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A young couple who once dined at the Big Apple’s iconic Balthazar couldn’t bottle up their emotions after ordering an $18 Pinot Noir — but being served a $2,000 Mouton Rothschild instead by accident, the eatery’s owner recounted this week. ...the restaurant’s night manager said the host of the business meeting actually praised the purity of the cheapest wine on the list, while the lucky couple “jokingly pretended to be drinking an expensive wine,” “The young couple were ecstatic by the restaurant’s mistake, and told me it was like the bank making an error in their favor,” said the red-faced...

Former House Speaker John Boehner said earlier this week that Donald Trump’s presidency has been “a complete disaster” thus far and that the billionaire-turned-commander-in-chief is still learning on the job. “Everything else he’s done [in office] has been a complete disaster,” Boehner said during a question-and-answer session at a conference in Houston on Wednesday. “He’s still learning how to be president.” ~snip~ He seemed content with his life as a retired politician and was quick to shoot down any talk of a future presidential bid. “I wake up every day, drink my morning coffee and say hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah,” Boehner...

1. Orson Welles was born on May 6, 1915. 2. As a filmmaker, his three greatest pictures, in order, are Touch of Evil (1958), Citizen Kane (1941) and The Magnificent Ambersons (1942). 3. Ah, yes, but Citizen Kane tops many lists as the greatest film of all time (with Welles filling the top slot on many directing lists). The fictional story of a megalomaniac newspaper magnate (loosely based on William Randolph Hearst) and innocence lost is indeed a masterpiece . . . albeit a dated one. Newspaper magnates? Not in this century, bub. 4. John Houseman wrote in his 1972...

WINE IS A BEVERAGE with its own set of rules. Some of these rules, such as “Wine must be served in a glass with a stem,” are more like suggestions. Others, such as “White wine must always be chilled,” are regarded as near-gospel truths. A rule that many drinkers seem to follow is the one that dictates wine should not be consumed alone. Wine is a social beverage and is best enjoyed in the company of others, ideally in the context of a meal. But what of wine lovers who live or travel alone or cohabit with a non-oenophile? Does...

Paul Masson would sell no wine before its time...which apparently didn't stop Orson from having a quart or two before showing up for the original commercial shoot...

Bill Clinton rewrote his speeches to praise Hillary as he begun affair with Monica Lewinsky Bill Clinton upgraded his wife Hillary from the love of his life to "the love and light of my life" in his speech to the Democratic National Convention - months after he began his affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky By Joanna Walters, New York 6:02PM GMT 29 Mar 2014 President Bill Clinton's guilty conscience over his affair with Monica Lewinsky – and a desire to repair his shattered reputation by using the State of the Union address – set his speechwriters an unenviable...

<p>Los Angeles gang members have joined the fray in Syria. The gang-bangers are reportedly fighting alongside the regime forces.</p> <p>MEMRI posted the transcript.</p> <p>A video-clip recently posted on the Internet shows two Armenian Power gang members from Los Angeles fighting in Syria. One of them, Wino Ayee Peeyakan, also posted a picture of himself in Hizbullah garb on his Facebook page.</p>

Typically we wouldn't note such tabloid gutter trash as the pilot episode to the upcoming reality show "In The Carlos Danger Zone with the Weiners", but since what is going on in the farce that is NYC's mayoral race is just another analogy for America's broken market, broken politics, broken morals and, ultimately, broken society, this deserves at least a few words, so here they are. Anthony Weiner resigned from Congress after being exposed for having a "sexting problem." As it turns out the Democratic mayoral candidate's sexting problem never went away, and continued well after said resignation with at...

Business brilliance in a down economy can manifest itself in some unexpected ways! NOTE: The author of this comic requests that you visit his web site and please refrain from copying the cartoon within this thread. Thank you very much!

Video of Hillary drinking up at bar. http://youtube.com/watch?v=EWjldxdcGIo I have never posted this kind of thread. Sorry for any screw ups.

'Two-Buck Chuck' wins wine competition By: BRADLEY J. FIKES - Staff Writer Vin d'Expensive? Meritage Snooty? If that's the kind of name you were thinking would grace a winner of the California State Fair Commercial Wine Competition, get ready for a shock. Try "Two-Buck Chuck," more formally Charles Shaw, the brand beloved of bargain but palate-sensitive wine shoppers. It's sold by Bronco Wine Co. exclusively through Trader Joe's. Shaw's California Chardonnay took first place for Best Chardonnay from California. To some in the clubby California wine community, that must seem like a Michelin's Red Guide giving three stars to a...

AP) Merlot can be a variety of grape or a type of red wine, but not an acceptable personalized license plate in the state of Utah. Glenn Eurick's 1996 Mercedes has had the license plate reading "merlot" for 10 years. He says the plate never got a lot of notice until the Utah Tax Commission told him last week that he had to remove it because the state doesn't allow words of intoxicant to be used on vanity plates. Six or seven-letter words like liquor or whiskey probably wouldn't make it through the state screening process before the plates are...

The two recent debates between Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and her Republican opponent, John Spencer, may have lacked fireworks. Yesterday, however, the race was set astir by remarks that Mr. Spencer reportedly made before the first debate — comments about Mrs. Clinton’s sexuality and physical appearance. . The columnist, Phil Reisman, said that he asked Mr. Spencer by telephone last week if he would use the debates to try to paint Mrs. Clinton as a liberal. “He said words to the effect of, ‘Well, you know me, words slip out, but I won’t call her a lesbian or anything,’ ”...

Hillary Clinton's Republican challenger is getting personal and it's not pretty: He says the senator used to be ugly - and speculates she got "millions of dollars" in plastic surgery. "You ever see a picture of her back then? Whew," said John Spencer of Clinton's younger days. "I don't know why Bill married her," he said of the Clintons, who celebrated their 31st anniversary this month. Noting Hillary Clinton looks much different now, he chalked it up to "millions of dollars" of "work" - plastic surgery. "She looks good now," he said.

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton mixed presidential gravitas and familiar talking points in the second and final debate of her re-election race yesterday, assertively challenging Bush administration policy on Iraq, Iran, and North Korea while carefully defending her own record on abortion rights. As in the first debate on Friday against her Republican challenger, John Spencer, a former mayor of Yonkers, Mrs. Clinton’s poise bordered on the monochromatic: She offered no new big ideas about the future of New York, she appeared engaged and mostly unflappable, and she used language that fell somewhere between safe and scripted.

ROCHESTER, Oct. 20 — Facing a barrage of questions about her national ambitions during the first Senate debate on Friday night, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton firmly maintained that she was focused on her work in Congress and had made no decisions about running for president. But her Republican opponent seized on her aspirations at every opening, accusing her of already abdicating her responsibilities to New York. In a lively but cordial hour of exchanges, Mrs. Clinton steered toward substantive answers about foreign and domestic policy, and was sharply critical of the Bush administration’s handling of the war in Iraq. One...

Flap over using 'America' in Michigan schools gets widespread attentionhttp://www.southbendtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060529/News01/60529005 http://tinyurl.com/lpvo9 May 29. 2006 3:01PM By KATHY BARKS HOFFMAN Associated Press Writer LANSING — A judge and former state school board member is convinced the state was on track to erase the words "America" and "American" from Michigan social studies classes in favor of "United States" until he raised the alarm. "I feel vindicated in the department's reaction in making a complete about face and abandoning this direction. Hopefully it will put all this to bed," Oakland County Circuit Court Judge Michael Warren said Friday. But state Superintendent Michael Flanagan...

Rep. Patrick Kennedy (news, bio, voting record) crashed his car near the Capitol early Thursday, and a police official said he appeared intoxicated. Kennedy said he had taken sleep medication and a prescription anti-nausea drug that can cause drowsiness. Kennedy, D-R.I., addressed the issue after a spate of news reports. His initial statement said: "I consumed no alcohol prior to the incident."'Later, however, he issued a longer statement saying the attending physician for Congress had prescribed Phenergan on Tuesday to treat Kennedy's gastroenteritis.Kennedy said he returned to his Capitol Hill home on Wednesday evening after a final series of votes...

learn, via a Los Angeles Times article, of a recently-established magazine calling itself Modern Drunkard, dedicated to heavy drinkers and heavy drinking. My initial response was a chuckle and the assumption it was some kind of satirical parody. But sure enough, it has a website, and may even have the circulation of 50,00 which it claims. Although I am in the wine business as a part-timer, I do not find the excessive consumption of alcohol to be an attractive practice - for myself or others. Drunks lose control, and it isn't pretty. Many of those controls (inhibitions, if you will)...

To the Justice Department of John Ashcroft, John McNicholl is a lifelong criminal. He also is a Catholic, and I almost never waste my time pointing this out, but in matters with John Ashcroft, I believe that his psalm-singing, right-wing, country-road religion leaves him somewhat suspicious of Catholics, if not more.