May 26, 2011

Choose your parents wisely

Here's the abstract of an academic article by Joshua Kjerulf Dubrow and jimi adams that shows that, as usual, family helps:
The popular image of the African American National Basketball Association (NBA) player as rising from the ‘ghetto’ to international fame and fortune misleads academics and publics alike. This false image is fueled, in part, by critical shortcomings in empirical research on the relationship between race, sport, and occupational mobility: these studies have not adequately examined differences in social class and family structure backgrounds across, and especially within, racial groups. To address this problem, we empirically investigate how the intersection of race, social class and family structure background influences entry into the NBA. Information on social class and family structure background for a subpopulation of NBA players (N = 155) comes from 245 articles published in local, regional and national newspapers between 1994 and 2004. We find that, after accounting for methodological problems common in newspaper data, most NBA players come from relatively advantaged social origins and African Americans from disadvantaged social origins have lower odds of being in the NBA than African American and white players from relatively advantaged origins.

I was nodding my head until that last bit. Watching Dirk Nowitzki dominate on the sports highlights gets me to wondering once again: how come there are more top white basketball players from foreign countries (e.g., Nowitzki, Nash, the Gasols, Ginobili, etc.) than from the U.S.? Sure, there are more tall white guys abroad, but Germany isn't exactly hoops crazy. 

Top white American basketball players do seem to come from wealthy basketball families fairly often: Kevin Love's dad was in the NBA and Kiki Vandeweghe's dad was an NBA player who became the Lakers' team doctor. But, it seems as if white fathers today who aren't ex-basketball stars are more likely to groom their tall, athletic sons to be quarterbacks rather than basketball players. I remember back in the late 1960s how amazed NFL fans were that Roman Gabriel, at 6'5" had become a quarterback rather than a basketball player. Times have changed. (By the way, Gabriel's father was from the Philippines. His mother was Irish.)

Clearly, one reason for this finding about blacks is that jail wrecks the careers of a fair number of athletic blacks from underclass backgrounds. It would be interesting to look at arrest and prison statistics on height and race to see if being very tall helps a black guy be less likely to stay out of jail because he's being helped along toward a basketball career. My prediction would be that a lower percentage of very tall black men are in prison than in the total black population. 

A few years ago, I made up a list of the top 10 centers in NBA history, and most seemed pretty smart. Center is the position where sheer height matters most, yet having something on the ball must also help. Of the top 10 centers, only Moses Malone, with his almost incomprehensible rural Southern accent, was clearly from the least advantaged part of society. Patrick Ewing was pretty taciturn too, but a lot of other top centers, such as Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain, were famously good interviews. David Robinson scored 1320 on the SAT (old style) and Kareem 1130.

Also, I suspect that having an outstandingly athletic son can sometimes keep fathers from straying too far, thus keeping the kid at a higher social level because his family is intact.

The small number of top players from Africa are mostly from the top of their societies: Olajuwon's dad was rich, Mutumbo's dad was a high school principal, and Luol Deng's dad was a cabinet minister in the Sudan. The late Manute Bol was a herdsman, however.

Bloomberg View versus iSteve

Michael Bloomberg, ninth richest man in America and mayor of New York, has debuted his expensive new online opinion magazine: Bloomberg View. For example, here are its five latest op-eds

JUST ADDED…


I haven't actually read any of these, so maybe Bloomberg View will turn out to be more fun than it looks. Still, here's my question: 

Which is more interesting: Bloomberg View or iSteve

Francis Fukuyama’s History of the World: Part I

My long review of Francis Fukuyama's The Origins of Political Order is now in the July 2011 print edition of The American Conservative. Subscribers can read it online. (You can subscribe here.) Here's the opening:
Whenever prominent national security intellectual Francis “The End of History” Fukuyama publishes another book (which is often), it’s always amusing to wisecrack about how current events show that history has not, indeed, ended. For example, the first half of what Fukuyama intends to be his magnum opus, The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution, landed with a thump on my doorstep the week America plunged into war with Libya. As I write, Americans are astounded by Osama bin Laden being found in the heart of Pakistan’s deep state. 
It’s hard to resist making jokes at Fukuyama’s expense, even ones as tired as the non-end of history, because of his self-promoting egotism. For example, this doorstop book is, we are informed: first, an extension both forward and backward in time of his late mentor Samuel P. Huntington’s 1968 landmark, Political Order in Changing Societies; second, Fukuyama’s version of Jared Diamond’s 1997 bestselling History and Theory of Everything, Guns, Germs, and Steel; and, third, a revolutionary work that introduces to political science the cutting edge Darwinian insights of 1960s-1970s sociobiologists. (While Mel Brooks’s History of the World: Part I began with cavemen, Fukuyama’s starts with chimpanzees.)  
This is not to imply that The Origins of Political Order is a bad book. It’s a very good one, just not as boggling as Fukuyama imagines. Instead, Origins is quite sensible: it traces the historic evolution of what he defines as a good state: one that is strong, accountable, and under the rule of law. Unfortunately, it’s also shallow.  
A clue to Fukuyama’s astonishing productivity—Who can type that fast?—might be found in his Wikipedia photograph, which shows him wearing a headset microphone. The less-than-magisterial prose style of Origins sometimes sounds as if Fukuyama had dictated it at some haste into Dragon Naturally Speaking voice recognition software. For instance, p. 10 of Origins reads like Jane Austen on crack:
"It concerns the difficulties of creating and maintaining effective political institutions, governments that are simultaneously powerful, rule bound, and accountable. This might seem like an obvious point that any fourth grader would acknowledge, and yet on further reflection it is a truth that many intelligent people fail to understand." 


Good grief, more Twitter

Five days ago I announced I finaly had a Twitter account where you could sign up to be a follower (subscriber?) of me at 


and receive twits (tweets?) of the title and link to my latest blog post. It occurs to me, now, that some of you might not want to be publicly identified as a follower of Steve_Sailer. So, I've started a second Twitter account that will provide the exact same content, but the name is anodyne. Just click here:

http://tinyurl.com/3gdjxw3

When you get there, click on the Orange button on the right that reads "Sign up and follow ..."

By the way, is "follower" the right word with Twitter? "Acolyte?" "Cultist?" I can never remember. You know, when I think back on it, I'm quite amazed that I was a professional, full-time PC guy in 1986-87, with three PC technicians working for me. Not only was I fairly good at it, I liked new technology back then. In 1986, I would have known exactly whether I was sending out twits or tweets. Today, that past life seems as bizarre to me as if I had once been a world-class knitter. 

I had a dream one night in the 1990s that I had once won an Olympic gold medal. When somebody challenged me in the dream, I explained that I had won my gold medal at the 1984 L.A. Summer Games in the Plunge for Distance, an obscure but still extant Olympic swimming / diving event in which the eight finalists stand on the edge of the pool and dive in and the one who goes farthest before having to take a breath wins. "You haven't heard about it," I explained persuasively, "because they don't put it on TV. And, yeah, maybe since it's not on TV it doesn't get the very best athletes, so that's how I stood a chance. But it's still a real Olympic event and I won it!"

(In reality, the Plunge for Distance was last part of the Olympics at the 1904 St. Louis Games. Here's a 1917 New York Times article that begins, "Several attempts have been made to induce the A.A.U. and college authorities to abolish the plunge for distance as a standard or championship event in water sports, on the plea that it is a type of contest requiring neither athletic ability, nor especial skill of any kind," which is what I like about it.)

Anyway, my point is that if you look at how incompetent I am with computers now, my dream about me having once been an Olympic gold medalist makes more sense than the reality that I was once a pretty handy computer guy. 

