For a few weeks now I’ve been reading NRO’s blog on Rod Dreher’s new book, Crunchy Cons. This supposed “movement” is ridiculously silly, and the very idea that this individual is being taken seriously by people on the right is sort of scary…One thing that has really turned me off to this guy is just […]

Over the past several days I have been asked by more than a few people as to where they could find raw statistics and information to give them an idea of what is happening in Iraq. As a result, I have decided to take just a few minutes and write up this short post describing […]

Hat tip: Captain Capitalism and The EconomistMORE: The Natural History of Ashkenazi IntelligenceNatural History of Ashkenazi I.Q.The Scientific Impact of NationsAddendum: As requested, The Economist print edition article from which this chart originated.

The New Republic has posted a fascinating informal survey of conservative opinion leader’s views toward evolution. I was rather surprised to see that most, contrary to conventional left-of-center stereotypes about conservatives, believe in evolution, although how strongly they do varies pretty widely. The neoconservatives, such as Charles Krauthammer and David Brooks, are pretty pro-evolution, while […]

Be sure to check out Robert McHenry’s excellent article on “Intelligent Design” over at TechCentralStation. Then there is the simple fact that the “theory” of ID is no theory at all, not in the sense that the word is used in science. It is not based on the best available evidence; it enables no predictions; […]

This is the funniest thing I’ve read all year, and pretty close to the truth: “College Profs Denounce Western Culture, Move to Caves” from Iowahawk. A brief sample:… When he earned tenure in 1991, Grok decided to broaden his philosophical research. “I realized that deconstructing literature was overly limiting. It was clear that other fields […]

Here are some of the more surprising of the results from the latest Pew Research Center poll, “Beyond Red vs. Blue.” First of all, lets start off with the categories that the poll divided people into. You can find more info about each of these categories by following this link. Here are the results of […]

Update: Sweden is not the world’s largest per capita exporter of arms, contrary to what NationMaster says. SIPRI data confirms this, as does data from IISS, the U.S. Department of State, and Encyclopaedia Britannica. See Greg Cochran’s post for more info. This is why they peer review stuff in academia! And for those who missed […]

What do you think is the greatest threat to the world? The Guardian published a piece today asking ten scientists this very question with some very unique answers varying from black holes to climate change (surprise!). For once, overpopulation was not mentioned, however something far more interesting than black holes was: telomere erosion. “On the […]

From The Sunday Times:The study suggests that some of the chemicals in smoke can permanently alter the DNA of those exposed to it in ways that can be inherited by smokers’ children, grandchildren and possibly subsequent generations too. The researchers analysed asthma rates in both the children and grandchildren of women who smoked during pregnancy. […]

An interesting new article on TechCentralStation has been posted that discusses the paper, “How Trade Saved Humanity from Biological Exclusion: An Economic Theory of Neanderthal Extinction” (paper is 240 kb, but the server is slow, so give it time). In a good summary of the paper, Jackson Kuhl writes: To demonstrate that trade might be […]

I never, ever thought that I would be quoting a Communist on this blog, but I just have to point out this quote from Friedrich Engels: We regard economic conditions as the factor which ultimately determines historical development. But race is itself an economic factor. Of course, after looking at numerous other writings of Engels, […]

Robert D. Kaplan is going to be the guest on this week’s In Depth program on C-SPAN 2 from 12-3 PM on April 3. Although his influence is not publicized quite as much as, say, the neocons, his extensive writings have been extremely influential within military and government circles. This is probably going to be […]

The Institute for the Secularisation of Islamic Society has a fantastic piece on instances of child molestation that has occurred in Pakistani madrassas and how it has been completely ignored by Western media. The effects of this story? If they are true, the madrasa story is to Pakistan (and by extension to the Muslim world) […]

The DutchReport, a blog from Holland, reports that in response to death threats from Islamist extremists, Geert Wilders is being housed, not in a well-guarded safe house, but in the same prison that held the Lockerbie terrorists. Almost as bad is that Hirsi Ali has been forced to live in a Marine barracks in Amsterdam. […]

The Mercury News ran an interesting article (registration required) yesterday titled, “Gene researchers find variations by ancestry.” It describes a new paper published in Science by David Hinds, et al, describing DNA variation between three human populations. And [surprise!] the paper is astonished to see that the researchers believe that race (the term “human populations” […]

NPR recently ran an excellent little clip about scientists and researchers conducting self-censorship of studies that various groups and individuals may deem to be controversial, which the clip describes as “forbidden knowledge”; that is, knowledge that may have potentially negative effects upon society or which may contradict various moral codes and doctrines. The survey, while […]

In a continuation of bb’s earlier post,”The Problem with Libertarian Open Borders Arguments,” I have to point out Will Wilkinson’s absolutely disastrous idea in his latest column for Reason Online. The idea? How can the United States best help the millions of people who were rocked by the Indian Ocean tsunami? America’s generosity has been […]

Today the latest edition of one of my favorite studies was published by the Heritage Foundation: the Index of Economic Freedom 2005. I immediately looked at the rankings, and was immediately disappointed. Out of the top 15 most free economies in the world, the “vanguard of global capitalism,” the good ol’ USA, was ranked 12th. […]

The Economist has a great essay about apocalyptic beliefs across the political and religious spectrum (including secular atheists). Much of the material has already been discussed in different texts already, such as the apocalyptic beliefs of Marxists and National Socialists, but it’s neat seeing it all in one short, concise essay that covers both political […]