Are "angry white males" angry? Conservative guys like me have been labeled "angry white males," but are we? My sister-in-law suggested that liberals are the ones who are ticked off about everything.

The General Social Survey asked 1,128 whites how many days in the week they get angry about something. Here are the means by political orientation:


Mean days that the person is angry

Males
Extremely liberal 2.53
Liberal 1.58
Slightly liberal 1.42
Moderate 1.38
Slightly conservative 1.49
Conservative 1.61
Extremely conservative 2.04


Females
Extremely liberal 2.44
Liberal 1.60
Slightly liberal 1.32
Moderate 1.57
Slightly conservative 1.45
Conservative 1.21
Extremely conservative .93

While extremely conservative guys fit the stereotype, it's liberals who are angrier. The pattern is especially clear for women. Very conservative women are the calmest of the bunch.

Now, how do we explain this? Anger comes from the perception that one is not being treated fairly, so perhaps liberals are the type of people who see themselves as frequent victims of injustice.

So there is a message here for libs: chill people, anger's not good for you. Do yourself a favor and look for something positive.

The Mex-Am vote: Well my break didn't last long.

Did anyone ever check how many Hispanics voted for Bush in 2004, according to the GSS? Even though Steve Sailer was debunking the exit poll-based 44% right after the election, I still see pundits give that number.

The GSS is also useful since we can look specifically at Mex-Ams--the Hispanic group that really matters here. It gives the number 37.4%.

Bush is held up us a model Hispanderer, and in his best year he can't even get two-fifths of the vote? And Juan "They're all children of God/Race is off the table" McAmnesty can't even manage one out of three? And every Republican strategist and even so-called right-wingers like Palin have all answered the question of what went wrong in 2008 the same way (in unison, like robots): We failed to get the Hispanic vote.

Just like all those black voters (also natural social conservatives), they'll be joining us Any Day Now.

Merry Christmas, bitches: You know how we professors get super long vacations, so I'm going to make the best of it and spend the next couple of weeks out of town. If I get a chance, I'll post, but if you see no changes for a few days, the Thought Police have not dragged me off to the Ministry of Love.

Dona nobis pachem.

Fat and happy

Males, N = 410

Females, N = 439

Males, N = 430

Females, N = 485


The Steveosphere has been chatting about fat, so I thought I'd chime in. There are two ideas I wanted to test: 1) that fatter people are happier; and 2) that they're lazier.

General Social Survey interviewers looked over respondents and recorded whether they thought they were below average, average, above average, or considerably above average weight. I omitted non-whites since their numbers were too small.

The top two graphs show how happiness varies with weight. Among men, the skinny ones are not as happy. Men of average weight are happiest, but the fatties are pretty close.

Among women, the trend is clearer: the fatter, the happier.

Now, on the laziness question, I picked work status for people from the age of 30-55. (Next time, I might look at other indicators).

Looking at the third graph, the skinny guys are least likely to be working full-time; the really fat dudes are second.

Once again, weight is more important for women. As the rotundness increases, so do the hours at work. Notice how the skinnies have the most homemakers. They probably used their thinness to bag them a productive husband. (Lots of thin part-timers too).

So, the data here do not support the idea that fat people are lazy and miserable. Perhaps happy people worry less about their weight. The world is a good place whether I'm narrow or wide.

What's up with thin men? Not happy because they're too slight--a feminine quality? More neurotic?

I imagine that more fat women need to work because they don't have a man to support them, or because they must bring more income to the marriage bargain to compensate for being unattractive. Or they're just lower-income types and need the money more.

A message to all blockheads: I just had a dream that some moron read my blog and went out and committed a hate crime. This is the kind of thing I never think about because stupid people don't like numbers, and the readers here are not that kind of people, not by a long stretch. But there is always that one percent who have something wrong with them, so a message to them: Always obey the law, and get some professional help.

This blog is devoted to getting the facts out and to stating things boldly, but I condemn the mistreatment of anyone and everyone. I'm against hatred, animosity, and ill will of any kind.

The data show again and again that groups differ, but groups are one thing and individuals another. When dealing with a person, focus on his actions, not which group he belongs to. The best way to know what he is like is to find out what he is like. It's a wise policy to always treat people with respect, whether they deserve it or not. It's hard for someone to treat you like a jerk when you don't reciprocate.

Probably the most controversial thing I do here is to document social problems in the Hispanic community. I worry about the well-being of my country, but it is not my intention to demean anyone. There are millions of Latinos who are more moral, more intelligent, more accomplished, and more attractive than I am. As I wrote before, I am in favor of people coming to the country who make a net contribution to its success.

Now I can go back to sleep.

Rap and going to church: Readers have suggested that the decline of black singing and the rise of rap is due to declining church attendance. Church is a great place, especially for poor people, to learn how to sing and perform.

One of my favorite things about mass is the chance to sing and to listen to the organist play classical music. If you're a singer like I am, you know how satisfying it is to exercise those pipes once in a while, but if you're not a professional and think that the karaoke circuit is a little pathetic, where do you ever get a chance? In the car? You look like a crazy person. Even in church, a guy who is in the choir or who sings in the pews feels a little funny, but at least it's legitimate.

My friend got me started in high school. He tried to persuade me to join the school choir--I told him it was gay. He twisted my arm and reminded me that Bono is a singer. I agreed to visit one time. We walked into a large room, and there were about 40 girls and 5 guys. I signed up immediately and was awash in females for the next two years.

But I digress. Back to the question. I looked at General Social Survey to see if the share of blacks ages 18 to 25 who go to church at least almost every week--you're going to have to go at least that often to be in the choir--dropped in the late 70s or early 80s:


Percent of young blacks attending church nearly every week or more

1972-1976 22.5
1977-1981 23.3
1982-1986 28.5
1987-1991 24.3
1992-1996 20.3
1997-2001 29.7
2002-2006 29.9

No evidence here. The numbers bounce around a little because sample sizes are not large, but the story here is one of stability over the past four decades. But since rap was created in the ghetto, let's try to focus on urban blacks (those living in the largest 100 SMSAs):


Percent of young urban blacks attending church nearly every week or more

1970s 23.7
1980s 28.1
1990s 21.2
2000s 30.0

Same basic story. Along with rap, the crack-related crime wave of the 80s was not preceded by a drop in religiosity.

Southern culture: The notion that we can understand quite a bit about contemporary American politics and culture by looking at the very old North/South divide is an intriguing one. In a data set of mine compiled from many sources, I included a measure of "southerness" put together by sociologist Raymond Gastil. He based it on populations originally from core southern states who had remained or migrated to other states, pretty much by the time of the Civil War.

Illinois, for example, gets a moderate score because of people like Abe Lincoln who were born in the south, but then moved north and putatively took some southern culture with them. This might explain Lincoln's almost fighting a duel with James Shields. Mountain states like New Mexico, Arizona and Nevada are other examples of states with moderate southerness scores. According to Gastil, early populations laid down the foundations of culture which have endured to some degree until the present time.

I looked at all counties with at least 250,000 people in 2000 (N =220) and calculated the correlations between southerness and a number of variables that might be influenced by culture.


Southerness index (Pearson correlation coefficients)

Okay to hit a drunk man who bumped into your wife .78*
Household gun ownership .65*
Homicide rate .49*
Suicide rate .36*
Percent Republican .24*
Alcoholic liver disease mortality rate .21*

* significant at the .01 level, one-tailed test


Guns and violence are closely related, but even alcohol abuse and suicide are significantly associated with southerness. I suspect that the percent Republican correlation is weak because the sample is limited to populous counties, so the range of the share of the population that is Republican is not as wide as it would be for all U.S. counties.

