HULK SMASHED

Gravatar1 this tine for real


GravatarWho's got time to preview?


GravatarTurd?


GravatarFirth of forth too!


GravatarI've fallen and I can't get up!


GravatarWas there a nuclear war or something?


GravatarAny one out there? Testing!


GravatarI'm being Punked! Right?


GravatarAgent Orange has become irrelevent: first!


GravatarIs this as good for you as it is for me?


GravatarHey Agent Orange!

Why are we continuing this discussion? TBC is a discredited work, and those using it to support their views are equally lacking in credibility.


GravatarAgent Orange should switch to decaf. NOW!


GravatarCharles Murray: a wholly owned subsidiary of the American Enterprise Institute (he's a fellow there).

What more do you need to know?


Gravatarsee, he had sacrifice but not the requisite resolve


GravatarAgent Orange wins the grand prize. Never seen 8 in a row before.


Gravataragent orange is dominating this thread! talk about ownage.


GravatarI'm going to repeat this:

OK, let's talk about group outcomes here. If you take the bell curves representing the IQ score distributions WITHIN each and every ethnic group you can come up with (race is NOT a genetic construct - and has already debunked) and put all of these curves on the same graph the overlap on the graph that contains every group would constitute the vast majority of each group. There is no difference that has any meaning when differentiating between the groups. Assuming that IQ and race had any intrinsic meanings anyway.


GravatarI have absolutely nothing about the Bell Curve on my blog, but if any of you aren't busy (*cough*agentorange*cough), please give it a look, I could use the traffic.


GravatarMurray and Herrnstein's regression analyses would have them failing Stats 101.


GravatarJanet--comes back to making a faulty argument with a faulty premise.


Gravataroh, come on. everyone knows that the farther north your ancestors came from, the better you are. this has been known for centuries.


GravatarOlaf--then how do you explain "no blacks, no dogs, no Irish"?


GravatarAgent Orange wins the grand prize. Never seen 8 in a row before.
mer


I had 5 in a row yesterday, and for a brief moment I was both Queen and yente of the blog, but now Agent Orange has humbled me.


Gravataragent orange you have set the bar too high! you have permanently deflated the value of posting first!


GravatarTBC is simply an argument for letting wealthy white Protestant men rule the world, attempting to dress it up in a cheap tuxedo of bad statistics and pronouncing it ready for the dance.


GravatarOlaf--then how do you explain "no blacks, no dogs, no Irish"?
Sallyh | Email | Homepage | 08.27.05 - 12:07 pm | #

-------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------
those irishes are catholics, which everyone knows is a wog religion.


GravatarJanet,

RE:race is NOT a genetic construct - and has already debunked

What exactly are you saying here? I mean, I agree that the way we apply the commonly used templates of race to different groups of people is often erroneous, but there clearly are some really large groups of humans (with admittedly fuzzy edges), who have acquired some cohesive sets of genetically determined (albeit mostly quite superficial) traits, presumably through several thousand to tens of thousands of years of relative genetic isolation. To me, that satisfies the condition of race being a gentetic construct, so could you clarify?


Gravatar Olaf--then how do you explain "no blacks, no dogs, no Irish"?
Sallyh | Email | Homepage | 08.27.05 - 12:07 pm


Iceland is pretty damn far north and they have a national obsession with gnomes.

BTW - Hello, Sallyh! [forgot to respond in last thread]


GravatarOlaf--unless, of course, you're Opus Dei.


GravatarSweet Jesus, what is the fixation on the Bell Curve today?

The book is bullshit. I know that, you know that, and anybody who still thinks different isn't going to have their mind changed nowadays by repeated posts on a left wing blog. Lets find another topic.


GravatarI think what really finished The Bell Curve for me was the silly argument that Asians score higher than white folks due to "cultural" differences, while white folks score higher than negroes due to genetic differences. It's either one or the other.


Gravatari wonder what happened to forrester? i never quite understood what position he was taking, maybe due to my scanty knowledge of statistics. but at least he seemed to know the vocabulary.


