Graphic Artist Carefully Assigns Ethnicities to Anthropomorphic Recyclables: "For reasons of basic sensitivity, you don’t want to make the Chinese take-out container an Asian," Bellisle said, as she flipped past a crossed-out pencil sketch of an Inuit ice-cream carton. "But, if you make the same type of container represent two different races, people notice. It’s […]

By way of a brief bio… I am a graduate student with interests in psychological/educational assessment and measurement, especially human cognitive abilities. My psychological hero is Sir Cyril Burt, although most of the London School of Differential Psychology "members" are quite extraordinary, and I could read about them for hours. I think that sums up […]

A little web-debate is going on between the Claremont Institute and VDARE. Nicholas Antongiavanni gives VDARE some advice, VDARE responds and Antongiavanni responds to the response. This is the sort of debate "Westerners" would have, wrangling over first principles or lack thereof…. Posted by razib at 09:12 PM

As I see that UK immigration policy is discussed below, here is a useful source of information: Migration Watch is an independent think tank run by a former diplomat and a professor of demography at Oxford. It frequently criticises Government policy and statistics, which means the Government smears it as ‘right wing, racist, blah blah […]

Nick Wade surveys the theory that humans are evolving now, contrary to the conventional assertion that culture, not biology, is driving the transformation of our species…. Here something that I am surprised that Wade included in the article: Not everything is roses in evolution’s garden. Ronald Fisher, the British biologist, pointed out in 1930 that […]

I just read Richard Nisbett’s The Geography of Thought. You can read a summary of the book here as a press release from the University of Michigan. The critiques that some of the readers over at Amazon make about the book are spot-on, Nisbett has a collection of studies that he bandies about, which reinforces […]

One of the least-known episodes in European history is the age of the Barbary Pirates. There was an excellent British TV documentary on this not long ago – for more see here. From the late Middle Ages down to the early 19th century, pirates from the Barbary Coast – roughly modern Morocco and Algeria – […]

Please ignore if you do not have posting privileges or you never post…. Notice of 8/23/2003 from Razib: I have enabled the textile 2 plugin-to use it, you need to select “Textile” when you are in the entry editing field (option under “Text Formatting:(?)”). Follow the link to figure out the new tags (footnotes are […]

Robert Samuelson is pretty gloomy about the world’s reliance on American imports (and the concurrent trade deficit) to drive growth-the dollar is weaker and we are starting to export a bit more again (and can only take up a finite amount of debt). I’m not an economist, but I’m seeing a critical mass of stories […]

Head Heeb blogs about the Fijian attempt to establish Christianity as the official religion and prohibit the public practice of other faiths. Those faiths would be the Hinduism & Islam, practiced by 45% of the citizens of Fiji, mostly Indo-Fijian (who run the economy but are legally blocked from becoming stake-holders by purchasing property). Remind […]

Left-leaning Hollywood: A myth dies (free subscription, LA TIMES): “There are vocal people on the left — Barbra Streisand, for example — but on the other side there are people like Tom Selleck, Bruce Willis, Mel Gibson and Arnold, who have made their positions known. In fact, now that conservatism is fashionable, Republicans everywhere, including […]

Russia restricting 2nd trimester abortions. This isn’t a big deal, most abortions happen in the first trimester anyway, and there are still situations where they are allowed. The key though is a hint that the government will start to pull-back on the policy of free & unlimited abortions for women who desire them (rather than […]

Just listened to Dr. Leonard Shlain on Tech Nation (on & off while I was coding a little). He basically is restating stuff you can find in William Calvin’s books, but injecting the voice of a storyteller, hyperbolizing a lot and adding his own interpretation to human (female?) evolution. He has a book out, Sex, […]

test Posted by godless at August 22, 2003 08:19 AM| TrackBack | Email this articleComments

The New York Times Magazine profiles Larry Summers. Though he’s not perfect, they make him out to be a real mensch, Summers seems to reject the pseudo-breadth of intellectual multiculturalism in favor of a genuine disciplinary latitudinarianism. Read the whole thing! Posted by razib at 09:37 PM

This is just to test the links procedure. Please ignore. Posted by David B at August 22, 2003 03:01 AM| TrackBack | Email this articleComments I’ve always thought the reason why the slavery of the British people never caught on, either with the Romans (“not angles but angels”) or the North Africans, was that the […]

Shanti Magala has some pretty insightful thoughts on this article about Queer Muslims. Here is the website for the American Queer Muslim organization. Check out their personals section. Halal sodomy? BTW, I just had a phone conversation with someone who lives in NYC, and apparently he had a big falling out with a friend who […]

Olivia Newton-John is the grand-daughter of Nobel Prize winning physicist Max Born.

test foonote [1] fn1 blah. Posted by razib at August 22, 2003 01:11 AM| TrackBack | Email this articleComments

This article disabuses those who wish to speak of the “East” as if it was filled with open-minded sages: “It … (is) scientific fundamentalism to dismiss warnings from Indian astrologers,” said Murli Manohar Joshi, India’s Human Resources and Development minister. He was inaugurating a workshop on “Predicting Earthquakes and Calamities” in New Delhi. “Scientists with […]