February 22, 2022
February 18, 2022
Cocktail Hour
Hello, friends.
I have logged out of my personal email account and logged into my burner email account so that I can regale you with tales of cocktailery. Please, save your puns for the end.
Like so many people, I have taken up home cocktailing during the various "lockdowns," "quarantines," and other restrictions on liberties undertaken during this pandemic. During the first COVID spring/summer, I was primarily relying upon wine, often daydrinking whilst closing 8-to-10-figure restructuring transactions (and without committing any malpractice!). As the leaves fell and fall turned to winter, I began craving something more. Partly, the inspiration was a local distillery that had started offering extremely high quality to-go cocktails to cope with the pandemic. But I think the bigger inspiration was the discovery of the Cocktails with Suderman Substack. More on that in a moment.
Peter Suderman, for those who are unaware, is an editor at the small-l libertarian publication Reason, who cohabitates with the lone sane WaPo columnist, Megan McArdle.
Peter is also a bit cocktail obsessed.
I don't recall exactly when I got wind of Cocktails with Suderman, but boy has it improved my quality of life (and that of the limited few around me). The thing that really got me going--and pardon my former ignorance--was the discovery of the range of sweet vermouth that exists out there. I had thought that I didn't like Manhattans. It turns out that I just didn't like whatever vermouth was going into the Manhattans I'd had before. This post from Suderman set me straight. Now, the Manhattan may be my second favorite cocktail, only after the Manhattan variant, the Bushwick.
So now I have better equipment, better materials, and better cocktailing experiences. The only things that aren't better are my waistline and my liver.
Unfortunately, I'm quite susceptible to influence when it comes to cocktail making (within reason, at least). So I've ended up going down the following paths of doom and deliciousness:
- Manhattans, and variants thereof
- Negronis
- Sours
- Old Fashioneds (including this surprisingly tasty pumpkin spice old fashioned)
- Tiki punches
- Daiquiris
- Barrel aging (the biggest capital and counter-space commitment), pursuant to which I've made a wide variety of Negroni and Manhattan variations
February 16, 2022
Diverse community of S.F. voters erases school board members' lived experiences
A little over a year ago, the New Yorker published a rather hilarious interview with Gabriela Lopez, president of the San Francisco School Board, which I wrote about here.
Lopez, whose media relations approach appeared to be consulting a Say 'N' Say keyed to D.E.I. buzzwords, was dismissive of parents' concerns that renaming schools to conform to current notions of social justice should be a lower priority than, say, reopening them.
With Ms. Lopez and two of her colleagues, San Francisco voters were unimpressed. Voters ousted them by blowout margins in yesterday's recall election.
Political backlash like this -- for locality-specific issues like schools administration -- is sure to spark speculation for the upcoming Congressional mid-term elections. And even though Governor Gavin Newsom easily won his recall election, it is interesting that an area as left-leaning as San Francisco wholeheartedly rejected officials' furtherance of an important aspect of the progressive project.
What says the Commenteriat? Has Tip O'Neill risen from the grave? Are all politics local again?
February 9, 2022
NY hipsters’ problem: stolen bitcoin increased to value too big to launder
Their plot to steal $70M in bitcoin succeeded wildly.
There was just one contingency they failed to plan for. From MarketWatch:
When hackers made off with approximately 120,000 bitcoin from the Bitfinex currency exchange in 2016, it was worth around $71 million. With the wild upswing in the value of the cryptocurrency, it would now be worth around $4.5 billion.
That presented serious problems for the couple, who have allegedly struggled for the past five years to launder the ever-increasing pile of money, prosecutors said. The pair had appeared to have managed to launder only about 20% of it, according to court papers. Investigators say they seized about 90,000 bitcoin worth around $3.6 billion last week from virtual wallets controlled by the couple.
“As the value of the money grew, this likely became a far more complex scheme than they believed they were getting into when it started,” said attorney Rachel Fiset, of Zweiback, Fiset and Coleman, who specializes in complex financial fraud cases. “It was going to catch up to them at some point because the pot just kept growing. You can’t just hold a few billion dollars for five years unnoticed.”
February 4, 2022
After jury said "we're unable to reach a consensus" (and more deliberation) Avenatti guilty of wire fraud and identity theft
Michael Avenatti was found guilty in the SDNY of wire fraud and aggravated identity theft, the charges arising out of his representation of Stephanie Clifford a/k/a Stormy Daniels.
Avenatti to surrender by Monday; sentencing on May 24, 2022.
The jury, after 4-hours of celebration deliberation, announced to the court they were deadlocked but were sent back to deliberate yesterday. Yesterday afternoon, they requested a transcript of "everything Stormy Daniels ever said in court", as well as a clarification of "good faith".
Today (Friday) they reached a verdict on both counts as a redfaced Avenatti listened and a supporter cried softly.
Two trials down, 2-to go.
February 1, 2022
Quote of the day
Our quote of the day comes from Avenatti trial judge Furman during the conference on jury instructions.
Judge Furman repeatedly said his job is to make sure the jury is lawfully instructed, even if it made Avenatti look bad.
“Sometimes when you have no legal defense, you have no legal defense," the judge told Avenatti.
https://twitter.com/meghanncuniff/status/1488633517688901638