The Stratosphere Lounge | Episode 310

Steve Turley did a video explaining statistics showing that in the last election, transplants/refugees ensured Ted Cruz’s re-election. Apparently if the election had been restricted to native-born Texans, “Beto” would have won. (Not sure how they defined the terms: would I count, since I was born elsewhere while my dad was on active duty in the Navy, since I’ve lived here most of my life and have Texas roots that go back five generations on my mom’s side and seven on my dad’s?) Anyway, apparently the refugees, since they are people like you who are fleeing blue states, are making the red states redder.

(As an aside, I’ve always wondered if it was deliberate that we stopped switching red and blue states for each presidential election during the 2000 election aftermath, when it was conservative states that were red. Everywhere else in the world, the communists are red, but here they are “blue.”)

So, here are some things that might help tip the scales towards your choosing Texas: There are deserts and mountains in Texas if you really want dry and cool. Or you can live on the coast and be beach bums. Dallas is Too Dang Hot for me; I prefer being near the coast where it’s not quite so hot (but is usually more humid more often) and you almost never have to worry about reducing your water usage because we have so many lakes. Also there’s the Austin area which has small mountains (we call them hills) and is somewhat drier, but the drawback is that it’s the People’s Republic of Austin. (Personally it’s too brown for my taste–I like green–but tastes differ.) Part of the question is whether you want to continue with city/suburban life with its pretensions to a metropolitan culture, or if you’d like to get out into the country.

I’d suggest South Texas where it really is almost tropical and you could watch Musk’s launches and landings and enjoy the beaches, but maybe it would be better to leave that for vacations with the current state of illegal aliens crossing the border.

Here’s another secret: You can enjoy the nine months of fairly good weather we have here (including winter) and go spend your summers in Idaho. All you really need is your go-pro and your green screen (and you could probably do without the latter) and a computer which you could probably make do with a laptop these days, with or without a big monitor on the side. (You could probably even still use the Texas-based computer for rendering.) (Added bonus: bi-locating would give you a good excuse to get another plane.)

Florida’s nice too of course. My uncle lives in the Villages and loves it. He calls it “Disneyland for seniors.”

That NYT reporter/columnist/whatever named Bari Weiss was just on Bill Maher’s show calling the federal response to the “pandemic” a “catastrophic moral crime” against children. She’s in the process of being red-pilled, like Naomi Wolf. Not yet full-on MAGA, but starting to realize that the administrative state is an enemy of the people rather than the altruistic, benevolent, scientific salvation that progressives all over the world have believed that it is until now.

[Edited to correct quotation.]