I was channel surfing this evening, when I ran across a chef in New York making an authentic spaghetti carbonara. I've never wanted anything so badly in my life. Having already eaten dinner, self-control prevailed, and I settled for a pretty decent pear. This primal blend of pork, pasta, pepper, egg and cheese is truly one of life's great pleasures, and soul food of the highest order. Just in case you missed it, here's our version. Enjoy!

If you'd like to read the original post, and get the ingredients, follow this link.


Read More »

by Salman Hameed

I won't be in Islamabad, but here is your chance to attend a seminar organized by Rationalist Society of Pakistan and Khudi on February 21st:

Science, Rationality and ModernitySeminar, Islamabad, Pakistan (15:00 PST, 21st of Feb, 2013) 

The speakers are Dr. Mobarak Haider (Author Civilizational Narcissism aka Tehzeebi Nargasiyat) and Dr. Khalid Masood (Ex-Member Pakistan Ideological Council and Judge Shariat Court). The authors will speak on the history, advantages and the need of Rationality for Muslims for the advancement in Science and solution of contemporary problems in the context of modern world.

You can find more information about the event and about registration here. If you attend the event, write about it in the comments. And here is the poster for the event:

Read More »

by Salman Hameed

It is a topic that is finally being discusses more broadly in the US press. I usually find Chris Hayes a bit smug, but here is a good discussion from last week that includes couple of lawyers, an ACLU activist, and the filmmaker behind the new documentary, Dirty Wars: The World as a Battlefield. One of the interesting comments made in the discussion is that fact that legally, one cannot distinguish between US and non-US citizens when it comes to the access of due-process (in reality, of course, courts have made distinctions). Here is the full program:

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Read More »

We enjoy beekeeping so much. Every part of it is thoroughly enjoyable, even when I’m high atop a ladder carrying down a swarm from a tree barehanded. I’ve done about everything there is to do with bees and it really gets in your blood. It’s a hoot. We love bees.
Hi, thanks for stopping in on our website and learning more about beekeeping. Every where we go people will see the signs on our truck and ask me about bees. Most people tell me that they’ve always wanted to keep bees or that their dad or grandpa kept bees and now they’d like to keep bees too. It is amazing how many people are becoming beekeepers.
We are David and Sheri Burns and together, with many of our family members, we operate Long Lane Honey Bee Farms, a family beekeeping business dedicated to encourage, assist and educate others in the wonderful experience of keeping honeybees. We’re kind of like the Duck Dynasty people but without the beards, dynasty and ducks. We are the one stop beekeeping shop, providing classes, beekeeping supplies, and even the bees for those who are getting started in keeping honeybees. Perhaps you will be the next one to start.
Today, I want to share several important uses of a 5 frame nuc box. But before I do, let me share 3 things: 1) We have added a third basic beginners class on March 30th. We are also offering classes on March 9th and 23rd, but these classes only have a few openings, so we’ve added March 30th. These classes are all on Saturday from 9am – around 3:30 central time. They are held in our new beekeeping education center. It’s very comfortable and right here on the bee farm. Click here to read more about our beekeeping classes. Since there are many places to take beekeeping classes, we have detailed information as to what you’ll receive from taking one of our classes. Just click on Why Take Our Beekeeping Class
Secondly, we are offering $30 Off Our Completely Assembled & Painted Hive. Complete with screen bottom board, two deep hive bodies, 20 wooden deep frames and foundation, one super with 10 wooden super frames and foundation, inner cover and top cover, queen excluder and feeder! This offer is only good through midnight Sunday, February 17th, 2013.
Thirdly, we are only weeks away from the publication of our E-book on Beekeeping. It’s in its final editing and formatting stage. We are excited about this project and it has bee 5 years in the making. We will keep you posted on when this book will make is debut. This book is a collection of years of working with bees, research and 20 years of beekeeping experience. The book is around 300 pages long with very good pictures.