Some of the correlations would be smaller if we adjusted for percent black. Of course, sociologists--the braver ones, anyway--like to explain black violence in terms of "southerness." The others either say that the races do not differ in violence, only in being arrested for it, or that the social system is so unjust, it makes blacks go crazy and take out their anger on convenient targets. (They fail to mention, however, that their own theory implies that whipping up blacks with hypotheses of being exploited will likely contribute to the problem).

He's gotta a big head. You know what THAT means....

Okay. I couldn't resist. Make of it what you will. This German condom institute invited men online to measure the length and girth of their penises. More than 10,000 men from 25 European countries submitted their measurements. I correlated the means with national level IQs taken from Sailer's table of Lynn's data. Here are the numbers:


Pearson Correlation

Length-girth .80
Length-IQ .63
Girth-IQ .43

I expected that I'd find nothing or perhaps an inverse correlation, but wow, a positive one. Does God have to give it ALL to some guys??!!

"White trash" folks are good for something other than cannon fodder

Of Rolling Stone's top 100 singers, 28 are white male Americans. The interesting fact is that 13 were born in the South. Even more interesting, most of these Southerners grew up poor. Elvis Presley, the third best singer on the list after Aretha Franklin and Ray Charles, is a good example. His father was a sharecropper and a truck driver.

The vast majority of all the white males have English, Scottish, and/or Irish ancestries. The only men I found with some German in the family line are Bruce Springsteen, Greg Allman, Axl Rose, and Steven Tyler. While Italian Americans like Frank Sinatra dominated big band music, the only vocalists with some reported Italian blood that made this rock-dominated list are Springsteen, Tyler, and Frankie Valli. For such a small group, Jews did just fine with Bob Dylan, Lou Reed, and Art Garfunkel.

Why so many white southerners? Well, popular music requires singers with soul, naturalness, and unschooled talent, and Scots-Irish men of humble origins seems to have it. I might be tempted to suggest that people with lower average IQs (e.g., blacks) tend to be more in touch with their instincts, but Jews contradict the idea. (Plus, I imagine that successful singers have above average IQs relative to their group). Another possibility is that there is greater extraversion among southerners, an important trait for performing.

Southern men also seem to have voices that are more resonant and lower. This isn't valued particularly with many types of popular music, but country western fans are drawn to it. Buddy Holly didn't have it, but it sure helped Johnny Cash and George Jones.

Women from the South didn't do too badly either. Of the nine white American women on the list, three were southerners: Patsy Cline, Dolly Parton, and Janis Joplin. All three had a lot of passion, and Cline even had resonance like the men.

Keep in mind that so many of these men made a list that was chosen by music elites in places like L.A. and New York. People there are not known for their love of southern whites.

I guess "white trash" folks are good for something other than cannon fodder.

The rise and fall of the black singer

On the issue of race, three things strike me as I look over Rolling Stone's list of the top 100 vocalists: 1) black folks can sing; 2) they abandoned that talent for the lesser ability of talking rhythmically; and 3) their style was more assimilationist during Jim Crow and more countercultural since.

I spend most of my time documenting social problems among NAMs. It has to be done because mainstream data analysts are fundamentally dishonest. In fact, they are even liars about black superiority. Of the top 100 singers, 39 are black, and they are competing with not only white Americans but other English-language whites: Brits, the Irish, Canadians, and Australians.

Now, I haven't read the literature, but multicultis are so predictable, who needs to: black singing goes back to the slave days of surreptitious Gospel songs of liberation; entertainers were considered trashy people so blacks were allowed into the industry, etc., etc. I say nonsense. Blacks are naturally good at singing, period. Just yesterday, I walked into McDonalds and a minimum-wage black girl is singing like a bird. They're not hard to find.

So I've got a question for black folks: you've got the talent to produce the likes of Aretha Franklin and Marvin Gaye, and you decide to start talking instead? Well, I'm sorry folks, but you made a mistake--Eminem does it better than y'all, and he sucks. You peaked with Ray Charles--and what a peak that was--but it's been nothing but slide ever since.

And black singers used to have class. Can you think of anyone classier than Nat King Cole? Guys like him just wanted to get into the club, but just as soon as that happened in 1965, black folks decided that they didn't want entry; they wanted to look like the guys who burned down the club. And so we end up with high-class mugs like Plies (in the photo) and we're supposed to celebrate this as art and progress. Sick and twisted times.

Sexism at Rolling Stone? This week's Rolling Stone lists the 100 best vocalists ever. I did some totals, and 75 singers were male while only 25 were women. At first that sounds like a case of people prefering male to female voices. They're stronger, more resonant. Women's voices can be shrill and screechy. Growing up in the 80s, I could count on one hand the number of contemporary female singers I liked. (Off the top of my head, Blondie, Hynde, Lennox, Sade, Sinead).

But I noticed that the judges picked by RS were men by three or four to one. It is clearly a male dominated industry. Not only are the judges men, they tend to be older, and the list shows a real preference for the 50s-70s. That's not simply bias: many people including myself think that music was better then.

Anyway, perhaps the long list of male artists reflects male bias or the traditional expectation that women would give up careers for family.

I looked at those who made the list who were born in 1960 or after, and the ratio shifts dramatically. While four guys made it onto the list--Bono, Cobain, Rose, and Yorke--five women made it--Houston, Aguilera, Bjork, Carey, and Blige. Three guys were just a year or two too old--Prince, Jackson, and Morrissey--but even with them, male dominance is not what it used to be.

And this squares with my own experience: I haven't counted, but the gender split of the young singers I listen to now is roughly 50/50. Maybe there are more relaxed female singers now--the kind I usually like (e.g., Corinne Bailey Rae).

The girls seem about as good as the guys at singing these days. The creative types are still largely men--notice how most of the women I listed are known for their voices--but I suspect the gap is smaller now. The gender revolution of the past half century has, I suspect, exposed us to more female talent. The problem is that what folks, male or female, are creating ain't what it used to be.

It's getting better all the time

Whites, N = 24,684

Blacks, N = 4,235

Other races, N = 1,225

Cultural conservatives and old people have the bad habit of assuming that everything is going hell. Data have a way of proving everyone wrong sooner or later.

I know from prior analysis that whites are more intolerant of marital infidelity than they used to be, but I wanted to check for other racial groups. You can see in all three groups shown above that since 1973 there has been a gradual increase in the number of people who say that cheating on your spouse is always wrong. In an era of tolerance, it's refreshing to see so many people close-minded about the issue.

People used to be more indulgent about affairs, at least for men, but now they are much more approving of sex before marriage. I'm not thrilled with either era, but if you're going to be free sexually, I would prefer that you do it before children are involved. We traditionally make a big deal about divorce, but it's breakup of any sort with children involved that's the problem.

People seem to put marriage on a high pedestal now. Higher status people are thinking about how it's the institution where our precious children are raised and how they will be ruined or saved depending on the parenting, while lower status folks will start families without marriage, but still see it as an ideal they hope to eventually have.

And once you finally get married, you've got to get it right (although our expressive individualism makes that difficult). Does Hollywood have something to do with the idealization of marriage? Sailer has writen about the pro-family messages found in some films.

Can we attribute the moral improvement to feminism, to a greater concern for the treatment of women, like we might with attitudes towards wife beating and rape? Damn, I hate giving fems credit for anything. Is it due to a greater desire for couples to have an authentic relationship; to have real honesty?

If you're inclination is not a moralistic one like mine, keep in mind that society's condemnation of cheating benefits us beta males by making it harder for the alphas to have multiple women. If you're an alpha, why are you reading this dumb blog when you could be out on the prowl?

