THE discovery of three American soldiers among the dead in a suicide bombing at the opening of a girls’ school in the northwestern Pakistan town of Dir last week reignited the fears of many Pakistanis that Washington was set on invading their country.
US airstrikes in Pakistan, launched from unmanned drones, are now averaging three a week, triple the number last year. “We’re quietly seeing a geographical shift,” an intelligence officer said.
For the past month drones have pounded the tribal region of North Waziristan in apparent retaliation for the murder of seven CIA officers in Afghanistan by a Jordanian suicide bomber working with the Pakistani Taliban.
Last week America launched its first multiple drone attack, according to Pakistani security officials. Eighteen missiles were fired from eight unmanned aircraft in Dattakhel village, killing 16 people.
The discovery of the dead US soldiers revealed that America’s shadowy war in Pakistan not only involves drones but also small cadres of special operations soldiers.
When are the Democrat rank and file going to wake up and understand that the guys they put in office are just as pro-war as the Republicans. Indeed, of the major wars fought in the 20th century, only one was waged under a Republican president – the first gulf war under Daddy Bush. All the biggies were Democrat-led. Woodrow Wilson(D) got us into WWI, Franklin Roosevelt(D) got us into WWII, Harry Truman(D) nuked Japan and got us into Korea, John F. Kennedy(D) got us into Vietnam and Lyndon Johnson(D) finished the job, with a brief cameo by Richard Nixon(R). As I’ve said time and time again, there is no difference between the two parties when it comes to anything of major importance. And when it comes to America policing the world, there is absolutely no difference between a Republican president and a Democrat one. They both love the thrill of killing in the name of freedom.
On a final note, Pakistan is going just as Iraq did. We’re now seeing things like suicide bombings begin to happen. Isn’t it odd that we didn’t see any suicide bombings before the U.S. began it’s military operations there. Why do we find it odd that people would be willing to give their lives to defend their land? If some other country invaded the U.S. or began secret missions here wouldn’t we do the same?
Now, for the last step in making our fantastic bread totally from scratch. The secret to great bread is using what’s called a pre-ferment, or “sponge.” It’s a simple concept. You pre-mix some of your flour and yeast water and let it sit for 48 to 72 hours. This lets the yeast get a good head start on growing a good colony and really helps the flavour. Your probably already familiar with at least one type of pre-ferment called “sourdough.” We won’t be making sourdough bread though, so we will make a “biga” pre-ferment which is just a 50/50 water to flour mix. It’s easy. Here’s the recipe:
Dry Ingredients:
1/4 Cup Bread Flour
1/2 Cup Wheat Flour
Wet Ingredients:
6 oz. Yeast Water
Directions:
Combine flour and yeast water in a medium sized container, something about the size of a pickle jar. Cover with a clean hand towel and let sit for 48 to 72 hours. If you can’t use it immediately after the 72 hours is up, just lid it and stick it in the fridge until ready to use.
After 24 hours it will start to look like a sponge, with large air holes all in it. This is the yeast doing it’s magic.
That’s all there is to it. The yeast in our home grown yeast water will take over and begin to grow and produce great flavours as they eat the sugars in the mixture. Remember, it’s the yeast that makes bread taste like bread. That’s why this pre-ferment makes such a big difference in flavour. It’s also very important that you remember to subtract these amounts from your main ingredients list for your bread. So instead of using 6 oz. of water and 5 oz. of milk, just leave out the water from the final recipe. Adjust the flour amounts down to compensate as well. I’ve read that a pre-ferment also helps the bread to preserve longer. I don’t understand the chemistry involved in that so I’ll just have take that on faith.
In the next post we will put it all together and give a complete scratch bread recipe with full instructions. Now go make your pre-ferment.
The next component you’re going to need when making this recipe the old fashioned way is some wheat flour that you’ve milled yourself. We generally use what’s called “hard white wheat.” You can buy it in 6 gallon buckets(45 lbs.) from places like Bread Beckers online. You will see red wheat listed as well. Red wheat has a higher protein content and makes really good bread. White wheat supposedly makes bread that is closer to a true white bread. It’s really just personal preference. Just find a good supplier and buy some.
Once you have your wheat you will need a grinder(mill). The one we have is the Wonder Mill Jr. It’s a hand crank mill that comes with steel grinding wheels and stone grinding wheels. The stone will get a finer grind for a more authentic flour, but the steel plates are nice as well for things like grinding corn into corn meal. We chose a hand grinder in case we ever got into a survival situation without power. In that case we could still make bread with a gas oven. It’s up to you which route you go. The hand grinder is irreplaceable when you need it, but inconvenient for day to day use. It’s a trade off. Just do your research.
When you first start grinding your own wheat flour for bread baking, you will find out soon that the flour is very heavy. In order to get a good bread it’s necessary to get the grind down very fine. We do that by getting a large basket strainer and sifting out the flour to trap all the large pieces. We then dump the contents of the sifter back into the mill and grind it again. That gets the flour down very fine and makes great flour for bread. If your grind is too big, it won’t rise well or it will come out hard as a brick. Just experiment with small batches to get your method down.
Last time I showed how to make a loaf of great sandwich bread using some modern conveniences like store bought flour and instant yeast. Over the next few posts I’ll show you how to make the same bread, but completely from scratch. There is only one place where I’m gonna cheat: the bread flour. Bread flour is just all-purpose flour with wheat gluten added to it. Wheat gluten can be made at home by kneading down a blob of dough under running water until only the protein is left. It’s not hard, but really not worth the extra effort. The taste isn’t any different and the point here is to learn the craft. As long as you know what you could do if you needed to, that’s the point. So I’m going to list “bread flour” in the final ingredients list.
Ok, the first thing we’re going to need is yeast so that’s what we’ll cover today. Have you ever been making bread and wondered what people did before instant yeast? Well, they either didn’t leven their bread or they cultured their own yeast in the form of “yeast water.” It’s actually very simple.
Yeast Water:
Dry Ingredients:
1 Handful of Raisins
Pinch of Sugar
Wet Ingredients:
Quart Sized Jar full of Tap Water
Instructions:
Put raisins and sugar in a jar full of water. Something about the size of a pickle jar should do. But, please don’t use a pickle jar unless you want some dill bread.
Leave the jar open and sitting on the countertop for 5 days.
When it smells strongly of yeast, you have yeast water!
Yes, it really is that simple. The yeast that is naturally occurring on most fruits and vegetables will begin to eat the sugar and replicate into a nice yeast colony. Now, using the yeast water involves replacing your 5 ounces of water in the original recipe I gave you with an equal amount of yeast water. But instead of mixing it with the milk/sugar/oil, we will mix the yeast water into a “pre-ferment.” I’ll show you how to do that in the next post.
I’ve been tinkering with bread baking for a couple of months now and I’ve honed in on the perfect bread loaf recipe. I’m going to show you how to make it, but be warned. If this is the first time you’ve made bread from scratch then just go ahead and expect to mess up a bit. Bread making is one of those things that is really easy to show and teach, but very difficult to explain in print. I’m going to do my best here, but you might want to watch some youtube videos. That will help you get an idea of what “smooth” dough actually looks like and other things like that.
Also, I want to mention that the technical part of this bread recipe can be made in one of two ways. The modern version that’s fast, or the totally from scratch pioneer version that will blow your tongue off. It’s up to you which route you go. I’ll explain the modern variant in this post and the totally(and I mean totally) from scratch version in the next post. This is the version I’ve settled on for awesome sandwich bread, but this recipe is very, very changeable. It’s a great starting recipe to use and adapt to make all different types of yummy rolls, bagels and french breads.
The Modern Version:
Dry Ingredients:
2.5 Cups of Wheat Flour
1 Cup of Bread Flour
1 TBSP of Salt
2 tsp cocoa powder
Wet Ingredients:
6 oz. warm water
5 oz. warm whole milk
1.5 oz. of vegetable oil
2 tsp Instant Dry Yeast
1 TBSP Sugar
Instructions:
Mix all the dry ingredients together in a large mixing bowl. Don’t add the yeast or sugar to the dry ingredients.