Lesson 133: Using A 5 Frame Nuc To Support A Hive

Today I want to share why it is helpful to own a 5 frame nuc. We use the word nuc because it is short for nucleus, which means a smaller part of a larger hive.  For years, I have been promoting the importance of using a small 5 frame nuc box as a smaller, support hive for a larger hive. So let me start here with the idea of using a small nuc to support a full size hive. How does this work? Here is an easy way to do it. From a full size hive remove 3 or 4 frames in the spring. Make sure you move frames over to the nuc that contain honey, pollen, brood and eggs. The nuc will raise a new queen from the frame of eggs. This will take about three weeks before you have a laying queen, so just be patient. If you move over 3 frames from your larger hive, use two new frames as this will allow the bees to build comb out on the new frames.
In three or four weeks, you’ll have a fully operational hive on five frames in your nuc box. The primary help offered by your nuc is that if something ever happens to the queen in your larger hive, you can move the queen from your nuc box into your queenless hive. You will, of course, need to place your nuc queen in a queen cage with a marshmallow covering the opening hole. This will allow the queenless, larger hive time to become familiar with the new queen while they are releasing her by consuming the marshmallow candy. Your nuc will be queenless only a short time because they will immediately start raising a new queen. The reason this is so valuable is because you’ll have access to replace your queen immediately once you discover your larger hive is queenless. And your queen will be a local queen from your area. Often it can take a week or two to order and receive a queen. Since a queen lays 1,000-3,000 eggs a day, the longer you wait for a queen, the less populated your hive becomes. If you wait 14 days for a queen, you will lose 21,000 future bees (1,500 eggs x 14 days). That is equal to two 3 lb packages of bees. $200 worth of bees.  This is especially important because many beekeepers fail to take their hive into winter with a good queen or even a queen at all. This causes the overwintering population of bees to be too low to keep warm, and the hive perishes in the winter with plenty of honey. They simply did not have the full count of bees to keep the hive warm, because of a queen issue. Click here to order our 5 frame nuc.
Another way a 5 frame nuc can be helpful is because it has frames of resources that at any time can be transferred over to a weaker hive. If a larger hive is running short of pollen or honey, a frame can be transferred from the nuc. Or if a weak hive needs a shot in the arm of brood, a frame of brood can be move over.
The 5 frame nucs can be placed anywhere even behind the support hive. In a good year, the smaller nuc must be inspected often. Since there are only 5 frames, you may have to pull out a frame of honey and share it with a weak hive or extract it and fill a couple of jars. Also,  it is fun inspecting the smaller nucs because there are only 5 frames which means it is easier to inspect with only 5 frames. In fact, I think learning to work bees on a 5 frame nuc is always a great way to start. You can use your 5 frame nuc to mentor potential beekeepers. We are often asked to speak at schools and we use a single frame observation hive to take to class. We always go to one of our nucs to pull a frame because with only 5 frames it is easier to find the frame the queen is on. A large hive has 20 brood frames and 10-30 honey frames.
It is also a good idea to have an empty 5 frame nuc available to take to capture a swarm or to move frames out of a hive that is so large it might swarm unless you make a split. Every beekeeper will benefit greatly from having a couple of 5 frame nucs ready to assist you in your beekeeping endeavors.
We use 5 frame nucs in our queen rearing operation. We are in full queen rearing operation by June and our field is sprinkled with hundreds of nuc boxes used as mating nucs and starter hives.
Now, I realize that someone might be thinking about using a 5 frame nuc as a hive all year. Here’s the challenge, it will grow and you’ll need to give them room to expand or they will swarm if they become congested. We do sell additional deep 5 frame boxes that are used to go above the bottom box.  Can you make this a hive? Yes, the challenge will only be that you’ll need to add three or four boxes and a 5 frame nuc is only 9” wide. Our standard Langstroth hive is 16 1/4” wide. So the nuc only has a 9 x 20” base and if you stack 5 boxes on top, it could blow over. You will have to find a way to keep the 5 frame hive secure against the wind if you choose to add 3 or 4 additional boxes on top. One option is to use a tie down strap and secure it to a pallet or use two large tent pegs in the ground to secure your strap to and carry it over the top of the 5 frame hive. Other than this challenge, 5 frame hives work fine.
We make our 5 frame nucs exactly as we make our hives. We have a real, screen bottom board, a real inner cover and a real top cover with metal. It is just like a large hive only with 1/2 the number of frames and only 9” wide. Our 5 frame nucs come complete with 5 wooden frames and foundation which is helpful to have as your nuc grows. Our nucs are fully painted and assembled ready to go. Click here to read our full product detail on our 5 frame nucs.
Before we leave you let me invite you to look at our special hive kits that are available. First,  we've listened to our customers and so many wanted a kit where they could come and pick up their hive and bees and equipment and take a class while they were here all at the same time, the same day. So here it is. May 4th is the date to come and pick it all up and take the class. However, you must order this kit in advance. 1 Completely assembled and painted hive consists of two deep hive bodies, 1 medium super, screen bottom board, inner cover, top cover, 10 wooden frames with super foundation, 20 wooden frames with brood foundation. 1 Equipment special, hat, veil, smoker and a hive tool. 1 3 lb package of bees with queen. A four hour bee class May 4th. To order or to find out more information, click here. We are calling this our Valentine Special. But we also have many other kits available with bees or without bees. Some of our kits do not include bees because people choose to find bee more locally. To see our full catalog of hives, CLICK HERE or go to: http://www.honeybeesonline.com/kitswo.html For a limited time we are offering our Freedom Kit with bees included. This was extremely popular last season. It comes with two hives, all the equipment like hat/veil/smoker/hive tool/book/smoker fuel/gloves/queen excluder etc. The reason two hives are better than one is if one hive becomes weak, you can share resources between hives. CLICK HERE to see more information on our Freedom Beekeeping Kit. Thanks for joining us today, and please feel free to read through all our lessons online or give us a call and we’ll be glad to answer any questions you might have. 217-427-2678 Visit us online at: www.honeybeesonline.com






Read More »

by Salman Hameed

Unless you are living under a rock (ha ha!), you probably have heard about the spectacular meteor that went through the Siberian skies earlier today. It is absolutely breathtaking to see the videos of the meteor. Initially I thought - oh it is just another fireball. But no - this is quite amazing! Here is one as an example (and you can find lot more at this NYT site):


So couple of thoughts. First of all, it is unfortunate that over a thousand people have been injured because of the damage (mostly shattered windows) caused by sonic boom. But if you have to get injured, how cool would it be to be injured by a meteor?

Second, what an amazing world we live in today. We often complain about lack of critical thinking and a lack of appreciation of science amongst general public. Yes - that is often a justifiable complaint. But look, it is so cool that much of the coverage and the discussion around it has been informed by astronomy. And this I this is very cool! If the same event had happened a few hundred years back, people would have attributed to divine causes and/or to premonition (plus, only a handful of people in Siberia would have actually known about it. A big thank you in this instant to our communications ability and globalization). And while some people will still come up with crazy ideas, the dominant narrative is about fact that this is a meteor and part of solar system. These rocks have crashed on Earth before and they will crash on Earth again. This is a natural part of living on a rock in a solar system.

And thirdly, an important question: why the heck are there so many cameras on the dashboard of Russian cars? Well the answer is actually quite funny and comes from a NYT blog:

Some of the numerous videos that quickly emerged of the incident highlighted a distinctly Russian phenomenon: the dashboard cam. As the blogger Marina Galperina explained last year, they are commonplace in Russia partly because of the dangerous driving conditions that lead to so many accidents, and with an unreliable police force such cameras can provide valuable evidence following a crash. 

"The conditions of Russian roads are perilous, with insane gridlock in cities and gigantic ditches, endless swamps and severe wintry emptiness on the backroads and highways. Then there are large, lawless areas you don’t just ride into, the police with a penchant for extortion and deeply frustrated drivers who want to smash your face. 

Psychopaths are abundant on Russian roads. You best not cut anyone off or undertake some other type of maneuver that might inconvenience the 200-pound, six-foot-five brawling children you see on YouTube hopping out of their SUVs with their dukes up. They will go ballistic in a snap, drive in front of you, brake suddenly, block you off, jump out and run towards your vehicle. Next thing you start getting punches in your face because your didn’t roll up your windows, or getting pulled out of the car and beaten because you didn’t lock the doors. 

