Repeat Flooding & Climate Change?

Posted on July 18, 2026 by Professor Taboo

Yes, here we go again, just like in July 2025, but worse and faster. Some of you may have heard on national news broadcasts on July 16-18, 2026, that we here in Kerrville, Texas, and the Hill Country area once again experienced massive thunder showers from south of Center Point, Texas, up to Ingram, Hunt, Mountain Home, to south of Harper, Texas, and once again we suffered cataclysmic rainstorms and thunderstorms throughout the wee-hours of July 16, almost a year to the date of the major flooding here that took 139 lives, 117 of them just in Kerr County including the young girls at Camp Mystic in Hunt, Texas. So far this catastrophic flooding has taken 2 lives. What was this caused by? Was it the same weather event that happened July 4, 2026: a mesoscale convective vortex with enhanced tropical moisture? Yes, it was.

This highly unusual weather event only started last year, in 2025. In contrast, historically speaking, this sort of major flooding only happened rarely, on average about 20-40 years apart or more, if at all. Suddenly, it seems to be happening on a more regular basis. How can I say that? My Mom and her new second husband moved to Kerrville in 1997. I have been coming here to visit several times a year since then with my ex-wife and our two children. And of course, Mom and I would talk quite often on the phone when I was living up in Dallas, TX. That is practically 30-years for Mom and off-and-on for me. I am very, very familiar with the weather trends here in the Texas Hill Country. It was something my Mom’s generation often chatted about to people: how’s the weather(?), etc. They enjoyed talking about it frequently and Mom wouldn’t spare me the semi-trivial details. Therefore, I am practically a 3-decade encyclopedia of Kerrville weather trends since 1997. I also study historical data tables because just like the U.S. Stock Exchange, trends are significant for learning probabilities and possibilities… staying one-half step or a full step ahead of the game.

That said, Mom, her new second husband, and myself, knew what severe weather events can cause in Kerrville and the surrounding Hill Country. During those extreme storms Mom and Lloyd (husband) were sometimes locked in to their residential neighborhood sitting at the top of one of the highest hills in Kerr County, in Shalako Estates off Goat Creek Road or FM 1338. Goat Creek often flooded and was to high and powerful for them to exit the little spillway out of Shalako Estates.

Here is drone footage of the devastation at Buckhorn RV & Lake Resort close to us and caused by the early morning rise of surrounding creeks feeding into the Guadalupe River:

This same extreme creek-water rise to deadly rushing, powerful water carrying away even several (many?) White-tail Deer with it as well as cars, trucks, and RVs, all the way into the Guadalupe River is about 2.5-miles down FM 1338 and Goat Creek, south into the river. This low-ground toward the Guadalupe River runs under Junction Hwy or TX Hwy 27 only about 400-500 feet from our property. Here’s what it looked like at approximately 4:30am CST from a motorist on Junction Hwy/TX 27 right at the Mexican restaurant Taqueria Jalisco that has the bright neon sign at the entrance. Apologies if you are unable to view it; it was a private citizen on the spot atop his vehicle with his personal cell phone recording live:

https://www.facebook.com/reel/27426041987090417

Now, two years back-to-back (2025–2026) of extreme, deadly flooding in the Texas Hill Country and Kerr County isn’t quite a frequent trend, yet. We’ve had our share of severe deadly floods going back many decades. However, the difference of those in past compared to now are different, significantly different in the meteorological systems then and now. What has changed are the upward trending weather systems of mesoscale convective vortexes that simply sit or stall in this part of Central Texas dumping upward of 7-10 inches or more of heavy rain in a matter of one hour, or one-and-a-half hours. Historically in previous flooding years in Kerrville the cause was 3-7 days and nights of rainfall, much more time for residents to prepare, evacuate, and get to higher ground. In July 2025 and again this July 16, 2026 that was not the case. One is a fool if you only look with horse-blinders on and conclude, ‘It was a rare phenomena that randomly happens. A one- or two-off.’ No. These sort of extreme weather events are happening not only across the United States, but around the globe. The evidence is piling up and piling up fast!

