tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-87219002011-08-17T04:04:44.350+01:00This blog is defunct! Check out my new music blog at <a href="http://www.sonicrampage.org/blog">Sonicrampage.org</a>.RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comBlogger3001100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-90582652865089787682008-08-11T08:12:00.001+01:002008-08-11T08:13:33.325+01:00

I have a new music blog at Sonicrampage.org. Check it out!

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1141061862036136522006-02-27T16:45:00.000Z2006-02-28T12:36:28.193Z

Obviously, this blog is inactive. A year of fairly feverish posting was about enough for me. Still, though, I do think that I did some pretty decent work during my blogging period, so this post is here to collect together links to the posts that I think are the most interesting. Book Reviews:Bellos, Alex Futebol: The Brazilian Way Of LifeBergner, Daniel God of the Rodeo: The Quest for

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1131129520618979332005-11-04T18:38:00.000Z2005-11-04T18:38:40.626Z

Apologies.

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1130201180830527632005-10-25T01:45:00.000+01:002005-10-25T01:46:20.936+01:00

Sometimes you just hit the buffers, and that's how I've been recently. So, here's some links:"Young Patriotic Fervour" - On the rise of ethnic nationalism (ivoirité) in the southern sections of the Ivory Coast. Via Randy. (An aside: the Ivory Coast, like much else of West Africa, has a lot of problems between its mostly-Muslim north and its mostly-Christian south...why in God's name can't anyone

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1130071693235417982005-10-23T13:48:00.000+01:002005-10-23T13:48:13.240+01:00

There's some pretty cool pictures here of Taipei 101, the tallest building in the world, if you're interested.

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1129797260593094202005-10-20T09:31:00.000+01:002005-10-20T09:34:20.600+01:00

Yesterday the Guardian had a very sad article looking back at the great Armenian earthquake of 1988:A generation of children unborn when the earthquake happened are growing up unaware of what their parents went through. Even among the adult survivors there are fissures between those with memories of the disaster and those with none. "My husband was a conscript in the Soviet army and away in

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1129671415787270052005-10-18T22:35:00.000+01:002005-10-18T22:36:55.793+01:00

Yeah, after months of slacking on my secondary music blog (ok, well not writing anything at all) I'm back with a monster of a post, including a new downloadable jungle mix. Check it out.

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1129641207573094552005-10-18T14:10:00.000+01:002005-10-18T14:13:27.633+01:00

Here's an excerpt from Simon Kuper's superb Football Against the Enemy, describing the football stadium's role as the one refuge for dissent in the Soviet Union, in this case specifically in Armenia:Armenian women did not go to the stadium, so it was a place for male rituals. 'When you go to the stadium,' said Levon, 'you can do some free things.' For instance, only in the stadium was it

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1129591875018403972005-10-18T00:31:00.000+01:002005-10-18T00:31:15.090+01:00

These pictures were taken when I was about 17/18. Moody. Click on the pics to be taken to larger versions.Looking out over the crowd at Highbury. Not long after we moved to London in 1991 I decided to start supporting Arsenal. Why? Well, one of the first kids my age that I met when we moved over was a big-time Spurs supporter, and he hated Arsenal. He was also a total dick, so I decided to go for

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1129554278054501322005-10-17T14:03:00.000+01:002005-10-17T14:04:38.060+01:00

Me, Spring 1994

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1129550781230614422005-10-17T13:05:00.000+01:002005-10-17T13:06:21.290+01:00

From Gustavo Arellano's September 30th "Ask a Mexican" column in the OC Weekly, I learned about this interesting article by Valeria Godines on how indigenous migrants from the southern Mexican state of Chiapas have moved to Arandas, Jalisco, to take the place of workers who have migrated north to California.Chiapan Indians stoop in the red-dirt fields in central Mexico to tug at weeds surrounding

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1129547225323202612005-10-17T12:05:00.000+01:002005-10-17T18:36:44.526+01:00

The Miami New-Times, the local alternative weekly, has recently run a fascinating two-part retrospective on Miami's cocaine-frosted 1980's.There's much of interest in both editions, but there are several particularly fascinating articles, particularly Carlos Suarez de Jesus's "Cocaine and Me: A Memoir", a reminiscence of his time hanging around the edge of the action at the notorious Mutiny Hotel

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1128946150619840872005-10-13T11:39:00.000+01:002005-10-13T20:49:39.830+01:00

The past several weeks have seen dramatic scenes in Morocco, as hundreds of sub-Saharan African immigrants have stormed Ceuta and Melilla, the two Spanish enclaves in North Africa (with reports of tens of thousands more waiting to join them, according to the most alarmist articles).These events have obviously received a certain amount of coverage in the press, but I'm not so interested in them in

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1129047267322496822005-10-11T17:14:00.000+01:002005-10-11T17:14:27.323+01:00

One of the hassles of moving back in with your parents as an adult (besides it being pretty pathetic, all things being equal) is that you end up having to go through all of your old stuff, all the things that were left over from when you left, and all the stuff you've dropped off on visits back over the years. Still, though, there are moments of joy, like today, when, pawing through an old box of

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1129046692967921202005-10-11T17:02:00.000+01:002005-10-11T17:04:52.973+01:00

Fun fact of the day: in 1963 my great-grandfather, Colonel Abbot Boone, wrote a book entitled Our hypocritical new national motto: In god we trust;: A study of the congressional substitution for E pluribus unum and its theological implications.

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1128537089484965812005-10-05T19:30:00.000+01:002005-10-05T19:31:29.490+01:00

It's my 25th birthday, so, er, no new stuff.

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1128426883735730912005-10-04T12:42:00.000+01:002005-10-04T13:09:27.096+01:00

Saturday's bombings have put Indonesia back in the spotlight, as well as the question of minority faiths (in Bali's case, Hinduism) in the country with the world's largest Muslim population. Some of you might not know about the violence between Christians and Muslims that has flared in recent years in the Moluccan Islands, but, fortunately, Globalsecurity has a long and detailed article on the

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1128201459362064132005-10-01T22:15:00.000+01:002005-10-01T22:17:39.433+01:00

Recently, The New York Review of Books has published two fascinating articles by Alma Guillermoprieto on Hugo Chavez's Venezuela. Here's a taster of "The Gambler":Strongmen or caudillos like Chávez, and dictators, too, have always depended on fervent popular support to consolidate their hold on power. How else could they push through the measures that deny their opponents access to a fair hearing

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1128019913801136722005-09-29T19:50:00.000+01:002005-09-29T19:54:33.093+01:00

From here:Isn't it fair to say the mechanics of file sharing are incredibly dull? There's so little at stake in the transfer of data between nodes that the value of what's being transferred is often obscured. The inchoate fury of musicians who feel they've been ripped off comes in stark contrast to the attitude of most people who use P2P networks, a kind of puzzled ennui. How could anything so

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1127926788112527642005-09-28T17:58:00.000+01:002005-09-28T17:59:48.120+01:00

Are Americans the only people who cut their food with their fork in their left hand before switching to eat with the fork in the right hand? That's one thing that has always puzzled me, because Europeans cut and eat with the fork in their left hand.

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1127868817003799392005-09-28T01:47:00.000+01:002005-09-28T02:02:08.546+01:00

Over the weekend this caught my eye:Scotland has the second highest murder rate in western Europe and Scots are more than three times more likely to be murdered than people in England and Wales, according to a study by the World Health Organisation.The study, based on the latest crime figures from 21 western European countries, finds that only Finland has a higher murder rate than

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1127601536606313032005-09-24T23:33:00.000+01:002005-09-24T23:38:56.613+01:00

Ah, heavy metal.

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1127492620400204332005-09-23T17:13:00.000+01:002005-09-23T17:23:40.443+01:00

One of the more absurd crime sagas in New York City history now seems to have been resolved:In the annals of New York City crime, few undertakings were more ill-advised, foolhardy and just plain dangerous than the one that prosecutors say was chosen by Thomas and Rose Marie Uva, a young married couple from Queens.The Uvas set out more than a dozen years ago to solve their financial difficulties

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1126442674134271612005-09-21T09:45:00.000+01:002005-09-21T09:45:28.650+01:00

One of the stories that has been rumbling away all week in the British press has been the controversy over Britain's official Holocaust Memorial Day, January 27th (the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz). Some Muslim groups have been complaining that it is, as they put it, 'unfairly exclusionary' to only focus on Jewish suffering. They would like, instead, for there to be a 'Genocide

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1126519394213459712005-09-12T22:36:00.000+01:002005-09-12T23:01:06.203+01:00

I was flicking through the weekend's papers earlier when, in the Guardian magazine for Saturday, I came across this:In truth, more than 75% of the heterosexuals diagnosed with HIV in the UK last year were infected abroad or by partners who were infected abroad, with 68% of them having been exposed to HIV in Africa. Although black Africans living in Britain represent barely 1% of the population,

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1126472522374390632005-09-11T21:51:00.000+01:002005-09-11T22:02:02.426+01:00

Here's an account of September 11, 2001, by Bill Hewitt, the husband of my father's cousin Marian Helms, written in the form of a letter to their daughter Diana:At 8:48 in the morning that day, we were in our apartment in lower Manhattan, one third of a mile north from what was the World Trade Center complex. You and your mother were in the living room, and I was still in bed. I was awakened by a

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1126374137679917862005-09-10T18:32:00.000+01:002005-09-10T18:42:17.686+01:00

For all the talk of 'civilization collapsing' in New Orleans, some people showed the traditional American can-do spirit. I'd guess more stories like this will come out in the weeks to come.Check out this photo diary of the lead-up to the storm and the first couple of days of the aftermath.This woman's story is just unimaginably harrowing.Tim Cavanaugh in Reason enumerates just how much federal

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1126115007248787142005-09-07T18:42:00.000+01:002005-09-07T18:43:27.326+01:00

The BBC has just released a new report on Britain's foreign-born population that some people, including the esteemed John Bond are already trumpeting as a rebuttal to those who think Britain is being 'swamped' by foreigners. Whether or not Britain is being swamped is a matter best left to another time, but the problem with these numbers is that they are based around permanent residents and do not

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1125927588145707962005-09-05T14:26:00.000+01:002005-09-05T20:35:03.980+01:00

From today's Guardian comes this story of an assault on a Christian village in the West Bank by their Muslim neighbors:The only brewery in the Palestinian territories escaped an attack yesterday by a mob that razed a dozen homes over an alleged affair between a Christian man whose family owns the beer factory and a Muslim woman from a neighbouring village who was then murdered by her own

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1125881044296093312005-09-04T23:47:00.000+01:002005-09-05T01:44:04.373+01:00

If you haven't seen the infamous MSNBC video of NOPD cops looting Wal-Mart the day after the storm, it can be seen here. "I'm doing my job".What's the dumbest article I've read about Katrina? This one. The Houston Chronicle has a blog about what is happening at the Astrodome.Bush stage-managing heart-warming photo ops? Surely not! Here's another old article laying out what people have known for

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1125796911065267112005-09-04T02:18:00.000+01:002005-09-04T02:21:51.126+01:00

Sorry that I've been slow on the posts; I've been glued to the coverage of the aftermath of Katrina (stayed in on a Saturday night - pathetic!).It's quite clear that the scale of the disaster in New Orleans, in particular, has been helped along by a constellation of screw-ups at all levels, from the city to the state to the federal level. I've never been a fan of George Bush (which is an

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1125594192998073582005-09-01T17:58:00.000+01:002005-09-01T18:03:13.006+01:00

New Orleans. Jesus. What a mess.Some of you might be interested in this article from last year on the mess that Bush has made of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. A quote:From its first months in office, the Bush administration made it clear that emergency programs, like much of the federal government, were in for a major reorientation.At FEMA, President Bush appointed a close aide, Joe

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1125405850836974812005-08-30T17:50:00.000+01:002005-08-30T17:52:47.393+01:00

On June 12th, 2000, a young man boarded a bus travelling through the middle-class Rio de Janeiro district of Jardim Botânico. What unfolded over the following hours transfixed the nation, and forms the subject for the documentary Bus 174, which seeks to show what happened, and explain the background behind the events.The young man in question, Sandro do Nascimento, was a menino da rua, a street

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1125230925121199292005-08-28T13:06:00.000+01:002005-08-28T19:12:40.840+01:00

Just briefly (I really need to go out), check out this blog post on Wahhabi indoctrination in American prisons. A quote: First, the al-Haramain Foundation distributed The Noble Qur'an, translated by Muhammad Taqi-ud-Din Al-Hilali and Muhammad Muhsin Khan, to an estimated 8,000 to 10,000 prisoners. This translation uniquely advances a radical interpretation of the Muslim holy book through the use

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1125230132155401962005-08-28T12:54:00.000+01:002005-08-29T02:14:26.853+01:00

OK, I'm back in London now, so more new content should be coming soon. Santorini was lovely, and my cousin Carmel's wedding was wonderful. I'm never dealing with Olympic Airlines again though (long story).In the meantime, though, as follow-up to my post on what the west is, regular readers might be interested in the way that the discussion has developed elsewhere. Those in search of something

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1124225222922488662005-08-16T21:45:00.000+01:002005-08-16T21:47:02.983+01:00

I'm moving back to London tomorrow, and I won't be posting for a bit as I am then leaving on Friday for Greece, where my cousin is getting married. I'll be back in London on the 28th, when I will get back into the swing of things.Before I go, though, here are some links (some new, some old) for your consideration:A fascinating translation of an interview with Singapore's former Prime Minister,

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1124035278131256892005-08-14T16:59:00.000+01:002005-08-14T17:01:18.146+01:00

It's still alive and kicking:HERE is the regional weather forecast: it’s going to be “nesh” in the southwest of England, “taters” in East Anglia and absolutely “foonert” in Kilmarnock.All these words mean “cold” and are evidence that dialect is flourishing in this country, according to a study. The British have resisted the onslaught of television and the internet, and our language is more rich

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1123969852870211212005-08-13T22:38:00.000+01:002005-08-13T22:50:52.893+01:00

Via Gene, Bartle Breese Bull on life for the 506th Infantry in Iraq:Bangme.net is the Fashion TV of the 3rd Platoon’s cyberlife — Bang Me and its online meat-market cousins, hotornot.com and myplace.com. They are places you can go online to see pictures of women, read what they say about themselves, and meet them or the weirdos behind the perky personas. If someone "bangs" you on bangme.net, it

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1123809485410201322005-08-12T02:18:00.000+01:002005-08-12T02:18:05.420+01:00

As if something so complex could be unraveled in just one blog post!I didn't want to derail this very entertaining thread on the interplay between reggaeton and dancehall (ok, yes, mostly one-way traffic I know) and the wider influences on Jamaican popular music, but one of the curious things is that, several times, there was talk of Jamaica and 'the West', as if there is an assumption that the

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1123802961342631762005-08-12T00:30:00.000+01:002005-08-12T00:29:21.376+01:00

Today being the fortieth anniversary of the Watts Riots, some of you might be interested in this story from the LA Times, following around the Homicide squad from LA's Southeastern Division, which covers the most dangerous, gang-infested neighborhoods in the city. It's quite long, but it's well worth a read.You might also be interested in an article from last year entitled "Infinite Ingress",

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1123689839507636302005-08-10T18:32:00.000+01:002005-08-10T18:50:30.400+01:00

OK, I fully admit to being in a terrible mood when I wrote the last post. Way it goes, huh? "When crabby, don't blog". But the kernel of my irritation with the issue I flagged up from reading the article in question was, I think, fair, even if my wording was more ranting than warranted. America offers millions of people the chance to come here and improve their lives. For some people coming here

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1123467410265655152005-08-08T03:10:00.000+01:002005-08-08T03:16:50.273+01:00

Fadela Amara wants to break the law of silence which has masked the violence of the suburbs, mafia-style.The petite woman with the narrow face and the little pig-tail grew up in a suburban housing development in Clermont-Ferrand, a working class city in the South. "We thought at the time that the French republic was going to give us immigrant children a chance as well." Freedom, equality,

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1123276083592406082005-08-06T22:40:00.000+01:002005-08-06T22:45:47.050+01:00

A small vignette from the fall of Enron.Late in the evening on August 20th, 2001, a broker at the Houston branch office of the financial services giant UBS Paine Webber sent out an email to seventy-three of his clients. His name was Chung Wu. Wu, a native of Hong Kong, had arrived in Texas as a student in the early 1970's. Staying, he worked in accountancy and finance for a variety of different

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1123195956654197552005-08-04T23:42:00.000+01:002005-08-04T23:52:36.663+01:00

In response to the death of SPLA leader John Garang, Nathanael at The Rhine River has written a wonderfully eloquent post on the Rwandan genocide, that great necropolis of the modern era, and fore-runner for today's horrors in Darfur (although of course the situation in Darfur is nowhere near as horrible). He looks at Veronique Tadjo's L'Ombre D'Imana (In the Shadows of the Creator), an

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1123153334818625242005-08-04T11:50:00.000+01:002005-08-04T12:02:14.826+01:00

From the New York Times:BAGHDAD, Iraq, Aug. 3 - An American journalist from New York who was writing about the rise of conservative Shiite Islam and the corruption of the Iraqi police was abducted and shot dead Tuesday evening in the southern port city of Basra, American and Iraqi officials said Wednesday. The reporter's interpreter was also shot and is hospitalized in serious condition.The

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1123101989399298132005-08-03T21:42:00.000+01:002005-08-03T21:46:29.406+01:00

Maruf Khawja on the generation gap among British Muslims.William Dobson on why the Japanese are unlikely to succeed in their attempts to get a place on the UN Security Council.Tara McCormack argues (quite controversially, I'd hazard) that Srebrenica and the wider Bosnian Civil War have incorrectly become morality tales in the West.Claudia Diehl on the issue of how serious Germany's 'brain drain'

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1122909214279293882005-08-01T16:30:00.000+01:002006-08-27T23:48:19.620+01:00

Note from Pearsall: My good friend Alyssa has recently arrived in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, where she is going to be spending the next month doing field research for her ethnomusicology degree at SOAS. She's sent a couple of emails that I've found fascinating, and happily enough she's agreed to let me post them in a slightly edited form. Enjoy!July 24thI'm in Dushanbe now, taking a break from a

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1122784368219221502005-07-31T05:27:00.000+01:002005-07-31T06:18:10.700+01:00

Note: This is a slightly altered excerpt from my MA dissertation. If any of my regular readers would like to see the whole thing, let me know and I can email a copy to you.In the nineteenth century millions of Irish Catholic immigrants flooded into the United States, utterly transforming American society. Along with the Germans and Scandinavians who came in at their side, and the Eastern and

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1122688496989402532005-07-30T02:50:00.000+01:002005-07-30T02:54:57.020+01:00

Interview with Mancunian jihadi Hassan Butt in Prospect. Fascinating in its echoes of the rhetoric of revolutionary Fascism. Did you know that the most decorated military unit for its size in American history was the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, a World War II unit composed of Japanese-Americans? Now you do.Johnathan Edelstein on the imposition of Sharia law on Nigeria's Kano state.

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1122671120882117432005-07-29T22:02:00.000+01:002005-07-29T22:05:20.943+01:00

Yesterday I posted about the question of whether or not Americans can be considered a coherent ethnic group. I said no, but I do have a caveat, in that Americans share a particularly strong national culture that manifests itself quite clearly outside of our borders. One of the interesting things, I think, about spending so much of your life being an American expatriate, as I have, is that over

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1122603717931116512005-07-29T03:16:00.000+01:002005-07-29T03:21:57.966+01:00

After 10 months, over 20,000 hits (including nearly 13,000 unique visitors according to Statcounter), untold tens of thousands of words, this is my two hundred and fiftieth post. Which is nice. Thank you to everyone who has stopped by over these past ten months, and a special thanks to everyone who has taken the time to comment on any of my posts, especially all of the regulars.Anyways, I've gone

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1122585182348580232005-07-28T22:10:00.000+01:002005-07-28T22:13:02.350+01:00

Wayne Marshall considers the impact of the 'war on terror' on Jamaica:War occupies a prominent place in the Jamaican imagination, but when people talk of war, they more frequently refer to the ghetto-blasting gun-battles that routinely erupt in downtown Kingston. Since the 1970s, Jamaica has been in a state of perpetual war. The noxious combination of U.S. cold-war and drug-war policy, the

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1121113246209615422005-07-28T20:03:00.000+01:002005-07-29T20:58:23.033+01:00

Several weeks ago Randy McDonald asked the question:Do Americans constitute a separate ethnonational group, after more than two centuries of independent statehood and almost four centuries of continuous history in their homeland? My inclination is to say that they do. If so, what sort of relationship do they share with other post-British settler cultures, like the English Canadians, the

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1122501702121718912005-07-27T22:59:00.000+01:002005-07-27T23:01:42.123+01:00

Good, bad, indifferent? I used the 'Autumn Hues' template from here and messed around with it a bit to set everything up. Does it show up well on everybody's screen? All of the alignments ok? I've done it in Firefox, so does it look ok in Internet Explorer or any of the other browsers?

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1122352206350475912005-07-26T05:25:00.000+01:002005-07-28T20:55:25.966+01:00

Can you imagine the US ever again having a 100% hard-ass bastard like Andrew Jackson as president? Andrew Jackson had been born with gunpowder spicing his blood. He was one of the most quick-to-fight white men living on the Tennessee frontier. He was untutored, except for a brief apprencticeship at law in Salisbury, North Carolina, beginning at age seventeen, a period of study interspersed with

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1122349554312691022005-07-26T04:32:00.000+01:002005-07-26T04:45:54.320+01:00

...Randy McDonald has been coming up with the goods recently. Two recent posts of particular note are his discussion of Cape Verde's prospects for becoming a member of the European Union, and his look at the Acadian diaspora. Good stuff, as always.Then there's his towering post on Muslim homophobia, but more on that tomorrow evening.

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1122345795053657682005-07-26T03:40:00.000+01:002005-07-28T20:55:43.526+01:00

An addendum, of sorts, to the previous post.There is something authentically tragic about addicts, in the way the wreckage of their lives is both freely chosen and somehow fated. They are both casualties of a condition that is believed to have a genetic component, and committed collaborators in their own downfall. They deserve pity, always, and often they inspire contempt. We collared one

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1121117525705332582005-07-23T22:50:00.000+01:002005-07-23T22:56:17.763+01:00

Somewhat below the radar of popular concern, methamphetamine (aka crystal meth, crank, ice, glass, etc) continues its increasingly destructive spread across America:Around the country, law-enforcement officials say methamphetamine use has become an epidemic. Federal officials estimate there are 1.5 million regular meth users in the United States today. As of 2003, according to the National Survey

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1121972178802137762005-07-21T19:54:00.000+01:002005-07-21T19:56:27.093+01:00

Just for your information, comments on my Young America demographics piece can be seen at GNXP here.

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1121900664911839582005-07-21T00:00:00.000+01:002005-07-21T05:45:06.553+01:00

Christ, it's bad enough here in New York (at times like this, I wish I still lived in Britain), but at least I don't live in Phoenix.

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1121897277509171532005-07-20T22:52:00.000+01:002005-07-20T23:07:57.516+01:00

Elsewhere:Should Ebonics be considered a foreign language, as opposed to an English dialect? I weigh in on the side of dialect, Emynd (the blogger in question) says I'm full of it. Decide for yourself.Does Africa need a new Caliphate? I say nay, nay, and thrice nay (with a bit too much swearing, in retrospect).Juan Cole says that right-wingers would never say the same things about Christian

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1121827630196231052005-07-20T03:42:00.000+01:002005-07-25T23:30:00.010+01:00

I was fiddling around with the custom table feature at the US Census site the other day when, thinking about the Brooklyn-related demographics posts I have done recently, I decided to look at the composition of young America, and specifically the booming numbers of multiracial children being born. Everyone knows that America's white population is experiencing a fairly dramatic decline as a

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1121732496844327352005-07-19T01:20:00.000+01:002005-07-19T01:21:36.853+01:00

This has already made the rounds of the blogosphere, but if you've missed it, the Wall Street Journal recently published a fascinating look at how the Muslim Brotherhood established itself in post-war Germany, with CIA assistance. An excerpt:MUNICH, Germany -- North of this prosperous city of engineers and auto makers is an elegant mosque with a slender minaret and a turquoise dome. A stand of

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1121543026219678162005-07-16T20:38:00.000+01:002005-07-16T21:00:43.790+01:00

I just found this post at a blog called Sepia Mutiny, which is dedicated to the issues and culture of American-born (or raised) South Asians (Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, and Sri Lankans). It starts off as a fairly perfunctory discussion of a possible rise in hate crimes as a result of last week's London bombing, before turning into a dizzyingly rich discussion of identity issues. Well

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1121533581548967802005-07-16T17:53:00.000+01:002005-07-16T18:06:21.556+01:00

I'd missed this before, but Laban Tall points to this report by Roger Hardy, the BBC's Islamic Affairs analyst, that was posted last Thursday afternoon, hours after the London bombings.As Laban notes, there is one particularly flabber-gasting line:Muslims have lived in Britain for centuries, but only relatively recently have they become the focus of controversy.Where the hell does stuff like this

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1121528182836524992005-07-16T16:30:00.000+01:002005-07-16T16:38:43.000+01:00

One of the things that really irritates me is, when in discussions about Islamic history, you get people pointing to the diversity of the Ottoman Empire and its relative tolerance towards religious minorities, and then smugly contrasting it to the rampant religious bigotry of Christian Europe in the same period. You know the type: "ah, the Ottoman Empire was religiously and ethnically diverse

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1121455478052961532005-07-15T20:20:00.000+01:002005-07-15T20:25:03.203+01:00

This will amuse Euroskeptics:Cocaine traces have been found at the European Parliament in an inquiry by one of Germany's main broadcasters.The Sat-1 channel sent reporters to take 46 swabs from toilets and other public areas of the Brussels buildings. Nearly all tested positive for cocaine.A European Parliament spokeswoman said cocaine abuse was not a problem among staff working at the

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1121440243459716402005-07-15T16:16:00.000+01:002005-07-15T16:10:43.510+01:00

For what it's worth, I agree with Phil Edwards, who agrees with Chris Clarke that there's something a bit off with the fact that, as soon as Islamic extremists commit an atrocity, there are calls for all other Muslims to stand up, bow down, and give the appropriately ritualistic apologies and condemnations. Quite apart from the 'guilty-until-proven-innocent' aspect of this, it just seems

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1121371815946049932005-07-14T21:06:00.000+01:002005-07-14T21:12:29.883+01:00

Via Civitas, a new report from the Countryside Agency, one of the thousands of unelected quangos operating in the UK, that bitches about the shocking lack of diversity of visitors to rural Britain.However, fewer service providers are aware of the need to address issues under the Race Relations (Amendment) Act (2000). Fewer strategies are in place or are planned, that would encourage people from

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1121359398833250082005-07-14T16:39:00.000+01:002005-07-14T17:43:18.900+01:00

In the BBC today, Tokyo's Governor Shintaro Ishihara has got himself into hot water for insulting the French language:A group of French speakers in Japan are suing the governor of Tokyo after he described French as a failed language.The 21 teachers and researchers are demanding compensation and an apology for the "insulting remarks" from Governor Shintaro Ishihara. "I have to say that it should

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1121284524923401012005-07-13T20:53:00.000+01:002005-07-13T20:55:24.923+01:00

At the left, I've done a bit of updating, adding in some new blogs, and stuff. There's a whole New York City section now, for info on this here city (greatest in the world, btw), plus I've added a couple of blogs to the different sections, including Chiasm, which is great.

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1121270139883064782005-07-13T16:46:00.000+01:002005-07-13T20:20:42.120+01:00

Yesterday, in the Washington Post, E.J. Dionne Jr. relayed this little tidbit: Appearing on "Fox News Sunday," Fran Townsend, the president's homeland security adviser, said that the war in Iraq attracts terrorists "where we have a fighting military and a coalition that can take them on and not have the sort of civilian casualties that you saw in London."Jesus. OK, I know they are just Ay-rabs,

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1121219359467813912005-07-13T02:43:00.000+01:002005-07-13T02:49:19.473+01:00

Johnathan Freedland in The Grauniad:But the truth is, it is still too early to tell what exactly it is we are dealing with. Is this a one-off, as 9/11 and Madrid turned out to be? Or is this the beginning of a campaign of suicide bombing, like the one waged on Israel for nearly10 years? My hunch is that the much-discussed stoicism and resilience so far displayed by Londoners is the fruit of the

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1121216952080702172005-07-13T01:53:00.000+01:002005-07-13T02:09:12.090+01:00

Having said that, Edgware Road may not have been a chosen target. After all, the Circle Line is not exactly notorious for running smoothly!Still, the Mandalay recommendation holds, for now unto eternity.Oh yeah, and according the BBC, the bombers were probably all British-born, with three of them coming from Leeds. The BNP must be down on their knees thanking their lucky stars.

