More on flour...

The new stuff sucks.

No flavor.

I mean, the bag had more flavor.

Really.

The texture is OK, but this stuff tastes antiseptic. The yeast isn't as vigorous in the ferment. The rises are flatter in the proofing. The flavor is bland and uninteresting. And, the the crust has a greenish-brown tinge to it from all of the the artificial enrichments, bromates, vitamins, etc., that are added at the mill to cover what was lost to processing.

In short - it sucks.

Time to do another search on sources of flour in bulk. I may have to break down and order directly from a mill that stone grinds. I am not sure the budget will handle the costs, but it may be the only choice.

Making bread that is crappy and tasteless is a lot more pointless than buying it at the store. I mean, at least if you buy crappy bread, you haven't invested 6 or 8 hours in its creation. :(

On the bright side, the pizza dough recipe from below doesn't come out as bad as the bread does. Probably because the toppings mask the flavor and the texture is still passable. I am going to use the rest of this flour making pizza and start a new chef from scratch once I get new flour. The existing chef is now "All Trumps" and I need to purge the bread-making process of this crap.

Oh well, live and learn.

Peace,

Newbius

What if...

Quick question: If all of the really productive (high-wage-earning) people in the United States decided that they would rather work for minimum wage instead, sold their property, and stopped providing for anybody but themselves and their family, what would the politicians do?

What if the achievers in our society made the decision to stop carrying the weight of bad policy on their shoulders?

What if everybody decided that their own selfish interests were more important than the "greater good"?

What if...?

Since when did allowing me to keep 50% of what I earned become "patriotic"?

What if I want to keep it all? I mean, after all, didn't I earn it? If my productivity is now the right of Government to take at will, then I am no longer free but am merely a slave. I do not think that being only half a slave is any better. Government policymakers have decided that it is in THEIR best interests to keep me half enslaved and fully yoked to the engine of my own destruction.

What if I chose not to play any more? What if you did too? What if we all allowed it to collapse of its own weight and let the chips fall where they must?

Bad policy decisions made by unelected policymakers and then rubber-stamped by bought and paid-for congresspeople do not make me more obligated to provide for other people's mistakes. Unless I choose to accept the burden.

Our system of economics is supposed to be capitalistic in nature. Profits AND losses. Rewards AND risks. Winners AND losers. Ups AND downs. Creation AND destruction. No longer. Now it is just Master AND slave. The Master is government and their hand-picked friends with influence living on YOUR labor. You are the slave. Get used to it, unless you are willing to change it.

Call your representatives in Congress and make a difference.

Make time to read The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand.

Take control of your future.

Peace,

Newbius

Taking my own advice...

Too often I get so wrapped up in the events of the day that I forget to slow down and reflect on the good.

Despite all of the issues I go through with work and "stuff", I really am truly blessed. I have 3 wonderful kids, a lovely and talented wife, 4 really awesome cats...and a beagle.

We have a roof over our heads that doesn't leak. We have food and clothing. We have friends. We have each other. Whenever I forget, someone please remind me!

Time to decompress and curl up with a good book.

Peace,

Newbius

Flour

Thanks to finding a great book on baking (see last post), I have been playing around with baking artisan-style bread. So far the results have been mixed. Usually the problems are because of my own errors not because of the recipes.

I have been pretty happy with the Con-Agra "Kyrol" brand flour up to now, although it is not as absorbent as I would prefer. (In fact, I want to find a good source for some stone-ground organic flour but that is another blog altogether.) Anyway, since I was running out of flour I made a run to Costco to pick up another 25lb bag and they don't carry it any more. Not only that, but they do not have ANY unbleached, un-bromated, normal, high-gluten flour on the shelves.

I picked up the only other thing they have that is close...Gold Medal "All Trumps" high-gluten, bleached, bromated, enriched (and likely WAY over-processed) flour. I really hope it doesn't suck.

Since I began baking bread, I've noticed how important getting the basics right is. It is a wonderful metaphor for life. Do the little things right, the big ones will follow. Use good ingredients, get a better end-result. I've always known this when cooking. Baking just seems to reveal this in a more profound way. This is probably because there are fewer ingredients, and it is harder to cover an inferior one with more of something else.

So, to extrapolate the idea then, the more things in the recipe (or people in a group, etc.) the easier it is to cover a weakness. The fewer the items, the harder it is. As an individual then, my weaknesses and inferiorities are hardest of all to cover without help from something or someone greater than I.

Something to think about...

Peace,

Newbius

Salt

Recently while making bread (using Daniel Leader’s excellent book Bread Alone), I made an error which caused me to reflect on the nature of Salt. The error was a simple error. I had left it out of the recipe. But, the error illuminated some truths for me which I had allowed myself to forget.

Salt is one of the most common compounds found on earth. It is the formation of two elements which are very rare on Earth by themselves (Sodium and Chlorine). The nature of Salt is such that it changes everything it encounters in some fashion. When mixed with water, salt raises the boiling point and lowers the freezing point. It alters the density. It decreases buoyancy. Salt fundamentally alters the nature of water when they are mixed.

Salt is essential in cooking. Prepared food, properly seasoned with salt, has wonderful flavors. Salt brings out the very essence of foods and brightens the flavors to our senses. Used properly, you do not notice the salt at all. However, too much salt can ruin a meal very quickly, as can the absence of salt-which renders food bland, lifeless, and dull.

In the Book of Matthew (Mat 5:13), we are called as salt of the Earth. We are also warned against losing our saltiness lest we should be trampled by the World. An interesting metaphor if you think about it. If you understand the nature of salt, we are being called to be seasoning to the world, to bring flavor to it, to fundamentally change its very nature. If we are Salt, then too much “us”, too much personality or Ego will ruin that which we are trying to improve. Not enough of “us” and we lose our saltiness, our authenticity, our ability to season and alter the world around us and the world will change us instead.

A little salt is a very good thing. Be Salt. Season the world around you.

Peace,

Newbius.

Six degrees of separation

If you take the right path, you can get there from here. The key is in knowing who you are, because it starts with you.

You must know yourself before you can ask others to know you. When others know you, they can recommend you to the people that they know.

Connections...Forming on feelings of trust and understanding. Strengthening on bonds of joy and sorrow. Broken by betrayal and fear.

Be yourself. Be true to yourself. Put trust in who you are. You can be anybody you want to be, but you must be true, authentic, and have total integrity.

Everybody you meet is an opportunity to learn, to gain wisdom, to identify truth, to help you refine yourself. Reach out to others. Listen to what they say. Distill your essence further. Grow.

You are never more than six people away from anybody in the world...If you know who you are, and can find the right six.

More importantly: You are never more than one person away from God...If you know the right person.

Don't know Him yet? Ask for an introduction!

Peace,

Newbius

Double-Speak and Lies

Part 1 – Steal from the Rich and Give to the Poor
(WARNING: Political “Rants” ahead!)

DOUBLE-SPEAK
Language used to deceive, usually through concealment or misrepresentation of truth.
Source: http://www.merriam-webster.com/

LIE
Intransitive verb:
1 : to make an untrue statement with intent to deceive
2 : to create a false or misleading impression
Noun:
1a: An assertion of something known or believed by the speaker to be untrue with intent to deceive
1b: An untrue or inaccurate statement that may or may not be believed true by the speaker
2: Something that misleads or deceives
Source: http://www.merriam-webster.com/

By nature man is a political being. One of the things that set us apart from the beasts is our ability to speak in ideas, to rally others to our causes, and to consider the future beyond the next meal. In fact, our reasoning ability, our memory of history, and our ability to plan for the future sets us apart from all other species.

One of the other things that set us apart from the beasts is our ability to deceive. So today’s rant is about this ability. Specifically, our ability to use (misuse) language to cover our agenda and hide the truth from those we wish to rally to our causes, who might not otherwise support the true nature of our goal if it was stated baldly and plainly. Since I am conservative in nature, I am going to rant about those abuses of language by the Left, which they use to advance their Socialist agenda.

Below, and in the next few entries to come, are several examples of double-speak and lies that are espoused by the Left to further advance their causes, which are either intentional distortions of the truth; or outright lies. If this kind of thing offends you, go make some Pizza instead. There is a recipe in the archives.

So here goes…

“The rich aren’t paying their “fair share” of income taxes.” (Both double-speak and lie)

So, here is a perfect example of the type of class warfare used to try and rally the working men and women of America to vote for someone whose agenda is not in their best interests. A couple of facts for you to consider: “The Rich” is an ambiguous term that means whatever the speaker wants it to mean, depending on what public policy weapon he or she intends to use against them. By leaving the term ambiguous, the speaker can leave it to his/her audience to define it for themselves – and the definition never includes the audience (nobody thinks of themselves as Rich, even John Kerry). Promising tax cuts for the “Middle Class” without defining who is “middle class” and who is “rich” leaves all who fall for it open to subjugation by an ever-expanding political class and their enabling bureaucrats. This is a Marxist tactical maneuver designed to hide the true agenda. (For expansion on this, PLEASE read The Communist Manifesto.)

For my purposes here I will consider two types of “Rich”
Type One is the person who through good fortune, previous hard work, previous entrepreneurial success, or lucky parentage, is living on the interest and dividend income of their investments or trust funds. This is the type of person most often castigated as not paying their “Fair Share” of (income) taxes owing to the fact that they have no wage income. These people pay capital gains taxes on the sale of their investments and regular income tax on that portion of their savings that generates interest. These people should more accurately be called “Wealthy” since their means derives from the growth of their wealth almost exclusively. When speaking about tax policy, these people are used as the stalking horse (look it up) so that punishments (extra tax burden) can be perpetrated on the next group of “Rich” – the High Wage Earner.

Type Two-the High Wage Earner-is the person who, through either hard work, business success, entrepreneurial success, or good fortune, is working on a daily basis as a producing member of society but whose income is substantially above the median. These are the people whose income is targeted by the moochers in Washington DC, and who are represented to the average blue-collar Joe as not worthy of consideration while their income is being confiscated. The High Wage Earner is also the person whom everyone in America should aspire to be some day, because they are SUCCESSFUL.

A couple of facts: As of 2006, wage earners making more than $200,000 annually paid more than 53% of all Federal Income taxes collected (34% of total receipts including income and payroll taxes). Wage earners making more than $100,000 per year paid more than 80% of the Federal Income taxes collected (63% of total receipts including payroll taxes). Wage Earners making more than $50,000 per year paid almost 90% of the TOTAL wage and income taxes collected! (1)

I am not sure what your definition of “Middle Class” is, but I am sure it probably includes at least the lower end of the groups referenced above. If your definition of “Middle Class” is everybody making LESS THAN $50,000 per year, well I’ve got news for you. This group pays almost NO FEDERAL INCOME TAXES. Most of what they pay is Payroll Taxes (OASDI, FICA, Medicare, RRRA, Etc.). This group’s total tax liability was less than 12% of the total federal income and payroll tax receipts collected, almost all of this from the $30,000-$50,000 per year group

Tax Statistics By Group (2):
Top 1% (income >$364,656) paid 39.38% of all income tax collected in 2005.
Top 5% (income >$145,282) paid 59.67% of all income tax collected in 2005.
Top 10% (income >$103,911), paid 70.30% of all income tax collected in 2005.
Top 25% (income >$62,068) paid 85.99% of all income tax collected in 2005.
Here is the double-speak punch line: The second 25% (income > $30,880 but <$62,068, basically what everybody considers the “middle class”) paid only 10% of all income taxes collected in tax year 2005. This group represents one fourth of all tax filers (33,152,910 total returns) in America. To lower taxes on this group, you must shift the tax burden still higher to the more productive members of society, or flatten the tax burden so that the lower 50% of all taxpayers increase their share of the taxes paid. The fact is that 66,305,818 (the bottom 50% of all tax returns filed) had either a small amount of taxes paid, or had money “refunded” to them through EITC that they never paid in the first place. The Bottom 50% of all tax filers pay only 4% of the Federal tax burden.

Conclusion: The “Rich” (High Wage Earners) pay MORE than their “fair share” of taxes.

Opinion – If you continue to marginalize successful people, your economy-which depends on them-will eventually collapse. See France or pre-Thatcher Great Britain as examples of progressive socialism in action. They are great examples of the devastating effects of confiscatory taxation and Liberal social programs which stifle productivity and keep unemployment high.

“Increasing the Federal Minimum Wage helps workers” (Lie)

The Federal Minimum Wage was enacted in 1938 as part of the Fair Labor Standards Act. Prior to this in 1933, a minimum wage requirement was a part of the National Industrial Recovery Act, believed by some to have halted the employment recovery then in progress and prolonging the Depression.

Recent data (3) suggests that the seasonal unemployment increases nationwide are primarily in the 16-24 age group, a group composed of high school and college students working seasonal jobs. The most recent jump to 6.1% unemployment comes directly after the July 24, 2008 increase in the Federal Minimum Wage. (Side note: This analysis excludes recent significant non-seasonal job losses in Michigan attributed to the Auto Industry contraction and increases in tax levies on businesses.)

Increasing the minimum wage harms those workers most that it was designed to help. To quote a 1992 study from the National Center for Policy Analysis (4):

“Only 3.7 percent of hourly wage earners are paid the minimum wage and most of those are not poor.
A majority of minimum wage workers are either young persons living in non-poor families or a second or third earner in a household - not the primary breadwinner.
In 1992, only 198,500 of the nation's 4.7 million minimum wage earners were adult householders.
Only 1.2 percent of all minimum wage workers (about 58,600) were adult heads of households with less than $10,000 of income.
Supporters of a higher minimum wage also frequently imply that a large portion of minimum wage workers are single mothers for whom welfare is an alternative to work. However, this belief is also disproved by the facts.
Single parents, male and female, make up only 6.5 percent of the minimum wage workforce.
Only about half of them (155,900) of a total 311,600) work full time. The number of poor people earning the minimum wage is small in part because most poor people of working age are not working.
Only 9.2 percent of poor people of working age have full-time jobs.
About 60 percent do not work at all.
Thus the minimum wage increase proposed by President Clinton would do little to reduce poverty. Instead, it would cause real hardship for some low-income Americans, the very people it is designed to help. A large majority of scholarly studies demonstrate that increasing the federal minimum wage causes higher unemployment. Those who suffer are most likely to be teenagers, racial minorities and low-skilled workers.
Teenage unemployment rose sharply when the minimum wage was increased from $3.35 to $4.25 in 1990 and 1991.
Furthermore, the extent to which teenage unemployment exceeds that of the whole population tends to increase in direct proportion to increases in the minimum wage.
All the evidence shows that the job-killing impact of the minimum wage is worse for blacks than for whites.
Prior to the imposition of the minimum wage, the unemployment rates for blacks and whites were very similar.
Today, however, the unemployment rate for nonwhites is about twice the rate for whites, and changes in the unemployment rate for nonwhites closely parallels changes in the real minimum wage.
For example, the 1990 and 1991 increases in the minimum wage were accompanied by rising nonwhite unemployment, which reached a peak of 13.1 percent in June 1992.
The minimum wage reduces on-the-job training opportunities that allow low-skilled, low-income workers to rise up the job ladder out of poverty.
An increase in the minimum wage would also shock the labor market and might trigger a recession, especially since this is a time of economic uncertainty. In the past, increases in the minimum wage have triggered recessions or prolonged depressions. For example:
Evidence demonstrates a link between minimum wage increases and the recessions of 1990-91 and 1974-75.
A good case also could be made that both the 1979-80 economic downturn and the recession that began in late 1981 were exacerbated by minimum wage increases, but this link is less obvious because inflation and other factors were involved
A minimum wage requirement mandated by the National Industrial Recovery Act in 1933 halted an increase in employment, lengthening and deepening the Great Depression.”

Conclusion: The biggest beneficiaries of a Minimum Wage hike are the politicians who propose it. They get to appear to care about working people while knowingly putting them out of jobs. Business which are forced to comply with this hike react in rational ways, by either raising prices to cover their new expense basis, or by laying off marginal or entry-level workers in order to stay afloat. This has an extra benefit to the politicians, namely that they get to vilify the businesses and/or the President for "causing the unemployment". Give me a break!

Beware the politicians who promise you something that they cannot deliver. If a politician is looting one faction of the population in order to give you ill-gotten gain, run! YOU will be the next victim when those before you are used up, and those behind you will benefit from YOUR destruction.

Pax,

Newbius

1 Tax Data source is the US House Joint Committee on Taxation publication dated March 14, 2007: http://www.jct.gov/x-11-07.pdf, Page 7, Table 4;
2 Group Taxation statistics from the IRS, http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/06in01etr.xls
3 Labor statistics from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf
4 Quotes regarding the Minimum Wage are from the National Center for Policy Analysis, http://www.ncpa.org/studies/s190/s190.html