I’m not sure that the music industry actually lost money because the decline in sales was accompanied by a sharp decrease in production and distribution costs. Overall sales are down, but profits and share price for the music oligopoly are good.
The movie industry successfully fought piracy by preventing quality copies from being uploaded at the time of a movie release, something that happened regularly a few years ago, mostly with screener copies. To see a pirated movie in decent quality these days you have to wait for the DVD release, or if you are willing to suffer through a copy shot in a theater with a handheld camera to see it early than you are someone who will not pay for a movie, so piracy doesn’t impact moviegoing. The decline of the movie industry is connected with decreasing movie quality and better TV.

There are no “actual renewable alternatives” and is unlikely they will ever exist on the needed scale. Every energy generation strategy has an environmental impact: coal burning releases carbon and particulate matter, natural gas produces less carbon, but more methane leaks, solar would mean paving the countryside with panels, windmills kill birds and are an eyesore, nuclear has high radioactivity risks and waste storage problems while hydro impacts fish migrations and other wildlife.

Water restrictions for residential consumption are evidence of the tremendous political power of Central Valley agricultural interests. They live off subsidies, encourage the illegal immigration of illiterate indio hill peasants from Central America, create Third World poverty enclaves, pollute the air of California and abuse limited water supplies by growing water intensive crops like nuts and rice while their output is marginal for California’s economy.

Environmentalists who opposed massive immigration were kicked out of Sierra Club. Greens are interested in nature only when they can use it to justify leftist policies.

British TV series like Doctor Who, Sherlock and Downton Abbey are very popular with young people, more popular than British TV was ever before. What are largely gone are the stereotypical British rockers, but that is because rock and guitar pop have lost their popularity in the last 5-6 years. Before that british indie rockers with skinny jeans, bad haircuts and strong accents were ubiquitous.
Still, some british musicians are very successful in the US like One Direction and Adele. If you add to this the success of Harry Potter and even of Game of Thrones (written and produced by americans, but with british actors) I don’t see the trend you mention.

The weakest part of this piece is that it makes all kinds of suppositions about about the true nature of mankind, that remind me of paleo diet nonsense. Humans evolved constantly so we were selected for domestication. It changed us. We are not the great apes of the savannah, but agriculturalists living in complex societies. This is our true nature and the conflict in our societies is between those who are more domesticated and those who are less domesticated.

Very OT but I wanted to share a quote from Obama’s interview with The Economist:
“So when it comes to South Africa, we recognise a suspicion they may have about meddling too much in the affairs of Zimbabwe, for example. But my argument to them would be, ultimately, as a key regional power, if they fail to invest in the kind of international order or regional order that helps ordinary Zimbabweans thrive, then they’re going to have an immigration problem—which they already do. That, in turn, is going to put more pressure on them and their economies. And ultimately, those chickens will come home to roost.”

It turns out immigration can be a problem that can put pressure on economy.

Somebody needs to tell Mr. Unz that the “About Ron Unz” blurb on this site starts like this:

“A theoretical physics by training, Mr. Unz serves…”

With a few thousand lightly armed fighters ISIS routed half of the 200 ooo well-equipped soldiers of the Iraqi army. If these jihadis were realistic they wouldn’t even tried, but morale is a hell of a weapon so when these fanatics showed up the Iraqi units that couldn’t be bothered to die for Maliki disbanded with 90 000 soldiers deserting.
Their problem starts when they meet other fanatics who don’t run away and there are plenty around in the Middle east like the Alawite divisions of Assad and Hezbollah volunteers in Syria, the kurdish peshmerga and the Iranian Quds Force in Iraq.
It seems to me that lots of ISIS men look funny in the hydrocephalic kind of funny.

If China improves African economy and the US improves African security everybody wins and they have to win together because security is dependent on economic success and economic activity depends on security.
China is a better economic partner for African countries than the US because it has a growing hunger for raw materials, exports goods cheap enough for Africa and has workers willing to live in Africa’s rough conditions with much lower pay than Americans would ask for.

Frisky language.

What is happening in the Middle East with these ethnic cleansings is not very different with what happened in Central and Eastern Europe between the War of 1877 and Kosovo War.
The end game will be ethnically and religiously homogenous states with the minorities partly killed, partly assimilated and partly exiled as the croatian ustasha proposed during WW2 and eventually did in the 90’s.

My nephew has a severe form of autism and behavioral modification didn’t work for him. The only things he ever says are slogans from TV commercials.
Comparing Aspergers with autism is like comparing the flu with Ebola. I understand that autists are on a spectrum, but I believe that Aspergers is in most cases a simple awkwardness that boys go through during development rather than a mental disorder. Having a fancy diagnostic excuses their quirks and makes them more of a special snowflake.
One of the reasons diagnostics like Aspergers (and ADHD) exist is because normal boyish behaviour is qualified as deviant by a feminized educational establishment.
Another is that Aspergers and ADHD allow parents to take part in the Victimhood Olympics that confer them status and material rewards.

Trans “woman” can throw a punch and even go for the kill. Hyper aggressive males indeed.
Transsomething fights black guy in NY subway: http://www.worldstarhiphop.com/videos/video.php?v=wshhgc3a81Fg6bn53a17

World War T Update:

Following Robin Williams’ death, people began laying flowers on the steps of the San Francisco house featured in the 1993 movie Mrs. Doubtfire. It turns out that the house is now owned by a plastic surgeon specializing in male-to-female “transitions.”

Here’s the story from Oakland’s KTVU:
http://www.ktvu.com/videos/news/san-francisco-fans-gather-to-honor-robin-williams/vCnK4s/

Incidentally, even in the early 1990s the idea that a middle-class family could afford a house like that in the City was ridiculous, so it’s not surprising that a plastic surgeon owns the place today.