Mix the water and milk together in a large cup and warm it up a bit. Not hot, just warm. A little more than luke warm. You don’t want to kill the yeast.
Now add the dry yeast and sugar to the warm liquid and stir it around with a fork vigorously until all of the sugar is dissolved.
Now walk away and let the yeast liquid sit and fester for about 15 minutes. The yeast is going to get really active and start to party. Don’t crash it.
Come back and dump the liquid/yeast mix into the dry ingredients.
Get your hands wet with some water and begin to mix. You will get messy, but it’s worth it.
When everything is mixed thoroughly, flour the countertop and dump the dough out onto the flour.
Knead the dough for 6 minutes until smooth, adding plenty of flour as needed. Don’t skimp.
Now stretch and shape the dough into a ball with the seam at the bottom.
Clean and dry out your mixing bowl and then spray it inside with cooking spray or wipe it with oil.
Drop your dough ball into the bowl seam side down and shoot it with a light shot of cooking spray also.
Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and a hand towel and let sit for an hour until it at least doubles in size.
After it doubles, uncover and punch down the dough to get all the air out. Don’t punch it hard, just make sure it’s deflated good.
Now turn it out on the floured countertop again and knead it very lightly for about a minute. You just want to work it a little to get it back to a good shape.
Now, crisco the inside of a loaf pan. Use plenty of lard/crisco. You don’t want the loaf sticking to the pan. That’s a disaster.
Cover and let sit again for about 30 minutes. It will rise quite a bit, but don’t let it get too big where it’s ballooning out over the sides of the pan.
Lower your oven rack to a little below center and put the pan on the rack.
Set the oven to 400° F and set the timer to 30 minutes.
When the timer goes off the bread is done. Let it cool on a wire rack for about an hour.
That sounds like a ton of steps, but it’s really not that hard. Try and make it a few times. You’ll get better each time and it tastes delicious. You’ll never eat sandwiches with store bought bread again. Once you’ve nailed down this recipe, you’re ready to kick it up and go old-school. That involves hand grinding your wheat flour, using home cultured yeast and making a pre-ferment. I’ll show you how to do that next time.
I just listened to Ron Paul’s speech from the Mises Circle in Houston. He talks about his Haiti Aid vote, homeschooling, the prospects for liberty, his Currency Competition bill and the Hot Air hit piece labeling him as a conspiracy theorist. Listen and enjoy.
This is what happens when the state reserves the exclusive right to legally use physical force on it’s citizens:
PITTSBURGH — Pittsburgh police Chief Nate Harper said three plainclothes officers have been reassigned during an internal investigation into the beating of an 18-year-old student violinist from the city’s Creative and Performing Arts High School.
Police charged Jordan Miles, 18, with assault and resisting arrest Jan. 11 because, they said, he fought with the officers who thought a “heavy object” in his coat was a gun. It turned out to be a bottle of Mountain Dew.
Miles said he resisted because he thought the men were trying to abduct him and didn’t identify themselves as police.
Miles’ family and attorney said he was hit with a stun gun and hospitalized after the violent Homewood struggle during which a chunk of his hair was yanked out and a tree branch went through his gums.
“I was accused for something I never had anything to do with,” said Miles, an honor student at CAPA. “I was completely innocent. They couldn’t find anything.”
Police took Miles to a Pittsburgh hospital for treatment. The student said he had to go back after he was released from custody.
“I want my son’s life restored, that’s all,” said Miles’ mother, Terez Miles. “I just want his life to go back to the way that it was before.”
City officials are conducting a full investigation, spokeswoman Diane Richard told Channel 11 News.
