Scandinavia vs. Italy and Poland

	Nobel Prizes1	Corruption2	HDI3	Happiness4
Sweden	11.0	9.2	0.963	256.67
Denmark	8.0	9.3	0.955	273.4
Norway	7.4	8.6	0.971	246.67
Italy	1.7	4.3	0.951	230
Poland	0.9	5.0	0.880	196.67

Notes:
[1] Scientific Nobel Prizes per 10 million population, 1945-2009 (source)
[2] Corruption Perceptions Index, 2009 (source)
[3] Human Development Index, 2007 (source)
[4] Satisfaction with Life Index, 2006 (source)

(Incidentally, Lynn's 102 estimate for the average IQ of Italy is based on two studies, neither of which dealt with southern Italy. A commenter calculates an average Italian IQ of 96.1 using Lynn's more detailed recent estimates and weighting by population.)

Why certain S. Euros obsess about supposed rampant miscegenation by N. Euro women

I think the reasons are obvious.

(1) They desire Northern European women, either because they believe they are more attractive or to raise their status.

(2) They realize they face competition for the minority of exogamous Northern European women from every other non-Northern European group on the planet, and don't like their odds. (Guy White: "I never went to Sweden as a single man, but I doubt it would be easier for me to pick up women there than in Alabama, Italy or New Zealand.")

(3) They believe deprecating Northern European women (and/or Northern European men) improves their chances -- or at least makes them feel better about their lack of success -- with Northern European women.

My information is based upon a three-­and-a-half-year study of the Italian slum district of "Cornerville" in "Eastern City." [. . .] In the social- and ethnic-group cate­gory, the most desirable woman for non-marital sex relations is the girl of old American-stock background, preferably blonde, who has a higher status than the corner boy. Once I was walking through the aristocratic section of Eastern City with a corner boy when we passed a tall and stately blonde, fashionably dressed, and very attractive. My companion breathed deeply as he said: "The old Puritan stock! .... The real McCoy! Wouldn't I like to give her a belt."

The attraction of the native stock is not confined to the lower-class Italian. Mario Martini was born in Cornerville, but as he became successful in business he moved out to a fashionable suburb. He married an Italian girl and raised a family, sending his children to private school. He had many business relations and some social relations with upper-class Yankees. He made a practice of hir­ing only girls of native background for his secretarial work, and on some of his business trips he would take one of these girls along-for sexual as well as secretarial purposes. One of Martini's former secretaries, who told me this story, was a girl of rather plain features, which em­phasizes the prestige of the native back-ground even for a man who was as suc­cessful as Mario Martini.

[WF Whyte. A slum sex code. American Journal of Sociology, 1943]

Compare:

One of the manifestations of this jealousy of the fair skin of the Nordics is shown in those numerous cases where members of the colored races, or even dark-skinned members of the Nordic regard the possession of a blonde woman as an assertion and proof of race equality. This has been true historically since the earliest times. It is more than ever in evidence at the present day.

[Madison Grant. The Conquest of a Continent; or, The expansion of races in America. New York, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1933. p. 15.]

See also Philip Roth, Eldrige Cleaver, etc.

Nordics aren't Meds

Gracile Northern Caucasoids are gracile Northern Caucasoids -- not exactly surprising in light of ancient and modern genetic data and archaeological evidence:

A.G. Kozintsev. THE “MEDITERRANEANS” OF SOUTHERN SIBERIA AND KAZAKHSTAN, INDO-EUROPEAN MIGRATIONS, AND THE ORIGIN OF THE SCYTHIANS: A MULTIVARIATE CRANIOMETRIC ANALYSIS. Archaeology, Ethnology and Anthropology of Eurasia Volume 36, Issue 4, December 2008, Pages 140-144. doi:10.1016/j.aeae.2009.03.013

The article presents some results of a multivariate analysis of 245 male Eurasian cranial series dating to various periods from the Neolithic to the Early Iron Age. These results contradict the commonly held view that certain comparatively gracile (narrow-faced) Bronze Age populations of Southern Siberia and Kazakhstan were “Mediterranean” in the anthropological sense, i.e. Southern Caucasoid. Craniometry provides no support for the theory that those people migrated to Southern Siberia or Kazakhstan from Southwestern Central Asia, the Near East, or Trans-Caucasia. Populations described as “Mediterranean” (the Okunev people of Tuva, the Yelunino, the Samus, and some Afanasiev and Andronov groups) display craniometric resemblance with the Bronze Age people of Southern Russian and Ukrainian steppes, as well as with certain Late Neolithic and Bronze Age groups of Central and Western Europe. These affinities are apparently caused by migrations of Indo-Europeans (specifically Indo-Iranians) from their European homeland eastward, as far as Eastern Central Asia. The return from Eastern Central Asia to Europe of the descendents of one of these groups during the Early Iron Age was probably the principal cause for the emergence of the Scythians on the historical arena.