In this piece Acemoglu points that two very different countries can have a similar trajectory for very different reasons and is hard to argue with that.

Ethiopia is the place from where Afro-Asiatic languages (old name was Hamito-Semitic) originate, a family of languages that includes Semitic languages like Arabic and Hebrew, so the Ethiopian highlands are also an important point of origin for both the cultures and the populations of the Middle East and North Africa, with Yemen as one of the main way points.

The same tests can reveal that lots of Jews are descendants of converts. The recent study published in Nature mentioned that Jews from Ethiopia and India don’t have Middle Eastern genes, a fact that was obvious to me when I’ve seen them in Israel.

The more educated, wealthier and whiter Hispanics prefer Miami. These are usually from Venezuela, Colombia and Brazil while California and Texas get mostly mestizo and indio peasants from Mexico and Central America.

There is a recent claim that Jack the Ripper was identified thanks to DNA testing

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2746321/Jack-Ripper-unmasked-How-amateur-sleuth-used-DNA-breakthrough-identify-Britains-notorious-criminal-126-years-string-terrible-murders.html

Sweden is a country close to my heart, but Sweden is in a state of madness. The national election of one week ago (and the politicking that has transpired since) is proof of that.

Eight parties won seats in parliament. The Sweden Democrats (the only party questioning the wisdom of current immigration policies) won enough seats to make it the third largest party in parliament.

All seven other parties are refusing to allow the Sweden Democrats any role in government.

So… in a multi-party political system intentionally designed to allow small parties to have a voice in parliament… seven political parties are now conspiring to silence the 13 percent of the Swedish electorate that supported the Sweden Democrats.

The remaining parties are discussing heretofore unheard of coalitions in order to avoid giving the Sweden Democrats any influence whatsoever. Apparently, it’s evil to entertain the thought that inviting a hundred thousand new immigrants every year into a country of only 10 million is maybe a little bit stupid.

It’s worse than evil… it’s low-class. And that’s another aspect of this that no one talks about. Sweden is touted as an egalitarian utopia, but Swedes are painfully conscious of social class. To be associated with critics of immigration is to be associated with the wrong kind of people.

There are three classes in a welfare state: the worker bees, the drones and the queens.
The bees create value, the drones are consumers (either unemployed or doing make-work) while the queens tax the bees and redistribute the wealth taken from the bees mostly to themselves and give something to the drones.
The problem of the West is that the number of worker bees is dropping while the drones and the queens are growing in number and demands, so this organization is unsustainable.

The main driver of gender unbalance is that women live longer, so the 11 million supernumerary russian women are widowed babushkas whose husbands died from vodka, cigarettes and disregard for safety rather than nubile blondes looking to reproduce.
Sex ratio by age in Russia from wiki:
at birth: 1.09 male(s)/female
under 15 years: 1.05 male(s)/female
15–64 years: 0.92 male(s)/female
65 years and over: 0.46 male(s)/female
total population: 0.86 male(s)/female (2009)

Central Asia has a fascinating history that starts as a region dominated by white scythian, sarmatian or iranian related tribes influenced by Persian, Indian and Greek culture, becomes a Buddhist empire only to finally be transformed into a region dominated by mongoloid (asian?) people speaking turkish and practicing Islam. Central Asia and the east european pontic steppe are the regions of Eurasia that have seen the most drastic demographic changes.

Hi credible.
My point is that people like the tajiks are now a minority in a turkish dominated Central Asia when they used to be a majority or even the only inhabitants.
And why would the opinions of a midwesterner define what a white is? The US census defines the people of North Africa, Middle East and Caucasus as white while public opinion and especially north europeans, like midwesterners, generally limit white to themselves and at most to all europeans. Genetically europeans and middle easterners are distinct but related branches of a racial group that is traditionally called white or caucasian.

150 years after Pasteur proved germ theory, doctors and nurses routinely fail to wash their hands. A highly contagious disease like Ebola is very hard to contain, but the Powers That Be are more interested in preventing panic then in preventing an epidemic.

Is that an african swallow?

The weirdest part is that while this evolution towards a police state is obvious there is very little outrage.
Silicon Valley leaders are strongly influenced by californian counter-culture, so unsurprisingly they are the only influential group that still opposes the increased surveillance. Tech companies from outside SV, like Microsoft, gladly cooperate with Big Brother.

I agree that Churchill is overrated, but this book seems to draw fanciful connections.
The British decision to offer guarantees to Poland was fateful, but it didn’t had much to do with Churchill and the same is true about British intervention in WW1.
Britain’s leftward shift happened against Churchill and ousted him from power at the end of the war and later he had to come to terms with the facts that the british people wanted a welfare state and that without India the Empire made no sense.

These are not discussions that we as a society need to have, these are personal decisions that we as society need to stay out of.

#2

South Korea is using shared anti-japanese sentiment to become politically closer to China. The chinese president visited Seoul again a month ago and he has a lot to offer including being the only person who can influence North Korea. I think it was the 5th meeting between the current SK and China presidents in the last 2 years. Of course, this doesn’t mean that SK will abandon it’s alliance with Washington for Beijing, it will just try to profit from relations with both.

I think this is the main point. Nobody is interested in becoming vassal to China, but the reborn Eurasian trade could offer to many nations more breathing space away from the American Empire.

Everybody remembers when they were bullied, but nobody remembers when they bullied.

Was the comment “swilling chardonnay with the Iranian government.” an irony from Ted Cruz? I doubt that the official representatives of the Islamic Republic drink alcohol.

Speaking of Nobel prizes, Svante Pääbo delivered a fascinating lecture today at the annual Nobel Conference at Gustavus Adolphus College in Minnesota:

“Of Neanderthals, Denisovans, and Modern Humans”
http://youtu.be/eQAqTfKvUJw?t=45m55s

The Sailer view of the world is looking more and more reasonable… Because Science!

SlateFacts are the opposite of facts.

“If two tall parents had hundreds of children, then you could make some inferences about the average height of the children” This is the key aspect.
If the tall parents have only one child there are good chances that he will be tall, but he may be shorter than the average if he has an unfavorable combination of genes. If the parents have hundred of children they are guaranteed to hit the entire range of possible child heights for that particular couple with tall kids being more frequent.
That’s why embryo selection could possibly be such an effective technique. If your goal is to have a tall child it’s impractical to raise 100 children, but, in theory, you can create 100 embryos, determine which one will result in the tallest child and implant it.

Not being burdened by property rights over land is one of the biggest advantages China has. This way they gave use of the land to the most successful farmers during the beginning of industrialization and now they can give the land to other uses like building factories, highways and railroads much easier and cheaper than in the US or Europe. Of course this opens the door for corruption and abuse, but one must remember that the villagers themselves have no legal rights over the land that was confiscated from the landowner class by communists after 1948.
Fuyou stands out only because of violence. Conflicts over land rights are a constant occurrence in China.
From wikipedia : “An estimated 65 percent of the 180,000 annual “mass incidents” in China stem from grievances over forced land requisitions”

See THE STRANGE RISE OF OBAMA . It’s ‘amazing’ that a CIA official can write a whole article on the failings of Barack Obama and neglect to mention the fact that Obama is the Manchurian Candidate of the CIA.

John Brennan is running the USA’s external policies and the Wall Street Banksters, heirs to Allen Dulles’, are running the internal policies directly themselves.

Obama is Ronald Reagan with a Harvard Degree … a front man and a not so great communicator.

There’s Only One Way to Beat ISIS: Work With Assad and Iran

Only Assad’s Syria and Iran can and would provide plausible ground forces in short order. … Assad has thus far proved cagey. He hasn’t made the defeat of ISIS his top priority. ..t. Recently, however, Assad has been signaling that he sees things differently, but he won’t turn his attention fully to ISIS without quiet assurances from the Americans—and probably the Russians, too—that this won’t disadvantage him against the rebels. Russia, brimming with unhappy, armed Muslims, is even more threatened by the existence of ISIS than the United States. Moscow could help facilitate cooperation between Syria, Iran, and the U.S., not because Vladimir Putin is kind-hearted, but because it is in his obvious interest.

From Leslie Gelb via Justin Raimondo.

At least what Putin says is grounded in reality and not the hyperspace of US doublegoodtalk.

It’s ironic that both Russia and the US have now reflected each other’s position, come around 180 degrees, with Bush/Obama occupying the throne of the Evil Empire and Russia becoming the Leader of the (US-)Free World, at least rhetorically – so far.

Claim nr. 2 is actually true. Not only China depends on the Persian Gulf oil, but also America’s european and asian allies. The loss of political influence in the Gulf would also impact the dollar with disastrous economic impact.
Claims 1, 3 and 4 are interconnected. Both US military presence in Iraq and the aid given to Egypt are, at least partly, motivated by a desire to protect Israel.

Congratulations.
Did the ignorant comments irked you?

Boy, was Ferguson an American Kristallnacht or what?

I used to be horrified by everything, back in the 90’s, when I thought after the Cold War we were entering some circadian era (and wasn’t alone in this, it did feel like the end of history for a while).

But the nation I was part of is long gone and I’m definitely in the “let it burn” camp. I do not want to be in political association with these people and the faster everything falls apart, the better.

For that reason, I am voting Democrat forthwith. Not that the Republicans are much better, but I figure they may stave off the decline a little bit longer, as this stuff is bad for business and they do tend to be made up of people who actually know how to run things. The Democrats floor the gas pedal on the road to perdition, when in power, they are like kids home alone having a wild raucous party without any regard for consequence. Again, the Republicans really aren’t any better in their agenda, but greater managerial instincts seem to hold them back just a little more from the excesses that guarantee the eventual demise of the U.S.

Time to end this clown show. For any possiblity of a future for your grandchildren and their grandchildren that is one other than a PC brainwashed, drugged, degenerate, debt slave to the globo-slate, vote Democrat early, often, and for the most far out left wing candidate spewing about white patriarchy, etc. But keep donating to NRA, GOA, etc, to keep them on their toes about 2d Amendment, that is one thing that those grandchildren will appreciate and give them a fighting (pun intended) chance of establishing some satisfactory future for themselves and their posterity.

The Republicans are the worse danger, as they have the same drugged, debt slave future planned and are more likely to be able to pull it off. On the average, who would you rather engage with, for instance, a military organized by D’s or R’s? Me, I’d much rather take on little girls and fairies in uniform.

Even NYT published about the doubts raised about the article. This is a sign that they will not throw themselves behind the Narrative like they did with the Duke Lacrosse Team.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/03/us/magazines-account-of-gang-rape-on-virginia-campus-comes-under-scrutiny.html?_r=0

Those of you who raised questions about the credibility of the Rolling Stone fantasy did a great thing by bravely speaking up about your doubts.

The Jewish community has long since perfected the response to outrageous smears. I’d suggest that others incorporate elements of their proven tactics. These include:

1) Call a spade a spade. Right now, it is a regrettable yada yada. No, it is obscene blood libel. Always emphasize that the storyteller, Erdeley, was working with malicious intent to do grave damage to a targeted group. It isn’t an innocent mistake, a failure of fact checking, and so forth. The creation and dissemination was an evil deed primarily intended to do harm.

