Or “eminent” and “imminent.”
Or “providence” and “province.”
Or “story of knowledge” instead of “store of knowledge.”
Quick, get those funny tee-shirts printed up!
Oh, wait…
Did I say Sarah Palin?
I meant that “wise Latina,” Sonya Sotomayor.
Whenever I turn on FOX News this week, I can see a moron from my house!
Of course, her embarrassing performance comes as no surprise:
We know the average gap for all Hispanics, immigrant and non-immigrant, is four grades.
Let’s say those born in America score 1.4 grades better than immigrants—a generous reading of the Thernstroms’ hint above about immigrants lagging “at least a full grade.” And let’s say half of Hispanics are immigrants and half are American-born. Then, the American-born Hispanics would still trail whites by 3.3 grade levels.
That would be equal to two-thirds of the notorious white-black gap.
This estimate tracks with most everything else we know about Hispanics.
Richard Lynn and Tatu Vanhanen in their important book “IQ and the Wealth of Nations” found, on a scale with white Americans as 100, scores like: Mexico, 87; Ecuador, 80; Peru 90; Puerto Rico, 84; Guatemala, 79; Argentina, 96; Uruguay, 96…
(…)even their anecdotes are less impressive the more you look. Their favorite example: a high-achieving fifth grade class for gifted students at an LA school taught by Rafe Esquith.
But the class turns out to be half Korean!
South Korea has the second highest average IQ in the world (more than a half-standard deviation above the American average). Its citizens have the longest work-weeks in the world. South Korean students typically score at the top of the world in international achievement tests.
So Mr. Esquith gets gifted Koreans to work hard and smart. Wow!
Pollyannaish books like No Excuses encourage destructive policies. The reality is that we don’t live in Lake Wobegon where all the children are above average. There will always be people who are below average. We need policies that will allow them to live decent, productive, law-abiding, and self-respecting lives.
***
Anyway:
You can tell by that phoney “reassuring, serious person” voice she’s trained herself to speak in that deep down, Sotomayor knows she’s a stupid fake and is just hanging on to her position through deception, and the aid of willing liberal accomplices to that deception.
