Falafel is one of those Middle Eastern dishes that everyone claims, everyone has their own version, and everyone uses to demonize the Jews. And it’s the equivalent of hamburgers to Israelis, an everyday meal available on every street corner. The Israeli version uses chick peas (garbanzos) so of course that is correct. Egyptians use fava beans. Israelis stuff the falafel into a pocket pita with a salad and tahini sauce. Lebanese serve it on its own as a side dish or part of a mezze. But the Israelis won the wars so their version is supreme.
- 1 cup dried garbanzos
- 2-3 tbs garbanzo flour (besan) – optional
- 1-1/2 tsp baking soda
- 3 cloves of garlic, minced
- 1 small onion, minced
- 1/2 cup chopped flat leaf parsley
- 1/4 cup chopped cilantro (optional- it really works, but some genetic defectives have an aversion)
- 1 tsp cumin seeds or 1/2 tsp ground cumin
- 1 tsp coriander seeds or 1/2 tsp ground coriander
- 1-1/2 tsp salt
- 1 tsp freshly ground pepper
- 1 ripe tomato, diced
- 1 cup shredded romaine hearts
- 1 cucumber, peeled, seeded, and diced
- tahini sauce (a mix of tahini, salt, lemon juice, water, garlic)
Soak the garbanzos for at least 24 hours in 3 cups of tap water with 1 tsp baking soda. Drain thoroughly. Grind the cumin and coriander seeds (I keep a spare Braun coffee grinder for spice use- you should too, it’s easier than a mortar and pestle), then add the soaked and drained beans, the cumin, coriander, garlic, onion, cilantro, parsley, salt, pepper, and the remaining 1/2 tsp baking soda to a food processor with the metal blade. Pulse on and off, scraping down the bowl, until the mixture is the consistency of very coarse sand. If you grab some and squeeze, it should hold together. If not, add the garbanzo flour a tablespoon at a time with a little water and pulse some more to incorporate it.
If you’re tempted to use canned garbanzos, don’t. You can also use dried fava beans or a mix of fava and garbanzo- this is more of the Egyptian style, and let’s face it, Egypt is a shithole with the military prowess and bravery of France. But their version is pretty tasty nonetheless.
Heat oil in a deep fryer to 360°F. I prefer a blend of corn oil and peanut oil, but wouldn’t argue with some refined olive oil. Don’t use canola unless you want everything to smell like a lesbian locker room. Form the falafel patties- some do it by hand, I go the pro route and use a falafel scoop, a nifty spring-loaded device pictured below, which gives me rapid and consistent molding. I dip it in cold water between patties for good release. Mine was a gift from a Palestinian lady whose son worked for me; she was apparently grateful that I hadn’t murdered him or appropriated his house and land. Her falafel is stunningly good, but I haven’t gotten her to cough up her secrets yet- the Mossad should eventually come through for me. Nonetheless, my version is still better than 99% of the restaurant ones I’ve had; they mostly use a mix or frozen shit from Sysco. Yahweh will one day destroy them.
Deep fry the patties for 5 minutes or so until medium brown and crispy. Drain. Serve stuffed into pita with the tomato, romaine, and cucumber, drizzled with tahini sauce. For the last, blend tahini with pureed garlic, salt, lemon juice, cayenne (I substitute sriracha just for a little more appropriation), and enough water to form a smooth sauce.
Enjoy the flavors of oppression, genocide, and fake Arab tears. If you really want to twist the knife, this goes great with a nice bottle of Chateau Musar Blanc, a Lebanese wine made from a blend of merwah and obaideh grapes. Or, frankly, a fine Belgian ale. Piss off those Muslims good and hard.
I don’t have a food processor.
Or a deep fryer.
Tell your orphans to go acquire one of each, preferably before dinner.
I’ve also got a dad who prefers very plain food.
So beef and wheat and corn, no rice, or lamb, or other hilly produce?
I don’t think the ancient Egyptians did either.
The trendy new kitchen appliance of the moment is the mortar and pestle.
They used their dishwashers to mince. It’s really a universal tool.
Some Egyptians probably could afford specialized slaves for chopping and frying.
I need more photos of the taste tester. For research purposes.
Be sure to dip it in cold water between patties for good release.
Are those on the menu at the Terra Cotta Cafe?
