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Maillard Reaction

Why do the brown bits of roasted vegetables always taste the best? or
What’s the point of getting a good sear on a steak? or
Why is it benefecial to smash potatoes and get a greater surface area for cooking them? or
Why does a fried egg taste different than a poached one?

…you get the same answer: It’s the Maillard reaction, stupid! 

Read this great food blog,

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Why ?

Why does this little girl suffer? Fear? Hatred ? Revenge?

Brig, Soren, Reidar..This girl suffers just like you, from a malevolent parent.

An Open Letter to the Alienating Mother of my Children

Lee Serpa AzevadoMar 13, 2018·5 min read

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So here we find ourselves. You living in the former matrimonial home with our three children. And I have not seen our children since July 2016. At time of writing that is now seventeen and a half months.

Between us I am estimating that we must have spent in excess of £28,000 in legal fees. On my part, the legal fees were to enable me to pursue contact through the courts in order to co-parent our children as successfully, as healthily and as appropriately as we can possibly manage between us. And I still continue to pursue this to this day.

Our children have a right to a healthy and loving relationship with their father. They had a healthy and loving relationship with me before we separated. That right should not be taken away from them just because we have parted.

On your part you have denied those children contact with me. You have in effect brainwashed them completely against me. Your alienating behaviours, if you continue in such a manner will have an incredibly long term detrimental effect on their relationship with me.

“What is it that drives these alienating behaviours of yours?”

There is a plethora of evidence that informs us that adults who endured parental alienation as children suffer low self-esteem, self-hatred, lack of trust and depression. They are also more likely to use illicit substances in an addictive manner. These studies also inform us that as young adults there is a high risk of them losing the capacity to give and accept love from trusted figures. Self-hatred is one of the most disturbing effects of parental alienation on the effected children. The children will almost always internalise the hatred targeted toward the alienated parent. This will result in them beginning to believe that the alienated parent did not want them or love them.

Whether you accept, understand or have even a little insight into the above mentioned consequences and risks to our very own children, the question I would like to ask you is what is it that drives these alienating behaviours of yours?

Fear

Is it fear? Are you fearful that by allowing me to be a part of our children’s lives, you will somehow have a lesser role as their mother. I can assure you, as I have on numerous occasions, you are their mother. You will always be their mother. No one is going to or is able to replace you. Just as they have a right to have a relationship with their father, they also have a right to a relationship with the mother. I would never deny you the right to be their mother. I do not seek full custody. If this is the reason, I can assure you, your fears are unfounded.

Anger or Hatred

Is it anger or hatred? Do you feel anger and hatred towards me, for me ending our relationship? Numerous studies inform us that anger and hatred can have long term, serious effects on the person projecting the hatred. A long term expression of hatred can result in feelings of exhaustion, sadness, chronic rage and in some cases depression and anxiety. Is this what you want for yourself. Is this what you want your future to be in terms of your own mental well being?

Revenge

Is it revenge? Is your aim to hurt me as a form of revenge for me ending the relationship? Revenge is arguably one of the deepest instincts we have. However revenge is counter-productive when such actions of revenge go to unfathomable extremes. The American academic psychologist K. Carlsmith undertook an experiment whereby a group investment game with college students was set up. The aim was that if all of the participants cooperated, all would benefit equally. However, if any one participant refused to invest his or her money, that person would benefit at the group’s expense.

Unknown to all other participants, there was ‘mole’ in each group who convinced the group members to invest equally. However when it came time to put up the money, the ‘mole’ didn’t go along with the agreed-upon plan. As such the result was that the ‘moles’ earned an average of $5.59, while the other players earned around only $2.51 each.

In terms of exploring further the concept of revenge, Carlsmith offered some of the groups the opportunity to financially punish their respective ‘moles’. Everyone that was offered the chance of revenge took Carlsmith up on his offer. All of these participants expressed an expectation to feel better after taking revenge on the ‘mole’.

The results were very interesting. Those participants who took revenge reported feeling worse than those who had not taken revenge. However they believed they would have felt worse if that hadn’t taken revenge.

The participants who were not offered the opportunity of revenge, expressed a belief that they would have felt better had they been offered the opportunity. However the results were that the group that hadn’t taken revenge were the happier group.

Carlsmith believes that the results of this experiment suggest that anger is increased by revenge due to ruminations. He claims that when people do not get revenge, they tend to minimise the event by telling themselves it wasn’t such a big deal, hence the reason why they did not take revenge. Carlsmith suggests that with this approach it is easier to forget and move on. However, as Carlsmith suggests, when people do get revenge, they are no longer able to minimise the event. In actual fact, Carlsmith claims, they ruminate on the event and as such make themselves feel worse.

