Making a hash of it

 

I'd never thought much about beef hash or corned beef hash, except that I occasionally enjoy them for breakfast along with eggs and toast.  However, it turns out hash goes back centuries, and there's a clear development in that timeline from what they called hash way back then, to what we know as hash today.

Townsends has produced this video introducing hash and its history.  It makes interesting viewing for foodies, and may be the basis for some new hash ideas in the future.  I'm pondering hash made with chopped dried fruit, to add a little sweetness.  Different, certainly, but possibly also very tasty . . .

Suddenly I feel hungry . . .

Peter

A self-inflicted tragedy in Gaza

 

A report on Thursday claimed that children were being deliberately targeted - executed, in so many words - by Israeli snipers in Gaza.

Dr. Mark Perlmutter, an American surgeon with heavy catastrophe-zone experience, is among those stunned by the civilian devastation they've recently witnessed in Gaza, and especially by a high volume of what appear to be precision rifle-fire wounds on children -- including toddlers.

"All of the disasters I've seen, combined – 40 mission trips, 30 years, Ground Zero, earthquakes, all of that combined – doesn't equal the level of carnage that I saw against civilians in just my first week in Gaza," Dr. Mark Perlmutter, an orthopedic surgeon and vice president of the International College of Surgeons, told CBS's Sunday Morning.

. . .

Perlmutter, a Jew who grew up in New Jersey and who now lives in North Carolina, was also disturbed what what he attributed to precise rifle fire directed at children, some of whom were "shot twice." 

"I have two children that I have photographs of that were shot so perfectly in the chest, I couldn't put my stethoscope over their heart more accurately, and directly on the side of the head, in the same child. No toddler gets shot twice by mistake by the 'world's best sniper.' And they're dead-center shots."

His description of the phenomenon was confirmed to CBS News by more than 20 other doctors who'd recently visited Gaza. An American doctor had such a problem grasping what he was seeing that he double-checked using CT scans, saying he "didn't believe that this many children could be admitted to a single hospital with gunshot wounds to the head."

There's more at the link.

It should be noted that the gist of that article has been repeated in sources such as Common Dreams (an explicitly progressive-left outlet), Politico and Democracy Now!  I have no idea of the political views of Dr. Perlmutter, but I suspect the views of such outlets are clues.  I note, too, that neither he nor any of the others involved have spoken about Hamas atrocities on October 7, 2023, or at other times.  It seems a rather one-sided perspective.  That does not, of course, affect the very real disaster that has befallen the people, particularly the children, of Gaza, but it does - must - condition one's perspective on it.

It's tragic to read about that disaster, and even more tragic to see it in real life.  I speak from all too bitter personal experience, because in the terrorist wars in southern Africa during the 1970's and 1980's, children were cold-bloodedly and brutally used as couriers, cover, even as armed combatants, by the terrorist movements.  The kids were given no choice in the matter, and their parents had no option but to let them do so - or be killed themselves as "counter-revolutionary sell-outs".  In rural areas of Rhodesia (today Zimbabwe), and to a certain extent in the Ovambo regions of South West Africa (today Namibia), it became common for terrorist gangs to kidnap whole schools full of kids and send them across the border to be trained as guerrillas/terrorists in their turn.  The security forces attempted to rescue them before they could be taken out of the country, but seldom succeeded - and when they did, many of the kids died or were wounded in the crossfire.

There were many incidents where security forces were deliberately placed in a no-win situation by terrorists using kids as cover, or to take military equipment to fighters by concealing it in their schoolbags (for example, magazines of ammunition, hand grenades, or even a land-mine or two).  Some children were even used as soldiers, not in uniform, but carrying grenades or other lethal devices and throwing them at a patrol while walking with a group of their fellow kids.  When fire was returned, it wasn't just the guilty ones who died.

I described some years ago how a baby was used to camouflage a land-mine, positioned to catch a patrol.

I remember Gavin, who was a member of a patrol that found a baby, too young to walk, sitting in the middle of a dirt road in a township, crying. As the point man and a couple of others walked up to see why the baby was just sitting there, the terrorists waiting in ambush blew up the landmine they'd buried beneath her, killing the point man and savagely mutilating the other two soldiers. Bits of flesh and blood from the soldiers, and the baby, splattered all over Gavin . . . across his face . . . in his eyes, nose and mouth.

