April 25, 2006

D'Brickashaw Ferguson: Black or Mormon?

One of the top prospects in the NFL draft is D'Brickashaw Ferguson. D'Brickashaw is a U. of Virginia offensive tackle. His mother named D'Brickashaw after Richard Chamberlain's Father Ralph de Bricassart from "The Thorn Birds" miniseries. I can't think of any other reasons to write the name "D'Brickashaw "

And then there's the kind of names that Mormons in Utah saddle their kids with. I hadn't realized how similar in whimsicality Mormon first names have been to modern black names. Utah names tend to sound like the result of a creative collaboration between a 16-year-old black single mother and L. Ron Hubbard. Cari Bilyeu Clark explains in "What's in a (Utah) Name?"


With the generally larger-than-average family, often saddled with the very ordinary surnames Smith, Johnson, or Young, it's not surprising that many Utah parents look for unique given names for their children. When you throw in the reverence for family and ancestors forwarded by the LDS Church, it seems inevitable that someone would end up with LaEarl, KDell, Arnolene or Hariella.


Of course, some guys get all the luck. One of Brigham Young's direct male line descendents won the Heisman Trophy at Brigham Young University, then went on to become perhaps the most gifted quarterback in the history of the NFL. And this Mr. Young didn't get stuck with a Mormon boy's name like "Azer Baloo," "Bretile," "Clemouth, "Denim Levi," "D'Loaf," "EdDean," or "ElVoid," (just to choose a few from the first 5/26th of the Utah Baby Namer for Boys). Nah, he got to be Steve Young. (Okay, I'll admit he sounds like some science nerd, but "Steve" is still a lot better than such only-in-Utah names as "Sterile," "Tabernacle," or "Thermos.")

Clark notes:


The quintessential Utah name often has a French-sounding prefix such as Le-, La-, Ne-, or Va-. Often names appear to have genesis in the combined names of the parents--Veradeane or GlenDora, for example. Related is the practice of feminizing the father's name--as in Vonda (dad is Vaughan) or Danetta. Others, such as Snell or Houser, appear to be surnames called into service as first names.

Related is the curious tendency, more common in Utah than elsewhere, for men (women do not seem to do this) to use the first initial, then the full middle name as the given name, such as L. Flake Rogers, who ran for office in Utah County when we lived there. (Come on, you've noticed this habit among the general authorities of the LDS church!) Besides puzzling over why someone would want to be known as "Flake," it makes one wonder just what the "L" stands for.

So my husband and I entertained ourselves by collecting the often bizarre names we found in Utah publications (including the obituaries, which indicates that this is not a recent fad) and of Utah natives we met... (My personal favorite, LaNondus, came from this source.) Another friend told us of a set of sisters, all of whose names began with "Ja."

Once my husband had Internet access, he collected more names and corresponded with another couple who amused themselves the same way. They made cleverly categorized lists: "The ward choir director's daughters: LaVoice, Choral, Audia."

It makes you wonder what some parents were thinking when, for instance, they named their baby girl Lanae (la-nay)--and she unfortunately ended up with a big nose (le nez [la-nay] in French means "the nose"). Or the girl named M'Lu--are clever wags endlessly asking her to skip to it? And how the heck do people with apostrophes in their names fill out computerized forms? There's no apostrophe space. The guy I really pity, though, is the one saddled with the unfortunate moniker, Rube.

Of course, parents cannot predict what new interpretations the marketplace will bring to the names they lovingly bestow on their offspring. I once worked at a company which had dealings with a woman named LaPriel (pronounced la-prell). When I told my former roommate about this inexplicable first name, she sardonically replied, "What's her sister's name--LaTegrin?"...

Some names, though, seem to defy description--if not pronunciation. While pride of place may have spawned Utahna, how did somebody come up with Wealtha? And while Lloydine's genesis seems plausible, how on earth were Printha or Noy coined? And I have no idea what constitutes the correct pronunciation for Kairle or Tawhnye. (I suspect they may be wildly creative spellings of Carol and Tonya.)


By the way, is this all for real or am I being the victim of an elaborate hoax by cynical Nevadans making fun of their more pious neighbors to the east? I mean, I can believe there's a boy in Utah named "Stockton Malone," but what about "Truss," "Umson" (not to mention "Urmson"), and "Zanderalex" (which I think I got a prescription for when I had a rash).

Well, Google shows that there really have been men named "Elvoid," which I would have thought was a name made up by the bassist in the 1977 punk band Richard Hell and the Voidoids.) So, this can't be a complete hoax, but I'm still not sure I'll completely trust these names.


My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

Greg Easterbrook finally gets his ESPN gig back

Colby Cosh notices:


Forgiven? Two-and-a-half years after being dropped down the memory hole by ESPN, Gregg Easterbrook's Tuesday Morning Quarterback football column has suddenly reappeared with new content on Page 2. Thus continue the curious peregrinations of the world's only 8,000-word weekly sports column written by a fellow of the Brookings Institution.


I would guess that Easterbrook is back at ESPN because Michael Eisner no longer runs the Disney-ABC-ESPN-ETC megamedia company. You'll recall that in October 2003 in one sentence in his former blog on Marty Peretz's New Republic website, Easterbrook seemed to pay attention to the man behind the curtain, as it were, and immediately lost his other job writing about the NFL on Eisner's ESPN. In a twist that Joe Stalin would have saluted, ESPN.com not only fired Easterbrook but deleted all his archives.


As I wrote:


The New Republic's Gregg Easterbrook famously denounced this Disney-Miramax production [Quentin Tarantino's "Kill Bill Vol. I"] for excessive violence, noting, "Recent European history alone ought to cause Jewish executives to experience second thoughts about glorifying the killing of the helpless as a fun lifestyle choice."

Easterbrook was widely excoriated both for terminal unhipness and for supposedly resurrecting the myth that Jews control the media. Disney supremo Michael Eisner, however, did control Easterbrook's other employer, ESPN, which immediately fired him. Most commentators opined that Easterbrook had it coming.

All I can say is that if Walt Disney were alive today, he'd be spinning in his cryogenic preservation chamber.


My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

India and China again

A reader from India writes:

At some point, I wish they carried out some IQ studies based on caste/ethnicity in India (without which IQ data is almost meaningless). While I don't think India's low average IQ figures will change, there should be some very revealing differences. I would not be surprised if the difference in average IQs between the successful castes or communities and the less successful ones is greater than the White-Black IQ gap.