According to the Hays Trinity Conservation District (HTCD) and the NOAA/National Integrated Drought Information System at Drought.gov over the last two decades in Texas, Central Texas Hill Country specifically, this area has experienced increase “weather whiplashes,” defined by NOAA as severe, alternating swings between intense droughts and catastrophic “1,000-year” flash floods compounded by a steady, long-term rise in baseline temperatures. The HTCD further reports:

Key Climate Trends (2006-2026)

Warming Temperatures: The Hill Country has seen its warmest summers and mildest winters on record, with average temperatures trending roughly 1.5 to 3 degrees warmer than mid-20^th century averages. [citation]
Precipitation Volatility: Annual rainfall totals remain unreliable, but the intensity of rainfall events has increased. Federal precipitation models updated in recent years reflect a 30% to 40% increase in benchmark extreme rainfall estimates for the region just west of San Antonio. [citation]
Weather Extremes: The region is frequently pinned between prolonged La Niña-induced droughts (most notably 2011–2015 and subsequent mid-2020s dry spells) and record-breaking floods, such as the catastrophic Guadalupe River floods. [citation]

Should any of my viewers or followers wish to examine the local Kerrville, Ingram, Hunt, Center Point, or historical metric weather data for a specific location you can go to these official databases: NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information and NOAA Climate at a Glance.

If there is just one or two things that I have learned in my many years in Kerrville, Texas, going back to 1997–to the present, and learned from my late mother it is this: everything here in Kerrville, and the Texas Hill Country is much more extreme than it was on average back in the late 1990’s, the 2000’s and up to now. Temperatures are noticeably more extreme, the wind and wind gusts are definitely more extreme—my outdoor plants and herb garden bare witness to the destruction—reaching some days up to 30-40mph! This has increasingly reeked havoc on my allergies and sinus problems. 🤧🤨 Of course the extremes in rainfall, or no rainfall, for extended weeks or months are noticeably more unstable, the UV indices are noticeably ~~way~~ up with more frequent UV warnings for outdoor activities.

And as a herb grower and small gardener what I’ve noticed every summer (July-to-mid-September) going back to 2020… the insects are very bad. The huge grasshoppers that feed on just about anything a gardener grows, aphids are on a significant rise every summer due to fewer and fewer ladybugs, beetles and other natural predators, and lastly but not conclusively, more and more weird fungi/bacteria on and in soils, then flies, mosquitos, and all the pesty insects that winter temps or freezes would typically reduce their numbers. They too are on the rise due to our (and the world’s) shorter and shorter winters. The tangible accumulating evidence has become overwhelming with each passing year.

But very sadly and worse still, the superpower and semi-superpower nations such as China, Russia, Brazil, Venezuela, Colombia, South Asiatic nations, many Eastern European nations, and the United States are still failing to do enough to slow Global Warming and Climate Change caused primarily by fossil fuel burning/consumption, rising CO₂ (carbon dioxide), CH₄ (methane gas), N₂O (nitrous oxide), fluorinated gases, then other less heating atmospheric gases, much less stabilize it by 2030 or 2050 from the point-of-no-return tipping point. I don’t know about where you may live and have lived for many years, but here in Texas where I’ve lived most of my life—the now super hardcore Red state where environmental regulations and Climate Change movements and/or policies are essentially non-existent—it is getting worse while most Texans just go on daily with their busy lives, redundant lives of working, spending-consuming, all in an invisible bubble around family, coworkers, and friends, not paying any attention to how Earth is changing.

Here in Red State Texas we are all just huge, obese bull-headed-frogs relaxing in the pot of gradually boiling water as if nothing is happening or has happened. Meanwhile, our elected officials just keep drawing a salary and pension for doing just enough or less to keep the economy as one of the best in the entire Union; money, money, money! Spend, spend, spend!

What a sad, sad condition we will leave this Earth for our young children, grandchildren, and their children and grandchildren. 😢

Live Well – Love Much – Laugh Often – Learn Always – Do It Better Fast!

Cost of A Human Life?

Posted on July 5, 2026 by Professor Taboo

In the United States we don’t ~~yet~~ live in chaotic emergency care and healthcare situations like the people of Bangkok, Thailand are currently living. In Bangkok, and other large cities in Thailand, victims of auto or motorcycle accidents in crowded streets, or by gun violence, may remain at the accident scene or crime scene for 20-30 minutes or more while EMT ambulance teams argue or physically fight over which emergency medical foundation, Thai government included, wins the patient’s or victim’s transport to hospital. In some cases in Thailand conflict between ambulance teams breaks out and it has gotten or could become violent with shots fired creating more victims. All the while the immobilized original patient runs dangerously low on time to receive necessary emergency treatment. Why are these clashes between ambulance services increasingly occurring?

