Monday, May 28, 2007

Saturday Night Wine Blogging - thank you dinner edition


A long belated thank you dinner to repay friends/family for helping us move in last summer.


I'm a huge fan of lasagna & pesto, so pesto lasagna of course is one of my absolute favourites.

One of the ginger haired yanks old customers brought a superb bottle of Takler Regnun Reserve 2003. To quote from the Wine Exchange,

"Gorgeous texture and that dark chocolate/coffee/black fruit core that ...comes off as...immediately engaging. The blend here is actually 37.5% each Franc and Merlot, along with 15% Cabernet and the appropriate dollop of 10% Kelefrankos...it's hard to really explain this wine without sounding like we're overselling, but it's really that and..certainly offers an exciting option at the premium end."

they were not over selling.

Sunday, May 20, 2007

28 down - 20 to go

Finally a point of compromise between the Democratic Congress and Bush on the immigration bill. Immigration was viewed as the most likely cause of an agreement, but I was starting to lose faith that any substantial legislation would be achieved given the contentious nature of recent months.

While trade has been bandied about as another possible agreement, I can't see that happening given that the Doha round is dead and the Dems have turned more protectionist.


I am curious how much the Dems will give on Iraq funding legislation. Bush vetoed what was essentially a toothless bill and has threatened the same on another toothless funding bill passed by the House. In the end, I'm afraid that the Dems will cave & give Bush another $95B carte blanche. While there have been noises about how some results have to be seen from the surge by the fall, once again there are not SMART metrics to determine success or failure. No agreed upon scoreboard. Have heard folks on the right state that we need to start discussing the consequences of our failure in Iraq, and I'm in full agreement. The left needs to create psycho-historical predictions (just finished listening to the Foundation trilogy - had read it back in high school) of what will happen whether we stay-the-course for the next decade, or cut-and-run in 2009.

So given either approach by the US, what are the differential probabilities of each of the following happening:

Political

Moral

Givens

For the political questions, the probabilities are low to very low regardless or our actions, so the differential probabilities are clearly less than 5% - perhaps as low as 1%. The carnage in Iraq is a trickier question, already 2 million Iraqis have been displaced, and how we exit Iraq will have a noticeable impact on how deadly the internecine killing becomes, but this is the one question that I do not have a good feel for the differential probabilities. Given that we went to Iraq for geo-political reasons and not human rights, the political reasons for staying do not hold merit, so the political will to stay will continue to erode - expect the US to largely leave Iraq within the next 5 years, though expect us to keep a fully manned post in the Green Zone for years to come.


Monday, May 14, 2007

friday night wine blogging - posted a few days late


st. michelle wine, but the meal was one of my favorites. roasted tofu with peanut sauce and peas with mint jelly on the side. desert was an incredibly scrumptious Grand Marnier french toast.

Saturday, May 05, 2007

Saturday Night Wine Blogging



Fetzer Zinfandel - 2004


The last of the King Cake - along with the plastic baby Jesus - was consummed for desert

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