People who are trying to paint a rosy picture of India's future based on the fact that it is a democracy need to be a little more cautious. The first thing that concerns me about these predictions is that they do not take into account the gut wrenching increase in inequality between India's rich (or richest) and the poor. The former have become phenomenally richer since 1991, the latter are for the most part stuck exactly where they were 50 years ago - barely surviving. The political consequences of this cannot be ignored. The latter are far more numerous and have hundreds of millions of extra votes. The former can survive by greasing the wheels of India's extremely corrupt state and evading taxes but they cannot prevent a populist backlash that brings in lots of new socialism (as we speak, political pressure is mounting on the Indian Government to introduce "backward caste quotas" in the private sector to mirror what we have in the public sector).

In addition, urbanisation will melt away a large number of differences so that one of the things that made India relatively stable (too much heterogeneity so that you cannot get three or four groups competing - like Iraq for example) will also disappear. As the differences of language and region melt away, society will stratify more along economic classes. This stratification is already there but I believe it will intensify along Latin American lines (and the regional/linguistic/caste divisions will become relatively meaningless - although the rich economic classes will reflect the old caste hierarchy). And we know what is happening in Latin America right now as a result.

It is fashionable for pro-democracy advocates to talk of Chinese collapse. But China does not have anything like the internal contradictions India has to overcome. Their internal differences are miniscule by comparison. And that is scary because a China that becomes the military equivalent of Japan in the 1930s would be a formidable threat to global security. And they can pose that kind of threat precisely because they do not have so many internal differences. In India, the differences are quite incredible. There are politicians in India, for example, that are totally pro-Pakistan (these are politicians who pull in a large percentage of the Muslim vote). The American equivalent would be politicians who would be pro-Taliban or in the Cold War pro-USSR (i.e. completely in favour of an openly hostile enemy).

And this is one the reasons why the British had no trouble ruling over the country for 200 years because the differences were so easy to exploit. To remain in power all they had to do was play one group against another (and it worked like a charm).

Whatever happens, India won't catch up with China. But a military confrontation may not occur because India also has nuclear weapons and has missiles capable of hitting Beijing.


I don't have a strong opinion on the topic because I'm aware of how little I know about India, which has to be the most complicated place on Earth.


My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

April 24, 2006

My New VDARE.com column

Richard Lynn's Race Differences in Intelligence: Above is a graph showing the average IQ from 23 studies of Japanese people in Japan (red), 17 studies of Hispanics in the U.S. (green), and 17 studies of Aborigines in Australia (blue). The horizontal axis is the estimated average year born of the sample studied. The virtually horizontal colored lines are the best fit lines. While there is a lot of noise in the data, the stability over the generations is striking.


Ever since the publication of Richard Lynn and Tatu Vanhanen's IQ and the Wealth of Nations more than four years ago, I've been beating the drums about how hugely important is their finding of a high correlation (r = 0.73) between average national per capita GDP and average national IQ.

Yet this fascinating research has been almost completely spiked in the press. For example, you might think that The Economist would owe its $129-per-year subscribers some coverage of this research that has so many implications for international business and investing.

Yet the only time The Economist has mentioned the book was in citing it as the source when the magazine fell for that bogus blue-states-have-higher-IQ-hoax!

Now, Lynn has a new book out, Race Differences in Intelligence, which tabulates 620 separate studies of average IQ from 100 different countries with a total sample size of 813,778. That's nearly four times the number of studies summarized in his book with Vanhanen. (Here is J.P. Rushton's review on VDARE.com, and here is Jason Malloy's review on GNXP.com.)

This profusion of data allows us to do analyses of important issues that haven't been feasible before.

How do high IQ people rationalize to themselves suppressing mention of national differences in average IQ—especially when they spend so much time thinking about how they, personally, are smarter than other people?

A common stratagem, I've found, is to assume that IQ differences matter only if they are genetic in origin. Since no decent, civilized, right-thinking person could possibly believe that racial differences in IQ have any genetic basis, then racial and national differences in average IQ can't possibly exist.

Except—they do exist.



And, as I will show that—no matter what their origin, whether in nature or nurture or both—these IQ gaps will continue to exist for many decades.

So we need to think about differences in thinking.

Here's an above-average quality example of the usual kind of wishful thinking from James C. Bennett, author of The Anglosphere Challenge: Why the English-Speaking Nations Will Lead the Way in the Twenty-First Century, on his interesting Albion's Seedlings blog...

Bennett's replies, in part:

“The whole question of trying to make conclusions about ‘national IQs’ from these tests is problematic. Differential national IQ rates could mean that there are inherent differences in IQ, but they could just as easily mean that the socio-cultural-economic differences between nations produce differential IQ scores for environmental reasons… In a few years further genomic studies and fMRI imaging of the brain will tell us far more about heredity and intelligence (and the nature of intelligence) than we can infer today from the wide and rather problematic assortment of statistical studies available today. I think speculation about it is a waste of time right now.”

But (as I responded) it makes no sense to assume that existing IQ gaps have no real-world impact just because they might prove not to be genetic. The overwhelming fact is that—whatever the causes of the disparities may turn out to be—the gaps exist.

And the crucial point is that China appears to have a lead on India of at least one standard deviation (by Lynn's estimate, 1.5 standard deviations or 23 points). From all we know about national IQ trends over time, the possibility of that gap disappearing before, say, 2050, is very small.

Relative differences in average national IQs change even more slowly than, say, relative differences in average national height, which take a couple of generations to fully work through the system.

Since IQs are quite stable from childhood through adulthood, a trailing population's main hope for closing the gap with a higher IQ group rests on its future children.

Let's look at a stylized example. Assume that the IQ gap between two populations, such as China and India, is currently 15 points. And, assume that the babies being born tomorrow in India are suddenly as smart as the babies being born in China.

The red line reflects the growth in the trailing country's workforce's average IQ if the gap disappeared among all babies born in 2006.

The subsequent narrowing of the workforce disparity wouldn't even begin until the 2006 babies started their careers at age 18 in 2024.

If the retirement age is 65 and the population remains stable, then the gap would only be half-closed by 2047, and wouldn't disappear until 2071 (red line in graph below). If it took 2 generations for the average IQs of newborns to catch up, convergence in the workforce wouldn't happen until the 22nd Century (blue line):

So, these gaps will remain crucially important for generations to come. [More]


A reader writes:


Average IQ is not the only relevant factor, and not even clearly the most important relevant factor in assessing, let's put it this way, the relative baseline value of China's and India's human capital. The variance also matters a great deal, as does the specific distribution of talents beyond the raw IQ score.