Reportedly the officers identified themselves as police. According to officials, the officers have been moved from plain clothes detail to uniformed duty. –WPXI News, Pittsburgh
Notice that they still charged him with resisting arrest and assault even though they couldn’t find anything he had done wrong. Things like “resisting arrest” are complete fabrications made up by the state police machine to be a catch all in case they screw up and try to arrest the wrong guy. Anybody in their right mind that isn’t guilty of any crime would resist being forcefully marched to jail. It’s legitimate human nature.
Now, if instead of being beaten almost to death, he had actually walked up to the cops and asked them for help he most likely would have been told to get lost. The best way to get a cop to leave you alone is to ask him for help. The best way to get beaten to a bloody pulp is to mind your own business. The fact remains though – now days we have to protect ourselves from the police and from criminals. Which is which can be hard to distinguish sometimes. When the state gives itself a total monopoly on the use of force it’s inevitable that the people who get to legally exercise that force will eventually become corrupt and drunk with the dishing out of physical power.
The libertarian cry that there is no difference between the two parties couldn’t be more obvious now. Noam Chomsky famously said that what we have in America isn’t a two party system. It’s one party with two factions. We must keep that in perspective now days. For those that rejoiced when Scott Brown was elected the other day, here is the wakeup call:
This guy voted for state-run healthcare in Mass. and Mitt Romney (another Republican) signed it into law. I’ve been telling people for months that Republicans have no interest in stopping health care legislation. People like Rush Limbaugh have marveled out loud about why Congressional Republicans aren’t being more vocal and active in opposing it. There is a perfectly reasonable explanation for that. Because they don’t oppose it, as is evidenced in the above video. The only reason they have given passive resistance to it for the last few months is that it’s good positioning for campaign donations and re-election.
You have to begin looking at all politics from the angle of “who wins? who loses?” So let’s do that. If health care passed right now, would the Republicans lose? No. They’ll just claim that they tried hard to fight it, but didn’t have enough numbers on their side. They will still be re-elected and Democrats will get hammered in November. Plus, now they can enjoy the same benefits the Democrats wanted. Namely, large new campaign contributions from the healthcare lobby. That’s a win for them.
So, what if health care doesn’t pass. Do Republicans lose? No. They still get re-elected in November on the idea that they defeated the bill, and Democrats get hammered. They also still get massive campaign contributions from an energized base. That’s a win for them also.
See what I mean? That’s how politics works. Smart politicians always set themselves up to win on both sides of potential legislation. Values and ideology in Washington are like unicorns and fairies. They don’t exist.
God is infinite or omnipresent. The State is truly everywhere. At my birth, the State was there to legitimize my birth with the issuance of a birth certificate. Throughout my infancy and my time as a toddler, the State was there to ensure I remained “healthy” through necessary vaccinations. During my formative elementary years, the State was there to enforce my compulsory education. As I grew into a teen, the State was there to license me to drive. Upon my graduation, the State was there to assure me that my post-secondary education was accredited and met its rigid standards. When I fell in love, the State was there, permitting me to marry my bride with a marriage license. When my children were born, the State, ever-vigilant, was there to legitimize their births. And when I grow old and feeble, the State will be there providing me with security, social security, as I attempt to provide for my comforts.
I think it’s also fair to note that the church, for it’s part is trying to mimic the state in this endeavor. The church wants to get into every aspect of people’s lives – offering programs and activities that could fill up a person’s entire week. I was eating dinner with a friend the other night and we were talking about this very thing. The church is too visible. Historically, the Christianity has been most vulnerable when it’s the most visible. With mega-churches sprawled out all over the country and multi-million dollar parachurch ministries all over, it’s hard to say that the church is in any way hidden today. You might think that’s a good thing. I think it’s not. Whenever the church pushes into the public square in a big way, it always seems to end up bad.
The flip-side to what I’m talking about is the church as a hidden, personal body. A body committed to ministry and personal relationships. I don’t think that you can say in any way that being more public and visible changes more hearts. As a matter of fact, whenever the church has been the most hidden and the most persecuted is when it has flourished. Just look at the Chinese church today. It’s solid and growing in the midst of fierce persecution. By contrast, the American church is wobbly and stagnant.