On the supposed craniometric affinity between Harappa and the Tarim Basin:

Gumu Gou (Qäwrighul), Xinjiang

Han (1986), who measured this series according to a large trait set used by Russian anthropologists, believed that it conformed to a “Proto-European” pattern (a Russian term denoting robust Cro-Magnon-like Caucasoids) and that it was close to Afanasiev and Andronov groups. Solodovnikov and Tur (2003), while agreeing with him in general, noted that this series was more gracile and accordingly more “Mediterranean.” If “Mediterranean” means “Southern Caucasoid,” then the results of distance analysis contradict this view, since the group exhibits no Southern Caucasoid affinities. Generally, the Gumu Gou people show no distinct similarity to any other group. Least distant from them are the Andronov people from eastern, central, and northern Kazakhstan (according to data corrected by Solodovnikov (2006)), whereas those of the Samus and Yelunino are somewhat further. B.E. Hemphill found the Gumu Gou people to be close to the Harappans (Hemphill, Mallory, 2004). However, this result may be incidental, since Hemphill used a limited trait set and a very small comparative database. Also, the measurements of the Gumu Gou series used by him do not match those in the original publication (Han, 1986).

The conclusion:

The results of the multivariate statistical analysis disagree with the traditional view that the prehistoric Caucasoids who were not robust (“Proto-European”) were necessarily “Mediterranean” – a view until recently shared by myself (Kozintsev, 2000). This dichotomy takes no account of the Northern Caucasoids, who are simply ignored. Actually, by no means all gracile Caucasoids were of southern descent. Having begun in the southern parts of the Caucasoid realm, the gracilization process (probably not only spontaneous, but also caused by geneflow from the Mediterranean area) eventually spread northward and by the Neolithic had already extended over large areas of Western Europe, which were undoubtedly affected by depigmentation. The role of the narrow-faced, fair-haired people of Central and Western European descent in Indo-European (specifically Indo-Iranian) migrations to the east was no less central than that of the robust “Proto-Europeans” and was definitely more prominent than that of the Southern Caucasoids such as the Mediterraneans. Further research will hopefully help shed light on that role and will thereby contribute to elucidating the multidisciplinary issue of the Indo-European homeland.

Ancient DNA evidence agrees:

Our autosomal, Y-chromosomal and mitochondrial DNA analyses reveal that whereas few specimens seem to be related matrilineally or patrilineally, nearly all subjects belong to haplogroup R1a1-M17 which is thought to mark the eastward migration of the early Indo-Europeans. Our results also confirm that at the Bronze and Iron Ages, south Siberia was a region of overwhelmingly predominant European settlement, suggesting an eastward migration of Kurgan people across the Russo-Kazakh steppe. Finally, our data indicate that at the Bronze and Iron Age timeframe, south Siberians were blue (or green)-eyed, fair-skinned and light-haired people and that they might have played a role in the early development of the Tarim Basin civilization.

[Keyser C. et al. Ancient DNA provides new insights into the history of south Siberian Kurgan people. Human Genetics doi:10.1007/s00439-009-0683-0]

Hydraulic cement: Thank the English, not the Romans

[re: hysterical Medocentrist outburst elsewhere]

Portland cement as widely used today was originally formulated by Englishman William Aspdin, building on the work of other Englishmen, including his father Joseph Aspdin and, ultimately, John Smeaton:

Smeaton investigated the cementing properties of various mortars, made from lime obtained from various locations, and discovered that the best mortars were made from the calcination of limes that contained considerable proportions of clay minerals (argillaceous lime). This was the first occasion that the importance of clay mixed with the lime had been recognized in the formation of a hydraulic setting cement. It was found that limes that did not dissolve completely in nitric acid (clay being insoluble in the acid) possessed good hydraulic properties (Kohlhaas, 1983). The cementitious agent Smeaton finally used was made from such a clay containing lime which was mixed with an equal quantity of pozzolana (Lea, 1970). The lighthouse that he constructed stood for 123 years until 1879 and only failed when its foundations were undermined by the sea. Smeaton's conclusions about the importance of the presence of clay were not published until after his death in 1792. Smeaton was the first to call himself a civil engineer (as distinct from a military engineer). In the preface to his book, Hydraulischen Moertel, W Michaelis stated in 1869 (in translation):

A century has elapsed since the famous Smeaton completed the building of the Eddystone Lighthouse. Not only the seafaring but for all humanity stands as a true signal of blessed work, a light in the dark night. From the scientific point of view it illuminated the darkness of nearly 2000 years.

