Archive for March 23rd, 2015
Pot roast carbonnade with prunes
I made this recipe tonight, with of course a few changes:
I used thick-cut bacon from Nob Hill/Raley’s and it rendered plenty of fat, so no vegetable oil.
It’s spring, so I used three (red) spring onions, plus a medium Spanish onion—medium large, I would say.
I used 2.5 lbs of beef.
I used 4 carrots, and of course I did not peel them. Life’s too short.
I used about 10 oz red wine instead of beer: The Wife doesn’t care for the beer.
I used 12 prunes.
It was closer to 2 Tbsp flour instead of 1 Tbsp.
I skipped the beef stock: I did not want a soup.
I put in a 250ºF oven for 2-2.5 hours after getting it all together. That cooked it up nice.
I imagine you could include 8 oz domestic mushrooms if you want.
Very tasty.
Don’t forget the thyme.
Israel: The Stark Truth
David Shulman writes in the NY Review of Books:
Benjamin Netanyahu has won again. He will have no difficulty putting together a solid right-wing coalition. But the naked numbers may be deceptive. What really counts is the fact that the Israeli electorate is still dominated by hypernationalist, in some cases proto-fascist, figures. It is in no way inclined to make peace. It has given a clear mandate for policies that preclude any possibility of moving toward a settlement with the Palestinians and that will further deepen Israel’s colonial venture in the Palestinian territories, probably irreversibly.
Netanyahu’s shrill public statements during the last two or three days before the vote may account in part for Likud’s startling margin of victory. For the first time since his Bar Ilan speech in 2009, he explicitly renounced a two-state solution and swore that no Palestinian state would come into existence on his watch. He promised vast new building projects in the Palestinian territories, including East Jerusalem. He made it clear that Israel would make no further territorial concessions, anywhere, since any land that would be relinquished would, in his view, immediately be taken over by Muslim terrorists.
And then there was his truly astonishing, by now notorious statement on election day itself, in which he urged Jewish voters to rush to the polls because “the Arabs are voting in droves.” One might have thought that those Arab voters were members of the body politic he headed as prime minister. Imagine a white American president calling on whites to vote because “blacks are voting in large numbers.” If there’s a choice to be made between democratic values and fierce Jewish tribalism, there’s no doubt what the present and future prime minister of Israel would choose.
Mindful of Netanyahu’s long record of facile mendacity, commentators on the left have tended to characterize these statements as more dubious “rhetoric”; already, under intense pressure from the United States, he has waffled on the question of Palestinian statehood in comments directed at a foreign, English-speaking audience. But I think that, for once, he was actually speaking the truth in that last pre-election weekend—a popular truth among his traditional supporters. What does this mean? On the face of it, things are not all that different today than before the election. But the now seemingly impregnable rule of the right has at least four likely consequences for the near and mid-term future.
First, the notion that there will someday be two states in historic Palestine has been savagely undermined. We have Netanyahu’s word for it. If he has his way—and why shouldn’t he?—Palestinians are destined for the foreseeable future to remain subject to a regime of state terror, including the remorseless loss of their lands and homes and, in many cases, their very lives; they will continue to be, as they are now, disenfranchised, without even minimal legal recourse, hemmed into small discontinuous enclaves, and deprived of elementary human rights.
Take a mild, almost innocuous example, entirely typical of life in the territories. Last weekend I was in the south Hebron hills with Palestinian shepherds at a place called Zanuta, whose historic grazing grounds have been taken over, in large part, by a settlement inhabited by a single Jewish family. Soldiers turned up with the standard order, signed by the brigade commander, declaring the area a Closed Military Zone; the order is illegal, according to a Supreme Court ruling, but the writ of the court hardly impinges on reality on the ground in south Hebron. Within minutes, three of the shepherds and an Israeli activist were arrested.
The people of Zanuta live with such arbitrary decrees on a daily basis, as they live under the constant threat of violent assault by Israeli settlers, acting with impunity. In short, these Palestinian villagers are slated for dispossession and expulsion. We are doing what we can to stop the process, but it isn’t easy. The situation in the northern West Bank is considerably worse.
Secondly, we may see the emergence in the West Bank of . . .
Netanyahu has clearly revealed his character and the future he plans for Israel.
Ted Cruz was born in Canada, thus he cannot be president, if you accept the U.S. Constitution—and he says he does
I thought Sen. Cruz was a great fan of the Constitution, so that it’s odd that he’s not noticed that even if he’s elected, he cannot (Constitutionally) serve.
And the stories I’ve seen don’t mention this (extremely obvious) fact.
What’s up? Is the Constitution now to be ignored in all cases instead of just some?
UPDATE: I stand corrected.
UPDATE 2 and MORE IMPORTANT: Obama had a mother who was an American citizen, so why was hi qualifications to be President EVER in question? If Ted Cruz, born in Alberta, Canada, of an American mother, is qualified to be President, why would Obama, born wherever, not be qualified to be President?
Perhaps the GOP can answer that? But the GOP is not so good at answering questions—and certainly not the questions you ask. (The answer is: Racism.)
Philadelphia police shoot at people every week, and have done so for 7 years—because they don’t carry less lethal options
Matt Apuzzo reports in the NY Times:
Police officers in Philadelphia have shot at people an average of nearly once a week over the past seven years, the Justice Department said Monday in a report that also criticized the Police Department for inadequate training and a shooting-review process that is too often kept secret.
The report comes as tensions linger over the death of Brandon Tate-Brown, 26, an unarmed Philadelphia man who was killed by the police in December.
The Justice Department review, which began in 2013, was unrelated to that shooting, but the report describes a department where shootings are common and where officers are not required to carry less lethal alternatives, such as stun guns. Officers were involved in 390 shootings from 2007 through 2014.
Fifty-nine unarmed people were shot by Philadelphia police officers since 2007, a figure that accounted for about 15 percent of shootings, the Justice Department said. National data on police shootings do not exist. “Therefore, we cannot say whether this number is high or low,” the Justice Department said.
Police departments are not required to publish data on shootings involving their officers and there is no accepted standard for doing so, which makes it difficult to compare figures with departments in other cities.
But Philadelphia’s numbers are stark when contrasted with New York’s; that city publishes data on police shootings each year. New York’s population and police force are more than five times larger than Philadelphia, yet Philadelphia had dozens more police shootings during the period covered by the report, according to the closest comparable published data.
Last month, . . .
The NYPD does not do so many shootings as the Philadelphia PD. Think about that.
An amazing number of police departments are under investigation: Seattle, Albuquerque, Denver, St. Louis County MO (including Ferguson), Philadelphia, Atlanta, and so on. It really seems that the US has a police problem.
BBS with the Stealth Stainless Steel and Dapper Dragon
A very smooth shave today. The brush I bought from Strop Shoppe and it has a snakwood handle. It quickly worked up a fine lather from Dapper Dragon, which for some reason (experience? reformulation? both?) presents no lathering problems any more.
Three passes with the stainless Stealth and a BBS without a problem: a very mild razor, though also quite aggressive: very comfortable, very efficient.
A splash of New York aftershave, and I’m ready to cook. 🙂
Later On 