Emotional intelligence is the future: I ran across a study (Van Rooy et al. 2005. Personality and Individual Differences, 38, 689–700) that found that women, blacks, and Hispanics score higher on the "emotional intelligence scale" or EIS. You know--the test that supposedly measures how well you perceive, understand, and manage emotions.

The authors write that, while the use of general mental ability tests raises adverse impact and legal concerns, businesses can avoid bias by using the EIS in the hiring process. They cite studies reporting that the use of emotional intelligence tests to aid the personnel selection process is on the increase.

It is just too easy to imagine this test becoming a commonplace in human resources departments. A test where women and poor minorities outperform men and whites??!! Give me one of those! Disadvantaged groups getting hired in large numbers without preferences??!!

Teamwork is so important now, and interpersonal skills are so essential in our service economy. It is an intelligence test of sorts, right? Plus, in this age of Oprah, it is just so great to focus on feelings! And if it doesn't help productivity, who cares?!

I can see it all now....

Does religion encourage nihilism? Reader Jason argued in the last post that churches teach that life has no meaning and there is no right and wrong if there is no God. As Dostoevsky wrote, if there is no God, everything is permitted. On the other hand, people raised without religion learn other reasons for being good.

So, if a person is raised in a religion but then loses his faith, does he becomes more nihlistic? Is he more likely to break the law?

The General Social Survey asked people about their current religion and the religion of their youth. Here are mean nihilism scores:


Mean nihilism score

Raised in a religion, still has one .32
Raised in a religion, none now .76
No religion as a kid, has one now .47
No religion as a kid, none now .56

Losing one's faith is associated with more nihilism. People raised with no religion do better, but, as we saw in the previous post, belonging to a church currently is best.

And what about bad behavior? I'd like to look at crime, but the question was not asked in the year that childhood religion was. Let's look at attitudes toward cheating on taxes:


Mean wrongness of cheating on taxes score

Raised in a religion, still has one 3.14
Raised in a religion, none now 2.90
No religion as a kid, has one now 3.10
No religion as a kid, none now 2.88

Those who have abandoned religion have basically the same mean score as those who were raised without it. People who have always belonged to a church disapprove of cheating on taxes the most. No evidence here anyway that people who turn away from religion become antisocial.

Belief in God and Nihilism

Are non-believers more likely to think that life is pointless? I've posted on the topic before but spent little time on it.

The General Social Survey asked 2,367 people if they agree with the statement that life does not serve any purpose. The graphs show the answers by church attendance (top) and belief in God (bottom). We can't pay too much attention to those who agree or strongly agree with the statement, especially among non-believers, because sample sizes are extremely low. A better way to approach it is to calculate means:


Mean nihilism score

Never attends .73

Less than once a year .67

Once a year .59

Several times a year .48

Once a month .55

2-3 times a month .61

Nearly every week .50

Every week .39

More than weekly .39

SD .78

Doesn't believe in God .64

No way to find out .86

Some higher power .78

Believes sometimes .93

Believes but doubts .64

Knows God exists .47

SD .79

These numbers indicate that there is a tendency for the irreligious to find life lacking in meaning. To get a better sense of the strength of the relationship, I calculated the correlations: it's -.13 for church attendance and -.16 for confidence in the existence of God.

More often than not, I find that religiosity is related to good things, but the strength of the correlations is always disappointing. If intense religious commitment has only a weak impact on outcomes, this seems to me evidence that beliefs and values in general are not broadly powerful. Biology and material incentives are probably much more potent for most behaviors.

I'm not saying that culture never matters. For example, I strongly suspect that alcoholic liver disease mortality rates are very low in Utah County, Utah because the Mormon church tells its adherents that God commands them not to consume alcohol. Most do not drink, so they don't get hooked, and don't ruin their livers. So we should look for where worldviews have consequences, but in competition with powerful forces like genes, we shouldn't be too surprised when we find that beliefs and attitudes don't matter much.

Looking at VDARE.com, I see that the number of downloads of Sailer's book has now gone over 5,000. From what I hear, you cross that threshold and you have a successful book. And, of course, there are many more people who were sent an e-copy who read the book, along with those who have just read it online. All in a month, and all on the Internet with no promotion from a big publisher.

So congrats, Steve. I know you're just catching your breath, but how about another? Maybe one on how PC stupidity is ruining not only America, but the whole world?

Parker's brilliant strategy for the GOP: Kathleen Parker actually gets paid for this stuff? In her piece today, she claims the Republicans are such losers now because born-agains make up the base. In other words, we lost the election, not because her elite Republican friends combined liberal ideas about minority home ownership with Wall Street greed, but because of those damn Jesus freaks.

Do all country club Republicans think like tards? Her argument reminds me of the reaction after 9/11: "Al-Qaeda has attacked us. Let's get Saddam!"

Here are quotes from her column and my responses:

"In the process, the party has alienated its non-base constituents, including other people of faith (those who prefer a more private approach to worship), as well as secularists and conservative-leaning Democrats who otherwise might be tempted to cross the aisle."

Yes, surveys clearly show that moderates went for Obama because the GOP panders to born-agains. The prospect of The Great Depression 2.0 had nothing to do with it. And don't give me the "Palin Screwed It Up For Us" argument. If there are people who decided against the Republican ticket because of Palin, it was because they perceived her as being stupid. They never got past that. The lesson there is to pick candidates who instill confidence, not that evangelical candidates are losers.

"Anyone watching the two conventions last summer can't have missed the stark differences: One party was brimming with energy, youth and diversity; the other felt like an annual Depends sales meeting."

Right, nursing home residents speak in tongues, but young people have nothing to do with all that stuff. All those born-again clubs I see on campus are just anomalies. Here are the percentage of people who say they are born again by age group (GSS):


Percent who are born again
18-29 33.9
30-44 37.2
45-59 36.2
60 plus 35.9

That's 18 million born-again young adults. The only young people Kathleen is aware of are the ones she reads about in the New York Times.

"The young will get older, of course. Most eventually will marry, and some will become their parents. But nonwhites won't get whiter."

Exactly, all those black and Hispanics reject the GOP because it's too religious and anti-science. And evangelism is a wacky, white thing:

Percent who are born again

Blacks 60.1

Hispanics 31.8

Parker calls for a new Republican base. Perhaps secularists? A whole 20.6% of those who never attend church voted for that famous holy roller Bob Dole. All we have to do is kick out the oogedy-boogedy Christians, and the secularists will come running.

New York City Republicans should become the center of the party. That there are six of them and 100 million born-agains isn't the point; the NYC-ers are way cooler.

(By the way, I'm not an evangelical. Not even close.)

WORDSUM and spatial IQ: Audacious has a post up on the ability of WORDSUM in the General Social Survey to capture IQ. Steve Sailer commented that since it's a vocabulary test, it might fail to pick up important abilities like spatial intelligence.

I found a study of American students by Lynn (Personality and Individual Differences, Vol. 20, No. 2, pp. 271-273, 1996) which reported spatial IQ scores for whites, blacks, Hispanics and Asians. Using WORDSUM, I calculated mean IQs for each of the four groups and then estimated a correlation across the four groups. It was .98. Admittedly, it's an N of 4, but the results are reassuring nevertheless.