GravatarSweet Jesus, what is the fixation on the Bell Curve today?
-addison
*******************

i think andrew sullivan has been talking it up again recently. we have to call them on their bullshit every time they bring it up. and it's hard work.


Gravatarblerb--in terms of genetic differences, there are more dissimilarities between members of one 'race' than between 'races.' I would hypothesize that 'racial differences' were a response to the environments in which groups lived (the sickle cell gene as protection against malaria would support this argument). However, that developed in response to evolutionary pressures, and is not in and of itself a marker of 'race.'


GravatarMaybe Sullivan's AIDS is having an effect on his brain. Seriously. It doesn't take much damage at a significant area of the brain and really odd things start to happen. Admission: I don't know spit about AIDS beyond it being a really depressing disease. It might not effect the brain at all for all I know.


GravatarThe book is bullshit. I know that, you know that, and anybody who still thinks different isn't going to have their mind changed nowadays by repeated posts on a left wing blog. Lets find another topic.
Addison


Word.

We had this conversation 10 years ago and everyone with two brain cells to rub together agreed that 'flawed' is a kind description of this piece of toilet paper.

Why are we talking about it again?


GravatarThank you all. Really you're more than kind.
You should see me "snip" on eBay though...simply brutal.
Off to have a few beers, play nice!

Oh and Fuck Bush!
.


GravatarJeffrey D--it does indeed affect the brain, often in the form of toxoplasmosis.


GravatarRegardless of the intellectual merits of "The Bell Curve", it's still rather repugnant that lack of intelligence could be seen as providing reasonable justification for legal discrimination based on race.

It's also kind of weird to realize that almost none of the truly big problems the world is facing right now have been caused at all by people originating from Africa and that we could somehow solve those problems by minimizing Africa's influence on the world.

With that in mind, I'd like to see some Bell Curve apologists explain how a "Blame Africa for everything" strategy is intelligent at all.


GravatarThe book is bullshit. I know that, you know that, and anybody who still thinks different isn't going to have their mind changed nowadays by repeated posts on a left wing blog. Lets find another topic.
Addison |


No can do amigo. That is precisely how the fundies managed to take over. Most sane people ignored them as ignorant trash that nobody would ever take seriously for years. And look what happened.

Heehee, Agent Orange, I've first three times so far today. Beat that. Of course, I post only once and allow others the privilege of being 2nd and 3rd. I'm not selfish.


GravatarA falling dollar, escalating bankruptcies, a meaningless quagmire killing countless and uncounted thousands - where does this put Bush on the bell curve?


GravatarSallyh, do you know all this information because of your profession, or is it a personal interest?


GravatarFlory--we have to debunk the messengers by once again debunking the book. Tiresome, isn't it?

Same thing with reproductive rights. Getting old, I tells ya.


Gravatarblerb--in terms of genetic differences, there are more dissimilarities between members of one 'race' than between 'races

so, for race to be a meaningful term, there would have to be fewer dissimilarities between members of one 'race' than between 'races'? or is that oversimplifying? im pretty fuzzy on what races are supposed to be anyway, i guess the way i see the word used it is like subspecies, but im not sure.


Gravataryeah, we won the evolution debate too.


Gravatarmer--profession. Biostatistician.


Gravatar[walter neff] First! [/walter neff]


GravatarJust about all of this measuring to find difference between racial groups and the genders begins with phony measurements (as Janet points out) and the differences they find are very small.

As has been said on this blog before, when the French invented intellegence testing it was with an eye to fixing problems with additional teaching and training. When the English and Americans took it up it was with an eye to fixing social class in stone. They start with the assumption that it's a fixed and unalterable thing. This all assumes that what they are measuring has some meaning which has never been demonstrated.

The reason that this is important is that the neo-fascists who run our 'news media' are so deficient in math and science skills that they will take this crap and base their reporting on it, no questions asked.

The BBC story about the deficient intellegence of women earlier this week probably has a lot to do with it's being covered so much just now.