Life is pretty short, I suppose, like everybody says it is. But, sometimes, when I look back at all the weird twists in my life, it can seem enjoyably long.

Anyway, you can make sure to never miss having these kind of rambling reminiscences twooted to you by going to one of the above links and signing up to be my Tweeter disciple.

Also, don't forget you can share my posts via Twitter, Facebook, email, etc. using those five grayish buttons below.

May 25, 2011

Panhandling 6

It turns out that the way to get people to give you money is to ask them to give you money. I asked again last night, and my readers were once again very generous. That really makes my day. 

So, please, would you consider giving me money so I can keep on writing?

You can send me an email and I'll send you my P.O. Box address.

Or, you can use Paypal to send me money directly. Use any credit card or your Paypal account. To get started, just click on the orange Paypal "Donate" button on the top of the column to the right.

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

“Don’t ever be the first to stop applauding"

From the NYT:
Parties See Obama’s Israel Policy as Wedge for 2012 
By JACKIE CALMES and HELENE COOPER 
WASHINGTON — Few issues in American politics are as bipartisan as support for Israel. Yet the question of whether President Obama is supportive enough is behind some of the most partisan maneuvering since the Middle East ally was born six decades ago, and that angling has potential ramifications for the 2012 elections. 
The visit of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel in the past week captured just how aggressively Republicans are stoking doubts about Mr. Obama. Republican Congressional leaders and presidential aspirants lavished praise on Mr. Netanyahu as quickly as they had condemned Mr. Obama for proposing that Israel’s 1967 borders, with mutually agreed land swaps, should be a basis for negotiating peace with the Palestinians. 
Republicans do not suggest that they can soon break the Democratic Party’s long hold on the loyalty of Jewish-American voters; Mr. Obama got nearly 8 of 10 such voters in 2008. But what Republicans do see is the potential in 2012 to diminish the millions of dollars, volunteer activism and ultimately the votes that Mr. Obama and his party typically get from American Jews — support that is disproportionate to their numbers.

And that's not counting unpaid media: of the traditional big 4 newspapers, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and LA Times, are all Jewish-owned. Jews make up about half of the Atlantic 50 list of most influential pundits.
While Jewish Americans are just 2 percent of the electorate nationally, they are “strategically concentrated,” as Mark Mellman, a Democratic pollster, put it, in several swing states that are critical in presidential elections. Those states include Florida — which in 2000 illustrated the potentially decisive power of one state — Ohio and Nevada. 
A test of Mr. Obama’s support will come June 20, when he will hold a fund-raiser for about 80 Jewish donors at a private dinner. 
John R. Bolton, the former United States ambassador to the United Nations and a possible Republican presidential candidate, argues that because of administration proposals, Republicans will be able to make gains not only among American Jews but also among evangelicals who are supportive of Israel on biblical grounds, and other voters. 
Mr. Bolton said that he was on a cruise sponsored by the conservative magazine Weekly Standard last week in the Mediterranean, and that most of the people on the ship “reacted very strongly against” Mr. Obama’s speech outlining his Mideast vision. “As a Republican,” he said, “you can use this to show how radical the president’s policies are on a whole range of issues.” 
The depth of Democrats’ worries was evident from the competition to out-applaud Republicans on Tuesday during Mr. Netanyahu’s speech to a joint meeting of Congress