Ethnic power II: Reader Jim Bowery didn't have to twist my arm very hard to get me to look at the ethnic power question again, this time assuming that the three factors--size, IQ, and ethnocentricity--operate multiplicatively instead of additively. I converted the size and ethnocentricity scores so that their means are set at 100 and the standard deviations at 15, the same as IQ. Next, I multiplied the three scores, and listed them below:


Ethnic power index

Asians 1,246,039
Non-Jewish whites 1,142,643
Jews 996,456
Blacks 974,059
Hispanics 945,257
American Indians 761,674


Same story. Keep in mind that my approach assumes that the three factors are of equal importance.

Asian overlords? When I analyze ethnic data, I'm usually concerned with whether or not immigrant groups will make a contribution to the country. Uneducated groups like Hispanics are expanding the lower ranks of society and adding to the country's social problems.

But I haven't analyzed power. If immigrant groups are ethnocentric enough, large enough, and smart enough, they can dominate and potentially exploit the rest of us.

Following this line of thinking, I used General Social Survey data to calculate standardized scores for important racial/ethnic groups for the following three factors: 1) degree that people think of ethnicity first when considering social and political issues; 2) mean group IQs; and 3) the size of the ethnic group. I summed the three standardized scores, which gives equal weight to each factor. Here are the summed scores from most powerful to least:


Ethnic power index

Asians 2.07
Non-Jewish whites 1.79
Jews 1.21
Blacks 0.23
Hispanics -0.76
American Indians -1.94


Asians at the top is a big surprise--they don't seem to be a big player currently--but the reasons for the high number are clear: their high IQ and high ethnocentric scores (not as "Asians" but as Chinese, Japanese, Asian Indians, etc). On the one hand, the number exaggerates the situation since this group is made up of many diverse groups. Chinese Americans may identify strongly with their group, but as far as I know, there is no Chinese-Asian Indian organizing. On the other hand, the high number points at least to high potential power, and sticking with the Chinese/Indian example, there are unlimited numbers of potential immigrants from those countries.

Non-Jewish whites have a high number obviously because they are the giant in the bunch. They do not rise to the top because there is very little ethnocentricity among this group. (You can find some among Italian, Irish, and Polish Americans). If whites were as ethnocentric as Asians, their total score would be 4.70.

Jews have a high score because of a very high mean IQ along with moderate ethnocentricity.

The low mean IQs of blacks and Hispanics give them low power scores, and the Latino number is lower because they are less ethnocentric. Their population would have to grow dramatically to make them a real power player.

I included American Indians for contrast. They are way below everyone else because they have low scores on all three dimensions--even ethnocentricity. (Now that I think about it, I should have excluded the whites who say their ethnicity is Native American.) Moral of the story: do not allow yourselves to become like American Indians.

(Question: do you think I should have assumed these factors operate in a multiplicative way?)

Late-term abortions

Only an unreasonable person would argue that it's okay to abort this 22 week old fetus. The argument gets a little more complicated as we move closer to conception, but as far as I'm concerned killing this baby is murder (with the one exception of taking its life saving the life of the mother).

Pro-choice folks might respond that these types of abortions rarely happen; only 1% of all cases or a total of 16,450 were fetuses 22 weeks or older last year. Well, in 2007 the national total of all murders was 15,707--743 fewer deaths than from these types of abortions.

I don't need to go into all the ways this country frets over our homicide problem and how many resources are devoted to its reduction. Hands are wrung over all the the dead drug dealers, but only right-wing nut jobs like me care about abortion. Plus, murder is usually something like two idiots arguing over 20 bucks, while late-term abortions are industrial slaughter.

And women are not having these kinds of abortions to save their lives:

"In 1987, the Alan Guttmacher Institute (AGI), an affiliate of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA), collected questionnaires from 1,900 women who were at abortion clinics procuring abortions. Of the 1,900, '420 had been pregnant for 16 or more weeks.' These 420 women were asked to choose among a menu of reasons why they had not obtained the abortions earlier in their pregnancies. Only two percent (2%) said 'a fetal problem was diagnosed late in pregnancy,' compared to 71% who responded 'did not recognize that she was pregnant or misjudged gestation,' 48% who said 'found it hard to make arrangements,' and 33% who said 'was afraid to tell her partner or parents.' The report did not indicate that any of the 420 late abortions were performed because of maternal health problems." ["Why Do Women Have Abortions?," Family Planning Perspectives, July/August 1988.]

The main reason for these abortions is stupidity, and those involved are criminals.

AIDS and Hispanic immigration: One virtue of the BRFSS 2002 Survey is that it asked health questions of almost 200,000 Americans. This allows us to analyze uncommon behaviors among small ethnic/racial groups.

Concerned about AIDS, researchers asked people if they have done any of these things in the past year: IV drug use, exchanging money for sex, anal sex without a condom, or getting treated for a STD. Here are the percentages by race/ethnicity:


Percent with risky behavior in past year, N = 192,186

White 2.5
Black 5.5
Asian 1.9
Hawaiian/Pacific Islander 4.0
American Indian 3.8
Other race 3.2
Multiracial 4.1
Hispanic 4.1

No surprises here, except to those folks who believe that Hispanics are short, tanned white people.

Innumerate readers, no doubt, will say, "All these numbers are small and close together, so we can say that for practical purposes that all groups are the same."

No, what the numbers say, for example, is that the prevalence of high-risk people among Hispanics is roughly double that of Asians. Adjusting for group size, there are two Hispanics for every one Asian at risk of HIV infection. According to this article, the lifetime economic cost of one HIV-positive person is close to one million dollars.

The more Asians we invite to the country, the more the HIV/AIDS problem will be reduced. If we want a bigger problem, let's keep up all the immigration from Latin America.

IQ and neatness: Reacting to my finding that liberals are sloppier than conservatives, blog reader Stephen wrote with this:

"That reminds me - I need to buy more bookshelves. A stack of books fell over the other day, and another one is threatening to follow. Horrible mess.

"Oh, and my partner keeps spreading her Phd research material all over the floor - what a mess.
"Our friends must think we're total losers.

"If only our place could be more like our neighbour's house - shelves are filled with well dusted trinkets. They have a set of rather cute little figurines of cats playing."

I wish I had data to confirm my sense that professor-types are not only sloppy, but feel superior about it as well.

But I can address Stephen's linking intelligence with messiness (even though the post was about the association with being liberal); namely, that the connection is the opposite of what he thinks. The graph above, generated from General Social Survey, shows that smart people tend to be cleaner than the less intelligent. (The X-axis is the number of vocabulary questions answered correctly out of 10--a good proxy of IQ). Disorganized professors are not representative of the right side of the bell curve.

One reason I make conclusions after looking at the data is that helps me avoid looking like a fool.

Liberals and sloppiness

All races, N =2,260



Whites, N = 1,790

I've been around professors for many years. Many of them have filthy offices and seem to take pride in their slovenly ways. They are horrified at the thought of having neatly combed hair. (Liberal) popular culture picked up on this a long time ago and continues to celebrate personal disorderliness. (According to research, a disregard for personal hygiene is a sign of mental disorder).

General Social Survey interviewers ask their questions in people's homes. In 2000, they also recorded how clean the respondent's place was. The top graphs summarizes cleanliness by political views. Conservatives keep a tightier house.

In case you suspect that this is due to the messiness of the homes of poor minorities, look at the bottom graph for whites only. The pattern remains.

Should Republicans give priority to born-agains or moderates? The short answer is the former. Here are the reasons.

Reason number one: Looking at NYT exit polls, we see that 57% of them voted for McCain, and the share voting for the Republican has ranged from 56 to 74 since 1980. A majority of them reliably support our side and thus should be rewarded with the party's loyalty. Democrats reliably get moderate majorities (with the exception of 1984) so we owe the middle nothing.