Gravatarpretzelattack--I don't think you could make race a meaningful concept in genetic terms. For example, cystic fibrosis is a disease of northern Europeans, as sickle cell is of those who live in malaria-infested areas. However, southern Europeans, who are considered Caucasian, do not carry the genetic markers for CF. Therefore, it's difficult to consider race as a biological marker.


GravatarA falling dollar, escalating bankruptcies, a meaningless quagmire killing countless and uncounted thousands - where does this put Bush on the bell curve?

How 'bout -- Worst. President. Ever.


GravatarI think what really finished The Bell Curve for me was the silly argument that Asians score higher than white folks due to "cultural" differences,
-the kenosha kid
*******************

i remember years ago seeing newt gingrich on tv. it was part of a series of lectures that were the basis of his course on western civilization or some thing that he did at some obscure college in georgia.

he kept going on about the cultural differences between "rice growing cultures" such as asia, and "wheat growing cultures" such as europe/usa. as far as i could tell his point was that growing rice requires sustained daily effort and growing wheat just requires periods of intense effort. anyway, supposedly the mindset of people from rice growing cultures lends itself more to academic success. which is his explanation for why those asians do so well in school.

he didn't mention anything about cotton growing cultures or sugar can growing cultures though. i was kind of disappointed.


Gravatarre having to fight the same battles over and over--they keep recycling the same failed ideas over and over. the domino theory, creationism, bell curve, trickle down economics etc etc


GravatarIt's bait and switch, folks.

Brining up The Bell Curve is a distraction from the number one topic -- our rape of Iraq.


GravatarEPT--I glanced at the study, and it has significant problems to the point where the study should be invalidated.


Gravatarpretzelattack--I don't think you could make race a meaningful concept in genetic terms. For example, cystic fibrosis is a disease of northern Europeans, as sickle cell is of those who live in malaria-infested areas. However, southern Europeans, who are considered Caucasian, do not carry the genetic markers for CF. Therefore, it's difficult to consider race as a biological marker.


ah that makes sense. i enjoyed your debate with forrester yesterday (and atrios) because it helps this particular scientific illiterate understand the issues better.


GravatarI once knew a one-armed nigra pool player who could beat any one-armed white pool player you might care to match against him. He could, however, beat only about 45% of two-armed white pool players.


Gravatarpretzelattack--I wouldn't consider you scientifically illiterate because you do the most important thing: you ask questions.


GravatarOlaf--then how do you explain "no blacks, no dogs, no Irish"?

Well, there are the black irish.


GravatarSteven J. Gould effectively rebutted every single assertion presented in The Bell Curve, 10 full years before the publication of the latter.


Gravatarah that makes sense. i enjoyed your debate with forrester yesterday (and atrios) because it helps this particular scientific illiterate understand the issues better.

i could have phrased that better--i didnt mean you were debating atrios.


GravatarSo, what is the effect of this bell curve reasoning? Not letting "brown people to immigrate, deportation of nonwhites, letting them die off because they are genetically deficient? Will laws be created to discriminate (more) against certain races?


Gravatarnewt gingrich used to say all kinds of bizarre shit on a daily basis. it was as if he stayed up really late at night coming up with a list of batshit crazy stuff to say the next day.


GravatarI think what really finished The Bell Curve for me was the silly argument that Asians score higher than white folks due to "cultural" differences, while white folks score higher than negroes due to genetic differences. It's either one or the other.

I don't recall anything of the sort in The Bell Curve. It did say that there is evidence that some of the difference between blacks and whites was genetic, but I don't remember it denying any genetic role on the Asian/white difference. What page was that on?


Gravatar"A falling dollar, escalating bankruptcies, a meaningless quagmire killing countless and uncounted thousands - where does this put Bush on the bell curve?"


GWB "Say Turd, things are really lookihg glum for us right now. What the hell can we do? Those damn liberal bloggers on the Internets look into everything anymore."

KR: "I got an idea, sir? We'll send JimmyJeff over to have Andy Sullivan talk about the Bell Curve. That always gets that Atrios character stirred up and sidetracked."


GravatarI once knew a one-armed nigra pool player who could beat any one-armed white pool player you might care to match against him. He could, however, beat only about 45% of two-armed white pool players.
Lime Rickey


Since he's obviously a below average pool player, the only thing that makes sense at this point according to "Bell" is to cut off his other arm..


