Choosing Practicality

The College Fix reports results of a study by the National Association of Colleges and Employers, looking at the extent to which new college grads from the class of 2020 have found appropriate post-graduation employment. Roughly half have not. 

Long-time readers know I’ve harped on “choice of major” as a key factor in getting a job after graduation. The article concludes with this paragraph.

The report also notes that graduates in engineering, engineering technology, health sciences, business, and computer science fared best in securing a full-time job within six months of graduation, which is consistent with previous years.

Yep, STEM, computers and business are solid, and health care is particularly timely in a plague year. It was a big part of what I liked about being a business prof. My students got jobs, made a living, and paid the taxes that paid my salary, I was part of a “virtuous circle.” Hat tip to Instapundit for the link.

Cut ‘em Out, Ride ‘em In

On Saturday I wrote about the United Van Lines survey of states gaining and losing population as our internal population shifts happen. At that time I noted that moving companies are expensive and we should also hear what U-Haul has to say about internal migration to see what younger, less affluent migrants were doing.

This morning comes exactly that U-Haul data, courtesy of the Issues & Insights website.

Yet another measure of the Blue State exodus is the U-Haul Growth Index, a yearly report that gauges the net number of U-Haul trucks leaving and entering a state. It’s a measure of that state’s raw emigration rate.  

This year, no surprise here, the top 5 were all Red States — Texas, Florida, South Carolina, Tennessee and Arizona. The bottom 5 included California, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and Alabama.

U-Haul also noted that the data would have looked even worse, but they literally ran out of equipment in California, so large was the demand to leave.

I can’t resist the relentless lyrics of Rawhide for titling reports about moving.

Weird Transplantation Science

Roughly a month ago I posted a link to a story about the experimental transplantation of a genetically modified pig kidney to a human recipient. Now a heart from a similarly modified pig has been transplanted into a human volunteer whose heart was failing and who was ineligible for a human transplant. The New York Post has the Associated Press story.

All such work is highly experimental at present, but if it can be perfected transplantation surgery will boom and lifespans will be extended, no small accomplishment. And, as noted earlier, bacon may be a tasty byproduct of raising organs for people. That assumes the genetic modification which makes pig organs no longer produce a particular sugar which causes organ rejection won’t also make the meat unsafe or unpalatable for consumption.

Anthropologists have reported cannibal tribes have referred to human flesh with terms that translate as “long pig.” Coincidence or insight, who knows?

Addendum

When I wrote Saturday’s post about Asian voters leaving the Democrats, there was a major factor in that I forgot to include. I write today to remedy that omission.

Affirmative action admission protocols at elite schools of higher education notoriously discriminate against Asian applicants. Without them, perhaps a third of the students at these institutions would be hard-working Asian kids.

To vote for Democrats, Asians have to be willing to overlook Democrats’ support for overtly discriminatory policies that harm Asian young people. It appears increasing numbers can’t (or won't) attempt that mental gymnastic.

Asians ... Slip Sliding Away

As we wrote five days ago, Democrats are having problems hanging onto the Hispanic vote. A major chronicler of that problem has been political scientist Ruy Teixeira.

Now Teixeira finds that Democrats are having the same problem with Asian-American voters, and for at least some of the same reasons. He writes:

1. According to Pew, Biden has lost support twice as fast among Asian voters as among whites since July.
2. In the November mayoral election in New York, once again Asian voters performed poorly for the Democrat.
3. In the November Virginia gubernatorial election, results from the AP-NORC VoteCast survey (snip) indicated that Virginia’s heavily Asian “other race” category, which gave Biden a strong 19 point advantage in 2020, slipped to a mere 6 point advantage for Democrat Terry McAuliffe in 2021. Republican Glenn Youngkin carried 46 percent of these voters in his upset victory.

Why are these voters slipping away from the Democrats? One problem is that Asians are worried about public safety and leery of a Democratic party that has become associated with “defund the police” and a soft approach to containing crime. Another is that Asians, like Hispanics, are a constituency that does not harbor particularly radical views on the nature of American society and how it must be remade to cleanse it of intrinsic racism and white supremacy, a viewpoint increasingly identified with Democrats.

