Facebook and the Trump Campaign

I recently wrote a blog about leaving Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, but after reading a CNN article titled, Here's how to delete Facebook (It won't help), I have a couple of comments to share about why I disagree with this article.

SOME HISTORY

Cambridge Analytica, a British consulting firm owned by: Alexander Nix (CEO), Robert Mercer,  Rebekah Mercer, AND Steve Bannon,  used data mining techniques in an effort to meddle with the 2016 electoral process. PLEASE NOTE THAT STEVE BANNON IS A KEY PLAYER HERE.

Bannon was Trump's Chief Strategist and Senior Counselor to the President.

Cambridge Analytica started in 2013 as an offshoot of the SCL Group, partly owned by Alexander Nix. Directly from the SCL website:

"SCL Group provides data, analytics and strategy to governments and military organizations worldwide. For over 25 years, we have conducted behavioral change programs in over 60 countries & have been formally recognized for our work in defense & social change."

From Wikipedia: Laurence Levy, a lawyer with the law firm Bracewell & Giuliani, advises Rebekah Mercer, Steve Bannon, and Alexander Nix on the legality of their company.

Giuliani was Trump's supporter while he was campaigning and he is currently the president's advisor and lawyer.

What a web! Steve Bannon was part owner of Cambridge Analytica and Giuliani, the president's personal lawyer, was aware of the inner workings of the SCL Group.

Buckwheat Bread Recipe - A Gordian Knot!

The Gordian Knot is a Greek legend associated with Alexander the Great. It is often used as a metaphor for an impossible problem that is solved easily by finding a loophole or thinking creatively hense "cutting the Gordian knot".

I have been looking left and right for a 100% buckwheat bread recipe. There are plenty of recipes out there, BUT the taste is questionable and they combine all purpose flour and/or off-the-shelf yeast. I think that you will need to make your own buckwheat starter yeast for this to work.

I will go shopping early tomorrow morning to buy buckwheat flour for this experiment of mine. As soon as I have any results, I will post them here.

Shiver me timbers! I'm nervous but excited.

Merry 2018 Christmas You Filthy Animal and Happy Chicken Stock Making

I got up at 6:00 am today, December 25th 2018, to call my Greek relatives, and by the time I finished making all of the calls, I couldn't go back to bed. So, if you asking "What is Evan cooking now?",  it is chicken stock. I created a similar post five years ago and that was very successful.

Shiver me timbers! Here is my very first youtube video.

I had purchased four chicken backs from Adams Fairacre Farms in Newburgh, NY, and a variety of vegetables.

Observational Comedy - Gallons to Liters Conversion

Observational comedy is a form of humor where the storyteller turns aspects of everyday life into comedy. Normally, the joke starts with "have you ever noticed" or "did you ever wonder why" and this is the premise of this post.

Please note that I don't have an agenda, other than a comedic one,  and I can't help it when I need to write about some sort of everyday mundane aspect of my life. Also, this post appears to deal with males and for this reason I will satisfy only about 50% of the population. Keep reading.

Writing this post is difficult because of the subject matter. I edited this post several times and I hope it doesn't turn you off while reading it, not to mention the difficulty I had taking the two pictures being used in this post, man it was very tricky. I waited several minutes before taking the pictures to make sure I was alone and it felt very strange, actually it felt like stealing. It would be terrible if someone saw me using my cellphone and taking these pictures. Oh my! Keep reading.

So, here are the two infamous pictures that I took. Yes, here they are, two pictures of a urinal from a public bathroom.

What made me look at this, I still don't know. But as I was standing there using this fixture, I could not help myself as my eyes were drawn to the upper left corner of the fixture. First is the name of the manufacturer, American Standard and that's fine and dandy. Under the company name, it states "3.8 Lpf / 1.0 gpf".

Lpf stands for "Liters per flush" and "gpf" stands for gallons per flush.

Trump's New Wall Design

WHAT'S WRONG WITH TRUMP!

Take a close look at this screenshot of his "new" favorite wall design.

What is very interesting is that this is a new design and not anything like the proposed ones. Keep reading.

We can use the car shown in the front of the wall and comparatively surmise that the wall is about 30 feet tall.

The United States of America is a country of immigrants. At the base of the Statue of Liberty it states, "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free". Now we build steel slats with pointy ends to kill those who try to seek refuge in the United States of America. The slats with the pointy tops have nothing to do with what the Statue of Liberty states.

Trump claims that this new wall is "beautiful" and "totally effective". How did he determine that the wall is totally effective? I am using the vehicle in front of the wall to determine that the space between the slats is wide enough for a skinny person or a child to get through. Here we go. It took me two minutes to find a way to get through the $5 Billion wall design! In terms of effectiveness, is he referring to the pointy tops of the slats? Which company created this new design? Was it designed by an engineering company or by a staff member of his? Knowing Trump anything is possible.