GravatarThere is also very impressive work by Claude Steele and his colleagues showing that you can eliminate test score differences by changing people's expectations. So if you take similarly educated males and females and tell the females that males do better on the math test they are about to take, the females do worse. If you tell them there is no difference, they perform just as well with males. The same holds true for other kinds of tests with minorities. This is not to say that there are not individual differences in math abilities. But that the great majority of the variance in the 10-15 point difference in the overall curve can be accounted for by expectations. (Sorry for that last sentence. My 7th grade grammar teacher just rolled over in her gigantic pencil box.)


GravatarSteven J. Gould effectively rebutted every single assertion presented in The Bell Curve, 10 full years before the publication of the latter.
WoodyGuthriesGuitar

The Mismeasure of Man is a great book. It's too bad that to do justice to the topic even on a popular level you have to go way past the heads of our pundit class. Not that the facts, even stated in the simplest of terms, would divert them from their task of promoting racism and sexism. Even the phony rational for Bush War II, abundantly true and widly exposed stops them from repeating their scripted lies.

Sallyh, I think "g" for our news media, and sadly too for many at the once great BBC stands for "gullible".


GravatarCheck this shit out, from the weekly HRC email update:

Take a look at these quotes from Rev. Falwell in an exchange with Tucker Carlson on MSNBC on August 5.

"But civil -- civil rights for all Americans, black, white, red, yellow, the rich, poor, young, old, gay, straight, et cetera, is not a liberal or a conservative value. It's an American value that I would think that we pretty much all agree on."

When Carlson said he "thought conservatives are always arguing against special rights for gays," Rev. Falwell said: "Well, housing and employment are not special rights. I think -- I think the right to live somewhere and to live where you please or to work where you please, as long as you're not bothering anybody else, is a basic right, not a -- not a special right."


He should debate Pat Robertson on national TV.


GravatarJM, If you look closely the post below this one says "More Sacrifice."

Some folks are capable of keeping more thoughts in their heads than one.


GravatarWhat page was that on?

The one I wiped my ass with.

Pretty much all of them, actually...


Gravatarjm think of it as a thread buffet. you can sample from one, move on to another...


Gravatarit was as if he stayed up really late at night coming up with a list of batshit crazy stuff to say the next day.

Used to do that in college. Of course, I was pretty much stoned all the time...


GravatarJanet--comes back to making a faulty argument with a faulty premise.
Sallyh | Email | Homepage | 08.27.05 - 12:05 pm | #

????

What exactly are you saying here? I mean, I agree that the way we apply the commonly used templates of race to different groups of people is often erroneous, but there clearly are some really large groups of humans (with admittedly fuzzy edges), who have acquired some cohesive sets of genetically determined (albeit mostly quite superficial) traits, presumably through several thousand to tens of thousands of years of relative genetic isolation. To me, that satisfies the condition of race being a gentetic construct, so could you clarify?
blerb | 08.27.05 - 12:09 pm | #


Interesting:
So far, DNAPrint has analyzed more than 10,000 samples at a cost of $219 per test. Clients learn what percentage of their ancestral DNA is from four broad population groups: Indo-European, sub-Saharan African, East Asian, or native American. About one-third of clients test as 100 percent from one of these groups; another third show statistically insignificant blending, and a final third show substantial mixtures. A second test can also break down the broad category of Indo-European ancestry into Northern European, Mediterranean, Middle Eastern, and South Asian subgroups. Other new tests may follow. If a third of the population is left out of the "race" data, what meaning does it have for us?

Also fun.
#


Gravatarit was as if he stayed up really late at night coming up with a list of batshit crazy stuff to say the next day.

Used to do that in college. Of course, I was pretty much stoned all the time...
dave™©® | Email | Homepage | 08.27.05 - 12:37 pm | #

-------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------

i always figured newt was using something, but i could never figure out what. it would have to be some powerful stimulant that does not suppress the appetite.


GravatarGordon, are those your Mother's Panties on your head?