I would assume Brazil has a significantly lower average IQ than Argentina. But Brazil has a substantial enough population at the high end of the IQ spectrum which, combined with a more creative and entrepreneurial culture, has made Brazil a far more dynamic and important country than Argentina is. (Argentina's dreadful economic policies obviously hurt that country as well, but Brazil's economic policies haven't been exactly world class for much of its history either.)


Indeed, Brazil is one of only four places in the world to compete in the commercial jetliner market. On the other hand, the latest per capita GDP for Argentina is $13,700 versus $8,400 for Brazil. As the saying goes, "Brazil is the country of the future and always will be."


Amy Chua in her book, World on Fire, describes the dangerous downside of having market-dominant minorities. But the upside, for countries from Malaysia to Russia to South Africa to Brazil, has been substantially greater economic development than would have been possible otherwise.

So assume for the sake of argument that India has a very substantial minority of the population (say, the top quintile or decile) that is at least as smart as the comparable segment of the Chinese population. This could certainly be the case if the standard deviation of Indian IQ is substantially higher than for Chinese IQ, and/or if a big reason for the IQ gap between the two countries is relative malnutrition of the huge rural Indian population. Assume further that India has certain cultural advantages, some of which may be related to the natural endowments of the population and others of which are pure accidents of history (like the British colonial inheritance). Assume further that the caste system in India actually serves to bind the market-dominant minority of Indians to the rest of the population (the Hindus, anyway). If all of these assumptions are true (which is a big if, admittedly), I think you could make a strong case for betting on India in spite of the gap in average IQ.


One interesting sidelight is that both countries' educational policies appear to be rationally taking into account the apparent difference in IQ variances between them. India has invested a lot in elite higher education, while China has done a better job of getting the masses up to a minimum level of education, while skimping so far on world class higher education.


My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

For some reason, I don't think the NYT will give this story the same saturation coverage as the Duke lacrosse whoop-tee-do

The Chicago Sun-Times reports on NFL player Ricky Manning Jr.'s fun weekend:

The man the Bears are counting on to solve their secondary woes has his own problems right now.

Ricky Manning Jr., whom the Bears signed to an offer sheet worth as much as $21 million Friday, was arrested shortly after 3 a.m. Sunday in Los Angeles and charged with assault with a deadly weapon after a melee at a Denny's restaurant left a patron unconscious.

Manning, 25, was bailed out of jail, and Los Angeles Police Department detective Robert Lewis said late Sunday that a court date has not been set... According to Lewis, Manning was in a group that attacked a man in the restaurant after teasing him for working on a laptop computer.

"The group began by making comments that the victim looked like a geek or a nerd,'' Lewis said.

The victim asked the group to stop and then complained to a Denny's manager before someone in the group punched him in the face. He then was punched and kicked by multiple attackers until losing consciousness, Lewis said.

The group fled the restaurant, but the car Manning was in was pulled over by officers just blocks from the scene in Westwood Village near the campus of UCLA, where he played in college. According to Lewis, the victim, whom he would not identify, regained consciousness and identified Manning as one of his attackers. Manning has been charged with assault with a deadly weapon because the attack involved people kicking the victim with shoes on, Lewis said.

A source said Manning has said he was at the restaurant but had no part in the melee. It is not the first time Manning has been arrested. He was charged with assault after a bar fight in the same area five years ago today. His record has been clean since joining the NFL.

I can't wait for the "Law & Order" episode that rips this story from the headlines, but changes the attacker into a professional lacrosse player who has just signed a $21 million dollar contract.


My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

Tanning and mood

The BBC reports:

Sunbathing may be a physical addiction, research in the United States suggests.

Scientists believe exposure to ultraviolet rays may stimulate the release of chemicals in the blood which produce a natural high. The team from Wake Forest University in North Carolina say this may explain why some people are prepared to ignore the cancer risk of too much sun. The research is published in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology.

Professor Steven Feldman The Wake Forest team analysed 14 people, aged between 16 and 34, who typically used tanning beds two times a week. Each volunteer spent 15 minutes lying on a sunbed which exposed them to UV rays and then on another - again for 15 minutes - which released no rays. The volunteers were not told which beds released UV.

The subjects were asked if they would like to return days later and use a sunbed of their own choosing. Twelve returned and 95% [?] opted for the bed which radiated UV light. They said it made them feel good and helped them relax. The researchers believe that tanning may release endorphins into the bloodstream.

A reader writes:

I've always just assumed (probably based on something I heard a million years ago) that sunbathing makes whites feel good because their bodies crave sunlight to generate vitamin D (there's a Russian family near me, when the sun comes out after a patch of dreary weather, the mother is religious about getting out and getting some sun...).

This might be sex-linked. I've never really understood white girls attraction to sunbathing (I've know a number who were near religious about it). It cant just be the opportunity to lie around with most of their clothes off; they'll do it with or without public exposure.

My guess is that blondish people find that tanning does the most for their mood. Red-headed people don't tan much and others are already tan. But has any research been done on this?

A reader writes:

The research that I've seen on this topic implicates not tanning as the mood enhancer, but sunlight to the retina. This causes a stimulation of melatonin production, presumably among other things. It's been found that even the blind respond to light exposure this way. Artificial solar light panels are now widely available as treatment for so-called SAD, or Seasonal Affective Disorder, the form of depression caused by lack of light during the winter months. I've no idea whether the amount of exposure to solar radiation is cumulative; if it were, all the tanners would be manic, I suppose. But it seems possible that sunbathing provides such an intense amount of solar exposure to the retina that moods are improved.

Does that mean that you get less of a boost from the sunshine if you wear sunglasses?


My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

The neocons' endorsement of the Führerprinzip:

The growing criticism by retired generals of the Bush Administration's war in Iraq is driving many neocons into furies of rationalization as to why lèse-majesté is a threat to the Republic. A reader writes:

Do you think that the neocons realize that some of their criticism of the retired generals comes dangerously close to the Nazi's Fuhrer principle? One of the most important steps in the road to disaster for Germany was the requirement that the officer corps swear an oath of allegiance to Hitler instead of to the republic or the nation.

Increasingly, i see the same mistake being made by vocal hawks. Although, in truth, i see the explicit argument made more on warblogs than in newspaper columns. Essentially, they say, retired officers may not voice an opinion that disagrees with the civilian leadership. It is fine, however, for retired officers to support the SecDef, or President. They may even campaign for him.

i do not see why any jerk with a modem is allowed to have an opinion on Iraq or Iran and can even advocate war and more war. But the men who have most knowledge about war, strategy and logistics must be silent. Frankly, I want to hear more from them and less from JPod or Ledeen.