Of course the prevalence of Black-on-Asian violence in urban settings and the Democrats' obsession with excusing Black crime must be considered as relevant.

Teixeira once argued that Hispanic and Asian immigration guaranteed Democratic majorities going forward. To his credit, when events proved him wrong, he changed his tune and has reported that Hispanics and now also Asians tend to identify more with Whites than with Blacks.

I hypothesize the fact Asians and Hispanics are here voluntarily, often having made major sacrifices to come, is a key factor in their lack of civil rights militancy.

Keep Those Dogies Movin’

One of the continuing stories COTTonLINE follows is the migration of Americans from high tax blue states to low tax red states. A story in today’s New York Post takes the narrative another step forward.

United Van Lines’ 45th Annual National Movers Study shows that New York, New Jersey and Connecticut were among the five states with the steepest losses. Jersey led the way with 70% of customers leaving the state compared to 30% moving in; for the Empire State (third worst, behind Illinois in second) , it was 63% out, just 37% in. The whole Northeast lost ground, as did California.

From the Post we learn the identity of the top three states losing population: NJ, IL, NY. A check of the study shows CT was number 4 and CA number 5.

In the last couple of decades has any of those states had other than a Democrat-dominated legislature? If so, it was an outlier. All 5 are high tax, high regulation states. 

Moving companies aren’t cheap, which means the UVL data is biased toward older, more affluent customers and those whose moves are paid for by their employer. Combining their data with that of trailer and truck rental firms U-Haul, Ryder and Penske would give a more nuanced view of the year’s moves by including young families and the less affluent.

Personal note: in the area of NV where we have a new winter home, many of the new residents are relocating from CA, including the owners of the houses on either side of ours.

Afterthought: Can you read the title of this post without at least subvocalizing the word "Rawhide"?

World Class Snark

World class snark at Lawrence Person’s Battleswarm Blog, hat tip to Stephen Green posting at Instapundit for the link.

The Democratic Governor of New York declaring that she’s going to make New York “the most business-friendly State in the nation” is like Danny DeVito declaring that he’s going to become an offensive lineman for the New York Jets; nothing in the rules actually forbids it, but everyone involved knows it’s not going to happen.

The legislature won't allow it, should she actually want to do more than make a ridiculous claim.

Poll: Trump in Rear-View Mirror

The Washington Examiner reports Rasmussen Reports polling showing opinions of Donald Trump are more positive today than when he left office. A year of President Biden can have that effect, many things are worse today than when Trump left office.

Meanwhile Rasmussen Reports also find few people believe Biden will be reelected in 2024.

About Yesterday

Glenn Reynolds responds approvingly to a Robert Shibley post at the Instapundit site, observing:

The worst thing a Democrat can imagine is a threat to Democrats’ political power. Islamists aren’t seen as such a threat. Meanwhile their biggest fear is that the Normal-American community will rise up and take back control of the country and its institutions. All the media censorship, charges of “white supremacy,” etc. is just designed to prevent that.

Yep, it happened in 2016 and Democrats have been absolutely foaming-at-the-mouth berserk ever since, never more so than yesterday. Hence, imbecilic comments like “the greatest threat to America is rightwing extremism.” Actually, the real “greatest threat” is the current occupant at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, him and his caregivers.

A Wrong Target

People upset with Harry Potter author J. K. Rowling over her "biological gender matters" stance are now claiming she is anti-Semitic, based on the stories' treatment of the Gringotts goblins. Perhaps there is an argument to be made, but I believe they have the wrong target in blaming Rowling.

A close reading of her books doesn't reveal much about goblins that could be read as anti-Semitic. Her goblins have some common elements with the dwarves in J. R. R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. She makes clear that while wizards use their banking skills and buy their fine metalwork, historically wizards have treated goblins badly, along with elves, centaurs, etc.

