Grape Varietals In France

   Do any of you find French wines to be exceptionally confusing? 
   Well - they can be!  Unlike most wines from the US, New Zealand, Australia, etc., the French wine labels do not usually name the grape varietals. Instead, they list the country of origin, the region, the vintage, the estate, or "maker", the winery and/or vineyard, and occasionally the shipper or négotiant.
   This (very generalized!) list outlines the primary varietals found in a few important regions: 
Burgundy:
Reds: Pinot Noir
White: Chardonnay 
Bordeaux:
Reds: Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Petit Verdot, Cabernet Franc, Malbec
Whites: Sauvignon Blanc, Semillion, Muscadelle
Loire:
Reds: Cabernet Franc, Gamay, Pinot Noir, Cabernet Sauvignon
Whites: Chenin Blanc,  Melon De Burgogne, Sauvignon Blanc
Alsace:
Whites: Gewuztraminer, Muscat, Pinot Blanc, Pinot Gris, Riesling
Rhone:
Reds: Grenache, Syrah, Mouvedre, Cinsault
Whites: Grenache Blanc, Clairette, Bourboulenc, Roussanne, Picpoul

A rebuttal regarding Obama

[The original comment I took exception to:]

C - "I too want our president to suceed.
The national pride we all should share in a color blind election where the most capable and competent person just happens to be black or a woman... is the epitomy of democracy.
And no, McCain was not that person. Maybe no republican could have been this year.
No it was Hillary's year but race and style trumped ability and everyone-even the fanatical gleam in the eye white hypocrites whose lack of self awarness to this fact does not excuse the reprehensible origins of their loyalty to Hussien-knows this and that's what makes it inexcusable."

[My comment in response]

E - What a load of hooey.

 

McCain would have beaten Hillary.  It was never her year as it will never be.  She would have won the Dem nomination, but she had too many people who hated her to win.  Males would have left the Dems, even after all this, in droves.  McCain would have never nominated a fluff like Palin and would have taken the White House.  You want to trivialize Obama's win or write it off with trite explanations, but it was simple: Best man for the job.  He was inspirational when the nation needed to be inspired, charismatic and an obviously driven leader when we were tired of what the ass in the Oval Office was trying to sell us.  He is intelligent and educated, and we wanted that after finding out Texas hokum doesn't work when running anything larger than a BBQ.  And while the problems we face seem like it would condemn an inexperienced man to failure in the election, America didn't want a 30 year Senator who helped get us where we are or a close connection to the past administration, tainted and full of scandal that it was.  He lost votes because he was black (as is evidenced by Dem areas in the south that voted for McCain) but won because he was young, intelligent, hard working, well spoken, committed, and basically the anti-Bush.  

 

Will he do as well as everyone hopes?  How could he possibly?  Will some of his plans be disliked?  Sure, as no one is ever pleased by everything.  What I may like, you may dislike (and vice versa).  But I think he has earned the right - through his own well run campaign and hard work as well as through the failures of the past administration - to give it a shot and have the support of the people.

 

The simple fact so many people now have hope in this country should tell you something about his ability to inspire and how desperate the populace is for the country to go in a different direction in many areas.  And his ability to inspire and bring 'hope' back to the people will do more for this troubled economy than any program he initiates or vetoes.

'Progressive Taxation? I think mine is more about progress..

 As an advocate of the Flat Tax (but an advocate that realizes accountants, the IRS, and lawyers have too much to lose to ever let it happen), I wrote this in response to someone who advocated steeply progressive taxation.  They believe the rich need to pay a lot more.  I don't think that progressive taxation is just unfair to the wealthy, but to everyone.  Here was my response:

"You don't see it at work in the real world... Union guys turning down work they want because they'll lose most of it in taxes if they get bumped... Under the table jobs for a lot of blue collar workers so they won't get bumped up - it isn't just the taxes on the other job, its the affect on the main one.  I know of a contractor who makes $35/hr and his boss charges $50/hr. for him.    The contractor works as much as possible outside the loop now - he makes no more, the homeowner saves a little, the boss loses money, the gov. loses money in taxes and fees...  Why?  Why would the contractor do that when he makes no more?   Because if he does it through his boss he'll get bumped to a new bracket and lose out.  THAT is the real world. "

" Rather than say every citizen should pay the same (as we all have the same army, same roads, etc.) if you want to say that someone makes 100 times what you do then they should pay 100 times what you do then I agree.  But 'Progressive' Taxation is un-American.  That said, I could still get behind it IF it were on an extreme income...  ie, EVERYONE under $35,000 pays nothing (as they are just getting started or need every penny they earn to live).  At $35,000 to $55,000 the population would pay 5% (to ease into paying taxes.   From $55,000 to $350,000 we would all pay 10%.  From $350,000 to $1,000,000 we would pay 20%.  Over $1,000,000 a year you pay $35%. "

"Would it make people earning $950,000 stop and think about a yarly salary increase?  Sure would. But how many are getting that?  And those that get more than $1,000,000 per year in compensation usually make substantially more or it is based on performance (through bonuses).  Would some not take the 'raise'?  Maybe, but the money would then be reinvested somewhere rather than taken in compensation.  The gov. wouldn't get it in taxes but it would still help the economy.  Meanwhile, everyone from $35,000 on up would be encouraged to work more, work harder, try to get ahead, etc.  The increments would be small enough that the raise or additional work would not be chewed away, and those we need to encourage to work harder and take risks would be the benefit of their risks and hard work, not see it get taken in taxes."

I'm sure there are holes in the plan and I still think a straight 10% (or whatever) Flat Tax would be better as it addresses corporate taxes as well, but it is far better than what we have now.

 

A Friend's Synopsis

I wish I wrote this but a very good friend did...  Eloquent and pithy, I think:

__

I do not root for failure. I also do not say my country right or wrong. The invasion was a mistake because Hussein was already defeated and completely contained. He kept his psychotic people under control, through fear but so what? That was their problem. Finding and eliminating Bin laden and Al Qaeda was our problem. Hussein also kept Iran in check. Now none of this is happening. IT WAS A MISTAKE! Now when we leave it will fall apart but that was not the case before w. went in and his father and his men knew that. HOWEVER, if you go, employ the Powell doctrine. Kick ass, take control not allow an army to be disbanded and therefore spring up as a series of tribal insurgent armies supplied with arms we were unable to secure. THIS WAS A MISTAKE! This is horrible for our country! It never should have happened. Wrong from it’s conceit, it’s justification which was all lies, it’s concept, it’s design and lack of follow through. The world is either horrified or emboldened by our now clearly seen weakness. We can not fight simultaneous wars even when in the same region. We cannot afford this war, especially when giving massive tax cuts at the same time. So let’s enrich another enemy, China. Fucking brilliant! Wrong in it’s ENTIRETY!

I do not root for my country to fail. I do not turn a blind eye to its folly. An American victory would have been to vanquish the Taliban and shown for however long it may have lasted that a religion of such monstrous intolerance and backward looking yearnings for the human race would not be allowed to establish itself in the league of nations. That is not the future for mankind. Al Qaeda would not have been so strong if we cut off it’s head and it would not have so many new recruits. We should have gone after the root cause of this conflict and tried to see what could be done to improve. We should follow the money to Saudi Arabia and choke that off.

            Now of course the situation is this: When we leave, whenever we leave Iraq, it falls apart. Iran steps into the vacuum. Everyone hates us, our children died for nothing, the Iraqi oil is doing us no good but w, sure showed his father who was the better man.

            I can not live up to Christ’s mandate. I can never forgive this asshole, I hate him and always will. You know why? It is because I love and root for the best of the United States of America. This is not it.

Avanti WineFridge

Just a complete rant that I will take down if the company makes this right...  If not, I'll post that, too, as well as a link to a website I'll set up.

(11/9/08 - NOTE:  They have sent a new unit which - so far - is working well; details below)

Anyway...  

Ordered an Avanti wine fridge mid January 2007 on-line while buying appliances for a kitchen remodel at our house...  It was delivered in February and installed mid March 2007.  

It stopped working while we were on vacation in July 2007.

After calling the seller (to find out they didn't do repairs) and then Avanti (who referred me to a local repair place for warranty work) we called A-Z Appliance.  They came out in August 07, took one look and said they couldn't fix it as it was the electrical panel and 'those always go bad".  They would order parts but 'they are terrible about shipping quickly".

The part was ordered but was back ordered and unavailable..  until December of 07.  A-Z came out and installed the part and left (no one was home).  

Obviously it still didn't work.  

Two weeks later they were back out to check it out.  They said it would have to go back to the shop... but they couldn't take it as the truck was full.  Later that week theyame out and took fridge in for repair.

I finally got them to bring it back in mid- Feb.  Happy to finally have a working wine fridge instead of a gaping hole in the cupboards as we did over the holidays, we were frustrated but finally satisfied customers.

The unit worked 3 months and stopped by the end of May, again.

After numerous calls to A-Z who wasn't sure what they could realistically do any longer, they said unit is defective with an internal leak and cannot be repaired.  A new one would be necessary.  With both A-Z and myself calling Avanti, in early August, Avanti called me to say unit cannot be repaired, per a discussion with the repairshop, and that new one is necessary.  I was to send $10. (?!) to them to do so.

Check sent the next day on 8/7.

Check was cashed by Avanti on 8/13.

By late Sept., I called A-Z and Avanti wondering why I had not heard anything.  Unable to get any answers, leaving many messages, I finally spoke to someone on 10/1 at Avanti who said it had been too long  and that the item was out of warranty!  No fridge was to be sent, despite cashing check, despite acknowledging it cannot be fixed, despite it never working correct and being out of service for all but 6 or 7 months of the 20 months I had it...

Getting past a customer service representative I spoke to Meaghan, ' a manager'.  After telling her the problem she said she would talk to A-Z to have them confirm the issue and would call me back.  I told her that no one ever called back and I spent a lot of time on hold at Avanti... She promised she would call back by the end of the day.

Obviously, she didn't.

I called that eve, the next day, and other times all week.  Always told I was being transferred in, it alwys was put on voice mail and no one ever called back.

Totally frustrated by the worse customer service I have ever heard about, I asked for her 'boss' and was told to speak to David ______ (head of dept., supposedly).  He instructed me to fax/mail a copy of the sticker from the back of the wine cooler to him and a new cooler would be sent out.  I pulled the unit myself, and then both faxed and mailed it.

Having heard nothing by the end of the month again, I called on 10/30 to check the status.  More time on hold to get through, more time on hold after speaking to a rep and giving her the RA number for the issue...  After being put on hold for some time, the rep returned and  told me she could not even locate the RA number for my problem!  

I asked to speak to David and was given - surprise - his voice mail.  I left yet another message.

As of 3pm I have not heard back from anyone...  We'll see.

More to come, I'm sure...

---

I received a call later that day from a customer service representative who asked if i would be home the following week, lol.   She mentioned I would receive a call from a trucking company about delivery as the wine fridge would be sent right out.

Sure enough, I received a call from a trucker the following week who wanted to bring the unit by.  I pulled the current one out, and wrestled it down the stairs myself in time for the new unit to show up that afternoon.   Bringing the new one in and setting it up (they are 54 bottle units, I believe) it appears to be working well.  While I wish the original unit had worked properly in the first place and that it had not taken so long to get the problem resolved, in the end they did do the right thing, thankfully... 

What Sarah Palin Has Taught Us

	October 24, 2008, 7:00 a.m.

An Instructive Candidacy
What Sarah Palin taught us about ourselves.

By Victor Davis Hanson

Soon this depressing campaign will be over, and we can reflect on what we learned from our two-month introduction to Sarah Palin.

Clearly, it is more than we would have ever wished to know about ourselves.

E - That a small percentage of us can b fooled by winking women with nice legs?

First, there turns out to be no standard of objectivity in contemporary journalism. Palin’s career as a city councilwoman, mayor, and governor of Alaska was never seen as comparable to, or — indeed, in terms of executive experience — more extensive than, Barack Obama’s own legislative background in Illinois and Washington.

E - Nor should it be. 'Councilwoman'?  Mayor of a town so small it could fit in most high school stadiums?  Governor of the most remote and unpopulated state in the country and one of the most remote areas of the world?  Titles and positions don't get you votes.  Abilities do.  She has none.

 Somehow we forgot that a mother of five taking on the Alaskan oil industry and the entrenched male hierarchy was somewhat more challenging than Barack Obama navigating the sympathetic left-wing identity politics of Chicago.

E - Somehow this fluff piece overlooks that a well educated and intelligent member of Congress who can build coalitions and lead people is far more qualified than a hockey mom who has done nothing but get elected based on looks, had a small scandal already, and been appointed to a post she is unqualified for based on nothing more than her gender and ability to appeal a the fringe group who doesn't look deeply but is satisfied with one issue.

So we seem to have forgotten that the standards of censure of her vice-presidential candidacy were not applied equally to the presidential campaign of Barack Obama. 

E - Absolutely unequal.  He has been scrutinized for 4-6 years and she couldn't stand up to 2 months.  He can handle himself with anyone and she would be eaten alive and is unable to stand up to a Today Show host.

The media at times seems unaware of this embarrassment, namely that their condemnation of Sarah Palin as inexperienced equally might apply to Barack Obama — and to such a degree that by default we were offered the lame apology (reiterated by Colin Powell himself) that Obama’s current impressive campaigning, not his meager political accomplishments, was already an indication of a successful tenure as president. The result is that we now know more about the Palin pregnancies — both of mother and daughter — that we do the relationships of Tony Rezko, Bill Ayers, Reverend Wright, and Father Pfleger with our possible next president. 

Indeed, the media itself — in private, I think — 

E - Nice of him to speak for all that he disagrees with...

...would admit that while have learned almost everything about Tasergate and the Bridge to Nowhere, we assume that at some future date a publicity-starved, megalomaniac Rev. Wright will soon offer his post-election memoirs, detailing just how close he and a President Obama were. Or we will learn Barack Obama and Bill Ayers, as long-time friends, in fact, did communicate via phone and e-mail well after Ayers had told the world, about the time of 9/11, that he, like our present-terrorist enemies, likewise wished he had engaged in more bombing attacks against the United States government. And the media never wondered whether a Palin’s falling out with those who ran Alaska might have been more of a touchstone to character than Obama’s own falling in with those who ran Chicago.

E - While you would like to judge Obama by 2 or 3 of the millions he has dealt with, searching for something - anything - that will hurt the campaign, she can be judged on her own proven lack of ability and honesty.

While Gov. Palin’s frequent college transfers and Idaho degree are an item of snickering among pundits, none of them can claim to care much about Barack Obama’s own undergraduate career. To suggest that he release his undergraduate transcript is near blasphemy; to scribble that Sarah Palin’s Down Syndrome child was not her own is journalism as we now know it. 

E - Have any reputable journalists said that?  

To care that Joe Biden is vain, with bleached teeth, the apparent recipient of some sort of strange facial tightening tonic, and hair plugs is deservedly mean and petty; 

E - Yet this author will say it willingly.  NOT PETTY AT ALL, LOL.

...to sneer that the Alaskan mom of five bought a new wardrobe to run for Vice President is, of course, vital proof for the American voter of her vanity and shallowness.

E - Ah, she is simply buying b new outfits.  He is shallow and vain.  Got it.

Second, there does not seem to be much left of feminism any more. Of course, feminists once gave liberal pro-choice Bill Clinton a pass for his serial womanizing of vulnerable subordinates, and Oval Office antics with a young female intern. But they gave the game away entirely when they went after Gov. Palin for her looks, accent, pregnancies, and religion, culminating in assessments of her from being no real woman at all to an ingrate — piggy-backing on the pioneer work of self-acclaimed mavericks like themselves. 

E - Sorry.  Feminism was proven by her being turned down.  It showed that talent and issues and brains is what matters, not boobs.  Feminists should vote on talent and issues, not on any woman just because they are a woman.

Feminism, it turns out, is no longer about equal opportunity and equal compensation, but, in fact, little more than a strain of contemporary elitist identity politics, and support for unquestioned abortion. Had Gov. Sarah Palin just been a mother of a single child at Vassar rather than of five in Alaska, married to a novelist rather than a snow-machiner, an advocate of pro-choice, who shot pictures of Alaskan ferns rather than shot moose — feminists would have hailed her as a principled kindred soul, and trumpeted her struggles against Alaskan male grandees. 

E - If she was not a woman picked to look pretty but repeat what she was told to, a woman picked on talent and not the fact she was anti-abortion to appeal to the far right, she would have had a chance.  No woman who wants equal rights thinks that picking a backwoods hockey mom - simply because she wears a dress - advances any of their causes.  And this writer's complete misunderstand and misrepresentation of it shows he doesn't have a clue.

So there was something creepy about droves of irate women, in lock-step blasting Sarah Palin from the corridors of New York and Washington, when most of them were the recipients of the traditional spoils of either family connections, inherited money, or the advantages that accrue from insider power marriages. Indeed, very few of Palin’s critics on their own could have emerged from a small-town in Alaska, with an intact marriage and five children, to run the state of Alaska.

E - A former beauty contestant who gets elected to office by oil workers being compared to any real politician is silly.  Inflating her accomplishments and belittling others wins no points or votes.

We have come to understand that — for a TV anchorwoman, op-ed columnist, or professor — it would be a nightmare to birth a Down Syndrome child in her mid-forties, or to have had her pregnant unwed teen actually deliver her baby. 

E - Foolish and stupid comment.  She has been praised for both and its been hands off on any complaints about her daughter.  Empty whining.

In the world outside Sarah Palin’s Wasilla, these are career-ending blunders that abort the next job promotion or book tour— or the future career of a prepped young daughter on her way to the Ivy League.

Third, from the match-up of Joe Biden and Sarah Palin, we discovered that our media does not know anything about the nature of wisdom — how it is found or how it is to be adjudicated. For the last eight weeks, Palin has been demonized as a dunce because she did not, in the fashion of the class toady with his hand constantly up in the first row, impress in flash-card recall, the glasses-on-his-nose Charlie Gibson, or clinched-toothed Katie Couric. 

E - She has been recognized as a dunce because she doesn't know the issues or facts, doesn't know she doesn't know, and is even too stupid to parrot back the slogans the McCain camp has tried to teach her.  They now know what a fool she is and have instructed her to speak on 3 or 4 issues and disregard any other question asked as she is incapable of learning the response they want her to make.  It is proof even her boss, McCain, realizes how bad she is.

Meanwhile Joe Biden has just been Ol’ Joe Biden — which means not that he can get away with the occasional gaffe, but that can say things so outrageous, so silly, and so empty that, had they come out of the mouth of Sarah Palin, she would have long ago been forced to have stepped aside from the ticket.

E - She couldn't repeat his gaffes as they have more than 1 syllable words in them.

Factual knowledge? Biden, in the midst of a financial meltdown on Wall Street, apparently thinks that the last time it happened in 1929, we heard FDR rally us on television. And such made-up nonsense came in the form, as many of Biden’s gaffes do, of a rebuke to the supposedly obtuse George W. Bush.

Sobriety? Biden now admits that dangerous powers abroad will immediately test a President Obama. He warns that the results of such a crisis will be very disappointing to the American electorate, and thus Team Obama/Biden will need loyal supporters to rally as their polls sink. Yet remember that Biden himself has been a fierce and opportunistic critic of Bush, who despite a frenzy of congressional demagoguery, initiated the successful surge and ignored the very polls that the for-the-war/against-the-war Biden so carefully tracked. More importantly, if an Ahmadinejad, Chavez, or Putin ever had any doubts about carving out new spheres of uncontested influence, they may entertain very few now.

E - They are getting stronger now.  And Palin, who can't stand up to a newscaster, would be eaten alive.

  

Veracity? If one were to think that Biden’s past brushes with plagiarism, inflated bios, and falsehood were exceptional rather than characteristic, the last two months confirmed otherwise. For all the false recall, it is hard to remember anything he said in his Palin debate that was true, whether describing the status of Hezbollah in Lebanon or his own past remarks about the wisdom of burning coal. 

E - What I do remember is that he debated and answered questions asked, instead of giving canned responses apropos of nothing they were speaking about.  

  

Silliness? Imagine the following outbursts, mutatis mutandis, from the mouth of a Sarah Palin — “John McAmerica,” “a Palin-McCain administration,” “Senator George Obama,” “Congressman Joe Biden,” who is both “good looking,” and “drop-dead gorgeous.” Or “I guarantee you, John McCain ain’t taking my shotguns. . . . If he tries to fool with my Beretta, he’s got a problem. I like that little over and under, you know? I’m not bad with it. So give me a break.”

E - Give me a break. Of Biden winked and repeated canned statements and stumbled and mumbled and was locked away until the debate trying to memorize soundbites or said he wouldn't debate but would just say whatever he wanted on whatever subject he wanted... IF he did that he would have been torn apart.  Yet she gets praise for the debate because she didn't drool on herself.

Or “I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.” Or “Mitt Romney is as qualified or more qualified than I am to be vice president of the United States of America. Quite frankly he might have been a better pick than me.” 

The list could go on ad nauseam. But we got the picture. Biden has devolved from the ridiculous to the unhinged, confident that in-house journalism would understand that the law graduate with 36 years in the Senate was simply being Joe, while a Sarah Palin, who flinched when asked to parse the Bush Doctrine, was a Neanderthal creationist.

E - Talk about spin!  Digging up all the ridiculous stuff from Biden and overlooking Palin repeating, word for word, foolish responses to different questions asked by Couric...  

 I thought by now the You-tubed exchange of a Congressional Finance Committee hearing between the pompous Harvard Law School graduate Barney Frank and the conniving Harvard Law School graduate Franklin Raines — at the proverbial moment of conception of the financial meltdown — would have put to rest the notion that graduation from law school was any proof of either wisdom or morality.

E - It proves nothing.  Saying a Harvard degree means nothing is nothing but pandering to the foolish.

I don’t know whether Sarah Palin would make a great vice president. 

E - Fortunately the majority of the country does.

But I did learn that by the standard of John Kerry’s pick of John Edwards, and now Barack Obama’s choice of Joe Biden, as running mates, she is wise and ethical beyond their measure.

E - And I have learned that in a long record of foolish picks for VP candidates by both parties, John McCain stooped to a new low in poor judgement.

Musing ...

While we want to think that we are a composite of our ideals and beliefs, we are - in reality - a composite of our actions.