70 marathons in his lifetime, Noakes developed Type 2 diabetes in his late 50s, which he attributes to his excessive consumption of sugar and other refined carbohydrates.

Two words: Eat. Less.

If it’s longevity you’re after, note that elite athletes in high-intensity sports don’t live any longer than top golfers.

And they have much less attractive tans.

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What do they know that you don’t?

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Unlike many economists, who would confine “revenues” to “user fees,” business people don’t care where the revenues come from. They are just as happy to count tax dollars and loans as revenues. On the other side of the equation, where economists count all costs, both internal and external, business people are perfectly happy to shift costs on to others and then only count the costs that they themselves (or their companies or government agencies) have to pay.

Thus, someone who promises to “run a government like a business” isn’t promising to end deficit spending or stop ridiculous projects whose costs are far greater than their benefits. They aren’t even promising to cut costs by doing such things as renegotiating union contracts or streamlining environmental regulations. After all, businesses see unions and regulations as just a “cost of doing business,” and so long as the costs apply to everyone, they actually benefit big businesses that can more easily absorb them than small ones and thus reduce competition.

Let us just keep that in mind.

Ross Douthat has an interesting take.

THE Donald Trump phenomenon is a great gift to pundits because it can be analyzed and criticized in so many different ways. But two shorthands seem particularly useful. First, Trump is essentially using the Republican primary to run a third-party campaign, not a right-wing insurgency. Second, Trump’s appeal is oddly like that of Franklin Roosevelt, in the sense that he’s a rich, well-connected figure — a rich New Yorker, at that — who’s campaigning as a traitor to his class.

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For decades the medical profession has largely treated addiction as as a chronic brain disease. The US government’s National Institute on Drug Abuse characterises addicts as compulsive drug seekers and users who continue taking drugs despite harmful and unwanted consequences. “It is considered a brain disease,” the institute says, “because drugs change the brain; they change its structure and how it works.”

Dr Marc Lewis, a developmental neuroscientist – perhaps most famous for detailing his own years of drug addiction and abuse in Memoirs of an Addicted Brain – strongly refutes this conventional disease model of addiction. His new book, The Biology of Desire: Why Addiction is not a Disease, argues that considering addiction as a disease is not only wrong, but also harmful. Rather, he argues, addiction is a behavioural problem that requires willpower and motivation to change.

Odd to see this in the Guardian, Voice of the Crust and bastion of ‘progressive’ thought.

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Just 25 minutes of brisk walking a day can add up to seven years to your life, according to health experts.

If, of course, that’s what you want to do.

Personally, I don’t see that the way things are trending in the world makes it worth all that much effort to extend my stay.