The Blog of Record

A Pew Research Center phone survey has found that Republicans have more political and economic knowledge than Democrats.

Life expectancy in the U.S. continues to increase and has reached 75.3 years for men and 80.4 years for women:

U.S. life expectancy reached nearly 78 years (77.9), and the age-adjusted death rate dropped to 760.3 deaths per 100,000 population, both records, according to the latest mortality statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The 2007 increase in life expectancy – up from 77.7 in 2006 — represents a continuation of a trend. Over a decade, life expectancy has increased 1.4 years from 76.5 years in 1997 to 77.9 in 2007.

Some other interesting findings:

Record high life expectancy was recorded for both males and females (75.3 years and 80.4 years, respectively). While the gap between male and female life expectancy has narrowed since the peak gap of 7.8 years in 1979, the 5.1 year difference in 2007 is the same as in 2006.

For the first time, life expectancy for black males reached 70 years.

The U.S. mortality rate fell for the eighth straight year to an all-time low of 760.3 deaths per 100,000 population in 2007 — 2.1 percent lower than the 2006 rate of 776.5. The 2007 mortality rate is half of what it was 60 years ago (1532 per 100,000 in 1947).

Between 2006 and 2007, mortality rates declined significantly for eight of the 15 leading causes of death.

There were an estimated 11,061 deaths from HIV/AIDS in 2007, and mortality rates from the disease declined 10 percent from 2006, the biggest one-year decline since 1998.

I wonder what the numbers would be without the widespread obesity of recent decades.

From an article by Prof. Mark J. Perry.

(Via Tom McMahon.)

Colombia University statisticians have plotted current support for same-sex marriage across age groups by state. No surprise here:

Seven states cross the 50% mark overall as of our current estimates, but the generation gap is huge. If policy were set by state-by-state majorities of those 65 or older, none would allow same-sex marriage. If policy were set by those under 30, only 12 states would not allow-same-sex marriage.

Almost 28% of South African men admitted to rape in a survey. Another report of this survey mentions this:

The study found that one in 10 men said they had been raped by other men. Some 3% of the men interviewed said they had coerced a man or a boy into sex.

It would be interesting to see how many South African women have been raped at least once in their lives. It is likely to be a horrifying number, judging by this bit of statistics:

One in three of the 4,000 women questioned by CIET Africa, non-governmental organisation, said they had been raped in the past year.

More: Child rape is ”the national sport” in South Africa, with one in four girls and one in five boys at risk of being raped before the age of 16.

I am sure decades of apartheid are to blame for this.

As of today, 34% of voters strongly approve of Barack Obama’s performance as president and 32% strongly disapprove. The difference (called the presidential approval index), at 2%, is Obama’s lowest to date.

(Via John Hinderaker.)

While the fatality rate (the number of deaths per 100 million vehicle miles traveled) was the lowest on record in 2008 (1.28). Last year also saw record-high seat belt use.

According to this first-ever study to rank American states on their public policies affecting individual freedoms in the economic, social, and personal spheres, the highest levels of freedom correlate with low taxes and government spending:

We find that the freest states in the country are New Hampshire, Colorado, and South Dakota, which together achieve a virtual tie for first place. All three states feature low taxes and government spending and middling levels of regulation and paternalism. New York is the least free by a considerable margin, followed by New Jersey, Rhode Island, California and Maryland. On personal freedom alone, Alaska is the clear winner, while Maryland brings up the rear. As for freedom in the different regions of the country, the Mountain and West North Central regions are the freest overall while the Middle Atlantic lags far behind on both economic and personal freedom. Regression analysis demonstrates that states enjoying more economic and personal freedom tend to attract substantially higher rates of internal net migration.

It’s no surprise that New York and California lead the nation in the number of people leaving them for other states.

People are voting with their feet by moving from high-tax, business-hostile states to more reasonable places:

Warren Meyer asks:

It is fairly clear that the current Administration is emulating the policies of the bottom 10 in its recovery plans.  Which brings me back to the question I have asked before:  Where do we all migrate to for freedom when we have screwed up this country?

There’s a new study indicating that states where people buy the most online pornography tend to be more conservative and religious than states with lower levels of consumption.

This probably means that godless liberals simply surf free porn sites.

(Via the Orange County Register.)

They just have a peculiar way of showing it: voting for a unified Democratic government. Ilya Somin:

The combination of an economic crisis and unified government is almost always a bad time for limited government. Recent events have already demonstrated that in spades.

However, there is a small ray of hope for free market advocates: public opinion data show that the majority of the public remain skeptical about big government. Question 19 on this recent Washington Post/ABC News poll shows that 53% of the public prefer “smaller government with fewer services” to “larger government with more services” (supported by 43%). Note that this question wording is slightly biased against the small government side because it lists a negative consequence of smaller government (a reduction in services), while omitting any negative consequences of larger government (such as higher taxes or increases in the national debt).

A decline in world political freedom for a third straight year, according to Freedom House’s annual survey. Russia is down and Iraq is up.

Russia is actually about as free as Iraq. Saddam’s Iraq, that is.

I missed this when it came out, and if you did too, you can enjoy it now: Life is getting better all the time, you if look at the things that matter.

(Via Rightwing Sparkle.)

A look back at the years when the U.S. population reached 100, 200 and 300 million.

The price of gas in 1915 in 2006 dollars may surprise you.

And can this be part of the reason that study after study finds conservatives happier than liberals?

The prevalence of poor self-rated health was substantially higher among Democrats (25.8%) as compared to Republicans (8.5%). Lower prevalence of poor health among Republicans was also observed in analyses stratified by poverty, education or race.

 

(Via Brian Hollar.)

UPDATE: Steve Kass says the researchers got their data mixed up and reported the wrong percentages. From the tables he presents, it seems that 25.8% and 8.5% are really the percentages of people calling themselves strong Democrats and strong Republicans, respectively, among respondents with less than high school education who reported poor health. The real percentages of people reporting poor health seem to be 9.1% for strong Democrats and 5% for strong Republicans.

Which, of course, still means that Republicans are healthier than Democrats. A tiny bit. Or maybe they really aren’t – maybe they are just more satisfied with their lives – including health – because of their generally happier, more-cheerful attitude which study after study finds. Such attitude, one can assume, would make them less likely to complain – of poor health, for example.

From the National Bureau of Economic Research:

[A study indicates that] “women who resided in communities with [cavities-reducing] fluoridated water during childhood earn approximately 4 percent more than women who did not, but [there is] no effect of fluoridation for men.” The “much smaller and statistically insignificant” effect of fluoridation on the hourly earnings of men is consistent with [the authors'] hypothesis that: 1) women are more likely to be affected by consumer or employer discrimination on the basis of appearance; and 2) that women are more likely to select into occupations based on their physical appearance. When the authors introduce statistical controls for occupational sorting, the effect of fluoride on wages is reduced by only 6 percent. It is not affected by the inclusion of statistical controls for self-esteem or depression. The authors estimate that losing one tooth results in an annual earnings loss of $720/year for a typical urban woman working full-time for a wage of $11/hour. They conclude, among other things, that their results support the “Beauty Myth” argument: that women are held to different standards of physical appearance from men.

Big surprise: it pays to look nice for a woman.