Reason number two: You might counter that since BAs are the base, they can therefore be taken for granted. The fact is that this group swings about as much as moderates. The range of the swing for born-agains since 1980 is 18 points; it's 22 points for moderates (and the low end of the swing for the latter was caused by the anomaly of Perot). Not only do BAs swing alot, they are notorious for staying home if they are unenthusiastic, and they can decide elections if they get fired up (as in 2004).

Reason number three: Once again, you might respond that, unlike moderates, they are a small group. In 2008, they are 38% of the electorate versus 44% for moderates. Yes, I know that some of the BAs are blacks, but so are some of the moderates. Add to this that BAs are growing. In 2004, white BAs were 23% of the electorate; now they are 26%.

Reason number four: The Republican track record is better when we put up non-moderates. Reagan garnered 59% of the vote in 1984. A weak candidate, Bush II was elected two times. Moderates are losers: Ford, Dole, McCain. Bush I was a one-termer who owes his victory to the non-moderate Reagan.

2008 and 2004 exit polls: I'm probably wasting my time comparing 2008 and 2004 exit polls because, as Karl Rove says, they're trash. But I cannot resist:


Republican 2004-2008 losses--percentage points

Men -7
Women -5

Dick Morris claims that these number show that Palin helped rather than hurt McCain by losing fewer women.

White -3
Black -7
Hispanic -13
Asian -9

Asians and especially Hispanics turned away from McCain more than whites. Is this evidence that angry immigration restrictionists like me turned of non-white voters? Maybe.

18-29 -13
30-44 -7
45-59 -2
60 plus -3

Obama pulled away more young people and not many older voters.

Northeast -3
Midwest -7
South -4
West -9

Midwesterner Obama gained more from the West Coast--whiterpeople effect? More Hispanic voters?

Less than high school -14
High school -6
Some college -7
College graduates -4
Postgraduates -14

Obama attracted the bottom and the top more than the middle.

White Protestants -2
White Catholics -4
Jews -4
Evangelicals -8
Attends church at least weekly -5

More evangelicals and frequent churchgoers abandoned the Republicans. Religious blacks? Idealist whites? No evidence here that evangelical whites are racists. By the way they are a HUGE share of the electorate (38%). We need them like oxygen.

Less than 15k -11
15-29k -5
30-49k -6
50-74k -7
75-100k -7
200+ -17
100+ -9

Once again, the bottom and the top liked Obama. Maybe many of the poor are blacks. Whiterpeople disease is prevalent among rich people, and perhaps some were turned off by Palin? It's a big loss.

Over 500,000 population -11
50-500,000 -10
Suburbs -4
10-50,000 +3
Rural -6

People in towns of populations between 10,000 and 50,000 were one of the few groups to increase their numbers voting for the Republican.

First time voters -15

A large turn toward the Democrat this time around.

Whites, 18-29 -11
Whites, 30-44 -5
Whites, 45-59 -1
Whites, 60 plus -1

Same age trend for whites only.

White men -5
White women -2
Black men -8
Black women -7

Once again, women were not drawn away from McCain as much as men. Palin effect? Security concerns?

Whites, Northeast -3
Whites, Midwest -5
Whites, South -2
Whites, West -6

Northeasterners liked Kerry. Southerners liked Obama least.

Now let's look at changes in the distribution of the electorate. Let's do it in this form: subtract the 2004 share from the 2008 share:

Men 47-46=1
Women 53-54=-1

Not much change here. The conservative instinct is to be manly, but women seem to like optimism and positive messages. To become popular, hard conservative truths have to be packaged very carefully. Republicans should always be looking for a Reagan--conservatism with a smile. Women like security, both the tough type and the helping type.

White 74-77=-3
Black 13-11=2
Hispanic 9-8=1
Asian 2-2=0

Whites are still the prize that nobody ever talks about. As Sailer tells us, the Hispanic numbers are inflated, but it's probably constant over the two elections, so we can conclude that the Latino share has grown a bit and will continue to grow a bit every four years. To save their long-term prospects, Republicans need to keep fighting illegal immigration in the name of security and law and order, as well as an emphasis on more quality immigrants and less family reunification. White and/or Christian immigrants are most likely to vote Republican.

The message should reassure Hispanic and other non-white citizens that immigration concerns are not about them. I publish a lot of hard facts on this blog, and interested people need to know about them, but the race-hysterical general public must be met where they are at.

18-29 18-17=1
30-44 29-29=0
45-59 30-30=0
60 plus 23-24=-1

Obama IS the new Messiah. He managed to increase the youth share by... ONE WHOLE PERCENT!! I AM impressed.

Less than high school 4-4=0
High school 20-22=-2
Some college 31-32=-1
College grad or more 45-42=3

The American public is gradually getting more educated. Republicans cannot afford to look like the anti-science party.

Pop. over 500k 11-13=2
50-500k 19-19=0
Suburbs 49-45=4
10-50k 7-8=-1
Rural 14-16=-2

The suburbs are huge and grew in the past 4 years. Once again, conservatism needs to be principled, but it has got to pick Reaganesque people, not old grumps like Dole or McCain. Myself, I love a real ass-kicker like Buchanan, but the squishy burbs can't handle it.

First time voters 11-11=0

Little things like facts won't get in the way of the inspiring story of Barack Obama, America's greatest president (who is going to get his own holiday before he's even inaugurated) who, like a modern-day Moses, led tens of millions of citizens out of the bondage of indifference and cynicism to the freedom of hope and change.

To improve the educational achievement of blacks, get them away from other blacks: My hunch is that blacks stay in school longer in communities with few blacks. Poor black communities generate anti-education subcultures where serious students are ridiculued for "acting white" (implying that white=smart).

Using General Social Survey data, I calculated the association between percent black and the difference between the white and black mean years of school across the survey's nine regions. You might assume I would simply look at the relationship between the black share of the population and their mean educational levels, but the problem is that there are fewer blacks in the North, and all races are smarter in that region compared to the South.

To adjust for this, I'm looking to see if the black-white gap shrinks in regions with fewer blacks. The Pearson correlation is .52. In other words, blacks get closer to white levels in places with smaller black populations. For example, the black-white gap is smallest in the Mountain States, the region that has the smallest percentage of African Americans--2.2%.

(Of course, this whole post is premised on the idea that it's good for blacks to stay in school. As you've seen in other posts, some people stay in school too long.)

What a post-racial person sounds like: Okay, it's been a week since Obama won the election. I've heard more than enough sentimental speeches by the misty-eyed, but the most sensible comment was made by a black high school kid I overhead eating lunch with his Hispanic buddies: "What do I care if a black man is President now? I think it's wrong, all these black people voting for Obama because he's black. Just like it would be wrong if you voted for a Mexican because he was Mexican."

Out of the mouth of babes.

How many intelligent Americans fail to get a college education? In the comment section of the previous post, Robert Hume wondered if the academic achievement of intelligent Americans might be on the decline. I assumed that a declining correlation between IQ and completed years of education is due to less intelligent students pursuing higher degrees and not to declining achievement among smart students, but it's better to look than to assume. So here's what I found:


Mean completed years of education of high IQ Americans

This decade 16.67
Nineties 16.12
Eighties 15.79
Seventies 15.64
Sixties 15.40
Fifties 14.85


No need to worry about fewer smart people getting educated.

It wasn't until the 1980s, however, that the average education of intelligent Americans approached four years of college. In my view, our smartest folks should get a four-year degree, so we're doing a better job for this population than we used to.

