Red states are great places to live #2: All those Bush states are boring places to live, right? Sure, because the only Wild West shows you can find there are fake. According to state-level data from Laboratory of the States, the zero-order correlation between red states and murder rates is -.72. That means that half of the story of homicide can be predicted by whether the state is red or blue. It's no wonder that so many Californian families with children are leaving the Golden State for a mountain state. "Hmm, let's see--living close to Disneyland...or saving my kid from a stray bullet...Love that Buzz Lightyear's Astro Blasters ride, but Colorado Springs, here we come!"

So I guess, in a way, life in heartland states is boring...like Europe or Japan. If you want to live in the most exciting place on earth, try Colombia where the homicide rate is a dozen times higher than ours.