The simple answer is compensation from the hospitals and/or the Thai government to the ambulance teams if adequate funds are available. Often they are not available so hospitals compensate ambulance teams. And these ambulance teams receive about $30 US per patient or victim. Over time the incentives to get to victims first before other ambulances show up rises and rises as well. But for who’s benefit? More often now up to 4-6 ambulances from different emergency foundations crowd the emergency scene at once.

Reporter Vikram Singh narrates this 101 East documentary by Al-Jazeera showing firsthand just how controversial a monetized, privatized EMT system soon becomes corrupted while healthcare worker shortages worsen, not just in Thailand, but other nations as well; the U.S. isn’t far behind because our EMT system is already 90%–99% privatized and one particular U.S. political party wants to keep privatizing all industries in America already similar to prisons and immigration detention centers. How are those working out? Think about it America. Watch this 25-minute video and ask yourself at the end, “Is this what I want my country to become when it comes to privatized/monetized emergency care and healthcare?“

Live Well – Love Much – Laugh Often – Learn Always – Be Kind, Not Wealthy

Whack-a-Mole & Christians

Posted on June 21, 2026 by Professor Taboo

This past week and weekend I’ve been dealing with a seemingly politically motivated, deceitfully maneuvering, redirecting Christian Apologist. His name on WordPress? ColorStorm, or CS as most of us address him. He is the epitome of an avoider, a skirter, a dodger of simple questions directed to him. This is very, very well known by my circle of WordPress friends. He always—and I don’t mean sometimes—but he always avoids simple direct questions to him. You can set your watch by his never-ending slipperiness to hard questions. He will never answer them. I kid you not. I have many WordPress friends that will vouch for this about ColorStorm and his incessant dodging and redirecting. Oh! And by the way he vehemently believes that Earth is flat, not spherical, and he also believes in the YEC, or Young Earth Creationism—that means he is convinced that the Earth is only between 6,000 to 10,000 years old as “implied” by the Holy Bible of Christendom. Again, I kid you not. That’s some brief background.

Back to my post here. When I’ve challenged him with specific questions he apparently doesn’t have any clue about 1 Peter 3:15 and what it means and what it commissions Christian “believers” to do, always. Or he ignores it all together. But he disobeys this Christian commission every single time, except with his few like-minded friends who are merely an echo-chamber for him and he for them. Talking to ColorStorm, if he keeps it civil, is like a never-ending game of Whack-a-Mole and he is always moving the goal-posts. Perhaps he likes to be super annoying to any non-believers. It’s quite Christ-like, isn’t it? 🙄

This past week and weekend I asked ColorStorm a very simple yes or no question about his personal belief-system. Here was my easy, simple question to him:

“Are you working from a (Mishnaic) Hebrew original source (Yeshua’s native tongue) when you falsely claim [the above about Stephen a disciple], or are you strictly working from a half-century to three centuries later GREEK source?”

If any of you are not familiar with the three primary spoken languages in 1st-century CE Palestine and Judea, part of the then Roman Empire under emperor Tiberius, they were first speaking, writing, and reading Mishnaic Hebrew in their Jewish synagogues because the Homeland Jews (as opposed to the Jewish Diaspora) spoke and wrote in Mishnaic Hebrew and public Hebrew (watered down) to each other when around Gentiles/Romans. Mishnaic Hebrew was Jesus’/Yeshua’s primary language. His second language was Aramaic or Syro-Aramaic to be exact. All Hebrews, Persians, Arabs of that vast region spoke fluent Syro-Aramaic. Finally, living under the rule of Rome and the vast Hellenic culture, i.e. Greco-Roman, Jesus/Yeshua and all Jews knew and spoke thirdly adequate Greek, or more specifically Koine Greek—the common language of the Roman Empire. However, Greek was never used among Homeland Jews in or around Jewish synagogues or the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem. That was forbidden.

Therefore, again the simple question put to ColorStorm was ‘When he is constantly referring to his holy scriptures while speaking to us non-Christians, does he draw from A) original Mishnaic Hebrew sources from the 1st-century CE, or is he B) strictly drawing from half-century to three centuries later Koine Greek sources?‘ A or B? Simple.

But not with this guy. He refuses to obey the 1 Peter 3:15 commission given him by his Lord and Savior(?) until he dies it seems. It’s quite astonishing really.