2) Evil deeds are done by evil people, in this case Erdeley. What is the matter with her? Question her motives, not something like a neutral lapse due to incompetence. Somebody who produces something as obscene as this blood libel is either mentally deranged or wicked. There is no third alternative that would ameliorate her role in this. Personalize and focus and don’t get distracted by debates on technical details.

3) Demand justice – why is Rolling Stone employing someone as mentally deranged or wicked as Erdeley? If she goes somewhere else, follow her. Dog her footsteps relentlessly and stigmatize. Never forgive, only perhaps allowing some probation for good behavior after a long and excruciatingly vindictive campaign that will ensure she will never, and that means never, even dream of slandering frat boys. And it will encourage the other admirals as well.

Actions like these are the only way to start taking action on these things which, already occurring at an astronomical rate, seem recently to be even spiralling further upward. Normal people are usually reluctant to take these actions, as they give the BOD, don’t want to be seen started a war. They fail to realize that the war has been on, at least on Erdeley’s part, before she formulated the first sentence of the article. Reason and measured responses aren’t going to work with her because her goal is not journalism, but destruction of an enemy. She certainly isn’t going to be dissuaded by pointing out to her the damage her actions have done because that was her goal.

Destroying her as a journalist is the only reaction that will have any effect on her and her ilk. Anything less than that is useless and a waste of time. And forget Jackie – Steve is taking the proper, and factual approach, which is showing her as a victim of Erdeley, a sad, confused young lady abused by a psychotic, mendacious journalist in pursuit of of her obsessive deranged vendetta against, well, in this case it seems frat boys, maybe narrowed down to southern ones.

Other besieged communities beside the Jewish one, practice these tactics, and it works for them as well.

OT, but I have an idea.

The libs have all their War on whatever slogans that are apparently effective.

Why don’t we start doing this? I started thinking of a few, like War on Liberty or War on Rights or War on the Constitution, but it all sounds too Tea Party-ish, certainly nothing that would make libs feel defensive about.

The War on Christmas tag has at least forced them to respond with denials, etc.

Best I could come up with, admittedly only after 30 seconds of thought, is War on Freedom or War on Decency.

So Bloomberg’s soda ban is part of the War on Freedom, condoms for school kids are a front in the War on Decency.

Those aren’t good ones, just off the cuff, but there has to be something catchy/appealing that is a pie in the face to these idiots.

Just explain to the commenter that he’s exhibiting his white privilege, invalidating your ethnicity, and perpetuating the linguistic oppression of minorities. In other words, explain to him that Strunk & White’s Elements of Style is racist, and probably sexist as well. To recommend it to a minority person of colour is extremely offensive, and in the future it will probably be illegal to even mention it (bringing up the use-mention distinction will be no defense). That should shut him up.

“In the future, poor black people stuck in the middle of nowhere will be amazed at the places where their grandparents lived: Manhattan, San Francisco, Los Angeles not far from the beach, Chicago’s lakefront, the nation’s capital, etc.”

Way back in the very early 90’s, I was involved with a young German lady who had come to work in Atlanta.

She never accepted the logic of the system that had all the affluent, productive people living in the suburbs (“in the middle of nowhere in the country” in her view) and let all the scurvy worthless criminals and scumbags have the cosmopolitan urban area.

I had never thought of it that way, but I had to admit she undoubtedly had a point. I date my thinking about city living, gentrification, from that epiphany.

“Anyway, I was wondering if anyone had noticed how these parents are squaring the circle of wanting to live in DC or other cities but not wanting to send their kids to school with large numbers of dysfunctional black kids. Is it charter schools?”

One of my neighbors, who was, ironically, a honcho with the American Federation of Teachers (making it impossible for him to send his kids to anything other than public schools) moved to Eugene, Oregon when the kids got to middle school years.

“Anyway, I was wondering if anyone had noticed how these parents are squaring the circle of wanting to live in DC or other cities but not wanting to send their kids to school with large numbers of dysfunctional black kids. Is it charter schools?”

One of my neighbors, who was, ironically, a honcho with the American Federation of Teachers (making it impossible for him to send his kids to anything other than public schools) moved to Eugene, Oregon when the kids got to middle school years.

“It is time to start thinking differently. The “donut” concept may become inverted soon. Until now, it has been a sea of whites with disfunctional patches in the middle — the “inner cities”. If we are unlucky, soon it will be the opposite, a sea of disfunction, with patches of functional communities — the “gated community”, which is already widespread in South America.”

About 15 years ago, when gentrification was seriously heating up in DC, a friend and I were watching and analyzing the trend. My observation was that the middle-tier suburbs were becoming the least desirable places to live, or at least the trendline was pointing that way (old 1960’s/1970’s garden apartments becoming the modern equivalent of tenements). My friend coined a nice term, dubbing this donut “The Ring of Despair”.

You know, the headline for the article could just as easily read:

“Suspension rates confirm Black Girls misbehave more in school and the darker they are, the more they misbehave”.

That would be starting from the assumption that our institutions are objective. No evidence is given to prove otherwise, other than taking the conclusion as the proof of the premise.

Piss off with your racist filth.

& go fuck yourself.

This happened to humans as well, not only archaic humans like Neanderthals and Denisovans became extinct, but also many sapiens lineages were (probably) ended by the expansions of early agriculturalists like what was on the path of happening with pygmies and bushman in the face of Bantu expansion.

“Just wondering: what’s the most painful way to terminate a date when a lady lets it slip she’s a feminist?”

Stay true to both your principles and hers. Supposedly, being a hard core feminist, she is strong enough to handle the truth. But you are a traditional gentleman who treats females chivalrously despite (or because of) their childish nature.

