History:
To crush your enemies, and steal their cattle for your sons! permlink
Category: Culture
As I gave a nod to statistical tricks and subtle shell games very recently, the material I review subsequently should be viewed with skepticism and caution. A few days ago I also pointed to a paper which describes and models...
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Posted by Razib Khan at 10:49 AM • 6 Comments •
David Rohde among the Taliban permlink
Category: Culture
I'm not a close follower of the news, but the past week I've checked The New York Times for David Rohde's chronicle of his period of captivity and escape from the Taliban. All five articles are up now (and an...
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Posted by Razib Khan at 3:01 AM • 0 Comments •
Category: Culture
At my other weblog, two reviews of books on Eurasia. First, Empires of the Silk Road: A History of Central Eurasia from the Bronze Age to the Present. Second, China's Cosmopolitan Empire: The Tang Dynasty....
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Posted by Razib Khan at 7:57 PM • 0 Comments •
How the Hui became Han(ish) permlink
Category: Culture
I was doing some digging around on the genetics of Central Asia and stumbled upon the data that 7% of the mtDNA lineages of the Hui, Muslims who speak Chinese, are West Eurasian. This is opposed 0% for the Han,...
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Posted by Razib Khan at 7:12 PM • 0 Comments •
Category: Culture
Over at Accidental Blogger a remembrance of travels in Xinjiang/East Turkestan. I think the best model for what's going on in China right now is a race riot catalyzed by economic resentment. Uighurs seem to be attacking Hui as well...
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Posted by Razib Khan at 12:31 PM • 11 Comments •
Change is in the air permlink
Category: Culture
G.M. to Seek Bankruptcy and a New Start: It also places the government in uncharted territory as a business owner, as it takes a 60 percent ownership stake in the company during its restructuring. The commanding heights are back. We're...
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Posted by Razib Khan at 9:21 AM • 0 Comments •
The rise of empirical economics permlink
Category: Culture
In the wake of my post on Predictably Irrational, The Last Temptation of Risk: THE GREAT Credit Crisis has cast into doubt much of what we thought we knew about economics. We thought that monetary policy had tamed the business...
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Posted by Razib Khan at 7:18 PM • 3 Comments •
Bernie, the man & the madness permlink
Category: History
Fortune has a massive profile of Bernie Madoff's life, career and scam. Some new material too....
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Posted by Razib Khan at 6:19 AM • 3 Comments •
How religious are Albanian and Bosnian Muslims? permlink
Category: Culture
There are some really weird comments about Albania below. Part of these confusions have to do with ambiguities as to the religious identity of Albania, traditionally majority Muslim, but after decades of Communism very secular. What exactly are the religious...
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Posted by Razib Khan at 11:29 AM • 29 Comments •
Inbreeding & the downfall of the Spanish Hapsburgs permlink
Category: Genetics
The Hapsburgs are one of those royal families who are relatively well known, and in the minds of the public are to a great extent the emblems of the downsides of inbreeding. To painting to the left is of Charles...
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Posted by Razib Khan at 8:00 PM • 17 Comments •