Caleb taking about his apple juice

Caleb taking about his apple juice
Originally uploaded by flakingnapstich

Caleb taking about his apple juice

Cool! They made a warning label for me.

Cool! They made a warning label for me.
Originally uploaded by flakingnapstich

Cool! They made a warning label for me.

Caleb and I made some goat's milk soap.

Caleb and I made some goat's milk soap.
Originally uploaded by flakingnapstich

Caleb and I made some goat's milk soap.

The mad scientist at work

The mad scientist at work
Originally uploaded by flakingnapstich

The mad scientist at work

Caleb enjoying a piece of the gigantic gingerbread man he made at a birthday party.

Caleb enjoying a piece of the gigantic gingerbread man he made at a birthday party.
Originally uploaded by flakingnapstich

Breakfast of champions. Caleb enjoying a piece of the gigantic gingerbread man he made at a birthday party.

"Mommy, Daddy. You're my friends. I love you."

"Mommy, Daddy. You're my friends. I love you."
Originally uploaded by flakingnapstich

"Mommy, Daddy. You're my friends. I love you."

I got a haircut? Inconceivable!

I got a haircut? Inconceivable!
Originally uploaded by flakingnapstich

I got a haircut? Inconceivable!

This purse is a rump. Your argument is invalid.

This purse is a rump. Your argument is invalid.
Originally uploaded by flakingnapstich

This purse is a rump. Your argument is invalid.

Caleb in Dad's old cowboy shirt

Caleb in Dad's old cowboy shirt
Originally uploaded by flakingnapstich

Caleb in Dad's old cowboy shirt

Caleb and his silly hat.

Caleb and his silly hat.
Originally uploaded by flakingnapstich

Caleb and his silly hat.

Iranian Naan

Persian / Iranian Naan

During this past holiday season a friend asked me to bake Iranian style Naan. This is something she enjoys but has difficulty finding. Iranian Naan, as described by her, is thinner and crispier than the naan Americans are likely to find in Indian restaurants or the supermarket.  Being inclined towards experimentation I took this as a worthy challenge. She made it easy though by providing me with a recipe that even included pictures of how the naan should look at each step. The recipe she found was Persian Naan: Easy Flatbreads at plant-powered.com.

There was just one problem with the recipe, it required a bread maker. Fortunately it was pretty easy for me to gauge what needed to change, and given my friend's review of the results I apparently got it right. Below is my modified recipe for those who don't have a bread maker. I made a few other adjustments, chiefly in the size of the dough pieces you're working with. I found dividing the dough into the 4 pieces recommended by plant-powered.com resulted in a piece of naan that, thinned to the right thickness, draped over the edges of my pizza stone.

Shaping Notes

The key to getting the naan nice and crispy is to pound it thin and punch it even thinner with your finger tips. Experienced bread makers will have the instinct to flour their hands while working the bread. This is not what you want to do with this dough. You want to keep your fingertips damp. I dipped them in a bowl of water while pounding the naan with my fingertips. You want to see knuckle marks and finger holes in the finished product. Try stretching it over your knuckles. If you don't make it thin enough you get fluffy Indian Naan. If you make it too thin you get crackers. Both are still tasty. Check out the article Persian Naan: Easy Flatbreads for pictures of each step of the kneading process.

I baked the naan on a pizza stone that had been in the oven while it came up to temperature. A cast iron skillet or even a non-stick cookie sheet will work as well. If desperate you can even use the cardboard from a frozen pizza. This bread is too thin to put directly on the metal rack of the oven.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups warm water. A bit cooler than you. 80 to 90 degrees Fahrenheit or 26 to 32 degrees Celsius
• 3 cups whole wheat flour
• 2 to 3 cups bread flour
• 1 TBS kosher salt
• 2 1/4 teaspoon active dry yeast  or 3 teaspoons of instant yeast

Directions (Can be done with a stand mixer with a dough hook):

1. Combine the yeast in a large bowl with the warm water. Let it sit for 5 to 15 minutes to hydrate.
2. Add 1 cup whole wheat flour and the salt. Mix with a spoon or spatula.
3. Add the rest of the whole wheat flour and stir until well blended.
4. Add bread flour until it's difficult to stir by hand.
5. Turn out onto a floured surface and knead in bread flour until the dough is no longer tacky and is fairly smooth.
6. Put the bowl in a warm place under a damp towel until doubled. About 2 to 3 hours.
7. Put the pizza stone or cast iron skillet in the oven and preheat to 500 degrees Fahrenheit (260 degrees Celsius)
8. Punch the dough to deflate it. Turn it out onto a floured surface and divide it into baseball or cricket ball sized pieces. You should get 6 to 8 pieces out of the recipe. 
9. Take each piece and flatten it. Stretch it over your knuckles. Drape it onto a floured surface and, with damp fingers, pat it with your fingertips to make it even flatter. You want a few holes here and there. You want to leave your finger prints. Check out the article Persian Naan: Easy Flatbreads for pictures of each step of the kneading process. The end result will be irregularly shaped, roughly 6 inches by 18 inches or 15 by 40 centimeters. Getting it nice and thin is mre important than the surface area.
10. Place the dough on the pizza stone (or whatever you're using) in the oven.
11. Bake for 9 minutes. Prepare the next piece of dough while you're waiting.
12. Remove from the oven and cool on a wire rack. You can wrap the naan in a towel before serving.

Serving ideas:

• Use to scoop up lentil puree.
• Cover with jam or jelly and eat as breakfast.
• Dip in stew to soak up broth.
• Toast and serve with a bit of butter.

Variations:

• Omit the whole wheat flour and replace it with all purpose or bread flour.
• Use 5 to 6 cups of all purpose flour instead of the other flours. 
• Replace the whole wheat flour with rye flour.
• Dust the naan with toasted sesame seeds just before baking.
• Dust the naan with a cinnamon and sugar blend for a sweet breakfast treat.

A very lonely Christmas tree

A very lonely Christmas tree
Originally uploaded by flakingnapstich

A very lonely Christmas tree

Better than Mittens

Better than Mittens
Originally uploaded by flakingnapstich

WTF Fundamentalist and Comments

Claim your controversial video is a bastion of free speech allowing anyone to comment on it. Disable comments.

Keith Ward covered up a murder

Theologian Keith Ward has confessed to helping cover up a murder.


Theologian Keith Ward saw his father kill a man.

my father worked as a double-agent for MI6 and the KGB during the “Cold War”. He told me this on his death-bed, in view of the fact that I had once seen him kill a man. The Section of which he was a member was disbanded and all record of it expunged, and all those who knew that he was a member of it had long since died. This is certainly a factual claim. If true, he certainly knew that it was true. I reasonably believe that it is true. But there is absolutely no way of empirically verifying or falsifying it. QED.

He doesn't say how much time elapsed between witnessing the murder and the alleged death bed confession. How long did he conceal the murder before getting this "explanation?" Why in God's name should we trust a man who gleefully helps his father conceal a murder with no apparent explanation, keeping the secret until his father has passed away and offered an evidence free, hand waving excuse of "Oh, I was in the MI6, so it's OK."

Ward offers no evidence that his father actually worked for the MI6, The complete lack of evidence beyond his father's word is the POINT of the haphazard philosophical point he's trying to make in the linked content.

Under the law, helping a murderer cover up a murder makes you culpable.

Whose murder is Keith Ward keeping secret? Was an innocent man accused, imprisoned or executed for the crime? Keith Ward must put a very low value on human life if he considers his father committing murder to be nothing more than fodder for a philosophical debate.

Of course, we have only Ward's word that the murder and the deathbed confession happened in the first place. Is Ward basing his argument son a chain of lies, or did he really confess to helping his father literally get away with murder?

Penn State students are morons

From: http://imgur.com/5ajpQ

From: http://imgur.com/gallery/QYnG8

Even the old Penn State mascot knows something is wrong.

Penn State is messed up

Penn State is where the students riot to DEFEND pedophilia

It seems Penn State students think it's OK to rape kids as long as you win football games.

So much for the idealism of youth.

I wonder how many of the pedophiles behind bars went to Penn State. That would be an interesting study.

Is Yahoo spamming your facebook wall with links to the articles you've read?

Yahoo recently rolled out a bit of malware that spams your Facebook wall with every damn story you read on yahoo news. If it were a Russian hacker pulling this stunt law enforcement would get involved, but because it's Yahoo you just get to be annoyed. You can't even disable this spam for within the Facebook interface. Like all malware vendors, Yahoo has tried to obfuscate how to remove their garbage.

Here's how to turn it the hell off.

1. Log into Facebook.
2. Go to news.yahoo.com.
3. Look at the right hand edge of the page. You'll see a section titled "You on Yahoo News". If you don't see it go back to Facebook and follow one of the spam links the bastard posted to your wall.
4. Click the arrow next to "Social" and set your status to "Off."
5. Click the arrow next to "Your Activity" and delete all of the articles that show up in the listing.
6. Click on "Options" and select "Remove this Experience."
7. The whiny little b**ch will ask you to confirm that you want to remove it. Click "Remove" again.
8. Next, use a text editor to open C:\Windows\System32\Drivers\ETC\hosts
9. Add the following line to the bottom of the file and save the changes:
10. 127.0.0.1 news.yahoo.com

Repeat those last two steps on every Windows computer you encounter.
Finally, the next time you click a link to a news story on Facebook, and you get told that you need to allow the web site hosting the story some kind of access to your Facebook profile to continue, close the page and move on with life.

Observation

If the Christian Right put as much effort into helping the poor as they do into oppressing homosexuals and controlling women, the welfare state would dissolve as there would be no one left to help.

Mississippi about to pown the populace

The Mississippi "life begins at fertilization" amendment is a very clever ploy. If it passes, it will mean most forms of birth control, such as the pill and IUD will be illegal, as they prevent the implantation of fertilized eggs. It means any woman who is on the "wrong" side of a political or religious debate can be dragged into jail on suspicion of murder if anyone suspects she might have had a miscarriage. Teetotalers will be able to jail anyone who drinks or is suspected of drinking while pregnant, especially if they go on to have a miscarriage. Pregnancies resulting from incest or rape will have to be carried to term, as aborting them would, under the state constitution, be murder. This isn't just an effective tool for controlling and manipulating women. If a man is giving you grief, all you have to do is use the threat of jailing his wife, sister, daughter or other friend or relative as leverage to shut him up. Even proving her innocence will result in a humiliating set of medical exams and detailed examination of her medical history. It's pretty much an all-in-one political trump card for the people in power. This is one of the cleanest and most intelligent back door police state moves I've ever seen. If this passes and stands up in court for any length of time, The Good Old Boys in Mississippi will have bought the entire state as effectively as if they were slave owners buying up a fresh shipment from Africa.