Thursday, May 19, 2011


Outrage! Black women seen as less attractive

The hostile review below is probably the only way Kanazawa's findings could safely be reported. The screen grab shows that Kanazawa was making a perfectly factual report:



The picture below ran with the article. Most amusing that they chose a half-white woman (Campbell) to represent blacks! And the text below the article does not at all represent what Kanazawa said. It's a Goebbels-style misrepresentation in fact.

According to evolutionary psychologist Satoshi Kanazawa, Naomi Campbell is less attractive than Miranda Kerr simply because she is black

Kanazawa's findings are in fact pretty mundane. People tend to prefer the familiar and someone brought up among whites would tend to prefer that. I am always pleased to see red-heads about the place. Would the fact that my late father was a redhead have anything to do with that?


"BLACK women are less attractive than white, Asian and Native American Women. And there's scientific proof."

No right thinking website would want to be associated with an article as incendiary and nonsensical as this but Psychology Today did just that this week when it published the latest blog by controversial evolutionary psychologist Satoshi Kanazawa.

Kanazawa's post, which the website has since taken down, argued that black women were less physically attractive than other women and that it has something to do with testosterone and genetic mutations.

He wrote in his regular blog, The Scientific Fundamentalist: A Look at the Hard Truths About Human Nature: "Black women are on average much heavier than nonblack women. However, this is not the reason black women are less physically attractive than nonblack women ...Because they have existed much longer in human evolutionary history, Africans have more mutations in their genomes than other races."

Kanazawa, who teaches at the London School of Economics, attempted to justify his theory by dressing his post up with colourful bar graphs and lots of stats.

However, the entire study appears to be based on the perspectives and opinions of adult respondents, although Kanazawa reports his findings as objective facts.

Kanazawa's article caused a huge backlash and drew accusations that he and Psychology Today were peddling racist nonsense. At first Psychology Today tried editing the headline but then it took the post down.

The site's editor-in-chief, Kaja Perina, did not apologise for the post but put out this statement: "Our bloggers are credential[ed] social scientists and for this reason they are invited to post to the site on topics of their choosing. We in turn reserve the right to remove posts for any number of reasons."

Kanazawa has form. Other posts in his blog include: Are All Women Essentially Prostitutes?, If Beautiful People Have Daughters, Why Do Posh and Becks Have Three Sons? and More Intelligent People Are More Likely to Binge Drink and Get Drunk.

SOURCE





Oppressive British bureaucrats again

Robert Tchenguiz, the Mayfair-based entrepreneur, has challenged his arrest by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) under a judicial review filed at the High Court on Tuesday.

The businessman, who made millions in the property boom leading up to the crash of 2007, has branded his arrest "unlawful, aggressive and disproportionate". He has also accused the SFO of using his arrest as a publicity stunt to justify its continued existence.

In a statement, Mr Tchenguiz said: "My business, my family, and I personally continue to suffer losses as a result of the SFO's unlawful, aggressive and disproportionate action. The SFO's conduct has left me with no option but to take legal recourse in order to recover from the extensive financial and reputational damage they have caused."

Mr Tchenguiz and his brother Vincent were arrested in separate raids on their homes and offices earlier this year. The action by the SFO related to its investigation into the collapse of the Icelandic bank Kaupthing. Robert Tchenguiz was a major customer and shareholder of the bank through his investment vehicle Exista.
Vincent, who filed a judicial review to challenge searches on his properties, was a customer of Kaupthing.

He has separately filed a £1.5bn lawsuit against Kaupthing relating to assets he claims the bank is holding.

Robert claims his arrest was illegal as he had previously offered to be interviewed and there was no risk of him destroying documents.

The Tchenguiz brothers were released without charge. Both deny wrongdoing.

The SFO said decisions to investigate were based on the merits of each case.

SOURCE




How EU officials simply forgot about Christmas

The European oligarchy’s failure to include Christmas in a diary for schoolkids sums up their separation from the demos.

The political bosses of the European Union and their army of technocrats could do worse than listen to the lyrics of the Band Aid tune ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’ Because apparently they don’t know that 25 December still has significance for the vast majority of the EU’s 502million inhabitants.

A year ago the European Commission (EC) printed more than three million school diaries for distribution to students. They are lovely diaries which, true to the EU’s multicultural ethos, helpfully note all the Sikh, Hindu, Muslim and Chinese festivals. The diary also highlights Europe Day, which falls on 9 May. But the diary is not without some very big gaps. For example, it makes no reference to Christmas - or Easter or indeed to any Christian holidays.

However, the importance of 25 December is not entirely ignored. At the bottom of the page for that day, schoolchildren are enlightened with the platitude: ‘A true friend is someone who shares your concern and doubles your joy.’

Not surprisingly, many Europeans are not exactly delighted by the conspicuous absence of Christian festivals from a diary produced for children. In January, an Irish priest complained to the ombudsman of the EC and demanded an apology for the omission of Christian holidays and the recall of the diaries. A month later, the commission apologised for its ‘regrettable’ blunder. However, the ombudsman dismissed the demand to recall the diaries, arguing that a one-page correction sent to schools had rectified the error.

A storm in a teacup? Or a symptom of the European oligarchy’s indifference to the cultural legacy of Europe? The German Conservative MEP Martin Kastler linked the diary ‘error’ to ‘aggressive atheism in the apparatus of the European [institutions]’. However, it is unlikely that this episode is the result of a militant atheist agenda and that the references to Christian festivals were deliberately omitted. Rather, what this oversight demonstrates is a political outlook that is increasingly estranged from Europe’s historical and cultural traditions.