The errors which came to us from the Romans and which were shared even by the excellent Belidor, were dispersed.

The Eddystone Lighthouse is the foundation upon which our knowledge of hydraulic mortars has been built and is the chief pillar of modern construction. Smeaton freed us from the shackles of tradition by showing us that the purest and hardest limestone is not the best, at least for hydraulic purposes, and that the source of the hydraulicity of lime mortar must be sought in the argillacrious admixtures (Draffin, 1976).

The cement was called 'Roman cement' although it in no way resembled the true Roman cement, except for its hydraulic setting reactions.

[Mary S. J. Gani; Cement and Concrete; p. 5]

The Romans ceased building with high-quality concrete by around A.D. 300. Our modern knowledge of cement owes nothing to them.

Cement was used from the decline of the Empire and through the Middle Ages, but none of it was any good until comparatively recent times (Davey, 1961). [. . .]

In this case, it was not that a Roman secret was lost, rather that the Romans, who did no testing, never learned what they had. The very idea of testing is comparatively recent, and the engineer John Smeaton, who tested samples for the construction of the Eddystone Light in the years 1756– 1759 (Davey, 1961) is, I suspect, the first man on the planet deliberately to test cements of differing compositions.

[Thomas Nelson Winter. Roman Concrete: The Ascent, Summit, and Decline of an Art. Transactions of the Nebraska Academy of Sciences 7 (1979), pp. 137-143.]

Rienzi inanity

Lothrop Stoddard

Pathetic time wasting: Rienzi tries argument by appeal to the authority of some Wikipedia editor's summary of some leftist academic's interpretation of Lothrop Stoddard.

Had Rienzi bothered to actually pick up a copy of Re-Forging America, he might have noticed:

• The book is about forging American national unity, not "white unity".
  
• Stoddard did not suddenly become rosy on "New Immigrants" (Southern and Eastern Europeans) once immigration reform was accomplished. He stresses:
  
  • Immigration restriction averted disaster and this potential disaster must not be forgotten, and,
    
  • "New Immigrants" must accommodate themselves to the America, not the reverse. Those who can't can and should go home.
    
• Stoddard comments positively that (at the time he wrote):
  
  • Colonial stock Americans still constituted almost half the white population, and most of the other half were of closely-related Northern European origins.
    
  • "New Immigrant" birth rates were falling, and it appeared unlikely they would increase their fraction of the population much.
    
  • Old-stock Americans still ran the country.
  
  
• Stoddard glowingly praises his friend Madison Grant and quotes approvingly from Passing of the Great Race.
  
• Stoddard notes that "New Immigrants" are concentrated largely in Northeastern industrial centers. At one point, Stoddard addresses himself to Americans who find themselves in areas like this and urges them to take heart and remember all the (real) Americans in the Midwest, West, and South who will come to their aid if alien elements attempt to exert control.

The Wikipedia article contains the claim that:

Stoddard was less concerned with which varieties of European people were superior to others (Nordic theory), but was more concerned with what he called "bi-racialism," seeing the world as being composed of simply black and white races.

Which is simply retarded. When Stoddard wrote, blacks were the only numerically significant non-white group in the US, and "bi-racialism" is merely Stoddard's name for his proposed solution to what at the time was the biggest race problem in America. The solution: outlaw racial inter-mixture and institute separate-but-equal segregation nation-wide. Organize America into separate black and white spheres, and allow blacks to rise within their sphere as far their talents lift them. That is bi-racialism--Stoddard's idea of a kinder/gentler/fairer Jim Crow. In other words, a practical proposal that has nothing much to do with post-modernist "white" identity deconstruction. (Incidentally, Stoddard considered "bi-racialism" an imperfect solution, and saw colonization as something eventually to shoot for.)

Stoddard clearly did not believe all whites were equivalent, and his chapter on "bi-racialism" contains no calls for "white unity" or attempts to minimize differences between whites. ("Bi-racialism" could be seen as implicitly acknowledging that black-white differences are larger than white-white differences, but such has always been obvious, and I know of no "Nordicist" who has argued otherwise.)

OMG Arab coins in Sweden!

Weak innuendo: "Were coins the only things brought back from the Middle East?"

