Ted Cruz isn't just surging — he's winning  —  Every show has an end.  Just like “The Apprentice” — gripping the first few few seasons, tired and contrived in the last — Donald Trump's campaign is aging toward death, one reckless outburst at at time.  Although the casual political junkie …

Plumber's old truck spotted in ISIS video  —  A Texas plumber who was flooded with threats after his old truck — still emblazoned with his company's name — was seen driven by ISIS thugs in Syria has armed himself and is suing a Ford dealer.  —  Mark Oberholtzer of Mark-1 Plumbing …

Obama eyes Cuba visit, says Castro not ‘an ideologue’  —  Share Tweet Reddit Digg Mail Print SMS More  —  President Obama is hopefully planning a visit to Cuba and sees longtime co-dictator Raul Castro, who has taken over for ailing brother Fidel, as a pragmatist, not “an ideologue.”

Cruz campaign credits psychological data and analytics for its rising success  —  URBANDALE, Iowa — As Cecil Stinemetz walked up to a gray clapboard house in suburban Des Moines last week wearing his “Cruz 2016” cap, a program on his iPhone was determining what kind of person would answer the door.

The Siege of Miami  —  The city of Miami Beach floods on such a predictable basis that if, out of curiosity or sheer perversity, a person wants to she can plan a visit to coincide with an inundation.  Knowing the tides would be high around the time of the “super blood moon,” in late September …

Jedi church says new Star Wars film leading to boom in followers  —  More than a thousand people a day are signing up as members of the Church of Jediism, leading figures in the organisation said  —  The new Star Wars film may have already broken all records for advance ticket sales …

Negotiating the Whirlwind  —  John Kerry, the sixty-eighth Secretary of State of the United States, was born to a temperament of wintry rectitude.  He is descended from the Winthrops, who helped found the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and the Forbeses, a Brahmin clan that made its money in railways …

Diversity: Seven notes  —  Scott's six notes on “mismatch” add a much needed clarity to the discussion of race-based preferential admissions to college.  I want to add seven notes on the concept of diversity, which Scott discussed.  —  Note 1: The ideology of diversity is, as Scott says, relatively new.