I can't do this anymore... election season needs to end

[regexcellent]

Holy ****!

[ColdWizard]

[-Jrabbit]

Actually, that photo looks like Spud is blocking Manute.

Just think, Regex -- this could be you!

[Al B. Sure!]

Modern politics is strange:

What are the candidates eating ahead of the debate?

Obama will have steak and potatoes with wife Michelle, according to campaign aides.

For lunch Mitt Romney ate a veggie burger, Cajun fries and a vanilla shake.

[Zevico]

Don't start calling me racist because I acknowledge that there are obvious genetic differences between black people and white people. For starters they have darker skin. If I recall correctly black people tend to be taller. Allegedly black people also have higher body density which makes it slightly more difficult for them to swim competitively.

All sorts of different ethnic groups have slightly different features. In pro sports a 5% edge makes a huge difference.

There's got to be a reason like 90% of NBA players are black. Possibly it's genetics. Possibly it's cultural.

Cultural. Fewer kids hitting the books and more of them shooting hoops. It's like asking why Europeans are so much better at soccer than Americans. Practice, practice, practice.

[Al B. Sure!]

There are very few Black baseball players now. I even saw a few articles about the demise of the Black ballplayer.

“It hurts, it really does, to see the decline of the sport,’’ says San Diego Padres second baseman Orlando Hudson, one of the dwindling number of African-American major league players. “To think that our baseball ancestors put up such great numbers and stood for so much and how much they went through in this great game.’’

Once upon a time, baseball was the city game, for all races. There was always a field or lot somewhere. Playing baseball was a standard way of life. It can easily be argued that, in the first 50 or 60 years of the 20th century, baseball was, by far, the most popular sport for African-Americans.
And now?
“I’ve had kids come up to me and ask why I’m playing that white man’s game,’’ sighs Hudson.

Read more at http://madamenoire.com/62627/what-ev...CcReZHj0C54.99

Are black people genetically predisposed to be bad at baseball, regexcellent?

[giblets]

Evolution works faster than I thought.

[Kidlicious]

White men can't jump.

[kittenOFchaos]

White men can't jump.

Tell that to the Olympic Champion of high jumping.

[molly bloom]

Or just engaging in sodomy in secret.

Obviously it is better to have an open and tolerant society where gays don't have to be closeted but it has never been the same for gay people as black people.

How right you are- just think of how many black people have been disowned by their own family for being black.

[molly bloom]

At that time northern English and Scottish culture was very barbaric and warlike so people had no reason to make long term plans, let alone read.

18th Century northern English and Scottish culture was 'barbaric and warlike ? I've heard some ludicrous hyperbole in my time, but that is really quite something. The contribution of Scotland to the Enlightenment in philosophy, literature and econmics is quite well known:

David Hume

David Hume (May 7, 1711 – August 25, 1776) born in Edinburgh was a Scottish Philosopher and Historian. He was raised from an early age by his widowed Calvinist mother and attended Edinburgh University. His self-description in his five-page autobiography holds to be quite honest, “a man of mild Dispositions, of Command of Temper, of an open, social, and cheerful Humour, capable of Attachment, but little susceptible of Enmity, and of great Moderation in all my passions.” His good friend, Adam Smith upholds Hume's portrait of himself in the obituary written in honor of his friend: “Upon the whole, I have always considered him, both in his life-time, and since his death, as approaching as nearly to the idea of a perfectly wise and virtuous man, as perhaps the nature of human frailty will admit.”

Arguably the most important of the British empiricists, Hume maintained the work of his predecessors John Locke (1632-1704) and George Berkeley (1685-1753) and moved beyond a the understanding that knowledge derives from experience in opposition to the rationalist belief, developed in the 17th century, that ideas held an innate value. He embraced a radical skepticism suggesting that experience holds utmost importance writing that no philosopher “will ever be able to takes us behind the daily experiences or give us rules of conduct that are different from those we get through reflections on everyday life.” etc etc...

http://www.egs.edu/library/david-hume/biography/

James Boswell:

Boswell’s father, Alexander Boswell, advocate and laird of Auchinleck in Ayrshire from 1749, was raised to the bench with the judicial title of Lord Auchinleck in 1754. The Boswells were an old and well-connected family, and James was subjected to the strong pressure of an ambitious family.

Boswell hated the select day school to which he was sent at age 5, and from 8 to 13 he was taught at home by tutors. From 1753 to 1758 he went through the arts course at the University of Edinburgh. Returning to the university in 1758 to study law, he became enthralled by the theatre and fell in love with a Roman Catholic actress. Lord Auchinleck thought it prudent to send him to the University of Glasgow, where he attended the lectures of Adam Smith. In the spring of 1760 he ran away to London. He was, he soon found, passionately fond of metropolitan culture, gregarious, high-spirited, sensual, and attractive to women; and London offered just the combination of gross and refined pleasures that seemed to fulfill him. At this time he contracted gonorrhea, an affliction that he was to endure many times in the course of his life.