But how many high-IQ Americans don't go to college? Here's the breakdown:


Highest degree earned--percentage

Graduate 26.2
Bachelors 47.7
Junior college 3.5
High school 20.3
Less than high school 2.3

While the percent going to college is at the highest level in 50 years, the proportion of smart people who do not go is still disturbingly high. Well, we know how things are here in America. Institutional racism is still obviously holding back intelligent blacks.

Oops. I did the calculations, and 92% of the sample of smart students not attending college are white. Only 5% are black, and 3% are some other race. We need some white outreach.

Education worked the best in the 1960s: In my view, a rational education system would make sure that the correlation between IQ and highest degree earned is high. It's very simple: less intelligent people should end their educational career earlier, while smarter folks should pursue higher degrees.

Assuming that I'm correct, let's see which decade had the most rational approach for both blacks and whites. Using General Social Survey data, here is what I found:


Correlation between IQ and years of education--whites

This decade .36
Nineties .39
Eighties .49
Seventies .54
Sixties .61
Fifties .59


Correlation between IQ and years of education--blacks

This decade .39
Nineties .42
Eighties .39
Seventies .49
Sixties .50
Fifties .45

First, we see the highest numbers were in the 1950s and 1960s for whites. The system was most rational during that period for that population. It's gotten worse ever since.

For blacks, we see a small increase from the 50s to the 60s, perhaps indicating decreasing discrimination. After that, the numbers have fallen for blacks as well, and currently the correlation is low and similar to that of whites.

If I'm interpreting this correctly, we're seeing more and more blacks and whites stay in school beyond what their IQs would warrant.

Young adults and gay marriage

There are two themes I've picked up on concerning the gay marriage proposition in California. First, I document a lot of social problems found in the black and Hispanic communities, so it's very pleasant to see something in the positive column; in this case, defending social conservatism.

Second, the pundits are saying that young adults are all on board with this gay marriage stuff: It's only a prejudice among older people. The Voting Behavior: 2004 Election survey asked 1,010 if they thought gay people should be able to get married. The results are shown above.

Unless young people have shifted significantly since the last election, they are not all for gay marriage-it's evenly split. Yes, age is important here, but pundits are exaggerating trends among young adults. I don't know how much stock to put into this exit poll, but supposedly 60% of Californians under 30 were against Proposition 2008. Sixty percent in a liberal state is probably consistent with 50% nationwide.

The culture war is not only among the old fogies.

Oh, and while I'm at it, God bless the Mormon Church for taking a stand on an important moral issue. We need more churches to tell Hollywood, we don't take cues on morality from you. All you alcoholics and sex and drug addicts should be taking them from us.

Race and the lottery

One of my statistics professors told me that the lottery is a tax on people who are bad at math.

The Gambling Impact and Behavior Study asked 1,650 people the following: "In the past year, think about how often you bought a big jackpot lottery ticket such as Lotto or Powerball, a daily lottery ticket like pick-4, or an instant or scratch-off ticket." The graph displays answers by race. Twenty-one percent of blacks buy some kind of ticket about daily compared to only 4% of whites. A huge difference, no doubt.

We Englishmen still rule the world: You can call us names, but you can't keep us down. We sons of England were riding high with WASP Bush in office, and now he will turn the reins over to Mr. Dunham. Thank God that white trash Scots-Irishman lost. We Englishmen have got to stick together.

IQ and homicide cross-nationally: I was so excited by the cross-state correlation between IQ and murder (what election?), I decided to examine the same relationship across countries. Combining data from Nation Master and Sailer's table of Lynn's IQ data, I calculated the Pearson correlation coefficient (N = 36). It is -.47.

I suspect the association is weaker than in the state data for at least two reason. Criminologists are skeptical about comparing levels of crime across nations because criminal justice systems are so different. I agree. Frankly, I don't trust data from countries like Zimbabwe--one of the 36 cases. If the country is excluded, for example, the correlation becomes -.53. (If I find time, I'll use World Health Statistics data which is more reliable.) In addition, this is a very diverse set of countries. There are probably many other factors (e.g., level of socioeconomic development) that play an important role, thus diminishing the impact of IQ.

Moron density and violence: I haven't been particularly impressed with IQ's power to explain criminality. The effect always seems to be very modest.

One problem is that criminologists never examine macrolevel relationships. I cannot recall a single published study that assesses the relationship across geographical units. (I'm sure they are out there somewhere--I just haven't seen one).

I used Audacious' estimates of state-level IQs and correlated this with homicide rates averaged over the years 1999-2005. (Homicide is a rare event--criminologists routinely aggregate over several years).

The size of the Pearson correlation? It's -.80!!! That means that 64% of state-level homicide rates is explained by average differences in IQ. Even percent black explains only half the variance.

For example, New Hampshire has a mean IQ of 101, and 0.6 homicides per 100k population per year. By contrast, Louisiana's IQ is 95, and the homicide rate is 9.7.

So why are these results so much stronger than those found in individual-level studies? Well, macrolevel studies typically reduce measurement error, thus strengthening the correlation. In addition, studies typically focus on minor offenses, like delinquency, and it might be that IQ plays a more important role in serious crime.

According to research, most violence is mutual combat, so it won't usually happen unless two idiots cross paths. The higher the density of morons, the more frequent the occasions where conflict escalates into violence. Plus, a community of dolts might generate of culture of aggressiveness which would exacerbate the problem.

Unfortunately, mass immigration from low IQ countries is increasing moron density, so in the long run we can expect a more criminal society.

I told my mostly young, black, and Hispanic students this morning to make sure and get out and vote on Thursday.

How many hardcore pro-lifers vote Democrat? As a Catholic, I sometimes meet other members who believe that abortions should not be legal, but who nevertheless vote for Democrats. The most common argument seems to be that they are not one-issue voters. (I imagine that frequently the other issue they have in mind is their wallet).

The General Social Survey asked 1,262 Americans if they thought a woman should be able to get an abortion after being raped. The bottom graph shows that 29% of people who answered no still voted for Kerry. That's a pretty hardcore position on abortion, so I'm surprised to see even that many people vote for a pro-choice candidate.

How does that compare with an abortion-on-demand woman voting for a Republican? The top graph shows voting percentages by answer to the question, "Should a woman be allowed to get an abortion for any reason?" (Sample size is 750.) Thirty-three percent of woman who have this extreme position on abortion voted for Bush anyway. It looks like hardcore pro-life voters are about as willing to set their view aside when voting as strongly pro-abortion women are.

Obama is anti-free speech: Barack, living out the Thug Life, has attempted to shut down Rev. Wright ads put out by National Republican Trust. My Russian friend says it smacks of totalitarianism, and he should know. It's clear that Comrade Obama is salivating over putting the Steveosphere under the guillotine as well, so fight the power with a donation. (Am I mixing too many revolutionary metaphors?)

The (non)value of education: My experience as a professor convinces me that students do not learn much long-term that is independent of what they would learn anyway, given their IQ.

Let's attempt a test. The General Social Survey quizzed respondents with eleven basic science questions. I regressed their quiz scores on years of education and a measure of IQ. Here are the results:


OLS unstandardized coefficients (standardized coefficients in parentheses)

Years of education .038 (.107)
IQ .034 (.425)
Constant -4.05

N = 222

To give you an intuitive sense of the results, the model predicts that if you have an IQ of 100 and complete 12 years of school, your predicted science score is 8.6 (out of a 11). If you have the same IQ but finish 16 years of education, you're score is 8.9--not much of a difference. If, instead of being a high school grad with a 100 IQ, you have the same level of education but an IQ of 125, your predicted score is 10.2--a big improvement over 8.6.

