And on what issue is the gap between Democrats and Republicans widest?

++Addition2++I was thinking of a comment Jason Malloy made on a post of Razib's a few years ago rather than something from Inductivist.

++Addition++In the comments, an anonymous reader presents an alternative table measuring partisan differences in terms of standard deviations. Rather than comparing popular support in each party, it compares underlying attitudes towards each of the issues examined.

---

Following up on the previous post in which we looked at the size of political divides on a host of issues, the same process is repeated here, based on partisan self-identification rather than political orientation. For consistency, the items are measured in a way that affirmation of the statement represents what is putatively thought to be the Democratic position. For contemporary relevance, all responses are from 2000 onward:

	Dem	Ind	Rep	Dif
Gov't should definitely provide healthcare for the sick	66.5	63.0	36.2	30.3
Same-sex marriage should be legalized	46.1	34.9	22.1	24.0
Military spending is too high	35.0	28.7	11.9	23.1
Taxes on the rich are too low	56.2	45.9	34.4	21.8
Outlaw capital punishment for murderers	40.1	31.3	19.8	20.3
Gov't has an obligation to help blacks specifically	26.0	14.5	7.5	18.5
Abortion should be legal in all circumstances	47.6	36.3	31.0	16.6
Man evolved from other animals	57.6	50.7	41.5	16.1
Homosexual relations are morally acceptable	39.1	30.7	23.2	15.9
Police permits should be required for gun ownership	86.4	82.9	72.3	14.1
Marijuana usage should be legalized	40.8	35.8	26.9	13.9
Affirmative action for blacks does not hurt whites	39.3	33.9	27.4	11.9
Attend religious services less than once a month	54.9	62.1	44.8	10.1
Have never been married	26.8	28.5	17.2	9.6
No belief in or uncertainty over the existence of God	40.2	37.2	32.4	7.8
Prayer in public schools should be banned	43.7	40.1	36.8	6.9
Assisted suicide allowed for those with terminal illnesses	61.7	60.5	56.7	5.0
Immigrants pose no threat to English language	69.5	67.6	65.7	3.8
Hispanic immigration should not be decreased	57.4	54.7	54.5	2.9
Science does more good than harm	60.3	48.1	63.7	(3.4)

Even though the healthcare question was only asked in 2006, the political divide existed prior to the passage of Obamacare. I suspect the gap is even wider today.

Same-sex marriage is again shown to be among the day's most polarizing issues. As an aside, you will rarely hear major media sources referring to it as such, however, because the word is usually reserved for describing populist issues pushed by the right that the left doesn't like, such as tougher immigration enforcement. Consequently, it has negative connotations, and nothing relating to homosexuality is allowed to be negative. Taxation, defense spending, and capital punishment are also starkly defined by partisanship.

Most noticeable is that Democrat-Republican divides (averaging 13.5 points) are narrower than liberal-conservative divides (averaging 20.8 points) are. Specifically, as a group, liberals are considerably further to the left than Democrats are. The biggest differences show up on the gay issues, drug legalization, abortion, school prayer, assisted suicide and personal belief in God. Clearly there are many white Democrats (and a slew of NAMs) who, despite being in partisan alignment with SWPLs, are nonetheless the wrong kind of white people.

The levels of support among conservatives and Republicans are virtually identical on almost everything, the only marginal exceptions being on defense spending (conservatives are more likely to want to cut it than Republicans) and the legal right to assisted suicide (Republicans are slightly more inclined to the idea than are conservatives). But even on these two things, the conservative-Republican gap is not even half of what it is among liberals and Democrats on the issues listed above.

Despite the perceptions that Republicans and especially conservatives stand in opposition to scientific progress because of skepticism over evolution or lack of support for government funding of embryonic stem cell research, luddites are no more prevalent on the right than they are on the left. I recall Inductivist having shown that, excepting the aforementioned "hot button" issues, those on the right are as scientifically literate as those on the left, though I'm frustratingly unable to find that post at the moment (please point me to it in the comments if you're aware of what I'm recalling).

GSS variables used: ABANY, GRASS, HOMOSEX, PRAYER, HELPBLK, DISCAFF, MARHOMO, GUNLAW, TAXRICH, CAPPUN, ENGTHRTN, GOD, ATTEND, SUICIDE1, HARMGOOD, EVOLVED, MARITAL, SPARMS, LETINHSP, YEAR(2000-2008), PARTYID(0-2)(3)(4-6)

On what issue is the gap between liberals and conservatives widest?

When reading about politics outside of the US, I have to be wary of the presumption that descriptors such as "liberal" or "conservative" have the same connotations there as they do here. It's a two way street, of course, so the following may be of use to readers outside America.

But it also has utility for those in the states. I was recently in a discussion where the topic of what issue most starkly divided liberals from conservatives came up. I guessed that it was either abortion or taxes, but had to admit to being uncertain. Without any false modesty, as it turns out.

The following table shows the differences among self-described liberals, moderates, and conservatives on several different political issues, as well as a few broad lifestyle measures. The fifth column shows the difference between liberals and conservatives by subtracting the percentage of conservatives in agreement from the percentages of liberals in agreement. For consistency, the items are measured in a way that affirmation of the statement represents what is conventionally thought to be the liberal position. For contemporary relevance, all responses are from 2000 onward:

	Lib	Mod	Con	Dif
Same-sex marriage should be legalized	61.8	36.9	19.9	41.9
Homosexual relations are morally acceptable	51.6	32.3	18.6	33.0
Abortion should be legal in all circumstances	57.3	40.4	27.3	30.0
Gov't should definitely provide healthcare for the sick	69.1	56.2	41.0	28.1
Man evolved from other animals	66.2	51.7	39.2	27.0
No belief in or uncertainty over existence of God	53.4	35.7	28.2	25.2
Military spending is too high	42.4	21.9	17.4	25.0
Marijuana usage should be legalized	50.3	35.1	25.7	24.6
Taxes on the rich are too low	55.6	52.5	33.0	22.6
Attend religious services less than once a month	63.8	56.4	41.8	22.0
Assisted suicide allowed for those with terminal illnesses	72.5	60.8	51.1	21.4
Outlaw capital punishment for murderers	44.0	29.7	22.7	21.3
Prayer in public schools should be banned	54.2	37.8	34.2	20.0
Gov't has an obligation to help blacks specifically	28.4	15.9	10.3	18.1
Have never been married	34.1	22.9	18.3	15.8
Police permits should be required for gun ownership	86.9	82.0	73.8	13.1
Affirmative action for blacks does not hurt whites	40.2	32.2	30.8	9.4
Immigrants pose no threat to English language	71.3	68.6	62.0	9.3
Hispanic immigration should not be decreased	63.1	52.1	56.0	7.1
Science does more good than harm	62.6	57.1	61.0	1.6

Same-sex marriage (and gay issues in general) trumps abortion in divisiveness. That gay marriage, abortion, defense spending, evolution, healthcare spending, and belief in God are the most polarizing issues in contemporary US society while affirmative action, immigration restrictionism, and government largess for blacks are far less firmly associated with political orientation is discouraging (though not surprising) from my particular vantage point, as someone who identifies in the vernacular as a conservative (and an "empirical paleoconservative" in situations where such phraseology won't be met with annoyance and/or confusion). The things I, alongside many others in the Steveosphere, find most important are not the things mainstream conservatives differ from the left on the most.

On theism, military spending, prayer in public schools, and affirmative action, moderates and conservatives are well aligned, while on the taxing of the rich, moderates and liberals are on the same page. Liberals are significantly less likely to believe in God or have ever been married than moderates or conservatives. On everything else (excepting the last two, for which political orientation has little relevance), moderates fall roughly halfway between liberals and conservatives.

Parenthetically, the GSS is weak on items relating to immigration. A question much preferable to the vague and loaded one about English being threatened by immigrants (xenophobes always feel threatened by the "other"!) would be one that simply asks whether immigration to the US should be increased or decreased, but such a question has not been asked. The closest we get is a set of questions posed in 2000 asking alternatively whether Hispanic, Asian, and European immigration should be increased, left the same, or decreased. While sentiment is generally restrictionist regarding immigration into the US (especially illegal immigration), whenever immigrants are defined anymore specifically than simply being aspiring immigrants, that restrictionism shows itself to be pretty thin. Immigration has nothing to do with biology or even culture, it's about the rule of law!

GSS variables used: ABANY, GRASS, HOMOSEX, PRAYER, HELPBLK, DISCAFF, MARHOMO, GUNLAW, TAXRICH, CAPPUN, ENGTHRTN, GOD, ATTEND, SUICIDE1, HARMGOOD, EVOLVED, MARITAL, SPARMS, LETINHSP, HLTHCARE, YEAR(2000-2008), POLVIEWS(1-3)(4)(5-7)

Gays to lose the Darwinian struggle?

Does the understanding that homosexuality is innate--which is generally the consensus among those for whom so much else is inconsistently believed to be shaped by the socio-cultural environment--threaten the sustainability of gayness in the same way the intellectual primacy of evolution is threatened by Darwinists losing the Darwinian struggle? I am not aware of data to address the possibility empirically, but reading about Oscar Wilde's two children made me wonder.

If the germ theory of homosexuality is accurate, then the question is irrelevant. But if sexual preference is genetic in origin (which is admittedly not an idea easily comprehended), does the increasing tolerance of homosexuality as a valid lifestyle, morally on par with heterosexuality (or even superior to it) mean fewer homosexuals will stay in the closet and "live a lie" in pursuing the American dream, including a wife and, more importantly, children?

Tolerance of free speech over time

In the early seventies, the GSS began tracking responses to questions about whether or not controversial characters should be allowed to speak publicly to advocate in favor of their eponymous interests. Since 1976, the survey has consistently queried respondents on five of them; atheists, homosexuals, militarists, communists, and racists. I wondered how public sentiment towards allowing members of these groups to push their messages in public had shifted over the course of the last four decades. The following graph shows as much:


The general trend overall has been that the majority, always in favor of free speech, has become even larger, the notable exception being for racists, for whom support has mostly moved along horizontally. As polite society declares both irrational racism and measured racialism (which are unfortunately mostly perceived to be synonymous phrases--both invoking images of tattooed, shouting neo-Nazis, not Jared Taylor) to be anathema, this isn't especially surprising.

With the folding of the Soviet Union and the ending of the Cold War, military juntas and communist dictatorships became history's vanquished. As the perceived threats they posed receded, tolerance for their ideas increased. In 2008, the most recent year in which the GSS has published data, a sixth speaker has been added. Only 41.5% of respondents say that an imam preaching hatred of the US should be allowed to speak. I suspect that tension between the West and the Muslim world is only going to grow in the foreseeable future, but if we do find the will to push most of them out while simultaneously losing interest in their sand holes, the number opposing such speech would probably decline as well.

It would be interesting to see the same trends measured over time for other western European countries. As effectively as the PC forces smother unapproved discourse in the US, I suspect public sentiment would be considerably less tolerant of the various speakers considered on the other side of the Atlantic than it is here.

GSS variables used: SPKRAC, SPKATH, SPKCOM, SPKMIL, SPKHOMO, SPKMSLM, YEAR

Political orientation and intelligence among non-whites in US

It's been noted that among whites, self-described liberals are slightly more intelligent than conservatives are (both have considerably higher IQs than moderates do). Non-whites are more leftist than whites are, of course, and when the population of the US as a whole is considered, conservatives actually have a slight IQ edge. Parenthetically, if you're looking to have a little fun at the expense of a SWPL, discuss this with him and then watch him squirm.

Do the same trends emerge among non-whites when it comes to IQ and political orientations? The following tables show IQ scores, converted from wordsum scores on the assumption that the mean white wordsum score represents an IQ of 100 with a standard deviation of 15, by race and political orientation. For contemporary relevance, data are from 2000 onward:

Blacks (n = 479)	IQ
Liberal	89.3
Moderate	89.9
Conservative	88.7

Hispanics (n = 247)	IQ
Liberal	90.0
Moderate	90.3
Conservative	87.8

Asians (n = 140)	IQ
Liberal	91.8
Moderate	93.9
Conservative	94.3

Conservative NAM IQs are a bit more modest than moderate and liberal NAM IQs are. The opposite is true regarding Asians. While the differences are too marginal to put much stake in, this generally meshes with my personal observations. I am surprised to see how moderate scores are not conspicuously lower than liberals and conservatives among non-whites like they are among whites, however. I'm not sure why this is the case.

Relative to actual measures of intelligence, Asian wordsum scores are low and should not be considered an accurate measure of IQ in comparison to non-Asians. East Asians (and in the case of the GSS, we are primarily talking about East and Southeast Asians rather than Indians) perform worse on verbal tests of intelligence than whites do, but more than compensate for that in mathematical and visuo-spatial testing. The GSS wordsum test is one based entirely on vocabulary and consequently puts Asians at a disadvantage. Still, for intra-Asian comparisons, wordsum is presumably a reasonable proxy measure to use in gauging differences in intelligence.

GSS variables used: RACECEN1(2)(4-10)(15-16), WORDSUM, POLVIEWS(1-3)(4)(5-7), YEAR(2000-2008)

Women who get around while unmarried get around once married

In continuing to document who is marriage material and who is not, well, life's about trade offs, right? The following table shows the number of men a woman has had sex with since the age of 18 and whether or not she has ever cheated on her husband while married. The table starts at 2, since someone who has been married and is either a virgin or only had sex with one man hasn't cheated (as is always the case, a few respondents or data transcribers muffed up somewhere though, responding that they were married, never had sex, but had still somehow managed to have sex with someone other than a spouse while married):

Men bedded	Cheated?
2	10.4%
3	14.9%
4	17.7%
5	21.6%
6-10	26.0%
11-20	36.7%
21+	46.8%

Not surprisingly, women with high sex drives who got around a lot before they married are more likely to continue getting around after taking their vows. The same applies in non-marital relationships. If your girl has a lot of sexual history (and likes to talk about it), don't go in desiring any kind of serious or long-term relationship. You're in pump and dump territory.

This is another one of those posts where pointing to the blog's tagline is sufficient.

GSS variables used: SEX(2), EVSTRAY(2), NUMMEN(2)(3)(4)(5)(6-10)(11-20)(21-350)

Change in voter turnout from 2008 to 2010

It's commonly reported that the turnout for US midterm elections differs from presidential elections. I've always assumed this to be the case without thinking about it in anything more than a general sense. Because any type of restraint on voter participation--whether it is a legal restriction like being incarcerated at voting time or just one of volition like bad weather or a hip black friend not being up for election, is good for those on the right--I figured numbers for whites, the affluent, and older folks would drop off less than they would for minorities, the poor, and the young.

Exit polling allows for actual quantitative comparisons to be made, and the following table does just that, looking at the change in the absolute number of voters from 2008 to 2010, and, more interestingly, the declines in percentage terms across various demographic categories:

	2008	2010	Abs chg	% chg
Male	55190120	40125074	(15065046)	(27.3)
Female	62235668	43468831	(18766837)	(30.2)
White	86895083	64367307	(22527776)	(25.9)
Black	15265352	9195330	(6070023)	(39.8)
Hispanic	9394063	6687512	(2706551)	(28.8)
Asian	2348516	1671878	(676638)	(28.8)
Other	3522774	1671878	(1850896)	(52.5)
18-24yo	11742579	5015634	(6726945)	(57.3)
25-29	9394063	5015634	(4378429)	(46.6)
30-39	21136642	11703147	(9433495)	(44.6)
40-49	24659415	17554720	(7104695)	(28.8)
50-64	31704963	26750050	(4954913)	(15.6)
65+	17613868	17554720	(59148)	(0.3)
<$30k	21136642	14210964	(6925678)	(32.8)
30-50k	22310900	15882842	(6428058)	(28.8)
50-75k	25833673	17554720	(8278953)	(32.0)
75-100k	17613868	12539086	(5074782)	(28.8)
100-200k	23485158	15882842	(7602316)	(32.4)
200k+	7045547	6687512	(358035)	(5.1)
Less than HS	4697032	2507817	(2189214)	(46.6)
HS grad	24659415	14210964	(10448452)	(42.4)
Some college	36401994	23406293	(12995701)	(35.7)
College grad	32879221	25078172	(7801049)	(23.7)
Postgraduate	19962384	17554720	(2407664)	(12.1)
Democrat	46970315	29257867	(17712448)	(37.7)
Republican	38750510	29257867	(9492643)	(24.5)
Independent	32879221	24242232	(8636988)	(26.3)
Liberal	25833673	16718781	(9114892)	(35.3)
Moderate	51667347	31765684	(19901663)	(38.5)
Conservative	39924768	35109440	(4815328)	(12.1)
Protestant	64584183	45976648	(18607536)	(28.8)
Catholic	30530705	19226598	(11304107)	(37.0)
Jewish	2348516	1671878	(676638)	(28.8)
Other	7045547	6687512	(358035)	(5.1)
None	14091095	10031269	(4059826)	(28.8)
Union member	24659415	14210964	(10448452)	(42.4)
No union member	92766373	69382941	(23383431)	(25.2)
Urban	34053479	25914111	(8139368)	(23.9)
Suburban	57538636	40961013	(16577623)	(28.8)
Rural	25833673	16718781	(9114892)	(35.3)
Gov't do more	59887152	31765684	(28121468)	(47.0)
Gov't does too much	50493089	46812587	(3680502)	(7.3)
Northeast	27007931	17554720	(9453211)	(35.0)
Midwest	29356447	20898476	(8457971)	(28.8)
South	39924768	25914111	(14010657)	(35.1)
West	21136642	19226598	(1910044)	(9.0)

Unsurprisingly, black numbers dropped the most. Blacks are the most 'racist' group in the US, and there weren't any high profile races across the country involving black candidates. Consequently, more than one in three blacks who voted in 2008 stayed home in 2010 (where the black option existed, though, blacks kept pace with whites--blacks constituted 25% of the electorate in South Carolina in 2008, and did so again in 2010). The "other" figure decreased from 3% to 2% from '08 to '10 according to exit polling data, but that's presumably more an artifact of reporting percentages in whole figures and probably shouldn't be taken seriously.

The drop among those aged 18-24 is the only category, save for the "other" racial classification, precipitous enough for the 2010 total to be less than half of what it was in 2010. Black ops is in, helping the hip black guy push through his political agenda is out. We'll vote for our favorite celebrity, but not for his Congressional allies. How boring! I advocate emulating Hertz and Avis and raising the voting age to 25.

Those of retirement age, in contrast, maintained virtually the exact same numbers as they did in '08. As age increases, the drop in participation steadily decreases. The recent elections were decided by adults.

Among those earning up to $200,000, the decreases are consistent. Only the rich deviated from the overall trend, coming out in relatively greater force than the rest of the population. Deficit spending driving the US economy off the cliff and all that matters to people with money.

The relationship between educational attainment and voting rate changes is, as in the case of age, clear and consistent. Nearly half of those who didn't graduate high school who voted in '08 did not vote in '10. That only applied to one-eighth of those with graduate degrees.

An obvious reason the Democratic party took a shellacking this time around is that liberals and Democrats were less motivated to vote than they were in '08. In contrast, self-described conservatives were out in close to the same numbers both elections.

Not only was the election decided by adults, the adults were far more skeptical of government involvement in society than the kiddos were a couple of years ago. In '08, 60 million voters shared the sentiment that "government should do more". This time, only 32 million voters did. And they were a minority--47 million said "government is doing too much".

I assume California, where several "key" elections took place, is the reason that the decrease in the west is smaller than it is throughout the rest of the country.

Magic: The Gathering and Sabin, Edgar, Umaro, Cyan, Relm, Locke, Gogo, Shadow, Strago, Gau, Celes, Terra, Mog, and Setzer

I've been having fun with custom card creations for vintage RPGs for a few years now. In looking back on what I've come up with in the past and comparing it to this latest addition, it's hard not to notice power creep among my cards over time. It is, no doubt, the result of the same sort of power creep WotC has allowed creatures to enjoy since M:TG's infancy to adolescence, spanning Alpha to 4th Edition. The following three comparisons illustrate this phenomenon well:

Old	New

The creature progression has been contrasted by an enfeebling of non-permanent spells:

Old	New

This has been especially detrimental to blue (additionally, compare Time Walk to Time Warp, Counterspell to Cancel, and Brainstorm to Ponder) which rules the vintage world but despite claiming one of the most powerful cards ever printed as its own, is the only color in standard currently unable to fly solo without a heavy dose of brown.

Black men are athletic, Hispanic women are not

In 2004, the GSS asked a question about self-assessed athleticism (and thanks to Jokah for alerting me to it). Conveniently, this is the same year interviewers were asked to rate respondents as being below average, average, somewhat above average, or considerably above average. Among those deemed to be remarkably thin, 27.5% responded that "athletic" described them well. Among those of normal build, it was 33.3%. For those overweight, 20.2%. And among the obese, 9.5%. So self-perceptions appear to be at least generally in line with reality.

The following table shows the percentages of people, by race and sex, who consider the adjective "athletic" either a good or very good descriptor of themselves:

	Athletic
Black men	59.5%
White men	39.7%
Hispanic men	36.3%
Asian men	25.9%
Asian women	25.6%
Black women	21.8%
White women	21.0%
Hispanic women	15.1%

Sometimes posts require no bloviating beyond the blog's tagline, and this is one of those posts. Color me loquacious though, because I'd still like to say a few words anyway.

Black men easily come out on top, followed by white guys, with Hispanics closely trailing them. This comes as little surprise to anyone who has played sports with blacks at a competitive level. They move quicker and jump higher, although the perception of black men as physically stronger than white men seems in my experience to be more of a conflation of general athleticism with upper body strength than an accurate reading of reality.

Men are more athletic than women are, except for Asians, where there is gender parity. Asian men are notorious for being bad at sports, tending to small and neither strong nor fast. I'm not aware of that stereotype existing for Asian girls, though I'm not aware of any particular Asian female prowess for athletics, either. The sample sizes for Asians are small (51 men, 49 women), so they should just be taken as suggestive in any case.

The rates of athleticism are even among white and black females, which probably has to do with corpulence among black women, who actually tend to have wider waists than black men do (among all other races, male waist size is larger).

I've played lots of soccer with Mexican men who are serious about the game (although the average Mexican guy doesn't seem to be particularly good at it--in the league games I've played, it's almost always the all white team I'm on against a team of likely illegal immigrants who speak broken English at best, and we always crush them), but the women who are there watching look to be in especially poor shape, with oozing tortilla flabbiness in abundance.

A few months back, a study was released suggesting that exercise may improve brain functioning. The implication that this is a formula for raising test scores and closing the achievement gap (more recess time for NAMs?) is standard blather from those antagonistic towards cognitive realism, but in my own personal experience, it is modestly beneficial. Specifically, my ability to focus is enhanced after I've worked out (unfortunately, I have to balance this with the realization that I simply don't lift as well and am more prone to tweaking in the mornings, especially within the first couple hours of waking up, so I generally do cardio in the morning and lift when I get home in the evenings).

Without any speculation on which way the causality arrow points, if there is an arrow at all, the percentages of people who describe themselves as athletic by intelligence follows. Respondents are divided into five groups forming a roughly normal distribution by wordsum score; Really Smarts (score of 9-10, comprising 13% of the population), Pretty Smarts (7-8, 26%), Normals (6, 22%), Pretty Dumbs (4-5, 27%), and Really Dumbs (0-3, 12%). To avoid the confounding factor of race, with blacks potentially skewing the correlation between athleticism and intelligence in an inverse direction, only whites are included. In a similar vein, only those 40 and under are considered, to avoid confounding from the elderly who may have considered themselves athletic in the past but no longer do so and who've also had a lifetime to stumble upon the definitions of various words:

	Athletic
Really smarts	34.3%
Pretty smarts	33.8%
Normals	40.4%
Pretty dumbs	38.4%
Really dumbs	44.3%

To the extent that there is a relationship, it does indeed appear to be slightly inverse (although not statistically significant). It is conceivable that people who don't have a lot upstairs are more likely to emphasize their physical abilities. It's also possible that athleticism and intelligence are unrelated. If this is the case, the fact that professional athletes tend to be more intelligent than the population at large (when race is taken into account) is presumably the result of higher IQ leading to better nutrition, more discipline in working out and mastering positions played, etc.

GSS variables used: ATHLETIC, SEX(1)(2), RACECEN1(1)(2)(4-10)(15-16), INTRWGHT

Winter wights and helio humans

Using the Derb's Ice People/Sun People dichotomy, the following table ranks states by their net frigidity, determined by taking a state's rate of change in Ice People minus its rate change in Sun People, as reported by Pew over the period 2005-2007, due exclusively to internal migration. It is necessary to account for differences in national population size, so the Ice People figures are based largely on white movement (93% white, 7% Asian). For Sun People, it is 55% Hispanic, 45% black*:

State	Frost factor
1. District of Columbia	183.0
2. Alaska	125.2
3. Maine	69.5
4. Kentucky	55.1
5. Montana	54.0
6. South Dakota	43.9
7. Wyoming	39.1
8. Louisiana	37.1
9. Arizona	20.9
10. Rhode Island	20.7
11. Vermont	15.0
12. New York	13.4
13. New Mexico	13.0
14. Texas	5.1
15. Illinois	3.9
16. Alabama	3.4
17. Michigan	3.4
18. Colorado	0.9
19. Virginia	0.6
20. Florida	(0.9)
21. Wisconsin	(1.4)
22. Mississippi	(2.7)
23. Oregon	(4.8)
24. California	(4.9)
25. Idaho	(4.9)
26. New Hampshire	(5.9)
27. North Carolina	(6.9)
28. Ohio	(7.6)
29. Washington	(7.7)
30. West Virginia	(7.9)
31. New Jersey	(8.1)
32. South Carolina	(8.8)
33. Nebraska	(10.0)
34. Massachusetts	(13.2)
35. Georgia	(15.9)
36. Indiana	(16.0)
37. Oklahoma	(19.9)
38. Delaware	(20.9)
39. Maryland	(22.5)
40. Pennsylvania	(22.5)
41. Tennessee	(26.9)
42. Connecticut	(27.8)
43. Utah	(29.7)
44. Kansas	(29.7)
45. Nevada	(31.1)
46. Minnesota	(31.4)
47. Arkansas	(35.0)
48. Missouri	(35.7)
49. Iowa	(51.2)
50. Hawaii	(77.4)
51. North Dakota	(147.5)

The nation's capital is a glacial fortress, with more than 3,000 Ice People moving in each year while 14,000 Sun People leave in search of sunnier settings. Parenthetically, keep in mind that the index is measuring net migration of Ice People relative to that of Sun People. The iciest places like DC, Alaska, and Maine are all losing people through internal migration, but they're losing Sun People faster than they are losing Ice People (or in the case of DC--the starkest example of white people going in one direction and NAMs going in the other--losing more Sun People than they are gaining Ice People), while top destinations like Idaho show up in the middle of the rankings because people of all races are heading there.

Other states (Alaska, Maine, Montana, South Dakota, and Wyoming) known for being cold prior to the Derb's pessimistic prognostications also tend to be relatively more attractive to Ice People than they are to Sun People. Minnesota, already renowned for its sizable Somali population in Minneapolis, is an exception to this cool rule. Whites and Asians steadily moved out over the period while Hispanics and blacks moved in. North Dakota is another exception, and an apparently anomalous one at that. Pew reports that the state's Hispanic population grew by over 8% annually from internal migration alone, which stands out along with Alaska (where the Hispanic population is reported to have declined 11% per year) as being far higher than Hispanic movement elsewhere.

Steve Sailer has noted that Hispanics tend to vote like whites do, shifted to the left several points. They also tend to move to and from the same places (Hispanics already resident in the US, that is--even though there were hundreds of thousands of immigrants from Latin America pouring into California over the period measured, nearly 300,000 Hispanics already living in the US left California during that time). The correlation between the white and Hispanic rates of change through internal migration at the state level is .45. For whites and blacks, there is no relationship whatsoever, while for whites and Asians it is .21 but falls outside of statistical significance at 90% confidence.

Going through the state data, it becomes clear that blacks don't move across state lines much, while Hispanics are quite mobile. The average absolute rate of change for blacks is 1.1%. It is 1.7% for whites, 5.3% for Hispanics, and 5.8% for Asians (although the high Asian figure is probably an artifact of the way the estimates were made, in increments of 1,000--in states like Montana and Wyoming, a movement of 1,000 Asians nearly doubles or halves the population, depending on which way they're heading). In light of this, it is not surprising that black urban culture emphasizes city of origin as an important marker of identification, manifesting itself in clothing, tattoos, and in the world of hip hop.

* Using US Census data, non-Hispanic whites constitute 65.1% of the US population, Asians 4.6%. 65.1/(65.1+4.6) = .934003, hence the 93% figure (index values are rounded after all calculations have been made). Hispanics comprise 15.8%, blacks 12.9%. 15.8/(15.8+12.9) = .550523, hence the 55% Hispanic figure.

Is cheating eugenic?

Randall Parker pointed me to a study finding that those least likely to attend college based on family background, abilities, and peer group tend to gain the most from it relative to those more likely to do so based on the same considerations. After chewing on this, he asked a more general question: Is single motherhood dysgenic or eugenic? If women get knocked up by men out of their league for marriage, their children could benefit as a result.

I'm not aware of a way to measure this directly, but from previously sifting through data on cheating in the GSS, I know that more intelligent people are more likely to cheat than less intelligent people are. I wondered, then, if there was a substantial difference in the relationship between intelligence and cheating for men and women.

If smart men and dumb women tend to cheat, it's conceivable that the consequences are eugenic--dumb men end up raising children that are not theirs with their dumb, unfaithful wives, children who are instead the offspring of smarter cuckolds. And smart men end up not only having children with their smart wives but also other children with other women of lesser intelligence as well. Because men are able to procreate multiple times in a short period of time while women are not, smart men spreading their seed around and dumb women taking the seed of men smarter than they are is eugenic. In contrast, if the pizza delivery guy knocks up the rich, desperate housewife, the result is more dysgenic than if her husband would've done the inseminating.

This makes some enormous assumptions about a couple of aspects of cheating for which I have no evidence: 1) That cheaters do not take measures to separate their creeping fornication from procreation, and 2) That cheaters move up or down the intelligence ladder when they cheat, rather than tending to cheat with people similar to themselves (and their spouses). Further, it doesn't really get at Randall's question, since the GSS only queries about cheating among those who cheated while married--respondents who have never been married are excluded.

As it turns out, there isn't a big difference among men and women when it comes to intelligence and infidelity. The correlation between wordsum score and having cheated is .69 (p=.02) for men and .54 (p=.09) for women. Either both men and women are cheating with those similar to themselves, or both are descending down the intelligence ladder when they fool around. If everything assumed above is accurate, the eugenic effect is marginal at the most.

GSS variables used: EVSTRAY(1-2), SEX(1)(2), WORDSUM

Birth order and the Flynn effect

Studies on birth order show that first-born children tend to have IQs that are, on average, 3 points higher than those of their second-born siblings, and second-borns in turn have a point or two advantage on their younger brothers and sisters. The most popular (and most PC) explanation for this is that couples are able to invest all of their parental energy into the first-born before the next child comes along. After that, though, parental attention is split among multiple offspring. But if the explanation is at least partially one of nature (or a product of a woman's reproductive quality declining as the number of times she's given birth accumulates), might there be a causal relationship between declining birth rates and the Flynn effect (realizing that at most this would account for a 1-2 point increase in average IQ and thus constituting only a fraction of the observed effect)?

Where the White Bread Goes

++Addition++Steve Sailer makes some observations on the nation's top two whitopias, one quite red and the other very blue.

---

The following table ranks states by accretion in each state's white population exclusively due to internal migration within the US (thus excluding birth rates and foreign immigration) over a three-year period. "Growth" is measured in terms of the percentage of the population in each state that is white. So if a state has one million white residents and over the time period being measured 40,000 move out of state and 50,000 move in (for a net of 10,000 whites), the growth rate is 1.0% (10,000/1,000,000). Because internal migration is the only thing being measured, it's a zero-sum game--for every state that has growth, another has a corresponding contraction. The data, from Pew, are from 2005-2007, and so predate the recession:

State	% change
1. District of Columbia	5.1
2. Idaho	4.6
3. Arizona	4.5
4. South Carolina	3.5
5. North Carolina	2.8
6. Delaware	2.6
7. Oregon	2.2
8. Georgia	2.0
9. Arkansas	1.9
10. Oklahoma	1.7
10. Montana	1.7
10. Alabama	1.7
13. Texas	1.6
14. Washington	1.4
14. Tennessee	1.4
14. New Mexico	1.4
17. Kentucky	1.3
18. Colorado	1.2
19. Florida	0.9
20. Utah	0.7
20. New Hampshire	0.7
20. Nevada	0.7
23. Virginia	0.6
24. Missouri	0.4
25. West Virginia	0.3
25. Pennsylvania	0.3
25. Iowa	0.3
28. South Dakota	0.1
29. Wisconsin	0
29. Indiana	0
31. Nebraska	(0.2)
32. Vermont	(0.3)
33. Maine	(0.4)
34. Wyoming	(0.6)
34. Kansas	(0.6)
36. North Dakota	(0.7)
37. Ohio	(0.9)
38. Minnesota	(1.0)
39. Rhode Island	(1.1)
40. Illinois	(1.4)
40. Connecticut	(1.4)
42. Mississippi	(1.7)
42. Michigan	(1.7)
44. New Jersey	(2.0)
44. California	(2.0)
46. Massachusetts	(2.1)
47. Maryland	(2.2)
48. New York	(2.3)
49. Louisiana	(3.6)
50. Hawaii	(6.8)
51. Alaska	(7.3)

Generally, the South, the Mountain West, and the Pacific Northwest are where whites are moving to, hailing originally from the Midwest and Northeast, though there are exceptions. There is movement out of Mississippi and Louisiana, as well as mini-exodus from Hawaii and Alaska back into the contiguous US. Parenthetically, it should be noted that white internal migration patterns roughly parallel those of non-whites.

New Hampshire--surely the state I'd want to call home if I relocated to the Northeast--bucks the trend. The states surrounding California have all seen increases from the Golden State's white flight. California is losing over 100,000 whites (net) each year as the former destination for American Dreamers continues its tragic implosion. Looks like Jack Cashill asks a more relevant question than Thomas Frank does.

The nation's capital has undergone the most substantial demographic transition in the country over the last decade, as blacks have left en masse (DC lost a staggering one-fifth of its black population over the three year period), replaced by SWPLs who have heeded John Derbyshire's prudent advice that people should do their best to get government jobs.

Forget Fat Joe and lean forward

With the first blast of this winter's frigidity upon those of us in the Midwest, allow me to dispense a bit of practical advice. When a patch of ice causes you to wipe out, most of the time you're going to be landing on your ass after one of your feet slips forward from underneath you. To prevent this when you're walking on a slick surface, lean further forward than you normally do when you walk, sort of like Sherlock Holmes does when he's scouring. You'll be less likely to fall, and if you do, you'll fall forward, which allows you to use your arms to break some of the impact.

Pieces of paper for stuff a formula for prosperity?

In a recent Econ Talk podcast, host Russ Roberts and then later Don Boudreaux both explain how trade deficits are not worrisome, that globally there must be a net balance in trade surpluses and deficits, and that anyway, giving away paper to get stuff doesn't seem like such a bad deal. Boudreaux's take is more sober, as he specifies that when the paper exchanged for goods goes bad (the currency loses value, the debt is defaulted on, the market value of the company for which the equity represents plummets, etc), things really work out well for the one running the deficit, whereas the assets exchanged appreciating rapidly in value is not so rosy for the country running the deficit. Roberts, in contrast, seems stuck on pieces of paper for stuff is a great deal!

My method for thinking about economic issues is surely risible in the eyes of professional economists who understand economics infinitely better than I do, but as a simpleton, I'm stuck with my method. That method is to analogize whatever is in question to myself at the individual level. Attempting to stimulate the economy through massive spending after people have lost trillions in wealth therefore strikes me as absurd, just as going on a shopping binge after losing my job would be.

Similarly, applying for and maxing out every credit card I can get my hands on seems like a disastrously profligate idea. But like the US running a trade deficit with China, if all I have to do is swipe these pieces of plastic--don't even have to give away paper!--in return for food to eat, stuff at Home Depot to improve my house, and all kinds of other things to play with, joke is on the fools who are giving up valuable stuff for nothing but the opportunity to hold my credit card for a few seconds! Doubly so when I am unable (or refuse) to pay what they say I owe and declare bankruptcy to get them off my back.

I'm sure there is a trade-deficits-don't-matter answer ready for deployment in response to this, but I never hear it from economists like Roberts or Boudreaux. They might respond that the flip side of a trade deficit is a capital surplus, but that works in the credit card analogy as well--whatever I'm buying (or at least many of the things I buy) are capital goods, obvious cases being the purchase of a car or materials to build a fence on my property. Thus I'm enjoying my own capital surplus while I run up my trade deficit.

So is going into credit card debt as long as banks will keep issuing you credit a good idea? Is running a net trade deficit year after year a similarly good idea? If the answer in the case of the former is "no" but in the latter is "yes", why? Simpletons want to know.

The most alpha occupations

The proceeding list shows the number of different women men in various occupations have been with in the course of their lives. To avoid skewing the numbers with youngsters just riding out into the morning sun, only those 35 and older at the time of participation in the GSS are considered. Each grouping (separated by semi-colons) has a minimum of 25 respondents, although most have numbers far higher than that and are grouped as they are for convenience or because that is how ISCO 88 categorizes them.

Occupations for which the median number of sexual partners in life is 10:

Authors, writers, and journalists; lawyers; sculptors, painters, and actors; waiters and bartenders.

Those with a partner count of 8:

Real estate agents and appraisers; sales reps.

Seven:

Painters; plumbers; human resources people; store stockers.

Six:

Military personnel; truck drivers; policemen and firefighters; mail carriers and sorters; social workers; housekeepers; operations department managers.

Five:

Welders; construction workers and carpenters; government workers; college and university professors and lecturers; architects and engineers; technicians; machine operators; retail and wholesale managers; cooks; retail sales workers.

Four:

Computing professionals; accountants; doctors, veterinarians, dentists, and pharmacists.

Three:

Bookkeepers; building maintenance workers; teachers.

One:

Pastors, priests, and other religious practitioners.

With the glaring exception of spiritual shepherds, who appear to largely adhere to the behavior proscribed by their religions and abstain from premarital sex or, in the case of Catholic priests, avoid it altogether, men who make their money by communicating with others are the most sexually prolific. Lust loves loquacity.

The idea that military life is one of leaving base each weekend to bang exotic girls is, at the least, oversold.

The core of respectable bourgeoisie careers--doctors, accountants, and network administrators--are on the lower end, in large part because these guys are among the most likely to be married.

One might think that being in an environment devoid of competition and flooded with women would be like shooting fish in a barrel, but male teachers (K-12) tend to have a modest number of notches in their belts. The desire to be responsible for herds of children (or even just the ability to tolerate so being) probably selects for a type of man who is not exactly bursting at the seams with testosterone.

GSS variables used: SEX(1), AGE(35-89), ISCO88, NUMWOMEN

Spoiling for spoilers

Agnostic has a post up where he ridicules the taboo against spoilers as a sign of deterioration in entertainment, an increasing vapidity among those who take it in, or both. It strikes me as a sensible response to a changing media landscape, as I tried to flesh out in the comments, which are reprinted here:

I don't think the insinuation that wanting to have a conclusion withheld is fairly described as hysterical, nor is it a sign that the narrative is trash and/or that the viewer is trash.

I regularly record NFL games and watch them later in the day, not because football's sole appeal is what it reveals about the standings or because I'm incapable of appreciating anything other than who gets the win, but because it takes away from the overall experience. I'll still watch Briggs and Urlacher in Miami whether the Bears stay on top of the north or not. I'd prefer not know until the end of the game, though.

That you wouldn't structure your argument around a sports contest hints at a significant reason for the rise in spoiler-phobia over the last 15 years. Sports have always been spoiled immediately. The assumption is that you take it in in real-time, or you don't take it in at all and instead settle for highlights on SportsCenter. Episodes of TV series used to exist in the same way. Now, though, viewers of TV shows are not beholden to see something at the time it is slated to air--they are easily able to access it at their own convenience, by buying entire seasons on DVD, viewing them on youtube, etc (to a lesser extent this applies to sports as well).

In the past, after the show or event aired, if you missed it, it could be fairly assumed you would never see it (at least not anytime in the near future), so revealing the narrative wasn't nearly as big of a deal. It was as though if you didn't read the book within a specific time frame, all you had access to were the Cliff's Notes--no harm in reading them in such a situation. But if you are able to pick up the book at your own leisure, your aversion to the Cliff's Notes prior to reading the book yourself is understandable.

While the term "spoiler" may have been born in 1995, the disdain for it obviously predates that time. In the Simpsons episode "I Married Marge", aired in '91, a teenage Homer enrages a line of moviegoers when he expresses his surprise at the ending of The Empire Strikes Back to Marge. The difference then was that unless you went seeking a movie's conclusion, you wouldn't find it (absent some loud-mouthed jerk blabbing about it without solicitation). Fast-forward to the age of Google, blogs, and social networks and the chance of having something spoiled is everywhere and unpredictable. It can be difficult to escape from. Spoiler warnings have become a necessity because of technological change. That seems a sufficient explanation to me.

Regarding video games, I think you have it exactly backwards. The aversion to spoilers is a sign of how much more stimulating narratives have become and how video gaming has evolved to the point of realizing the same character depth, philosophical speculation, cultural and historical referencing, and moral instruction that movies do.

The revelation that Samus is a girl is the ideal illustration of a vapid 'shocker'. It has no bearing on anything else to the gameplayer. The tragic role reversals of Tidus and Yuna (Final Fantasy 10), in contrast, is richly teased out over 40 hours (another reason video games, and rpgs specifically, are so spoiler-adverse--when it comes to time and depth invested in a narrative, other forms of entertainment pale by comparison), building steadily but so subtly that at the story's conclusion it still leaves the gameplayer reeling. Tidus is initially an ego maniacal, vain sports star; Yuna a prophet-like, almost messianic young woman guided by the Fayth (angels) toward the ultimate (and presumably preordained) sacrifice as a means of joining Sin and removing it from the world.

As it turns out, it is Tidus who inevitably must be sacrificed. Tidus, of course, struggles mightily with this, but so does Yuna, not just because someone else must suffer what was thought to be her fate, but because she must come to terms with the realization that what she believed to be the culmination of her existence was an illusion, and that her new reality was entirely at odds with everything she'd lived for up to that point. There are enormous statements made about religion and its interaction with both society and the individual made in the game. That is just one of many remarkable elements of the narrative. Knowing as much in advance negatively alters the experience of the game far more than knowing Samus' sex does (although neither spoiler makes the games unplayable by any stretch--they survive on far more than their narratives).

Tea party support by state

The following table shows net support (% of voters supporting - % of voters opposing) for the tea party movement by state among voters in the 2010 mid-term elections. Exit polling was only conducted extensively in states where the Senate and/or gubernatorial races were at least somewhat competitive:

State	Support	Oppose	Net
1) Texas	48	25	23
2) Arkansas	43	23	20
3) Indiana	46	27	19
4) West Virginia	40	24	16
4) Ohio	43	27	16
4) Arizona	46	30	16
7) Kentucky	43	28	15
8) South Carolina	43	29	14
9) Missouri	41	28	13
9) Louisiana	42	29	13
National	41	30	11
11) New Hampshire	41	32	9
12) Colorado	41	34	7
12) Florida	39	32	7
14) Wisconsin	37	32	5
15) Illinois	36	32	4
15) Pennsylvania	39	35	4
15) Iowa	36	32	4
18) Nevada	38	35	3
19) Oregon	36	36	0
20) California	34	35	(1)
20) New York	36	37	(1)
22) Washington	37	40	(3)
23) Connecticut	35	42	(7)
24) Delaware	35	45	(10)
25) Hawaii	26	37	(11)
26) Vermont	24	43	(19)

Nothing surprising here. The correlation between McCain's share of the vote in '08 and support for the tea party today is a nearly perfect .89. The phenomenon is a battle for the 'heart and soul' of the Republican party--there are very few leftists joining the cause.

What is remarkable is how the perceptions of the tea party compare with those of the two major parties. The following table shows net support for the tea party and each major political party, this time by net support for Democrats. Because the questions regarding the parties asks about favorability/unfavorability while the tea party question asks about support/opposition, it's not quite an apples-to-apples comparison, but it's close. For whatever reason, exit pollsters in five states did not inquire about feelings towards the two parties, so those states are omitted:

State	Dem	Rep	TP
California	+6	(28)	(1)
Illinois	+6	(19)	+4
Delaware	+5	(20)	(10)
Washington	+4	(23)	(3)
Pennsylvania	(1)	(13)	+4
Oregon	(3)	(33)	+0
Wisconsin	(6)	(4)	+5
West Virginia	(7)	(4)	+16
National	(8)	(12)	+11
Colorado	(10)	(18)	+7
Florida	(11)	(8)	+7
Iowa	(11)	(2)	+4
Nevada	(11)	(12)	+3
Ohio	(11)	(12)	+16
Missouri	(15)	(5)	+13
Kentucky	(16)	+2	+15
Arkansas	(17)	+8	+20
Indiana	(18)	+5	+19
New Hampshire	(18)	(1)	+9
South Carolina	(19)	+9	+14
Texas	(19)	+5	+23
Arizona	(23)	+1	+16

In no state does the GOP receive greater support than the tea party. I've resigned myself to the idea that I will be voting without exception for hopeless third party presidential candidates for my entire life, but if ever the ground seems fertile enough for a perennial third party to take root, now is that time.

Even in some competitive blue states like Pennsylvania, Oregon, and Wisconsin, the tea party does better than Democrats do. Even in solidly Democratic states like California and Illinois, feelings towards the tea party are decidedly mixed. Christine O'Donnell, like Sarah Palin, appears to have a knack for really grating some people. Consequently, opposition to the tea party is especially high in Delaware relative to its political profile.

George W. Bush's failed presidency

In the recent interview conducted by Matt Lauer, former President George W. Bush says that Kanye West accusing him of not caring about black people was the worst moment of his entire presidency:



As soon as Lauer begins the question about the NBC telethon, Bush's expression changes in recognition of what is coming. While responding, Bush bangs the outside of his hands down on the table. His reaction is genuine and visceral, not coached. Kanye really got to him. I believe him when he claims that it was personally the worst moment he experienced in his eight years in office.

And it is as lamentable a statement as it sincere, not only because there are so many other things of far greater consequence that he is answerable for, like the war in Iraq, NCLB, the Patriot Act, the Medicare prescription drug plan, the housing collapse and ensuing recession, etc, but because it represents the utter futility of the right bending over backwards to cater to non-whites and avoid the "racist" label. He was a strong supporter of the McCain-Kennedy amnesty bill, gave more aid money to sub-Saharan Africa than any other President in US history, gave cabinet positions to four blacks (Colin Powell, Condoleeza Rice, Rod Paige, Alphonso Jackson), three Hispanics (Alberto Gonzalez, Carlos Gutierrez, Mel Martinez), two Asians (Elaine Chao, Norman Mineta), and an Arab (Spencer Abraham), charged that the NYFD violated the 1964 Civil Rights Act in the disparate impact that resulted from its screening processes, pushed strongly for greater minority home ownership at the expense of financial prudence on the part of lenders, and on and on.

Despite this sustained effort to gain the approval of non-whites, and an apparently ingenuous desire to show that he is not a racist, Kanye's sentiments are shared by blacks everywhere. And not just blacks and other non-whites, but even among many white leftists. Googling "george bush racist" brings up over 2 million returns. Wealth redistribution, affirmative action, disparate impact, the putative inherent value of diversity, increased government services, and other ideas championed by the contemporary left are naturally more appealing to NAMs than they are to whites, as NAMs tend to be on the receiving end of the benefits bestowed by these things, while whites are largely the ones forced to foot the bill and make the sacrifices necessary for these benefits to be enjoyed.

Short of somehow trying to move to the left of the Democratic party, the GOP will never receive significant NAM support. It has never happened in modern history, and it never will (Asians are potentially another story; the GOP won the Asian vote as recently as 1996). Republicans like Bush need to stop ruining themselves and their party's future prospects genuflecting at the multicult altar. The high priests never grant those on the right atonement, only excommunication.