November 2018 Archives

Thanksgiving Biscuits: The Secret to the South's Recipe - The Atlantic

"The one ingredient I took for granted had indeed been the key all along, says Robert Dixon Phillips, a retired professor of food science at the University of Georgia. To make a good biscuit, 'you want a flour made from a soft wheat,' he says. 'It has less gluten protein and the gluten is weaker, which allows the chemical leavening--the baking powder--to generate carbon dioxide and make it rise up in the oven.' It turns out that in most of the U.S., commonly available flours are made from hard wheats, which serve a different purpose. 'Hard wheats are higher in gluten protein, and when they're turned into a dough, the dough is very strong and elastic and can trap carbon dioxide,' says Phillips. If you want to make bread, you want a hard wheat. Northern biscuits suck because they are made with bread flour."

Michael Behe's Darwin Devolves Topples Foundational Claim of Evolutionary Theory | Evolution News

Brian Miller reviews Michael Behe's latest book: "The evidence commonly cited to argue for evolution's ability to drive large-scale transformations is almost always circular. Biologists regularly identify similarities and differences between two groups and then assume those differences are the result of natural selection, mutations, and related processes. However, this conclusion is not based on any actual hard evidence. It is simply assumed. As Behe demonstrates, all empirical data point to the conclusion that evolution is only capable of producing minor alterations of existing designs but nothing truly novel. Evolutionists must now to an even greater extent disconnect their grand narratives from empirical data and confine them to the realm of their unrestrained imaginations. Anyone interested in knowing the truth about the design/evolution debate will find Darwin Devolves a must read."

A Northtown Thanksgiving: Forgotten Oklahomaâ„¢ Group

Joe Campbell remembers Thanksgiving 1955 on the north side of McAlester, featuring a decapitated turkey, a visit to a farm, and a tremendous family feast.

"Southeastern Oklahoma is one of the most beautiful places in the world in November. The summer heat is long gone. The oak trees are ablaze with bright red leaves, and the first dips of the old thermostat toward a frost have turned the countryside into glorious oranges, yellows, purples and browns. The cooler autumn winds that blow in from the north and create all the beauty also bring in the spirit of the Thanksgiving and Christmas seasons....

"For some reason dad got it in his head that we should have a live turkey for Thanksgiving dinner. He and mom had gone back and forth on the subject for a week. Dad wanted to give us three boys, who were 5,4, and 3 at the time what he thought to be a true Pilgrims Thanksgiving...."

Bright Megaphone | Urban Omnibus

Message dissemination via large-scale projection

"This sort of cat-and-mouse game with the authorities comes with the terrain of guerrilla projection. Our strategy for dealing with it is relatively straightforward. Never ask for permission beforehand, and stop when a police officer asks you to stop. There isn't much to be gained by getting into an argument with an officer over operative legal statutes.

"The most important piece of advice we would give to others trying to do this is to make sure to get the most critical content up and on the building as fast as possible, with a photographer in position to get the shot. Even in the diciest of situations you can usually get 30 seconds to a minute. If you're really prepared and have a plan, that 30 seconds is all that you'll need to capture the image you want."

Why the Left Is Consumed With Hate - Shelby Steele

Shelby Steele writes: "The left's unspoken terror is that racism is no longer menacing enough to support its own power. The great crisis for the left today--the source of its angst and hatefulness--is its own encroaching obsolescence. Today the left looks to be slowly dying from lack of racial menace."

How can Theresa May survive Brexit? | Standpoint

"In 1955, Paul Bloomfield published a book, Uncommon People, which begins: 'An Elizabethan country squire, a gentleman of some local prestige in the north of Leicestershire, married twice and had nine children. He died in 1606, three years after his great Queen. Much of the time since then descendants of his have managed -- occasionally they have bungled -- the affairs of England, and he, not Elizabeth I (who was unmarried and childless), was the ancestor of Elizabeth II. Sir Winston Churchill was the twelfth of our Prime Ministers -- out of the 43 who have held office since Walpole -- descended from him.' The squire was called Sir George Villiers, and the number of PMs descended from him is now reckoned to be 16 out of 54, with Cameron the most recent of these."

Session Management in Firefox Quantum? : firefox

The latest update to Firefox killed many useful extensions, including this full-featured session manager. Here's more information about what happened and what you can do about it.