From 1760 to 1762 Boswell studied law at home under strict supervision and sought release from boredom in gallantry, in a waggish society called the Soaping Club, and in scribbling.

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/74986/James-Boswell

Allan Ramsay:

Ramsay was born in Edinburgh. His father, also Allan Ramsay, was an important Scottish poet from whom the younger Ramsay inherited a tradition of strong nationalistic pride. Ramsay junior was instrumental in formulating a native Scottish style of painting, as his father had done for poetry.
Ramsay studied in London at St Martin's Lane Academy and at Hans Hysing's studio, before going to Italy. He worked from 1736 to 1738 at the French Academy in Rome under Francesco Imperiali and under Francesco Solimena in Naples. On his return he settled in London, although he continued to be active in Edinburgh. Between 1754 and 1757 he was in Italy, mostly in Rome. He was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in 1743. During his prime period he had a virtual monopoly on court painting. The envy this aroused is manifested in a remark made by Ramsay's competitor Joshua Reynolds that Ramsay was 'not a good painter' (quoted in Smart 1952, p.106). He became the official painter to George III in 1760, and Principal Painter-in-Ordinary in 1767. His assistants included David Martin, Alexander Nasmyth and Philip Reinagle.

Ramsay was a correspondent of Voltaire and Rousseau, and a writer of poetry and essays. In On Ridicule (1753) he wrote that truth was 'the leading and inseparable principle in all works of art' (quoted in Smart 1952, p.70). Other essays include Dialogue on Taste (1755), and The Investigator (1762). After a crippling injury to his arm, he retired to Rome in 1782. He died on the journey home, at Dover

http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/allan-ramsay-438

David Hume by Allan Ramsay:



The Earl Grey of Earl Grey tea and the Reform Act of 1832 fame:

“The only way with newspaper attacks is, as the Irish say, ‘to keep never minding’. This has been my practice through life.”

A firmly Whig politician, Earl Grey oversaw four years of political reform that had enormous impact on the development of democracy in Britain.

Earl Grey’s political experience before becoming the Prime Minister was limited.

He first took office briefly under Grenville in 1806, but it was nearly a quarter of a century before he returned to office as PM.

Earl Grey’s most remarkable achievement was the Reform Act of 1832, which set in train a gradual process of electoral change.

Indeed, it sowed the seeds of the system we recognise today.

Around 130 years of parliamentary reform began with this act and culminated in universal suffrage for men and women over 18, secret ballots and legitimate constituencies.

The battle to pass the historic act was a difficult one.

Grey resigned after the Lords rejected it, although he returned to office when Wellington found himself unable to form an administration.

Wellington then consented, and Grey was able to push the bill through.

Other reforming measures included restrictions on the employment of children, and the abolition of slavery in the British Empire in 1833.

Best-known for tea

One of Grey’s other legacies is the blend of tea known as Earl Grey. He reputedly received a gift, probably a diplomatic present, of tea that was flavored with bergamot oil.

It became so popular that Grey asked British tea merchants to recreate it.

After resigning in 1834, Grey did not linger in politics. He was greatly attached to his family, and he retired from the limelight to spend his remaining years with them.

He was said to be ‘tall, slim and strikingly handsome’ although in later years he went bald and wore spectacles.

http://www.number10.gov.uk/past-prime-ministers/charles-grey-2nd-earl-grey/

The culture I think Sowell may be referring to is that of Scottish settlers from the north of Ireland whose descendants feature prominently amongst American presidents- their brand of Calvinism was quite influential.

[Felch]

How right you are- just think of how many black people have been disowned by their own family for being black.

You think nobody was ever disowned for having a half black baby?

[molly bloom]

You think nobody was ever disowned for having a half black baby?

Not what I was getting at: how many black people from black families have been disowned for being black ? As a Nigerian woman was saying to me only this week, if your son or daughter is gay or lesbian they are still flesh of your flesh- you don't disown them.


Considering she's a Pentecostalist that's quite something for her to say.

[Al B. Sure!]

blah blah blah pretentious British idiot

Doesn't matter that you can name a bunch of educated elite. Does that speak to the majority? Does Scotland's contributions of a few literati say anything about the general education and culture of the populace?

[regexcellent]

As a Nigerian woman was saying to me only this week, if your son or daughter is gay or lesbian they are still flesh of your flesh- you don't disown them.

Please, tell me more about how multicultural your surroundings are.