Baking Your Own from Scratch-Literally

If you have been following my blog, you know that I bake bread. I have previously posted about it here. Now I find that there are others.

Who knew?

Gardenserf has a post up that asks the question if baking bread will become a revolutionary act?. I would note that there is currently a bill in the Senate, S510 that could potentially make it much more difficult for the small producers of food to remain in business. Senator Burr, whom I have supported in the past is a sponsor. Grrr.

I have not actually ground my own wheat, and at my age I probably never will. In any case, this area is not known for growing wheat, so I buy Gold Medal Bread flour.  King Arthur and Pillsbury Bread Flour are also good, but I find Gold Medal to be an excellent value that makes a very tasty loaf.  I substitute part of that for rye flour if I want to make rye.  I would also substitute a part if I wanted to make a bread with a more wheaty character.  I substitute only a portion of the bread flour for whole wheat because it is difficult to make a decent loaf out of pure whole wheat, and what you are likely to get looks a lot like the loaf Gardenserf made.  Such bread tastes good, but it is a very heavy.  Rye, barley, millet, and other grains do not produce gluten, so are not suitable for bread making, except as additives for flavor.  I substitute part of the bread flour with all purpose flour if I want a softer loaf.  The only difference between all purpose and bread flour is the mix of wheats used in them, with the bread flour having a higher portion of high gluten wheats.

Now there, you probably know more about flour than you ever wanted to know.

Obama's status as a Christian

David Limbaugh wrote an article in the Washington Examiner Friday that attempts to answer the question Is Obama a Christian?. You'll have to read the whole thing to find out what Limbaugh believes. But you can be sure, if you are familiar with his work, that he is, shall we say, skeptical.

In some ways, Obama exhibits a worldview that more closely resembles a secularist than it does either a Muslim or a Christian, especially in his views on social issues. Also, he seems to place a great deal of confidence in himself and in government to bring about transformational change.

That fits with what I said about his religion:

Personally, I don't really think he is a Muslim, but I surely don't think he is a Christian either. I think that his god is himself, and that he is trying his best to make our god (is) the State. I say he is not Christian because too many of the policies favored by him do not line up with what the Bible teaches.

FWIW, I don't think the guy recognizes a power higher than himself.

Sunday Morning Thoughts

James Lewis has an interesting think piece today on Fascism as Sadism at the American Thinker. A quote or two to give you a feel for the piece:

In his book Liberal Fascism Jonah Goldberg defines "fascism" as an economic and political system. There's nothing wrong with that, but it misses a vital truth about Mussolini, Hitler and Tojo, Saddam Hussein and Ahmadinejad: The political use of sadism to recruit millions of followers in a campaign of pleasurable punishment against a scapegoated person or group. Read about the Japanese rape of Nanking, if you can stand it, and you'll see thousands of literal rapes as well as sadistic torture and killing of Chinese people by Japanese soldiers as a matter of policy and for psychological satisfaction.

Goldberg is under no illusion that such regimes always turn on their own people, and that mass murder always follows. But in writing his book, he had to take a scholarly approach to the subject to simply be taken seriously. There is something deep in human nature that wants to believe in the existence of philosopher kings. They want to believe it so badly, that when told that such people do not exist, the react like children when told that Santa Claus is a myth.

Huge chunks of our history have been lost, glossed over, or outright revised.  The history channel, for instance, concentrates on the war, the tactics and strategy, the soldiers and generals, but doesn't pay much attention to the politics at home leading up to WWII.  In the 1930s, Mussolini in particular, and Hitler to a lesser extent were lionized by our media.  Just as today, Thomas Friedman wishes to have a government more like China's, so too our media then longed for a strong dictator who would make the trains run on time.  Mussolini had the reputation of making the trains run on time, but press at the time glossed over his treatment of dissidents.  Because Mussolini's victims were not an identifiably "different" group of people as were the Jews, he seems to get a pass.  But Mussolini was a ruthless dictator, and the Italian people were glad to get rid of him.