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1121215602109881482005-07-13T01:42:00.000+01:002005-07-13T01:46:42.116+01:00

I find it odd that none of the analyses of why Edgware Road station was bombed mentioned that it is very close to Paddington Green police station, which is perhaps the most important high security police station in London, where the British Guantanamo Bay prisoners were interrogated on their arrival back in London, and where IRA suspects were routinely interrogated during The Troubles.But as you

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1121120157414089172005-07-13T01:06:00.000+01:002005-07-13T02:29:40.303+01:00

Jason Burke, whose book Al-Qaeda: The True Story of Radical Islam I discussed back in December, has written two excellent articles in the aftermath of the London bombings on who he thinks the perpetrators are likely to be, how they see the world, and what can be done in the future.The money section (from Sunday's article):Historically, this first attack usually prompts the state security machine,

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1121197230637278802005-07-12T20:34:00.000+01:002005-07-12T20:40:30.643+01:00

If you've seen Morgan Spurlock's documentary Super-Size Me and were a bit unimpressed (if you double your caloric intake of any food and stop exercising isn't it likely that you will bloat ridiculously quickly?) you might be interested in Morgan Spurlock Watch, wherein a guy named Radley Balko has a go at a variety of Spurlock's contentions and ideas.Via Frank McGahon (sweet house, btw)

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1121194229039772932005-07-12T19:46:00.000+01:002005-07-12T19:50:29.050+01:00

I'd missed this story, but I'd say that is is a fairly grim indictment of America's educational and health-care systems, as Toyota plans to build a new car plant in Woodstock, Ontario, even though several Southern states were offering them much larger subsidies:Acknowledging it was the "worst-kept secret" throughout Ontario's automotive industry, Toyota confirmed months of speculation Thursday by

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1121036165028019792005-07-11T16:55:00.000+01:002005-07-11T16:58:45.596+01:00

About a month ago, the Washington Post published a long article about the kitchen workers at Merkado, a new upscale restaurant located in DC's rapidly gentrifying Logan Hill neighborhood, that is well worth reading.The focus of the article is on line chef Miguel Rosario, a Puerto Rican-born, Bronx-raised, ex-convict, who is using the cooking skills he picked up in prison to turn his life around

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1121034116182342922005-07-10T23:19:00.000+01:002005-07-10T23:21:56.203+01:00

Regular readers may find these articles at the Hartford Web Publishing site on the dynamics of race in Brazil interesting as background to my two previous posts.

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1121028545340303412005-07-10T20:45:00.000+01:002005-07-10T21:50:38.146+01:00

In addition to the previous post, did you know that Brazilians are now the most common nationality in the 'Other Than Mexican' category of illegal immigrants detained on the southern US border? Encouraged by highly organized groups of smugglers offering relatively cheap packages, Brazilians recently have been migrating in record numbers to the United States.With direct entry to the United States

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1120880098385341812005-07-09T04:30:00.000+01:002005-07-10T23:22:46.503+01:00

Alex Bellos on baile funk:Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, is the glamorous city of Carnival, the statue of Christ the Redeemer and Copacabana beach. But the poorest fifth of its residents—about a million people, many of them black—live in the favelas, the claustrophobic brick shantytowns that cover the hills and sprawl chaotically out for miles into its outskirts. In the favelas, the city police have

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1120750331069629402005-07-07T16:26:00.000+01:002005-07-07T16:32:11.076+01:00

Fortunately, my mother is an architectural historian, so she has been in Italy for the last month doing research, and fortunately, my dad joined her this week, so neither of them are in London today. One of the bombs went off at Edgware Road station, which is just a ten minute walk from their home. Thank God.Just been checking through my emails, and it seems like most of my friends are ok.Still,

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1120459584214321282005-07-06T05:24:00.000+01:002005-07-06T22:21:05.043+01:00

There are a lot of images in this post. So apologies in advance to those of you reading this on dial-up.Anyways, this is something of a sequel to my June 9th post on racial segregation in Brooklyn (it's been a month already? My God!). I'm vaguely thinking of gathering together all of this data for a single post on GNXP, but that's up to Razib really. Clicking on most of the images on this post

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1120493916607424932005-07-04T17:17:00.000+01:002005-07-04T17:18:36.613+01:00

There was a very moving article by Aminatta Forna in yesterday's Observer on her father's execution by the Sierra Leonean government thirty years ago, and the madness that followed in its wake, and the slow rebuilding going on today. Back in Freetown, during this trip, my step-mother Yabome (whom I have called Mum since I was a child) shows me the front page of a newspaper. On it is the text of

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1120468935122791172005-07-04T10:20:00.000+01:002005-07-04T20:11:40.803+01:00

Via a comment of Razib's at this post on Abiola Lapite's site, I found this study of patterns of interracial marriage among Asian-Americans, focusing on the different rates among men and women for Americans of Indian, Korean, Japanese, Chinese, Filipino, and Vietnamese heritage. Obviously, I am a sucker for all types of demographic information, and there's a fair amount to sink your teeth into

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1120365993206733982005-07-03T05:43:00.000+01:002005-07-03T05:46:33.270+01:00

By the end of May this year there had been 746 murders in Jamaica, an absolutely staggering figure for a country with only 2.7 million people. To put this into perspective, New York City, with a population that is roughly three times larger than Jamaica's, has only had 192 murders so far this year.A STAGGERING 746 Jamaicans have been murdered since the start of the year, 193 more than for the

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1120291270267354872005-07-02T19:24:00.000+01:002005-07-04T18:12:35.023+01:00

Yesterday, the US Census released a new set of figures that showed that Detroit has now dropped out of the list of America's ten largest cities:The fact that Detroit is shrinking is nothing new. Detroit has clung to its position on the list of the 10 most populous cities since the 2000 census when it first dropped below 1 million people. That was a stinging blow for a city that was the nation's

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1120016182455077312005-06-29T04:35:00.000+01:002005-06-29T04:36:22.503+01:00

Apologies for a couple days away from blogging, life (and work) intervened.Anyways, David McDuff of the fine blog A Step At A Time, responded on Friday to my little micro-rant on the revisionist 'the Irish were once considered non-white' meme by posting a quotation from the excellent author and essayist Robert Rodriguez (an interesting discussion of whom can be seen here), that I actually

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1119589527670022732005-06-24T06:06:00.000+01:002005-06-24T06:17:57.466+01:00

First off: is the 'the Irish were once considered non-white' the stupidest historical meme ever? I know that dickhead Harvard professor Noel Ignatiev wrote a book about this, but this seems to be an idea that has perculated out into the wider Left intelligentsia (I saw someone mention it in a Village Voice article this week). It is so so so stupid. I wrote my MA dissertation on the Irish in

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1119459085193831712005-06-22T17:50:00.000+01:002005-06-28T18:15:47.680+01:00

One of the things that I find most distasteful about modern American political life is the way in which virtually everyone tries to project themself as a martyr. For all the arrogance and chest-beating bravado in politics at all levels, it seems like the core of American political life is paranoia, the sense that, however right you may be, nefarious outside forces are out to get you, and they

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1118939665489404602005-06-16T17:36:00.000+01:002005-06-16T17:34:25.526+01:00

Note: Cross-posted from Pearsall's Tunes.Obviously, I spend a lot of time listening to music, and then thinking about what I listen to. I also spend a lot of time reading about it. One of the things that I have found quite interesting over the last two or so years of reading about music online (I was reading stuff like TWANBOC and Blissblog way before I started participating on Dissensus and

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1118712787274849982005-06-14T02:32:00.000+01:002005-06-14T02:33:07.336+01:00

The enormous size of this nation, and particularly the vast empty spaces of the West, allows an enormous, virtually limitless heterogeneity. This vast multiplicity of experiences often expresses itself in decidedly eccentric, even disturbing, ways. One of the stranger manifestations of modern American life is the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a topic discussed in

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1118436411160340272005-06-10T21:43:00.000+01:002005-06-10T21:46:51.166+01:00

My good friend Robert Jubb has been blogging his exam revision at Consider Phlebas, so if you feel like diving head first into the world of political philosophy then have a look. It's pretty esoteric stuff (or perhaps that is just my history degree talking) but it will repay the time and effort put into it.He's a smart cookie, that bearded Jubb.

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1118424175355012782005-06-10T18:20:00.000+01:002005-06-10T18:22:55.363+01:00

For the last week it has been hot here in New York. Really hot and humid. Although not as hot as it will get later on in the summer, it came more or less out of nowhere. Indeed, only two weeks ago it was still chilly enough that wearing a sweatshirt was necessary when going outside. Then, BOOM! Roasting heat and sweltering humidity. Shorts and t-shirt, and too long outdoors and you could feel the

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1118423007816394292005-06-10T17:59:00.000+01:002005-06-10T18:03:27.823+01:00

Having done my version of the new book meme, I then passed it on to several people. So, if you'd like to see their choices, hop over to Actually Existing, Consider Phlebas, Far Outliers, and Shot By Both Sides.

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1118328244440299722005-06-09T15:44:00.000+01:002005-07-06T05:39:30.433+01:00

Several days ago I was messing around at the invaluable City-Data site, a veritable fountain of knowledge for statistical geeks like myself, when I decided to have a look at what info they had on my old Brooklyn zip code, 11222. Not surprisingly, it showed that it is 80% white, because Greenpoint (for that is what it is) is the central home of the city's Polish community. I then started to have a

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1118230456491389182005-06-08T12:14:00.000+01:002005-06-08T12:34:16.510+01:00

Go and have a read of the 'Overclocking' post over at GNXP, which has links to all sorts of discussion about the new scientific paper, The Natural History of Ashkenazi Intelligence, which proposes that the high iq's and unusual genetic diseases that are more prevalent among Ashkenazi (European) Jews than among other populations may be linked.Reading all of this reminded me of a couple of passages

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1118072405296282532005-06-06T16:35:00.000+01:002005-06-06T20:27:42.306+01:00

I read GNXP a lot. It's usually insightful, occassionally infuriating (especially some of the commenters), but always compelling reading. Over the weekend, Jason Malloy published an absolutely superb analysis of a debate between Jared Taylor, a White Nationalist, and Tim Wise, a liberal white anti-racist activist, that, from a scientist's perspective, skewers both of their foggy-minded errors on

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8721900.post-1118070713275427402005-06-06T16:10:00.000+01:002005-06-06T17:25:03.510+01:00

This one comes from Randy McDonald.1) Total number of books I've owned:At a rough guess, I'd say between one hundred and two hundred. I have about a hundred here with me in New York, and there's more at my parents' home in London. I'm quite impressed with Randy having owned a thousand books in his lifetime...I certainly haven't had so many! I have also read a lot of books that I've borrowed from

RPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060101653215137009noreply@blogger.com