I sometimes get the feeling in the classroom that I'm just going through the motions. Students learn plenty, but it's clear that it doesn't stick. These data are consistent with that impression. I'm inclined to think that a GREAT deal of time and resources are wasted. For many, college might do little more than condition students to adopt liberal values.

Oh how the country genuflects to that sacred idea--education. Unless it produces real, useful results, I say bullshit.

Tito the Builder: I've posted dozens of analyses documenting the lower average human capital among Hispanic immigrants. I keep beating that drum, not because ordinary folks who live with Latinos don't sense these kinds of things, but because all too many elites have romantic notions about this population.

Knee-jerk multiculturalists, of course, assume I'm a racist and that I want no Hispanics to live in the country. Hispanic citizens enjoy every right I have, and are just as much an American as I am. Admission to this country should be based on an individual's ability to make the country a better one.

A recent example of this is Tito the Builder. An immigrant from Colombia, he's worked hard and now owns a construction company. As a partisan, I'm also glad to see that he's a conservative--the politics that productive people who are comfortable with traditional America often adopt.

Now, some reader will probably find something that makes Tito look bad, but I only use him as a symbol of what I am talking about. I couldn't care less that a man is brown, or that he speaks Spanish at home. I do care that he makes a net contribution to society, and I do care that he's not the type to tear down what I value about America.

I can already see the black narrative forming: Racist White America was overcome by black determination at the polls. Those 50% of whites who voted for Obama conveniently do not exist.

Hispanic Americans are fatter than the rest of us (and we're fat as hell): I examined 2002 Behavioral Risk Factors Surveillance System data on 247,964 Americans. Here are mean Body Mass Indexes by Hispanic ethnicity:


Mean Body Mass Index

Hispanics 3248.95
Non-Hispanics 2992.84

(I wasn't able to figure out why their index is different from the one that ranges from the teens to the thirties). Adjusting for height, Hispanics are heavier than others, and the difference is about one-sixth of a standard deviation.

As everyone knows, obesity is associated with a long list of health problems, not to mention eye pollution. Mass immigration from the south is making us a less healthy society.

The mystery of Obama X is finally getting unravelled: I read Steve Sailer's blog every day. He's written an awful lot about Obama for like a year and a half, so how it is that I could not put down his new book, America's Half-Blood Prince: Barack Obama's Story of Race and Inheritance?

I'm not going to give you the details. You need to read the book. But I will say that the presidential candidate I've seen on TV and read about in the newspaper for the past two years is NOT the man who wrote Dreams From My Father in 1995. I simply don't recognize the man Steve describes. But the crazy thing is that the author spends most of his time simply putting Obama's abstruse memoir into plain language. The book is not arm-chair speculation; it's a translation.

The man who wrote Dreams is a race man. He lives and breathes to advance the interests of the black race. A literary Louis Farrakhan. Either Obama has undergone a Malcolm X-like transformation in the past few years, or he is a hustler like we've never seen among politicians.

I kept thinking as I was reading, "Almost 500 pages of race obsession in Dreams, and the Republicans can't make anything of it?" Why try to make an association with Ayers or Khalidi stick when it's much, much more effective to associate Obama 2008 with Obama 1995?

Sure, Obama uses convoluted language, but you can string phrases together, or as I teach my students: paraphrase. For example, Obama said the Nation of Islam is not the way for blacks to go only because it's not practical. It's not wrong to hate whites? Not wrong to hate Jews? Not wrong to believe that only blacks matter? Not wrong to believe that whites are the creation of an evil scientist--hairy-assed, blue-eyed devils?

Now, it might sound like Steve's book is a simple retelling of Obama's life. That alone would be an important contribution since most people are totally ignorant about the basic facts. But Prince is much more. I was surprised that the author turned it into a work chock full of psychological insights about the probable future POTUS. I pray to God that Obama is not going to work out his personal hang-ups on us, the American public.

Steve himself says the book might not have much influence on the public because it's too intellectual. I'm not going to inventory all the gems for you. Get off your butt and get the book yourself here.

And make a generous donation, dammit!

Dick Morris--good strategist that he is--says McCain is making a mistake to not run Reverend Wright ads this last week. He suggests we donate to this PAC. As we near the election, I've noticed that Obama has been turning up his black-speak at rallies. At this rate, by January it will be increasingly difficult to recognize the difference from his voice and Wright's. You want to listen to THAT for four years? Open that wallet.

Who's comfortable with genetically modified foods?

The General Social Survey asked 900 people their view about eating foods that have been genetically modified (GM). Results are shown in the graphs. People with extreme political views are move likely to refuse to eat this kind of food, as are the less educated and less intelligent.

From what I have read, GM foods are perfectly safe. These findings surprise me a bit: My impression was that whiterpeople types and a lot of Europeans are opposed to this practice, and while there are a lot of extreme liberals who won't eat GM food according to the top graph, the overall pattern shows that smart, educated people tend to be more comfortable with it.

Religiosity vs. brand of Christianity: The General Social Survey asked white Christians about their brand of religion--fundamentalist, moderate, or liberal--their frequency of church attendance, and their choice of presidential candidate in 2004. Here are the results of voting for Bush regressed on the other two variables :


OLS unstandardized coefficients, N = 1,838

Liberal vs. fundamentalist -.098
Moderate vs. fundamentalist -.109
Frequency of church attendance .022
Constant 1.66

(all effects are statistically signficant at the .05 level, two-tail test)

So how are these numbers interpreted? Let's do it this way. The model can be used to predict the percentage who voted for Bush, given a set of characteristics. Here are four combinations:


Predicted percent voting for Bush

Fundamentalist, never attends 66.0
Fundemantalist, attends more than weekly 83.6
Liberal, never attends 56.3
Liberal, attends more than weekly 73.8

A fundamentalist Christian who never goes to church was less likely to vote for Bush than a liberal Christian who goes all the time.

There is much attention paid to the fundamentalist streak among Republicans, but less attention paid to the fact that many who vote Republican are moderate or liberal Christians who are serious about their religion. As is usually the case with religion, behavior is more important than status: whether you are fundamentalist are not is not as important as how devoted you are to your particular brand of Christianity.

Fundamentalists are a minority of Christian Republicans. To be precise, 62.2% of Christians who voted for Bush in 2004 were moderate or liberal believers.

Prepare yourselves for Obamamerica... and value the police like I do: This is a pretty good piece on the election polls. It shows that the variation among poll estimates is larger than in 2004, and the simple explanation for it is that pollsters have differing sampling methodologies based on assumptions about who is going to turn out to vote.

It looks like those who expect a really big turnout from folks likely to vote for Obama are generating a large Obama/McCain gap; those with more conservative methodologies show a somewhat tighter race.

All polls show Obama ahead, and if we go by the two polls that were closest in 2004 (at least those I am familiar with)--Investors Business Daily and Rasmussen--Obama is ahead by 4 or 8 points, respectively. The probability is very high that Obama will win. Go out and vote, anyway, all you Republicans, but you'd better start asking yourselves today how you need to change to win next time around.

Let me offer a first suggestion: return to the conservative view that people are inclined to be naughty and therefore need to be policed. Government stinks at most things, but it is pretty good at cracking heads with night sticks. And nobody needs the occasional crack on the head more than our economic elites.

Libertarian, schmibertarian. I, for one, am pro-police. The irony was intensely rich when I saw anarchist Bill Ayers on Fox News yesterday calling the frigging police to get protection from those oh so scary journalists. The guy who tried to kill NYC police officers. Truly rich.

Those Chicago cops should have cracked Billy Boy on the head.

