I've always understood that the peppers weren't really that caustic to your stomach lining or your throat -- that the reaction is all "taste", or just how your senses react to them. But sometimes, if i eat a raw chile pepper, one of the really viciously hot small green ones, I'll get the hiccups. My esophagus just goes haywire!! And the *end* result can be woeful. . . .

I love peppers -- I really love the taste of habeneros, much more than jalapenos. The habs are hot as blazes, but they've also got this intense frutity burst of flavor (right before the heat kicks in). Very Zesty!! Jalepenos are good, too, but they don't have that burst of flavor at the front end. Not that I EVER eat them whole -- I just use them for flavor & to make sauces.

I especially love roasting various peppers & using them in salads & stews. Roasting can reduce the pepper's heat & allow its other flavors to be appreciated.

Heh. Brings to mind the italian deli I used to frequent in Brooklyn. Everybody who worked there was Italian (so I thought), running the eye/skin/hair color gamut from blue/fair/blondish to brown/swarthy/dark. They all spoke italian. Then I learned that "Joe" (in the b/s/d category) was actually Puerto Rican & learned Italian so he could talk to his wife's parents. You never would have known by looking. . . .

Fun Charles Murray Factoid:

I met his daughter once. She's half-Thai.

Gee, I can't wait 'till we have our own "Brown Underclass" in the U.S., too!!

Sigh.

Crikey. Now & then I wish I still lived in NYC, like right now.

Lollia:

Because liberals of Rangel's stripe need their constituency to be victims, not rational, self-motivated actors.

Woo Hoo. 5'11&1/2". Where is all the girlies at?

"If a "Race War" developed-I know very well which side I'd be on, and would act accordingly-this is one
war where you can't just switch uniforms."

Crap. That is so dismally depressing, and so completely true. But I agree with M., there are so many
fools out there who have sunshine piped up their ass they would never admit it could happen.

I doubt anything like a real race war will ever develop, though I'm sure their will be small scale incidents.
We'll just have to wait & see -- I think it's a foregone conclusion. Biggest challenge the "American
Experiment" will have dealt with, if the U.S. survives without significant change to its political culture.