Unca Darrell

Now to NOVEMBER 8 / Closed: Unca Darrell will vote for . . .

. . . one of the worst human beings and presidential candidates in American history, Donald John Trump. Here's why: 

SEPTEMBER 10 / Three of the top-ten

. . . home-field advantages in college football belong to Texas teams. So says Prediction Machine, "a statistical outlet that simulates games," as reported in the nation's very best newspaper sports page . . .

JANUARY 1 / To help you start the new year with . . .

. . . a big old belly laugh at the expense of . . .

JULY 2 / Charles Murray on the important distinction between . . .

. . . liberals and progressives.

A few weeks ago . . . I shared drinks and dinner with two men who have held high positions in Democratic administrations. Both men are lifelong liberals. There's nothing "moderate" about their liberalism. But as the pleasant evening wore on . . . I was struck by how little their politics have to do with other elements of the left.

MAY 28 / States with low tax burdens prosper and states with . . .

. . . high tax burdens don't. There are a lot of ways to prove this proposition. One of the most ingenious is by Tavis H. Brown, a Missouri political consultant, in "How Money Walks," a collection of essays by him and like-minded writers.

Using IRS data, he looks state-by-state at how aggregate individual income went up or down between 1995 and 2010. Texas, for instance, gained $22.1 billion while California lost $33.8 billion.

Mr. Travis says stunning amounts of aggregate income "walked," away from the high-tax states  to the low-tax states.

If you are losing your working wealth to other states, you are losing your most precious cargo. These are your earners, your workers . . . 

FEBRUARY 25 / Why Obama's raid on the military budget can't lose

IT MIGHT succeed. That's not likely. (See below.) But if he succeeds in bringing the American military down to pre-WWII levels, Mr. Obama will have fundamentally transformed [read, essentially destroyed] yet one more basic American institution.

The ideological faction of the modern American left -- the progressives who set the agenda for their party and our nation -- intensely dislikes the military. The money could be better spent, Obamistas believe, for programs to make even more Americans dependent on the welfare state. 

More likely, however, is that Republicans and vulnerable Democrats will restore some, perhaps most, of the proposed cuts. This will also help Mr. Obama and his party in several ways.

FEBRUARY 20 / "Cripplingly regressive"

THIS IS OLD NEWS, but . . .  

DECEMBER 6 / Beyond parody

AMONG the things for which the Houston Chronicle gave thanks on November 24:

"We're grateful for our city's . . . 

NOVEMBER 7 / Unca Darrell will vote for . . .

. . . the following propositions to amend the Texas Constitution: 

OCTOBER 4 / Numbers

1,500,000,000,000

How much in U.S. dollars the president of the United States proposes to . . .