For years, Gavin would start awake in the small hours at night, a scream of horror on his lips. "They blew up a baby! A baby!" Gavin's wife eventually left him, because she couldn't handle the strain of living with his nightmares. Psychiatric treatment couldn't break the cycle; nor could alcohol, or drugs (legal and illegal). Gavin took his own life at last, too tormented by what he'd seen to endure any longer, in the small hours every night, the parade of images across his closed eyelids. He was a hero in my book . . . and I'll always remember him as such.

There was another case where a dead baby was literally hollowed out, presumably by its mother.  Its body cavity was filled with explosives, and then carried through a military checkpoint to conceal the ordnance.  It worked the first time . . . and the second . . . but by the third time, decomposition had set in, and a whiff of it came to the nostrils of one of the soldiers at the checkpoint.  He investigated, and uncovered the scheme.  (The mother claimed - possibly truthfully - that she'd been forced to cooperate with the terrorists;  therefore, no action was taken against her.  I had my doubts.)

I was present when a vehicle-mounted patrol was passing through a very volatile area.  A woman rushed out from behind a hut, with a baby strapped to her chest in the typical African manner.  She charged the lead vehicle, holding a Molotov cocktail in either hand, their fuses lit.  The soldiers on the vehicle had a very simple binary choice.  Shoot her - which meant snap-shooting, probably through the baby on her chest, because there was no time to take careful aim and avoid it - or be immolated when the gasoline bombs exploded inside the load bed of the patrol vehicle.  You can imagine their feelings . . . but they were left with no other options.  She, and her baby, died.  Whose fault was that baby's death?  Not the soldiers', I would argue.

Older kids, as noted earlier, were used as couriers, pack mules, and resupply trains, particularly where the presence of international journalists might be presumed to inhibit troops - who knew exactly what they were doing - from shooting at them.  It seldom worked.

US forces encountered precisely the same thing in Afghanistan and Iraq.  It's happening in Gaza, too.  We've all seen videos on YouTube and elsewhere of how Gaza kids are brainwashed and indoctrinated to seek martyrdom, to hate Jews, and to lash out at them whenever and wherever they can.  If you or I were an Israeli sniper or designated marksman in Gaza right now, and saw a baby being used as "live cover" by its mother in a critical situation, or an older kid making a run towards our troops or carrying supplies towards a known enemy strongpoint . . . I daresay we'd take the shot in a heartbeat, because if we didn't, our own troops would suffer the consequences.  That's the cold, hard, brutal reality of a terrorist war.  There are no morals.  There are no rules - except, "Survive!"  Allow me to assure you:  if you hesitate, you won't.

When you're dealing with a ruthless, homicidal movement like Hamas, which has openly stated that civilian casualties serve its purpose as propaganda, it's even worse.  I wish we could know precisely what side shot each of those children.  The answer might be very revealing.  We do know that for years, Hamas has routinely trained children at summer camps to be terrorists.  It has sent children to confront Israeli soldiers on patrol, throwing stones at them, in the hope that the soldiers will shoot back, thereby creating more propaganda about "Israeli atrocities" for dissemination.  Hamas wants child casualties.  It glories in them.

Yes, Israeli forces almost certainly are targeting kids who show themselves in suspicious circumstances.  I'm more saddened by that tragedy than words can say, but I'm not surprised by it.  I'm more surprised at how few kids in Gaza have been shot like that.  As a proportion of the population, I daresay it's minuscule.  I submit that speaks to the discipline and training of the Israeli troops involved (see, for example, the videos linked in the previous paragraph).  There may be a few renegade souls in Israeli uniform who are actively seeking to murder innocent kids in Gaza, but I think it's very unlikely.  I hope and pray I'm not wrong.

May God receive the souls of the children who die like that;  and may He visit condign punishment on those who force them into situations where that can happen to them.

*Sigh*

Peter

Not a fruitful headline...

 

The subject of the article is actually innocuous (i.e. the fruit), but given North American slang (i.e. not the fruit), the headline left something to be desired.

Cherries line up for a controlled modal switch

Um . . . yes!  Quite!

Peter

EDITED TO ADD:  The headline appears to have been modified since then, but it's still funny.

The terrible truth about the "Pyramid of Cheese"

 

Several years ago, Francis Porretto published an essay on cheese (more specifically, the sort used in macaroni and cheese).  It first appeared on his previous blog back in 2007.  He linked to it the other day, which is what recalled it to mind.