How many standing ovations did Netanyahu get from Congress? 20? 29? That reminds me of a story in Solzhenitsyn's The Gulag Archipelago:
At the conclusion of the conference, a tribute to Comrade Stalin was called for. Of course, everyone stood up (just as everyone had leaped to his feet during the conference at every mention of his name). ... For three minutes, four minutes, five minutes, the stormy applause, rising to an ovation, continued. But palms were getting sore and raised arms were already aching. ... 
However, who would dare to be the first to stop? … After all, NKVD men were standing in the hall applauding and watching to see who would quit first! And in the obscure, small hall, unknown to the leader, the applause went on – six, seven, eight minutes! ... They couldn’t stop now till they collapsed with heart attacks! ... 
The director of the local paper factory, an independent and strong-minded man, stood with the presidium. Aware of all the falsity and all the impossibility of the situation, he still kept on applauding! Nine minutes! Ten! In anguish he watched the secretary of the District Party Committee, but the latter dared not stop. Insanity! To the last man! With make-believe enthusiasm on their faces, looking at each other with faint hope, the district leaders were just going to go on and on applauding till they fell where they stood, till they were carried out of the hall on stretchers!  
Then, after eleven minutes, the director of the paper factory assumed a businesslike expression and sat down in his seat. And, oh, a miracle took place! Where had the universal, uninhibited, indescribable enthusiasm gone? To a man, everyone else stopped dead and sat down. They had been saved! 
... That same night the factory director was arrested. They easily pasted ten years on him on the pretext of something quite different. But after he had signed Form 206, the final document of the interrogation, his interrogator reminded him: 
“Don’t ever be the first to stop applauding."

It has been widely noted that VP and President of the Senate Joe Biden merely rubbed his knuckles pensively after Netanyahu's statement that Jerusalem must be the united capital of Israel, while everyone else in the room cheered as if Beyonce had just finished singing "Single Ladies."
Yet it is the Republican Party’s close identification with evangelical Christians in recent years that is perhaps its biggest hurdle to winning over significant numbers of Jewish voters and donors. On issues that are crucial to the conservative Republican base — like opposition to abortion, gay rights, liberalized immigration and much government spending — most American Jews are on the other side, and strongly so. ...

 Indeed.
Mr. Netanyahu on Monday experienced first-hand the tension arising from that complaint among Democrats, and Republicans’ rejection of it, in a private meeting he held with representatives of the National Jewish Democratic Council and the Republican Jewish Coalition to underscore American Jews’ bipartisan consensus on Israel. 
A partisan argument ensued after Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida, whom Mr. Obama recently named as chairman of the Democratic Party, suggested they agree not to make support for Israel an election issue. Matt Brooks, executive director of the Republican group, objected, accusing her of proposing a “gag order.”

The Next Best Thing to Bibi 2012

It's widely noted that the GOP field of Presidential candidates seems a little weak. They are especially lacking in Identity Politics Oomph. For example, polls have long revealed more pervasive bigotry against the idea of a Mormon President than against most better known victim groups, but nobody in the media cares about promoting Mitt Romney to make a statement against anti-Mormonism. Similarly, nobody in the press cares that Tim Pawlenty would be the first half-Polish President.

