Interesting (and alarming) article here by Leo McKinstry in a recent issue of The Spectator (UK). Inter alia the article claims that the American Psychiatric Association is discussing classifying ‘racism’ as a mental disorder. Anyone know about this?

A recent Harris Poll found that 4% of atheists/agnostics are absolutely certain that there is a God. What about the term atheist or agnostic don’t they get? Of course, 4% of Catholics and 2% of Protestants are certain that there is no God. Please read The Nicene Creed.

In a recent post Razib raised the puzzle that minority languages (such as Latvian) often survive despite political and economic domination by other ethnic groups. Here I want to consider the opposite case, where one language is replaced by another without any political and economic domination to explain the change. So… why do the Scots […]

Speech communication professor: Darwin fish symbols on cars are an act of ‘ritual aggression’. “In several respects, displaying the Darwin fish is the symbolic equivalent of capturing and desecrating an enemy’s flag, an act of ritual aggression,” says Tom Lessl, an associate professor of speech communication at UGA who studies the rhetoric of science. “The […]

A few years ago 60 Minutes profiled the Kingdom of Bhutan’s policy of keeping a high wall between it and the rest of the world. In keeping with this Bhutan regulates tourism and extracts a high price from those who wish to visit. Take a look at health conditions in this “authentic” Buddhist nation. Because […]

Fred Reed On Religion over @ The American Conservative. Reed et al. seem to be making the argument that we live in an impious age where people do not reflect upon the “God Shaped Hole” in our brain. Perhaps. But how many times have I heard people thank God after a medical miracle? We do […]

Since 9-11 it seems that the Western media has been on the look-out for the "Muslim Martin Luther." Astute observers have noted that the Reformation ushered in over a century of religious wars, the destruction of Roman Catholic artistic masterpieces and the emergence of robust European nationalisms. Nevertheless, the quest continues. So here comes The […]

In comments on a previous post, I mentioned that I had seen a study of the IQ of immigrants to the Netherlands. Here is the full reference: Jan te Nijenhuis and Henk van der Flier: ‘Group differences in mean intelligence for the Dutch and Third World immigrants’, Journal of Biosocial Science, 33 (2001), 469-475. The […]

Andrew Reeves ruminates on the freedoms and restrictions that Muslim women are subject too: First off, since my own social views are usually closer to grumpy old fart than most, I actually have a great deal of sympathy for what Islam says is the proper role of a woman, and the whole porno chic thing […]

Gray Davis seems to be green-lighting a bill that would give many illegal aliens valid identification. Meanwhile, the United States government is preventing the matriculation of a student who was accepted by Princeton from China. The reason? University administrators said Wu’s visa applications were denied four times by U.S. consular officials in Beijing this summer […]

I noticed an article in the Guardian newspaper this week about English population trends. Based on data from the 1981, 1991, and 2001 Censuses, the main figures of interest were as follows: Year…………………………..1981…………..1991………….2001 Ethnic group: [in thousands] White………………………..44,682…….44,848………44,925 Black……………………………707………….917………..1,286 South Asian…………………1,031……….1,487………..2,102 Chinese & other Asian………414…………..626…………..825 The article points out that ethnic minorities as a whole […]

It is a given that any term used to describe those whose cognitive ability falls below the norm will, no matter what the original intent of the apellation, eventually be turned into an term of abuse by schoolyard children. In the late nineteenth and early 20th century, children whose learning progress lagged behind that of […]

Allah is in the house!. Funny new blog, who says you can’t have fun with Islam? (via Aziz). Posted by razib at 05:26 PM Shit dog, check this out, yo: One billion strong, all year long, Prayers to Allah even in Hong Kong Can never be wrong if we read the Qur’an Cause it’s never […]

Gweilo touches the average national IQ question. A good wolf smells the blood on the trail and pursues…. Godless comments: I tossed in a few comments that readers/co-bloggers may be interested in.

In the 19th century there was the idea that the English were descended from Anglo-Saxons who drove the Welsh to the “Celtic Fringe.” But looking at some English people, it seems clear to me that they are a hybrid population, at least speaking from the perspective of one who has a keen eye for the […]

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 […]

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 […]

Steve Sailer interviews the War Nerd. This guy is hilarious. Q. What are war nerds? A. Just what it sounds like, nerds who are into war. People like me, normal Americans, fat and alone and stuck in a stupid white-collar slave job. We get off on reading about war because we hate our lives. I […]

Dr. David Halperin is teaching a course titled How to be Gay. My first reaction was, “Hey man, you’re born that way,” but read the course description, and it sounds like a high-brown version of Queer Eye for the Gay Man. See here for an article slanted against the course and here for one favoring […]

Robert Cringely has two articles related to I.T. outsourcing. The first is titled Body Count: Why Moving to India Won’t Really Help IT and the second is called May the Source Be With You: IT Productivity Doesn’t Have to Be an Oxymoron, but Outsourcing Isn’t the Way to Achieve It. The underlying problem has to […]