These fights happen all the time and you can’t really press charges. Point to your broken nose or smashed windows all you want. The Russian courts don’t like verbal claims. They do, however, like to send people to jail for battery and property destruction if there’s definite video proof."

Read More »

As promised, here is the video recipe for the Orange Crème Anglaise recipe we featured in our Grand Marnier soufflé Valentine’s post. You’ll find it very similar to the written version we published beneath the aforementioned recipe, with a couple minor tweaks.

In that version I said to use medium-low heat, but it’s probably best to go for something a little closer to medium. I was erring on the side of safety, but it does take a while to come up to temperature, so don’t be afraid to crank the heat up a little if you’re feeling impatient. Unless you let this simmer, which you aren’t going to do, you shouldn’t really have a problem with scrambled eggs.

I also remembered I like to stir a teaspoon of Grand Marnier into the finished, cooled sauce for a little extra orange kick. Any time you heat a liqueur, the alcohol will evaporate, which does change the flavor. By adding a bit at the end, we get that wonderful orange cognac flavor in all its undiminished glory. I hope you give this easy, incredibly delicious, and versatile dessert sauce recipe a try soon. Enjoy!

Crème Anglaise Sauce:

(Makes about 1 cup)

1 cup heavy cream

1/3 cup white sugar

2 large egg yolks

1/4 tsp vanilla extract

1 tbsp Grand Marnier

Once sauce is cooled, add:

1 tsp freshly grated orange zest

1 tsp Grand Marnier, stirred into cold sauce

View the complete recipe

Read More »

My friends Daniel and Mirra from The Perennial Plate traveled through India recently, and just posted this great video featuring one of their favorite street food recipes, bhel puri. I’ve never had it, or even heard of it for that matter, but it looks and sounds amazing. I'm intrigued. Anyway, I just wanted to share the video, and see if any of you have had any experience with this dish. Enjoy! 


Read More »

Angels are celestial beings, who are not visible to ordinary mortals and thus belong to the category of ''unseen beings'', covered by the term 'ghaib'. Belief in angels in one of the cardinal articles of our faith and it forms the second ingredient thereof next only to faith in Allah (CF. Iman Mufassal, and 2:17 , 285; 4: 136).

Angels, Allah's creation; Their Limitation and Duties
Angels are one of Allah's creation and they are His honored servants (35:1; 37:150; 43:19; 21:26). They are not Allah's daughters. Angels have no knowledge save what Allah has taught them (2: 32. 33; 82: 12). They speak not before Allah speaks and the act in all things by His command (21: 27; 41:38) ; They do not grow weary and are not languid (21 :19, 20; 41: 38); nor are they proud (cf. 7: 206; 21: 19; 41: 38). They flinch not (from executing) the command they receive from Allah but do (precisely) what they are commanded (66: 6); they prostrated before Adam(A.S) when Allah commanded them to do so (2: 34; 7: 11; 15 :30 and several verses). Angels never fail in their duty (6: 61) Angels are the sinless beings.


Some of the angels have two (pairs of) wings, some three and some four (35:1). They range themselves in  :ranks and are strong in repelling (evil) (37:1 ,2): each of them has his appointed place -(37:164-166). Angels have various function and duties: they worship and glorify Allah and sing His praises and prostrate before Him (2:30 ; 4:172 ; 7:206 ; 13:13 ; 16:49 ; 39:75 ; 40:7). Angels act as Allah's messengers (35:1 ; 22:75); but they did not descend except by Allah's command (19:64). Angels were send by Allah to give tidings to Zakriya (3:39 ; 19:7) and to Maryam before whom the angel appeared in human form (3:42,45 ; 19:19-19). Angels also appeared in human form before Ibrahim to give him glad tidings of the birth of a son (11:69-76 ; 15:51-60 ; 29:31,32 : 51:24-30) and before Lut to warn him of the impending doom of his wicked people and o ask him to leave the towns that were going to be destroyed (11:77-83 ; 15:61-77 ; 29:33,34 ; 54:37). Angels came to Allah's chosen servants (prophets and apostles) with inspiration of His command (16:2 ; 40:15).

JIBRIL ; RUH-UL-QUDUS; RUH-UL-AMIN
The arch-angel, Jibril, (Ruh-ul-Qudus, Ruh-ul-Amin,) brought down Allah's revelation to the Holy Prophet's heart (2:97 ; 16:102 ; 26:192-195).

Angels strengthen the hearts of righteous believers and are their protectors (41:30,31). They implore forgiveness for the believers (40:7-9); but angels can offer no intercession except for those who are acceptable to Allah (21:28 ; 34:23 ; 53:26). Angels send blessing on the believers (33:43) and on the Holy Prophet (33:56).

RECORDING ANGELS: KIRAMAN KATIBIN
Angels record a man's deeds and words (10:21 ; 43:80 ; 45:28,29 ; 50:17,18 ; 28:10-12. Kiraman Katibin occurs in 82:11).

ANGEL OF DEATH
Angels take the souls of men on their death. Their taking the souls of unbelievers with violence and smiting their faces and backs are mentioned in some of the verses; also their taking the souls of believers gently. 'Malak-ul-Maut' is mentioned in 32:11.

At the battle of Badr angels strengthened the hearts of, and helped the, believers and cast terror into the hearts of the un-believers (8:9,10,12 ; 3:123,124).

As already mentioned, angels carried out Allah's command of the destruction of the wicked people of Lut.

Angels will accost the righteous believers on their entering heaven (13:23,24 ; 21:103).

Angels are also the guardians of hell fire (43:77 ; 39:71 ; 40:49,50 ; 66:6 ; 74:30,31).

MIKAL; ISRAFIL
The name of jibril and Mikal are mentioned in Quran, but not that of Israfil who will blow the trumpet-SUR-heralding the day of judgment.

Read More »

There’s an old Valentine’s Day saying that goes, “Candy is nicer, but liquor is quicker.” It’s really a lovely sentiment, but implies you have to choose one or the other. Hopefully this beautiful and delicious homemade cinnamon liqueur will prove that you can use both.

This is dead simple to make, and I was pleasantly surprised at how delicious it came out. As I mention in the video, the candy’s spicy cinnamon flavor and sweetness really mellows the burn of drinking straight 80-proof booze. This makes for some very smooth sipping, but at the same time demands at least a modicum of restraint.

I enjoyed mine neat, but imagine this would be great over ice, maybe with a splash of soda. I’m also wondering how it would be in a mug of hot cider, and by wondering, I mean obsessed with finding out. Stay tuned.

I’d like to extend a very special thanks to my friend, and fellow food blogger, Sean Timberlake. Sean publishes Hedonia and Punk Domestics, and he’s the one who turned me on to this brilliant elixir. His only request was that I use the knowledge for good, and not evil. Sorry, too late!

Anyway, giving edible gifts like chocolate is very traditional on Valentine’s Day, so why not a drinkable gift? And if you do decide to bottle some up, don’t forget your own customized warning label, as it will really show how much you care. I hope you and your Valentine give this a try soon. Enjoy!

Makes about 2 1/2 cups of “Red Hot” Liqueur 

1 cup Red Hots candy
2 cups cheap vodka

Read More »

by Salman Hameed

Next year will be the 450th birth anniversaries of Galileo and Shakespeare. Last week's New Yorker has a beautifully written piece by Adam Gopnik on Galileo that wonders what Shakespeare would have written about his contemporary. Actually he delegates that responsibility to Bertolt Brecht and his famous play, Galileo. The article is very good but it also reinforces couple of misperceptions.  For example, it uses the famous 19th century painting of a defiant Galileo above as the set-piece for the article. The problem is that from what is known, Galileo was a frail old man when he came up in front of the inquisition and he did not want to offend them. And the inquisition itself wanted a way out as well and struck a plea bargain with him that would have let him off with a slap on the wrist. It was the Pope - the former friend of Galileo - who overrode the plea agreement. This is not to say that the treatment of Galileo was not shoddy and unjust. But that it is always good to read an article that also gets smaller thing right. The painting more reflects the view of the Church in the 19th century than a depiction of Galileo in front of the inquisition. Gopnik also implies that Giordano Bruno was burnt at the stake because of belief in the plurality of the worlds. While Bruno did believe in the plurality of the worlds, and that was indeed considered heretical by the Church, there were also many more reasons for the Church to be angry about. It would be misleading to cherry-pick the reasons four centuries later (See this earlier post: Why was Giordano Bruno Burnt at the Stake?).

But these critiques aside, this is a fantastic and highly enjoyable article:

Although Galileo and Shakespeare were both born in 1564, just coming up on a shared four-hundred-and-fiftieth birthday, Shakespeare never wrote a play about his contemporary. (Wise man that he was, Shakespeare never wrote a play about anyone who was alive to protest.) The founder of modern science had to wait three hundred years, but when he got his play it was a good one: Bertolt Brecht’s “Galileo,” which is the most Shakespearean of modern history plays, the most vivid and densely ambivalent. It was produced with Charles Laughton in 1947, during Brecht’s Hollywood exile, and Brecht’s image of the scientist as a worldly sensualist and ironist is hard to beat, or forget. Brecht’s Galileo steals the idea for the telescope from the Dutch, flatters the Medici into giving him a sinecure, creates two new sciences from sheer smarts and gumption—and then, threatened by the Church with torture for holding the wrong views on man’s place in the universe, he collapses, recants, and lives on in a twilight of shame. 

It might be said that Brecht, who truckled to the House Un-American Activities Committee—“My activities . . . have always been purely literary activities of a strictly independent nature”—and then spent the next bit of his own life, post-Hollywood, accessorized to the Stalinist government of East Germany, was the last man in the world to be pointing a finger at someone for selling out honesty for comfort. But then the last man who ought to point that finger is always the one who does. Galileo’s shame, or apostasy, certainly shapes the origin myth of modern science, giving it not a martyr-hero but a turncoat, albeit one of genius. “Unhappy is the land that breeds no heroes,” his former apprentice says at the play’s climax to the master who has betrayed the Copernican faith. “No,” Galileo replies, “unhappy is the land that needs a hero.” It is a bitter valediction for the birth of the new learning. The myth that, once condemned, he muttered under his breath, about the earth, “But still, it moves,” provides small comfort for the persecuted, and is not one that Brecht adopted.

Interestingly, Gopnik sees a closer connection of Galileo with that of Michelangelo:

Although the twinship of Shakespeare and Galileo is one that we see retrospectively, another, even more auspicious twinning was noted and celebrated during Galileo’s lifetime: Galileo was born in Pisa on the day that Michelangelo died. In truth, it was probably about a week later, but the records were tweaked to make it seem so. The connection was real, and deep. Galileo spent his life as an engineer and astronomer, but his primary education was almost exclusively in what we would call the liberal arts: music, drawing, poetry, and rhetoric—the kind of thing that had made Michelangelo’s Florence the capital of culture in the previous hundred years. 

Galileo was afflicted with a cold and crazy mother—after he made his first telescope, she tried to bribe a servant to betray its secret so that she could sell it on the market!—and some of the chauvinism that flecks his life and his writing may have derived from weird-mom worries. He was, however, very close to his father, Vincenzo Galilei, a lute player and, more important, a musical theorist. Vincenzo wrote a book, startlingly similar in tone and style to the ones his son wrote later, ripping apart ancient Ptolemaic systems of lute tuning, as his son ripped apart Ptolemaic astronomy. Evidently, there were numerological prejudices in the ancient tuning that didn’t pass the test of the ear. The young Galileo took for granted the intellectual freedom conceded to Renaissance musicians. The Inquisition was all ears, but not at concerts. 

Part of Galileo’s genius was to transfer the spirit of the Italian Renaissance in the plastic arts to the mathematical and observational ones. He took the competitive, empirical drive with which Florentine painters had been looking at the world and used it to look at the night sky. The intellectual practices of doubting authority and trying out experiments happened on lutes and with tempera on gesso before they turned toward the stars. You had only to study the previous two centuries of Florentine drawing, from the rocky pillars of Masaccio to the twisting perfection of Michelangelo, to see how knowledge grew through a contest in observation. As the physicist and historian of science Mark Peterson points out, the young Galileo used his newly acquired skills as a geometer to lecture on the architecture of Hell as Dante had imagined it, grasping the hidden truth of “scaling up”: an Inferno that big couldn’t be built on classical engineering principles. But the painters and poets could look at the world, safely, through the lens of religious subjects; Galileo, looking through his lens, saw the religious non-subject. They looked at people and saw angels; he looked at the heavens, and didn’t.

