Sojka's Call

"With (the penalty against marijuana consumption) merely being a citation, no one is paying any attention to it," said former Long Beach congressman and current California attorney general candidate Dan Lungren, expressing a common idea. "As long as we focus on sellers and not users, we're kidding ourselves. Unless we can do something about demand as well as supply, we will never make headway (in the war on drugs)." Dan Lungren is stating the same thing that Sojkas Call loyal reader, Keith, expressed in his response to the last blog. So, with there a general consensus among the citizenry and public officials that the current marijuana law is being ignored anyways, why is there any discussion against legalization of 1 ounce or less? Legalization of 1 ounce or less would reduce the demand for the illicit drug from organized crime sources since it could then be procured or grown legally. Doesn't that satisfy Mr. Lungren? Apparently not! In Berkeley, CA, Mr....

The state of CA has a qualified initiative that will place the question of whether to legalize 1 ounce or less of marijuana on the November ballot. The disinformation is already starting and look for entrenched money interests to spread that word. Who are the interested groups? The medical marijuana establishment is first to express dismay. Why? Their industry is based on the current scarcity through prohibition. And, they make money selling through the tightly controlled sales network the current dispensaries provide. They will be out of business in most cases, but, the nimble proprietors will transition since those are places of business already established for this purpose. The California Peace Officers Association is next with grave admonitions like “It’s not going to better society. It’s going to denigrate it.” Alcohol has its' downside along with the abuse of prescription drugs, but we don't hear the prognostications about what those are doing to a future society. ...

So, those long discussions about the meaning of life, the politics of defense spending, and Austrian economic theory might actually be making you happier. Hard to believe? Dr. Matthias Mehl, an assistant professor at the University of Arizona has been studying who is happier - the small-talk stater of the obvious, or, the deep-thinker who is engaged in meaningful discussions with their friends and colleagues. The implications are not so obvious at first glance. Could the reports of life dissatisfaction, for instance, after losing a job, be more about the loss of conversing about subjects that the participants have a deep and personal connection to? Maybe. The researchers recorded 79 people and thousands of their conversations over a four-day period. Participants were equipped with a digital recording device called Electronically Activated Recorder, or EAR, that sampled 30-second snippets every 12.5 minutes. The EAR captured not only conversations but also other ambient sounds as par...

In a discussion with some friends we started talking about spending and which Presidents, Party, and time periods had the most and least. One of the factors I thought important was to adjust the total Federal Spending for inflation. From the OMB the total outlay number was obtained. The CPI number was found on the Bureau of Labor Statistics website. Then it was easy to adjust the total outlay number and reduce or increase it based on the CPI. Remember the US experienced deflation back in the 1920's and 30's. The blue line is the inflation adjusted number and uses the right y scale. The purple line is the actual spending and uses the left y scale. A few things were surprising to me. The US really cut spending back dramatically at the end of WWII. There was no delay at all! Then using those same numbers, I took the amount of decrease/increase by President for their term. To be fair that number was divided by the number of years they were in office. These numbers were sur...

Here is part II with the results. The dough looked bubbly this morning and was very sticky. After rereading the recipe later I see the 15 minute rest after taking it out of the bowl got skipped. After shaping into a ball I let it rise for 2 hours. Then, baked it as recommended in the recipe with the lid on for 30 minutes except after about 7 minutes with the lid off I started to smell carbon and looked at the bread. It was starting to really brown so I took it out early. My oven always seems to cook things faster so that was not surprising. Here is the dough after sprinkling with cornmeal and getting ready for its' second rise (the 2 hour one). Here is the dutch oven I used. Over the years, I have not found much use for this so maybe it has found a calling. The bread after 30 minutes cooking with the lid on. It looked done to me at this point, but, I wanted to follow the recipe exactly the first time. Here are a couple pictures after I took the loaf o...

My neighbor has been making this bread and gave me some yesterday. It was fantastic! I started a batch tonight and will bake it tomorrow. The recipe is at this link. There is a video also of this on YouTube. I will update the blog tomorrow after baking a loaf.

Funny vid on the food we eat... What do you think? Do you like this kind of food? Do you eat this food?