GravatarSpinoza--did you ever try to duplicate Murray + Herrnstein's analyses? My sense of it was, my first years do better than this. If one were to write a proof for their statements, say, in the form of a truth table, each one of them would fail.


GravatarWhew! Did you ever wake up really early and then go back to sleep, only to fall into a deep, deep coma-like sleep? I can barely see now. Anyway, the money quote from the WaPO article Atrios posted below:

Compared to other post-World War Two presidents at this point in their second term, only Richard Nixon had a lower job approval rating and he was in the midst of the Watergate scandal, Gallup said. The others were all above 50 percent.

36%, bitches!


GravatarThen there's my all-time favorite ed psych statistic (though i can no longer remember its source):

in assessing differences among individual test scores on standardized achievement/placement exams, more than two thirds of ALL variance is accounted for by one, and only one variable: the Socio-Economic Status of any given student's family; and almost half of that variance is accounted for by one other single variable: whether or not the child's MOTHER attended any institution of higher learning...

most achievement tests are really nothing but reading/comprehension tests. children of parents who read to them regularly and often develop better attitudes towards reading, and therefore succeed more readily in this significant and totemic practice than do children who do not have the advantge of highly literate parents...especially mothers, in whose care most infants are most often...


GravatarI start doing a slow burn whenever I see this shit getting press yet again. I know from doing my own genealogy that a good number of my obstensibly "white" ancestors went through elaborate means to conceal their true origins, including changing their names and moving further West. For example, one ancestor went by his initials G.E. all his adult life because his birth name Grey Eagle would have been a dead giveaway and he would have been ostracized from the white community--or worse. And the rumor that his great-grandfather was black would send my grandfather into a towering rage. Now we know the truth of the matter and it's a good thing granddad passed on a dozen years ago or he might have a major fit of apoplexy.

Sully, Murray and Herrnstein don't take this into account. There are no bright lines between the races. There's been so much racial mixing in this country that these idiots fail to acknowledge and it annoys the crap out of me.

I swear I want to smack Sully silly, not for being the racist he is, but for being such an incredible IDIOT.


GravatarChris Tucker--now I need brain bleach.

BTW, Monaghan wants to expand the idea of 'Catholic towns' all over the US. If only we had the venture capital, we'd be rich little fuckers.


GravatarSallyh-

I and a friend played around with some of the numbers, but needed to hit the scotch when we saw how bad the stats were. Too bad Herrnstein died of that "blood infection," He was a student of Skinner's. Smart but arrogant. I once saw him turn beet red when someone called him on his bullshit.


GravatarRes Ipsa--while I celebrate in that figure, I'm also concerned that Chimpy needs an attack on the homeland. Or should I put my tinfoil hat on?


Gravatarin assessing differences among individual test scores on standardized achievement/placement exams, more than two thirds of ALL variance is accounted for by one, and only one variable: the Socio-Economic Status of any given student's family; and almost half of that variance is accounted for by one other single variable: whether or not the child's MOTHER attended any institution of higher learning...

most achievement tests are really nothing but reading/comprehension tests. children of parents who read to them regularly and often develop better attitudes towards reading, and therefore succeed more readily in this significant and totemic practice than do children who do not have the advantge of highly literate parents...especially mothers, in whose care most infants are most often...
WoodyGuthriesGuitar


And note that they are talking about achievement or placement tests, which test the application of your "IQ," not the IQ score itself which comes from a different sort of test. So, regardless of IQ (if it were actually unbiased, which it is not), "nurture" has more influence on success.


GravatarSpinoza--I'm convinced that their research cannot legitimately be replicated, which, at least in the world I live in, is a criterion for validity.


GravatarI'm also concerned that Chimpy needs an attack on the homeland. Or should I put my tinfoil hat on?

He needs something, but the gods help us, it had better not be that.

The Barefoot Contessa is on. Do you ever make her recipes? They're all good -- and loaded with butter (that is why she is so chubby and happy).


Gravatarres ipsa--anyone who uses butter in their cooking is good by me.