My Potato Tower Project

During the summer of 2018, I made an attempt to grow potatoes in 5 Gallon buckets. I had recently decided to garden seriously and after a little research, (the word "little" is a keyword here), I gathered some information about growing potatoes, bought a few buckets, haphazardly bought a few potatoes from a local garden center and I thought I was in great shape. Oops!

Online Resources

I found a GREAT resource on youtube that you should familiarize yourself with. If I made a post or video copying their information, it would be a waste of time and effort. Their videos, Hollis & Nancy's Homestead, are complete and VERY informative chock full of relevant information free of fluff. Specifically, Hollis created three videos that every wannabe potato grower should watch, HD How To Grow Potatoes In Containers (Part 1, 2, 3). I think the third video is the best one because it describes what I am trying to do. Kudos to Hollis and Nancy for taking time to create such complete, wonderful resources.

Well, when I bought my potatoes for the 5 Gallon buckets I thought that potatoes are just potatoes. You buy seed potatoes, bury them in the ground, water them, and then pick them. WRONG! You should watch Holli's videos to learn about potatoes.

Civil Rights Movement and Any Progress That Has Been Made

I was born and raised in Greece and came to the US the day before the Thanksgiving holiday in 1977. I was completely uneducated and uninformed in any civil rights matters. In Greece my education was consumed by learning ancient Greek, Latin, mathematics, science and Greek politics. Regarding any other matters, well, I was clueless. In Greece, young people between the ages of 17 and 24 can be categorized as: professional students, drunks, gamblers, ignorant, or rabid communists. I can safely say that was more ignorant than drunk.

Music has always been a big part of my life. I can only say that I love music of all types. Friends and relatives are stunned with my knowledge of hip hop/rap music and hip hop/rap artists. If you haven't heard songs by N.W.A. (Straight outta Compton, Express Yourself), well, you are are not doing yourself any favors. By the way, here is a message to the relative who stole my Snoop Dogg CD titled Doggystyle: RETURN IT!!! Another artist that I admire and respect is Nina Simone. There are several songs that she wrote and I like, but, her song Mississippi Goddam tops all of them.

Mississippi Goddamn was released in 1963 and was written in response to the murder of Medgar Evers in Mississippi and the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, AL, which killed four black children. Then Alabama's Governor George Wallace was a segregationist and during his 1963 inaugural address he had pledged "segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever". Oy!

Recent political events have stirred up such terrible feelings that forced me to write this post.

In Mississippi, since on November 6, 2018, senate candidates failed to capture a majority of the vote and they went to a November 27th runoff. Hyde-Smith ran against Mike Espy, a former Mississippi congressman and U.S. Secretary of Agriculture in Clinton's administration and she won. So far so good, because in every race always someone wins, but there is more to this story. Keep reading.

A U.S. Citizen's Prayer

This post is about the 45th president of the United States of America, Donald John Trump. He is the most controversial president you've ever had. According to a Washington Post article, just in the first 9 months of his presidency he averaged 5 falsehoods or misleading statements per day! Apparently, he worked hard on his presidency because in the seven weeks leading up the midterm elections, he averaged 30 per day! Way to go Donald! New York Times published an article on July 10, 2018, listing the names of people that Trump has insulted on Twitter, what an impressive list. Way to go Donald! Go to PolitiFact site to check on the president's truths, lies, and falsehoods.

The most astounding fact, though, is that he still has plenty of followers who think that he is doing a good job and believe that he needs to be left alone in order to do what he does best, make deals and save the United States of America. Oy vey!

But this post is of religious nature and I offer the following prayer.

Dear God,
forgive our president, Donald John Trump (Πάτερ άφες αυτοίς),
because he really doesn't know what he is doing, (ου γάρ οίδασι τί ποιούσι)
permit him to be truthful, honest and good for just one day,
and on that day may all people rejoice in harmony.

May this be your will.
Amen!

My Four Compost Bins

This year I have built several raised beds and also grew potatoes in 5-gallon plastic buckets. In the process I realized that not only you need lots of dirt, but you also need organically rich dirt. Right away I knew I needed to create a one-dimensional array of compost piles. I figured I needed at least three of them. 

We have a nice house built on about a 1/4 of an acre in Orange County, NY. We had a beautiful 100 year-old pin oak tree in the backyard that we had to cut it down because during a storm the root system was compromised and we were forced to cut it. A separate post will follow on that. We also have two dogwood trees, white and pink. We do have some leaves that we get every fall from each dogwood, but that's not enough for my raised beds. Unfortunately, nowadays the lawn mowers cut the grass very finely and that mulches the grass. Well, that doesn't help me with my predicament, the need for organic matter. 

We decided to build the compost piles at the end of the property that is NE. Composts require organic matter, and air. You can dump leaves and do nothing to them, just leave them there and a year later you will have beautiful dirt waiting for you. Of course you can add eggshells, vegetable clippings and coffee grounds, tea bags and maybe even mix it up a little and you will have even better results. 