This is an outlook which is characteristically casual about taking such traditions seriously. The authors of the diary were probably so obsessed with the EU’s administratively constructed values of diversity and inclusion that they never once stopped to think what kind of experiences really mattered to the people of Europe. From this perspective, getting the dates of various non-European cultural events correct mattered far more than remembering Christmas.

It is clear that what was driving the authors of this diary was not the concern of hundreds of millions of people for whom Christmas and Easter constitute important events, but rather the latest administrative diktat of the EC.

Unfortunately, with the passing of time, Brussels officialdom has become less and less sure about what it means to be a European. It spends millions of euros on promoting the EU brand through distributing pamphlets, comic books and textbooks, but its attempts to cobble together a European identity rarely succeed in injecting meaning into public life.

One reason for its failure to uphold any meaningful identity is because it continually strives to distance the EU from Europe’s cultural heritage and traditions. It appears as if, ashamed by its past, the EC wishes to invent a European identity that is freed of the continent’s cultural and historical legacy.

For the EU political elite, the history of the continent before 1945 is alien if not hostile territory. European history contains its share of depressing and horrific episodes, of course. And it is entirely understandable that many enlightened Europeans wish to do everything they can to eliminate the regressive influences of aggressive nationalism and xenophobia. But like it or not, Europe is stuck with its past and it cannot go forward unless it consciously assimilates its experiences.

Nor is Europe’s history something to be ashamed of. Ancient Greece was responsible for acquainting humanity with the spirit of philosophy and opening us to the promise of science. From Judaism and Christianity, Europe gained a series of moral principles that are upheld as ideals to this day. From the Romans we inherited an appreciation of the law and a legal system that provides security and order.

Europe’s history has provided an important intellectual resource for revitalising the thinking of humanity. The Renaissance and the Enlightenment were genuinely history-making European events: they drew on the experiences of ancients to call into question prevailing assumptions and prejudices. It is no less likely that Europeans today will need to draw on their past to revitalise their society and develop the intellectual resources necessary to face the future.

Recently it was reported that the cost of the EU’s proposed House of European History has doubled from its original estimate to £137million. One could live with these rocketing costs if the project remained true to its objective of promoting an awareness of European history. But instead of serving the cause of making Europeans conscious of their historical memory, the museum is likely to institutionalise historical amnesia. Why? Because EU politicians regard the past as a source of tension and conflict and believe Europe’s disunited history is an embarrassment rather than an inspiration.

Consequently, the designers of this project have decided that 1946 will serve as the point of departure for the EU’s history. By settling on 1946 as Europe’s year zero, the EU political elite can free itself of a tradition that it neither appreciates nor understands. A political culture that can be so cavalier with its past is readily disposed to regard the calendar as merely a set of dates to be fiddled with. Disdain for history is the flipside of indifference to a traditional calendar.

Yet the past matters. What Europe needs is not commission-sponsored mission statements about artificially constructed values, but an appreciation of its historical legacy. Paradoxically, the best antidote to petty national rivalries is a dose of historical memory. History provides Europe with experiences that transcend national boundaries but which also constitute a genuine transnational sensibility.

SOURCE




Australia: Pay for Muslims to feel at home?

AUSTRALIA'S top Muslim organisation wants taxpayers to finance the expansion of Islamic schools and halal food outlets into mainstream suburbs.

And in a sign of growing community tension, the nation's peak Jewish authority has called for new migrants to be put on probation while their commitment to Australian values and laws is checked.

In a submission to a federal inquiry into multiculturalism, the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils said Muslims were forced to live in enclaves near Islamic schools, mosques and halal food outlets. "The Government should invest in expanding services like halal and kosher meat and food outlets as well as faith-based schools," it said. "If the Government and politicians cannot recognise this as essential, it should no longer accuse the Australian Muslim community of intentionally living in enclaves."

Heba Ibrahim, the AFIC board member who wrote the report, told the Herald Sun there were reasons groups were drawn to certain suburbs. "I'm saying there needs to be a greater investment generally in schools that wish to go out into other areas that are not heavily populated with particular migrant and religious groups," she said.

Governments do not contribute to the building of new private schools, but private colleges get state and federal cash for running costs and upgrades. For example, Springvale Islamic school Minaret College received about $10 million in recurrent financing and almost $2 million in capital expenditure in 2009, according to the latest MySchool website data.

Melbourne has several halal butchers, but AFIC wants government help to make halal food more widely available. Houssam Dannawi, from Madina Halal Meats in Brunswick, said his customers were not limited to Muslims. "They try it and they come back. They like the diversity of what we offer," Mr Dannawi said.

In a separate hearing, the Executive Council of Australian Jewry has told a Federal Parliament committee on migration that Australia must learn from the failed "anything goes" model of multiculturalism in Europe.

It wants migrants put on probation to enable a "confident assessment of their acceptance of Australian values and laws before granting full citizenship".

The council's executive director Peter Wertheim said there was concern about Islamic extremists. "If they're involved in criminal activity or incitement of violence or incitement of racism, that's something that should be taken into account," he said.

The organisation also wants mandatory English training for migrants.

SOURCE

*************************

Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of other countries. The only real difference, however, is how much power they have. In America, their power is limited by democracy. To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges. They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did: None. So look to the colleges to see what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way. It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN (Note that EYE ON BRITAIN has regular posts on the reality of socialized medicine). My Home Pages are here or here or here or Email me (John Ray) here. For readers in China or for times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site here.

***************************

No comments: