Ashkenazi (Eastern European) Jews do have some specific genetic similarities – one that comes immediately to mind is Tay-Sachs disease; Ashkenazi Jew are much more likely to be carriers for the gene than the general population.
Yes, due to Judaism being fairly closed (in that they do not generally go out and try to convert other folks to their religion), and their choice to generally avoid marrying outside of their own society over the past few thousand years (or actually being prevented from doing so by the rest of society), many groups of jews have developed genetic distinctions.
The Ashkenazi jew population that Gav mentions is probably the most well known among geneticists. What’s interesting is that the Ashkenazi population illustrates the evolution of certain traits that are more cognitive and social than that the purely physical traits seen in most evolutionary biology.
Because the jews in that section of Europe were limited by society to only holding certain professions, and generally prevented from crossbreeding with other folks in society, they developed traits which seem to be linked to proficiency in certain types of tasks… specifically, complex math and cognitive skills. They generally weren’t allowed to participate in jobs that involved manual labor and stuff, but were allowed to do things like banking… It’s really interesting.
Um … no, I’d better avoid it.
Strip away the Democrat and Republican labels and who is the better candidate?
Without labels, Brown in a walk. I’ll be really surprised if he loses.
Which is not at all rare. If you dig around enough, most people can trace their ancestry back to some king/President/notable person or another. (E.g. if you believe this, then 8% of the men in central Asia today are descended from Genghis Khan. Also, Barack Hussein Obama is descended from William the Conqueror as are Sarah Palin, Uma Thurman and Bill Gates, etc. etc.) It’s not surprising, given how family trees necessarily collapse and overlap as you go backward in time.
… And at the same time, it’s true that every family (my own included) has traditions about their ancestry that, when examined, turn out to be mistaken, exaggerated, or just plain made up. Which is why I think Warren didn’t take a substantive hit on the Cherokee thing … yeah maybe it doesn’t hold up, but then neither does that story about great-uncle Max winning Guadalcanal single-handed.
I forget the numbers involved, but there’s some statistic that after however many years (200 or something?) you’re either related to everybody alive, or nobody (i.e. your bloodline is extinct).
Yeah, I’m related to Obama and Bush.
My kids got a kick out of it, anyway.
Warren makes it a race, finally:
Debate tonight. Warren is doing well so far. She’s pretty poised and coming back at his Republican talking points with facts and numbers, though how she stops herself from rolling her eyes every time he says something stupid is hard to understand.
Do people from Massachusetts really tawk like that? I thought that was a put-on for the movies.
I remember feeling the same thing with the Biden Palin debates. It wasn’t always be that she said something stupid but I felt like she would not answer the question asked and just blather talking points to avoid looking stupid and neither Biden or the moderators ever seemed to mention it.
Do either of them sound like they’re from Southie (like Damon and Affleck in Good Will Hunting) or is it more of a “Boston Brahmin” thing (in college I knew this super hot librarian from Boston, 36, who talked like that. Sarah, where are you now?)?
EDIT: OK, catching the first few minutes of this, and OMG Brown is bringing up this “Cherokee Liz” stuff instead of talking about real issues. Yeah, Scott, let’s see how that works out for you.
Heh, Biden went through literally weeks of coaching to prevent him from doing exactly that. The Obama campaign set up a stage in a hotel that was exactly (down to the color shades) a replica of the debate stage. They then had several sparring partners brought in to practice the debate, and every once in a while they would have the faux-Palin say something just slightly inane.
At first Biden would pounce and rip into the gaff, and I guess the Obama staffers would come out and hit him with newspapers or shake cans of pennies at him or something. Eventually he was able to grit his teeth internally and not respond to even the dumbest faux-Palin statements and it paid off: during the debates the real Palin said some silly stuff and made some factual errors (e.g., mixing up the US Commander in Afghanistan McCrystal and Civil War-era Union Army commander McClellan) and Biden didn’t even bat an eyelash.
On the other side, Palin was coached to basically not say anything about Biden at all; she was to confine her comments to Obama and McCain’s platform. Her biggest challenge (apparently) was getting Biden’s name right – she constantly wanted to refer to him as O’Biden or O’Brian. Exasperated, the McCain staffers recommended that she simply call him “Joe”, but Palin balked at that because she thought it was unseemly to call a guy she had never really met by his first name. Eventually the settled on a compromise: if you recall the first thing she said to Biden as she shhok his hand was to ask “Do you mind if I call you ‘Joe’?”
Funny part is, Obama himself did the “O’Biden” thing during his convention speech, didn’t he (it was kind of covered up by applause). I don’t know what it is about that name. Is it Irish or something?
I love this image so much.
So who watched the whole Warren-Brown debate? What’s the buzz on who did better?
I watched it, but I’m a terrible judge of these things since I have trouble seeing through my partisan sunglasses sometimes. The buzz seems to be that both did fine. Warren seemed to be focused on softening her schoolmarmish image to the point where she let a lot of hanging sliders go right by. Brown was aggressive and possibly a bit too aggressive. He came off a bit mean and the “stop trying to scare women” line was probably a mistake.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/archive/236/news/2008/10/01/debate_training_biden_learns_w_1_9211.html
“Get out of my secret Christmas place, Sarah Palin!”
I’ve been catching this Brown attack ad on Hulu. My gut response is - is that really the best you’ve got?
While driving through North Andover the other day, a wealthy MA town, I saw a pretty even mix of Brown and Warren yard signs.
I’m hopeful, but I still doubt she can win.