It doesn’t seem to be on the online menu…but (gasp!) ham and pineapple pizza is!
Ham and pineapple you say?
I’m in.
We’ve done a trial run that was well received. It’s more of a daily special thing.
Tell the students its a lefty item, served in the Village.
Then get ready for the break out.
Los Angeles, home of the political sophisticate
Born in India, Raman moved to the United States as a child and earned degrees from Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she studied urban planning.
——-
Tanika Vickers, who works for a housing nonprofit in Los Angeles, said that she felt like she was part of a group of people who work and pay taxes but have been “forgotten.” She said she was frustrated with the way tax dollars were being spent, especially “throwing” more money toward homelessness without results.
She said she voted Raman for mayor because she was most qualified to execute her plans and fulfill what the city needs.
“I think that we are all looking for change,” she said.
Not enough of those dollars were being thrown in her direction. The Maoist urban planner will fix that.
Do either Raman or Vickers make falafel?
Raman is more into noodles.
They used to make aircraft.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vickers
Both pretty good when they’re water-cooled.
Raman seems a bit scattered.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the Typical Non-Profit Employee. Let the confident mid-wittery wash over you!
I thought she already conceded? In tears, no less.
What is she, some kind of Indian giver?
PS. and I thought there was still days of counting left.
Why waste time continuing the count when we have the right result now?
So you want the one who will flush even more billions down the toilet? And how much are they paying you at the housing “nonprofit” to achieve no results, hm?
Urban planning.
Get ready for more bike lanes and $1,000,000 a piece roundabouts!
Raman had three years to fix the homeless problem and put herself out of a job. Did she do it? Nooooooooooooo
If you put falafel
On a waffle
It might taste awful
But is it unlawful?
Ogden Nash is from your home planet? I guess I’m not terribly surprised.
I usually hate extra storytelling when I’m looking at a recipe. But no other recipes have included the phrase “shithole country” and some choice insults.
That does look good, and not just because lunch time is approaching.
“The Israeli version uses chick peas (garbanzos) so of course that is correct.”
Same as the street meat Halal carts here in NYC. I probably have falafel over rice roughly once a month when the mood strikes.
I did not know there was a difference. But chick peas are superior to any bean so yeah.
Yeah when I did that they always tasted great so it had to be chick peas.
Lard is better.
Probably treif. OMWC would use schmaltz.
Next you’re going to tell me that there are acceptable frying fats other than beef tallow for making samosa and pakoras.
damn it i missed this comment
From dedthred:
I can’t speak to the Glibs position, but here’s my answer: Okay, so we believe in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. What we do NOT believe in is the Trinity (where somehow they’re like an egg or something or, I don’t know. I was taught this in Baptist school. I didn’t get it then. I don’t get it now.).
Thus, protestants don’t consider us Christians, to wit:
but then trashy says:
I don’t know what Mormons you’ve been talking to, but that’s absolutely, categorically, terribly false.
Jarflax is correct (sideways) and I appreciate both the precision and nuance of the answer, which is as broad as it is deep.
“As man is, God once was. As God is, man may become.”
That said, we only worship OUR Apothete [I made that word up. I like it.]. We don’t know or worship any OTHER Apothete, and trust me, I had to wrap my head around that when I was a child.
“But Daddy, if this is TRUE then we have grandfather gods and uncle gods forever.”
“Yup. But we don’t talk about that because they don’t concern us.”
Of course I am, but this fact is incidental to the subject at hand.
The result of apotheosis is just Theos. The process of become God results in a God. But as a prospective Thea, you are free to call yourself an apothete, so do not let me stop you.
But not an apostate! (Let the Greek jokes fly!)
You’re not God, so you can’t stop her anyway.
I didn’t want to work that hard.
As an agnostic I find the “are LDS Christians debate kind of meaningless. To the main Christian sects, the answer is almost certainly no, since the LDS have several beliefs that are at odds with the traditional definition using the Nicene creed. To the LDS, the answer is obviously yes. So, overall the answer is always going to come down to “depends who you ask.” There are many aspects of LDS belief I find very unlikely and suspect, but the apotheosis idea is an intriguing one. I think to make it believable you need reincarnation though.
I actually have wondered about this.
Moj, your beliefs are yours. You don’t have to care about others’ opinions and certainly not mine.
There are also pre-Nicene church sects – Ethopian and Chaldean IIRC, so not all Christians are trinitarians.
Christian raised on the edge of Mormon country.
Hard no.
I think that all of the 19th century cults had to pretend to be Christians as the freedom or religion in the first amendment was understood to be freedom of the existence of Christian sects rather than differing faiths. What Mormonism was at the beginning (wife swaping sex cult) and what it is now (corporate mom organization with a tax exemption) is different.
Autocowrect does not like MLM.
I don’t know what Mormons you’ve been talking to, but that’s absolutely, categorically, terribly false.
I’ll stand to be corrected, but what I’ve read and heard from Mormons up until relatively recently was more akin to “we are the true lineage of Jesus Christ”. I guess that’s Christian in the sense of “we’re the true Christians”, but it’s not Christian in the sense of “we’re a part of the group that is considered Christian.”
As I understand it, the originators of Mormonism, and Joseph Smith especially, were very explicit in rejecting what Christianity had become and claiming a new revelation of a new faith (which supposedly was a return to the original faith). To lump that in as another part of what we call Christianity seems counter to the founding of the Mormon religion. It’d be like Lutherans calling themselves Catholic.
It can basically be distilled to “we reject Trinitarianism.”
Similarly to Islam being the correction and return to the original scripture that was corrupted by man according to Muhammad and his followers.
Okay, so, can you clarify if you’re saying Mormonism is similar to Islam?
I know a couple Christians who aren’t trinitarians (reject Holy Spirit as a third entity).
What’s funny is, when I saw “polytheism” in the original comment, I thought it was busting on Christians for the whole trinity thing.
Egg?? 🧐
Shamrock says, “I’m available for proselytizing!” ☘️
Does your recipe leave out whatever it was in the falafel I’ve had that left the stuff mostly appealing yet somehow reminiscent of dirt?
The cilantro?
I’m pretty sure I don’t have the cilantrophobia gene.
Burnt bean bits
Fie on your gods and stone age cults.
Iron age thank you! and for the LDS, why they are Steam Age!
Joseph Smith, steam punk sorcerer.
I just can’t get into falafel. It needs meat. Or maybe it’s the oil it’s fried in, I can’t do seed oils anymore now that they have been cut out of my diet, when I have some I get terrible joint pain.
Maybe if it was fried in bacon grease like my wife cooks with I would enjoy it.
I would try OMWC’s. Other kinds I have tried are like extra-dry hush puppies.
Last ones I had were at some haji joint in Hillsboirough OR. Tasted like shit and gave me the shits.
They must have formed it with their left hands.
That sounds like old oil.
Dosent take long for aldehydes to form in seed oils.
Well – oil is a deadly weapon in CA.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/mcdonalds-worker-suffers-severe-burns-face-body-coworker-throws-hot-oi-rcna348995
I’ve no issues with significant criminal charges, but come on.
All the charges look appropriate to me. That monster deserves serious jail time.
Side linked there:
“rival groups”. LOL
Seems to me 20 lashes with the cat o nine would be appropriate followed by a couple years of hard labor.
Changing consumer habits.
Speaking of cults
Donald Trump was booed loudly by fans inside Madison Square Garden when he was shown on video screens during the national anthem as he became the first sitting president to attend an NBA Finals game.
Chants of “U-S-A! U-S-A!” echoed through the arena as Avery Wilson sang “The Star-Spangled Banner,” but they they gave way to boos moments later as Trump was displayed on the jumbo screens giving a military salute. The jeers ended when the U.S. flag followed him on the screens, and fans cheered when New York Knicks players were shown. Mentions of the San Antonio Spurs also elicited vociferous boos.
The president was unfazed. “It was, I think, mostly cheers,” he told reporters after the game before boarding Air Force One to return to Washington. “It was loud, and it was very enthusiastic.”
Everybody with a soul hates him.
“Let’s go Brandon!”
Well, the stands were loaded with prog celebrities – that is probably where all the boos came from. That and the fanbase is probably more, uh, diverse than for some other New York teams.
What I heard on the news this morning was a mix of cheering and boos as would be expected of someone so universally either supported or despised.
I remember this from Benny Hill:
“They were booing.”
“Not all of them was booing, some of them was cheering!”
“They were cheering the booing.”
I saw on X that Rachel Nichols was ecstatic that Trump got booed.
I used to have a thing for her when I was younger, she still looks pretty good, but dumb.
Who?
“Trump was displayed on the jumbo screens giving a military salute”
I resent the Old Draft Dodger and Great Pretender with his phony salutes. Also Clinton/Biden/Cheney make the list.
Remember when the left embraced draft dodgers?
From a libertarian perspective conscription is not in our wheelhouse either. So I shrug at dodging the draft now, when I was a neocon draft dodgers pissed me off.
Draft dodging isn’t the problem with me, it’s Trump pretending to salute the military as he personally cowered in the basement with a made up sore toe.
Man up. Donnie, as Mohammed Ali and thousands of others did.
. Israelis stuff the falafel into a pocket pita – to much carbs
The Israeli version uses chick peas (garbanzos) so of course that is correct. Egyptians use fava beans
and you do know what the difference between a chick pea and a fava bean is, right??
that being said I though all falafel was made from năut
One is a pea, the other a bean. What do I win?
What’s the difference between a chick pea and a fava bean?
.
.
.
.
.
.
I’ve never paid to have a fava bean on my face.
a man of culture I see
I prefer a blend of corn oil and peanut oil, but wouldn’t argue with some refined olive oil.
I would propose pig lard to own both the Muslims, the Jews, and the Vegetarians… but I do not think falafel would be good in pig lard.
“I do not think falafel would be good in pig lard.” Maybe not, but it’s worth a try.
Everything is better with bacon.
Falafel is delicious. Perhaps my go-to favorite ‘Levant’ food.
The 5yo learned to ride his bike this week. He’s a very funny human and enjoys playing games with me. Mostly throw /catch games, and he’s good for his age. He’s out now seeing Sheep Detectives with my mom. (She liked it. It looks like good, simple fun. Which is kinda hard to pull off, and I think Hollywood has been distinctively against such cuz they can’t shoehorn a damn Message into it.
“SHEep are better detectives than the HEap we normally work with!” <– Stupid line not included with flick. (To my knowledge.)
so you are not all about that paste?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLGUFaizAHs
It took my boy until seven to ride his bike. He just couldn’t even. Then one day he picked it up, took a training wheel off, had me take the other one off and then rode away.
My daughter learned to ride a bike somehow one day I came home from work and she was riding it.
My wife said she just got on and started pedaling.
Youngest son took one time of me pushing him to figure it out.
Middle child could not get the hang of it.
We attempted it together many times, but he never got too frustrated.
He was about 10 when he finally developed enough coordination to figure it out.
I still can’t ride one. I want stability before I start to move, even though I know stability is imparted by the rotational momentum of the wheels in motion. The logic of physics just isn’t winning me over when it’s so wobbly at a standstill.
He would break down if he had to steer and pedal at the same time.
He’s a sensitive child.
And as sporting as his father.
My middle daughter learned when she was about 8. We tried all kinds of things but she wasn’t getting it. Her best friend was a boy who lived two houses over, and one day he helped her for about an hour in the street, and that was that. My wife was a little insulted that she was out-taught by an 8 year old.
I picked up bike riding again after I left NYC where I absolutely refuse to do it.
A could years and medical procedures later now and I don’t want to do it anymore. I technically can but I don’t trust my steadiness anymore and I really don’t want to risk breaking anything.
I would love a trike, though.
The 5yo and I share something between his brothers and mine: We learned to ride a bike the youngest, and we both took *much* longer to potty train than the others. I could ‘swim’ at 2.5yrs. Toilet? In my fourth year.
This is likely a fairly good indicator of our risk assessment barometers. I think I was so *not* turned off by poop that I didn’t get the big fuss. “Yeah. So?…”
Buncha babies trifflin’ ’bout all sorts of uninportance!
The aforementioned middle kid was potty trained pretty early, then decided she’d had enough and reverted back. It took us another year after that.
Where’s the meat?
(((We))) stole it
If God really loved you he wouldn’t have forbidden you bacon.
There’s a Turkish place that supposedly has good falafel I still want to try.
There is a doomed commercial location downtown that hosted a Syrian joint that had actually different variants of the “pastes to be eaten with pita” cuisine. That location currently hosts https://www.bocagechampagnebar.com/
The Turks in Germany, and elsewhere, their doner kebabs are divine. If that counts as ‘Levant food,’ that’s my favorite. Many of ’em also had falafel, though that’s not why I was eating there.
Now, I want one. I haven’t eaten much today and joint bday dinners for 13yo nephew and my 45yo bro. That’s in like three hours, so I’m gonna spend the afternoon nibbling.
Silly food that’s delicious finger food to nibble on (cuz I’m a simple man)? Fruit Loops. Absolutely meaningless food, but much better cuz I’m not foolish enough to soak them in milk like the philistines I’m surrounded by. Why take something good and corrupt it with liquid that shouldn’t really be consumed by adults? I’m not fully aboard that train, cuz (when I cooked) I may use milk /cream as part of a base, but why people keep *drinking* it is baffling. The crunch of cereal is its selling point. And I don’t play speed-eat to avoid the colorful(!) mush-paste, cuz I’m civilized. That’s why it’s finger food, just like popcorn or peanuts.
So “let that be a lesson to all you… nuts!”
I had a fantastic doner kabab in Norway in 2012, but the experience was freaky. We didn’t notice when we walked in, but the walls were covered with portraits of all the wrong people. Arafat, the Khameinei, Che, Castro, and other fucking commies.
The shit was just strange.
All the right people for a lot of the public over there. Hell, here too – just not as obvious.
Urban planning.
Get ready for more bike lanes and $1,000,000 a piece roundabouts!
She’ll turn Pacific Palisades into a combination hobo jungle and nature preserve.
With paved walking paths.
The gyro place I take my wife to sometimes has falafel, but I’ve never tried it.
https://papagreeks.com/
They do make an amazing baclava, so maybe I’ll try it next time and if I like it, give this recipe a shot.
Voted Best Greek Food in Virginia Beach – the competition must have been cutthroat
I don’t know any of the competition, but they do have tasty gyros.
But do they help keep you balanced?
but they do have tasty gyros – none of that ground meat shit you americans do?
No, it is lamb.
Now I want a gyro.
Balaclava. https://www.etsy.com/ie/listing/730860218/baklava-balaclava
Balaclava.
Inside the “Deep South” of New Jersey
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFfpwWBT-LM
Salem and Cumberland County are actually very rural. One of my good friends owns a ornamental plant nursery in Cumberland County.
I particularly enjoyed this. Nothing says “smart” like trying to drink underaged while packing.
https://newjersey.news12.com/18-year-old-woman-charged-in-bar-shooting-county-prosecutor-says
Yeah a lot of rural in Jersey, like every state. Even from NYC you can get to rural without too much effort.
Slight risk
In a filing with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration on Tuesday, Stellantis said the recall covers 2021 through 2025 model-year Jeep Wrangler SUVs and Jeep Gladiator trucks due to an electrical connection issue in the electric-hydraulic power steering pump wiring.
The automaker said the issue could, in rare circumstances, cause combustible materials to overheat, potentially leading to a vehicle fire.
A loose electrical connection can result in melting of the connection, which could ultimately lead to a vehicle fire, added Stellantis, whose brands also include Fiat, Chrysler and Peugeot.
That connection is hot even when the truck is shut off? That’s some good engineering.
Electric power steering is garbage.
Go pack to a belt or gear driven pump and a Saginaw gear box.
For Pie,
“Romanians are basically goth Latinos”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRMbh0wSly0
that is not an accurate video.
extensive rail and road network lol. some of the highways shown are about as finished as california high speed rail.
gah I can’t stand more than 30 secs of the average Youtuber flapping his gums.
Yes. Especially the jerk edits so it’s one long run on monotone blather.
Stellantis said in its filing that in 2023 and early 2024, it investigated fires in some Wrangler and Gladiator vehicles but closed the investigation due to the low rate of fires. In August 2024, it reopened the investigation after an increase in incidents originating from the suspect electrical connection.
It said it had worked extensively to determine the root cause over more than a year through vehicle buybacks, part return and analysis, CT scans and X-rays, material analysis, investigating vehicle design and other testing before determining in late May the issue posed an unreasonable risk to safety.
Did they try psychoanalysis?
They just want to bring back the phone book
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) wants to make it effectively impossible for people to buy what many call burner phones—a phone not explicitly linked to your identity at the point of purchase—which would impact privacy-conscious people, to domestic abuse survivors, to journalists, and many more. The FCC plans to do this by legally forcing the country’s telecoms to store a wealth of personal information about essentially all phone customers, including a government issued identification number and their physical address, alarming privacy advocates and civil rights activists who compare the measures to those from authoritarian countries where it can be difficult to buy a mobile phone plan without giving up your identity.
If you have nothing to hide you have nothing to worry about.
How else does one activate an IED?
https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/fcc-id-verification-phone-activation-1795960
The reasoning for it is to reduce scams and spam phone calls with the privacy aspect being a legitimate negative to the positive of lowering spam and scam phone calls.
You don’t really believe it will reduce spam calls, do you?
From US providers, probably. But you just grab a line from somebody outside the US.
I’ve watched enough TV and spy movies to know that those are only used by people who are up to no good. And I also know they’re not really anonymous, because a sexy IT expert at the FBI can type a few lines of code to cross reference a few things and figure out who bought the phone.
including a government issued identification number
Oooo! Oooo! I know this one – the one the law that created it said it was to NEVER be used for general identification purposes!
That’s crazy talk, Horshack.
You just know the crowd up in arms about showing an ID for..well, nearly everything EXCEPT voting, will embrace this; once a Dem admin introduces it.
ChatGPT is very helpful for my technical questions and things on my computing task list I didn’t know how to google. Honestly, the best part of ChatGPT is being able to say, “Okay, my thing is doing X, Y, Z, and I have goals A, B, and C” when I have to use 1500 words to explain what it’s doing and what I want.
I grudgingly admit it’s much better at reading a sentence and replying with a decent answer than I can get from a regular web search – which is really just picking words and plugging popular sites, maybe 1 out 10 of them actually relevant to what I was asking.
1957: Running a FAMILY FARM | Family Farm | World of Work | BBC Archive
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJvpm9nFXic
why would you wear a jacket and tie while farming.
Hey, you were the one who linked to a “gentleman’s farm.”
I left the farm in ’56 for just that reason. I couldn’t learn to do a Windsor, my dad was mighty particular about grooming when the hogs needed slopping.
Maybe it’s the only set of clothes he owns?
Europoors and all.
Why would you ruin a perfectly good falafel with a cucumber?
It got too spicy for OMWC
That sounds like the punchline to a joke involving lesbians.
Only need to change one letter in vegatarian?
Following up on the dedthred:
If we had a functional legal system (and society), both Carmelo Anthony the guy who killed Irina Zarutskaya would have been tried and executed by now.
Why does it take so long to bring cases like this to trial? The crime was committed in public, the perp was arrested immediately, the investigation should take maybe a week, but in Current Day America it takes months or years to get your “speedy trial” on.
I remain unsure on the Carmelo Anthony thing though I haven’t been following it. Certainly not executed either. Someone did put hands on him. It was an overreaction to a dumb situation. I don’t know if self-defense will fly, but it’s not like premeditated cold blooded murder to me either. I also haven’t been following it as the entire conversation about it online is a cesspool of identity politics going both ways.
He’s going to prison.
Almost certainly yes.
Only because the jury is all white.
/to prove Bro’s point
One of the fundamentals of self-defense law in all fifty states is that you can’t use deadly force, except in response to a reasonable perception of a deadly threat.
A knife is always deadly force. Bare hands can be deadly force, but only in vanishingly rare situations. If Austin had knocked Carmelo down and started stomping him, that might be enough to legally justify stabbing him. Merely ‘putting hands on him’ is unlikely to fly with the jury.
But, hey, his public defender has got to try something.
It’s been awhile (see my post above), but I don’t recall the dead kid putting hands on the killer. I know the killer was where he wasn’t supposed to be (in another team’s area at a track meet) and was asked to leave, but I don’t recall much else other than the killer was carrying a knife at a track meet and used it on another runner.
It’s madness. Maybe we have given defence lawyers too much power.
Nearly everyone who gets charged gets convicted. Most shit doesn’t go to trials and only the high profile cases even make the news. At the federal level only about .5% of cases that go to trial lead to an acquittal. Reality is that we are charging a whole lot of people with a whole lot of dumb shit and as much money as law enforcement and prosecutors have they don’t have the resources to sort through everything on their plate.
I’ve gone back and forth on criminal justice reform throughout my life. Our system doesn’t seem to accomplish much of anything particularly well though so I find it all rather indefensible as a whole. People who should get the book don’t (even in red areas) and vice versa. And then the fun part is for a lot of crimes the punishment in life never really ends.
Whatever hope that there was for reform died with Saint Floyd and the shitbirds on the left grabbing hold of the issue and doing everything either so incompetently (or in an effort to demoralize normies if that’s your preferred narrative). It’ll be a long time before it can be brought up in a room and you won’t be laughed at as naive.
The prosecution and courts are just as committed to non-speedy trials, even without motions.
I had a judge tell me one time that three weeks of your life is a long time to you, but it’s nothing to me or in legal terms. Which was something. The prosecutor kept dragging shit out and pushing back the date for something. Reality wasn’t that the person he needed didn’t have the time as much as he didn’t have the time and didn’t give a fuck about resolving anything (on the contrary, wanted to drag it out despite everyone else in the process wanting it to be over).
People in law have this big goofy system of rules that they play by that seems like madness to me as an outsider. Probably not just me even if the aspects I take issue with may be different than what others do. They show up every day and basically do the same shit with the same people on the other side or behind the bench. Faces behind those people change but it’s like…barely a factor to them most of the time. No real incentive to rush because they’re going home at 5 no matter what.
Because defense lawyers waive the right to a speedy trial?
Scaffolds should be erected and used within a month on such clear cut cases.
And most are clear cut.
My guess?
The backlog. Only so many prosecutors, courtrooms, judges, etc.
Wait, the trial is over? Didn’t they just empanel the jury yesterday or something?
The thing I like about free markets and the idea of libertarianism (because it doesn’t get said enough): the world is really fucking messy and the idea that anyone or any group has all the answers to how millions to billions of people should live or what they should be allowed to do ends up being utterly ridiculous in process. It’s a system for running things that recognizes that life is a giant chaotic system, but an unknowable system. It’s the most humble of utopian ideologies. Just leave people the fuck alone and let them figure out as much as possible on their own without the use of force. Pretty fucking simple thing that goes beyond politics.
“…the world is really fucking messy and the idea that anyone or any group has all the answers to how millions to billions of people should live or what they should be allowed to do ends up being utterly ridiculous in process.”
That’s how I basically describe my political beliefs to people. I don’t know what’s best for your life and you don’t know what’s best for mine, so why should we let a group of people even if they are elected, make decisions for millions of people? This idea that people are just widgets to be put in the correct place is one of the most dangerous ideas we have and have led to untold death and economic devastation.
Someone drew up a document that struck a reasonable balance concerning what those people we elect are allowed to do. I wonder what happened to that thing.
Hey buddy… is also about as fundamentally human as you get.
Which is why power needs to be diffused constantly.
+1
(except to quibble that it’s too humble to be any sort of utopian)
“In the bowels of Christ I beseech you, consider that you may be wrong.”
– Oliver Cromwell
Too bad, nothing would’ve made France fans feel as at home as some workers being on strike.
One note- 99% of the time when you get a falafel in a restaurant in the US, the falafel balls will either be frozen Sysco dreck or made from a dried mix. The difference between that and actual falafel is about the same as the difference between Troigros and Chili’s.
I figured.
Florida Man has nothing on this guy….
https://www.mysuncoast.com/2026/06/09/man-who-ran-police-stop-during-drunk-driving-investigation-attacked-by-alligator-officers-say/?fbclid=IwdGRleASVSy5leHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZAo2NjI4NTY4Mzc5AAEe7eEms3qMHm57o_GELvz1QxTJWwtkPm1sHcAp9JaE3Or4EjDIJs7XxvD1hxY_aem_Zd9uAwkRKRZPWhainf34Yg
Karmelo Anthony guilty of murder. Probably an overcharge, actually not a probably. 20 years ago, bringing a knife in your gym bag probably wasn’t that big a deal. Today, it can be seen as intent especially if your escalation is from alleged shove to stabby.
Is that the fastest murder trial since passenger rail became a minority transportation option?
Is there a link?
Texas law reads as follows for murder:
I don’t think he’s been overcharged at all. There is no reference to “premeditation”, only intentionally causing the death of another (or intending to cause serious bodily injury, etc.). Stabbing the other guy was neither negligent nor accidental, so murder it is.
For a more detailed look at the applicable Texas laws, go here.