And he gets back to the question of Brecht's hero towards the end, and I love the way Gopnik then connects it to science in general:

Could he, as Brecht might have wanted, have done otherwise, acted more heroically? Milton’s Galileo was a free man imprisoned by intolerance. What would Shakespeare’s Galileo have been, one wonders, had he ever written him? Well, in a sense, he had written him, as Falstaff, the man of appetite and wit who sees through the game of honor and fidelity. Galileo’s myth is not unlike the fat knight’s, the story of a medieval ethic of courage and honor supplanted by the modern one of cunning, wit, and self-knowledge. Martyrdom is the test of faith, but the test of truth is truth. Once the book was published, who cared what transparent lies you had to tell to save your life? The best reason we have to believe in miracles is the miracle that people are prepared to die for them. But the best reason that we have to believe in the moons of Jupiter is that no one has to be prepared to die for them in order for them to be real. 

So the scientist can shrug at the torturer and say, Any way you want me to tell it, I will. You’ve got the waterboard. The stars are still there. It may be no accident that so many of the great scientists really have followed Galileo, in ducking and avoiding the consequences of what they discovered. In the roster of genius, evasion of worldly responsibility seems practically a fixed theme. Newton escaped the world through nuttiness, Darwin through elaborate evasive courtesies and by farming out the politics to Huxley. Heisenberg’s uncertainty was political—he did nuclear-fission research for Hitler—as well as quantum-mechanical. Science demands heroic minds, but not heroic morals. It’s one of the things that make it move.

There is a lot more in the article. If interested in the subject, please read the full article here.

Read More »

رابط الحفظ

من هنا

Read More »

Presenting this gorgeous Grand Marnier soufflé to your Valentine at the end of a romantic dinner would certainly impress, but imagine actually making this while they watch.

What a golden opportunity to show off your cooking skills, and a flair for the dramatic; not to mention the countless innuendos and double entendres such a scene would afford. Afraid it won’t turn out, and you’ll completely embarrass yourself? Too bad! No guts, no glory, and by “glory” we mean…glory.

The good news is, contrary to popular belief, and many cartoons, soufflés are actually very easy to make. I hope after a few viewings of this video, and maybe a practice run or two, you’ll realize just how simple this really is. Of course, to make things a little exciting you can over-fill these like I did, which can cause some wild and unpredictably shaped soufflé tops.

I think they still look super cool, but if you stop filling a 1/4-inch from the top, they generally will rise a little straighter. Having said that, anyone who’d complain about the shape of a soufflé top has some serious issues, and should probably be asked to leave immediately.

By the way, I do have a Crème Anglaise video recipe in the works, but for now you’ll have to rely on the simple written recipe below. As I mention in the clip, this is an extremely impressive dessert “as is,” but when you pierce the top of that hot, steaming soufflé, and pour in the silky, sexy sauce…well, you saw the video. Let’s just say it’s a very nice touch.

Speaking of nice touches, if you’re still looking for that extra special Valentine’s Day dessert for your extra special Valentine, I hope you’ll put aside your fears and give this a go. You really should get lots of compliments. Enjoy!

Ingredients for 2 Grand Marnier Soufflés:

2 (8-oz) heat-proof ramekins, brushed inside with melted butter and coated with sugar.

Note: Mine were closer to 7-oz, which is why I overfilled them as you saw. This amount of batter should fill two 8-oz ramekins. Amounts may vary depending on volume of your eggs/meringue, so don’t be surprised if you have a little more or less.

2 large eggs, separated

1 tablespoon plus 2 teaspoons melted butter

1 tablespoon plus 2 teaspoons all-purpose flour

1/4 cup cold milk

1 teaspoon freshly grated orange zest

1 tablespoon Grand Marnier

1/8 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/4 cup white sugar

powdered sugar to garnish finished souffles

View the complete souffle recipe

Crème Anglaise Sauce:

(Makes about 1 cup)

1 cup heavy cream

1/3 cup white sugar

2 large egg yolks

1 tbsp Grand Marnier

1/4 tsp vanilla extract

Whisk everything together in a small, but heavy saucepan. Place over med-low heat, and cook, stirring constantly with a rubber spatula being scraped across bottom, until the mixture is hot, and thickens slightly. The mixture should not come to a simmer (but close). The temp should be around 180 degrees F. when it’s done. Remove from heat, strain to remove any over-cooked particles of egg, and let cool.  If you want, you can add some fresh orange zest to the sauce as it cools. Serve ice cold with hot soufflé.

View the complete sauce recipe

Read More »