Many see something of the same pattern happening today, when criticism of the policies of The One are shouted down or dismissed as racism or hatred.  But when, for instance, polls show that 80% of people are happy with their health insurance plan, calling opposition to ObamaCare racism defies logic and reason.  Remember that the same health care plan was shot down when it was billed as HilaryCare.  Oh that's right, then it was sexism.

Today the Marxist, Communists, Fascists, Socialists, collectivists bill themselves as "Progressives."  But what the Progressives want is not progress, and if they named themselves truthfully, it would be "Regressive."  They want to regress us back to the time when we were ruled by the strongest thug.  Such men always sold the people a mess of pottage in return for their liberties.  As the ancient Hebrews asked God for a king to lead them, so today some would place their trust in mere men.  As the Hebrews discovered to their horror, men can not deliver on their promises.  We must rely on God alone.

Which brings us to our own self defense, both individually and as a nation:

In civilized societies armed force is always used with the greatest self-discipline possible. That is a defining feature of civilized societies compared to all the others. Self-discipline in the use of force is not a reflection of cowardice, like so much of the left's vaunted pacifism. Self-discipline is an aspect of courage and civilized purpose.

A Federal Constitutional Republic like ours, founded on the providence of God, will always be seen as the enemy to the dictators of other lands that rely on men. We need to be ready to defend it at all times, just as the modern Israelites need to be ready to defend Israel at all times.  We must never be ashamed of our defense, but must constantly guard against using our arms to wage aggressive wars.  "With malice toward none, and charity for all" must be our byword.  As such, we must consciously maintain our arms, and our facility with arms, not for war, but to avoid war.  Even a Progressive occasionally gets it right.  Teddy Roosevelt famously said "Walk softly, and carry a big stick."

I carry a gun most places I go.  I carry it for defense of myself and my family.  I carry a gun because I can.  I carry a gun as a citizen performing civic duty.  Do I expect trouble?  No, and if I did, I would avoid going to that place.  I pray to God that I will never have to use it.  I also pray that I will never have to use my automobile insurance.  Mike Vanderboegh has a post over at  Sipsey Street Irregulars that provides a history lesson for those who want to initiate a civil war.  Mr. V calls such people simpletons.  Perhaps.  But I think they are Leftist agents, attempting to get the three percent riled up.  Remember what I said earlier?  I pray to God that we don't have to go to war.  Mike's response was excellent, but Mike did not begin to touch on what is available to us.  In addition to acts of resistance, which can be performed by individuals, the States themselves are moving to reassert their sovereignty over that of the Fed.  But mostly what each of us has to do is recognize that we are moral actors, responsible to our Creator for our actions.    

May the peace of God be with you.

You might be a liberal if....

Stormbringer has this bit of humor. Thanks to Theo Sparks for highlighting it. As the commenter says, it spot on describes the what we on the right see every day. If we appear to them as racist, jingoistic, war mongering, knuckle dragging haters, they appear to us to be raging children who refuse to grow up and use logic.  Still, for a little chuckle, read the whole thing.

The god of Obama

C. Edmund Wright had an article several days ago at the American Thinker that is both funny, and tragic at the same time, entitled He's Not a Muslim ("Not That There's Anything Wrong with That")!. Go read the whole thing. The piece starts like this:

With two major polls out this week showing that many millions of Americans think the president is Muslim, the Jurassic media's panicked reaction can be characterized only as hilariously Seinfeld-esque. And by Seinfeld-esque, I refer to the famous episode where Jerry and George are mistaken for a gay couple -- a charge they recoil from in horror while repeating the line, "Not that there's anything wrong with that."

I think we all get the implication. And we have all heard the media shouting this week that Obama is not a Muslim -- not that there's anything wrong with that, of course.

Pamella Geller made the case that he himself claimed to be a Muslim in hiding here. She then proceeded to make the case that on a number of issues, Obama has taken stances consistent with being a Muslim. If it quacks like a duck, looks like a duck, and all that, what should a rational person conclude?

Personally, I don't really think he is a Muslim, but I surely don't think he is a Christian either.  I think that his god is himself, and that he is trying his best to make our god the State.  I say he is not Christian because too many of the policies favored by him do not line up with what the Bible teaches.

Take for example, his many attempts to "redistribute the wealth."  It all sounds good, doesn't it?  After all, Jesus said that it would be easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven.  Therefore, if we take (steal really) that rich man's money, we will be saving his soul, right?  That's how it is justified, or if not, then its that the rich man stole the wealth from the common man.  Except he didn't.  Not without the help and the collusion of the very government that voters now expect to make things right.  The fact that Bill Gates is worth a kings ransom doesn't hurt me in any way, and if I get the government to take away his money, it will not make me one cent richer.  People usually stop quoting right there, where the rich man can not enter heaven, because they want to get those who have to share.  They imply that a poor man is somehow more noble.  But Jesus doesn't say that.  Having money, and therefor having the means is what enabled the good Samaritan to be the good Samaritan.  Ponder on that!

Take as another example his attitude toward abortion.  He has advocated, while a State Senator for killing, by neglect those children who might be born alive despite the efforts to kill them in the womb.  Most of us would call such a child a miracle, and suspect that God had great things planned for him.  Abortion is always homicide.  Rarely it can be seen as self defense, when carrying the child to term is literally killing the mother.  A case could also be made for women who were raped.  Beyond that, abortion is murder.  All three Abrahamic faiths enjoin us not to murder.  So how could The One advocate for murder?

Recall that during his campaign, he uttered the line "We are the ones we've been waiting for."  The line doesn't make logical sense.  Why in the world would you be waiting on yourself?  But if the god of Obama is himself, and if the god of his followers is the State, then the line at least has a little more coherence.

Update:  Today Mr. Wright has yet another great article at the American Thinker entitled Let Me Translate: We Don't Believe Him-Or You. A little taste:

We know Jeremiah Wright rejects America's Founding principles -- which are consistent with what we call Christianity -- and many of us believe our founding principles were Divinely inspired. Moreover, we know that Obama is on board with Wright on this -- at least to the point of claiming that our Constitution is flawed in how it grants individual rights and liberty. We happen to think that rights Obama wants to curtail come from our Creator.

We know Obama has appointed proud and unabashed Marxists into his government. We happen to know that Marxism is by definition anti-Christian. We know he has confiscated wealth of others to redistribute to his union thug friends under false pretenses. We know he turned his back on Iranian protestors in lieu of an Islamic regime. We know he publicly defers to folks like Chavez and Saudi royalty more than he does Texas and Arkansas governors. On and on we could go here.

So what is so blamed obvious?

What is left unsaid in Wright's article is that the media has a "social justice" understanding of Christianity. But "social justice" is nowhere in the gospels. What the gospels do talk about, quite a lot, is God's infinite loving grace, and our proper response to that. Remember the first commandment-Love God, and if you love God, you will also love your neighbor and do right by him. That is the justice of the gospels.

Something Different

How about something different?  Something totally out of the character of this blog?

Today and tomorrow I will be making bread.  And not just any bread, but sourdough bread.  Bread is a staple, but home made bread is also a comfort food for both Mrs. PolyKahr and myself.  She loves it hot out of the oven, as do I.  Of course, I can't indulge my fondness of bread too often or I'll get fatter than I already am.  But my grand daughter likes it, and likes helping me make it, so I do so maybe once a month.  I like baking bread, I like kneading the dough, the miracle of it rising, getting a real oven lift, and watching as people enjoy it.

I got the sourdough starter here (note to Internet spies, I have not benefited in any way from King Arthur Flour. The only relationship we have ever had was as a customer and vendor.) It is advertised to have been descended from a starter at least 200 years old. In any case, it works very well in my kitchen.  If you have ever made beer, you know how clean and sanitized everything needs to be, and if you have made enough, you know that even that doesn't always keep your product from becoming infected.  Sourdough, on the other hand, is fairly bulletproof.  Sourdough consists of a culture of wild yeasts and lactobacillus that in tandem pretty much excludes anything else getting into it.  I have kept mine, which I call Fred, going for two years now.

This time of year, when it is really hot outside, sourdough bread tends to rise quickly.  I have air conditioning, but naturally we keep it on the warm side to save money.  Even so, what takes several hours at 65 degrees in the winter can take as little as 45 minutes in the summer at 80 degrees.  Indeed, since the flavor of the bread is affected by how much time it spends in the various risings, it becomes a challenge to slow it down, or speed it up according to the temperature and humidity on any given day.  The net result is that no two sourdough breads are the same, even if made in the same kitchen, by the same person using the same starter.  It's like wine that way.

I have been working on my classic sourdough bread for two years now, and I am getting pretty good at making a reliable loaf.  My first loaves were misshapen, and cutting the slit down the top was a hit or miss thing.  Getting the crust to have that nice brown look also took some figuring out.  But, I have mastered these skills, to an extent.  My next challenge is to make ciabatta.  In order to make it, I want to acquire a sturdy stand mixer with a bread hook attachment, like this from Kitchenaid (note: I haven't had any relationship with Kitchenaid whatsoever.) Ciabatta dough is a sticky dough, to which one's first instinct is to add too much flour. The mixer with the bread hook on it allows kneading without adding additional flour, this making a nice, soft, slack dough.  One feature of ciabatta is that it has really large holes in the crumb.  Too much flour inhibits the making of those holes.  

Did Obama Tell Egyptian Foreign Minister "I am a Muslim"?

Pamella Geller over at Atlas Shrugs has a post up entitled "I Am a Muslim" Obama tells Egyptian Foreign Minister Gheit Islamic Coup on the White House making the case that Obama is in fact a crypto-Muslim. Go read the whole thing; it will take a while. I'll wait.

Surprise, surprise! In addition to being a Progressive/Marxist/Fascist/Socialist he is also a Muslim.  Well, well... One wonders if Obama thinks of himself as the next Calif?  In all seriousness, I think Ammadinnerjacket has the same idea.

The god of Islam-this so called Allah, is not the God that we Christians worship, and that we still hope our Jewish friends will one day come to know.  It is also not the God in whom we place our trust.  Our God desires that men and women come to have a relationship with him of our own free will.  He is the God who sent is Son, who was called Jesus, to us out of love for us, and we killed his Son.  Still, the Son of God had mercy on us, and still asks us to have a close relationship with him.  The Allah worshipers believe this makes Christians pagans.  They don't understand that God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is just one God, manifesting himself to us differently in different situations.  We pray to God, in the name of his Son.  They do not understand that our God can truly do anything, be everywhere at all times, is omnipotent.  To say that God is great is to sell Him short.  But to know God, one must know the Son.

On the other hand, this so called Allah partakes of none of that.  He demands submission, and like all tyrants, a failure to submit is punishable by death, preferably a horrible death.  Still, Muslims have a right to worship and pray to whom, and as they wish-so long as they obey our laws that are written in accordance with our Constitution.  They have not.  They have murdered 3,000 or our citizens on 9/11/2001, and many of their own in so called "honor killings."  These things, and others, make those who subscribe to the Muslim faith suspect.  We have a right to self defense, and our right to free association says we have the right to not allow more of these people to enter our country.  We shouldn't.

Now they want to build a Mosque 60 steps away from, and overlooking ground zero.  New York planners, and Councilmen have moved heaven and earth to make this Mosque happen.  They have ignored the name of the Mosque, the Cordoba House.  Meanwhile, the Greek Orthodox church, which was destroyed in the 9/11 attack, St. Nicholas, can't seem to be rebuilt.  You think there might be some hypocrisy going on there?  This is not about rights.  If this was about "rights" then the Anthony Martin's piece in the Conservative Examiner would all be a sad joke. But it is not. This Mosque is a trophy for Islam and its god Allah.  At the same time, Progressives/Marxist?Fascists attack Christianity at all levels. Why, if the Mosque about religious liberty? Do not Christians deserve similar consideration?  Christian Americans can not let this stand.

Meanwhile, the mask keeps coming off.  It turns out our President, who assured us he was a Christian, may actually be a Muslim, by his own words.  What other lies did he tell us during the campaign.  For those of you who are Obama supporters, when will enough be enough?  Or is there nothing that will turn you away from him?

Update:  If you've stayed with me this long, take a look at Eternity Road in this post by Mark Alger. No wonder the Left and Islam seem to get along so well.