GravatarSallyh, I've got my ALCOA chapeau firmly wedged on my head when it comes to another attack. As I told my father last night, the last time Bush took a long vacation, guess what happened?



(...wait for it)







9/11

Who knows what PDBs he's been ignoring this month?


GravatarMr 40%:

President George W. Bush - Job Approval Ratings
Poll Date Approve Disapprove Spread
RCP Average 8/9 - 8/25 40.6% 56.0% -15.4%
CNN/USA Today/Gallup 8/22 - 8/25 40% 56% -16%
Rasmussen 8/22 - 8/24 46% 53% -7%
ARG 8/18 - 8/21 36% 58% -22%
SurveyUSA 8/12 - 8/14 41% 55% -14%
Harris** 8/9 - 8/16 40% 58% -18%


Gravatarmy gut feeling about why we havent been attacked again is that what bush is doing benefits al quaida, and they are afraid it would lead to america pulling out of iraq, or setting a definite timetable. of course, im not sure that al quaida is that centralized, and there are other groups, but there could be a general agreement.


GravatarMy sainted mother use to say that the last real white person in this country was Martha Washington. When she died ole George started partying in the slave quarters and that was it.


GravatarSince he's obviously a below average pool player, the only thing that makes sense at this point according to "Bell" is to cut off his other arm..
bcf | 08.27.05 - 12:32 pm | #


Right. Or cut off one arm of the two-armed white pool players to even the march.


Gravatarchris/tx--I think we can safely discount Rasmussen. Their methodologies are questionable at best.


GravatarUh " ...match."


GravatarThe Barefoot Contessa is on. Do you ever make her recipes?

Not her desserts, because I don't eat them.

Her salads are wonderful. Unlike Martha's recipes, Garten's turn out exactly as she says.

As far as butter goes, Paula Dean is the queen. Yowsa.


GravatarGood afternoon, fellow freethinkers.

Had Headline News on today and they were talking to this doctor whose sideline is dispensing the Morning After drug on-line,

He says he's providing a needed service.

Naturally, the MSM being what it is these days, HAD to show the other side.

Well, you had to see the beauty from the California Pro Life Fund. She made Karen Hughes look feminine by comparison. Blouse buttoned up to her neck, an ugly maroon and white polka dot scarf as a tie. She probably had a skirt down to her ankles.

I took one look at her and thought of what George Carlin said about nobody WANTING to fuck these losers in the FIRST place.

And her attitude - I thought "Look, you stupid self-righteous cow - you don't speak for me. It's not YOUR place to tell women that they have to have kids they don't want!"

Nerve of these anti-choice assholes!


Gravatar...more than two thirds of ALL variance is accounted for by one, and only one variable: the Socio-Economic Status of any given student's family; and almost half of that variance is accounted for by one other single variable: whether or not the child's MOTHER attended any institution of higher learning...

Uh-oh. Does not bode well for my recent "quiz." Neither mummy nor daddy res went to college.


GravatarSallyh - Yeah. I just like posting that one because it comes from Real Clear Politics, a right wing site with high traffic. Must kill them to have to update those shitty numbers for their boy. It is the "go to" site for wingers seeking poll numbers.


GravatarTerry C--as I said earlier, fighting TBC, fighting for reproductive rights, still. It's tiresome and old, and it annoys me that we're still having to do it.


Gravatarthis is completely off topic, but i used to know a pool player ( i dont know if he was a professional, he had other sidelines), who used the one handed bit to hustle people. he wouldnt even use the side of the table to steady his cue. on a related note, lee trevino used to beat people (who used regular golf clubs) with a hoe and a dr pepper bottle.


Gravatar"...more than two thirds of ALL variance is accounted for by one, and only one variable: the Socio-Economic Status of any given student's family..."
--WoodyGuthriesGuitar


This reminds of when my youngest son enter second grade in a newly established magnet school program. I had volunteered to help in the classroom a couple of hours a week. One day the teacher was discussing the definition of words. One of the words was "garage." I was talking to her later about this word, and how someone who was seven years old would not know what a garage was.

A lot of these kids were raised in the inner-city. No garages, so why need to know what a garage was? Most probably, because the word would be on some achievement test.

This story has stuck in my mind for 13 years as if I experienced it yesterday.


Gravatarres--no. There is a positive correlation between a mom's educational attainment and that of her kids, but remember: correlation is not causation.


Gravatarhe didn't mention anything about cotton growing cultures or sugar cane growing cultures though. i was kind of disappointed.
Olaf glad and big - What about corn?


GravatarWho knows what PDBs he's been ignoring this month?


Hey Hey, Texas Souffle,
Did you ignore the PDB today?


Good morning Moonbats!


GravatarSallyh-My library has about a half a dozen books in response to "The Bell Curve." If I ever get my office desk cleared off, I may take at look at a few of them.


GravatarA lot of these kids were raised in the inner-city. No garages, so why need to know what a garage was? Most probably, because the word would be on some achievement test.

Why wouldn't kids who live in cities know what "garage" means? They've seen parking garages. They've seen houses with attached garages on television.


GravatarFuck you, Haloscan!!!!


GravatarTerry C--as I said earlier, fighting TBC, fighting for reproductive rights, still. It's tiresome and old, and it annoys me that we're still having to do it.
Sallyh


And these women who support this anti-choice shit. I want to slap some sense into them!

Pilotfish for the patriarchy.


GravatarBesides everything else mentioned here, isn't it true that you can have a genetic throw back of up to eight generations. It seems to me that the smarts we are born with are a giant roll of the dice. Then, as WGG points out, so much depends on the home in which the child is reared. If the child is read to and books are considered an important part of the family's home life, it is only natural that any child will grow being a reader. Pity the home schooled.

Rule number 1. No tv in the bedroom.


GravatarCentral--good morning! How was the fishing?


GravatarI've heard that soda bottle story. He must've had a hell of a backache after eighteen holes.


Gravatarlee trevino used to beat people (who used regular golf clubs) with a hoe and a dr pepper bottle.

I understand the Dr. Pepper bottle, but what part did the ho' play?


GravatarSpinoza--are you implying that your office is, well, sloppy?


Gravatararghhh


Gravatarres--no. There is a positive correlation between a mom's educational attainment and that of her kids, but remember: correlation is not causation.

You know, I have never done well on those tests. EVER. My parents, to their credit, always encouraged me to read and do well in school, though.

You know, my dad was a very, very bright guy. He was the valedictorian of his high school, which was one of the very prestigious science high schools here -- the ones you have to test into. But he didn't go to college. Do you know why? Because he was poor. Where did he go? The army, of course (Korea, two tours). He could have gone to MIT in a snap. When I asked him why he didn't he said, "College was not an option for someone as poor as I was." The plan was for him to get out and for the army to pay for school. But when he got out he just went straight to work. Never made it to college. That made me very sad when he died.


GravatarSallyh-

Let's just say it has more fractal dimensions than the coast of England.


Gravatari shouldve said rake. but then i wouldve got elizabethan puns.


Gravatar res ipsa--anyone who uses butter in their cooking is good by me.

Sallyh - I'm starting to worry - I only have like 12-14lbs left in the freezer. What if I run out?


GravatarSpinoza--and you find stuff how?


Gravatar36%, bitches!

Billmon links to:

Venezuela Chavez's Approval Rating At 70.5%

Suck it, George!


GravatarAuntie GWPDA--run out to Trader Joe's? Pretty cheap there.

BTW, I'm an unsalted butter fan. Sweet butter rocks.


GravatarWhen I started school, we had to take a pictorial test, probably for placement in a track. The example problem was a series of 4-5 black and white pictures and the test administrator (our vice principal) told us to circle the wreath. For some reason, I had no idea what a wreath was, so I didn't know what to circle and he was in front of a room full of kids and didn't point it out to us either. Mystified, I took the test, being way too shy to ask.


GravatarNeither of my parents finished high school.

I have "only" a high school diploma (1970). Neither of my kids went on to college.

None of us are dumb. My IQ was measured years ago at around 145.

College might be overrated. Chimpy went to college, most of these right wing "pundits" went to college....