Another noted:

Max Boot spoke at the Philadelphia Society a few weeks ago, and his presence has provoked something of a revolt among some of that conservative talk shop's longtime members. His speech--in which he implied that anyone using the word "neocon" was an anti-Semite--was a jeremiad against anyone criticizing the Iraq war. In so doing, he explained his own philosophy of "conservative interventionism" and "armed Wilsonianism," both of which seemed divorced from both historical and present reality. (Besides, his speech was filled with howlers, like "The American people repudiated Nixon's realism." When did that happen, in 1972?) No surprise that Boot is attacking guys like General Zinni, who was CinC Centcom and actually might know a little something about the Middle East.

Another notes:

I remember in 1996 Clinton was petrified of Colin Powell running. It was detailed in Dick Morris' book. They cooked up a plan to deal with him, and it was exactly what you described; That any general who opposes the president represents some sort of military coup. funny.

Another thing I thought was funny.... According to Morris, Clinton seethed at the prospect of the press annointing Powell and treating him with kid gloves because he was black. That would have been delicious. To see THE elite get the same treatment thousands of middle-management white males get every day.


My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

The neocons' endorsement of the Führerprinzip

The growing criticism by retired generals of the Bush Administration's war in Iraq is driving many neocons into furies of rationalization as to why lèse-majesté is a threat to the Republic. A reader writes:

Do you think that the neocons realize that some of their criticism of the retired generals comes dangerously close to the Nazi's Fuhrer principle? One of the most important steps in the road to disaster for Germany was the requirement that the officer corps swear an oath of allegiance to Hitler instead of to the republic or the nation.

Increasingly, i see the same mistake being made by vocal hawks. Although, in truth, i see the explicit argument made more on warblogs than in newspaper columns. Essentially, they say, retired officers may not voice an opinion that disagrees with the civilian leadership. It is fine, however, for retired officers to support the SecDef, or President. They may even campaign for him.

i do not see why any jerk with a modem is allowed to have an opinion on Iraq or Iran and can even advocate war and more war. But the men who have most knowledge about war, strategy and logistics must be silent. Frankly, I want to hear more from them and less from JPod or Ledeen.

Another noted:

Max Boot spoke at the Philadelphia Society a few weeks ago, and his presence has provoked something of a revolt among some of that conservative talk shop's longtime members. His speech--in which he implied that anyone using the word "neocon" was an anti-Semite--was a jeremiad against anyone criticizing the Iraq war. In so doing, he explained his own philosophy of "conservative interventionism" and "armed Wilsonianism," both of which seemed divorced from both historical and present reality. (Besides, his speech was filled with howlers, like "The American people repudiated Nixon's realism." When did that happen, in 1972?) No surprise that Boot is attacking guys like General Zinni, who was CinC Centcom and actually might know a little something about the Middle East.

Another notes:

I remember in 1996 Clinton was petrified of Colin Powell running. It was detailed in Dick Morris' book. They cooked up a plan to deal with him, and it was exactly what you described; That any general who opposes the president represents some sort of military coup. funny.

Another thing I thought was funny.... According to Morris, Clinton seethed at the prospect of the press annointing Powell and treating him with kid gloves because he was black. That would have been delicious. To see THE elite get the same treatment thousands of middle-management white males get every day.


My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

Tanning and mood:

The BBC reports:

Sunbathing may be a physical addiction, research in the United States suggests.

Scientists believe exposure to ultraviolet rays may stimulate the release of chemicals in the blood which produce a natural high. The team from Wake Forest University in North Carolina say this may explain why some people are prepared to ignore the cancer risk of too much sun. The research is published in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology.

Professor Steven Feldman The Wake Forest team analysed 14 people, aged between 16 and 34, who typically used tanning beds two times a week. Each volunteer spent 15 minutes lying on a sunbed which exposed them to UV rays and then on another - again for 15 minutes - which released no rays. The volunteers were not told which beds released UV.

The subjects were asked if they would like to return days later and use a sunbed of their own choosing. Twelve returned and 95% [?] opted for the bed which radiated UV light. They said it made them feel good and helped them relax. The researchers believe that tanning may release endorphins into the bloodstream.

A reader writes:

I've always just assumed (probably based on something I heard a million years ago) that sunbathing makes whites feel good because their bodies crave sunlight to generate vitamin D (there's a Russian family near me, when the sun comes out after a patch of dreary weather, the mother is religious about getting out and getting some sun...).

This might be sex-linked. I've never really understood white girls attraction to sunbathing (I've know a number who were near religious about it). It cant just be the opportunity to lie around with most of their clothes off; they'll do it with or without public exposure.

My guess is that blondish people find that tanning does the most for their mood. Red-headed people don't tan much and others are already tan. But has any research been done on this?

A reader writes:

The research that I've seen on this topic implicates not tanning as the mood enhancer, but sunlight to the retina. This causes a stimulation of melatonin production, presumably among other things. It's been found that even the blind respond to light exposure this way. Artificial solar light panels are now widely available as treatment for so-called SAD, or Seasonal Affective Disorder, the form of depression caused by lack of light during the winter months. I've no idea whether the amount of exposure to solar radiation is cumulative; if it were, all the tanners would be manic, I suppose. But it seems possible that sunbathing provides such an intense amount of solar exposure to the retina that moods are improved.

Does that mean that you get less of a boost from the sunshine if you wear sunglasses?


My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

My New VDARE.com column:

Richard Lynn's Race Differences in Intelligence: Above is a graph showing the average IQ from 23 studies of Japanese people in Japan (red), 17 studies of Hispanics in the U.S. (green), and 17 studies of Aborigines in Australia (blue). The horizontal axis is the estimated average year born of the sample studied. The virtually horizontal colored lines are the best fit lines. While there is a lot of noise in the data, the stability over the generations is striking.

Ever since the publication of Richard Lynn and Tatu Vanhanen's IQ and the Wealth of Nations more than four years ago, I've been beating the drums about how hugely important is their finding of a high correlation (r = 0.73) between average national per capita GDP and average national IQ.

Yet this fascinating research has been almost completely spiked in the press. For example, you might think that The Economist would owe its $129-per-year subscribers some coverage of this research that has so many implications for international business and investing.

Yet the only time The Economist has mentioned the book was in citing it as the source when the magazine fell for that bogus blue-states-have-higher-IQ-hoax!

Now, Lynn has a new book out, Race Differences in Intelligence, which tabulates 620 separate studies of average IQ from 100 different countries with a total sample size of 813,778. That's nearly four times the number of studies summarized in his book with Vanhanen. (Here is J.P. Rushton's review on VDARE.com, and here is Jason Malloy's review on GNXP.com.)

This profusion of data allows us to do analyses of important issues that haven't been feasible before.

How do high IQ people rationalize to themselves suppressing mention of national differences in average IQ—especially when they spend so much time thinking about how they, personally, are smarter than other people?

A common stratagem, I've found, is to assume that IQ differences matter only if they are genetic in origin. Since no decent, civilized, right-thinking person could possibly believe that racial differences in IQ have any genetic basis, then racial and national differences in average IQ can't possibly exist.

Except—they do exist.



And, as I will show that—no matter what their origin, whether in nature or nurture or both—these IQ gaps will continue to exist for many decades.

So we need to think about differences in thinking.

Here's an above-average quality example of the usual kind of wishful thinking from James C. Bennett, author of The Anglosphere Challenge: Why the English-Speaking Nations Will Lead the Way in the Twenty-First Century, on his interesting Albion's Seedlings blog...

Bennett's replies, in part:

“The whole question of trying to make conclusions about ‘national IQs’ from these tests is problematic. Differential national IQ rates could mean that there are inherent differences in IQ, but they could just as easily mean that the socio-cultural-economic differences between nations produce differential IQ scores for environmental reasons… In a few years further genomic studies and fMRI imaging of the brain will tell us far more about heredity and intelligence (and the nature of intelligence) than we can infer today from the wide and rather problematic assortment of statistical studies available today. I think speculation about it is a waste of time right now.”

But (as I responded) it makes no sense to assume that existing IQ gaps have no real-world impact just because they might prove not to be genetic. The overwhelming fact is that—whatever the causes of the disparities may turn out to be—the gaps exist.

And the crucial point is that China appears to have a lead on India of at least one standard deviation (by Lynn's estimate, 1.5 standard deviations or 23 points). From all we know about national IQ trends over time, the possibility of that gap disappearing before, say, 2050, is very small.

Relative differences in average national IQs change even more slowly than, say, relative differences in average national height, which take a couple of generations to fully work through the system.

Since IQs are quite stable from childhood through adulthood, a trailing population's main hope for closing the gap with a higher IQ group rests on its future children.

Let's look at a stylized example. Assume that the IQ gap between two populations, such as China and India, is currently 15 points. And, assume that the babies being born tomorrow in India are suddenly as smart as the babies being born in China.

The red line reflects the growth in the trailing country's workforce's average IQ if the gap disappeared among all babies born in 2006.

The subsequent narrowing of the workforce disparity wouldn't even begin until the 2006 babies started their careers at age 18 in 2024.

If the retirement age is 65 and the population remains stable, then the gap would only be half-closed by 2047, and wouldn't disappear until 2071 (red line in graph below). If it took 2 generations for the average IQs of newborns to catch up, convergence in the workforce wouldn't happen until the 22nd Century (blue line):

So, these gaps will remain crucially important for generations to come. [More]


My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

Tanning and mood

The BBC reports:

Sunbathing may be a physical addiction, research in the United States suggests.

Scientists believe exposure to ultraviolet rays may stimulate the release of chemicals in the blood which produce a natural high. The team from Wake Forest University in North Carolina say this may explain why some people are prepared to ignore the cancer risk of too much sun. The research is published in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology.

Professor Steven Feldman The Wake Forest team analysed 14 people, aged between 16 and 34, who typically used tanning beds two times a week. Each volunteer spent 15 minutes lying on a sunbed which exposed them to UV rays and then on another - again for 15 minutes - which released no rays. The volunteers were not told which beds released UV.

The subjects were asked if they would like to return days later and use a sunbed of their own choosing. Twelve returned and 95% [?] opted for the bed which radiated UV light. They said it made them feel good and helped them relax. The researchers believe that tanning may release endorphins into the bloodstream.

A reader writes:

I've always just assumed (probably based on something I heard a million years ago) that sunbathing makes whites feel good because their bodies crave sunlight to generate vitamin D (there's a Russian family near me, when the sun comes out after a patch of dreary weather, the mother is religious about getting out and getting some sun...).

This might be sex-linked. I've never really understood white girls attraction to sunbathing (I've know a number who were near religious about it). It cant just be the opportunity to lie around with most of their clothes off; they'll do it with or without public exposure.

My guess is that blondish people find that tanning does the most for their mood. Red-headed people don't tan much and others are already tan. But has any research been done on this?

A reader writes:

The research that I've seen on this topic implicates not tanning as the mood enhancer, but sunlight to the retina. This causes a stimulation of melatonin production, presumably among other things. It's been found that even the blind respond to light exposure this way. Artificial solar light panels are now widely available as treatment for so-called SAD, or Seasonal Affective Disorder, the form of depression caused by lack of light during the winter months. I've no idea whether the amount of exposure to solar radiation is cumulative; if it were, all the tanners would be manic, I suppose. But it seems possible that sunbathing provides such an intense amount of solar exposure to the retina that moods are improved.

Does that mean that you get less of a boost from the sunshine if you wear sunglasses?


My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

The neocons' endorsement of the Führerprinzip

The growing criticism by retired generals of the Bush Administration's war in Iraq is driving many neocons into furies of rationalization as to why lèse-majesté is a threat to the Republic. A reader writes:

Do you think that the neocons realize that some of their criticism of the retired generals comes dangerously close to the Nazi's Fuhrer principle? One of the most important steps in the road to disaster for Germany was the requirement that the officer corps swear an oath of allegiance to Hitler instead of to the republic or the nation.

Increasingly, i see the same mistake being made by vocal hawks. Although, in truth, i see the explicit argument made more on warblogs than in newspaper columns. Essentially, they say, retired officers may not voice an opinion that disagrees with the civilian leadership. It is fine, however, for retired officers to support the SecDef, or President. They may even campaign for him.

i do not see why any jerk with a modem is allowed to have an opinion on Iraq or Iran and can even advocate war and more war. But the men who have most knowledge about war, strategy and logistics must be silent. Frankly, I want to hear more from them and less from JPod or Ledeen.

Another noted:

Max Boot spoke at the Philadelphia Society a few weeks ago, and his presence has provoked something of a revolt among some of that conservative talk shop's longtime members. His speech--in which he implied that anyone using the word "neocon" was an anti-Semite--was a jeremiad against anyone criticizing the Iraq war. In so doing, he explained his own philosophy of "conservative interventionism" and "armed Wilsonianism," both of which seemed divorced from both historical and present reality. (Besides, his speech was filled with howlers, like "The American people repudiated Nixon's realism." When did that happen, in 1972?) No surprise that Boot is attacking guys like General Zinni, who was CinC Centcom and actually might know a little something about the Middle East.