The Democrats have their We Shall Overcome Mythopoetic Narrative Candidate locked in. Maybe, in the GOP's struggle to have the press less in the tank for Obama in 2012 than in 2008, the Republicans need their equivalent of comparable Media Narrative Firepower. With legalistic technicalities slowing the potential candidacy of the GOP leadership's current favorite, Bibi Netanyahu, attention will likely turn toward the next best thing. From Wikipedia:
Eric Ivan Cantor (born June 6, 1963) is the U.S. Representative for Virginia's 7th congressional district, serving since 2001. A member of the Republican Party, he became House Majority Leader when the 112th Congress convened on January 3, 2011. He previously served as House Minority Whip from 2009 to 2011. 
... Cantor is the only Jewish Republican currently serving in Congress. 
Cantor was born in Richmond, Virginia. His father owned a real estate firm and was the state treasurer for Ronald Reagan's 1980 presidential campaign. .. Cantor was a member of Phi Sigma Kappa fraternity while at [George Washington] and received his Bachelor of Arts in 1985. He earned a Juris Doctor degree from William & Mary Law School in 1988, and received a Master of Science degree from Columbia University in 1989. ... 
In 2002–only a few weeks after winning a second term–Roy Blunt appointed Cantor Chief Deputy Republican Whip, the highest appointed position in the Republican caucus. 
.... On November 19, 2008, Cantor was unanimously elected Republican Whip for the 111th Congress, after serving as deputy whip for six years under Blunt. ... Cantor became the Majority Leader when the 112th Congress took office on January 3, 2011. ... 
Cantor is a member of the Republican Jewish Coalition and the Republican National Committee. He is one of the Republican Party's top fundraisers, having raised over $30 million for the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC). He is also one of the three founding members of the GOP Young Guns Program. ... 
... He supports strong United States-Israel relations. ... He opposed a Congressionally-approved three-year package of US$400 million in aid for the Palestinian Authority in 2000 and has also introduced legislation to end aid to Palestinians. 
In May 2008, Cantor said that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not a "constant sore" but rather "a constant reminder of the greatness of America", and following Barack Obama's election as President in November 2008, Cantor stated that a “stronger U.S.-Israel relationship” remains a top priority for him and that he would be “very outspoken” if Obama "did anything to undermine those ties." Shortly after the 2010 midterm elections, Cantor met privately with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, just before Netanyahu was to meet with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. According to Cantor's office, he "stressed that the new Republican majority will serve as a check on the Administration" and "made clear that the Republican majority understands the special relationship between Israel and the United States." Cantor was criticized for engaging in foreign policy; one basis for the criticism was that in 2007, after Nancy Pelosi met with the President of Syria, Cantor himself had raised the possibility "that her recent diplomatic overtures ran afoul of the Logan Act, which makes it a felony for any American 'without authority of the United States' to communicate with a foreign government to influence that government’s behavior on any disputes with the United States." ... 
In August 2008 news reports surfaced that Cantor was being considered as John McCain's Vice Presidential running mate, with McCain's representatives seeking documents from Cantor as part of its vetting process. However, in May 2009, a source who claimed affiliation with the McCain campaign denied those reports, calling them "a complete and total joke", and blaming "Cantor’s PR people" for being responsible for the false reports. 
Cantor met his wife, Diana Marcy Fine, on a blind date; they were married in 1989. They have three children: Evan, Jenna, and Michael. 
Diana Cantor is a lawyer and certified public accountant. She founded, and from 1996 until 2008 was executive director of, the Virginia College Savings Plan (an agency of the Commonwealth of Virginia). She was also chairman of the board of the College Savings Plans Network. Mrs. Cantor is a Managing Director in a division of Emigrant Bank, a subsidiary of New York Private Bank & Trust Corp. 

It's hard to see how Eric Cantor is any less qualified to be the First Jewish President than Barack Obama was to be the First Black President.

Steele on Obama

Shelby Steele writes in the WSJ on the central issue of the 2012 election:
What gives Mr. Obama a cultural charisma that most Republicans cannot have? First, he represents a truly inspiring American exceptionalism: He is the first black in the entire history of Western civilization to lead a Western nation—and the most powerful nation in the world at that. And so not only is he the most powerful black man in recorded history, but he reached this apex only through the good offices of the great American democracy. 
Thus his presidency flatters America to a degree that no white Republican can hope to compete with. He literally validates the American democratic experiment, if not the broader Enlightenment that gave birth to it. 
He is also an extraordinary personification of the American Dream: Even someone from a race associated with slavery can rise to the presidency. 