So I put to you, the mother of my children. If it is revenge that drives your alienating behaviours, according to the above exploration of revenge, it is in actual fact harming yourself.

I have no issue with openly admitting the following to you. By denying me contact with our children and brainwashing them against me you are causing me incredible emotional pain. However I am much stronger than I could have ever imagined. I love our children more than I could have ever imagined.

The fabricated lies, the false allegations and the overall denigration of my character to anyone around you no longer bothers me. I now walk with my head held high. I will never give up on trying to be a part of our children’s lives.

So to conclude, lets assume, rightly or wrongly your actions are self centred and driven by your own needs. Try and think about the following if you can; whatever the reason or justification you believe makes it acceptable to you to deny those children a relationship with their father, is it ultimately worth the risks discussed above?

One day, whenever that may be, you will ultimately lose out. Your relationship with those children will be under pressure and fragile.

Not if, but when the children find out the truth, obviously such a truth will ultimately jeopardise your relationship with all of them.

And it won’t be because of you or I, it will be because of the truth.

The following quote is taken from the best-selling novel The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini “but better to get hurt by the truth than comforted with a lie.”

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Winston

Brig, Soren and Reidar,

Listen to Winston tell his story. He shares many experiences with you. You are not alone. Love Papa.

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paris absurdity

Can you detect the insanity of #feminism here?? Paris Mayor Hidalgo is completely the opposite of Winston Churchill, in basically every dimension. #bebrave, Love papa.

Paris mayor mocks ‘absurd’ fine for hiring too many women

Anne Hidalgo, Paris mayor
image captionAnne Hidalgo – “joy” at being fined

“Too feminist” – Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo’s mocking response after being told she had broken the law by naming too many women to senior posts.

Eleven women and five men had been promoted in 2018, breaching a national 2013 rule designed to bring about gender parity in employment.

The Paris authorities are being fined €90,000 ($109,000; £81,000) by the public service ministry.

“I am happy to announce we have been fined,” Ms Hidalgo said.

The 2013 rule meant no more than 60% of new appointments to management positions in public service should go to one sex. Ms Hidalgo’s recruitment drive saw 69% of the jobs go to women.

Addressing a council meeting, the Socialist mayor joked: “The management of the city hall has, all of a sudden, become far too feminist.”

But she also highlighted a continuing lag in the promotion of women to senior positions in France and the need to accelerate progress towards parity by appointing more women than men.

“This fine is obviously absurd, unfair, irresponsible and dangerous,” she said.

France’s Public Service Minister Amélie de Montchalin responded on Twitter, pointing out that the law had been changed since 2018.https://emp.bbc.com/emp/SMPj/2.36.7/iframe.htmlmedia captionHow do we get more female leaders?

In 2019, fines were dropped for appointing too many women or too many men to new jobs, as long as the overall gender balance was not affected.

She invited Ms Hidalgo to discuss how to promote women in public service and said the fine would go towards “concrete actions”.

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Words not Swords

We learned about Winston Churchill a couple days ago. The man who saved the free world. More with his words and inspiration, than with his guns. His failure in Galipoli, was essential to build the foundation of his abilities in WW2. We shall not flail, we shall not fail. We shall never surrender. #BeBrave boys. Love Papa.

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Dads are Awesome

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A wild life

Peter Beard- he led and beautiful and adventurous life. It is hard to find such a masculine man today. Emulate him, embrace his masculinity and resist the culture that wants to take it from you. Love Papa.

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Never Surrender

Listen to Churchill’s speech, he gave it just as the French did surrender to Hitler. Never give in, Never, Never, Never….

Brig, Soren and Reidar, this speech will make your body tingle

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Petit Steak

Language is funny, … what we say and what we mean …are driven by so many odd exceptions.


“What’s the magic word?” our parents asked when we stomped into the room demanding they help us find a missing toy. Over time, we learned that our requests could be fulfilled more expediently if we offered up a “please”without being prompted. Hey, what a neat trick!

But then we reached school age and found ourselves berated for breaking other mysterious rules, like pronouncing “give me” as “gimme” or repeating one of the four-letter words we’d heard bandied about. A few years later we began to explore the wonders of the internet and realized that the word “please” must really not have any weight to it at all based on the sheer volume of web users telling each other to “please kindly go f — k yourself.”

