Asian women are 30 times more likely to experience premature ovarian aging

According to this study, Asian women are 30 times more likely than white women to experience premature ovarian aging, which helps explain why they have a significantly lower level of sucess at in vitro fertilization.

Are Jews more interested than others in politics?

One gets the impression that Jews as a group are very interested in politics. To look at this more closely, I examined answers to a question from the World Values Survey about how often do you discuss politics when you are with your friends. I limited the analysis to any of the countries with at least 20 Jews in the sample. The table above shows that Jews might be a little more interested in politics than others, but the difference in most countries is not large, and the pattern is not universal.


UPDATE: The picture changes some when I look at the world sample all together (almost 200,000 respondents in many countries). The percent of the 1,723 surveyed Jews who discuss politics frequently is 30.5, compared to 15.1 percent of everyone else. (The number is skewed by Israel.)

What a pleasure it was today to see Glenn Beck on Fox News Sunday getting schooled by Chris Wallace on how Martin Luther King Jr. was a big Lefty, not a color-blind constitutionalist. I'm feeling particularly vengeful after Beck's claim the other day that Darwin was a racist whose ideas led to the Holocaust.

A favorable impression of Muslims?

With the Ground Zero Mosque controversy and this recent Gallup poll, liberal pundits are knee-jerking again and calling conservatives haters. Chris Matthews, for example, referred to this graph to claim that a majority of Republicans are bigots.

Respondents were asked if they have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of Islam. Unless you give a dishonest, feel-good answer, why would someone say they have a favorable impression of the Muslim world? Are they famous for their charity? Their dynamic, innovative societies? Their humanitarianism? Their widely imitated cultural practices? Their advances in medicine? Their impressive international relations? 

Of course not. They're famous for killing innocent people.   

If Muslims don't like that reputation, then change it. Don't ask us to lie.  

Almost 80 percent of Muslims approve of Obama

Muslims support the liberal president even more than Jews do. So much for the neocon lie that Muslims are natural conservatives.  

A majority of Mexicans say they have gangs in their neighborhood

According to Gallup data, more than half--56 percent--of Mexicans say they have gangs where they live. It's an ever-present aspect of Mexican life, and Mexican immigrants have brought the tradition with them to the United States. The number of Hispanic street and prison gang members in this country might total 500,000. Territorial competition is a common way for young males to show everyone they are men, not boys. In his own mind, a gang member thinks he is protecting the neighborhood from outsiders, protecting the ladies from those who would do them harm, and defending his honor through violence when another gang does something offensive. To a subset of Mexicans, this is a noble lifestyle lived by real men who take nothing from no one, but the truth is that it is a barbarism not tolerated in a civilized society. The country needs to select its immigrants more carefully.  


UPDATE: By the way, one of the main reasons that teenage boys form gangs in the first place is to defend themselves against existing gangs. The Bloods, for example, organized to protect themselves against Crips. Numerous gangs in the Hispanic community are sociological evidence that their neighborhoods are dangerous (not that they're safe as some have recently argued). You don't see white gangs because white neighborhoods are generally safe.  

Shocking news: Testosterone predicts having a job in a male-dominated field

Only a small percent of engineers are women.  Feminists claim that misogynist forces keep females out of the profession. Once again, the data show that biology is implicated. A new study by John Manning and colleagues shows that levels of testosterone, both during prenatal development as well as adulthood, predict having a job in a male-dominated field.  High testosterone individuals, male or female, are more likely to work as engineers, IT dudes, or skilled laborers, while low T people are more likely to work in education or as homemakers. At least part of workplace sex segregation is due to gender differences in this very important hormone.

Note to feminists: get over it.     

Ice People and NAM countries and migration

This Gallup graph shows that the adult population of many NAM countries would collapse if all inhabitants who wanted to emigrate were able to.

By the same token, many Ice People countries (and oil-rich places) would be swamped if every person who wanted to move could. Ice People need to wise up and use some of that iciness to keep out the folks who would sink the lifeboat.

Dorothy Parker--you should have tried the rope--it works best (okay, maybe the gun does)

Sometimes I prefer blissful ignorance. I always liked Dorothy Parker for her witty one-liners like, "Brevity is the soul of lingerie," but otherwise knew little about her. Recently, I discovered but was not surprised to find out she was a knee-jerk Lefty, and then read this short story written by her in 1927 for the New Yorker. I see that improving one's social status by sneering at people who are well-meaning but insufficiently enlightened about race has been around a long time. Parker went from being wickedly funny to disgusting--the SWPLs can have her.  

New research: Southern Italians just as smart as northern Italians

Richard Lynn recently published a paper which showed that regional IQ in Italy moves up as one goes from the south to the north (the same within-race pattern we see in the U.S.). He explained it in terms of southern Italian genetic admixture with populations from North Africa and the Near East who have mean IQs lower than Europeans.

Using data from Raven's Progressive Coloured Matrices tests, these Italian researchers reported in a paper published in July that there is no significant IQ difference between northern and southern Italians.

Blacks and white-collar crime

Charlie Rangel thinks it's odd that black politicians are disproportionately put in front of ethics panels. (He had Maxine Waters in mind as well as himself).  Charlie is implying that he is an angel and white officials hate black people, but the fact is that blacks engage in white-collar crime at disproportionate rates. Even though they are only 13 percent of the U.S. population and are underrepresented in high status positions, the latest FBI data show that one-third of those arrested for embezzlement or fraud are black.

Jews and immigration cross-nationally

This link shows a scatterplot of the relationship across 19 countries between the number of Jews living there and the number of annual new citizenships. The plot indicates that the correlation is weak, but an R-squared of 0.5 is actually very strong.

The obvious explanation is that the Jews, as an immigrating group, will be present in a country to the extent that it is open to immigrants. There is the possibility, however, that the causal arrow might also go in the opposite direction: since Jews would like their country to be open to relatives, co-religionists, and perhaps immigrants in general, a larger number of Jews might exert more influence to liberalize the nation's immigration policy.  

Notice how the three countries--Spain, Italy, and Hungary--with a comparatively high number of Jews but little immigration are all Catholic countries--less individualistic countries where it is more difficult for a small group to have much influence on politics.

Elites and criminal justice

It is interesting how elites have worked so hard since the 1960s to reform the criminal justice system in response to minority complaints about bias and mistreatment. But when the white majority and white police officers complain that the courts are incompetent at controlling crime, and feel that ordinary citizens must take defensive actions like keeping a handgun, elites respond that their concerns are just expressions of racism and nativism. This reveals that, in the eyes of the powerful, minority complaints have a moral claim, while white concerns do not. Dark skin carries with it moral weight. Any toughness in the system is there because of popular demand, not because it reflects elite priorities.  

More teenage pregnancy accompanies greater female power

Female decision makers vs Teenage pregnancy--Share

This link takes you to a scatterplot of a sample of countries that shows a close relationship between the percent of decision-makers who are females and the percent of 20 year old women who got pregnant as teenagers (R-squared = .69). I interpret this as greater power among women leading to greater general female autonomy and more promiscuous teenage girls. Your thoughts?

Boy Scouts Boo Obama

Boy Scouts might be kids, but they know when they're getting dissed.

O'Reilly: Blacks favor programs that transfer wealth from whites to themselves

Bill O'Reilly occasionally makes refreshingly candid statements for a big media guy. He states the blacks are much more supportive of Obama because they favor social justice programs which transfer wealth from whites to themselves.

Ann Coulter: "Justice Brennan's Footnote Gave Us Anchor Babies"

Coverage of beer warehouse shooter is cracking me up

Normally, a news story attributing black violence to white racism would leave me fuming, but the coverage of the beer warehouse shooter is so incredibly pathetic, I can only giggle.

This AP story linked to by Steve Sailer vacillates between portraying killer Thorton as a saint and his town as Bigotsville.

I'm laughing because media elites believe it is enlightened to see the world like a black psychopath does. "Whitey's out to get me. He's everywhere, lurking. I'm just a humble little black man trying to make good, but the god-like White Man frustrates everything I do. He watches. He hates. He sees everything. He pulls every lever. He destroys everything. He deserves destruction. I am helpless, but I can kill, and by God if anyone ever had it comin', Whitey does."

The journalist is familiar with this mentality. And he agrees with it. And he considers himself smarter than other whites because he believes it.  That is funny as hell.

A mass murderer has demonstrated that he is utterly lacking in judgment. His take on reality is deeply deranged. Yet these clowns try to gain insight into social realities through his view of things. It's like a physicist relying on a mentally retarded person to crack the mysteries of the universe. That's a bad analogy though since journalists are not anything like physicists.  The deaths are tragic, but the journalism is just terribly funny.

Palin destroys all competitors on Facebook

Thinking about potential Republican candidates for 2012, I put together a list of the number of Facebookers who have indicated that they like a particular politician's profile.


Number of Facebook fans

Sarah Palin 2,044,149
Mitt Romney 488,657
Mike Huckabee 393,445
Ron Paul 241,954
Bobby Jindal 109,096
John Thune 73,859
Newt Gingrich 73,577
Tim Pawlenty 54,482
Jim DeMint 49,116
Chris Christie 4,829
Eric Cantor 466
Tom Tancredo 402
Jeb Bush 336


I suppose the numbers give us a sense of the grassroots enthusiasm for politicians, probably among a younger than average demographic.  I doubt it means much, but it makes me nervous anyway: Sarah has no real competition here.  This is the type of thing that might convince Palin to run.  She commented on her profile that two million is more than the audience of some cable news shows. 

Poor Newt just seems to leave people flat. I must say I am pleased that my niece has more Facebook friends than Jeb Bush has fans.

Mexican Americans are least politically active

GSS respondents were asked if they have ever attended a political meeting or rally. Here are those who answered yes by ethnicity (sample size = 1,146):


Percent ever attending political meeting or rally


Jewish 52.7
Asian Indian 45.5
English/Welsh 44.6
German 37.9
Irish Protestant 36.6
Irish Catholic 34.4


All Americans 33.6


Scottish 32.1
Amerindian 27.9
Black 25.4
Muslim 25.0
Italian 15.0
Mexican 14.9

Jews and Asian Indians--two smart and economically successful groups--are the most politically active, while Italian and Mexican Americans are at the bottom. Historically, these two groups have been apathetic about politics. Notice how American Muslims are low on the list. Currently, they don't seem to be very political.

Bet the other way

Vicente Fox was recently asked in an interview by the New York Times, "What do you think Mexicans have contributed to American culture?  His answer:

While we can be confident that Fox wants to put the best spin he can on Mexican contributions to the country, we can assume that he knows what he is talking about on this subject. 

"Oh, starting with Mexican food! The jalapeños and the tacos and the rest. I think they have contributed family values. And then we have our culture. When you were killing Indian Apaches there, we had built Mayan cities, the pyramids, Mexico City."

A well-informed Mexican lets us know that Mexican Americans have given us good food and family values. Perhaps Mexico has benefited from its Aztec past, but I don't see how that is connected to improving America. And the "family values" cliche is just a neocon talking point. American families are not not stronger because of some Mexican influence.

So, based on Fox himself, Mexicans, compared to other American groups, have not contributed much to the country. Don't get me wrong--every American who lives a decent life is contributing to the well-being of the country, but "cultural contribution" is a different question.

General Social Survey respondents were asked, "Since the beginning of our country, people of many different races, nationalities, and religions have come here and settled. As I name some of these groups please tell me if the group has made: 1) one of the most important positive contributions to this country, 2) an important contribution, 3) some contribution, or 4) little positive contribution to this community." 

Respondents were asked about many groups, and Mexican Americans were on the list.  I identified factors predicting that a person thinks Mexicans have done a lot by estimating a model with ordinary least squares regression. If a factor, for example sex, turned out to be unrelated to one's attitude, I removed it from the model. Here's the final list:

Thinking Mexicans have contributed a lot (OLS regression coefficients--standardized, N = 1,033)

Age -.15
Education .14
Job prestige .10
Church attendance -.05
Political conservatism -.08

The profile of someone who gives Mexicans a lot of credit looks like this: young, educated, prestigious job, not religious, and liberal.  Objectively, this immigrant group has not contributed a lot compared to others--even Fox doesn't make a contrary case--but SWPLs, supposedly our best and brightest, are most likely to view Mexicans as playing a key role. If a SWPL feels strongly about something, the smart move is to bet the other way.