Gravatar"Why wouldn't kids who live in cities know what 'garage' means?"
--monica_nyc


I should have said "the projects." Row after row of rundown apartments with no garages.


GravatarSpeaking as a Caucasian, it seems to me that, if the general argument is for the purpose of how do we achieve a higher plane of civilization, well, frankly, any ethnic group that produced the Nazis should shut the fuck up for about 500 years, shouldn't it? And after that maybe we can bring it back up?


GravatarBTW, I'm an unsalted butter fan. Sweet butter rocks.
Sallyh - They have Irish butter at Trader Joe's you know. And not too far away, albeit in Tempe, the Arizona Cow Council will sell direct....


GravatarSallyh - I use the femur of my dissertation advisor as a divining rod.


Gravatarres--my father in law has a similar story. He wanted to be a veterinarian, and he is certainly bright enough, but poverty sent him to the military and then to work.


GravatarHow was the fishing?

Good, for a change. I've got about ten# of catfish filets in the freezer, and I hope to double that by next weekend.


GravatarWhen I started school, we had to take a pictorial test, probably for placement in a track. The example problem was a series of 4-5 black and white pictures and the test administrator (our vice principal) told us to circle the wreath. For some reason, I had no idea what a wreath was, so I didn't know what to circle and he was in front of a room full of kids and didn't point it out to us either. Mystified, I took the test, being way too shy to ask.
Janet

I remember that track shit in high school.

They had these stupid things called "quality points"

It meant that if you were in track 3, even if your marks were good, forget about getting honors. Your quality points didn't count for as much as the track 1 and 2 people.


GravatarSallyh - I'm starting to worry - I only have like 12-14lbs left in the freezer. What if I run out?

What the heck are you doing with all that butter, GWPDA?


GravatarAuntie GWPDA--the Kerrygold is delicious, but we keep it for table use. I haven't tried Pflugra yet (central European model), but just may have to.


GravatarArizona Cow Council

i dont know why this is funny to me.


Gravatarany ethnic group that produced the Nazis should shut the fuck up for about 500 years, shouldn't it?


Yeah, but why blame an entire group for a few assholes?


Gravatarres--really, if you think about it, it's not that much butter. Best you could get is ~20 cakes.

I'm down to my last 4 lbs and getting a bit nervous myself.


GravatarWhat the heck are you doing with all that butter, GWPDA?

res ipsa loquitur - Everybody needs a hobby.


GravatarCentral--how do you prepare catfish? Just curious, as we don't really have catfish in SoCal.


GravatarWell, my dad didn't finish college, my mother stopped at 8th grade, and none of my brothers went to college.

A favorite "reverse" cultural IQ question is to ask upper middle class high school students the difference between hay and straw. I have had entire classes fail.

BTW how much butter to saute an Xtian baby?


GravatarI see that 1,000 prisoners were released from Abu Ghraib this morning. Just wait for the glowing *testimonials* from a select few gushing about how well they were treated during their stay at the resort.

Never mind the cell-block where the unlucky ones were tortured to death. They can't talk.


GravatarCatfish? Cornmeal dredge, quick saute'. Like sand dabs.


GravatarAfternoon all.


Charles Murray is a racist pig.



Just saying......


GravatarSpinoza--Xtian baby tends to be fatty, so you don't want to overdo it on the butter.

BTW, I don't know the difference between straw and hay (city kid).


GravatarWhat five things are always in your 'fridge? Mine:
1) Parmesan
2) Lemons
3) Pelligrino
4) Butter
5) Nail polish


GravatarThat made me very sad when he died.
res ipsa loquitur


Res, don't forget that college was not prerequisite for getting any kind of a decent job back. The plain fact is that most people didn't go to college. Mr. QL dropped out after a couple of terms after winning a full scholarship and beginning at 16 when he graduated from high school. He still managed to rise to be in the top 5% of earners. This was not uncommon back in the fifties and sixties. Neither of my parents went to college yet mom was an editor at John Wiley and dad an artist and a published poet.


GravatarOT, but did anybody see the Bill