As a result of ColorStorm’s belligerence to the/his Holy Scriptures and his God, I was already prepared for his antics and circus dance of avoid, avoid, avoid. This is what I explained to him because for whatever reason he refused to answer:

[Following]… “is a large, large chapter of Jewish/Roman history that is NEVER TAUGHT in Protestant seminaries, ecclesiastical seminaries (in Catholicism), private under-grad or post-grad Christian universities or colleges, and much less so in churches or parishes/chapels. Why is that? It most definitely involves apologetics in any Christian denomination, but why is it ignored? That’s an easy answer.

From my August 2023 blog-post, The Failures of Koine Greek & Christianity:

“Dr. Graham Davies and Robert Gordon, along with J.A. Emerton’s extensive work in Studies on the Language and Literature of the Bible, cover the many problems of vernacular Hebrew and Aramaic in 1st-century CE Palestine being later copied and/or translated into Koine Greek, the language of today’s Septuagint and Codex Sinaiticus, and subsequent later copies of the Greek New Testament. They and many other biblical Jewish and Roman historians indicate just how difficult Greek-speaking, Greek-reading copyists and translators of 2nd — 4th century CE Roman-Hellenist culture, would have had significant problems and errors going from Mishnaic Hebrew and Aramaic word-of-mouth sources or (non-existent) text-sources… into their Koine Greek.”

Problematic questions also increasingly apply to the Yeshua/Jesus “stories” better known as the canonical Gospels of Mark, Luke, Matthew, and John, in that order:

“The text of the Hebrew Bible that is read today and that is at the basis of all modern translations is called the Masoretic Text. It is called this because the Jewish scholars who devised the rules for copying scripture are known as the Masoretes. The term “masorete” comes from the Hebrew word masorah, which means “tradition.” The Masoretes were the scholars who worked out ways to preserve the traditions of the Hebrew Bible. They were active between 500-1000 CE.

To understand what the Masoretes accomplished, you need to remember that ancient written Hebrew was a language that used only consonants, not vowels. Any language that is written only in consonants is open, obviously, to serious problems of interpretation. Imagine if you were to write English that way. Apart from context, you would have no way of knowing whether the word “npt” was “inept” or “input” or whether “mnr” was “minor,” “manor,” “moaner,” or “manure.””

— Bart D. Ehrman at: https://ehrmanblog.org/the-copying-of-the-hebrew-bible/ , accessed August 5, 2023

Let me emphatically reiterate the active timeline of the Masoretes and their standardized copied texts: 500 — 1,000 CE. That is more than four and a half centuries after Yeshua’s/Jesus’ death; c. 467 years to be more exact! Think about that for a moment. This poses many more suspicions about what was done with the Hebrew Bible stories prior to 500 CE? It gets worse…

“The not so good news is that [precise verbatim] is not the case with all of the books of the Hebrew Bible. Scholars had long noted, for example, that the Septuagint (Greek) text of the book of Jeremiah was about 15% shorter than the Masoretic text (i.e., it had that many fewer verses/words), and scholars had suspected that it was because the Hebrew version of Jeremiah known to the ancient Greek translators was significantly different from the Masoretic Text. As it turns out, one of the scrolls discovered at Qumran has a Hebrew text of Jeremiah that is closer to that lying behind the Septuagint version than the Masoretic text. 15% is a big difference. Other books of the Septuagint are also strikingly different from the Masoretic text, for example, in the books of Samuel and Kings. It is possible that the Hebrew texts of all these books were in serious flux before the text came to be standardized by the end of the first century.”

— Bart D. Ehrman at: https://ehrmanblog.org/the-copying-of-the-hebrew-bible/ , accessed August 5, 2023

These problems beg many further suspicions about the Catholic or Protestant GREEK bibles. However, due to time constraints and ColorStorm’s childish temper and lack of intelligent vocabulary, I will not go into all of them here.

Be this as it may, why on Earth do modern evangelical, fundamentalist, Christian congregationalists, theologians, ministers, pastors, and many Christian biblical historians and amateurs like ColorStorm give the Septuagint and an incomplete 4th-century CE Codex Sinaiticus so much infallible authority? There’s very insufficient evidence, corroboration, or reasoning to support such a (ridiculous) “divine” conclusion regarding the Gospel “stories” much less about the purpose and nature of Yeshua/Jesus—again, due in large part with the many problematic transliterations from Mishnaic Hebrew and Aramaic… into Koine Greek.

The most glaring colossal problems Greek-following Christians make—because they don’t know better nor do they care about factual, verifiable history—are the many, many intentionally hidden Hebrew idioms or Hebraisms within the Synoptic Gospels. In the ancient shops, forums, and streets of Athens, Rome, or Alexandria the vast majority of Greek Athenians and Romans could not comprehend the Septuagint. To them the Septuagint was disjointed and perplexing, ironically foreign. Foreign? Well DUH!

There is an obvious distinction on this ‘alien dynamic’ between the Homeland Jews and the Hellenistic world around them and in the Roman Empire. As one example and a footnote to this explanation of bad Hebrew-to-Greek transliteration of Yeshua’s “The Way Movement,”

“…in the Septuagint see LXX 1 Samuel 3:10 (compare LXX Numbers 24:1). Some interesting examples in the Greek Matthew are discussed by Grintz pp. 36-39. As one grammar of New Testament Greek puts it, “Major Semitisms… are not only bad Greek but are apt to cause difficulty in translation…”” (Whittaker p. 150).

— Gordon, Nehemia. “The Hebrew Yeshua vs. the Greek Jesus” (p. 97). Makor Hebrew Foundation. Kindle Edition.

These types of translation and transliteration Greek mishaps are frequently found throughout the Septuagint, and by descending default, found as well in the current canonical Synoptic Gospels today. This is also verifiable.

And finally, to further emphatically reiterate the corrupted, maligned, wrongly edited, wrongly translated New Testament from Mishnaic Hebrew to Aramaic then to Koine Greek—an impossible task—it is very much worth noting that a less known early Roman Church Father realized, even in about 90–95 CE, that some of the Gospel translations were quite inaccurate and very problematic. This was Papias of Hierapolis, as quoted by Eusebius, stated this:

“Matthew collected the oracles [literally: “words”] in the Hebrew language, and each interpreted them as best he could.”

— Eusebius. “Ecclesiastical history” 3.39.14–17

“Each interpreted them as best he could!” Wow. So not only was it known by Roman Church Fathers that the gospels Mark and Matthew, sometimes referred to as the most Jewish of gospels, but also widely recognized among the earliest 1st– and 2nd-generation Fathers that the Greeks and other non-Hebrews—i.e. Gentiles, Roman pagans, Greeks—notably had very difficult times understanding, translating Mishnaic Hebrew and Hebraisms through Aramaic and then into Greek and other languages. That is a smoking gun if not a serious red-flag for the Septuagint and the descendant Codex Sinaiticus and later renditions of “Jesus Christos” we have in the modern Christian bible.

Therefore ColorStorm, my simple question still stands unanswered by you, but you are too afraid to honestly answer. THAT is a weak and wrong as well as hypocritical testimony from you. Period.”

At this point, and most likely from this time forward, ColorStorm has yet to answer any part of my simple question and explanation behind my simple question. I am not surprised by his disingenuity and fear. As I have learned the last 35-years, this is typical for most fly-by-night lazy Christian Nationalists and Evangelical Fundamentalist Christians in the U.S. It is sad… they know not what they claim to be or what they proclaim as truth. 😔 That is precisely the definition of hypocrite.

U.S. Most & Least Educated States

Posted on May 30, 2026 by Professor Taboo

Every year I like to keep track of how the United States’ levels of education obtained from all fifty states are ranked by comparison to other states in the Union. Why? Because it is an indicator of just how well (or poorly) the Stars and Stripes are performing with the rest of the world. I feel this is important not just from an competitive academic stand point, but critically important when compared to our foreign adversaries like China, Russia, and some Middle Eastern countries. I’d like to think readers and my followers feel the same way.

Some Americans consider an Associate degree or a Bachelor’s degree to be worthless, a waste of time, or at best far too expensive for the end result in career opportunities. However, despite that false thinking and perspective the numbers, simply put, don’t lie. Decade after decade after decade Americans 21–25 or older who have an under-grad degree, and more so a post-grad degree, land higher paying wages and a slew of further career paths beyond in the highly competitive U.S. job market. This is an indisputable fact.

