Pun Salad

One of the participants, Bryan Caplan, shares a very impressive rap battle video: Battle of the Borders.

No, that's not really Professor Caplan in the video.

I recommend it even if you're not someone who instinctively watches rap battle videos. But unless you have a really good ear, I also recommend you turn on the closed captioning.

I was on the fence about immigration… and I still am. What do you do when both sides have pretty good arguments?

Also of note:

• Like the circles you will find / in the windmills of Jonah Goldberg's mind. In his G-File, The Fox vs. the Hedgehog, He quotes Isaiah Berlin:

  If you are truly convinced that there is some solution to all human problems, that one can conceive an ideal society which men can reach if only they do what is necessary to attain it, then you and your followers must believe that no price can be too high to pay in order to open the gates of such a paradise. Only the stupid and malevolent will resist once certain simple truths are put to them. Those who resist must be persuaded; if they cannot be persuaded, laws must be passed to restrain them; if that does not work, then coercion, if need be violence, will inevitably have to be used—if necessary, terror, slaughter.

  Jonah follows that with:

  And that brings me to why our politics are so gross.

  True dat.

• They may have us beat on cheerleaders, but… Drew Cline passes along the news from the Tax Foundation: New Hampshire passes Texas on tax competitiveness.

  New Hampshire this year slipped ahead of Texas to claim the No. 6 spot on a national index of state tax competitiveness published by the Tax Foundation.

  Formerly the Business Tax Climate Index, the newly redesigned 2025 State Tax Competitiveness Index combines the Tax Foundation’s indexes for corporate, individual income, sales, property and unemployment insurance taxes.

  New Hampshire ranked No. 1 on sales taxes, 12 on individual income taxes, 27 on unemployment insurance taxes, 32 on corporate taxes and 39 on property taxes.

  That was good enough to place New Hampshire sixth overall, behind perennial top-five states Wyoming, South Dakota, Alaska, Florida and Montana.

  Texas, previously in the sixth spot, fell to seventh, with New Hampshire edging up one spot by a fraction of a point.

  Apparently this year's Democratic candidates for NH state offices see this as a problem.

  Cline doesn't link to the Tax Foundation's study, it seems. It is here.

  And not that it matters, but NH >> TX as far as official state mottos go.

  It's "Live Free Or Die" vs. "Friendship".

  Come on, Texas. It's like you're not even trying!