I’d do (and have personally done), some variant of maybe excusing myself to go to the bathroom, but really going over and discreetly covering the check w/nice tip and all. Then go back to your table, don’t sit down, tell her the truth, politely, sorry, nice to meet you, but this really isn’t going to work out and you really have some other stuff you need to do, you’ve got the check, thank her for her time, shake her hand and walk out. Keep your voice down, no scene, etc.

In short, be the strong gentleman she secretly yearns for and take it from her. Only do this if you want her angrily bitching to her friends about you while secretly sending you cards, texts, etc.

Don’t ask me how I know.

I wish I had a Planet Fitness near me. 10$/month with free bagel and pizza nights sounds awesome. My gym is 40$/month and it’s poorly equipped for weightlifting, another way of keeping serious gym goers out.

If you lift weights to build muscle running may cut into your muscle gains. Of course everything depends on your fitness goal.

On most topics, including this one, idiocy is bipartisan.

The foodie movement is about food as a righteous class symbol, not about helping the environment.

The same questions can be ask of people from Ireland, Italy, Russia or anywhere. If your homeland is so wonderful, why did you leave? If the USA is so bad, why do you stay?

If we’re going to do health care “behavior” carve-outs, don’t you think AIDS is pretty minor compared to the big “behavior-driven” diseases?

Been in a succession of startups the past 20+ years and associated with a lot more.

When they are in the startup phase, i.e, angel money, pre-VC money, H1-Bs are almost uniformly absent. Apart from any discussion of their talents, it requires some specialized knowledge/procedure to hire them. I.e, HR departments, lawyers. Not a lot, but even a little is a huge hassle for a 5-10 person company.

So you don’t see a whole lot of that, IME, in true startups (along w/EEOC BS, no-loads, etc, etc, which is one great thing about working in this industry). They have other pathologies, but deadweight bureaucracy is not one of them.

If work is getting done by non-Americans, it is occasionally by foreigners with green cards, who may have come up through the scupper hole via H1B, but more usually somebody who went to school here.

Sometimes, a guy like that will supervise work sourced back offshore to the old country, where he still maintains connections. But in that case (or even having any sub-continentals onboard), usually means that the startup is light on tech, heavy on marketing, and is usually run/founded by non-tech people.

When I evaluate who I’d like to work with (and, at this stage of my life, I’m fortunate to have that liberty), I tend towards companies that have a lot of heartland Americans with some original background in ABET-accredited or Math/Physics degree programs. CS background is less, as that is a literary, as opposed to true technical, skill for most people/purposes, o-notation, knuth, etc, not-withstanding.

In general, about the time a HR department really firms up is about the time I’m looking for my exit.

The inbreeding of the Targaryens clearly has a cost with many of them insane or very impulsive, but that’s the price to pay for the ability to bond with dragons, ability that looks to be hereditary. Maybe Daenerys should look for other descendents of Valyrian aristocracy to marry if madness is an effect of incest, but if the same genes that allow bonding with dragons make the Targaryens crazy there is not much she can do.
The weirdest thing is how so many Westerosi dynasties survived for hundreds and even thousands of years (in Europe their lifespan was on average 150 years) and are threatened with extinction now.
I’m curious how the warg abilities of the Stark children and Jon Snow came about. Was it something latent in the Starks triggered by the direwolves?
The TV series has better control of the narrative than the books. Or at least it tries. Martin keeps bringing new characters and new lands into the story all the time and that started to get on my nerves by book 4. I’m curious what they will do now on the HBo series because the written material for some of the characters like Bran is exhausted while others like Jon and Dany have a lot to do. The actress playing Sansa hinted at a very dramatic scene in the upcoming season that it’s not from the books so the show runners will push forward some plotlines ahead of the future books, that may or may not come.

My pet theory is that muslims are harsher against apostasy and other faith crimes because it’s the community rather than a clergy that is called to punish these crimes. If you have top-down institutions like the Inquisition you can change them or dissolve them, but if the extended family or the tribe are those enforcing the rules of faith it’s much harder to stop them especially when they have traditions and past jurisprudence to gave them justifications.
Despite it’s renown the Inquisition executed only 2% of the accused, so it’s quite possible that it was created exactly with the goal of stopping mobs from delivering punishment for religious offenses as they pleased.

Congrats. I hope to see more stuff from you in NYT. They really need someone who knows what he is talking about.

Obama has Issues

Video Link

DNA survey reveals 25% of Welsh men directly descended from ancient kings and warlords

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/dna-survey-reveals-25-welsh-8308111

I bet we’re going to keep seeing this type of news from many countries.

Nerd has at least two distinct connotations apart from implying intelligence.

The first is some obsessive pursuit that seems odd to others. Being a, say, power rangers nerd.

The second is being an asexual pussy.

They often correlate, but not always.

The kind of nerd that people seem to think rare among blacks is the second, given the near superhuman reputation that has been conferred upon black bodies in recent decades.

Funny thing is, it used to be more true when the spiel was less popular in the media. I’m pretty old and I remember being surprised when I first started meeting black guys that I thought were pussies. Prosperity and a soft life does this to everyone – blacks are just further behind the curve on this, like they are with many things, than are asians/whites.

Back in, say, the 60’s/70’s, there was less of a “keep it real” ethic among blacks because they needed one less. Italians went through this stage of generating more pussies and a counter reaction of “keeping it real” among mafiosi and wannabes as Italians became increasingly gentrified.

That is just an example with the Italians and I know they aren’t a rigorous analog to the progression of blacks. But many white “ethnics” (i.e, 2d/3rd gen Americans and Catholics) went through a cycle of this as well. Southies just aint what they used to be.

“Because turning Europe into Africa meets Pakistan is so obviously good for Jews. Jews are well known for their affinity with Islamabad and Cameroon. Both deli hotspots.”

Oh, right. The traditional Euro stock is all behind this, having demonstrated a much greater affinity with Islamabad and Cameroon.

I live in Japan with residency, being married to a Japanese national, have kids in school here.

I’m pretty comfortable here now, but it is hard making social connections beyond a very shallow level. Same for professional stuff. I’m lucky in that my work is centered in the U.S. and I travel and stay there for months at a time.

Your average western schmoe without any Japan/Asia-philia misses home a lot after the novelty wears off and tends to cluster in expat bubbles that attract Japanese with western-philia that most outgrow eventually.

Few ever make deep, enduring connections with natives and to some extent that is very true of relations between natives. Friendships, social contacts tend towards the situational, moreso than in the west, in my observation.

The bitterness of long term expats here, especially those living in “deep Japan” is common and profound and was a real shock to me. Many of them came here with a love for Japan and have discovered, after long experience, that Japan will never love them back although though they may always be something of a popular party curiosity.

Read up on Debito Arudou (formerly David Aldwinckle, before he naturalized) for a poster boy now venting his rage/bitterness at his unrequited passion for Japan.

They say the only thing harder than being a foreigner in Japan is being a Japanese in Japan. I always laugh when I read people’s (inadvertently patronistic) recounts of their 2 week trip to Japan – “such lovely, friendly, happy, and polite people”, like an innocent naked Margaret Mead tribe somewhere.

The truth of the matter is this is the cultural mechanism for dealing with the state of nearly debilitating nervous exhaustion/stress/anxiety that is the underlying day to day mentality of your average Japanese Joe Bento-box (the women are worse).

Don’t get me wrong, I really enjoy living here, but I have a good support and work situation and have had years to reconcile myself to my place/role in Japan. And believe me, Japan is, more than anywhere else, a place where there is a place for everything.

Like, say, Alaska, there is a huge difference between visiting and residing here. It isn’t like Europe, where the people are largely like white Americans, just speaking a different language. The people, culture, and society are very alien to a westerner. You will always be a guest here.

Anyone who would romanticize living in Japan should read this recent article by Debito Arudou (and especially, especially, the comments). It has all of Debito’s trademark disenchantment, of course, but also so many who agree with him:

http://www.debito.org/?p=12891#comments

The Japanese supreme court ruled in 2014 that non-Japanese have no right to any sort of social welfare benefits.

The expat community, much of which seems like left-lib Anglosphere types, has been in a state of high dudgeon on this ever since.

I say more power to them, the failure of initiatives like that to succeed in America in the 80’s/90’s greatly hastened the current disarray.

23&Me were always honest about gathering data for research purposes and asked customers to sign a consent form. There is no reason to be angry, but that doesn’t mean that some people won’t be.

Is anyone really surprised about what happened in Paris today?

Both French authorities, when they talked about muslims driving into crowds before Christmas, and Ezra Klein now talk about madness because they refuse to accept that the french have a serious cultural conflict on their hands.
Admitting what you say would mean admitting that immigration from radically different cultures creates sources of conflict rather than a multiculti utopia.
And because they refuse to acknowledge that they have a problem they can’t even start finding a solution.

The spike in the use of “geek” in 1999-2000 is probably correlated with Apatow’s Freaks and Geeks teen comedy that has launched the careers of his proteges James Franco and Seth Rogen.

It seems that there is no provocation by Muslims or other protected classes that the Megaphone would consider a legitimate cause for backlash. I’m certain that even a nuclear weapon or bio attack by “extremists” would not even qualify.

At the same time, the slightest current microaggression or ancient deed, no matter how fictitious, by a forebear of the traditional host nation stock is worthy of onerous laws/persecutions/moral panics/blood libels supported 100% by TPTB.

Had this tyranny been prognosticated 30 years ago, the reasonable person would have predicted a violent revolution well in advance of the current state. But still, people say that a counterreaction is inevitable.

I’m not so sure. Oppressive institutions, e.g, serfdom, have demonstrated centuries-long staying power.

The eternal boot in the face is now. And one can’t even advise “get used to it” since everyone already seems quite accustomed to living under this regime, albeit with a little anonymous Internet grumbling to let off steam.

“Bingo. Westerners, and the better class of Asians, quit breeding when they get fenced in. Blacks and browns don’t stop.”

They don’t breed in captivity.

“Europe, Japan and others have the largest populations in their history. The problem, if it really is a problem, is that the ratio of old to young is getting skewed. So people are worried there won’t be enough tax payers paying into social security-type systems to support the increasing number of retired people.”

Following WWII, Japan had a great reset in their entire society, obviously. One conscious choice made by the leaders was encouragement of a “welfare society” as opposed to a “welfare state”. Results of this include things like the convention of lifetime employment, easy/useless jobs for the less capable, very low barriers to entry for small cottage businesses for part-timers/elderly and so forth.

This requires a homogeneous population that shares common values, empathy for one another combined with ethnic particularism, and so forth. Japan famously fits this description, but additionally it has been particularly workable in Japan as they’ve always been the purest feudal Confucianists.

The threat that immigration poses to this system underlies much of the Japanese resistance to immigration, something Westerners don’t really understand, preferring to think that Japanese are just Asian analogs to redneck hicks who just don’t want a broader choice of restaurants or something.

“Is there a point at which the NYT could entertain the thought that perhaps Muslims don’t make good additions to Western societies?”

And this my friends, is the prime example of why there is no backlash in the offing. As 9/11 happened, I was certain that the immigration idiocy would finally stop. But we know now it didn’t and actually ramped up.