Furthermore, there is another highly valuable ‘advantage’ to young Americans and 30-something Americans that are more subtle and beneficial for life: recognizing more quickly the covert motives and actions of the corrupt and powerful. Considering that often the upper most corrupt and powerful in the U.S. are typically highly educated, experienced, and spoiled brats because of their parents wealth, their circle of acquaintances, family inheritance, or gifted access/ownership to valuable mineral-rights or geological resources such as oil, natural gas, diamonds, or gold, to name only four, if you are not considered one of the aforementioned lucky ones but instead more disadvantaged due to your birth. Like it or not an under-grad or post-grad degree greatly levels the playing field in the U.S. job market.

By the way, another huge gain is in character: having come from a humble background at birth up to your latter teens typically makes a person broader minded and respectful of equality; that is, equality for all Americans without prejudice. Better character, better integrity, selflessness, and compassion for America’s disadvantaged at birth. Usually, not always, but usually these factors turn into better ethical and moral decisions as an adult. Why? For the simple reason that with a broader, higher education, above an associate’s degree, better equips one to avoid the many complex economic trappings of the country’s upper advantaged 1%–10% who did not come from humble beginnings. The stats and numbers from the U.S. Census Bureau bear this out.

BusinessInsider.com took the data from the U.S. Census Bureau and analyzed it for the percentage of 25-years and older who attained a Bachelor’s degree or higher in all 50 states and ranked them according to those percentages from least educated states to the most educated states. Here is that 2025 ranking below. If you’re interested in a detailed explanation for the ranking, click the above link to Business Insider.

West Virginia — Share of adults 25+ with a bachelor’s degree or higher: 24.4%
Mississippi — Share of adults 25+ with a bachelor’s degree or higher: 27.0%
Arkansas — Share of adults 25+ with a bachelor’s degree or higher: 27.1%
Louisiana — Share of adults 25+ with a bachelor’s degree or higher: 27.8%
Kentucky — 27.9%
Nevada — 28.5%
Oklahoma — 29.3%
Alabama — 29.9%
Indiana — 30.7%
New Mexico — 31.8%
Iowa — 32.1%
Wyoming — 32.3%
(tie @ 37th) Ohio — 32.4%
(tie @ 37th) Tennessee — 32.4%
Alaska — 32.8%
Idaho — 33.0%
(tie @ 33rd) South Carolina — 33.3%
(tie @ 33rd) Michigan — 33.3%
Missouri — 33.5%
North Dakota — 34.0%
South Dakota — 34.2%
Wisconsin — 34.6%
Arizona — 34.7%
Texas — 35.2% (my home state, bottom half for over 35-yrs)
Nebraska — 35.4%
Florida — 35.8%
(tie @ 23rd) Delaware — 36.0%
(tie @ 23rd) Kansas — 36.0%
(tie @ 21st) Montana — 36.3%
(tie @ 21st) Georgia — 36.3%
Pennsylvania — 36.4%
(tie @ 18th) Maine — 37.1%
(tie @ 18th) North Carolina — 37.1%
(tie @ 16th) Oregon — 37.8%
(tie @ 16th) Hawaii — 37.8%
California — 38.1%
Rhode Island — 39.0%
Utah — 39.1%
Illinois — 39.2%
Minnesota — 40.0%
Washington — 41.0%
New York — 41.2%
New Hampshire — 41.5%
Connecticut — 42.6%
Virginia — 43.3%
New Jersey — 44.5%
Maryland — 44.7%
Vermont — 45.1%
Colorado — 47.8%
Massachusetts — 48.3%

The national average percentage of all Americans with a Bachelor’s or higher degree is 36% to 40%. Compared to nations in Europe, Asia, and parts of the Near and Middle East, this percentage is noticeably lower for U.S. citizens than those foreign countries. Good or bad?

Of course there are other minor factors involved in these percentages such as population density, land-mass of the state, and the number of large metropolitan cities in a state; example New York, California, and Illinois. For less densely populated states the percentage will reflect the low number of people, e.g. New Mexico and the Dakotas. These factors also indicate other components involved, such as state history and background. Examples? The former Confederate states of the American Civil War have had from their past large numbers of slaves as well as segregation and Jim Crowe Laws that made it extremely difficult for non-whites to obtain under-grad degrees. That also explains in part why several lower educated states are located in the South and Deep South.

What other factors are you able to deduce that contribute to your home state and other states in the Union? In the comments below briefly explain (or not) why the low or higher ranking exists. What are those state’s modern history, i.e. 1800’s to the present, that contribute to the state’s ranking?