Hello, we are David and Sheri Burns of Long Lane Honey Bee Farms. We have a passion for helping more people become beekeepers. The more beekeepers, the more honey bees. And the more honey bees the better assurance we have for adequate pollination of our food. In today’s lesson we’ll learn the importance of honey bees for pollination. But first: What People Ask Most About Beekeeping How many hives should I start with? We recommend two. If one weakens you can share resources between hives. How far a part should my hives be from each other? Bees will know their own individual hive so it really doesn't matter, but we recommend a minimum of 2 feet. Can I save money by using old, used equipment? Used equipment can potentially harbor bacterial spores from diseases for up to 80 years. We strongly recommend starting with new, clean equipment. For our complete list of frequently asked questions, like "Which direction should my hive face?", "How much honey will my hive produce?", "Which feeder is best?", "Should I start with a top bar hive or a traditional Langstroth hive?" Read our full article... Before we begin our lesson, we want to encourage you to consider starting to keep bees or expanding your current apiary. Of course, we would love to have your business. We realize you have many places to purchase your hives or bees, but when you purchase from us, you keep us in business so that we can answer your questions and provide valuable weekly beekeeping lessons. We’ve all been to conferences where popular speakers are flown in and vendors travel and sell us things. But a week later, when the speakers and vendors all fly home, who’s going to help answer your beekeeping questions? Here at Long Lane Honey Bee Farms when you call in, a beekeeper answers the phone to help you with your questions. We value your business. We won’t brush you off or just want to sell you something you don’t really need. Be sure to look through our complete online store for your beekeeping supplies. Some of you have a real interest in our business and family. So let me give you a quick photo rundown of who we are and what we do when we aren’t running the business. Then we’ll get into today’s lesson.     So as you can see we are a pretty average American family, working hard to make a living and still finding time to keep the faith, spend time with family and overall enjoy each day.
Here’s a few things you can do to support our business. 1. Consider sharing our website  www.honeybeesonline.com with some friends or relatives who may be interested in beekeeping. Have them check out our website or give us a call 217-427-2678. 2. Give us a chance to meet your beekeeping needs. We are very ‘proud of the hives that we make. We realize you can go with a large beekeeping company, but we think you’ll enjoy working with our family business. We’d love for you to call in and get to know our daughters Karee and Jennifer, my wife Sheri, or me. Occasionally when all phone lines are ringing you’ll have the privilege of speaking with Karee’s husband Jesse. I’m not sure how we ever ran the business before Jesse joined us. Jesse is alot of fun.
Your online orders or phone in orders energize us. We love hearing your stories as to why you want to keep bees. We are here to help you do it right. Thank you for your business.
I’ll be the keynote speaker this year at the Arkansas Beekeepers Association in Little Rock, March 1-2, 2013. Plan to join us at the UA Cooperative Extension Service auditorium at 2301 S. University Avenue in Little Rock. I’ve got 5 sessions I’m speaking on so it will be worth your time. Visit their website for more information: http://arbeekeepers.org/events.html
LESSON 132: Start Keeping Bees To Help With The Pollination Of Fruits And Vegetables
Proverbs 24:13 says, “Eat honey, my son, for it is good”. Where would we be without our honey bees? Honey bees pollinate foods that are so good for us. Honey bee pollination is essential for many important foods such as: Avocadoes, Mangoes, Kiwifruit, Watermelons, Squash, Cantaloupe, Cucumber, Apples, Blackberry, Raspberry, Plums, Peaches, Pears, Cherries, Almonds, Blueberries, and many others.
Proverbs 16:24 says, “Pleasant words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones”. We are rapidly learning of the medicinal value of honey. In addition to honey being good for us, honey bees pollinate most of our fruits and vegetables which leads to a healthy lifestyle. Our food choices without honey bees would be bland, boring and unhealthy. Even if you enjoy a greasy diner, you may not be able to order a cheeseburger because bees pollinate plants that cattle feed on. Without cattle we would have no cheese and no beef. Bees even pollinate coffee trees. Some coffee does not need bees such as Arabica coffee because it is a tetraploid, with 44 chromosomes, and is self-pollinating. Yet, bees do like pollinating coffee trees and honey bees increase coffee bean yields. So you can’t even have a cup of coffee without being thankful for bees.
The reason honey bees have such a valuable impact on pollination is because many crops are monocrops, such as almonds and there are not enough native pollinators to pollinate the thousands of acres of almond trees that need pollinated over a short time period. Native pollinators will fail to adequately pollinate a large crops. Honey bees, however, can be brought in and set in almond groves and apple orchards and fulfill the demand for pollination.
Some say that Albert Einstein said: “If the bee disappears from the surface of the Earth, man would have no more than four years left to live.” He did not actually say that. However, it is certainly true that the quality of life as we know it would certainly disappear without the pollination given by our honey bees. Honey bee pollination has an agricultural value of 15 billion dollars in the US.
What is seldom mentioned is that food that is good for us is growing in demand. And these foods require pollination. The concern is whether or not our pollinators can keep up with the demand. This is why Sheri and I have  made a commitment to help people to become beekeepers. The more beekeepers, the more bees, the more bees the more pollinators and the more fruit and vegetables we can enjoy.
Let me share a quick lesson about how honey bee pollination works. Apple trees, for example, must have honey bees. The fruity part of the apple is formed around the seeds in the center of the apple. Pollen grains transferred and carried by the honey bees help form the seeds and then the fruit forms around the seeds. Bees are attracted to the apple tree flower for nectar. But while they are gathering nectar, they are also gathering and transferring pollen. The apple tree’s male reproductive cells in the form of pollen are transferred to the female reproductive part of a flower known as the stigma. Most apples trees have to be cross pollinated.
An effective method of the pollination of apple trees is to provide adequate cross pollination of atleast two different varieties of the same type of tree. In apple orchards crabapples are often used. If pollination of an apple tree is poor, it will produce less apples to maturity, misshaped or smaller apples, or apples will drop prior to harvest.
Did you know that California requires one half of all hives in the US to be shipped out to pollinate their Almonds for a yearly $2.3 billion dollar crop? By the way, almonds are said to be good for us.
When we had our beginner’s class yesterday (Saturday in our new education center) several people mentioned to us that they simply want to start keeping bees to increase pollination in their area. One gentleman said he didn’t care if he got any honey or not, he just thinks we need more bees. That’s a great attitude.
Do you realize the pollination potential that one hive on your property would have in your area?  From your colony foragers would fly up to 3 miles to gather nectar and pollinate. That means a 3 mile radius around your house or alittle over 12,000 acres. Wow, your colony would have a huge pollination impact in your area. We just don’t see bees like we use to. When I was growing up back in the 60s in Memphis our back yard was full of bees on clover, even in the city. You can’t hardly find a bee out there any more. It is sad. But the good news is we have the power to do something about it. Maybe you’ve always wanted to keep bees and finally, you’re going to do it. Good for you.
We still have a hand full of openings in our March 9th and 23rd beginners classes. CLICK HERE for more information on our upcoming classes.
Before we leave  you let me invite you to look at our special hive kits that are available. Some are with bees included and some are without bees. Some of our kits do not include bees because people choose to find bee more locally. To see our full catalog of hives, CLICK HERE or go to: http://www.honeybeesonline.com/kitswo.html
Here’s the set up I would recommend and I’ll tell you why. For a limited time we are offering our Freedom Kit with bees included. This was extremely popular last season. It comes with two hives, all the equipment like hat/veil/smoker/hive tool/book/smoker fuel/gloves/queen excluder etc. The reason two hives are better than one is if one hive becomes weak, you can share resources between hives. CLICK HERE to see more information on our Freedom Beekeeping Kit.
Thanks for joining us today, and please feel free to read through all our lessons online or give us a call and we’ll be glad to answer any questions you might have. 217-427-2678
Visit us online at: www.honeybeesonline.com











Read More »

by Salman Hameed

There are only three counties left with active polio cases: Pakistan (58 cases last year), Afghanistan (37 cases) and Nigeria (121 cases). This is a disease that has no cure, but can only be prevented. But alas, it seems that it may be harder to eliminate it from theses last few countries. Last month, nine polio workers, mostly women, were killed in different cities in Pakistan. The effort is back on with increased security, but one of the security policemen was killed late last month.

