My brain is mush, so all I can say is that blacks appear to be WAAAY over-represented on British TV. When i was England I think I saw more blacks on TV there than I did walking around London or Luton. (only in Buxton did I see a number of blacks on the street which roughly corresponded to TV).

In Canada, TV-land is the exclusive territory of the whites AFAICT.

I hate it when NRO-style Republicans like to bash "Red Canada" when it's clear as glass that Britain is a far more left-leaning country. (completely unrelated gripe, sorry)

"I don't know about that. Britain still has a military and a relatively free market."

Agreed but consider the fact that they have the only "all-encompassing" public health system in the world (while the Cdn. system does not pay for dental or vision, among other things). Also consider that up until a few years ago, higher education (university/college) in England was practically free for the vast majority of people - I don't know the details, but something about *everyone* getting a "grant" which basically amounted to free money. Meanwhile Canadian students have to get a loan from a private bank if they can't pay tuition (for the public universities) themselves; tuition fees which are already higher than public schools in North Carolina or California.

How about the ridiculously high tax rates in the UK for basic things like gas (petrol)?

The "dole", as they call it in the UK, seems to be remarkably easy to 'extort' money out of, thus allowing someone to live semi-comfortably without a job. And the whole "council housing" thing is just hilarious; the poor in Canada for the most part have to struggle to make ends meet living in crappy - but privately owned - apartment buildings.

Anyways, I'm sure the resident Britons here will be quick to denounce what I've said in case I'm wrong...

Other, smaller, "brown" Asian countries seem to be outperforming India - in terms of the middle-class/upper-class standard of living, that is.

I was in India last month. Madras/Chennai. Awful place. They've filled the town with american interstate-style flyovers and overpasses and other such feats of 20th century civil engineering. Unfortunately the majority of the vehicles using such constructs are bullock carts, "autos", and bicycles. What's worse are the water problems that everyone's having now (goes from August to October I'm told) - not even the wealthy Brahmin households were immune from it. And hygiene is such a big concern for *everyone* - including the locals who live there. Certain restaurants to be avoided, etc. Advising people to stick to vegetarian when you eat out in case "something's wrong with the meat".

On the other hand, Colombo, just an hour away by plane, has almost completed its imitation of Singapore. There are supermarkets and malls, Pizza Huts and HSBC's, on every corner. The household I was staying at was getting DSL installed the next week - 2 megabit downstream too, a whole 512kbits faster than me in Tronno! While in Madras the "Maruti" reined supreme despite most major global automakers marketing at least one car in India, in Colombo the Corolla is the vehicle of choice. Indeed, you could also find Volvos, Beemers, even a MINI Cooper (!). There were also some Nissan models you don't find in North America - I suspect those are the ones marketed under the Infiniti label over here. I don't know where all the wealth is coming from, but its certainly getting there.

The difference between both towns, both of them large metros, was astounding to me. Statistically, however, it seems that Sri Lanka is just a poor Asian country known primarily for that oft-mentioned terrorist/separatist problem (the media reports make it sound worse than Nepal) while India seems like the place to be these days! Dost mine eyes decieveth me?

Sen,

re: "Boys"

Although I have not seen it, I have heard of whats being said about it. Basically the "religious right" of South India is up in arms over it, which is to be expected. (Gujarats acted much the same way over canadian Deepa Mehta's film "Fire" several years back). Fortunately south indian stuck-up religious types are a bit less violent than their north indian counterparts so we haven't seen any theatres get burned - yet. As for the movie itself, I think it is giving outsiders the wrong impression of what life is like in *THAT* part of India. While I was driving around (rather, being driven around) Madras I did not see any women/girls in miniskirts. Although when I was in some of the more posh districts I did see girls walking around in jeans (!). Still, even if the film is complete bollocks (the premise sounds that way) I suppose its good -- for *them*, since its obvious the "young 'uns" are more interested in this sort of thing.

As a a sidenote, the composer for that film is one of the chief musical directors for the new Lord of the Rings musical, see:

http://www.theonering.net/perl/newsview/8/1066768838

Further to razib's points about Tamils above, a large percentage of the Tamil Tiger elite are... (gasp!)... ROMAN CATHOLIC. Indeed, the Tigers have been known to "retain" a number of Catholic priests to provide pre-battle services at Tiger camps. This is in sharp contrast to the vast majority of the Sri Lankan Brahmin elite (i.e. the Hindu priests) who are more or less staunchly opposed (at least publicly) to the seperatism struggle.

As well, most Brahmins in the diaspora tend to distance themselves from Tiger front organizations outside of Sri Lanka and usually want nothing whatsoever to do with them; as a result the membership of most front organizations are almost 100% non-Brahmin. You can verify this by "checking names" if you so desire. You'll find a lot more Caroles, Anthonys and Pauls than Sarmas or Kurrukals.

As I recall there's only 5 Tamil Tigers on the FBI Fugitive list and you've already got 1 Catholic name there. Last time I checked, anyhow.

zizka: I don't know the history of early Tiger terrorist operations. However, I do know that the current leader and founder trained as a mercenary in North Africa (Morocco, Algeria perhaps). I always assumed he learned terrorist techniques from the Muslim groups there.

"As a side note, am I the only one who thinks the chosen title for this cover story seems a little offensive?"

Must be my unPC sense of humour but I laughed out loud when I read it.

Fck, those are some serious facelifts there.

Yeah, I'm glad I wasn't born an ugly bastard.

Saved me a cool $15k in "upgrades". :P

I disagree. From most of the anime I've seen, the characters *do* look more Japanese, but with overly exagerated Western-ish features as far as eyes, nose is concerned. Hair is usually left as is, along with skin color. Even height seems asian-ish as far as i can tell.

I've just never had the perception of seeing "white people" in anime, whether its dubbed or subbed; it all seemed very Japanese to me.

The variance in hair color is quite a bit, yes.

Perhaps we were both agreeing on the detail that most anime characters seem to be asians with some exagerated Caucasian features.

Height is perhaps not so relevant. Still... If it were relevant, that combined with "body build" (at least as far as the women are concered) does contribute to more of an Asian appearance. i.e. the females in anime have a typically Asian body build, even if they are action heroes. The males tend to be taller and more muscalar then they actually might be - to be expected.

Watch Love Hina. Now that is a VERY Asian anime in the sense that they try very hard to make most of the characters actually resemble asians. Naturally, they overemphasize the girls' breasts and a few of the characters have brown/red hair but apart from that they're very Japanese. (No, it's not a hentai - romantic comedy).

In that respect they're a lot more similar to the Chinese.

Whilst I love authentic Chinese food, customer service at such restaurants is almost always poor unless I know the proprietor personally.

Off-topic, but someone mentioned being from Tajikistan and having Mongoloid features.

For a decent look at the wide "variety" of "facial features" in the former Soviet states including Russia, check out this mail-order bride site:

www.bride.ru

One one end of the spectrum you have blondes who look like they've been uprooted from Norway; on the other end people who could pass for Tibetan, some of them even Nepalese. I know what you're thinking but some of the asian-looking aren't from states adjoining china or mongolia; migration I suppose.

Iceland is indeed an amazing little country, isn't it? Less people than this crappy college town I live in but it's easily 100x more productive.

I wonder if they're going to bother setting up a military now that the US has stopped providing for their defence?

"Not only this, but the dorky white guys tend to choose from the better looking Asian women (at least from what I've seen). So Asian men are the biggest losers here, because the more attractive Asian men are forced to take less attractive Asian women than they would get otherwise"

Nah. There are plenty of asian women who aren't interested in white men. Theories on genetics aside, *tradition* counts for a lot with these people.

Given how modern-day marriages are handled in the US, everyone seems to be assuming that men go out "looking for wives" just like how they go out shopping for cars. Since I hardly think thats the case, a lot of the assumptions made in this thread are moot.

Indian/Hindu society is so repressed, sexual-wise, and it seems to me that it's always been that way.

I don't know what the history of Tantric sex is, but for most of the Indian establishment it's about as foreign as homosexuality.

When they said "brown and black ones earn less" weren't they probably referring to newly arrived immigrants, i.e. who haven't gotten PR or citizenship yet?

All those Indians you refer to, may be immigrants but may also have gotten PR/landed/citizenship.

And then you talk about young Indian boys/girls who are probably native Britoners and should be referred to as such or as "Indian-British".

"The exception would be Ismaili East African Indians. Can anyone dig up statistics for this group?"

That's a group far too small and specific for there to be any readily available stats... (try searching academic journals). But based on anecdotal experience I'd say they are comparable to "high caste South Indians" as godless likes to say.

"The only ones who worry me are the Islamic nutters."

The Islamic nutters have been in England for decades, haven't they?

Well, that's it then. I'm going to have to remove rightwingnews.com from my list of 'daily sites to-visit'.

Oh wait, it was never on that list! Never mind.

"Rightwingnews.com - Bias? What bias??"

"In other words, if you vote Republican (or, rather, "right-wing") frequently, you have assimilated."

Erm, so since most Blacks consistently vote Democrat,... they haven't "assimilated"?