Another notes:

I remember in 1996 Clinton was petrified of Colin Powell running. It was detailed in Dick Morris' book. They cooked up a plan to deal with him, and it was exactly what you described; That any general who opposes the president represents some sort of military coup. funny.

Another thing I thought was funny.... According to Morris, Clinton seethed at the prospect of the press annointing Powell and treating him with kid gloves because he was black. That would have been delicious. To see THE elite get the same treatment thousands of middle-management white males get every day.


My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

April 23, 2006

Since when were RETIRED generals banned from criticizing the Administration?

The neocons are divided over the recent criticisms by a half-dozen retired generals of elderly Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Some, like Bill Kristol, want Rumsfeld to be the Designated Fall Guy for the failure of their Iraq War. But others see criticism of Rumsfeld as criticism of their war, and they don't like that. Max Boot, for instance, declaims in "A General Disgrace:"


The retired generals, who claim to speak for their active-duty brethren, premise their uprising on two complaints. First, many (though not all) say we should not have gone into Iraq in the first place. Former Lt. Gen. Greg Newbold calls it "the unnecessary war," and former Gen. Anthony Zinni claims that "containment worked remarkably well." That is a highly questionable judgment, and one that is not for generals to make.


The most hilarious argument is that retired generals shouldn't be allowed to criticize the government [presumably because the next step is a military coup]. So, retired General Dwight Eisenhower was wrong to attack the Truman Administration when he ran for President in 1952? Retired General Ulysses S. Grant wasn't allowed to say what he thought of the Andrew Johnson Administration when running for President in 1868?

The History News Network writes:


Twelve presidents were generals: George Washington, Andrew Jackson, William Henry Harrison, Zachary Taylor, Franklin Pierce, Andrew Johnson [he was a military governor of Tennessee during the Civil War -- I don't know if that came with the rank of "General"], Ulysses S. Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes, James Garfield, Chester Arthur, Benjamin Harrison, and Dwight Eisenhower.

The list of generals who have run for president, won their party's nomination and then lost include: Lewis Cass, Winfield Scott, George McClellan, Winfield S. Hancock [and John C. Fremont].

Admiral Dewey, Douglas MacArthur and Al Haig [and in 2004, Wesley Clark] wanted to be president but failed to win their party's nomination.


My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

The NYT Public Editor give a big wet kiss to the NYT's hysterical coverage of the Duke lacrosse goat rodeo

New York Times ombudsman Brian Calame, perhaps taking time out from watching the old "Law & Order" reruns where he apparently gets his worldview, reviews his newspaper's overheated interest in this ridiculous farce and finds it A-OK. Let's just note that the word "hoax" never appears in his essay. He concludes:


"A final thought, based on my review of The Times's performance: Covering the legal proceedings that seem likely to focus on the extremely serious charges of sexual assault and kidnapping is vital. But the paper needs to keep an eye on the allegations and reports about the racial insults voiced by various players, and on the lacrosse team's seemingly flawed culture. If the rape and kidnapping charges do not hold up, the story doesn't end. The Times should be prepared to continue covering what is done about the racial-insult allegations, given the prominence of the team and the university."


"If the rape and kidnapping charges do not hold up, the story doesn't end." Uh, wouldn't the story then be how the Newspaper of Record got hoaxed into publicizing at vast length an absurd tale made up by a drunken stripper?

What I'm struck by is the complete lack of self-awareness in the media. Even with a fair number of discussions of how all this is pre-figured in Tom Wolfe novels, the key concept from the "Bonfire of the Vanities" of the hunt for the Great White Defendant just hasn't register with the press. A Google search for "Duke lacrosse" and "Great White Defendant" brings up only 13 different sites, most of them inspired by me.


My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

More on blacks and swimming

As I've mentioned before (here and here), a new study shows that young black males are 5 to 12 times more likely to drown than their white peers. My best friend lost his stepson to the Kern River last year, so I'm particularly aware now of how dangerous water can be. The drowning death toll of black youths is terribly high, especially considering how little time they spend around water. Nobody knows why. Unfortunately, the vast majority of media would rather continue to let black kids drown than to have a frank discussion of why they drown.

My pet theory is that biological and cultural differences interact. Although blacks who know how to swim can swim fine, they often find learning to swim more frightening than whites do because, when in good shape, blacks are denser on average than whites.



If that's true, then blacks need to get the message: Your children are more vulnerable to drowning, so you must teach them to swim.


Readers write:


I may have mentioned to you in an e-mail quite some time ago about my experience in the US Marine Corps boot camp. I'm a North American indigene, coastal Salish, morphologically similar to the Inuit. During the swimming qualification (a holdover from when the majority of USMC duties were aboard US Naval vessels, the way the Canadian Mounties still had dressage training until not that long ago) I floated like a cork while all the "dark green" Marine recruits ended up being fished from the bottom of the pool by the lifeguards. We were all teenage guys who'd been running twice a day under the loving attention of our drill instructors for the last two months, all volunteers for service in the Marines. The black guys just had less body fat. The DI's all mentioned this beforehand, and told them not to worry too much about it.

*


I asked one of my good black friends about this in college a hundred years ago. He laughed and said something to the effect that white people like to swim because they think a tan makes them attractive. Blacks don’t have that problem. He also said that pool water makes a black person’s skin all rusty and nasty.


I had no idea what he meant by rusty, so he lightly scratched his arm. The residue of dead skin showed up as a grayish mark. That’s rust.


A lot of whites spend time in swimsuits in part because sunshine on their skin elevates their mood. Sunbathing isn't just cosmetic -- it makes a lot of people, especially blonds, happy. Unfortunately, I've never seen an explanation of the biochemistry of this. Do darker skinned people not get as much of an emotional lift from sunbathing?

*


Blacks are not natural swimmers and avoid learning how to swim, which I think accounts for the rate of drowning. But when trained they are really good swimmers. I was a division I swimmer and before that I swam on a public swim team in an integrated town for 10 years and saw and coached some decent black swimmers. They definitely resist swimming as a sport. I have had black parents call me and ask me to convince their son to swim in high school instead of joining the basketball team and sitting on the bench because they were better at swimming than basketball. Our high school sent a black diver to the Pennsylvania state championship this year and I also watched a black guy win the 50 yard freestyle at the state meet.

*


I was on the track team at XXX University in 1996-7 where the sprinters were almost all black. On a side note, all whites on the short distance team sprinted and ran hurdles. Long distance was mostly all white (our team wasn't good enough to attract any Kenyans.) We would keep track of our body fat and the blacks would have percentages in the 2-3 range whereas whites were generally around 8-10 although sometimes as low as 6.