Now comes the news that 9 female polio workers have been killed in northern Nigeria:

Nine female polio vaccinators have been killed in two shootings at health centres in northern Nigeria, police have told the BBC. 

In the first attack in Kano the polio vaccinators were shot dead by gunmen who drove up on a motor tricycle. 

Thirty minutes later gunmen targeted a clinic outside Kano city as the vaccinators prepared to start work. 

Some Nigerian Muslim leaders have previously opposed polio vaccinations, claiming they could cause infertility. 

On Thursday, a controversial Islamic cleric spoke out against the polio vaccination campaign, telling people that new cases of polio were caused by contaminated medicine.
Such opposition is a major reason why Nigeria is one of just three countries where polio is still endemic. 

But this is believed to be the first time polio vaccinators have been attacked in the country.

It is tragic for the children there and it is tragic for the workers. Especially, what have the workers done to die like that? It is suspected that Boko Haram is behind the attacks. The name of the group literally means "Western Education is Forbidden" in Hausa language. According to the Wikipedia entry on this group, they oppose man-made laws and modern science. There you have it. I have no idea, but I'm curious to know if they use any modern medicine at all - from drugs against malaria to simple antibiotics.

In any case, read this polio story here.

Read More »

Read More »

To read the content of this post, please click on the link below:
http://www.inspiremeasap.blogspot.com/2013/02/valentines-day-party-ideas.html
Read More »

Did birds that ate this bread have anything
to do with the problem? Of course not,
but I didn't have any related photos.

I’ve received a number of emails regarding problems with the search engine in the sidebar. All of a sudden it’s not returning all the correct results. I have no idea why, so I thought I’d see if any of your more technologically inclined readers may have a clue.

The search box is just the basic Google widget that comes standard with the Blogger template layout I’m using. I can’t switch over to WordPress or other platforms right now, so if that’s your suggestion, thanks, but we’re looking for solutions with the current layout.

By the way, the search box at the top left of the window in the black strip does work, but returns entire blog posts instead of detailed search results. If you have any ideas on a fix or replacement widget or code, please pass them along! Thanks!

Read More »

by Salman Hameed

Here are two short That Mitchell and Webb Look skits that are very funny and also promote critical thinking:

Aliens:



And Proof of No God:

Read More »

by Salman Hameed

On a day of Snowmageddon in Massachusetts, here are posts from two excellent websites. One talks about images of Arab women in a video game and the other of Muslim women in comic books.

Here is Tabsir on iOrientalism - Fooling Around with Arab Princesses:

The late Edward Said lamented the biased representation of the “Oriental” in his influential Orientalism, published 35 years ago. Most of the scholarly and voyeuristic tomes he critiqued are rarely read these days, although his intellectual nemesis Bernard Lewis is well represented in your local Barnes and Noble bookstore.
...
 The ugly ethnocentrism, racism and sexism that once could be found in the broad (far too broad) discourse labeled “Orientalism” is still quite evident, although moreso in the media, political punditry on the right and rantings of career Islamophobes than by serious scholars. But we are now in the digital age and iOrientalism is now propelled through Facebook, Twitter and Youtube via iphones, ipods and their technological clones. 

One Youtube video that recently appeared on a Youtube search that had nothing to do with the subject I was searching is a mock video-game fight between three hefty-bosomed and bursting-at-the-bra-straps Arab princesses and a swarthy Mike Tysonish evil guy. This appears to be a promo for Poser Pro Animation rather than a cultural statement per se. The three Arab princesses are so scantily clad that it is more the tile-glazed architecture and palm trees that orientalize than the costume or look. Of the three kung-fu trained ladies, one has red hair, one is a blond and the other is wearing what looks to me like the kind of aviator helmet worn by Amelia Earhart in the 1930s. The bully wears a leather waist band, but otherwise the shaft he was endowed with by nature is visible to the three princesses, but not to those of us viewing the video. Ironically, this parallels Said’s choice of the Gérôme’s painting that graced the cover of the original paperback of Orientalism: this features a naked boy with a snake wrapped around him and a group of grizzled Walnetto perverts staring at his organ, while we voyeuristic viewers can only see the glistening buttocks of the youth.

The “Arab princess” in the video is a makeout-makeover of the depiction of Yasmin in Disney’s Adaddin. Far from the damsel in distress, these three are damn dangerous out of dress. They not only can kick the ass who attacks them, they can knock him out cold. I suppose a preliminary look at the video could suggest that this is a feminist response to “Arab” patriarchy. As a demanding male, you should think twice before fooling around (or trying to fool around) with these three beauties. Any one of them could take you on and win. That is one message of the video. Of course, the fact that the three warrior princesses are almost naked, except for the military boots on two of them, makes this kind of “feminism” the wet dream variety of male porn addicts. As the video does not actually have a wardrobe malfunction, letting a nipple slip into view, it is pc in a formal sense. 

But let us not fool ourselves. This thoroughly sexist rendering of a so-called “Arab princess” is about the erotic manipulation of all female bodies. It is perhaps easier to accomplish this when there is also the background bias that these “Arab” women are usually veiled and compliant to male orders. But liberating women from veils, as odious as the notion of forcing a woman to cover up due to male inability to respect the natural beauty of the human body, in this video only frees them to be objects for male fantasy. 

And on the flip side, a burqa-clad super-heroine joins the world of Marvel comics. Well, it also ends up feeding many of the stereotypes of Muslim women. Here is an insightful article by Jahanzeb Dar on Islam and Science Fiction website: Female, Muslim and Mutant - Muslim Women in Comic Books:

Immediately, the gust of sand swirls into a tornado and swallows the leader’s hand and disarms him of his assault rifle. The sandstorm retracts while the Taliban leader screams and looks at his skeletal hand in horror. Finally, the Taliban rush to their jeeps and speed off from the town. The desert wind and sand transform to reveal the city’s invisible hero. 

Meet “Dust,” or Sooraya Qadir, a burqa-garbed adolescent Afghan girl who has the ability, as shown in the scene above, to shape into sandstorms and tear the skin off her enemies. She has been a member of Marvel Comic’s X-Men since her first appearance in 2002 and she currently appears regularly in the Young X-Men comic books. 

 

In the male-dominated world of comic books where female characters are depicted with large breasts and skimpy skin-tight (or lack of) clothing, it’s interesting to examine whether or not Dust and other Muslim super-heroines escape the sexual objectification and sexism that women often suffer in comic books. Are the Muslim women subjected to stereotypes? Are they doomed to the same fate of other female characters? Does the “male gaze” still apply?
...
Grant Morrison, the X-Men writer who created Dust, said in an interview, “It can only happen at Marvel. As Wolverine comes closer to unlocking the dark secrets of his past, an Afghan Muslim mutant joins the X-Men. You want daring? You want different? Then meet Dust as New X-Men challenges the rules again.” Though the word “awesome” may initially spring to mind when one reads this statement, it can be strongly argued that the male gaze is still in effect. 

For those who are unfamiliar with the terminology, the “male gaze” is essentially female characters being depicted and presented in ways their heterosexual male writers, artists, and audiences would like to see them. In the case of Dust, we can make an argument for the Western male gaze: an “oppressed” Muslim girl is rescued from Afghanistan by Wolverine, a Western male mutant. Wolverine is told that the Taliban were trying to remove Dust’s burqa, obviously to molest her, and since there don’t seem to be other Muslims around to take a stand against the Taliban’s perverted behavior, who better to rescue her than Wolverine, or rather, “Western democracy?” The scenario of Dust fighting the Taliban, as admirable as it is, occurs enough times in later issues that it makes one question if this is how Western male writers, artists, and readers want to see a Muslim super-heroine, i.e. to rebel against her oppressors, the mutual enemy of the U.S. government? 

To support this argument even further, there are many factors to consider, including political context. For example, Dust makes her first appearance in New X-Men # 133 which was published in December 2002, a little over a year after September 11th, 2001. In the issue prior to her debut (issue # 132), Morrison writes a tribute to the victims of Genosha, a fictional mutant homeland, where 16 million mutants were killed. 

There were two direct references to September 11th used in Marvel’s advertising of the comic book, calling the Genosha tragedy “the X-Men’s own 9/11.” The final page of the comic book shows the X-Men team crying at their loss. Next month, in issue # 133, we open to a full page of Wolverine slaughtering Taliban militants. Even worse, we see Pakistani terrorists hijacking an Air-India plane while Professor Xavier and Jean Grey are aboard. Xavier uses his psychic abilities to convince the Pakistani hijacker, whose name happens to be Muhammad, to put down his weapon and surrender to the Indian authorities. Muhammad begins to cry and as he is arrested, he says, “It’s true, I don’t know what I’m doing with my life!” Morrison takes revenge on Muslim extremists by (1) brutally slaughtering them (via Wolverine), (2) passively using mind tricks on them (via Xavier), and (3) rescuing an “oppressed” Afghan Muslim adolescent girl and taking her home (via Wolverine again)! 

Well, almost “home.” Wolverine carries Dust back to an X-Men headquarters in India (no X-Men headquarters in Muslim countries like Afghanistan and Pakistan, I take it), where Jean Grey invites Dust to reveal herself from concealment. “It’s ok, Sooraya,” Jean says, “You can turn back into human form now.” Finally, Dust appears in her black burqa saying “Toorab! Toorab!” Wolverine remarks, “It means ‘dust.’ It’s all she says.”
Wow, the Arabic word for dust, “toorab,” is all she says? Not only does Morrison introduce us to a super-powered Muslim girl, but also to somewhat of a doll that exclaims “Toorab! Toorab!” whenever she gets excited about transforming back into human form. 

Is it possible to imagine Wolverine’s conversation with her flying to India? “So kid, what’s your story?” 

“Toorab! Toorab!” 

Dust can be easily compared to the hooded Jawa creatures from “Star Wars” who live on the desert planet of Tatooine, always bustling around and saying the same things over and over again in their alien language. 

We not only see a political bias here, which in turn justifies the Western male gaze, but we also see a female Muslim character that doesn’t have much of a personality. In other words, Dust is a token character. Morrison doesn’t even return to her character after this issue; instead he hands her over to other writers, but perhaps for the better, since they make significant improvements. 

Male dependency is another element at work here. Although one could argue that Wolverine is practically an indestructible character with his adamantium skeleton and rapid healing factor, it’s hard to believe why Dust would need any rescuing, considering her superpowers and her human enemies. If she was being recruited, the situation would be different and we wouldn’t see any sign of male dependency, but since we see a man rescue her, we assume that Dust’s superpowers are inferior: she is not nearly as powerful as male characters like Wolverine. We have seen female characters rely on their male counterparts in comic books many times before: Super Girl, Bat Girl, Spider Girl, the Huntress, She Hulk, Lois Lane, and so on. 

Importantly, there is not a single positive Muslim male character in Dust’s debut issue. There are the Taliban militants that want to molest her, and there are the Pakistani hijackers, but the Muslim women, who Morrison couldn’t possibly kill off since they are “victims” in the Muslim world, are innocent, good, and “waiting to be saved” by Western men. The racism and sexism work hand-in-hand.

If you are interested in the topic, there is a lot more in the article. It also talks about images of women in Muslim superhero series The 99 and in AK Comics, an Egyptian-based comic company considered as the first large scale super-hero genre in the Middle East.

Read More »