Cars have gotten much much safer for the last 50 years or longer: On the other hand, pedestrian fatality rates, after dropping for decades, suddenly reversed course about 15 years ago: What could have caused this sharp reversal? Here’s one theory: »
Yesterday the University of Wisconsin released the results of a student survey on campus free expression issues taken on all of its campuses, and many of the results demonstrate that the censoriousness to typical of campuses today is driven largely by students who classify themselves as “very liberal.” Here are a few of the charts displaying this problem most vividly: College administrators could end cancel culture in a stroke if »
Matthew Arnold’s most famous verse from “Dover Beach” laments the ebbing of Christian faith in Europe: The Sea of Faith Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled. But now I only hear Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar, Retreating, to the breath Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear And naked shingles of the world. Here’s a snapshot »
I’ve wondered for a long time why westerns declined so precipitously in film, along with musicals (though both have their occasional breakthrough exceptions), and it seems that they have been replaced by horror and thriller films. It is also apparent that comedy has been the most durable genre for almost a full century. I wonder if fantasy films will begin a slow decline. The latest Marvel-style superhero movies don’t seem to »
Our last two Daily Charts have noted that liberals are intolerant. Let’s keep going with this theme, and note that liberals are generally unhappy people (with liberal women being the most unhappy cohort), which is one reason leftists are determined to make your life less pleasant. »
This serves as a sequel to yesterday’s daily chart on how race-obsessed liberals self-report having fewer black friends than moderates or conservatives, which figures. Meanwhile, guess which demographic is quickest to “unfriend” or block people on social media because their political views don’t match? Chaser: Over 50% Of Liberal, White Women Under 30 Have A Mental Health Issue Conservatives label younger liberal generations as snowflakes or as having Trump derangement »
Everyone of a certain age can remember the cliche from the 1960s that “some of my best friends are black.” According to this Pew data, the people this statement is least likely to describe are liberals. This may help explain this: »
It has long been noted that the obsession with “diversity” in our colleges and universities does not extend to diversity of thought or political opinion. The Harvard Crimson surveyed the faculty, and found out that the number of Harvard faculty who identify themselves as “conservative/very conservative” is practically a rounding error (1.46% conservative versus 79.7% liberal). Perhaps faculty responding to an anonymous survey lie about their ideology, but shouldn’t that »
China recently announced that its population fell last year for the first time in 75 years, and is expected to fall sharply in the coming decades. India will soon to pass up China as the largest national population in the world. China’s demographic decline may already be having a negative effect on its economic growth, which was already starting to decline before COVID disrupted everything. »
We’re reported before on the decline of academic history departments, with majors, student course enrollment, and the number of history professorships all plummeting over the last 15 years. The charts below, brought to my attention by John Sailer at the National Association of Scholars, shows the changing emphasis in the field. Pretty easy to spot what is trendy—and almost certainly ideological in most cases. »
It is orthodoxy at least within the feminist left, and probably many other segments of the left that run our East German universities, that what ails women is The Patriarchy.TM But if so, why are men falling so far and fast behind women in every level of higher education today? Seems more likely we have slowly succumbed to The Matriarchy. »
This is a striking series—the IQ of college graduates appears to be steadily dropping. Pay special attention to the two right clusters, which show that the IQ of undergraduate degree earners is barely higher than high school graduates in the 1960s. High school IQ appears to have held steady starting in the 1980s, after two decades of ruining K-12 standards, while steady and continuing college decline may be the result »
We’ve mentioned the “birth dearth” here before, but here’s an interesting take on the effect of land use regulation that tends to drive up housing costs, and therefore slows family formation: Turns out a close look at car seat regulations for small children have the same effect. »
The White House likes to claim happy days are here again because wages keep rising! Any sensible person will look at real wages, that is wage growth adjusted by inflation. When you do this elementary thing, the wage trend looks like this: How long until Biden or Karine Jean-Paul Sartre Pierre-Paul give up a reprise of Saturday Night Live from back when it was funny—during the Carter years: »
Naturally the Washington Post knows with certainty what the current heavy rain spell in California means: California’s weather is what climate change looks like . . .[T]he whipsaw experienced in California offers a preview of what scientists figure climate change will look like. So once again we see the unfalsifiability of climate “science”: If there’s drought in California, it’s climate change! If there are heavy rains in California, it’s climate »
I know it is illegal in many states to own a ferret, but I hadn’t realized the extent of kangaroo ownership prohibition. What if a kangaroo is my emotional support animal for airplane flights? It is time to decriminalize kangaroo ownership if you ask me, though I am sure John Hinderaker will disagree (if you know this story from his ill-fated visit to Australia once upon a time). JOHN explains: »
This first chart shows that total border crossings are jumping up even higher than the first two disgraceful years of Biden’s effectively open border policy: And here are the very long term immigration trends from the Census Bureau: Second, there has long been controversy about whether illegal immigrants, who are mostly low-skill, low-wage workers, are a net drain on public expenses. Here are the estimates of the Heritage Foundation with »
“Arise and take our stand for freedom as in the olden time.” Winston Churchill
“Proclaim Liberty throughout All the land unto All the Inhabitants Thereof.” Inscription on the Liberty Bell