The Obama lineage was associated with slavery in the sense that they sold slaves to the Arabs, but who cares about details?
Whatever disenchantment may surround the man, there is a distinct national pride in having elected him. 
All of this adds up to a powerful racial impressionism that works against today's field of Republican candidates. This is the impressionism that framed Sen. John McCain in 2008 as a political and cultural redundancy—yet another older white male presuming to lead the nation. 
The point is that anyone who runs against Mr. Obama will be seen through the filter of this racial impressionism, in which white skin is redundant and dark skin is fresh and exceptional. 
This is the new cultural charisma that the president has introduced into American politics. Today this charisma is not as strong for Mr. Obama. The mere man and the actual president has not lived up to his billing as a historical breakthrough. Still, the Republican field is framed and—as the polls show—diminished by his mere presence in office, which makes America the most socially evolved nation in the world. Moreover, the mainstream media coddle Mr. Obama—the man—out of its identification with his exceptionalism. 
Conversely, the media hold the president's exceptionalism against Republicans. Here is Barack Obama, evidence of a new and progressive America. Here are the Republicans, a cast of largely white males, looking peculiarly unevolved. ... 
How can the GOP combat the president's cultural charisma? It will have to make vivid the yawning gulf between Obama the flattering icon and Obama the confused and often overwhelmed president. Applaud the exceptionalism he represents, but deny him the right to ride on it as a kind of affirmative action. 
A president who is both Democratic and black effectively gives the infamous race card to the entire left: Attack our president and you are a racist. To thwart this, Republicans will have to break through the barrier of political correctness. 
Mr. McCain let himself be intimidated by Obama's cultural charisma, threatening to fire any staff member who even used the candidate's middle name.

Okay, but for America to not re-elect Obama would be tantamount to recognizing him as a guy who rode affirmative action to the top, with a massive push from the press, then proved inadequate. That's not a narrative the media is going to like. The media will actively work to prevent that from happening. 

Let's look back in history for examples of one-term black leaders. The most obvious is David Dinkins, first black mayor of the media capital of New York. His election was of some symbolic importance, too.

Yet, why did Dinkins fail of re-election? There were a number of reasons, but the key, almost certainly, was the black anti-Semitic riot in Crown Heights that Dinkins didn't seem to take seriously. Since then, New York voters haven't elected a Democratic candidate mayor in the last five mayoral elections. Dinkins' term has largely been dropped down the media memory hole. You almost never read in the press about how white racism stole a second term from Dinkins. This major historical event in the recent past of the capital of the world is just not the kind of thing it's appropriate to mention in New York media circles. They are in favor of blacks succeeding in politics in general, but not as mayor of where they live.

This can help explain the Republican enthusiasm this week for the notion they can somehow ride Bibi Netanyahu's coattails in 2012 and thus turn Obama into Dinkins.

How exactly would that work in a world where Bibi really can't run for President?

I dunno.

I noticed that two days ago, Rep. Eric Cantor was telling Rep. Paul Ryan to get into the Presidential race:
Count House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) as one top Republican who’d like to see Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) jump into the presidential race.

But after yesterday's disastrous special election defeat for Republicans in upstate New York fought in large part over Ryan's plan to privatize Medicare, Ryan's luster has dimmed. So, why not reverse the polarity and have Ryan tell Cantor to jump in the race?

A proposal to Bibi

Dear Prime Minister Netanyahu: 

Congratulations on your triumphal tour of Washington D.C. You have emerged as the de facto leader of anti-Obama sentiment in America.

In return for all that America has done for you, may I ask, in all seriousness, that you do a favor for America?

Namely, please come to America again and deliver a high profile speech and slide show explaining the rapid construction and strong success of Israel's border security fence. Point out that a properly made border fence has been shown to deter not only drug smugglers and illegal immigrants, but even suicide bombers. Then, compare Israel's success at rapidly securing its borders to the American government's dithering and ineffectualness at constructing its own border security fence. Please point out that this kind of defeatism and corruption is unworthy of Israel's ally. You could conclude by offering to send Israeli experts to the American border to advise Americans on how to build the American fence.

Thank you very much.

Steve Sailer

'Room for Debate" (but not for Jared Taylor)

On May 22, the NYT ran one of their "Room for Debate" symposiums, this one on "Is Anti-White Bias a Problem?"

