You know the world is getting weird when I agree (mostly) with Ross Douthat.

He doesn’t touch on it much (perhaps just for reasons of fixed column length) but as I’ve been pounding on here, desiring to live in a community of people similar to you isn’t racist. It’s just human nature. (I personally believe that this is fairly immutable, too, save large genome-level changes.)

This is apart from the neoliberal reasons of desiring high immigration, which is to depress wages and to distress society so other alterations can be made.

Yes, yes, I know — economists pull out fancy charts and graphs showing that “immigration doesn’t depress wages” and that “outsourcing jobs via NAFTA has no effect.” Have you ever examined these numbers? Really deeply looked at them, read the papers and parsed through their data analyses? I have, to the extent of my abilities.

And to a one, they are massaged to show exactly what the people directly or indirectly paying those economists’ salaries wish them to demonstrate. Economics is the most political academic field there is by far, and politics runs on money. And money directed this way distorts and corrupts everything.

But mostly agreeing with Douthat. Damn. Politics really is getting weird.

The 1,300mph+ wind speeds on Neptune are due to the nearly-frictionless environment caused by the extreme cold of the planet. Don’t need much energy when you’ve got little resistance.

Quantum theory makes a whole lot more sense if you just go ahead and think of everything as a field.

The majority of our non-industrial economy has emerged from a few US government programs funded from the late 1950s up through the early 1980s. And funded with not even that much money, comparatively.

Think about the implications of that. They are rather broad and disheartening — and not because the “evil government” did something, but rather we show no inclination to do something similar today.

If you support Clinton (I don’t, nor Trump), another reason to worry about Clinton’s campaign and her possibility of winning is that she offers no vision for the future, but rather consequences: if you don’t vote for me, Trump will win and things will be even worse than if I win!

The same problem that the “Remain” option for Brexit.

Trump offers some vision for the future, even if it’s bullshit (and even many of his supporters know it’s bullshit but will vote for him anyway).

Clinton is a terrible, terrible campaigner with two left feet and a tin ear. So this is not surprising. As always, her biggest enemy is herself.*

*Many if not most of her strange actions and reactions have been caused by the persistent misogyny directed against her and her daughter over the years.

Please Stop Marrying Fictional Characters to People They Met as Children, It’s Creepy.

There is a point there. However, in works it’s more the need for narrative parsimony and plain authorial laziness.

But…one can tell the writer of the piece has never lived in a small town. Where I grew up (Lake City, FL, for the curious) about 20-30% of the people married someone they’d known since kindergarten.

So yeah. Happens still in the real world. All the damn time.

Just not in large urban areas where more people move around frequently.

If I’d stayed in that town, might’ve been me too.