It is the filmic treatment of the Harry Potter novels that could give people the notion Rowling's goblins were an anti-Semitic dig. If someone is going to find anti-Semitism in the Potter goblins, blame the films' depiction/visualization much more than the book descriptions for giving that impression.

Full disclosure: The DrsC are longtime Potter fans. We own well-used sets of the books, the DVDs, and the audio books.

What Masks Do For Sure

Today, Power Line's Scott Johnson writes at some length citing evidence wearing a face mask does no good vis-a-vis avoiding Covid-19. Johnson's colleague Paul Mirengoff adds links which, he claims, show the opposite. I will share with you what I know from my personal experience.

The other DrC doesn't like wearing masks, though she has become somewhat accustomed to them. When masking was first a thing, roughly a year ago, she bought clear plastic face shields for both of us and we wore those for several months when shopping although not in medical offices. Most non-medical places would accept the shields in lieu of the masks.

What the DrsC learned from wearing clear plastic shields is that a human sprays a considerable quantity of tiny saliva droplets when talking, mouth breathing, etc. The droplets end up on the inside of the plastic shield, dry there, and end up looking unsightly and vaguely dirty. We'd Windex the shields when we returned home.

I believe face masks mostly protect the other people you are around, not yourself. Like the plastic shields, masks catch the micro-droplets of saliva we all shed without being aware of doing so. It is, however, true that if everyone around you also wears a mask, their masks protect you from their saliva spray.

In other words, I have no faith in masks' ability to filter inhaled air, but considerable faith in their ability to intercept the wearer's sprayed saliva droplets. I know describing this is gross, but if you believe I'm wrong, get a plastic face shield, wear it for 2-3 hours, and see for yourself how much viral-laden saliva we all shed. You'll be amazed and probably grossed-out as well.

Who Moves?

A web search finds recent reports from Florida and Texas that indicate most of the new arrivals, who’ve moved there and registered to vote, are registering Republican. This is worth considering.

There are two theories about why people are moving to Florida and Texas, two red states with big population gains. One theory holds that people move there because the jobs are there and cost of living (mostly housing) is cheaper. The other holds that they move because they are dissatisfied with the way the blue state where they formerly lived was being run.

Let’s begin by recognizing that likely there are those who move for each of those reasons. There are liberals whose companies move their headquarters to TX or FL and who, to maintain their seniority, position, etc. tag along. There are probably scores, maybe even hundreds of these reluctant transplants. 

Much more common, I imagine, are those who are unhappy with the way NY or CA is being run (seemingly “into the ground”). They have moved to a place where they will no longer be part of a disgruntled and politically impotent minority. 

I understand the concerns which prompted Instapundit Glenn Reynolds to advocate something like “Welcome Wagon” for new red state arrivals, reminding them not to vote for those who advocate the policies they didn’t like back home. I understand but wonder if perhaps it is unnecessary. A fair amount of anecdotal+ evidence suggests it may be unneeded for the second group, and ineffective for the first, reluctant group.

A Restatement

Today is an anniversary, of sorts, and the Democrats will not let us move on without commemorating it. I don’t obsess about it here at COTTonLINE, but it is perhaps worth restating the conclusions I have drawn about the Capitol riot.

In a nation where privately owned firearms are so prevalent that they may outnumber our population, a serious insurrection would have featured lots of gunfire. As far as I am able to determine, the only shots one year ago at the Capitol were fired by the defending Capitol police, killing unarmed Ashli Babbitt.

Therefore what occurred was not a serious attempt to overthrow the government. It was a group of angry, rowdy people misbehaving, making their anger known in unlawful ways. It is something that occurs from time to time in this country, and we have laws and penalties to deal with it. 

The Capitol Police were unaccustomed to this level of kinetic discontent - psychologically unprepared - and it showed in their actions. Unlike big city/urban law enforcement, most of their activities most of the time are not unlike those of building security rent-a-cops, more for display than for action.

It suits Democrats’ motives to make a big deal out of remembering the Jan. 6 riot, so take their “big deal” for what it’s worth - a political act by largely corrupt people. It likewise suits Democrats’ motives not to make a big deal out of BLM/Antifa riots which were far more violent and destructive. Gotta love Democrat hypocrisy.

Afterthought: Making sure an election held in unusual times runs clean is something you do before and while the ballots are cast, not afterwards. Much of President Trump’s post-November, 2020, behavior hasn’t been classy.  

Trump bears some indirect responsibility for the Jan. 6 riot.  He took a successful presidency and besmirched it while a lame duck. If he’s the party nominee in 2024 I’ll support him; however I’d prefer someone with the same program but without the “I wuz robbed” baggage, someone like FL Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Our Thomas Paine

Michael Anton is the Thomas Paine of our times. He is an impassioned neo-pamphleteer on behalf of what conservatives believe is the essential America. His style is very much “take no prisoners” and “damn the redcoats,” although the enemy’s color this time around happens to be blue.

Writing for The American Mind from the Claremont Institute, he points out that blue America cannot permit red America to continue to exist. The “blue view” Anton describes is very much in the flavor of the repudiated-in-1965 Roman Catholic doctrine Error non habet ius, “error has no rights.”  He observes:

Part of the practical point seems to be to distinguish what John Derbyshire calls goodwhites from badwhites. Only the latter are infected with “whiteness,” or at least refuse to repudiate it. The former, though still white, feel sufficiently guilty about that and are eager to be good “allies” by making amends.

But none of this matters for present purposes. The point under consideration is: what do badwhites hear? What’s the message of “Critical Race Theory”—which, as we know, (a) doesn’t exist, (b) is only the routine teaching of accurate history, and (c) is absolutely crucial to fairness and justice in contemporary education?

Here’s what they hear: you (and your children) are evil because of your race, because of what your ancestors did or are alleged to have done—and for what you have done and continue to do. Even if you think you’re innocent, at the very least you benefit from a system designed to help you unfairly at the expense of others. And, let’s face it, you’re not innocent. You may not be able to name your specific sins—the guilty always insist they’re innocent—but just ask us; we’ll tell you. There’s no way for you or your progeny to escape this guilt or discharge your debt. You earned none of what you have. Everything you believe you or your ancestors built, you didn’t. Either that, or your “accomplishments” are merely cogs in an oppressive system and must be entirely remade. Your heroes were in fact villains. Their statues must come down and anything memorializing them renamed. There is nothing in your past of which to be proud, only ashamed. Your proper place in the new order is one of permanent penance and subservience. And your refusal to confess is further evidence of your guilt.

Somewhere the ghosts of Torquemada and his fellow inquisitors nod approvingly. They’ve heard this blues song before, they know the lyrics: error has no rights, it must be extirpated.

Religious Exemptions?

Writing in The Federalist, Jay Richards criticizes the military for denying service members religious exemption from the Covid vaccine. He argues that doing so interferes with the First Amendment rights of Roman Catholics and others opposed on religious grounds to any and all abortions, since the vaccines were tested on aborted fetal tissue. 

On the other hand, service in the military is not an inalienable right. For example, we do not permit pacifists to serve, those who refuse to use force to defend themselves and the nation. 

Military service makes demands on, and requires obedience from, its members. These demands sometimes contravene the dogma of this or that religious belief and interfere with constitutionally protected rights. It demands sacrifices members of the all-volunteer military choose to make willingly, or they find another line of work. 

The military observes most of its members who are Catholic have been vaccinated, as required. Thus it finds the refusal of the relatively small number claiming religious exemption to be disingenuous and likely based on something other than demands of faith. In this case I side with the military, which needs healthy troops.

The Hispanic Vote

A. B. Stoddard is no particular friend of Republicans, although an associate editor at RealClearPolitics. Today she writes that Democrats have real trouble with the Hispanic part of their coalition. Some key quotes:

Biden won 750,000 fewer Hispanic voters in 2020 than Hillary Clinton did in 2016.

Biden’s approval ratings are awful across the board, but his support has eroded more among Hispanic voters than with any other racial group. A poll from December showed his approve/disapprove numbers with Hispanic voters were 33/65, a net -32, while they were 40/56 with whites, a net of -16.

Ruy Teixeira, a political scientist who has studied emerging trends in the Hispanic electorate, wrote in “The Liberal Patriot” that these voters do “not harbor particularly radical views on the nature of American society and its supposed intrinsic racism and white supremacy. They are instead a patriotic, upwardly mobile, working class group with quite practical and down to earth concerns.”

Hispanic Americans are not woke, and many do not consider themselves non-white.

Overwhelmingly, Hispanics made a choice to come to the U.S., and another to stay here once they arrived.  Most are not angry people, not resentful, and not bitter about their adopted country. They are (dare I say it?) assimilating. I wouldn’t be surprised if they hear Democrats’ talk about “racism” as pandering to Blacks, at the expense of Hispanics.

As I’ve written before, where I grew up in rural SoCal the family across the street were Mexican-Americans. Their house was as nice as ours, their cars were newer than ours, and they were thoroughly middle-class.

A Bad Report Card

Writing at The Hill, Joe Concha does a report card on the Biden administration's 2021. Concha grades its performance on four key factors, I've omitted the justifications he gives for each.

2021 grade on the economy/inflation: D
2021 grade on crime: D
2021 grade on COVID-19: C
2021 grade on the border/immigration: F

Personally, I believe Concha was overly generous. In my eyes, Biden has actively made the economy worse, done nothing about the crime spree, and engaged in massive blame-shifting on Covid, before eventually throwing up his hands.

Biden is on track to make the meh Obama years look not so bad by comparison. He might even surpass the grim Carter years.

Transformational Trump

Writing for Politico, Derek Robertson gets his mea culpa out of the way in the title of his article.

I Predicted the Culture Wars Would End in 2021. Oops.

What follows is his “process” observation.

Although probably not for the reasons he intended, history will deem Trump a transformational president. In breaking a taboo which other politicians had mutually agreed to leave alone, he gave Republicans a powerful political tool — and by doing so, ensured the caustic, divisive cultural politics that defined his presidency would long outlive it.

And you’ll like his punchline-style conclusion.

Trumpian cultural politics are … just the way we live.

Trump understood Republicans were tired of being “nice” Romney-style losers pushing “cool” technical issues, and intuited “hot” cultural issues were how to win.

Politics 101

You see articles like this one raining on Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and, in this particular case, claiming he has "no shame" for opposing passage of the Build Back Better monstrosity. I beg to differ.

Joe Manchin finds himself, nominally a Democrat, representing a state which votes Republican most of the time. In 2020 they cast twice as many votes for Trump as for Biden. 

The first (some would say "only") law of politics is "Get Reelected." Is it any wonder Manchin acts like a Republican most of the time? He represents his state and hopes WV voters will overlook his party label come Election Day.

The Rose Parade

The existence of DVRs allows recording on-air TV for later viewing. The system we have at our new winter place can record two different programs simultaneously. 

This morning's 133rd Rose Parade in Pasadena was shown on two networks locally, ABC and NBC. We recorded both for later watching and have now watched both, first ABC and then NBC. It is rare to see two networks record the exact same event, and it makes possible something semi-rare - a directly comparison of how each treats the subject.

We watched both with the sound off, having heard over the years entirely too much blather about the poppy seeds and other botanicals used alongside flowers to decorate floats. Muted you miss the marching band music but the band audio is poor anyway. 

NBC simply did a much better job than ABC of parade coverage. They showed us more floats, more equestrian units, as many marching bands, and the same musical numbers which began and ended the parade. And NBC had better camera angles of the things they both covered. BTW, was it important for Leann Rimes to look in pain throughout her entire number, it seems odd staging?

ABC spent too much time with the commentators' faces on-camera, NBC kept the parade front and center. Both showed plenty of commercials but with the DVR's fast forward function you don't have to watch them. 

The Rose Parade isn't something I'd want to watch every day or every week. Once a year I like it a lot, we saw it in person in 1980. It is better on TV, watched in our PJs under a cozy blanket.