Whites most likely to defend themselves with a gun: The National Crime Vimization Survey (1992-2005) asked 4,030 crime victims if they did anything to resist the attack. Only 1.1% fought back by threatening or attacking the offender with a gun. What is the racial breakdown of the resisters? 84% were white, 7% were black, 7% were Hispanic, and 2% were Asian. This is consistent with the white emphasis on self-reliance.

I'm considered a bigot because I want illegals who are often poor and uneducated deported out of the country. In this they are deprived only of a nicer place to live. Liberals consider themselves enlightened and compassionate because they encourage the poor and uneducated to deport their babies from the womb. In this the babies are deprived only of their lives.

Look into early voting folks--no lines, it's cool.

I proudly cast my vote today for Mr. Patrick J. Buchanan. He's such a stud, he can serve as his own vice-president. He sends the exact right message: abortion sucks, mass immigration blows, and American empire can bite me.

IQ and voting

Silly me--I forgot in my earlier analysis to include IQ as a predictor of voting. The above graph shows the percentages of people who voted in 2004 by IQ. Amazing--95.8% of the highest category voted. Even if a few smarties are lying, it's still impressive.

Also, you gotta love all those folks with IQs of 56 who voted.

I rarely get blog e-mails so I sometimes go for months without remembering to check for them. Now I see that a number of people sent me something, so I will try to get back to everyone soon. Sorry about that.

While I'm at it, you never know when the black hats are going to come and get me, and I might have to take down my blog in order to keep my job. If you send me an e-mail, I can keep a list and send out my data analyses in place of a blog.

3,200 professors have signed a pro-Ayers petition. And you wonder why I get so pissed off at liberals? I have to work with these idiots every day. The Steveosphere is one place that takes intelligence seriously, but my work environment reminds me on a daily basis that IQ ain't everything.

And this "Ayers is a leading education scholar" is nonsense. I knew of Ayers years ago, but as a terrorist, not a serious scholar. I've never run across his work on education or juvenile justice in anything I've ever read. That's probably because I stick to serious, quantitative research, not Marxist drivel.

(By the way, "education scholar" is an oxymoron.)

Likelihood of voting favors Republicans: I'm interested in how the likelihood of voting varies across groups. From highest to lowest, here are the percentages of Americans who voted for president in 2004, according to the Census:


Percent who voted in 2004

White males 65-74 73.9
White males 75+ 72.8
White females 65-74 71.0
White females 45-64 69.9
Black males 65-74 68.2

White males 45-64 67.4
White females 75+ 65.6
Black females 45-64 65.3
Black females 65-74 64.9
Black males 75+ 62.4

Black females 75+ 60.2
Black males 45-64 59.2
Black females 25-44 58.9
White females 25-44 56.9
White males 25-44 51.2

Black females 18-24 48.7
Black males 25-44 48.0
White females 18-24 45.5
White males 18-24 39.8
Black males 18-24 39.0


You can see that age is the biggest factor: the elderly are much more likely to vote. Race and gender are less important. More women vote at young ages, but more men do at older ages.

I estimated OLS coefficients where the dependent variable is voting in 2004, and a number of predictors are included (General Social Survey data):


Standardized OLS coefficients, N = 2,349

Education .28*
Church attendance .18*
Age .14*
Income .05*
Sex .03
Political orientation .02
Race .01

* p < 05, two-tail

The person who is most likely to vote: educated, frequent churchgoer, older, and higher income. These factors favor Republicans. Not so sure about the educated? Here are the percentages for 2004:

Voted for Bush in 2004

Less than high school 41.6
High school 49.7
Junior college 52.1
Bachelors 54.5
Grad 39.0

The pattern holds for the lowest four categories, with post-baccalaureates being the exception.

The ongoing race freakout: Pat Buchanan, as usual, gets it right. This time, on Powell's stab in the back. I never particularly liked the general, and he showed Sunday that he is a consummate, opportunistic politician like his buddy Obama. I think he is bored and looking for a job offer.

But the reason I post this is that I watched Sunday as some woman pundit on MSNBC told Pat that it was beneath him to suggest that race was a factor in Powell's decision. She almost passed out, his words were so shocking.

Here is Powell's answer to the race question posed by Brokaw:

"If I had only had that in mind, I could have done this six, eight, 10 months ago. I really have been going back and forth between somebody I have the highest respect and regard for, John McCain, and somebody I was getting to know, Barack Obama. And it was only in the last couple of months that I settled on this. And I can't deny that it will be a historic event for an African-American to become president. And should that happen, all Americans should be proud--not just African-Americans, but all Americans--that we have reached this point in our national history where such a thing could happen. It will also not only electrify our country, I think it'll electrify the world."

This is a roundabout way of saying that Powell can't deny that race is one factor. The black pundit, Juan Williams, said on Fox that of course race was a factor. It's simply a fact, but the woman's response shows the race hysteria among whites that I frequently complain about. This ongoing race freakout is a HUGE problem, and it destroys our ability to deal with so many problems.

Let's compromise on abortion: Readers of this blog know that I'm pro-life, but then again, so is Barack Obama. As recently as the last debate, he said that he's not for abortion--nobody is.

So, in the spirit of bipartisanship, let's work together find ways to reduce this problem. Let's do it this way: each side can offer up one idea, and we can next find out how effective the idea is.

You first. Expand public support of birth control for needy women, you say? Great, I'm all for the maximum use of contraceptives as a way to lower the abortion rate. So how effective is it? Well, using Guttmacher data for all 50 states, I calculated the correlation between the percent of needy women getting their birth control paid for by the state and the rate of abortion. It's -.22 (not statistically significant at the .05 level). Not very impressive, but hey, better than nothing (maybe).

Now my idea. Shrink, or at least do not increase, the number of counties around the country with abortion clinics. How much of a difference would this make? The correlation across all 50 states is .68. Much more impressive--it explains almost half of the variance--which is not surprising since it is a conservative idea, but let's not try to score points here. Let's hold hands on this one and do both ideas.

More on Native Alaskan crime: In an earlier post, I provided evidence that Native Alaskans are much more criminal than their white counterparts who, in turn, have crime rates somewhat higher than whites in the lower 48 states. American Indians (AIs), by contrast, are not arrested much more often than whites.

Some readers suggested that native Alaskans are not more criminally prone than AIs; rather, many crimes committed by AIs do not result in an arrest because the law is underenforced on reservations.

The General Social Survey asked thousands of Americans if they have ever been threatened or shot at with a gun. I define as American Indian those people who say their primary ethnicity is Indian and that their race is non-white (in order to eliminate whites who say their main ethnicity is AI). Here the percentages:


Percent having ever been threatened or shot at with a gun

American Indians 18.1
Whites 18.7
Blacks 25.2

I'm assuming that most attacks are intra-racial. (The white offense rate is probably lower since the National Crime Victimization Survey indicates that a substantial share of attacks on whites are perpetrated by blacks. This should not be the case with the more rural and segregated American Indians.) These numbers indicate that gun violence is not higher--or not much higher--among AIs than among whites. This pattern is consistent with arrest statistics.

So native Alaskans still look much more violent than Native Americans.

Here is a liberal exemplified. You remember Arthur Miller, the leftie playwright who wrote about the cruelties of the American way of life. Oh, how everyone loved him for his sensitivity.

Now I read this: "A few months ago Vanity Fair ran an article about the discovery that the playwright Arthur Miller, with his third wife, the photographer Inge Morath, 40 or so years ago had a Down syndrome son. Miller promptly clapped the boy into an institution--according to the article, not a first class one either--and never saw the child again."

Typical. All the sensitivity amounts to status manuevering.

Actually, it's pretty smart. He got into Marilyn's bed.