Debaters

Notice anybody missing? Oh, yeah, the guy, Jared Taylor, who has a brand new book out on precisely this topic: White Identity: Racial Consciousness in the 21st Century. It's quite likely, indeed, that the NYT's topic was inspired in part or indirectly by Taylor's book, which I reviewed 7 days earlier. (A lot of topics I bring up get quickly laundered into the high end blogosphere by Matthew Yglesias, among others.)

But, evidently, there's no room for debate when it comes to Jared Taylor.

2012 Bibi Bandwagon gains momentum

Akiva Eldar writes in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz about Bibi Netanyahu's triumphant address (two dozen standing ovations) to the U.S. Congress:
Sara Netanyahu once said during a family gathering that if her husband had run for president of the United States, he would easily be elected (assuming, of course, that he were legally allowed to run). Indeed, in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's address before both houses of Congress on Tuesday, he made impressive use of all the gimmicks of an experienced and sharp-tongued American politician. ... 
Netanyahu proved that he has no Israeli equal when it comes to plucking the strings of American patriotism, of guilt feelings over the Holocaust, and most of all, of the wish of Congress members to preserve their close ties with the large Jewish organizations.

Old joke:
Q: Why doesn’t Israel apply to become the 51st state?
A: Because then they’d have only two senators.

Poor Obama figured he could take a gentle swipe at Bibi, thought he could articulate American policy without clearing every jot and tittle with Bibi beforehand, because Bibi is the equivalent of a Republican in Israel, so the President would at least have the Democrats in America on his side out of sheer partisanship. He didn't realize that in the U.S. Congress, "Politics stops at the border (of Israel)."

In The American Conservative, Pat Buchanan feels sorry for his President:
Not since Nikita Khrushchev berated Dwight Eisenhower over Gary Powers’ U-2 spy flight over Russia only weeks earlier has an American president been subjected to a dressing down like the one Barack Obama received from Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday. 
With this crucial difference. Khrushchev ranted behind closed doors... Obama, however, was lectured like some schoolboy in the Oval Office in front of the national press and a worldwide TV audience. 
And two days later, he trooped over to the Israeli lobby AIPAC to walk back what he had said that had so infuriated Netanyahu. “Bibi” then purred that he was “pleased” with the clarification. Diplomatic oil is now being poured over the troubled waters, but this humiliation will not be forgotten. 
What did Obama do to draw this public rebuke? In his Thursday speech on the Arab Spring and Middle East peace, Obama declared: “We believe the borders of Israel should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps, so that secure and recognized borders are established for both states. … Israel must be able to defend itself — by itself — against any threat.” 
Ignoring Obama’s call for “mutually agreed swaps” of land to guarantee secure and defensible borders for Israel, Netanyahu, warning the president against a peace “based on illusions,” acted as though Obama had called for an Israel withdrawal to the armistice line of 1967. 
This was absurd. All Obama was saying was what three Israeli prime ministers — Yitzhak Rabin, Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert — have all recognized.  ...
Undeniably, Netanyahu won the smack-down. The president was humiliated in the Oval Office, and in his trip to AIPAC’s woodshed he spoke of the future peace negotiations ending just as Israelis desire and demand. ...
The one explanation that makes sense is that Netanyahu sees Obama as more sympathetic to the Palestinians and less so to Israel than any president since Jimmy Carter, and he, Netanyahu, would like to see Obama replaced by someone more like the born-again pro-Israel Christian George W. Bush. 
And indeed, the Republicans and the right, Mitt Romney in the lead, accusing Obama of “throwing Israel under the bus,” seized on the issue and, almost universally, have taken Netanyahu’s side.

Personally, I don't think the West Bank is very important. I received this great gift a number of Christmases ago, an extra-large free-standing globe for my office. But even on this globe, I can barely find the West Bank. If the Israelis want to push around the Palestinians, well, I don't really care much. I roused myself enough to write a two part review of Jimmy Carter's book Palestine Peace not Apartheid for Taki's Magazine in 2007 (Part 1 and Part 2), but I haven't had much to say since then because it's not my country.

What I do care about is what all this says about my own country.
"Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence (I conjure you to believe me, fellow-citizens) the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake, since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican government. … Real patriots who may resist the intrigues of the favorite [foreign nation] are liable to become suspected and odious, while its tools and dupes usurp the applause and confidence of the people, to surrender their interests."
—George Washington, Farewell Address, 1796

Here's the irony. The GOP is, more or less, the party of WGPs -- White Gentile People, the heart of the nation. But, normal, natural national feelings among WGPs have been so demonized over the years that they've adopted a foreign nationalist politician, Bibi Netanyahu, as their proxy so they can enjoy nationalism by proxy.

Bibi's quite a guy. He just isn't my guy.

But what are the Democrats in Congress' excuses?

May 24, 2011

Mortgage Lending Industry Strategic Markets & Diversity Conference

All these years after the mortgage meltdown, most well-informed Americans have yet to hear about the existence of the mortgage diversity industry. The number of activists and academics employed by the mortgage diversity biz isn't huge, but it's not insignificant either. And it has a major impact on molding reporting on mortgage and diversity issues. Since all the self-proclaimed experts are rewarded for promoting more lending to the diverse, we get a one-sided view. This industry's conventions don't rival AIPAC's wingding, but they're not insubstantial 

Dear Steve Sailer: 
The Lending Industry Diversity Conference and ComplianceTech are pleased to announce Bank of America as a Silver Sponsor of the 6th Annual Mortgage Lending Industry Strategic Markets and Diversity Conference to be held in the Washington, DC area on June 22-24, 2011 at the Westin Arlington Gateway Hotel, Arlington, Virginia (Ballston Metro stop).  The Strategic Markets and Diversity Conference is a one of a kind forum for candid discussions on the interplay of workforce diversity, multicultural marketing, and how housing policies and practices influence minority homeownership outcomes. The bank has been a strong supporter of the conference for each of the past five years.  We thank Bank of America for its display of leadership with regard to mortgage industry diversity and homeownership opportunity for all Americans. 
Click Here to Register Online at the registration rate of $499.

The schedule at a glance is as follows:

June 22, 2011
3:00 pm -5:00 pm:  Pre-Conference Workshop:  Data Driven Solutions for Strategic and Responsible Lending
5:00 -7:00 pm Opening Reception
June 23, 2011
9:00 am – 10:15 am General Session I:  The State of the Industry: Diversity & Section 342 of Dodd-Frank
10:30 am - 11:45 am:  General Session II:  Qualified Residential Mortgage (QRM) proposal and other Supply Side Impediments to furthering Strategic and Multi-Cultural Lending Activities
12:00pm – 1:45pm:  Diversity Luncheon w/ Guest Speaker, Diversity Awards Ceremony
Session A: 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm: The 2010 Census: The Impact of Demographic Changes & Industry Statistics on Strategic and Responsible Lending
Session B: 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm:  Fair Servicing Analysis and Standards
3:15 pm - 4:30 pm:  General Session III:  Life after HAMP
4:30 pm-5:15 pm:  General Session IV:  Beryl Satter, Author of Family Properties: Race, Real Estate, and the Exploitation of Black Urban America
5:15 pm - 7:30 pm Diversity Reception
June 24, 2011
9:00 am - 9:30 am:  General Session V:  Keynote Address: Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
9:30 am - 10:30 am:  General Session VI:  Regulatory Perspectives on Consumer Protection and Responsible Lending
10:45 am - 12:30 pm:  General Session VII:  Debate on National Homeownership policy: Impact on Affordable Housing & Minority Populations

Click Here to Register Online.
Visit the conference website for more details: www.MortgageIndustryDiversity.com.


The hot topic is Rep. Maxine Water's Section 342 of the Dodd-Frank Act, which requires hiring lots of diversity compliance officers who will then funnel money to others in the diversity industry.
My old articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer