Category Archives: Polynesia

by | June 29, 2016 · 3:00 PM

Polynesians and Amerindians

Found on the Net.

AMERICAN INDIAN HLA GENES ON EASTER ISLAND

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 19 March 2012 vol. 367 no. 1590 812-819

The Polynesian Gene Pool: An Early Contribution by Amerindians to Easter Island

Erik Thorsby

Abstract. It is now generally accepted that Polynesia was first settled by peoples from Southeast Asia. An alternative that eastern parts of Polynesia were first inhabited by Amerindians has found little support. There are, however, many indications of a ‘prehistoric’ (i.e. before Polynesia was discovered by Europeans) contact between Polynesia and the Americas, but genetic evidence of a prehistoric Amerindian contribution to the Polynesian gene pool has been lacking.

We recently carried out genomic HLA (human leucocyte antigen) typing as well as typing for mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) and Y chromosome markers of blood samples collected in 1971 and 2008 from reputedly non-admixed Easter Islanders. All individuals carried HLA alleles and mtDNA types previously found in Polynesia, and most of the males carried Y chromosome markers of Polynesian origin (a few had European Y chromosome markers), further supporting an initial Polynesian population on Easter Island.

The HLA investigations revealed, however, that some individuals also carried HLA alleles which have previously almost only been found in Amerindians. We could trace the introduction of these Amerindian alleles to before the Peruvian slave trades, i.e. before the 1860s, and provide suggestive evidence that they were introduced already in prehistoric time. Our results demonstrate an early Amerindian contribution to the Polynesian gene pool on Easter Island, and illustrate the usefulness of typing for immunogenetic markers such as HLA to complement mtDNA and Y chromosome analyses in anthropological investigations.

Comment: Erik Thorsby’s study appears to be the first clear documentation of a genetic contribution of Amerindians to Polynesians that happened prior to the Peruvian slave trade in the 19th century. He detected two Amerindian-specific HLA alleles (A02:12 and B39:05) among unadmixed Easter Islanders. These alleles complement the otherwise-typical Polynesian pool of Easter Islanders. It’s unlikely that these alleles were more widespread in Polynesia in the past (as Thor Heyerdahl would want to have it).

Thorsby offers a better explanation: in accordance with the findings of chicken remains with Polynesian mtDNA in El Arenal, Southern Chile and the suggestive evidence of pre-Columbian Polynesian ancestry in Mocha Island, Chile, he writes, “There is strong evidence that Polynesians had been in South America early, i.e. in pre-Columbian time. After having arrived in South America, some of them may have returned to Polynesia, including Easter Island, not only taking the sweet potato and bottle gourd, etc., but also some native Americans with them.”

I agree with the findings of this study. This is correct. Polynesians, the greatest mariners of the Ancient World, seem to have sailed all the way from Easter Island to Southern Chile and then sailed all the way back again. They probably picked up some Amerindians to take back with them along with the tuber and gourd. And it looks like they brought some chickens with them to South America.

Polynesians were the most amazing mariners. They had no modern steering instruments. They steered their ships by the stars!

Their genesis of course is from the Lapita people who originated in Taiwan. These people sailed from Taiwan to the Philippines and from there to Indonesia, New Guinea, Melanesia, Micronesia and then Polynesia.

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Filed under Amerindians, Asia, Chile, Genetics, Indonesia, Micronesia, New Guinea, Oceanians, Pacific, Peru, Philippines, Polynesia, Polynesians, Race/Ethnicity, Regional, SE Asia, South America, Taiwan

by | May 31, 2016 · 4:34 PM

Culture Is Far More Powerful Than You Think

Jim writes: The problem with cultural explanations is that the behavioral genetic studies on identical twins show very minor effect of “shared environment”. Culture would presumably fall within shared environment. Most human behavior is mostly due to a combination of genetic factors and something not very well understood today called “non-shared environment”.

Surely culture is held constant in almost all of these identical twin studies because all of the twins are growing up in the same culture.

Also what may not matter a lot as a whole is individual shared environments among the same culture. But culture is different from individual micro-environments within a society. Culture is indeed or has the potential to be a super-environment. Culture is “the great molder.” Culture itself is a “super-environment.”

How then does one explain the absolutely incredible changes in Blacks from Africa to the US over centuries? It is almost like we are talking about different species or the transformation of nonhuman animals into humans. The change was that dramatic.

Human behavior does indeed differ dramatically around the world as culture changes, does it not?

Are you familiar with the stories of the Moiriori versus the Maori? No doubt genetically they were quite similar, or if anything, the Maoris, who acted much worse, may have even been more advanced genetically.

Furthermore the Moiriori had behaved in a typical Maori fashion for centuries after coming to Chatham Island, until at some point, they realized that if they kept being so savage, they were going to all kill each other and go extinct. At this point, a charismatic leader rose up against them and preached radical nonviolence as the only salvation of the Moiriori. This caught on and soon enough the Moiriori were some of the peaceful people on Earth who were such pacifists that they would hardly even fight back if attacked. They stayed like this for a few hundred years until the Maori invasion and their subsequent extermination.

How could the Maori and the Moiriori have been so different, especially as the Moiriori had been Maori when they colonized the island? How could the Moiriori themselves have made such dramatic changes from as savage as you can get to as peaceful as you can get?

Culture. Culture culture culture culture culture. In the first case, two different cultures and in the second case, culture change among a group.

How did the Germans and Japanese change from the most vicious and savage people on Earth to some of the most peaceful on Earth, in both cases so pacifistic that it is almost pathological?

Culture. Culture culture culture culture. In both cases, there were dramatic changes from the most savage people around to some of the most peaceful people around very rapidly, within a matter of decades. This was a case of rapid culture change among a group.

In Venezuela, there is a tribe called the Yanonamo who are some of the vicious people on Earth. They live in a state of constant violence. They are always at war with surrounding tribes, and in addition, there are high levels of violence even among their own community. They beat their wives, and both sexes beat the children. There is also a lot of feuding-type violence among the men. By age 40, 100% of Yanonamo men have committed a homicide. 

Not extremely far away, also in the Venezuelan Amazon rainforest, is a tribe that is fascinating for being one of the most pacifistic peoples on Earth. Their behavior is so different that they draw anthropologists from all over to study them. They may be called the Pemon, but I am not sure. I very much doubt if their genes are much different than the Yanonamo.

What’s the difference?

Culture. Two different cultures.

 

 

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Filed under Amerindians, Anthropology, Cultural, Culture, Maori, Moriori, Oceanians, Pacific, Polynesia, Polynesians, Race/Ethnicity, Regional, South America, Venezuela

by | November 25, 2015 · 3:12 AM

Some Notes on the Homeland and Early History of the Tai-Kadai Language Family

A fellow who I believe is Chinese came to the site a while back with some very interesting ideas about the earliest speakers of the Tai-Kadai languages, of which Thai and Lao are the most famous. His statement is in blockquotes below.

He argues for a close relationship between Austronesian and Tai-Kadai, two huge language families in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Tai-Kadai researchers have long opposed this notion, including a professor who I worked with quite a bit while obtaining my Master’s Degree.

French linguist Laurent Sagart has recently proven to my satisfaction that Austronesian and Tai-Kadai are indeed related. I have looked over the evidence, and it looks very good. Sagart is clearly an expert on the language families of the region, including Sino-Tibetan, Tai-Kadai and Austronesian.

However, the field has not yet accepted Austro-Tai. Historical Linguistics has become so conservative in recent years that one wonders whether any new prominent language families will ever be proven to the satisfaction of the field. In this sense, ultra-conservative “scientism” has clearly taken over Diachronic Linguistics, and the only people making any headway these days are the trailblazers who are practicing what boils down to “fringe science” and are expectedly being trashed from here to Kingdom Come for not going along with the ultra-conservative mindset of the day.

The problem is that like cryptozoology, psi, ghosts, UFO’s and so many other fields, ultraconservative people practicing scientism and not science have set up the biggest roadblocks imaginable for dismantling any paradigms or in fact discovering anything new or breathtaking.

Modern science reminds me of the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages. It’s  another faith-based fundamentalist philosophy. I guess we already know everything there is to know, and there’s nothing more to learn. In fact, incredibly, some scientistic practitioners are actually making statements along these lines.

Sagart’s new language would be called Austro-Tai, from which two branches, Tai-Kadai and Austronesian, descended. We know that the homeland of the Austronesians was in Taiwan and on the mainland adjacent to Taiwan possibly 5,000 YBP. From there, they mostly spread to the east – to Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Polynesia, Melanesia and Micronesia, with some going back to Mainland Southeast Asia (most prominently the Malay, but also the Chams, etc.)

That Tai-Kadai and Austronesian were together as a macro-language on and west of Taiwan over 5,000 years ago makes intuitive sense on a lot of levels. They split up, with Tai-Kadai moving west and inland and Austronesian moving out to the islands to the west as the Lapita Culture.

Here it is below, with some edits and additions:

I have some words about the Zhuang to tell you. First of all, your article claims that the Proto-Tai came from Central Asia. That’s a questionable study. The most recent research on linguistics has revealed that the Proto-Tai-Kadai migrated back from Taiwan and they are closely related to the Austronesians.

The basic lexicon between the two branches of Hlai and Kadai in Tai-Kadai language family shows a striking similarity to Austronesian, i.e. Indonesian. However, examining the Tai branch, linguists see that original lexicon in the Tai branch were replaced by some other linguistic stock. That shows a linguistic contact between Proto-Tai and other groups in the ancient times and the genetic mix-up may also have taken place.

In conclusion, according to linguistic studies, the original Tai-Kadai Uhrmeit may have been the Austronesian-inhabited in Taiwan island. Then later, when moving back to the mainland of Southern China, they probably mixed with other ethnolinguistic groups.

It’s also worth mentioning that a trace of old Kam-Tai language from 2-3,000 YBP, an earlier form of Proto-Tai, has been discovered in southern part of the ancient Chu State (1030 BC–223 BC) by comparing the non-Sinitic words on unearthed inscriptions materials with reconstructed Old-Chinese.

This indicates that the geographic distribution of Proto-Tai speakers may have been quite different from our current understanding. And the identity of the group that they mixed with that replaced much of their original Austro-Tai lexicon is still not known. The location of Tai-Kadai speakers, especially the present-day Tai speakers in Yunnan in South China is quite a ways away from the location of most Austronesian speakers such as Malay and Indonesian speakers in Mainland and Island Southeast Asia.

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Filed under Asia, Austro-Tai, Austronesian, Indonesia, Language Families, Linguistics, Malaysia, Micronesia, Pacific, Philippines, Polynesia, Regional, Science, SE Asia, Sino-Tibetan, Tai-Kadai, Taiwan

by | September 4, 2015 · 10:16 PM

Sex in Pre-Contact Hawaii

To have sex at the request of another was seen more as being passion than compassion. To want sex with another was seen as being natural. As one respondent put it: Women didn’t say no because it would have been considered bad form, a rudeness. Also, they took the invitation as a compliment and often also wanted the sex themselves.

– Milton Diamond, Sexual Behavior in Pre-Contact Hawai’i: A Sexological Ethnography. University of Hawai’i at Manoa

That is too much.

If a man walks up to a woman and asks her to have sex with them, that’s considered a compliment. Women never said no to any man who asked them to have sex because to say to a man who asked to have sex with you would be terribly rude and bad form.

Hilarious.

A human society like this actually existed in recent historical times.

What is funny about this is that there have been literally thousands of porn stories, pictorials, or fantasy blogs with plots very similar to this.

Written porn usually plots much better than movie porn anyway. Plotting in movie porn typically ranges across an entire vast spectrum from nonexistent to inane all the way to bathetic.

There were some 1970’s porn movies that had some decent plotting, but those were the exception rather than the rule.

Prior to the gonzo age in the last 10-20 years, most porn movies had some sort of insipid, chaotic, baffling or typically incoherent plotting. What was truly awful about these movies was that the porn actors actually attempted to do real acting in these movies with characters, lines, etc.

Most of them were such bad actors that this aspect of the movies was unusually unintentionally comical when it was not pathetic to ridiculous. Some of the actors attempted to compensate for their failed thesbianism with a lot of hamming, but what was actually embarrassing was that the acting was often so pitiful that it was hard to tell the difference between when the actors were hamming it up and when they were earnestly stumbling through their roles and lines. There were so many face palming moments that it was hard to keep your hand on your dick.

Quite a few of the porn movies in this era would rank up there with straight films such as Plan Nine from Outer Space with the worst movies ever made except everyone was too busy jerking off to bother to make up the lists. A lot of these movies were almost like the old “Bad Cinema” skits in the old Saturday Night Live.

There were actually some fine actors in the Golden Age of Porn. The beautiful Annette Haven actually had formal actress training. The gorgeous late Terri Hall was a former opera singer. The late Jamie Gillis was also a trained actor who once performed an excellent role as Hamlet in a play in New York. Hamlet is often considered one of the hardest roles to play because there are so many complicated lines to remember. Gillis was actually a fine actor.

From the 1990’s on, few if any porn “actors” had any acting skills at all. There has always been much talk of crossover stars moving from porn to mainstream filming, but acting in porn is still considered a killer for your mainstream career. It’s such a blemish on your resume that you are pretty much blacklisted from the mainstream industry. Not that it matters as most porn stars these days are simply “stars” and not actors in any sane sense of the word anyway, and they couldn’t break into mainstream with God’s help, so it’s no great loss.

I used to read a lot of written erotica online 10-15 years ago. Of course some of it was awful, but a lot of it was excellent. I even had favorite authors. Most of the best writers were men for some reason. I was amazed at how good some of the writing was. The best stories had nice lead-ins, actual plots, excellent characterization, fine setting, and good flow. There usually wasn’t much in the way of a conclusion to the story because how the Hell do you conclude a porn story anyway? And then everyone fucked happily ever after into the sunset?

The best stories involved some sort of oversexed society (usually based on an extreme male fantasy of how the world ought to operate) that would seem to be current but couldn’t really exist nowadays, so in effect they were fantasy or even science fiction. It was actually a rewarding intellectual experience to read a lot of these stories. There are a lot more good writers out there than you think.

Anyway, getting back to the quote above, the actual historical account above is funny because so much written porn involves future or fantasy societies that are like this in one way or another – it is a compliment to ask a woman to have sex with you, it is very rude for a woman to say no, etc.

In fact, it’s almost an old porn chestnut you might say, along with such classics as “finishing school.”

Finishing school is a great porn cliche involving the innocent teenage girl daughter, just turned 18, who is sent off to her parents to a high class “sexual finishing school” (ideally the same one her mother went to) where she learns how to be the best wife she can to her hopefully rich future husband via instructions in all sorts of wild, perverted sex. That’s one my all-time favorite porn plots.

This element of pre-contact society is a perfect example of the ultimate male porn fantasy world, and it actually existed in human time and space!

And life imitates art once again.

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Filed under Anthropology, Cultural, Heterosexuality, Pacific, Polynesia, Pornography, Regional, Sex

by | August 30, 2015 · 6:50 PM

Kill Your Children Well

According to Stewart, in those parts of Hawaii to which the influence of the missionaries had not penetrated, two-thirds of the infants born were murdered by their parents within the age of two years. In Tahiti, three women questioned by Mr. Williams acknowledged that they had killed twenty-one of their children between them. Another at the point of death confessed to him in an anguish of remorse that she had destroyed sixteen of her children.

Frazer, James George. 1922. The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Vol. 2 (of 3): The Belief Among the Polynesians, Chapter III: The Belief in Immortality among the Samoans, § 1. The Samoan Islands, Footnote 24. McMillan and Co.

Wow!

This is the typical life among those noble savages some folks on this blog cheer on. Hunter-gatherers had no birth control, so children came all the time. There’s just not enough food around for every woman to have 12-27 kids. It’s not going to work. And honestly, it’s better to kill one child who has barely seen life than to let the whole group die of starvation. The greater good and the lesser of two evils and all that.

Among the Ache of Paraguay, 100% of Ache children witness their mothers murdering one or more of their brothers or sisters, often before age four. You wonder what sort of effect that would have on someone.

Essentialists or Determinists, which include some psychoanalytic types, would say that certain things that a human experiences in life have inevitable damaging effects on the psyche. So if a child witnesses his mother murdering his toddler sibling, this will have an inevitable scarring effect on the psyche no matter what. Similarly, if a child is molested by an adult before some set age (which feminist crazies keep pushing upwards), there will be serious and inevitable damaging effects on the psyche of that child no matter what. Some things are just inherently damaging psychologically 100% of the time.

Culturalists would take another approach and say that the psychological effects of certain experiences depend on the culture.

So while seeing one’s toddler sibling being murdered by your own mother is no doubt rather traumatizing, if you grow up in a culture where all children witness these scenes, it simply because one or the norms of growing up in that society, children simply accept it as normal behavior and there is little if any psychological damage.

Similarly, there are hunter-gatherer cultures where almost all of the children are molested by adults before age 12. Generally there is no physical damage. Culturalists would say that if you grow up in a culture where all the kids get molested by adults, you simply accept that as normal behavior and the acts cause little if any harm.

Where do you stand, with the Determinists or with the Culturalists? Are some experiences inherently damaging to the psyche or is it all culture-dependent based on what your culture defines as normal behavior?

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Filed under Americas, Anthropology, Cultural, Culture, Latin America, Pacific, Paraguay, Polynesia, Psychology, Psychopathology, Regional, South America

by | April 22, 2015 · 8:11 PM

How We Fight

Against these amiable and enlightened traits in the Samoan character must be set their cruelty in war. If they opened hostilities with a great deal of formal politeness, they conducted them with great ferocity. No quarter was given to men in battle, and captives were ruthlessly slaughtered.

Women were sometimes spared for the use of their captors. Nor did death save the conquered the insults and outrages of the insolent victors. The slain on the battlefield were treated with great indignity. Their heads were cut off and carried in triumph to the village, where they were piled up in a heap in the place of public assembly, the head of the most important chief being given the place of honor on the top of the pile.

However, they were not kept as trophies, but after remaining for some hours exposed to public gaze were either claimed by the relatives or buried on the spot. The headless trunks were given to children to drag about the village and to spear, stone, or mutilate at pleasure.

The first missionary to Samoa was told in Manua that the victors used to scalp their victims and present the scalps, with kava, either to the king or to the relatives of the slain in battle, by whom these gory trophies were highly prized. He mentions as an example the case of a young woman, whose father had been killed. A scalp of a foe having been brought to her, she burnt it, strewed the ashes on the fire with which she cooked her food, and then devoured the meat with savage satisfaction.

But the climax of cruelty and horror was reached in a great war which the people of A‛ana, in Upolu, waged against a powerful combination of enemies. After a brave resistance they were at last defeated, and the surviving warriors, together with the aged and infirm, the women and children, fled to the mountains, where they endeavored to hide themselves from their pursuers in the caves and the depths of the forest.

But they were hunted out and brought down to the seashore; and an immense pit having been dug and filled with firewood, they were all, men, women, and children, thrown into it and burnt alive. The dreadful butchery went on for days. Four hundred victims are said to have perished.

The massacre was perpetrated at the moment when the first missionaries were landing in Samoa. From the opposite shore they beheld the mountains enveloped in the flames and smoke of the funeral pile. The decisive battle had been fought that very morning. For many years a great black circle of charcoal marked the scene and preserved the memory of the fatal transaction (Frazer 1922).

If you study native cultures all over the world, you will find that this absolutely savage and vicious way of fighting wars was quite typical. It was certainly par for the course in Black Africa, Oceania, New Guinea, Indonesia, the Philippines and Taiwan. The Amerindians pursued war in the most savage and vicious way imaginable. Instead of being an aberration, this wanton sadism and depravity seems to be the normal human way of war.

These people behaving in this cruel and debased way are not acting like savages. Instead they are acting like normal human beings. Mankind in the wild is as vicious an animal as exists anywhere in nature.

References

Frazer, James George. The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Vol. 2: The Belief Among the Polynesians, p. 162. 1922. London: McMillan and Co.

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Filed under American Samoa, Anthropology, Cultural, History, Oceanians, Pacific, Polynesia, Polynesians, Race/Ethnicity, Regional, Samoans, War

by | April 9, 2015 · 11:23 PM

Are Filipinos and Indonesians Archaic Asians?

Anthropology1994 writes:

So are Filipinos and Indonesians not archaic?

We usually do not think of them that way. Most Filipinos are not archaic but some people who live in the Philippines are archaic. For instance, Negritos are obviously archaic. I believe the Igorots may be archaic. They resemble Taiwan aborigines and a number of them look almost Caucasian. There are also primitive Filipino groups such as the Mangyans, but I am not sure how archaic they are.

There are out of and out Australoids in the far east of Indonesia. These are Melanesians with about 20% Taiwan aborigine mix, somewhat like coastal New Guinea people except these Melanesians have more Chinese in them.

I would say that the Sea Dayaks of Borneo are archaic.

So the Igorots of the Philippines and the Sea Dayaks of Indonesia at least appear to be archaic Paleomongoloids.

The Filipinos and Indonesians themselves are fairly modern creations mostly via repeated infusions of Taiwan aborigines, mostly the Ami, who came by boats. These migrations happened over 3,000 years in the Philippines with the last one being ~2,000 YBP. The movement into Indonesia was about 2-3,000 YBP.

They moved along the north coast of Indonesia on their way to coastal New Guinea where they bred in with Papuans and became the Coastal New Guinea people, who are different from the Papuan Highlanders. They then went to Polynesia and Micronesia but apparently not Melanesia. The Polynesians are 50% Melanesian and 50% Taiwan aborigine and I think the Micronesians are 50% Polynesian and 50% Taiwan aborigine, so they are 25% Melanesian.

I suppose we could call Polynesians and Micronesians Paleomongoloids, but most people don’t seem want to do that for some reason. For instance, Moiriori skulls line up very well with the Ainu and the very archaic Paleomongoloid Kennewick Man in the Americas, so groups like the Maori are obviously archaic

These Taiwan aborigines who left Taiwan were the Lapita people, the greatest mariners that ever lived.

The base for Indonesians which makes up 80% of the genome is a mysterious group called Proto-Dai. The Dai are a people who live in Yunnan in Southern China. Their ancestors apparently migrated to Indonesia during a glacial period involving flooding and they have gotten stuck out there due to flooding of land bridges. The Proto-Dai were probably a Melanesian type, Australoids.

However these proto-Dai have been evolving in Indonesia for 15,000 years. During the same period in Vietnam, Melanesian types have been slowly transitioning to Neomongoloids. In Vietnam the process was completed 2,300 YBP, a date which coincides with a massive invasion of Vietnam by Southern Chinese which seems to have resulted in a massive infusion of Chinese blood. In other words, the Vietnamese transition to Neomongoloid 2,300 YBP was caused by a massive infusion of Southern Chinese stock. Vietnamese are very new Neomongoloids and I believe they still have Australoid residual features.

A principal component of the Filipinos representing the maternal genome goes back up to 30,000 YBP and may represent the Negrito people or something other Australoid type. There were other peoples that moved into the Filipinos down through the years, including a group that looks like Ainuids. Proto-Ainuids were in Thailand 16,000 YBP, and they went, apparently by boat, to Japan by 13,000 YBP where they become the Jomon people. It stands to reason that they might have stopped by the Philippines along the way.

While the maternal Filipino stock is ancient Asian Negrito or Melanesian type, the male line consists mostly of Taiwan aborigines, mostly the Ami tribe, who came in waves over the last 5,000 years. The Ami lived on the coast of Taiwan and were expert boat-builders, and it is thought that they are the Austronesian people who populated much of Island SE Asia and Oceania. Filipinos also have a fair amount of modern Chinese who have come in in the last 800 years. Many of these were Taiwanese Hoklo or South Chinese from Hong Kong and the Guangdong region.

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Filed under Ainu, Anthropology, Asia, Asians, China, Chinese (Ethnic), Filipinos, Indonesia, Indonesians, Maori, Melanesians, Micronesia, Micronesians, Negritos, Northeast Asians, Oceanians, Pacific, Papua New Guinea, Papuans, Philippines, Physical, Polynesia, Polynesians, Race/Ethnicity, Regional, SE Asia, SE Asians, Taiwan, Taiwanese Aborigines, Thailand, Vietnam, Vietnamese

by | May 6, 2014 · 7:31 PM

The IQ-Crime Conundrum Once Again

As you said Robert in another post, the culture makes a difference. The 70 – 90 range IQ in Bangladesh and the Philippines isn’t causing crime.

Bangladesh IQ is 81. Philippines IQ is 86. There is quite a bit of crime in the Philippines, but I believe there is little crime in either Bangladesh or Pakistan.

However, your point is clear. Crime is more than IQ alone. There is something about being Black per se that causes tons of crime.

For instance, Amerindians and Polynesians have the same IQ’s as US Blacks (~87). The Amerindian/Polynesian violent crime rate is 2X Whites. The Black violent crime rate is 8X Whites. See?

There are two place, American Samoa and Samoa. Samoa is an independent nation that has a very traditional culture and has almost no crime. American Samoa is a US colony right next door, totally Westernized and Americanized, and there is tons of crime, especially property crime. Both groups have IQ’s of ~87, the same as US Blacks.

Also there is a Black ethnic group in Burkina Faso that has a homicide rate as low as Japan’s. They number ~1 million. They have a very strong traditional culture based around respect for elders and a strong sense of Islam. In the Black Islamic countries of Africa, the crime rate is fairly low compared to other Black societies. So Islam reduces the Black proclivity to crime.

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Filed under Africa, American Samoa, Amerindians, Asia, Bangladesh, Blacks, Burkina Faso, Crime, Intelligence, Islam, North Africa, Oceanians, Pacific, Philippines, Polynesia, Polynesians, Psychology, Race/Ethnicity, Regional, Religion, SE Asia, South Asia, Whites

by | October 6, 2011 · 10:25 PM

“No Rainwater in Tokelau,” by Alpha Unit

There’s not enough water in Texas. There’s not enough in East Africa and some other places, too.

Climate change is being blamed for some of it. La Niña, specifically, is being blamed for what’s happening in Texas – and for what’s happening in the South Pacific. Several island nations in the region are having water shortages and trying to fend off a crisis.

Tuvalu and parts of Samoa have begun water rationing. And the tiny nation of Tokelau, a territory of New Zealand, has only a week’s worth of fresh drinking water left. The people who live there collect rainwater for drinking, but because of La Niña, there hasn’t been much rain.

New Zealand is now in a joint humanitarian effort with the US government. A US Coast Guard vessel stationed in Honolulu met up with a New Zealand Defence Force aircraft on American Samoa to get water to Tokelau.

The US Coast Guard cutter Walnut has used its onboard desalination plant to produce 136,000 liters of drinking water. International seagoing vessels typically have onboard desalination plants. Naval vessels, cruise ships, and privately owned vessels have them. Most US Navy ships use reverse osmosis (RO) desalination plants.

In the RO process, pressurized seawater is filtered through a specialized semi-permeable membrane, which can remove about 99% of the impurities in water. After desalination, water is remineralized since desalination removes some of the important minerals normally found in drinking water. Then they check it for impurities, make sure there are no pathogens, and adjust the pH. Now it’s ready for delivery.

By the way, governments and private concerns have been examining the prospect of offshore desalination vessels for years. (Everything’s on the table. There’s a lot of people – and people use a lot of water.) There’s much to consider, cost (including energy costs) and what to do with that brine you get from desalination being major questions.

But there are people figuring it out.

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Filed under Alpha Unit, Environmentalism, Global Warming, Guest Posts, Mother Nature, Pacific, Polynesia, Regional, Science, Weather

by | October 3, 2011 · 4:35 PM

Fat World Tour

This is a world tour of the world’s fattest nations. I am supposedly fat myself, so I should not talk, but I will anyway, since it’s always fun to make fun of fat people.

Fat World Tour!

Micronesia, #2 of the fattest nations on Earth. 92% of the humans there are fat. No one would care except there are so many fat people now that the fatties are starting to sink some of the islands! Which is not only sad but tragic as fat people sink like cannonballs. I am wondering why they did not cave in this ball court?

Micronesia is a bullshit name. They need to change that name now. The only thing micro about them is their fitness quotient. Time to call it Macronesia!

Photo of Tonga. See those huts? Each of those can house one and only one Tongan! That's how fat these people are.

Tongans are fat. Really fat. Way too fat. So fat they almost crashed the WHO Fat People Database. Tonga won 4th place in the Fat Finals last year. Tonga: 92% fat, 8% taro root.

A sad tale from Samoa. See that beach? It was a wonderful beach until some fat Samoan decided to lie down on it. They were so fat that they flattened all of those buildings, trees and signs. 84% fat, 100% island.

Time for a world ban on Spam imports to Samoa now! Samoa won 6th place in fat competitions last year.

A tragicomic photo from Palau. The guy is pointing. This is what he's saying: "See that big round hill over there? That's actually not a hill. That's a fat person. By the way, got any spare Spam you don't need?"

I don’t even know where Palau is, but sticking all those fat people on one island with an endless Spam supply can’t possibly be a good idea from geological point of view. Palau: #7 on the fat list! 81% fat!

USA! We're number 1! Unfortunately, we are not #1 in fatties. We are #8 at 79%.

That woman is almost as fat as those arches. How did she even fit into that narrow window to place her order?

I was very surprised that Argentina made it on list. Those people are so fat that this photo almost crashed my browser. At least they are in a gym, where they belong!

Argentina, 12th on list, 75% fat, 25% gaucho.

A photo from Mexico shows a mass of corn-fed Mexicans from Midwestern Mexico clamoring and squealing around a feeding trough. What they are serving, I have no idea, but it can't possibly be good for you.

Mexico comes in 13th place in the Fat World Tour. Mexico; 73% fat, 27% future illegal alien.

Australia comes in 14th place in the Fat Finals. Some of these Down Unders are so fat that they are nearly as large as the Subcontinent itself. Sentence the fatties to some time in the Outback!

Australia: 14th place at 71%.

Belarus, supposedly a nation of starving Communists, it actually overfed. I say for starters, stop having Army guys serve people meat pies door to door.

Belarus, 17th place. 67% fat, 100% Commie bastards. As long as the USA! is still beating the Commies in anything, even fatties, that’s all I care about.

UK is surprisingly fat for a nation raised on fish sticks and porridge. Come to think of it, that woman is almost as wide as that sign!

I have no sympathy for these limey fucks. Anyplace where people commit the transgression of drinking their beer warm deserves a nation of fattitude as penance. UK- 18th place at 66% fat.

The Cook Islands, where almost everyone is fat. For some reason, these kids are not fat yet. Researchers are studying why these kids are not fat yet, but maybe it is just because they are not yet adults.

Cook Islands. 3rd place in the Fat World Cup with 92% fat. They so need to change the name from Cook Islands, as it’s turning away tourists. White sand beaches and azure seas are great under the sun, but how many fat Polynesians can you look at without upchucking your Banana Daiquiri? They need to change the name to Diet Islands. It’s not honest, but so what? Tourist dollars!

Tickets are on sale now for the Fat World Tour finals. There are many bargains. For one thing, when you buy one ticket, you get two seats to sit your fat ass down in!

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