There is, of course, more to politeness than saying “please.” So much more, in fact, that linguists have been dedicating entire books to the subject since the 1970s. Perhaps the most well-known of these is Penelope Brown and Stephen C. Levinson’s Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage, which sought to explain the many intricacies of how human beings observe etiquette through language. Across cultures, they explain, people use subtle linguistic cues to honor (or insult) each other’s “face,” the sociological term they use to describe an individual’s “public self-image.” In other words, we use polite speech in the interest of “maintaining” another person’s face, while impoliteness can be understood as “face-threatening.”
The tactics we employ are numerous and complex, but one of the overarching principles of politeness is downplaying any imposition we’re causing. We often choose words, whether consciously or unconsciously, that indirectly express our desire not to offend or cause a person needless trouble. Minimizers like “just,” “a bit,” and “a little”do the job nicely, and there are the explicit references to small units of time and measurement that we artfully slip into our commands and requests. “The Literals” sketch from The Amanda Showplays on the discrepancy between reality and the language we use when we’re trying to be polite: a request for “Mrs. Literal” to hold a glass “for a second” results in shards of glass scattered all over the kitchen floor.


Mind if I pop round later?
But minimizers aren’t always just “added extras.” There is a certain breed of verb that comes in handy when asking people for favors or permission.
Would you mind grabbing a chair from the other room?
Can you run up and ask him?
I’m just going to jump in the shower, okay?
These verbs don’t describe the action we actually want to happen — jumping in the shower will likely result in injury — but they all fit seamlessly into polite speech because they refer to transient motion and therefore imply that whatever we’re asking will be completed quickly and painlessly.
The examples above are rather logical, but some other verbs that have come to embody this role are a bit more unexpected, such as “pop”(“Pop yourself down and we’ll get started”), “scoot”(“Do you mind scooting over?”), and “steal”(“Could I steal one of your pencils?”). There’s also “hop,” which for many of us conjures up an image of someone bouncing about on one foot, yet people don’t bat an eyelid (or lift a leg) when invited to “hop into a vehicle.” The Oxford English Dictionary characterizes this usage of “hop”as colloquial, but it evidently goes beyond mere slang — it’s hard to imagine someone saying “Hop in!” who isn’t trying to portray themselves as warm and convivial. (Which is why that one scene from The Simpsonsis so funny.)
Minimization is highly ritualized, but the way people do it varies greatly across cultures and languages. In Ireland, it’s relatively common to hear people attach the Irish diminutive suffix -ínsometimes anglicized as -een, to the ends of English words, as in, “Could I please have another dropeen of milk?”
This is similar to patterns in other European languages, such as Italian and Dutch, whose speakers use the affixes -ino/aand -je,respectively, to make nouns conceptually smaller and, by extension, their requests less burdensome. An Italian customer service rep might ask you to wait “un momentino” (“a little moment”), while a Dutch friend eying your cold beer on a hot day might trouble you for “een slokje” (“a little sip”).
French speakers are less fanatical about suffixes, but many use the minimizer “petit” (little) with such abandon that it sometimes crops up where it makes no logical sense. The following is a real-life exchange that occurred in a French butcher’s shop, recorded and translated by Catherine Kerbrat-Orecchioni:
“I’d like a little steak.”
“A large one?”
“Medium-sized.”

We can minimize the gravity of our requests not just through the vocabulary but in the way we phrase them. Brown and Levinson describe what they call “presumptuous” or “optimistic” petitioning — that is, when we transform questions into statements, as in, “I’ll just help myself to a cookie — thanks!” This is risky business, however, since the addressee might not agree that what the speaker is asking is trivial enough, or that their relationship is intimate enough, to warrant such a blasé approach.
Of course, minimization in all its forms comes with this caveat: being asked for “a few minutes of your time” by a cold caller is particularly irritating when you know their definition of “a few” is probably not the same as yours. Saying things we don’t mean is part and parcel of politeness, but there are situations where your best bet is probably to cut the crap. Don’t ask your friend to loan you “a couple of dollars” if you need more than two. Then again, the boldness of this strategy might be its strength. “A couple? How much, exactly?” “Ten thousand dollars.” You know what they say: If you can make a person laugh, you can make them do anything.
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Walter Williams

Brig, Soren and Reidar-

I have read many of Walter’s books. He is one of my favorite economists, and he is also a brilliant scholar about Race and Racial relations. Please honor him by learning about him. RIP- Walter.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8yl_MsOhZA&ab_channel=BookTV