I don't know, Rienzi. Swedes do seem suspiciously swarthy. You know what else? Vikings traveled throughout Northern Europe, no doubt spreading their Arab taint to the ancestors of Americans. To be safe, I suggest you exit my country immediately and commune with your personal hero on the island of his birth. They may speak a Semitic language there, but I don't think anyone has ever found any Arab coins in Malta, have they?

"Italian-American" myths, part 1: William Paca

Was William Paca (a signer of the Declaration of Independence) of Italian descent, as claimed by many "Italian-Americans" and Italian-American organizations?

No; no good evidence points in that direction. To give you a sense of the "debate":

An interesting situation arose when one of the sponsors of the Paca House project called me and urged that in my genealogical research it would be helpful if I found that William Paca had an Italian ancestry. This was because a grant of $10,000 would have been forthcoming if that wre proved to be the case. I had found, however that Paca's grandfather, Aquila Peaker, from England, in leaving property to his heirs, used "Paca," and it is in that document where the transition from Peaker to Paca is demonstrated (South 1967j:8). The rumor that the name was Italian came from a remark made in 1911 by Cardinal James Gibbons of Baltimore, who commented that he thought a relationship existed between Paca and the Italian family Pecci (South 1967j: 7). I was not able to say William Paca was of Italian ancestry, disappointing some who had hoped otherwise.

South, Stanley A. An Archaeological Evolution. New York: Springer, 2005. p. 202

All evidence suggests the immigrant Robert, a Quaker [1], was of normal English ancestry [2]:

…the suggestion that Robert Paca, the immigrant, was born in Italy or that his family had recently moved to England from that country cannot be substantiated and probably has no basis in fact.

But the National Italian American Foundation told me "[a] letter to the editor of the New York Times (July 18, 1937) by Paca's great, great, grandson should dispel any reservations as to Paca's ethnicity wherein he stated that some of his forbears named Pacci came from Italy."

Anyone who asserts that a 17th-century or earlier Italian origin for the Paca family can somehow be proven using an unsubstantiated 20th-century claim by a Paca descendant is throwing up a huge red flag that (a) he has no idea how good genealogical or historical research is conducted; and/or (b) he is probably less concerned with discovering the truth than with advancing a particular agenda. Myths concerning family origins are extremely common and frequently wrong.

In this case, it's easy to see how the myth may have arisen. In the 1937 letter, William S. Paca claims:

The ancestors of William Paca were of Italian and English origin. The name is said to have originally been spelled Pacci.

Said by whom?

Giovanni Schiavo writes that he interviewed W.S. Paca (the letter writer) in 1937 and mentions (while arguing in favor of an Italian origin) [3]:

I think it was [W.S. Paca] who told me that it was Cardinal Gibbons of Baltimore to suggest the name Pecci . . .

As we saw earlier, Stanley South also attributes the existence of the rumour to "a remark made in 1911 by Cardinal James Gibbons of Baltimore, who commented that he thought a relationship existed between Paca and the Italian family Pecci". Probably not coincidentally, Pecci "was obviously the name of Pope Leo XIII (1879-1903) whom Mr. Paca mentioned during our conversations" [3]. Naturally, Cardinal Gibbons would have been well-aware of Leo XIII's name.

Stiverson and Jacobsen report [2]:

The surname of Robert Paca, the immigrant, was spelled in several ways in contemporary documents, including Peaker, Pecker, Peaca, Peca, [and Paka]

Not Pacci. Not Pecci. Nor any variant thereof. It's easy to imagine "Peaker" becoming "Paca" in the mouth of a non-rhotic speaker. It's quite difficult to imagine "Pacci" or "Pecci" (or even "Pacca") becoming "Peaker".

But Robert Paca named his son "Aquila"!!! "Aquila" is Italian. That has to prove it.

And Alexander Hamilton was Greek. And John Adams was Hebrew. Off the top of my head, I can immediately name a colonial American ancestor of mine named Acquila. Shockingly, he was not Italian. Aquila/Aquilla is hardly an unusual or surprising name in 18th-century British North America. (Of course, even if it were, it would hardly constitute strong evidence in the Italianist's favor--I've seen some genuinely strange names bestowed on children of purely English parents in C17/C18 America.)


[1] Richardson, Hester Dorsey. 1967. Side-lights on Maryland history, with sketches of early Maryland families. Baltimore: Genealogical Pub. Co. p. 194.

[2] Stiverson, G. A., & Jacobsen, P. R. 1976. William Paca, a biography. Baltimore: Maryland Historical Society. pp. 25-26.

[3] Giovanni Ermenegildo Schiavo. 1976. The Italians in America Before the Revolution. New York: Vigo Press. p. 74.