I’m reading lots of breathless predictions these days. Putin is on his way out. Russia is on the verge of collapse. The Ukrainians will retake Crimea.

I don’t know if any of them are true or even credible. I do think that, if Ukraine retakes Crimea, Putin will be out and Russia will collapse into multiple squabbling land-locked statelets.

Sevastopol is practically Russia’s only deep water warm water port. Without it Russia will be crippled—that’s why Russia moved to take it in 2014.

I don’t know about any of these predictions. I do think that nuclear war is about as likely as Ukraine retaking Sevastopol.

The flood plain of the Mississippi has some of the most fertile, easiest to till land in the country. People build there for because it’s desirable.

But there are risks as well. The Mississippi floods. Sometimes it floods a lot; sometimes just a little. You never know.

When you subsidize building in the flood plain, that is to say when the federal government provides flood insurance at less than the cost that would be demanded by private companies, it encourages people to build in the flood plain.

That isn’t fair. Practically by definition those who don’t build in the flood plain are subsidizing those who do.

I wanted to take note of Sean Trende’s interesting analysis of the prospects for the midterm elections at RealClearPolitics. The graphic above, illustrating Joe Biden’s vote share by Congressional district in the 2020 general election, was “sampled” from that post.

The vertical red line illustrates Mr. Biden’s percentage of votes received nationally. Note the “significant valley right at the national average”. What that tells us is that in the districts Biden won he won by considerably more than his national average and in the districts he lost he lost by considerably more. Shorter: the districts are polarized. That’s a consequence of gerrymandering, both by Republicans and Democrats.

Here’s a telling quote:

But one consequence in the near-elimination of swing districts is that there are substantial “levies” on either side of the valley. The levy on the Democrats’ side is particularly steep. So in a universe where Republicans win the popular vote by four points, sweeping all of the districts that Biden won with 54% of the vote or less, the levy would break and the Republican majority would jump from 232 seats to 245 seats. Winning by six points leads to smaller gains as we work down the other side of the levy, leading to a majority of 252 seats. Of course, these are approximations; Republicans would probably win some seats beyond Biden +10 and lose some where Biden performed worse in this scenario. This is just to illustrate how the playing field works.

There’s a similar “levy” on the Republican side as well, although the slope is much gentler. Recall that sweeping the districts that were 52% Biden or less yields 224 seats, while sweeping those that were 51% Biden or less yields 219 seats. Winning the 50%-Biden-or-less seats would give Republicans 206 seats. If the cutpoint were 49% Biden or less, Republicans would win 198 seats. Note the asymmetry. Even with a cutpoint of 47% Biden or less, Republicans would get 191 seats to the Democrats’ 244. In other words, because of the different placements of their levies, Republicans could lose the popular vote by around ten points and have more seats than Democrats would have if Republicans won the popular vote by six points.

I found that an interesting analysis.

As I have been saying for some time the number of people entering the United States illegally is not limited to the “encounters” reported by Border Patrol. Those are high—roughly 250,000 per month but they don’t tell the whole story. In addition there are the “gotaways”, individuals who are detected by video or other means as alluded to in this story at PR Newswire. Those are estimated at an additional 50,000 per month.

Then there are those who enter the country and are neither “encountered” nor otherwise detected. We have no idea how many fit into that classification. The number of encounters plus “gotaways”, roughly 300,000 individuals per month, is a floor not a ceiling.

Contrary to the views of some coming into the U. S. illegally is not a victimless crime—it has wide-ranging run-on effects both in the U. S. and Mexico and other countries sending their people here.

Here much of the burden of illegal immigration falls on immigrants already here and native-born individuals trying to get into the labor market, particularly inner city blacks in the form of lower wages. It also changes the mix of work done here, providing an effective subsidy to hand work in agriculture, hospitality, construction, and other sectors. IMO we would be better off automating those jobs or not doing them here at all.

Paying coyotes for their human trafficking provides billions to criminal gangs in Mexico. Those gangs are now so powerful they are a threat to Mexican authorities. It also finances those gangs’ other activities including drug and arms smuggling.

When Western writers declaim about the dire necessity of “regime change” in Russia, they generally mean that they think that Putin has to go. I wonder what makes them think that any foreseeable Russian leader will do things differently than Putin has?

Not only do I think that any foreseeable Russian leader would do most of the things that Putin has, I think that no foreseeable change of government in Russia will result in a truly different regime in Russia. In the light of that when they say “regime change” I hear “Russia has to go”. I wonder how they plan to accomplish that.

It all reminds me of the old story about the reaction of the optimistic child to the bucket of manure he had received—he kept searching because he just knew there must be a pony in there somewhere. There just must be liberal democrats in Russia longing for that liberal democratic Russian government they imagine.

It’s roughly a month until the 2022 midterms which will decide the composition of the House and Senate for the remaining two years of President Biden’s first term. At present the prevailing wisdom is that Republicans will take the House but Democrats will retain the Senate.

We don’t actually know what the outcome will be and won’t until after election day. We may not know until a month after election day if there are run-offs. President Biden is in considerably better shape now than he was a couple of months ago. His approval rating remains weak but it’s a lot better than it was a couple of months ago. It’s not in the danger zone. If that holds until election day the Democrats may not fare as badly as they feared.

Here in Illinois Democrats are running on abortion and practically nothing else. The cynical might say that was because they have nothing else to run on. I think it’s more likely that polling tells them that running on abortion brings out the part of the base most likely not just to vote but to vote the way they want them to.

