From Buckethead's secret stash of interweb goodness, this exciting home science project you can accomplish with only a minimal investment of time, skill, or kindness:
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The moon is a planet just like Earth, only deader.
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Although I'm a couple days late in posting it, just in time for Orthodox Christmas (which happens on the twelfth day of Christmas (this year December 6), which is widely held to be the day that the Three Wise Guys found the manger with the baby Jebus) comes the 73rd Carnival of the Recipes. It's fashioned in an Orthodox Christmas theme, and if you too are a lapsed Methodist with no experience with our Eastern bretheren, the linked carnival will be both appetizing and educational.
Piroshi!
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Loyal Reader EDog will be hearing from the Perfidian Coalition of Really Unpleasant and Evil Lawyers (P-CRUEL). He emails me with word that last week, President Bush signed into law a bill making it a felony to annoy anyone via the internets or e-mail. The nugget in question merely extends an older law against harassing telephone calls, but it was attached by my friend and yours Arlen Specter to the "Violence Against Women and Department of Justice Reauthorization Act," which hadda pass because, you know, it'd be terrible to vote against a bill that will stop all violence against women forever. And what Senator hates justice? (All of them, it turns out, as long as you frame the question appropriately.)
I'd love to see this enforced. I'm incensed on a regular basis by Powerline, Atrios, spammers, Instapundit, Emperor Misha, Kos, RedState, the New York Times, The Washington Times, mimes, and our own Buckethead, and they all must be stopped using the full weight of the long arm of the law. Which in this case looks more like a big swingin' wang.
So, thanks to Edog, whose email caught me at the low ebb of my blood sugar and was therefore, in fact, deeply annoying. Start stuffing cartons of Marlboros up your fundament, Edog. Them's currency where you're going.
[wik] I have to admit. I wrote this post for two reasons only: to rag on Edog a little, and for an excuse to use the word "wang," which I find inexplicably hilarious.
The truth of the matter is, naturally, far more modest than the linked column above will have you understand. The redoubtable (which means formidable, not "twice doubtable") Orin Kerr makes a strong case that the act in question doesn't do much we need to care about - "speech" is only restricted when it would contravene the First Amendment anyway. It seems like this was merely (merely, ha!) a move to make existing telephone harassment laws apply to the internet and especially to VoIP. The wild west is becoming more like a theme park by the day.
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The Ministry cordially extends its congratulations to Perfidious crony "NDR" of Rhine River, who has won an actual award for his weblog! In meatspace! From real people he met!
At the AHA meetings this year, a special panel on history-blogging named his series, "The Geographical Turn" the Best Series of Posts of 2005.
"The judges thought that, of the nominations, this was the best example of historical scholarship. It was a well-written, thoughtful and accessible essay about an important historiographical movement that may be unfamiliar to many non-specialist readers, while for academic historians it discussed a less familiar aspect of a well-known subject. As such, it represented an excellent example of the uses historians can make of blogs both to explore their ideas and to increase understanding of the past and of the discipline of history."
Damn straight. It's true that NDR is a stone badass (a self-deprecating, disarmingly modest and amicable stone-cold badass), and it is good to see him get a modicum of recognition for this.
Moreover, NDR and his lovely wife are expecting their first child. 2006 is looking like one fantastic year. Mazel tov and best wishes!
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Christian Fundies remain entirely confident in their assertions that the world has only been around a few thousand years, that it was "intelligently designed" recently, and that the end of the whole darn thing is just around the next corner anyway. One of the unemployed corners of my mind started looking for an explanation that could just bring us all together, let us all get along.
God seems to have gone to an awful lot of trouble to convince us that the world is billions of years old. There's all that "evidence" around, like rocks that are zillions of years old, sharks, monkeys that play checkers (but can't read bibles), and space junk like stars and whatever. But what if there are two universes? The first one has been around forever, like science and mathematics and logic tell us. The second one, this one, is a photocopy Of the first one, made just a couple of thousand years ago. Presto! No confusing lack of unity. It's not intelligent design. It's intelligent photocopying.
Just praise God that He wasn't a little drunk on that day, wearing stretchy pants, and in the mood for a little juvenile hijinks. Oh wait. Maybe that does explain the moon. Huh.
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It is not commonly known that owls have mouse breath.
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Brew #6
Hey, Porter! Porter
I loved the porter I made the last time, but it could be improved upon. For that one, I used Hallertau Mittelfreuh hops (the same as used in Sam Adams lager) and kept the profile very dry. That was really nice, but the hop nose actually only emerged after three months in the bottle after I had drunk all but two bottles.
So for this one I set out with the intention of making a slightly sweeter porter with a warmer hop profile. Then.
2 cans (6.6 lbs) John Bull pale liquid malt extract
3/4 lb 40L crystal malt
1/4 lb 60L crystal malt
1/4 lb chocolate malt
1/4 lb black patent malt
1 smack pack Wyeast 1028, British Ale yeast
1 oz Perle hops (6.7% AAU), bittering
1 oz Fuggles hops (4.2%), aroma
Made my starter wort for the smack pack on Wednesday, using a small jar of sterilized wort from EasyYeast. It was completely done fermenting and fully settled out in 18 hours flat, which was bad because I wasn't brewing until Saturday. So, we'll see from the start if this works.
Steeped grains for 1 hour at 160 degrees in 3/4 gallons water. Boiled 2.75 gallons water and sparged specialty grain bag in the larger volume of water. Added malt syurp. Added bittering hops.
At 50 minutes, added aroma hops.
Cooled the wort in ice bath plus a frozen soda bottle right in the wort. Took 15 minutes from 212 to 85 degrees. Sweet!
Pitched yeast at 67 degrees. The starter wort was a little warmer than that, since the room was so warm. They say ("they" say) that starter worts can sit for 1 or 2 days after fermentation. I'm pushing it on two fronts. Again, I hope I didn't shock or kill my yeast. If I did, I don't have a backup except for a pack of Windsor, which is really not appropriate for this beer. So, fingers crossed. I hope this will be a little maltier, just a tad heavier, and with the 1028 yeast and Fuggles, a little more warmth in the flavor and aroma. If it works; nummies.
[wik] Hey! It lives! I had to leave my fermenting bucket in the warm apartment overnight, but this afternoon it began bubbling. So that's nice. Looks like I'll be sharing the dining room with five gallons of nascent beer for the next week or so. I'll get the air mattress.
[alsø wik] ....aaand we're delicious! As of March 10, I've got a very nice and complex porter with a faint roasted edge, plenty of body and moderate sweetness, and the complicated spiciness of just enough Fuggles. I really like the Perle hops on the back end, too. They are sort of light and spicy, not at all cloying. Nice! Next time I could probably stand to add even more caramel malt, maybe something in the 90-120L range, and a pound of dry extract in order to make a bigger beer. What would be totally boss would be to use a few ounces of biscuit or Victory malt, if I can get away with steeping them. The bready flavor seems to be in vogue, and I do dig it. I love the London Ale Yeast with this one too. Adding more stuff to this beer will also differentiate this porter from my other one, which is drier, lighter, and uses Hallertau Mittelfreuh for flavor and aroma.
[alsø alsø wik] One thing that has emerged over time (now after about 4 months in the bottle) is a slightly too-strong burned flavor. If I back off next time on the black malt, back to 2 ounces, I think I could keep everything else pretty much the same and hit the mark perfectly. That's the ticket.
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One of the awful tragedies of history is that it's always in the past. I'm not being glib. Once it's gone, it's gone.
The Library of Congress has a remarkable exhibition now of color photographs taken in the World War II era of life in the United States. Go look. Here's the main page. It is a time we usually see in black and white, and no matter how good it looks, it is still black and white and therefore just a little too alien for us to perfectly connect with. I guarantee you that at least one of these images will change that.
I fear death and I loathe the perpetual lostness of the past. Sometimes it is a small miracle to through some means - a diary, a photo, a painting - to connect with another person, another time, that is perfectly comprehensible for being human, but enticingly alien as well.
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Like the atom, the flyswatter can be a force for great good or great evil.
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