A ticklish situation! (I'm surprised to be the first to wheeze that one out.)

"Corzine really is remarkable -- bearded politicians are rare in America" 
 
That makes Paterson triply remarkable -- bearded, blind and black!

Perhaps people ate less sugar?

guess what size woman most men prefer? 
 
Read this.

Roissy, 
 
I think you are a complete and total liar. Every word you say is bullshit, including the words "and" and "the."

He proved the stereotype that actors are narcissists. He "loved" himself to death.

How sad. I thought he was great in BOUND FOR GLORY. 
 
Carradine was sort of an honorary Fonda and the Fondas had loads of suicides in the family and among close friends, such as the Haywards.

Perfect pitch is genetic. You have to be learned out of it.  
 
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/02/010222074848.htm 
 
What's interesting is why some people retain perfect pitch, while speaking non-tonal languages. 
 
I wonder how Navajo/Apache Indians would do. They speak a tonal language.

Richard: was I unclear? Yes, the Ethiopian kids played with the Israeli kids and soon were chatting (NOT chattering, ha, it was very hot!) in fluent Hebrew.

I wasn't making a point that Africans pick up languages easily. My point was that kids do.

I've got anecdotal evidence. When I was studying Hebrew in Israel, a group of Ethiopian immigrants was housed near us. The kids played with Israeli kids and soon were chattering in fluent Hebrew. Us adults, who were all educated adults, some of us fluent in more than one language, were still struggling with this difficult opaque language after three months. And many of us had a head start with reading and writing it.

Jason, 
 
That's just measuring how sensitive (or intelligent) the listener is.  
 
"Black talk is not just an accent. Blacks of sub-Saharan ancestry have a timbre to their voices no other race has" 
 
This is true. I am a gifted mimic with a physically pan-European look. I have convinced people - in Britain - that I was a middle-class Brit. I could do it again if I lost my self-consciousness. I can do any regional American accent. But I could never do a black accent. For that you need a black throat, or tongue, or whatever. 
 
My former singing teacher told me she thought that blacks had a different vocal apparatus than whites or Asians.

John, 
 
What about all those fat laughing Buddhas? I thought the Chinese associated rolls of fat with happiness and plenty - mirth and girth!! 
 
As for the Greeks and the Romans, check out my photos of the Met Museum's Greek and Roman galleries: 
 
http://www.flickr.com/photos/diorissima/sets/72157600394848683/ 
 
The Aphrodite in the style of Praxiteles would equate to a 5'5", 115 pound girl. In other words, rounded but slim & petite.

this is happening in vietnam too: 
 
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20227083.100-sex-selection-brings-vietnamese-boy-boom.html

Online toilet museum: 
 
http://www.sulabhtoiletmuseum.org/

I didn't give the link because I buy everything that it claims about Vitamin D, I just thought the guy made some good points about the funny bidness of testing.  
 
My own feeling is that we should take a look at that gigantic aptitude test called Life. Do you see any group differences?

"That's one way of putting it." 
 
Yes indeed. 
 
"If I had to bet, I'd bet that this result was mistaken/exaggerated and/or fraudulent." 
 
There's loads of fraud in the standardized testing racket. In fact, the entire education industry is a racket. See this: 
 
"In the late '80s, the Beckley Register/Herald ran a story stating that all 55 West Virginia counties were above the national average on commercial elementary standardized achievement tests after which the local newspaper ran an editorial congratulating both state and local officials. Cannell read the stories and decided to do some investigating. 
 
Upon researching "normed referenced" commercial elementary achievement tests, Cannell discovered that the commercial publishers are free to choose their own "norm group" (a group of students said to represent the average which are given the test without any test preparation). The publishers sell the test booklets, the norms, and the answer keys to school officials who reuse the same booklets (with the same questions) each year. Teachers told Cannell that any administrator seeking a promotion will have his teachers handle the booklets so that they can teach the answers to their students." 
 
Etc. 
 
(Link: http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/cannellBiography.shtml)

Foxp2, 
 
Thomas Sowell has been going on and on about Dunbar high school for, like, ever. 
 
Dunbar was the school of the Washington "colored" elite. Also, I don't know what "national norms" meant in 1912. 
 
What does "leading colleges and universities elsewhere" mean? 
 
Sowell is not a hard scientist. He's a good writer though.

Amen, brother. 
 
the modern university system is a racket whose purpose is to (a) employ superannuated boomers and (b) produce presentable dilletantes who can make good SWPL party chatter.  
 
Can we afford to keep doing this?

"Most are Democrats and all of them want President Obama to appoint a judicial star of the highest intellectual caliber who has the potential to change the direction of the court." 
 
Yes I read that and I don't understand it. Please explain how a smart liberal is going to change the direction of the court in the way that a mediocre liberal will not.  
 
Do they think that a REALLY SMART liberal judge is going to convince John Roberts or Clarence Thomas or Antonin Scalia to vote liberal? How does this work?  
 
"Oh boy, Sandra, you are so smart that I am going to forsake a lifetime of strict conservatism and vote for gay marriage!" 
 
It's ridiculous.  
 
Obama will appoint a liberal judge. One of the more refreshing things about the current non-debate is the lack of coyness about this. Every time a Supreme Court Justice resigns, you hear this phony debate about litmus tests and judicial temperament and politics. It's hogwash - Presidents are politicians and so are judges. 
 
This judge or that judge...won't make that much of a difference. In fact this appointment is a wash anyway as Souter was one of the most liberal justices ever.

What does it matter whether Sotomayor is smart or not? It bothers Jeffrey Rosen because he's a smart aleck himself, from a culture that values smart aleckness. Once Sotomayor is a justice, her vote's as good as Oliver Wendell Holmes. Why does she have to convince anyone of anything? Is it because Rosen is scared that she's gonna be a liberal version of Clarence Thomas, a reliable vote on his side, but not persuasive to wafflers or impressive to future historians of the court?  
 
Whoever Obama nominates is going to be confirmed, so that's not the issue. I'm a bit puzzled.

Well, Sotomayor may not be smart, but that's because of her culture and upbringing. Now that Kagan woman, she's smart because her culture and upbringing made her so.