I have been collecting a long list of incorrect scientific (or pseudo-scientific) claims. I’m going to publish some of them here. Maybe this will become a regular feature.

For most of human history “old age” meant anyone over 30.

That is true for the last 10,000 years but during the Upper Paleolithic, say 30,000 ago, it was not true. There were actually quite a few people who lived to be older than 30. Although horticulture and then agriculture allowed human populations to increase, it also resulted in modern humans becoming shorter and having shorter lifespans. In all likelihood the dietary changes made possible by growing things had those effects.

All people need to do to lose weight is eat less.

Again, that’s a half-truth. The sad fact is that two different people can eat effectively the same quantities and types of foods and effectively get the same amount of exercise but one will gain weight while the other will lose weight. Some people are naturally thin while others are naturally fat. It’s hard to figure out why.

I refer to (calories consumed) – (number of calories expended through exercise) = weight loss/gain as the “simple thermodynamic theory of diet”. It is false. There are more variables including body mass, muscle mass, heredity, gut biome, etc. There also seems to be something to the “set point theory”, the notion that human bodies can more easily maintain some weights than others.

That doesn’t excuse people from overeating. It may well be much harder for some people to maintain a healthy weight than others. Life is not fair.

I’m accepting nominations for other false scientific (or pseudo-scientific) claims. To be accepted nominations must be falsifiable. It’s not enough for them to be theoretically wrong or that you disagree with them.

Here’s an interesting development. The oldest living Chinese Communist Party official, Song Ping, has taken President Xi to task. From an analysis by Katsuji Nakazawa at Nikkei Asia:

In a congratulatory message for an event on Sept. 12, the centenarian said that the policy of reform and opening-up “has been the only path to the development and progress of contemporary China and the only path to the realization of the Chinese dream.”

These are words that President Xi Jinping himself spoke nearly five years ago. Song cleverly used Xi’s own words to send a message to the top leader.

Xi originally made the remark during his New Year’s address that was released on Dec. 31, 2017, marking the 40th anniversary of the introduction of the reform and opening-up policy by former leader Deng Xiaoping. But Xi has rarely repeated the remark.

More recently, Xi has switched to his own economic policies, such as “common prosperity” and “the prevention of the disorderly expansion of capital.”

Entering his third term, Xi wants to show that he has overtaken Deng in terms of achievements. It is crucial to pave the way for a fourth term and possibly being leader for life.

Song has raised a red flag. Born in 1917, even before the Chinese Communist Party was established, the centenarian has signaled that Deng’s reform and opening-up policy is to be defended at all costs.

It is an undaunted and politically dangerous move.

Read the whole thing. Here’s the conclusion:

Song’s video message was a counterattack against the party’s General Office notice.

The Xi administration’s handling of the Peng scandal, the don’t-oppose notice and Song’s public defense of reform and opening up are closely related.

Shortly, the party will hold its seventh plenary session of the party’s 19th Central Committee where final decisions on the outline of the party’s upcoming 20th Party Congress will be made. These decisions include personnel changes.

Xi took his time before making a public appearance after returning from his trip to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. He should have been busy with preparations for his final showdown with his political foes.

Song’s message, which reflects the structure of the current power struggle in China, is undoubtedly a big headache for Xi.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Mr. Song’s admonition carried considerable weight.

Rav Azora has a very good post at City Journal on what he refers to as the “culture taboo”. Here’s his peroration:

White racism cannot entirely explain a whole litany of modern-day problems facing the black community, such as academic underachievement, teen pregnancies, disproportionate homicide rates, and chronic fatherlessness. The overwhelming success of black immigrants, black women specifically, and blacks as a whole in the music industry, professional sports, and even policing suggests that black potential is not eternally doomed or reliant on rescue.

While I agree with his basic point, I think there are some other factors he might want to consider. The “modern-day problems” he talks about did not arise a century ago at the height of Jim Crow and when some of the slave generations were still living. They’ve arisen more recently, many a consequence of urbanization of the black population.

The thread that runs through those problems is poor impulse control. Kevin Drum has made a convincing argument that lead poisoning may contribute to that as well as other developmental problems in black children. As black populations flee inner cities to the collar suburbs (or farther) we may see a real life experiment on this.

Another factor is stress. Stress can raise cortisol levels which may in turn lead to poor impulse control not to mention mental illness. Children not living with their biological parents may increase their stress levels which in turn can reduce their impulse control. It become self-reinforcing. Bullets whizzing by your head in your home and classmates getting murdered has a way of increasing one’s stress level. Again it’s a vicious cycle.

I don’t think the solution to that cycle is the abolition of cash bail. I think it’s demanding higher standards of behavior and better law enforcement in the black community. Don’t patronize black people. They’re not being forced to bear children out of wedlock or join gangs. Those are choices.

There was one thing in the piece I found amusing:

According to a 2012 study by Jesse J. Tauriac and Joan H. Liem that examined disparate academic outcomes of U.S.-origin and immigrant-origin black undergraduate students, only 42 percent of U.S.-origin blacks interviewed in 1998 had pursued college as of 2002, compared with 68 percent of immigrant-origin blacks. A 1999 study found that black immigrants entering college made up 27 percent of black freshmen, an over-representation of more than double their share in the black population (13 percent). A 2007 study found that 41 percent of black first-year students at Ivy League universities were immigrants or the children of immigrants. These disparities persist today, with Nigerian-Americans, for example, attaining disproportionately high educational outcomes.

Notice how that supports a claim I’ve made around here—that set-asides and quotas don’t benefit those most in need but disproportionately benefit the children of Caribbean or African immigrants?