The Great Pyramid Of Cheese

I think it's essential reading for all cheese lovers;  and if you have "finicky eater" kids, who think that off-the-shelf cardboard-box macaroni and cheese is all she wrote, this will hopefully educate them.  I've no idea what flavoring is applied to cardboard-box cheese, but the reality of the food underlying it is truly ghastly!

Peter

Unintended consequences: Russian crime edition

 

As I'm sure most readers will remember, when the Russian invasion of Ukraine kicked off, Russia soon found itself short of fighting soldiers.  One of the ways it sought to address that was to allow convicted criminals to volunteer to serve with the Wagner Group, a private military contractor.  If they served six months, the remainder of their prison sentence was excused and they became free men once again.  The body count was allegedly very high, but a significant proportion of the thousands who volunteered are once again out and about in Russia.

Turns out that might not have been such a good idea . . .

According to Bloomberg, citing data from the Supreme Court of Russia, crimes committed by soldiers (but not those on the front line) increased by more than 20% in 2023. Although their number is still "small," and many soldiers do not commit offenses, the number of violent acts, thefts, and drug-related crimes are rising.

However, the data do not include crimes committed by thousands of convicts. It's important to recall that they were released from prisons to join a program founded by the late Yevgeny Prigozhin. Those who survived six months on the front could receive a pardon from President Vladimir Putin and return to Russia as free men.

As sociologist Iskender Yasaveev explained in an interview with Bloomberg, they are treated horribly on the front. "The experience they return with is a trauma that will manifest itself for decades," he argues.

According to Bloomberg, the return of prisoners who fought for Wagner provides an early picture of what might happen when hundreds of thousands of men return from the front to civilian life. The agency notes that while minor crimes have decreased, the number of murders and sexual offenses, especially against children, has not reduced in the past two years.

According to Bloomberg's calculations based on Supreme Court data, the number of assaults on minors increased by 62% compared to the pre-war period. Meanwhile, the number of crimes involving military personnel quadrupled - to 4,409 in 2023, compared to 2021.

Bloomberg describes that the return of Wagner recruits to Russia has shocked city and village residents. They discover that men they thought were serving long prison sentences are living among them again. Among those pardoned were people convicted of murder and even cannibalism.

There's more at the link.

Yeah . . . I can understand that finding the person who raped, killed and ate your daughter is back in your village, free as a bird, might be just a leeeetle bit upsetting to her parents.  However, they have no recourse;  the pardon has already been issued.  If they try to take justice into their own hands, they make themselves guilty of a crime, and will land up behind bars or executed.  There's no future in that.

On the other hand, it appears that Russian soldiers are turning on each other with increasing criminality - possibly due to the presence in their ranks of precisely the same released convicts?

The journalists pointed out that from January to October 2023, 135 cases of murders committed in areas occupied by Russian soldiers were settled in courts. "It turns out that the Kremlin's army kills its own soldiers every two to three days — due to mistakes or negligence," reports Onet. Importantly, these are incomplete data, as there is no information from garrison courts in Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.

It turns out that more crimes are committed in these areas than murders committed by war veterans throughout Russia ... Crimes occur both in trenches along the front lines and in camps. Many murders are successfully covered up by reporting deaths resulting from combat actions. Many cases reach the courts, though it's hard to say what percentage of this represents.

An analysis of verdicts shows that, in most cases, alcohol is a factor. This was the case in 83% of cases. As many as 76% of the perpetrators were drunk at the time of the murder. Some of the accused were confirmed to have alcoholism, drug addiction, and in some cases, mental and behavioral disorders, including PTSD.

Again, more at the link.

I can understand Russia wanting more troops;  but this way of getting them seems to have had more than a few unintended (and very undesirable) consequences.

Peter

Very good questions. Will we ever get any answers?

 

I've deliberately refrained from much comment about the assassination attempt on President Trump and the fallout from it.  Things appear to be getting murkier and murkier, and the number of unanswered questions and mysterious coincidences are growing by the day.  One wonders whether we'll ever get (honest) answers to them all.  (If the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security and the current Attorney-General are running the investigations, I'd say that's very unlikely.)

Aesop, writing at Raconteur Report, puts together a list of points that, taken together, are a searing indictment of the so-called "Deep State".  Here are a few examples.

Somebody made the decision to half-ass Trump's protective detail all along.

Somebody made the decision, despite multiple requests from the campaign, not to increase Trump's protective detail.

Somebody decided, despite clear and credible threats of an Iranian assassination plot, not to increase Trump's detail in the days prior to the Butler assassination attempt.

Somebody decided to deliberately and knowingly lie about that, and claim that just the opposite had happened.

Somebody on Trump's detail made the jackassical decision to place the nearest building to Trump's podium outside Secret Service responsibility, against all common sense and basic SOP.

Somebody made the jackassical decision not to put Secret Service countersnipers on top of that very building.

Somebody made the decision to not have everyone on the same radio frequencies, and not to have liaison officers from all agencies in each others' command posts, to literally make sure everyone was on the same page at all times during the event.

Somebody made the decision to pull all of Trump's actual Secret Service bodyguards from him at this event, and replace them with fat-assed, half-assed, untrained and unqualified fifth-string security bumpkins from DHS. And just pretend Trump was being protected by the Secret Service.

There's much more at the link.  Recommended reading.

Next, the Oversight Project of the Heritage Foundation came up with some awfully suggestive coincidences concerning the would-be assassin's electronic devices and others associated with them.

I know there will be those who say, "Oh, they're just coincidences!  You can't draw any meaningful conclusions from them!"  Perhaps . . . but taken with Aesop's points to ponder, plus the known mendacity of the FBI and related agencies, I'm not so sure.

All I can say is, if I were President Trump, I'd want to hire my own security agents to watch the "official" ones whose duty it was to "guard" me.  I'd feel a lot safer that way.

Peter

Looks like others have the same fear...

 

A few days ago I put up a blog post titled "Biden quitting the race? That could be very risky for all of us".  In it, I postulated that President Biden, freed from any restraint connected to his re-election, could go "scorched earth" on his policies, using executive orders and other measures to ram through actions and decisions that might impact the whole country very negatively.  After all, he'd have nothing left to lose.

It looks like the New York Post has similar fears.

In an irony that would seem absurd in any election cycle but this one, Joe Biden is now liberated to do exactly what he wants without fear of reprisal for the first time in what has been a half-century political career full of triangulation and calculation.

He can even embrace the “Dark Brandon” persona his online fans have yearned for in recent years.

In short, there’s a realistic chance that if the president doesn’t step down and isn’t driven out — via a 25th Amendment scenario as Republicans from JD Vance on down would like — it’s entirely possible his term’s last few months could include some of the most radical moves any chief executive would make.

There’s no one left to cater to. So Biden, who presented himself as something of a caretaker president in the 2020 cycle, can assume his final form as an executive order-wielding change agent as he runs out the clock on his political career.

. . .

Could he increase American involvement in Ukraine? Could he impose more conditions on aid to Israel amid its struggles with Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran?

What’s stopping him is the real question.

And of course there is the case of Hunter Biden, a key White House adviser of late who was recently convicted of three felonies in a federal gun trial.

Republicans aren’t the only ones who can talk about “lawfare,” and Biden — despite pledging he wouldn’t pardon his son — has nothing to stop him from breaking that vow.

There's more at the link.

I'll be watching developments very carefully.  I think there might be all sorts of mischief coming out of the White House over the next few months - not least because the mainstream media are going to be focusing on the election campaign, and paying less attention to the "old guard" (something the Biden administration might be relying upon).

Peter

Clarification is important

 

From Stephan Pastis' "Pearls Before Swine" comic strip.  Click the image to be taken to a larger view at the cartoon's home page.

Reminds me of a Franciscan friar who told me, when I was a student at seminary, "Prayer is such a dangerous thing.  Before you know it, you're heard - so better be careful what you ask for!"

Peter

Thankyouthankyouthankyou!!!

 

Out of the blue, an unexpected package arrived yesterday from Killer Bees Honey, whom I first mentioned on this blog back in 2016.  Their bees (or "ladies", as the beekeeper refers to them) produce what may be the finest, best-tasting honey in the USA - and I don't say that lightly.  It's remarkable stuff.

 Once opened, the package revealed two jars of honey and a note from an anonymous reader of this blog, commiserating with me over my "recent medical misadventures" and hoping the honey "will help speed your recovery".  How can it not?  I couldn't resist opening a jar at once and sampling a big teaspoonful of its delicious contents.  Best medicine I've had in weeks!

To my anonymous benefactor:  thanks a ton!  It was a wonderful and very thoughtful gift.  To the rest of my readers:  if you haven't tried Killer Bees Honey for yourself, you truly don't know what you're missing.  It is, quite literally, the best honey I've ever tasted.  I may possibly meet a honey that's their equal, but I don't expect to ever find one better than these.  Award yourself a taste "fix"!

(No, I'm not being compensated in any way to advertise Killer Bees Honey.  A friend founded it, and I first mentioned it here to give him a boost.  After tasting it, my wife and I have ordered from them every year.  It's not cheap, but it's the best!  We visited them in 2019, and hope to do so again if we're ever in the area.)

Peter

"Myths Hollywood taught you about guns"

 

I'm obliged to Zendo Deb at the 357 Magnum blog for linking to a useful video about Hollywood's myths about guns.  It's one of the most propagandized - and most misunderstood - subjects in the entertainment world, and any attempt to set the record straight is worthwhile, IMHO.

If you have friends who don't understand firearms, or are afraid of them, tell them to watch this video clip.

Let's get the truth about guns out there, so that we can debate with anti-gunners based on facts rather than fanciful fiction and emotion-driven excess.

Peter

A mass murderer is unrepentant

 

An article and video at the BBC's Web site has highlighted one of the more horrific mass murderers of the apartheid era in South Africa.  As they emphasize, the perpetrator was tolerated, even encouraged, by the police forces and justice system in that country until it became no longer possible - due to public outrage and a change in the political climate - to do so;  and even then, he received a minimal sentence, with most of his murders being judicially ignored.  I remember his case from that time, and the horror and outrage it aroused in parts of the local community, particularly because he apparently felt no remorse.  He regarded himself as a savior and defender of public order.

Let me start by saying that, in writing about the apartheid era in South Africa, I've frequently run into comments claiming that black people were actually better off under apartheid than they are under the present government there;  that apartheid itself wasn't so bad, and neither were Afrikaners;  and that allegations of mass ill-treatment of black South Africans under apartheid are nothing more than revisionist exaggerations.  I think I answered most of those comments in previous posts.  In particular, see these four:

My heroes

Was apartheid South Africa really that bad?

No, the Afrikaners were NOT "The Heroic White Tribe of Africa"

Defending my thesis about South Africa and the Afrikaners

They put the case of Louis van Schoor and his (at least) 39 victims (he's known to have boasted about shooting 100 or more) into perspective.  He did not act alone.  He was part and parcel of the system of apartheid, and his actions were deemed to be enforcing "law and order" - for the white community, and against the black community.  Here's an excerpt from the article.

Over a three-year period in the 1980s under the country’s racist apartheid system - which imposed a strict hierarchy that privileged white South Africans - Van Schoor shot and killed at least 39 people.

All of his victims were black. The youngest was just 12 years old. The killings occurred in East London, a city in South Africa’s windswept Eastern Cape.

Van Schoor was a security guard at the time, with a contract to protect as many as 70% of white-owned businesses: restaurants, shops, factories and schools. He has long claimed that everyone he killed was a “criminal” who he caught red-handed breaking into these buildings.

“He was a kind of vigilante killer. He was a Dirty Harry character,” says Isa Jacobson, a South African journalist and filmmaker, who has spent 20 years investigating Van Schoor’s case.

“These were intruders who were, in a lot of cases, pretty desperate. Digging through bins, maybe stealing some food… petty criminals.”

Van Schoor’s killings - sometimes several in a single night - struck terror into the black community of East London. Stories spread through the city of a bearded man - nicknamed “whiskers” in the Xhosa language - who made people disappear at night. But his shootings were not carried out in secret.

Every killing between 1986 and 1989 was reported to the police by Van Schoor himself. But the release from prison of anti-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela in 1990 signalled an end to this impunity. Ripples of change swept across South Africa and, following pressure from activists and journalists, the security guard was arrested in 1991.

Van Schoor’s trial was one of the largest murder trials in South Africa’s history, involving dozens of witnesses and thousands of pages of forensic evidence.

However, the case against him largely collapsed in court. At the time of his trial, much of the apparatus of the apartheid system was still in place within the judiciary. Despite killing at least 39 people, he was only convicted of seven murders. He would go on to serve just 12 years in prison.

His other 32 killings are still classified as “justifiable homicides” by the police.

There's more at the link.

Here's an hour-and-a-quarter-long video documentary about van Schoor.  It's even more chilling than the article.

If you have young people in your family (not too young, of course!), I highly recommend that you show them that video, or let them read the article.  Believe it or not, there are people like van Schoor still alive in the USA today.  They did similar things (although, please God, with a lower body count) in this country during the Civil Rights era, and many were never caught, or charged, or tried.  I've met several of them.  Our young people today need to be forewarned that such barbarism exists, because it's part of human nature, and it can arise again at any time if the conditions turn favorable for it.

May Almighty God have mercy on our souls . . . even, if it is possible, that of Louis van Schoor and those like him . . . and especially of his and their victims.

Peter

Following on from my July 3 post...

 

... which, if you missed or can't remember it, may be found here:  the next step in the "call your doctor" process.  Click the image to be taken to a larger version at the comic's Web page.

It's felt like that to me, too, at times . . .

Peter

EDITED TO ADD:  Sorry, the link didn't work.  I edited the post, and now it works.

Kamala Harris defied court rulings as California's Attorney General. Imagine what she might do as President.

 

I think the prospect of Kamala Harris as President of the United States is one of profound danger for the rule of law in this country.  When she was Attorney General of California, she disobeyed and displayed open contempt for court rulings - including the Supreme Court - ordering the State to fix its prison problems.  If she was that recalcitrant and obstructionist back then, what would she be like when wielding Presidential authority?

Kamala Harris ... repeatedly and openly defied U.S. Supreme Court orders to reduce overcrowding in California prisons while serving as the state’s attorney general, according to legal documents reviewed by the Prospect. Working in tandem with Gov. Jerry Brown, Harris and her legal team filed motions that were condemned by judges and legal experts as obstructionist, bad-faith, and nonsensical, at one point even suggesting that the Supreme Court lacked the jurisdiction to order a reduction in California’s prison population.

The intransigence of this legal work resulted in the presiding judges in the case giving serious consideration to holding the state in contempt of court. Observers worried that the behavior of Harris’s office had undermined the very ability of federal judges to enforce their legal orders at the state level, pushing the federal court system to the brink of a constitutional crisis. This extreme resistance to a Supreme Court ruling was done to prevent the release of fewer than 5,000 nonviolent offenders, whom multiple courts had cleared as presenting next to no risk of recidivism or threat to public safety.

Despite a straightforward directive from the Supreme Court to identify prisoners for release over a two-year period, upholding a 2009 ruling that mandated the same action over the same timeline, the state spent the majority of that period seesawing back and forth between dubious legal filings and flagrant disregard. By early 2013, it became clear that the state had no intention to comply, leading to a series of surprisingly combative exchanges.

. . .

Harris’s office launched into a campaign of all-out obstruction, refusing to answer why they could not simply release low-risk, nonviolent inmates to conform to the Supreme Court’s request. “Defendants offered no explanation, however, why they could not release low-risk prisoners early,” the June 2013 ruling stated.

But Harris’s office didn’t stop there. Instead, they claimed on behalf of the state that the Supreme Court had no jurisdiction to even request such a release, refusing to answer questions as to how they would implement the Supreme Court ruling, and courting a constitutional crisis. That resulted in a stunningly sharp rebuke from the three-judge district court panel in a June 2013 ruling.

When asked by what date the state could identify their list of prisoners who are unlikely to reoffend, “defendants defiantly refused,” the judges wrote, “and stated, somewhat astonishingly, that our suggestion that we might order defendants to develop a system to identify low-risk prisoners, a system that the Supreme Court had suggested we might consider ordering defendants to develop ‘without delay,’ is a prisoner release order that vastly exceeds the scope of any of the Court’s prior orders.” The Supreme Court, in fact, ruled that the three-judge district court panel had exactly that authority in its 2011 ruling. “In tortured logic,” the district court continued, “defendants suggested that the Supreme Court’s statement ‘did not authorize the early release of prisoners,’ or even the consideration of that question.”

Harris’s attorney general’s office, the ruling added, “continually equivocated regarding the facts and the law,” to the point that the panel strongly considered holding the state in contempt.

There's much more at the link, including links to other articles providing more details.  A tip o' the hat to Francis Turner for drawing my attention to the source.

I don't think anyone in his/her right mind could actually want someone who's displayed such contempt for the rule of law to be elected to a position where she could defy the law, ignoring Supreme Court decisions, enacting her own will through executive orders, and daring opponents to take her to court to overturn her rulings.  With the power of the Presidency behind her, she could throw the entire legal and judicial system in the United States into disarray.

(This, of course, has nothing to do with her political affiliation.  I daresay there are some Republican - and other Democrat - politicians who would be just as dangerous to our legal system if they ended up in the White House.)

Peter

Memes that made me laugh 219

 

Gathered from around the Internet over the past week.  Click any image for a larger view.