Turning off the lights and refusing to answer the doorbell, might not work anymore.

This week's Facebook cautionary tale comes from the far off continent/country of Australia. An Australian court has ruled that Facebook can be used to serve legal documents. "What's this have to do with me?" you ask, "Australia is another country." Well, I would suspect that it's only a matter of time before there is a test case on the same issue in some state the U.S. The moral of the story is that if you've successfully been avoiding the process server thus far, you might want to make your profile unsearchable on Facebook. At the very lease, Facebook is a dream come true for skiptracers. If only Jennifer Connelly had a Facebook account in The House of Sand and Fog. Perhaps all of the horror could have been avoided.

On a related note, Canadian teenagers are just as moronic as American teenagers.

The torture discussion goes on.

An interesting discussion about waterboarding and the use of torture by U.S. interrogators here from Chris Matthews' show. I'm sure that nobody who knows me will be surprised to know that in general I side with Hitchens and Matthews on this issue. I find it illogical that conservatives will go on and on waxing poetic about the great democratic values of this country in one breath and in the next breath advocate actions by the U.S. that completely throw dirt on those values. The United States could have solved the Nazi problem after World War II by systematically wiping out all Germans from the face of the earth, but how would that make them a better alternative than the Nazi's? How do you convince people that certain behaviors. . .oh, say terrorism for example. . . are by their nature abhorent and evil, if you have no standard or threshold for your own behavior. I thought Matthews' argument regarding the torture of U.S. prisoners by Japanese Officers during WWII was pretty effective. If you claim that the United States is justified in commiting any act as long as it's in defense of the United States' security, then where does that argument stop? Isn't Russia justified in invading Georgia, because they say it's in defense of Russian security? Can the United States invade Mexico and and secure the border on both sides, because illegal border crossing is a threat to U.S. security?

I can't say that the way that Bush and Co. have conducted the war in Iraq and the so-called War on Terrorism and method's like waterboarding and extraordinary rendition are completely shocking. Anyone who knows anything about the U.S. history in Latin America (one example here, and another, and yet another) could never say they were completely shocked. However, I do think that in the past there was some understanding that the U.S. had to offer something more than military might and an attitude of "getting them before they get us" in order to convince the rest of the world that our side is the "right" side. Ideas like the Alliance for Progress and the Peace Corp, while arguably flawed (Don't even get me started on the Kennedy Doctrine), had a fundumental foundation in truth--that the philosophy and program of action offered by Communism was inherently attractive to oppressed people and that unless the U.S. offered ideals and programs that were more attractive, then the Cold War was lost. I haven't done a socialogical study or anything on this, but I think it's probably pretty safe to say that people who generally feel that they have some kind of say in their government and control over their daily existence, can feed their families and live in relative peace and security do not strap bombs to themselves and blow themselves up. These people are not born "crazy," conditions are making them "crazy." I don't know enough about Middle Eastern history to say for sure what those conditions or what the root cause of those conditions is, but I'm sure as heck sure that waterboarding, and Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo detainees and anything else along that line of thinking is not improving those conditions.

Going back to the video for one last point, I thought it was odd that neither Hitchens, nor Matthews made what I think is the most effective argument against torture. The bottom line is that intelligence obtained under torture is never going to be reliable. People who are tortured will admit to or say anything to make the torture stop. Which is one reason why evidence obtained through torture is inadmissible in court. How much time and resources do you end up dedicating to tracking down false "confessions?" During the Spanish Inquisition people admitted to consorting with the devil and practicing witchcraft in order to make the inquisitors stop. I'm pretty sure nobody would call that actionable intelligence today. (Except perhaps the type of people that try to get Harry Potter banned from libraries--but that's a whole other post.)

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I have my bread, now where are my roses?

Being unemployed does have some benefits, like having lots of time to try all those things you always wanted to try. For me, most of those things involve food. Today, I made bread from scratch. This Rustic Italian Bread was made from a recipe from the book Baking Illustrated by the Editors of Cook's Illustrated Magazine. The recipe was actually very simple, but it took a lot of time. You have to create a sponge starter with a small amount of yeast and flour and water the night before. Then, at least 8-27 hours later mix that starter in with the main dough made with more flour, water, yeast and a bit of salt. The starter is used so that less yeast is needed to make the bread and thus the bread has a less yeasty flavor. It also creates the nice spongy texture. Once the dough is mixed and kneaded, it has to raise for one hour, four separate times and then cooks for about 35 minutes. It's amazing how light and full of little air bubbles this dough is once it rises through all of it's phases. I am used to pizza dough which has a more dense texture, so this was something new for me. I'm fascinated that with such simple ingredients and some time, you wind up with this delicious bread. When you watch the dough rise like that, you can really see the the yeast is living organism. It was the ancient Egyptians who the first to figured out how to leaven bread. (I felt the need to look it up.) Nobody knows exactly how. The first time it was probably an accident. But once they figured it out, bread was made using a sourdough starter--a process that basically hasn't changed in making sour dough today. (If I had let my starter sponge sit for a couple of days until the yeast fermented, then I would have a sour dough starter.) Later, the Egyptians figured out how to use barm--the foam that collects at the top of liquor as it's brewing--to make dough rise as well. I believe this is still where commercial yeast comes from, but I could be wrong about that.

Was it worth all that time? Definitely. The bread came out perfectly and the whole apartment smelled like warm bread and now I have my bread for the week (if I can control myself and not eat it all at once) and it only cost me about a dollar's worth of supplies to make it. I'm guessing if I bought my flour in bulk--a 25 lb. bag instead of a 5 lb. bag--it would cost much less. The other benefit of making my own bread is being able to control what goes into it. I didn't use organic flour and yeast this time, but I'm pretty sure if I did, the cost of a loaf would come out to be less than buying pre-baked organic bread. I am lucky that I inherited one of those legendary Kitchenaid Stand Mixers. That fact made this adventure a whole lot easier. Actually the recipe, recommended using a stand mixer to knead the dough. If you have the means of obtaining one of these appliances and you bake on a regular basis, I highly recommend that you get one.

Let he who is without sin cast the first. . .

Is it wrong that the first thing I thought when I saw this video was, "Wow, President Bush has surprisingly quick reflexes?"



On a more serious note, this gentleman must have thought it very important to make this statement, given that there was no guarantee that the secret service wouldn't just shoot him. It wasn't exactly obvious that what he was throwing were shoes. It just makes me sad that people around the world hold our president and our country in such contempt. I sincerely hope that Obama will be able to change this image of America and the presidency.

Facebook Cautionary Tale of the Week:

If you are going to do something moronic at work that could get you fired, posting it on Facebook is probably a bad idea. What is it about teenagers today like these girls, that they not only do stupid things, but they go ahead and go the extra mile and create documentary evidence so they will have zero deniability when they are eventually caught.

KFC Moments 1 of 6
Originally uploaded by lancerlord

Any man who uses a toaster oven is ok with me. . .

There are tons of zucchinis in the farmer's market at Government Center. I might have to try this. So simple and yummy.

I Really Miss Living in East Boston. . .

and Fabulously Out There provides a perfect example why here.