Reminds me of the Seinfeld episode (sorry) where chubby, bald George Castanza brings a woman he is hoping to seduce to his parents' home while they are away, letting her think it's his own house. She notices George's baby pictures on the wall and remarks to the effect that it's kind of unusual, intriguing and sensitive that a guy would have his own baby picture hanging up in his place. George is delighted she thinks that way. I take the moral of this story to mean that a guy who presents his childhood photos for public viewing is either a) very secure with having been a little tyke at one time; or b) looked a lot better then. I am sure the former is true of Razib.

Jason M. wrote:

"Furthermore: Is it only Jewish republicans who are concerned with Israel or is Israel important to most Republicans? I seem to recall Hannity, Limbaugh, Liddy, etc.,etc.,etc. and most every Pub I can think of being very sympathetic to the Israeli state. Where's the outrage at these fifth-column Zionists (read: most Republicans). Or is it only "Zionism" when Jews voice basic Republican thoughts b/c 'Oh, it's treason when_they_do it'."

Jason, its treasonous no matter who is doing it. Also, AFAIK, Rush Limbaugh recently converted to Judaism and sometimes refers to "my rabbi" on air.

Let's look at how all this war on Iraq started. Certain Zionists were dreaming of seeing Iraq overthrown years ago, although the specific plan of having the US make war on Iraq may not have been thought up at that stage.

From http://www.counterpunch.org/christison1213.html:

"The paper advocated, even as far back as 1996, containment of the threat against Israel by working closely with ­ guess who? ­ Turkey, as well as with Jordan, apparently regarded as the only reliably moderate Arab regime. Jordan had become attractive for these strategists because it was at the time working with opposition elements in Iraq to reestablish a Hashemite monarchy there that would have been allied by blood lines and political leanings to the Hashemite throne in Jordan. The paper's authors saw the principal threat to Israel coming, we should not be surprised to discover now, from Iraq and Syria and advised that focusing on the removal of Saddam Hussein would kill two birds with one stone by also thwarting Syria's regional ambitions. In what amounts to a prelude to the neo-cons' principal policy thrust in the Bush administration, the paper spoke frankly of Israel's interest in overturning the Iraqi leadership and replacing it with a malleable monarchy. Referring to Saddam Hussein's ouster as "an important Israeli strategic objective," the paper observed that "Iraq's future could affect the strategic balance in the Middle East profoundly" ­ meaning give Israel unquestioned predominance in the region. The authors urged therefore that Israel support the Hashemites in their "efforts to redefine Iraq." "

This paper was written by Feith, Perle, and both David and Meyrav Wurmser "issed by an Israel think tank for Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu."

Also from http://www.counterpunch.org/christison1213.html:

"In a much longer policy document written at about the same time for the same Israeli think tank, David Wurmser repeatedly linked the U.S. and Israel when talking about national interests in the Middle East. The "battle to dominate and define Iraq," he wrote "is, by extension, the battle to dominate the balance of power in the Levant over the long run," and "the United States and Israel" can fight this battle together. Repeated references to U.S. and Israeli strategic policy, pitted against a
More....

Well written. A convincing argument that Marc Miyake is engaged in partisan fuzzy thinking... One of the interesting things about linguistics is that it reaches all the way from what might be considered soft, fuzzy science (e.g. anthropological/linguistic studies in the Amazon Basin), where PoMo influence is strong, to very hard and rigorous CS-related science (build me a parser for language X). Computational Linguistics draws a broad range of people for just that reason, I think.

P.S. Jason - those questions are not addressed to you per se-but the author and perhaps Mr. Baker, supra. I'm not dogmatic about UG-it just appears to be the theory that best explains the observable facts. Mr. Baker-I haven't read Sampson's book-but I read in a review he is a dualist, and asserts that language is learned by the mind-not the brain. Is that correct?

I think that HATE FOR YOUR NEIGHBOUR "DISEASE" may be justified in some sense. I mean if I losemy Xenophobia and let outsiders come in, my genses and those of my kin will have to compete with foreign genes in the same space. Not a very good idea I feel.

Razib-re no childhood memory-see

Simcock, G. & Hayne, H. 2002. Breaking the Barrier? Children Fail to Translate Their Preverbal Memories Into Language. Psychological Science, 13 (3), 225-231.

Abstract: "Childhood amnesia" is the term given to the well-known phenomenon of our almost complete lack of memory for the experiences of our very early childhood. Exactly why it occurs is long been a subject of debate. New research suggests the answer may lie in the very limited vocabulary of very young children. A study of 2- and 3-year-old children found that children can only describe memories of events using words they knew when the experience occurred.

Unadorned,

You are splitting hairs. What difference does it make whether I use the word “inferior” in reference to average black intelligence? Would the following construction make you feel better:

Blacks, on average, are less intelligent than whites.

I don’t understand your problem with the “I” word.

Superior/inferior is (as Razib says) a pair of complementary normative categories. These categories exist because people have values which arise from desires and fears. The desires and fears that people have are more or less universal. The speech given by shylock where he expresses that he bleeds red when pricked and likes to laugh and so on, is quite often invoked (by leftists) to express this idea of sameness of desire and fear among humans. Because of this universality of desire it turns out that humans everywhere have similar values. Everywhere you go being called stupid is an insult, and most everyone wants a lot of money and a big house (who would say no to that?). This is where the universality ends though. Traits such as high intelligence are *not* universally shared accross populations, hence different populations can satisfy universal material desires to different degrees. IF you took a country where the population lived in big houses and another country where the population lived in shantytowns and asked why the difference existed you might answer (in a moment of delicious un-PC-ness) that the people in the country with big houses were *superior* to the people in the country with slums. By this you would be clearly implying that the the people in Big House Land had a preponderance of universally valued traits such as intelligence and industry. Indeed what was said will have had a reasonably fixed meaning *much like factual statements do*.