Addendum — June 2, 2026:
A good blog-friend I follow, Steve Ruis, broke down all the above 50-states according to their political dominance. Red = Hard Republican, Blue = Democratic, and Purple = in flux between Red and Blue. Here is a 2026 map of just Red or Blue states:

Live Well – Love Much – Laugh Often – Learn Always

America’s 250th Birthday

Posted on May 24, 2026 by Professor Taboo

As this once great nation called the United States of America celebrates its upcoming 250^th birthday, over the last decade our country has been struggling and fighting within itself to hold fast to its core values as engineered by its famed 18^th-century Core Founding Fathers and its treasured Charters of Freedom were spelled out on parchment.

But this weekend with Monday, May 25th, 2026, bookends the Memorial Weekend, we remember all of our fallen soldiers since 1776 to the present-day who made the ultimate sacrifice for this land, its citizens, their families, and everything this country is supposed to stand for… we face an uncertain, tumultuous next two years and beyond. We Americans are not only memorializing our fallen heroes this weekend and Monday, but we are also literally fighting for this democracy’s survival against an unprecedented, tyrannical King and his regime of sycophants!

*The proposed Arch de Trump on Columbia Island off the Potomac River will stand 250-feet tall and 165-feet wide*

During Memorial Day weekend up until July 4^th, Independence Day, ironically celebrating the break-away 250-years ago from another King and empire abusing its power and authority without representation from its colonists in the “New World,” we should also be remembering today the sacrifices so many soldiers, men then women, their families and closest friends as well as their fellow soldiers gave when it counted most. But very soon this will all be diminished, tainted, and obscured by a gross and gaudy monstrosity blocking the view of Arlington Memorial Cemetery as seen from the Lincoln Memorial and all other war memorials surrounding the National Mall. This construction of a self-imposed triumphal arch known as Arch de Trump will be a classless eye-sore and slap in the face for all veterans living and deceased by nothing less than a sitting President.

*A rendering of the planned arch as seen from Arlington National Cemetery toward Lincoln Memorial, the National Mall, and Washington Monument*

Does this hideous, self-aggrandizing, Caesar-esque waste of taxpayer dollars demonstrate any level of reverence, patriotism, gratitude, and symbolism of a people’s democracy protected and won by our nation’s soldiers in blood? No, not even close. It is pure and simple one man’s deluded self-perception of unproven, empty greatness. Nothing more. It demonstrates the exact same arrogance all dictators, emperors, and kings throughout history built in their own image and a man’s disregard for his subjects, his people, and the enormous, selfless sacrifices made in their own lives and those to follow. Nothing about this repulsive arch speaks to any of those core values this nation has stood for and fought for in blood. This current mentally-ill president is and has been a shameful disgrace to us, to our foreign allies, and to true American history.

Therefore, let us remember what this Memorial Day weekend is really about: the true heroes who gave the highest price for our freedom, liberty, equality for one and all (E Pluribus Unum) and generations to follow, and who didn’t need or want Roman statues of gold, large glittering pools, flashy currency and coins, an Apian Way, museums and coliseums named after them, massive gold ballrooms, or worse, their face carved into Mount Rushmore. No, all these past, ordinary American men and women wanted was to be remembered for their sacrifice. That’s it.

Today, May 24th on CNN.com and again May 25th at 8pm EST/7pm CST, on normal CNN they are airing a special documentary called Why We Dream. It will be a vivid and intimate reflection by living WWII veterans exploring the power of memory and the quiet persistence of trauma and hope experienced in combat. It blends in rare wartime footage, 16mm home movies, cinematic portraiture, and classic film excerpts all directed by Meredith Danluck who created this emotionally driven examination of war’s lasting imprint. Here is a short trailer:

That is what celebrating 250-years means, or should mean. That is what a spectacular, sobering, unobstructed view of Arlington National Cemetery from the National Mall means to all this country’s veterans, living and passed, and their descendants. Let us not forget them and how humble, willing, and honored they fought and died to win, and then protect what it means to be one of many. I repeat, one of many. As the famous U.S. Army Major Richard “Dick” Winters of E Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Regiment, of the 101st Airborne Division Screaming Eagles told his grandson who had asked him if he was a hero in the war, Winters answered:

“No… but I served in a company of heroes.”

That answer is what most great ~~Commander-in-Chiefs~~ leaders give. They do not take all the credit and glory for themselves. They fully realize that in order to lead a platoon, a company, a regiment, a division… a nation, a true leader takes little to no credit for himself and humbly gives praise to those around him and the people he serves.