There is no incident, and I mean none, that will provoke the masses to effecting meaningful change until widespread hardship/poverty – freedom coming from nothing left to lose – is rampant among the native stock. Rotherham? Your daughters raped on a widespread basis abetted by the authorities? Crickets.

There is perhaps some glimmer of hope in that another program of the elites is inflicting poverty on the middle class, but there is still a great deal of ruin left there, at least decades or a generation or two.

Get used to it, there will be no collective action anytime soon. The only rational/productive response is on the individual level, such as developing income situations that leave one less at the mercy of things like AA/doxing, expatriation to ignored areas, homeschooling (to include firearms training) for offspring, that sort of thing. If there is going to any change, it will be among our progeny, not us.

“Hold the line, island nation. You could just be the Wests best shining hope of how to maintain and preserve one’s native culture and people.”

It seems the best gift I’ve given my offspring is marrying a Japanese woman which then conferred Japanese citizenship upon them. And then moving to Japan for their primary schooling so that they have some clue about functioning in this society, especially as haafus.

“Yes, if we’re being completely honest, I could make arrangements too. Better Sharia than feminist hell on earth.”

This is the nub of the issue.

Yeah, current adherents of Islam are backwards and all, but Europeans ended up surpassing those that brought Christianity to Europe. It could easily happen again.

The current regime in the West has supplanted a Christian based ethical system with an atheistic, materialistic one. The Soviets tried this, it failed. It is failing in the West now – as they say, few soldiers would go to their death with “Long live free trade” or “gay marriage” as their dying wish.

The West could prosper under Islam, would probably morph their dialect to one that better suits their inclinations, as, say, the Indonesians have done.

The West has become heathenized and many are seeking a new belief system whether they know it or not. The zealotry of SJWs is a good example of this.

African American culture has managed to become popular with (non-black) youth, something nobody would have believed when I was young. Islam is less of a stretch and might even have greater appeal since it provides a moral code that aligns better (if imperfectly) with values that have proven enduring in the West for centuries.

A better question might be, “If not Islam, what else then?”. An atomized society of vacuous, soulless consumers is just a disorganized mob that can only be ordered by harsh externalities, i.e, prison rules, as communism has shown and cultural Marxism is again demonstrating. Christianity is not making a comeback, that is for sure. If forced to choose, without a third alternative, between Islam and Christianity, your average typical SWPL would likely choose Islam, at least it might seem a little daring, forbidden, and edgy.

I’d probably prefer to send my kids to an Islamic school, assuming good academics, rather than the typical PC U.S. public one.

“You make a good case for the civic benefit of religion, but why Islam? Why not, say, Mormonism, or Evangelical Christianity?”

Well, for better or worse, it certainly is in a vigorous phase currently. It isn’t scared of a thing in the modern world, which is unlike vacillating Christianity where even the hardcore evangelical denominations are PC, and which attracts both young women and young men.

But beyond that, probably more just right place/right time. Christianity is worn out in the west, a failed god that died in the trenches of 1914-1918. Probably more of Christianity ruling itself out than Islam being a great draw.

“Also, every child went through an important rite of passage: the first time he found a lost coin or a bill on the street, his parent would take him along to the police station to report the lost money. If, after a certain period, no one claimed the coin or the bill, the child who brought it in would be given a reward out of it.”

We’ve done exactly this with our son, pretty convenient with a koban right across the street.

The koban signs more or less imply this tradition:

http://damien.douxchamps.net/media/photo/_d2h15009/

Deadly violence and social sanctions as means of censorship can be complementary.
After Stalin killed everyone who voiced dissent his successors were able to maintain control over the terrorized soviet population largely without using violence. Losing their job or their house and becoming a social pariah were punishments that combined with the threat of violence deterred almost all critics.
I believe that even in the West most people are not willing to suffer social sanctions that impact their lives just for the satisfaction of stating a truth.

I’m looking forward to your blogs as all the topics you mention are of interest to me.
Is Putin a modern Nicholas I?
Both felt threatened by internal dissent and Western influence and adhered to the ideology of Orthodoxy, Autocracy and Nationality. Both invested a lot of money in the armed forces and both ended up antagonizing the Western powers for their actions in the Black Sea region. Could we face a Second Crimean War? (hopefully a cold war this time)
Do you have good psychometric data for Russia? What do you think about the theories of HBDchick about cousin marriage and the Hajnal line?
Welcome.

My favorite combat scene involving romans it’s at the beginning of HBO Rome especially because it’s not cinematic.

Napoleon was attacked by his adversaries one by one so the french army outnumbered it’s opponents until 1813 when Russia, Prussia and Austria were for the first time fighting him all at the same time.
Carthage didn’t had institutions for mass conscription, but they also distrusted the Barca family who have carved a basically independent state in Iberia. They never gave Hannibal full support because they feared him as much as they feared the romans. Romans had a similar trust problem appointing two consuls to lead the armies for one year and they usually were both inexperienced and bad at cooperating. It was with a heavy heart that they let Scipio have an unified, long term command.

Genetic influence on family socioeconomic status and
children’s intelligence

“The Genome-wide Complex Trait Analysis (GCTA) genetic correlation was 0.66, which was
again significantly greater than zero and not significantly
lower than 1.0. Thus, these GCTA genetic correlations indicate
that the same genes are largely responsible for genetic effects
on family SES and children’s IQ. This finding implies that when
genes associated with children’s IQ are identified, the same
genes will also be likely to be associated with family SES”

http://ac.els-cdn.com/S0160289613001682/1-s2.0-S0160289613001682-main.pdf?_tid=7f0e4cee-a524-11e4-b5f1-00000aab0f27&acdnat=1422253870_e98192d23f2c237c1febcff5d095b533

Most central-east europeans feel that they were occupied by the Red Army not liberated, so their lack of enthusiasm to celebrate their escape from fire to the frying pan makes sense.

