Mexico vs. Israel

This match will determine which nation is the greatest on earth!

Repeating a point he's made on several occasions, Steve Sailer recently noted:

Mexico gets relatively little coverage in the United States English-language media despite its immense importance to the future of our country.

To assert that the major media are entirely ideologically driven without regard to consumer demand would be hyperbolic, but when it comes to the seemingly inordinate amount of coverage given to a small country on the other side of the Atlantic with fewer people in it than Virginia has relative to the amount of focus given to a country we share a border nearly 2,000 miles long with and that has a population three times that of California (and 14 times Virginia's), supply isn't adequately addressing demand.

The most recent Google Trends data shows that for every search in the US including the term "israel", there are nearly four searches including "mexico" (with searches containing the word "new" excluded to avoid counting the US state in the country of Mexico's column).

There are, not surprisingly, large geographic variations in search interests. New York leads all states (plus DC) in conducting the highest percentage of searches including "israel" in them (as does New York City when cities are evaluated instead of states), while California leads the pack in the percentage of searches containing "mexico" (sans "new"), followed closely by Texas and Arizona.

What do The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Fox News, ABC, NBC, CBS, and countless other major media outlets have in common? Why, headquarters in NYC, of course. Parenthetically, the nation's capital, home to NPR and The Washington Post, comes in fifth among states in terms of the percentage of searches originating there that include "israel" in them.

The following table ranks the states by their 'favoritism' towards Israel over Mexico in terms of percentages of Google searches that include either of the words in them, comprised by simply taking the "israel" search index number and subtracting the "mexico" search index number from it. The index figures used are on a 100 point scale for each term individually, with the most interested state setting the top value of 100 and the figures for the other 50 states being calculated in reference to the top search state in both cases separately. Consequently, even in Massachusetts, the most 'pro-Israel' state, searches including "mexico" still outnumber searches including "israel" in absolute terms. Search data are not case sensitive:

State	IS-MX
1. Massachusetts	+63
2. New York	+53
3. Maryland	+28
4. New Jersey	+26
5. District of Columbia	+23
6. Connecticut	+17
6. New Hampshire	+17
8. Pennsylvania	+16
9. Rhode Island	+13
10. Hawaii	+12
11. Maine	+8
12. West Virginia	+7
13. Florida	+5
14. Ohio	+3
15. Alabama	+2
15. Delaware	+2
15. South Carolina	+2
18. Tennessee	+1
19. Vermont	0
20. Kentucky	(1)
20. Oklahoma	(1)
22. Montana	(2)
22. North Carolina	(2)
24. Alaska	(3)
24. Mississippi	(3)
26. Georgia	(4)
27. North Dakota	(5)
28. Louisiana	(6)
29. Indiana	(7)
29. South Dakota	(7)
31. Arkansas	(11)
31. Iowa	(11)
31. Kansas	(11)
34. Michigan	(12)
34. Washington	(12)
36. Missouri	(13)
36. Nebraska	(13)
38. Idaho	(14)
38. Minnesota	(14)
38. Oregon	(14)
41. Illinois	(16)
41. Wisconsin	(16)
41. Wyoming	(16)
44. Utah	(18)
45. Colorado	(24)
46. Nevada	(29)
47. New Mexico	(34)
48. Virginia	(38)
49. Arizona	(47)
50. California	(48)
51. Texas	(54)

A visualization of the data is available here.

The Virginia data may be corrupted, but I don't want to arbitrarily dismiss them outright without good reason. There are no metro areas in which the "mexico" index score is anywhere close to the state's total, while the city of Sterling, home to Dulles but fewer than 30,000 residents, comes in at the top spot for all cities in the entire country when it comes to looking up Mexico.

Excepting the Virginia anomaly, the geographic differences are stark. The Northeast, and especially the media establishments therein, are far more interested in their brethren--what? No, no, I meant that in a brotherhood of mankind kind of way, no ethnic insinuations from me!--than the rest of the country is, while the Southwest shows an unbecoming amount of interest in our neighbors to the south.

That good fight isn't ours

When I'm in discussions that find their way to the issues surrounding Israel and her relationships with her neighbors generally, and the Palestinians in particular, I find I often bemuse those I'm talking to because they're unsure of whether I'm "pro-Israel" or "pro-Palestinian". In imitation of Half Sigma (and correspondingly in a nod to my pseudonym), my position is as follows.

Israel's survival instincts are admirable. As an American, I can only dream of having a federal government as committed to the well-being of the nation as Israel's is. In terms of human capital and the existence of a functioning liberal, market-based society, Israel is bar none in the region. If I was randomly jettisoned somewhere in MENA, by God's good graces I'd land in Haifa or Tel Aviv. When self-righteous media types pay homage to the "international community's" alleged Israeli human rights abuses against the Palestinians, it makes me root a little harder for the Jewish state. The Palestinians are apparently world's perpetual basket cases, a real life illustration of what the rest of the non-Israeli middle eastern and north African populations would look like without oil and, to a lesser extent, tourism.

But Israel's concerns are not our own. The Great Iranian War Machine is hardly a menance to the US. Iran's population is 25% of ours, and its purchasing power parity per capita is also 25% of ours. Thus, its PPP is one-sixteenth of our own. While they were, as of 2006, devoting 2.5% of their economic output on military spending, we were expending 4.06% of our much larger output on the same. If Israel deems Iran an existential threat, well, it has an estimated 200 nuclear weapons at its disposal. And I, like so many others on the alternative right, are perpetually irritated by the influence of groups like AIPAC and the ADL on US policy decisions.

In short, if I were an Israeli, I'd be supporting exactly what Israel is doing. But I'm not, so I oppose what is being done against my own national interests on behalf of Israel's even while my sympathies are with her.

Motley mix

- I'm not aware of any reason to suspect Armando Galarraga is not a naturally gracious and understanding athlete, but what I do suspect is that on the long road of sports history, umpire Jim Joyce's blown call will accentuate Galarraga's profile, not diminish it. Twenty pitchers have thrown perfect games, and over the last two decades, it has occured, on average, about every other year (and twice this season alone!). Among the general public, Galarraga's name would have otherwise probably been flushed down the memory hole in a few years' time, but now his name will be invoked every time reference to the roster of perfect pitchers is made as the guy who was cheated out of inclusion on it.

- McDonald's new gay ad beautifully illustrates (unintentionally, of course) the West's apparent moribundity. An old lady-killing father thinks he is sharing a moment with his son that his son will someday share with the father's grandson. But alas, the son has no use for his father's mores and will never himself become a father:



It works on so many levels.

- The activists on the Turkish ships attempted to run a clearly demarcated blockade. They're fortunate the IDF didn't send the entire flotilla to the bottom of ocean, which would've been a legitimate response against those aiding a declared national enemy. Israel is not a signatory of the Law of the Sea Treaty, so the country is not legally bound to treat putative "international waters" as vast neutral spaces where their perceived interests cannot be fully acted upon.

- There should be a brand of casual business clothing that sells itself on the durability of the string that attaches the waist button to its pants. I'd pay a premium several times the total cost of using fishing line in place of regular yarn for a pair of slacks I could be confident that I'd never pop the button off of. Sewing it back on is so much of a hassle I usually just (lazily) use it as an excuse to buy a replacement pair.