I read somewhere that Danny Farmer, who back in the 1990s was UCLA's star wide receiver and All-American volleyball player, had a 3.7% body fat, which is about the lowest I've ever heard of for a white guy. A former UCLA coed writes: "Poor abused, yet criminally hot, Danny Farmer. He ran into me at Thrifty once -- literally, we turned corners in the toothpaste aisle and collided, and it actually kind of hurt me, as he had no body fat -- and he was SO NICE about it to me. He was all, "wow, are you okay?" and I was like, "dfjakgiariugbdddIloveyou." or something, and he was like, "I'm really sorry I ran into you," and I could not say anything coherent in response. Sigh. I had the biggest crush on him. Me, and 11,000 other girls."

*


How likely is a black kid to be forced by his parents or others to wear a lifejacket while boating? This is somewhat related to intelligence and education, but at least as much to culture--do all the people around you laugh at you for wearing a lifejacket, or does everyone around frown at parents whose kids aren't wearing them?


Do blacks ever go boating? It's not like I can afford it either these days, but when I used to do a little sailing and kayaking, I noticed that only thing that seemed to bring black people to the water was fishing.

*


Here's a little factoid that I learned when I worked at the post office: blacks typically don't learn how swim. It's just not part of their culture, even for the ones who can afford swimming lessons and pool passes (like postal workers). Since most of the deaths take place in hotel pools, I'm guessing that black kids, who would have never been to a pool if they had not happened to stay at a hotel with one, decide to give it a try, with tragic results. The fact that black males especially have a high drowning rate could be attributed to the fact that males, of any race, are more likely to do something idiotic, like jump into a swimming pool when they don't know how to swim.

The article's writer probably didn't know that. Whites are mostly ignorant of non-white culture.

*


One factor you haven't mentioned is poorly-trained, low-quality lifeguards at the public pools urban black kids swim at.

I worked for many summers as a camp counselor in Maryland. About 15% of our campers and staff were African-Americans from DC or Prince George's County. It was almost a cliché that the white suburban kids could all swim well when they got there, but that the black kids from the city couldn't -- were often terrified of the water, in fact, including the older kids (14-15 yrs) who were otherwise pretty tough. A high proportion of black counselors couldn't swim well, either, about half. I'm not sure I even met a white counselor who couldn't swim.

During Staff Training Week, some of these black counselors would take the training to become certified lifeguards (Red Cross or YMCA), and a certain percentage often failed, perhaps a quarter to a third, while another quarter-to-third would pass but just baaarely, and I sure wouldn't trust that percentage to watch my kids in the pool. One guy got certified and could barely doggie paddle his way across the pool! There were always a lot of highly-qualified white lifeguards (and, to be fair, a smattering of well-qualified black ones) around so no one ever drowned, but the overall quality of the black lifeguards from the inner city was way, way lower than the quality of the suburban white lifeguards, who I would certainly trust with my kids' lives.

But imagine an overcrowded inner-city public pool. The kids may be behaving a little more rambunctiously than the kids at a white suburban pool, but it's the quality of the lifeguards that's the biggest problem. No safety net of hyperqualified, experienced white lifeguards to mask the relative incompetence of the majority of the black ones, and that's when the drownings happen. We'd occasionally get reports from the camp director of a drowning at some other camp somewhere in the country, and our pool staff would read the incident report summaries and think, what the hell kind of pool is this? It was always something like: the only two lifeguards on duty were a 16-year-old and an 18-year-old, and one wouldn't even be certified, and the other would have been inexplicably away from the pool for 10 minutes when the drowning happened, stuff like that.

So I'm sure the reason a higher % of black kids than white kids drown is multicausal (like everything in studying human behavior), but the quality of the lifeguards at the pools black kids frequent is major, and might even be the biggest overall cause.


It sounds like a lot of black kids who drown have snuck into a public pool that's closed, or drown in a motel/hotel pool.

*


Occam's razor: The simplest explanation for more accidental drownings among the black population is that not many of them know how to swim. In turn, the simplest explanation for this is that black people usually don't *like* to swim, because it tends to ruin anything that they've done to their hair (any straightening, etc.).


Thanks. That should be true for girls, but an awful lot of the boys have very short hair.


True, but who usually makes sure that a kid learns to swim? The mother. Particularly in a single parent household (it goes without saying). And if the mother has never learned to value swimming, she probably won't push swimming on her sons. And so the cultural value of learning to swim never takes root.

*


I don't think you are correct here. I remember Bob Kiputh's admonition to me. Buoyancy is key. Many people will float unless they blow their breath out which results in their sinking. One thing swimmers have is huge lungs because they can't breath when they want to-- that may be a factor. I have heard talk of "swimmer's muscles" vis a vis other sports' muscles, but I realize that body fat is deduced from immersion results so denser bones would not be a factor. On the other hand I've looked at the bodies of thousands of swimmers over a lifetime and hardly any of them look at all like, say, Joe Frazer. And I think I am right that only one black man has ever won an Olympic swimming event and that was recently....I'm guessing it's reduced access to swimming pools and swimming teachers when young, coupled with a bit of parental neglect and ignorance.


Anthony Nesty of Surinam beat the great Matt Biondi in 1988 for a gold medal. An American kid who is a little bit black won a gold recently, but you couldn't really tell by looking at him. I don't think that at the Olympic level, differences in buoyancy matter, except maybe in the 1500 meters, but they matter in getting started swimming.

*


I wonder if this person grew up around many poor blacks. Blacks show FAR less inclination towards the water than whites do. The ones who do show an inclination for the water express it almost exclusively at public swimming pools, and they avoid the deep end like the bubonic plague. Seriously, growing up in Savannah I remember distinctly how ironclad this rule was, and how (literally) impossible it was to get any of my black friends to break it - not one ever did.

Black behavior was similar at the beach. Sure, blacks like the beach, but they don't care much for the water. It's like there's a rule in the Universal Handbook of Blackness: thou shalt wade no deeper than thy knees. I'm not exaggerating. I think I remember seeing maybe one or two blacks swim past waist deep at the beach during my childhood.

*


From "In the Minority" in Aquatics International by Shabnam Mogharabi:


Ingrained cultural differences also make it difficult. For instance, coaches specializing in minority swim instruction say that more than 50 percent of black parents do not know how to swim, so the skill never becomes a priority in those households.

“Some of the parents are scared of water,” says Kim Burgess, director of Swim Central, a program of the Broward County Parks and Recreation Department in Florida that works with local schools to provide underprivileged children with exposure to water. “They were never taught to swim, so their kids don’t get taught. It’s not a priority.”