Of course I have not talked about the emotional aspect of normative statements. Often saying that you are superior is considered a challenge or a provokation whether it is true or not. A man standing up in a bar announcing that he is superior is presumably looking for a fight. On the other hand I believe that it is quite fair to use normative statements defensively. If someone insists that you are equal or inferior to him and you believe otherwise, then I believe that it is quite just to say that you believe that you are superior. When white people are accused of causing all the sufferings of black people (and whoever else) I think it is fair for white people to counter by stating that the comparitive sufferings of black people are due to their inferiority.

Jim Fitzpatrick's knowledge of the Tuatha de them is based mostly on what was written by the early christians on the pre-literary oral folklore on these people. It mentions indeed that they may have been in greece or from it(Thebes).

http://www.jimfitzpatrick.ie/mythology/tuatha.html

It seems these texts are hugely praising of the form of the Dan:

"They are described in Cath Maige Tuired as "the most handsome and delightful company, the fairest of form, the most distinguished in weaponry and apparel, skilled in music and sports, the most gifted in intellect and temperament that ever came to Ireland".

"That tribe was bravest of all and inspired fear and dread in their enemies for the Tuatha Dé excelled all the races of the world in their proficiency in every art."

In the Book of the Dun Cow it is said that the learned did not know where the Tuatha Dé were from but it seems likely they came from the heavens on account of their intelligence and the excellence of their knowledge of the otherworld."

Its seems to be anyway that with structures such as the 5000 year old building at newgrange with its built in clock, on the strength of my own half-assed conjecture, there almost certainly were quite a few very advanced tribes knocking about in celtic europe. Pity none of them got thier act together and kept a proper writing system going such that if a tribe as the Dan was rambling around the continent some more evidence would be available.

"They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing but sea." -Francis Bacon

"So they that think there is no sea, when they've not ventured beyond the continents, or not seen the Rings of Saturn or the Milky way, or distant galaxies, myriad though they be. What Gods have you? All gods are too small a for the human soul's reachings."

care to elaborate ?

Ikram,

I would enjoy a long discussion as to whether Jews are genetically predisposed to be clannish or pushy.

Hi guys, been busy. We have discussed Jewish genetic diseases a lot on this blog. I purposed refrain from bringing the tribe into the discussion--unless absolutely necessary--for fear of being acused of clannishness and pushiness. :)
Jews are, with some justification, accused of being obsessed with themselves, and I welcome the chance to discuss other issues.

That said, I think that you can analyze your questions relatively dispassionately, and this is the place to do it.

Regarding Jewish clannishness, we can dispose of that pretty quickly. Over 50% of the Jews who marry nowadays (and I think Jews have a pretty high marriage participation rate, even if the age of marriage is late-ish), marry non-Jews. To the eternal dismay of Ortho rabbis...but that's a quite convincing refutation of Jewish clannishness.

Pushiness? Oh, hell yes. You don't need a study for that.

But....the mid-Western Jews I've known are all so darned polite and soft-spoken. And I just had a conversation with a NY Irish-American in which we were both trying to get a word in edgewise....so what is it??

BTW, blacks in the south in 1965 had full voting rights.

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A little off the scientific front---iffy measure of human worth anyway. How many of us ever invent anything, yet we all think we're worthwhile. What really tells a lot about people is the way they treat animals. If I were a cat, I'd prefer to live in a Jewish state to a Moslem one, Persian cats notwithstanding (they are impostors anyway; they are no more Persian than a Jack Russell terrier) Dictators (Dr. Evil is not real) apparently have a horror of cats (Hitler was quite cowed by them and they really got up Napoleon's nose.) I lived in Israel for 2 1/2 yrs., 91-93. I am not Jewish, just worked there. Foreign, non-Jewish inhabitants noted that the horrific fate of stray cats & dogs abated slowly but surely since the Israelis set up humane societies, modest but unmatched elsewhere in the region. Nasty catophobics come in all varieties and so do catophiles. Arabs may also be good to animals and it is not the best luck to be Arab in Israel; but I don't think the gentleman who evoked this commentary on Jews, really gives a hoot about Arabs either. Yes, caring for animals is something of a luxury, but the unexpected kindness of grim looking Israelis was always a little startling.

This show is the second best cartoon ever created (1. The Simpsons). It's hilarious and addicting. This show will be on for a long time.

And that is primarily the fault of the public education system and, especially, of those who work in it.

Thanks for this and the Sailer ref. too. I am mostly a left-wing ideologue but have a secondary interest in central Asia.

Fig. 2 could be interpreted simply as a report on Mongol affiliation though. The Hazara numbers fit with that.

The low Hui and Chinese Uighur numbers are odd. I have no ide what a Chinese Uighur is; a Uighur is a Turk in Xinjiang.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/asianswholikeblackpeople/

needs pictures of Kings

white chixxxxxxxxxx are hottttterr take it 4rom a brada;;;hahahhahhhahhahha