I don’t agree with John that there is no reason spend more than $15 for a bottle of wine. I don’t mind telling you that I have had much more expensive bottles than that Jayer-Gilles Echézeaux Paul Ryan had, courtesy of my bankster friend in New York (who is generally at least as far left as I am). I don’t see anything wrong with buying expensive wine, morally, and the only reason I don’t myself is that I don’t have enough money. When people pay a lot for wine, it goes to some wine-maker who likely as not is essentially a farmer, and even if that guy is already rich, it also raises prices for his middle-class wine-making neighbors. That is how a lot of things work — my cousin who works for an NGO in East Africa tells me if you really want to help coffee growers in Kenya, buy the most expensive fru-fru Kenyan stuff you can, because it’s almost certain that if it’s $15-plus, then Starbucks or Stumpdown Stumptown or whoever paid the farmers much more than would have gotten from Fair Trade.
But Paul Ryan was drinking $350 wine with a hedge fund guy while scheming to funnel Medicare money into tax cuts for hedge fund guys, and the hedge fund guy was paying for the bottle! That’s bribery, plain and simple. Ryan would have gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for that meddling kid.
Also too, this ought to end the myth that Paul Ryan is some Applebee’s-going everyman.
If people have money to buy expensive shit, then Bieber bless them if they want to buy it. We’re trying to have a consumer-based economy here. But when they whine about not being able to get buy by on 400K a year, they’re douches. And when Congressmen drink expensive shit on de facto lobbyists’ dimes, while whining on behalf of the lobbyists, they’re worse than douches, they’re bribe-takers.
So fuck Paul Ryan. And fuck his Sullivan/Jokeline/Bobo/Joe Nocera amen chorus too.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
That’s the nut of it, to me. Like that U of C law professor who was whimpering that he was going to have to fire the cleaning lady in his $2 million (before renovations) house in Hyde Park if his marginal tax rate returned to pre-Bush levels.
Dennis SGMM
My only question; is your urine more valuable after you drink a $350 bottle of wine?
Linnaeus
Bingo. It’s the contrast between austerity for the great mass of people who can’t afford $350 bottles of wine, and favorable treatment for those who can.
Zifnab
The average house district holds – what? 500,000 people? What’s 458 into 300 million? The idea that a person capable of climbing the ladder of his political establishment to even run for office, much less win it, is some kind of Joe Blow Everyman was always absurd.
That House race for NY-26 chewed up somewhere in the neighborhood of $4 million, didn’t it? People all over the nation were dumping millions of dollars to decide an election in upstate New York over the course of a few months. If your political director is blowing millions of dollars on ‘effing Joe Everyman, he needs to be shitcanned and fast. Congressmen are pillars and anchors of their communities. They are rich and they have lots of rich friends and they are known most likely across the entire state.
I’m sorry. I know this is totally off-topic. But Congress is the world’s most exclusive Country Club. Anyone that believes you get a seat in the US House by being “normal” is a god damned idiot.
The Spy Who Loved Me
1. “meedling kid”? Feinberg has to be at least 50. Unless you are really an 80 year old man, calling Feinberg a kid is a real stretch.
2. You could probably afford to buy more expensive wine, and not depend on your rich bankster friend so much if you didn’t travel to Europe so often. The dollar is really weak against the Euro and the Pound.
MikeJ
@Zifnab: Meh. There are plenty of people in the House that are pretty down to earth.
Rhoda
Amen.
Cat Lady
Why is it always a woman who ends up being the whistle blower in these little morality tales? Brooksley Born, Sharron Watkins, Noreen Harrington, Bunny Greenhouse, Meredith Whitney, and so on. Fucking good ol’ boys can all bite me. Save the pricey wine for hedge fund manager liver foie gras.
DougJ in Damascus
Not s Scooby Doo fan, I take it.
stuckinred
What’s the word?
Thunderbird
What’s the price?
forty twice
beltane
Basically, Paul Ryan is the whore who got caught accepting payment for services provided. Unlike a prostitute, who only has the ability to spread disease to one client at a time, Paul Ryan seeks to spread poverty and death to tens of millions of Americans.
He is not a man; he is a bacillus.
Dennis SGMM
@Cat Lady
Only if you add commodities speculators to the menu.
Calouste
Ryan is an amateur compared to these guys:
Bankers ‘sacked’ over £44,000 meal
gbear
Meanwhile, the middle class can’t afford anything anymore.
jl
I do not care enough about the Ryan flap to make any comment on it.
So will focus on what else is going on the GOPosphere.
I’ve seen this headline several times today (the one copied is from Yahoo news, if you are interested in the specific keysrokes I used):
“GOP leaders say they’ve sacrificed enough on debt talks”
Sounds like the GOP is going to frame stuff like the Ryan high price winogate so the Democrats don’t have to.
The theory I posited in an earlier thread is that brain eating parasites have infected Obama and leadership of the GOP and we are all going to die.
Can we start drinking now? I have to catch up. Only 5PM on the left coast, and a lot of you have had a three hour start.
@14 thanks for the hobogram from Wonkette (I don’t even have to click the link. It was Wonkette, right?)
Jager
Most restaurants mark wine up between 2.5-4 times from wholesale price. In that case, Ryan was drinking about a $116 dollar bottle of wine, not a $350 bottle! I’m guessing you’ll be hearing this defense soon from the wingers.
Dennis SGMM
@MikeJ
Damn tootin’. I’ll bet that they even let darkies caddy for them.
Lysana
I could, and used to, have an awesome life on 100K/year for two people in the SF Bay Area. I even had foie gras once or twice a year.
Hugh
@ DougJ in Damascus #9
Is ANYONE a Scooby Doo fan? Really? That has to be the most soul-sucking show there ever was and it never, ever dies. It’s like a soul vacuum. My God. I’d need several $350 bottles of wine just to be anywhere near the TV when it’s on. And my daughter watches it. It was on when I was a kid. It’s still on. Can’t someone kill it, offer it up as part of the debt ceiling deal or something?
Paul Ryan is an asshole and a fake and corrupt as hell. I remain on topic.
neil
From the first ’60s incarnation of the show until his death in the ’00s, the same guy did the voice of Scooby in every cartoon in the franchise. Yeah, that voice.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Scooby Doo never recovered from the introduction of Scooby’s nephew, Oliver Doo. And I don’t think Fred and Velma have worked since their parts got cut.
rikyrah
Lawrence O’Donnell is cracking me up tonight – talking about the debt ceiling and Orange Julius.
O’Donnell about POTUS – ‘This is a work of strategic brilliance’.
LOL
MikeJ
BTW, the home run derby should *not* be a team game.
rageahol
I could, and used to, have an awesome life on 35k/year for one person in the SF Bay Area.
its not how much you have, it’s how you spend it.
PeakVT
What’s 458 into 300 million?
It’s 435 into 310 million, or about 710,000 on average. We would have ~550 Reps if they would implement the Wyoming rule.
RossInDetroit
Since the recession I make less than a quarter of what I earned in my peak year and 50% of my previous decade average. Not a whole lot changed, actually. And I have more time on my hands. Time is the one thing that money can’t buy, and I spend mine carefully.
J
Agreed! This tells nothing about what wine should cost; it tells us that VSP Paul Ryan is a lickspittle and toady of people like his Ass-ness.
Josie
I agree that it should be ok for a person who can afford to pay $350.00 for a bottle of wine to buy it. If I were a middle class (or even unemployed) constituent of Paul Ryan, however, and contributing to his salary as my representative, I would not appreciate his buying something that I could never in my lifetime afford.
PeakVT
I don’t agree with John that there is no reason spend more than $15 for a bottle of wine.
Have you ever done a blind taste test to see if your palette can tell the difference? Most people can’t, so there’s no reason from them to spend a lot other than to have a discussion about it.
TenguPhule
by on 400k
/grammer commie
Amir_Khalid
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Oliver Doo? I think you mean Scrappy Doo.
parsimon
Indeed, an outstanding bottle of wine or a mind-blowing dining experience is worth it: mind-blowingly wonderful. All persons should be able to experience it some time or another.
If it ever leads a person to forget that the median income in this country (and this is one of the richest ones on the planet) is, what, $50,000/year, there’s a moral failure on the horizon.
Suffern ACE
@jl:
Yeah. Earlier this afternoon Boehner says that the Dems aren’t serious enough about benefit cuts and then this afternoon complains that just voting to raise the debt ceiling is so painful for Republicans that just voting to do it is sacrifice enough.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-07-11/boehner-says-democrats-not-serious-enough-about-entitlements.html
So basically, the pain of their vote equals that of the guy whose unemployment has run out, or the contractor who won’t be getting paid in full if the ceiling isn’t raised.
Cat Lady
@Josie:
If I were an unemployed constituent of Ryan’s, I’d demand to know why I can’t have the same health insurance he has. Bill Maher did a nice little rant at the end of his New Rules where he likened the Casey Anthony jury to people who vote Republican – in the face of overwhelming evidence showing that the GOP has absolutely no interest in jobs or supporting the middle class, enough of the middle class still votes for
not guiltythe GOP.TenguPhule
“Democrats refusing to give us free BJs on the debt talks is a terrible terrible sacrifice for us elites used to wet holes available 24/7!”
/first up against the wall when the revolution comes, and not soon enough!
Dennis SGMM
Following this thread, it occurs to me that we should raise the pay of Representatives to $500 million a year and that of Senators to $1 billion a year. That would at least give us a chance at bankrupting their Galtian overlords through bribery inflation.
Warren Terra
@ PeakVT, #29:
I’ve done the test at a rather lower level (the cheapest wine involved was three-buck-Chuck, the most expensive perhaps $50), and there was no clear correlation of price and quality, at least for the group of friends I was drinking with (none of us claimed to know anything about wines, we were just judging how much we liked them). But different wines taste different, even if there isn’t a clear correlation between quality and price, and if you find one you like and can afford you should drink that, even if it’s seemingly very pricey. And there may be sentimental reasons to drink an expensive wine, recalling a previous occasion you drank that wine, visited that wine-growing region, etcetera.
On the other hand, people drink expensive wines as a status symbol, one of many related phenomena that quite bore me. I’ve often wished we could make propellor beanies extremely expensive, so that we could convince these nouveau riche status-hungry SOBs to wear them and thereby label themselves appropriately.
Or for that matter that we could go back to something like the sumptuary laws of medieval Europe or the window tax of early modern England (without, of course the many abusive aspects), and convince the banksters and other people with more money than sense that the proper arrogant display of massive wealth is achieved by ostentatious displays of payment of surtaxes.
DougJ in Damascus
I’ve done numerous blind tasting, yes. I used to be able to tell a Puligny from a Meursault but the stuff got too expensive. Personally, I mostly buy wines under $15.
stuckinred
snooty bullshit
geg6
Bravo, Doug, I’m right there with ya. I, too, have been lucky enough to drink very expensive wines, thanks to some financially fortunate friends. And they were delicious and obviously better tasting than anything I could afford. But Cole is wrong about this being nothing. I have pointed this story out to some of my Independent friends and they got the optics of this little episode right away and were disgusted. They know about Ryan’s plan, who he is, and exactly how evil and criminal hedge funders are. We need MORE of these kinds of illustrative stories. People, normal ones and not jaded political junkies like us, react to this kind of thing. It’s a simple message, easily understandable, and one that resonates with people we need to reach.
jl
“GOP leaders say they’ve sacrificed enough on debt talks”
will go nicely with pics of $350 winogate, is all I am saying.
The commercial can end with a clip of Hatch clowning in front of Thurston Howell III, while Thurston utters “Raaaahhhhllly, I say!”
Right now GOP insanity is all that I can see saving us in the next election, assuming that getting that far is consistent with GOP insanity.
BTW, who decides who will get paid if the debt ceiling is not raised? Won’t be enough money to go around. If Obama, can’t he use that to bring them in and do whatever the hell he wants real quick? I would cut any payments owed to big business first, starting with oil and gas and big ag. If that is so, then the WH must have a war room working this out right now, and this is all a show, and it will be wrapped up quick enough.
If the president is the one who decides, then I would be preparing letters warning polecats from certain states about real drastic cuts to pet contributers right about now.
Anyone know if it will work that way?
How could it work? Will the House just start passing insane contradictory resolutions about who to pay, or what?
Dennis SGMM
With my discriminating palette I can easily discern whether the Everclear has been mixed with Welchade or grape Koolaid.
Ron
@Josie: I don’t get this. When I buy almost anything I’m contributing to the salary of someone who can afford things I will never be able to afford. If you can afford something, then I have no problem with you buying it.
Ron
@Cat Lady: That rant kinda bothered me because I think it went after the Casey Anthony jury pretty unfairly.
Judge Crater
The money lenders have taken over the Temple. There really is no hope until the rotten, corrupt enterprise of supply-side, feed-the-rich capitalism collapses.
See James Howard Kunstler for more details.
stuckinred
“Ba Moui Ba”
MikeJ
@DougJ in Damascus: I can generally tell you from which bank of the Gironde a Bordeaux came and yet most of what I drink on a regular basis is sub $20.
There’s a case of two buck chuck in my pantry, but there’s also a bottle of 2000 Lynch Bages.
jl
2000 lunch bag wine? Sounds about in my league. Is it any good?
Edit: I won’t be able to tell, so just curious.
RossInDetroit
I worked in high end retail and sold a lot of what I consider absurdly pricey stuff. Like $18K TVs. I never resented the buyer’s wealth but anyone I got attitude from because I was a ‘salesman’, no matter how much or little they spent, went on my shit list for a long time.
Dennis SGMM
@stuckinred
Only to wash down the Binoctals.
Arclite
I took JC’s comments to mean that the actual cost of producing a bottle of wine is a few dollars at most, and $350 doesn’t in any way reflect the cost of making it.
Suffern ACE
@jl:
I am going to guess so. Although Sen. Johnson (R. WI-New) indicates that it will just be so easy. Social Security and Soldiers and bondholders get paid in full (natch!) while everyone else just get paid 60 cents on the dollar. Immediate living within our means! No problems with that he sees.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-07-08/senator-johnson-says-u-s-can-avoid-default-transcript-.html
RossInDetroit
Don’t look to the proles for revolution. As long as the cable is paid they’re not getting off the couch. Our Galtian Overlords have got the bread/circuses business running like a watch.
Cat Lady
@Ron:
He’s a comedian, not Jeffrey Toobin, making a broader more trenchant point and I thought it was clever. I always wonder if those kinds of analogies ever make anyone change their mind – simple analogies are effective, and he’s good at what he does. George Carlin has done more fighting for hearts and minds for the progressive agenda than the entire professional left ever will.
stuckinred
Dennis SGMM
BT’s and Obesitol, god awmighty. Being a truck driver had it’s specific needs.
biznesschic
Guys, let me break this down to you.
My partners and I have run an accounting firm for the greater part of 25 years, around the Washington DC/Virginia/Maryland area. I have an MBA/CPA, and my expertise in the business is non profits. Mainly, for profit firms set up foundations, in which they funnel money to their non-profit firms, in order to enhance or lobby the federal government to do their bidding. $300 bottles of wine, I can tell you, is lunch at the local DC hangout. I have been on private cruises down the river to the bay, all written off as business expenses.
I laugh when I hear the politically naive, (yes, I am not a shame to say this) harp about what Obama should do. Here is a secret: YOUR COUNTRY NO LONGER BELONGS TO YOU! It was taken over a long time ago, while you were watching episodes of LOST.
These people can’t subscribe to every day life, of paying car payments and cable bills. They have no idea what it is to send children to public schools. They only relate to making more money, and not having to live next door to you. And they have convinced 40% of the country to identify with them, while they secretly laugh at them. Trust me, I know.
Now we can further this fantasy, that president Obama should (insert), however, it is going to take an uprising, by us and the 40% to enact change. We do this by taking a lesson from the people of Wis, who has virtually brought the republican regime to a stand still. Just being honest.
Suffern ACE
@Suffern ACE: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-07-08/johnson-says-u-s-can-avoid-debt-default-without-raising-borrowing-limit.html
More succinct story.
Comrade Kevin
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Is this some sort of Scooby Doo/Brady Bunch crossover show you’re talking about?
Boudica
@Amir_Khalid
You’re obviously not a fan of the Brady Bunch!
Martin
For those that get BBC America, there’s a season that aired recently titled James May’s Road Trip
The gist is James May and Oz Clarke go touring around France (with season 2 being in the US) and Oz tries to teach James about wine. I only caught about half the episodes, but I learned quite a bit, and found it pretty entertaining, because I have about the same attitude about wine as James did starting the program.
Tom Johnson
That most people can’t tell the difference between a great wine and a good one doesn’t mean there’s no difference. It just means they can’t tell. There are terrific $15 wines out there (Rivola Sardon de Duero, for example) but wines that come from vineyards with long history and distinct characters are rare and in high demand, and thus more expensive. If you want that experience, you pay for it. Whether its worth it or not is a personal choice. I’ve had a couple of well-aged $600 bottles, and they weren’t worth it. (Fortunately, I wasn’t paying.) I’ve bought $150 bottles that were worth every penny , and I’ll buy them again. Not often, but when a special group and special moment come together, it’s way worth it.
All of that said, I’m not a Congressman in a public place. And a Republican congressman at that, drinking French wine. Has he no shame?
Ron
@Cat Lady: Yes, he’s a comedian, but the rant started by insulting the jury as a bunch of idiots. That part bugged me.
jl
@52
Forget that across the board 40% cut. Seems to be no more reason to do that than anything else. I can see bondholders, but social security and soldiers, that is just statutory stuff. Why do they get better? (No offense to either, but that is the law).
Why should Obama listen to Johnson about how statutory obligations should be prioritized, or any other GOPper.
If the debt limit is not raised seems to me the Executive is in both conflict of laws and constitutional limbo. I mean there are laws on the books that say this money is to be spent.
If I were president, and it came down to that, what with bond markets starting to freak out, then I would tell everyone “Hey, thanks for trying, I will handle it. Any payments to rich people have lowest priority. So, hey, I gotta go, there is a national emergency on. Talk to you guys later.”
RSA
I’ve never had a very expensive wine. My biggest alcohol extravagance was a bottle of 25-year-old Macallan whisky to celebrate a successful Ph.D. defense. But that’s sort of once in a lifetime. I don’t hold it against anyone who can afford expensive consumables, except sometimes for the conspicuous part. And Paul Ryan would still be a douchebag if he were drinking two-buck Chuck.
cleek
is that actually a myth?
Nellcote
http://campaignmoney.org/blog/2011/07/11/rep-paul-ryans-wines-major-donor-koch-attendee
Asness was listed as an attendee at retreats held by the billionaire conservative Koch Brothers, according to the document obtained by ThinkProgess last year. Charles and David Koch bring people together at these events to, “review strategies for combating the multitude of publoic policies that threaten to destry America as we know it.” In January, Ryan spoke at the Koch’s California retreat.
If Asness attended that California meeting last winter, this scenario plays out like a flow chart of how these Koch gatherings are supposed to work.
•On October 25, 2010, both the co-founder of AQR and Asness’s brother (General Counsel at AQR), donated $5,000 to Ryan’s political action committee (PAC). On November 4th, Asness and his wife donated $7,666 total to Ryan’s PAC along with another co-founder who gave $5,000. These donations are the first records of Asness or his associates donating to Ryan’s campaign.
•With the skids greased, it’s possible that Asness and Ryan were able to meet and chat at the January event. If Asness attended previous events, it’s likely he went to this one too.
•Five months later, Ryan and Asness sat down to drink two $350 bottles of wine. They were joined by University of Chicago Professor John Cochrane, the AQR Capital Management Distinguished Service Professor of Finance.
Asness is a major political donor, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. He was a bundler for Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign and he and his wife have donated over $400,000 in campaign contributions to candidates, parties, and PACs over the years. In 2009, he made two $25,000 donations to Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, according to the National Institute on State Money in Politics.
In his letter to invited guests last year, Charles Koch wrote that to battle the “threat of government over-spending and to change the balance of Congress in November,” participants must be “committed to an unprecedented level of support.”
burnspbesq
@Dennis SGMM:
Taking me back to undergrad. Was fun to watch the freshmen women take a sip, say “ummm … tasty” and throw down four glasses inside of an hour.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Heh. I think TV Geeks call bringing in a “cute kid” late in a series run “pulling an Oliver”
I’m taking a good friend out to a fancy dinner for his fiftieth, and I imagine we’ll order an expensive bottle of wine– he loves that kind of shit. But I’m thinking about a hundred, maybe a hundred and fifty. I’m gonna let the sommelier pick it, instead of sticking to my usual expert policy “Ooh, that’s a cool sounding name as I pronounce it in my one-semester Italian!”
RossInDetroit
I’m a little disappointed in TPM. I know the page hits help but scandal mongering isn’t Josh Marshall’s strong suit and this came off sort of tawdry.
KRK
Has xkcd’s Connoisseur come up yet in these BJ what-is-wine-worth posts?
birthmarker
RSA–I bet when Ryan had to whip out his own credit card he started wishing it had been Two Buck Chuck!!
middlewest-chan-kun-aniki
The new Scooby Doo is actually pretty good, though.
RossInDetroit
Let’s see if this gag makes it through.
RalfW
OT but breaking news:
Please. Please. Please make it so. Oh. My. FSM.
SiubhanDuinne
@peakVT #29:
Palette =|= palate
/spelling Nazi, excuse Godwin reference plz kthxbai
RossInDetroit
When I was in the restaurant biz the rule was the 2nd least expensive red was probably the best value. The wine manager typically stocked something for himself and underpriced it. Second to last is often where it ended up.
Anyone can pick a great bottle at the $350 price point. A real pro knows which of the $35 bottles is the hidden gem.
SiubhanDuinne
@RossInDetroit #74:
I. Am. So. Ordering. Those.
gelfling545
@Hugh: I swear they must put subliminal messages in it. My daughters LOVED Scooby as youngsters & their daughters have followed suit. Now, they don’t get to see much TV, just a dvd or 2 on the weekends but first preference is always Scooby. I know kids will watch pretty much anything animated but the charm of that show has always eluded me.
Joel
Loved the Stumpdown (sic) reference. I like Stumptown, too.
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
some expensive alcohol is sillier than others.
there are probably wines 100-500 or more that are “worth” it, at least to the right person. there are also a lot of overpriced shit wines, in any price range.
the one that kills me is vodka, in theory, you are paying a premium for filtration, since the goal is already to be as pure and neutral as possible(in the american, not fruit infused-blech) market. there is an upper limit to how much nothingness you can taste.
Cain
@Dennis SGMM:
haha.. that is so 90s! I bet Clinton drank the same stuff!
BTW did you get the google+ invite?
Mr Stagger Lee
Speaking of Baader-Meinhof, I just got done watching The Baader-Meinhof Complex on Netflix. Great film from the folks who bought that popular parody on YouTube, Downfall. Oh BTW I hope the next $350 wine Paul Ryan drinks, is spiked with a laxative.
billgerat
Who gives a flying fark if Ryan was drinking expensive wine, as long as he’s using his own money to pay for it? I don’t care if he pays $3500 for a bottle or $35, as long as its his money. From the start I thought this wine story was all whine – a trumped-up story just to make him look bad. Hell, he can do that well enough on his own by just opening his mouth to talk instead of drink.
Also, it is true that a lot of times you can find a good wine for cheap rather than paying a lot more for it, but sometimes paying a bit more can bring rewards if you know what you’re getting. Last summer I bought a 2003 Domaine Drouhin Oregon Pinot Noir for about $40 bucks, and it was absolutely the best I’ve ever drank, though I can usualy find some good stuff for closer to $20. Sometimes it’s worth spending a little more, though $350 is a little out of my price range. Once when my dad asked me why I paid $70 a fifth for some good scotch when he said that for $12 he could get by just fine, I told him “When you pay $12 for your booze, it’ll taste like $12”. Splurge a little sometimes, your tastebuds will appreciate it.
Martin
Um, 2.2T in revenues, 3.6T in spending. ~1.8T of the spending is debt service, defense, entitlements. That means making up 1.8T in spending with 400M in revenue, which is a lot less than $0.60 on the dollar. Assuming that we can’t also shut down IRS collection, at least part of homeland security, the state department, immigration, and a few others, I’d be willing to bet the ‘critical’ services eat up the entire $400M, so everyone else gets $0.00 on the dollar.
beltane
@RalfW
I’m afraid of getting my hopes up with this one. I’m afraid that despite all the damning evidence that will inevitably be revealed, the worst thing that will happen to Murdoch will be that he receives a Sternly Worded Letter.
However, if the News Corps pestilence is finally flushed from our system, I will be sure to celebrate by splurging on a $25 bottle of wine.
Linda
Know what the real scandal is? If the
lobbyistsfriends wrote a check for 10 times as much, and socked it into Ryan’s reelection chest, it would have been all about the “first amendment,” and would not have counted as corrupt, even though it was a ten time bigger bribe. So it’s hard to get too worked up about this.stuckinred
I’d like to see this prompt a look into Hannity and those bullshit “Freedom Concerts”. I KNOW it’s a scam on the back of the troops.
Nutella
Dennis SGMM
No, but I’ll bet Ryan would say the wine buyers’ shit don’t stink.
biznesschic
Rozzi in Det. 350 dollars is 35 dollars to these guys. They don’t have the patience to quibble.
piratedan
well as a Scooby Doo connoisseur I can definitively say that season two was the best one because they introduced those lovely music montage chase scenes into the show that gave it that quintessential “Archies/Groovy Ghoulies” feel, somewhat reminiscent of the heyday of Josie and The Pussycats that found the proper blend of music and animation into one seamless marketing juggernaut that worked as if you were able to plug your 10 year old synapses directly into the television.
Now, when seen in comparison to its rivals like, The Perils of Penelope Pitstop and Speed Buggy, the quality is as evident as if you were drinking a bottle or Thunderbird (w/ or w/out grapefruit juice) and juxtaposing that experience against some dude in an ill fitting tux who’s real name is Bernie but for employment purposes uses Jacques; who brings you your fermented grape wrapped in a linen napkin cradled in a piece of silver that has to be subjected to Tarn-X every three months.
joe shabadoo
It isn’t that most people can’t tell the difference between expensive and cheap wine, it’s that even wine critics have been proven to not be able to tell the difference between expensive and cheap wine in numerous taste testings.
The culture is just too big and powerful around wine to get people believing the truth about any part of it. Even the country of the vinyard is still a huge part of the mythos despite being proven false. The reporter who reported the Famous Judgement of Paris that California wines won was banned from coming back. Tasting wine and being able to tell the difference has become almost mythical today, probably because much of it is a myth. Wine is serious business to countries and serious business to the wealthy. After all, if there really isn’t much difference it doesn’t make drinkers of expensive wine look sophisticated, it makes them look stupid.
Remember that lobster used to be considered the worst possible food and prisoners complained and sued because they were being fed too much of it.
Rarity followed closely by price (which is caused by rarity or causes artificial rarity) are the most important factors when judging if something is sophisticated and whether it is “good.”
Suffern ACE
@Martin – I never said I believed him. It is good though to put the extend of the issue out there. There are a lot of people who favor this thing reasoning like Johnson because they have no idea what our government spending looks like. I wonder if it would help to call on the governors and ask just how quickly they could remain operational if those transfer funds disappeared for a few months.
The Pale Scot
@Hugh
I’m an HR Puffn’Stuff guy myself
eemom
umm, DougJ? YOU’re not making a career out of fucking over widows and orphans.
As I said the other day, I can’t believe how ridiculously overanalyzed this whole shit has been. Y’all need to go watch Polanski’s “Oliver Twist,” the scene where the rich pigs that run the orphanage are gorging themselves while the orphans starve on porridge. THEN come back here and continue this bullshit debate about whether or not Paul Ryan’s wine is a big deal.
eemom
no, but your breast milk is. : )
Martin
My guess is less than a few months.
I stick by my original plan – fund military salary and operation costs, defund procurement, fund the ‘critical’ services the feds would fund in a shutdown. All the rest of the revenues get paid out to the states proportional to what they contribute in federal funding. Donor states get a full share, recipient states get the appropriate fraction. Problem solved.
Dennis SGMM
@Cain
Could you resend it, please. I think that it may have been dumped in a recent blizzard of work-related emails. And I’m supposed to be retired.
AAA Bonds
Great story about your rich friend man, thanks :|
The Pale Scot
I had the luck/misfortune of working in NYC french restaurants in the 80s/90/s, and suffer from a palette I can’t afford.
But the thing about wine is all crappy shit being pumped thru the distributors into most stores. There are many great <20 bottles out there, but they're pushed aside by the mass produced crap.
I remember R.Mondovie Rutherford Cabernet selling for 7.99, then the snobs found it and it went up to 55.00, damn shame, it tasted as good as a Bordeaux that went for 40.00
The Pale Scot
PS. Total Wines=Heaven
PeakVT
A wine connoisseur’s best friend.
Judas Escargot
Full-bodied. With hints of asparagus.
birthmarker
biznesschic#57-You touch on a lot of important points. I wish you would post a diary repeating this at DKos. I am particularly interested in the way foundations are used for political influence. This is a great untold story.
The part about how politicians only relate to money and not having to live next door to us–yeah, I believe that.
MagicPanda
That’s pretty impressive.
I can tell a Burgundy from a Bordeaux, and I can tell a cheap Burgundy from a good one, but I don’t think I could pick out a Puligny from a Mersault. Yikes!
My problem with Burgundies is that in my experience, a bottles of the same stuff from the same year can taste completely different when I have it on two different occasions, and I don’t drink them often enough to know whether I’ve gotten a bad bottle or whether they just vary that much from bottle to bottle.
As do I.
But sub-$15 probably doesn’t include anything made with Pinot Noir, becuase what’s the point of drinking a sub-$15 pinot? It’s hard enough to find something good at $40 (although I highly recommend Peay)
joe shabadoo
Magic Panda, I don’t know if you noticed but in your post you basically said “expensive=good.”
You didn’t say you can tell the difference between a good wine and a bad wine, but a cheap wine from a good one.
Deeply Unserious
Amen from a fellow wine drinker.
J.W. Hamner
Price pretty clearly does not correlate with taste in blind tastings… but at the same time people enjoy expensive wines more. So pick your poison I guess: I’ll stick to Belgian beers.
MagicPanda
@Joe: fair enough.
What I meant to say was this. Burgundies are classified according to a set ranking. The general “burgogne” appellation is the cheapest and most general. Next come wines designated by village, (which supposedly come with associated terroir, with some villages being considered better than others) followed by specific vineyards, etc.
Doug was saying that he could tell wines from specific villages apart from each other, which is very hard. I couldn’t do that, but I’m pretty sure I could pick out a generic burgogne from a premier cru, because they taste pretty different. I abbreviated premier cru to “expensive” but you get the drift.
I’m not necessarily saying that more expensive wines always taste better. But in burgundy, generic burgundies taste pretty different from the high end in that region.
Dollared
Winegate could be a big deal if pushed. Ryan is still a rural Wisconsin congressman. Beer country. We don’t drink anything that costs $350, unless the $350 pays for 48 gallons of product, together with a delivery trailer with taps sticking out of the side.
Still no coverage in Wisconsin papers. Keep flogging it, TPM!
DougJ in Damascus
Just Puligny from Meursault, mind you. I could never tell Chassagne from either very well.
Anyway, I love burgundy and can see why people pay a lot for it. It’s great stuff, when it’s great.
Zach
I don’t know if this is the case now, but circa 2004 Starbucks paid more for all of their coffee than fair trade did — Starbucks paid for consistency and there weren’t Fair-Trade-Certified growers that could meet Starbucks’ ridiculous level of demand. Vilification of Starbucks really turned me off from the whole anti-corporate movement; I don’t even like the place, but they have decent coffee, don’t exploit workers (much less so than your average local coffeeshop), and are good on the environment. I’d prefer it if indie coffeeshops could stay in business, but blaming Starbucks on that is really misguided — Starbucks and its ilk massively expanded the market for paying too much for coffee.
NoPublic
@Zach: The cardinal sin of Starbucks is the
ShittyCity Roast. The rest of it I can mostly deal with (Well, the bizarre naming constructions and private lingo annoy me too).Flugelhorn
Seriously. Such ENVY in the Democratic party. You too could buy $350 bottles of wine if you had been successful. Instead, you want us to work so you can take 33%.