More than three-fourths of black women say they are nonswimmers. Many coaches and black athletes say that hair care and maintenance is one of the issues that keep them out of the water. Some white aquatics professionals don’t realize the time and money black women spend to maintain and style their hair. Chemically treated water tends to undo styles quickly, and causes frizziness and other problems.

*


It seems to me that motor-vehicle deaths are not higher among blacks because they are more likely to use public transportation. They also do not have high DUI rates. Black students have argued that this is due to less drunkenness among blacks, but the data more strongly support the idea that they do not use cars as much.

Accidental deaths which clearly reflect recklessness, such as gun accidents, are more common among blacks teens and young adults. (This is not due to greater access to guns--whites have higher levels of ownership).


Here's a study of motor vehicle deaths by miles driven. I was under the impression that young Mexican men were the most dangerous drivers, but this says blacks are.

I have a vague impression that there are a lot of activities where blacks aren't daredevils. For example, extreme sports are heavily white and Asian. I saw some ESPN show once where an NBA player tried rock climbing -- he was catatonic with fear. I recall a black comedian talking about how blacks don't like rollercoasters. (I'm terrified of rollercoasters myself, so I couldn't tell you first hand what the demographics are.) Perhaps blacks don't much like heights?

In contrast, Iroquois Indians traditionally get construction jobs on NYC skyscrapers. When asked what was the secret of why Indians weren't afraid of heights, one worker replied, Of course we're scared. We just refuse to show it.


My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

War Nerd on the Moussaoui Trial

Gary Brecher writes in Fighting Terror with Kleenex:


Instead, Moussaoui blew into court looking like Bluto from Popeye: this big, burly, hairy, shouting blowhard full of Koranic piss'n'vinegar. It was shameful to watch the way he talked back to the useless prosecution team. It ruined the whole point of the trial. Look, this trial isn't exactly a whodunit. Moussaoui boasts non-stop that he was in on the plot, so that's settled. The point is to make him look weak and terrified and get him to renounce his Al Quaeda ties in public, preferably while crying like a little bitch.

Instead - and it shames me to say this - it was our guys who cried. I can't believe it! There was a serving US Army officer on the stand, CRYING while he talked about people being (sob!) killed, yes, KILLED when Moussaoui's pals from the "How to Fly a Commercial Airliner without Landing" aviation school slammed that commuter jet into the Pentagon. This dude was soaking his hanky while Moussaoui looked on and sneered.

Now don't start telling me about how manly it is to cry. In the first place, no it isn't. In the second place, even if you think so, they sure don't think that way in Waziristan and Yemen and Java. In those places, a US Army officer weeping while he talks about casualties means one thing: w-e-a-k. Trouble is, we're so used to all this boo-hoo crap about 9/11 for home consumption that we don't see that when it's time to put on a show for the Muslim hordes (and that's what this trial is). [More]


And here's a transcript of John Derbyshire on Radio Derb:


I hate to admit it, and you're going to hate me for admitting it, but as I've been following the Zacarias Moussaoui trial, I've found my self wondering if we really can win this war on terror. Item: A U.S. naval officer, Lt. Nancy McKeown, wept on the witness stand while testifying about the deaths of her colleagues. Here is what Moussaoui said about that, quote: "I think it was disgusting for a military person to cry. She is military, she should expect people at war with her to want to kill her."

I agree with Moussaoui. Isn't it an offense under our Uniform Code of Military Justice to weep in the face—literally, actually, in the face—of the enemy? If it isn't, it ought to be. I'd be happy to see Lt. McKeown court martialed, and if judgment were up to me, she'd be stripped of her commission and given five years in the brig.

Item: In Moussaoui's defense, though without his approval, a clinical social worker, Ms. Jan Vogelsang, testified that Moussaoui was a victim of child abuse and racism. His father had beaten the kids, and Moussaoui's girlfriend's family had rejected him because they looked down on North Africans. What did Moussaoui think of that testimony? "It's a lot of American B.S.," he shouted as he was led from the court.

Well, again, I totally agree. It is a lot of B.S., though unfortunately not particularly American. The whole Western world has been infected by this poisonous pap.

Item: The Los Angeles Times, arguing against a death sentence, editorialized that, quote: "Capital punishment gives jihadists like Moussaoui the martyrdom they crave." End quote. Possibly so; but it gives the rest of us the immense satisfaction of knowing that there is one less of the enemy in existence.

Watching this trial, I've been left with the impression that on one side of the war on terror there are unbreakable men of steely determination striving to kill as many of us as possible, without distinction, compunction, or remorse. On the other side are the emoting, weeping, sniveling, feminized legions of our rotten therapeutic society, the children of Oprah and Bill Clinton, wailing about "racism" and "abuse," gushing out their precious feelings for the world to see. So far as that first side is concerned, I believe Zacarias Moussaoui is a fair example of what we are up against. If the other side is illustrative of the Western world's cultural defenses, we are surely doomed.


A reader adds:


Did you see 'Some Kind of Monster,' the documentary about [heavy metal band] Metallica? Dave Mustaine, the lead singer of [another metal band] Megadeth, CRIES in it. Not for the arguably acceptable reasons for a man to cry (death of a dog or father), but because he was having a sit down with the Metallica drummer and they were talking about the fall-out from Mustaine being kicked out of Metallica 20+ years ago. Just to reiterate -- the singer of Megadeth cries on camera. What the hell is happening to this country???


My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

Absurd lineup process used:

ABC News reports:

According to the police report, the alleged victim was shown a police lineup of 46 photos individually depicting all the Duke lacrosse team members except for freshman goalie Devon Sherwood, the only black member of the team. He was excluded because the alleged victim told police her attackers were white...

However, an eyewitness identification expert believes the police lineup procedure was flawed because no non-lacrosse players were included. Gary Wells, president of the American Psychology-Law Society, described it as "a multiple-choice test without any wrong answers."

By including "fillers," or non-suspects, in a police lineup, an accuser has to pick past the filler to choose people who actually might have committed the crime. "Without fillers as a control, the process has no internal credibility check," Wells said.

David Rudolf, a North Carolina defense lawyer who has been an adjunct professor at Duke and the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, believes the procedures may be problematic to the point of being inadmissible in court. "I have significant doubt that this will be admitted in court," he said, "and no doubt defense will challenge it vigorously."

The issue, Rudolf explains, is that due process prohibits evidence from lineups that are unnecessarily suggestive and conducive to mistaken identity. "When you take the only suspect group and put it in front of the victim," Rudolf says, "by definition you're suggesting it was one of the 46 people in that group."


My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer