We all know that Americans live longer than ever before. We also know that life is unfair -- some live longer than others. What we didn't know, until today, is how much lifespan varies from one part of the country to the next.

It's starting to look at this map posted by USA Today and see the differences. The blue and dark blue areas of the map indicate the shortest lifespans. The light green and yellow show the longest lives.

The summary:

The male-female discrepancy is interesting. If you toggle back and forth on the USA Today map, you can see that in some parts of the country (Oregon and California jumped out at me) women are doing worse than men.

The reasons why life expectancy is falling back aren't particularly surprising. The researchers mention the usual suspects: obesity and smoking produce heart and lung disease, cancer, and diabetes.

Here's the really bad news:

Interestingly, inequality in health and longevity actually seems to favor one political party over the other. Almost all the states with dark-blue patches have voted for Republicans for president in recent elections. There's the Deep South, of course, but also Wyoming, Montana, South Dakota, Arizona, New Mexico.

But it doesn't follow that the states with the most yellow and light-green areas support Democrats. The Northeast, West Coast, and North Central U.S. have been solid for the Democratic Party the past few elections. Some other areas where people live longer, like Colorado and Iowa, are trending toward the Democrats. Virginia is trending Democratic as well, and those yellow and light-green pockets in the northern part of the state might explain why.

Conversely, people in Utah and Idaho are anomalies for having long lives and deeply conservative politics. Nebraska and Kansas also have lots of yellow and light green, but aren't likely to cast their electoral lot for a Democratic president in 2008. Alaska and Hawaii, two states with lots of light green, split their affiliations: Alaska is a stalwart Republican state (although that might change if every single elected Republican in the state ends up in legal trouble), while Hawaii goes for Democrats.

For once, however, race isn't a major factor in health and lifespan disparities:

So that's some good news, I guess.

Tuesday blog meat

• Want to see what your body looks like on the inside? Check this out.
• Here's one for serious seamheads: How fast should a fastball be? John Walsh, writing for The Hardball Times, explains why throwing the hardest heaters doesn't necessarily produce the best outcomes. I won't give away his conclusions; a couple of them were true surprises for this lifelong baseball fan.