Knowing my scientific interest in rabid immigration enthusiasts like the Wall Street Journal Edit Page’s James Taranto, our friend Marcus Epstein just sent me a recent discovery with the note: “Peter— I thought you might enjoy this.” I did.

Yet as he’s risen steadily in his profession, Taranto has remained, by his friends’ account, much the same geek he was back in his L.A. adolescence. “I imagine he must be very lonely, as are many talented writers I’ve come across,” says Laurel Touby of Mediabistro. “Regular people have trouble relating to him. I recall hosting parties, and women would later ask me, ‘Who is that guy?’ because he was so intense. He’s a force, a bigger-than-life brain at a party. People are used to idle chitchat, and he would be in there with serious issues. Girls can’t wait to get out of there. [Taranto’s Web, by Duff McDonald, New York Magazine, September 6 2004]

Americans shouldn’t wait to get away from Taranto, either.

Occasionally Steve Sailer will write about Malvina Hoffman’s sculptures, or Carleton Coon’s book, The Living Races of Man, but if I wanted to interest an anthropology class in the concept of human diversity, I’d show them this slide show of the Miss Universe Competition, which shows the most beautiful women from all over the world, all beautiful in different ways. (Mass immigration makes this confusing fron an anthropological point of view, of course. Miss Germany is Asli Bayram, whose parents came from Turkey.)

There are also pictures of Muslim women protesting the event. It’s the first time in nine years that there has been an Indonesian contestant, and they’re not happpy about that.

Previous beauty pageant unhappinesses included a riot in Nigeria, and some consternation over the unguarded remarks of Miss Bolivia.