For some countries that did not participate in the Holocaust, like Romania and Bulgaria, the crimes committed by communists are clearly worse than what the wartime governments did.
Another aspect is that german occupation was far shorter than the soviet one and far less detrimental to the development of Central-East European countries. The communists wiped out the elites and destroyed the economies to a degree that the region may never recover from. In 1938 they were on par with South European countries, now they may never catch up.

“But that is predicated on the idea of a complex specialized society where the elites [?] all non-elites in an almost Marxian sense of being objects of exploitation.” You missed a verb.
Maybe the Yamna were not organised as a steppe empire, who could subjugate and tax the sedentary people, but rather like small clans raiding and looting villages, but also fighting between themselves and that would make it impossible for locals to bribe them all.
Something like this happened during the Slav invasions of the Balkans where small bands avoided Roman defences and targeted the towns and the villages gradually depopulating most of the peninsula and settling in the new areas. Of course in the Balkans some locals survived in defendable positions like the mountains and the coastal areas, but they had the help of imperial armies and diplomacy.

I think those n*****s can be alright, too.

Harry Baldwin –

I was trying to think of the precise wording to respond to Jefferson’s incredibly rude, obnoxious, snarky, SJW-type comment, and then your beautifully worded response appeared. Thank you, and well done. The Brimelows are a lovely, loving couple with now three beautiful daughters. They each deserve every happiness and blessing.

Neutral –
Per government statistics, as of 2013 the US population was a mere 63% non-hispanic White (see here, down from 69% in 2000. If you subtract all the Iranians, Chechens, as well as certain Indians and South Americans who consider and declare themselves White and not hispanic, not to mention Barbadians (Rihanna considered herself White before she became infamous) and Jews, I would estimate that in 2015 the actual White, European-origin percentage of the US population to be perhaps 55%, and dropping fast.

PETA vs Islam is leftist vs leftist? If you think a conservative religious cultural group is left wing, I suggest you head to your nearest community college and take political science 101.

The FSOS was never truly tough, although it used to require a certain amount of broad-based education including culture, literature, economics, politics, and a smidgen of common sense. Even then, plenty of over-educated idiots got through. FWIW, I (a mere mid-wit woman) passed the old, sexist version the first time I took it. Since then it’s been redone to make it fair to women, people of color, ad nauseam, and water seeks its own level. Voila, the kakistocracy.

I had a political science professor who was asked for advice to those wanting to get into teaching. He was white male, and his advice was for anyone who looked like him to do something else. If you were a woman or a minority, on the other hand, then it was a viable career path.

That professor was an interesting guy. He identified himself as a communal anarchist, yet he was very fair in giving both sides of an issue. How many left wing professors these days allow their students to cite Thomas Sowell, let alone make him required reading?

I think the Cosby Show did the right thing.
It isn’t that the Huxtables were typical. Rather they were a good example.

People imitate observed behavior, whether it’s good or bad.
People especially imitate the behavior they observe in people whom they see as like themselves.

Better to show the example of a Black doctor than Crips and Bloods.

Kyle McKenna: “Even granted the Hebraic identity of many (most?) contributors here, I’m seriously amazed at the victimology on display. Where and when in all of human history did Jews enjoy even half of the wealth and power they have in America today? How much more do you want?”

This. Why reading Steve’s site went from #1 (for me) to about #10. An echo chamber. A circle jerk. I’ve read this comment thread the way some watch car wrecks. Absolutely gruesome yet fascinating. Every trope, every logical fallacy, every strawman, every rhetorical flair. The sheer, bloody single mindedness on display.

“My response, that exclusion to hegemony in two generations was typical of his race.” Pithy and spot on. That one of Steve’s loyal commentariat claimed not to understand its meaning is yet another example (if one is needed) of the changed nature of this blog.

While I do not know the number or gypsies SPMoore8 has encountered, or where, I can definitively state that they are easily distinguished from the majority population in Bulgaria (where I spent almost 2 years). There is a great deal of genetic diversity among the Bulgarians, including classic “Slavic” types with blonde hair, blue eyes, and high cheekbones, as well as a large number with olive skin, dark hair, and dark eyes – but still definitely Caucasoid phenotypes – perhaps a legacy of their centuries under Ottoman occupation. Either way, the “Tsigani” were easy to identify. FWIW, I spent a fair amount of time in Turkey as well, and while there was a relatively small number of people amongst whom the gypsies might have blended in, they would again have stood out against most. Their skins are darker, their eyes and faces have a different shape. I spent quite a bit of time reporting on the Bulgarian expulsion of their “ethnic Turks,” and even there, found almost none who could pass as gypsies, but plenty with fair skin and blue eyes.

In all fairness, how much this might be ameliorated by washing and grooming, I can’t really say. They almost uniformly stank, and looked incredibly dusty and grime coated. There was a moderate-skinned black American family that adopted a gypsy boy, and they noted how well his complexion fit with theirs. However, pending the finalization of the adoption, they had to keep returning him to his birth mother every week (complicated story,) and each time he returned he again needed to be deloused.

There was a post on the old Mangan’s blog about the gypsy belief system (I can’t find it right now) that went into great detail about their system of “marime,” and various taboos. A large percentage of them strongly reminded me of Orthodox Jewish taboos regarding menstruating women, and things that were “unclean.” Add in some rather unusual superstitions and cultural beliefs, combine with a highly inbred DNA, and you have a rather distinct, physically and culturally endogamous group that cannot blend in well with the host society.

I’ve read that eating only this product will cover your needs but not those of your gut bacteria who would die with some nasty consequences when you go back to eating normal food.