Where do you get coffee grounds and tea bags? Really? Do I have to write about this? This is what I do. On the kitchen counter I have a plastic container (from takeout) and I add things that can be mulched. Then, the next morning I add them to the mulch pile. About every three weeks I turn the mulch using a pitch fork. If we have coffee, I add the used coffee grounds in the container. BUT, it really helps if you develop a relationship with a local coffee house, luncheonette in your neighborhood. In our village we have a bagel shop where I drop off a large aluminum pan and two plastic bags and a few days later I go and I pick up several pounds of used coffee grounds. Of course, remember that tipping is necessary and totally appropriate. 

We have a fence (mostly for the deer) and in the from of the fence we have planted several forsythia bushes and the compost areas would go in between the fence and the forsythias. 

Why Space Force is a Failure from the Get-Go

In simple terms, the U.S. Armed Forces are made up of the five armed service branches: Air Force, Army, Coast Guard, Marine Corps, and Navy.

The United States Space Force, USSF, is a proposed branch of the United States Armed Forces, which is intended to have control over military operations in outer space.

President Donald Trump first suggested a Space Force during a speech in March 2018: "We're doing a tremendous amount of work in space – I said, maybe we need a new force. We'll call it the Space Force."

In simple terms, I'm thinking about the effort needed to convert the Pentagon to a Hexagon. I would think they would have to demolish the existing building as well the surrounding buildings and then build a new hexagonal building.

I do have a proposal to make, though. They could build a pyramid in the middle of the existing pentagonal structure. In geometry, a pentagonal pyramid is a pyramid with a pentagonal base upon which are erected five triangular faces that meet at a point (the vertex). I think this will be the most efficient way to tackle the addition of the new force.

Another issue that needs to be resolved is the one that has to do with the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Wille the chief of the Space Force be included or will it go under the department of Homeland Security like the Coast Guard?

Who is the wizard that designed this laptop bag?

I know, I know, and please forgive me for posting this on a cooking blog but I I got to tell you, I need to vent somewhere.

Recently I realized that I was missing a variety of small objects: several pens and pencils, small notepads, post-it notes, and a few other miscellaneous objects. Usually I would realize these objects were missing after a trip somewhere with my laptop.

It didn't take me long to figure it out, though. IT WAS MY LAPTOP BAG!!!

This bag had a pocket that had two separate zippers, one on top and the other on the bottom. The bottom zipper was not closed 100% and that caused stuff to disappear. Who new!

I would get ready to go to a customer's office and I would get all ready with whatever I could possibly need: pens, pencils, post-it notes, etc. Then, I would arrive at the meeting location and almost always I would be missing something.

I searched and found out that the reason for the double zipper is that if you board a plane and place you laptop bag in an overhead bin, you would be able to access the contents of the pocket by unzipping the bottom zipper, thus not having to remove the bag from the bin.

Oy vey!

Needless to say, this laptop bag is not anywhere near me.

Kitchen Basics Unsalted Vegetable Stock

Ahhhhh, Kitchen Basics (parent company is McCormick), don't you love this brand?  Unsalted Vegetable Stock is one of the many products they sell . Now, when you go to the supermarket and see this product you would think that "unsalted" means NO SALT! Am I right or am I right?

But wait, there's more. 

Take a look at the ingredients listed below: carrot, mushroom, tomato, onion, celery, and several others. As a consumer shopping at a supermarket, I would think that this product is wholesome.

Goodbye Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn

A few months ago I went ahead and deleted my Facebook, including several popular pages I had created, Twitter, and LinkedIn accounts. I just couldn't read the crap that my Facebook friends were writing and sharing. I would see content that was clearly incorrect being shared by people that I thought were intelligent. Initially I tried to warn them by sending a private message and suggest that they should consider deleting their post because it contained false information. Most of them deleted the shared content almost immediately, but I just could not keep up with it.

I must admit, Facebook made it so easy to share information with your friends. I would create posts, go live, call relatives of mine from Greece, and so much more.

People, though, became too political and several times I witnessed heated exchanges of political nature take place. The major reason for leaving Facebook was was the lack of respect they showed regarding my privacy.

So, I deleted my account, removed the app from my phone and moved on with my life.

But, wait, there's more! Many of the unsolicited/spam calls I used to get STOPPED! I used to get three to six calls every day about a variety of business-type of products, especially loans, etc. Gone! Stopped! Hallelujah! Now, at the most, I receive one call per week. Isn't that special!

There was some level of collateral damage because I had created several Blogger posts that linked to my Facebook account. Ach! I had to delete those Blogger posts. Sorry! There were several recipes that I made by going live on Facebook. Gone forever!

Twitter and LinkedIn had to go too. Twitter is just a vile platform that allows people to say anything about anyone.

Free at last, Free at last, Thank God almighty I am free at last!