I’m happy to announce that my new book, Blind Taste: A Defense of Fast Food and Cheap Beer, will be released in hardcover November 1, 2014, and is now available for pre-order on Amazon.com (the link is correct; the cover and subtitle are still being updated). Stay tuned for excerpts and book tour details in the coming Full Article…
The Judgment of Princeton seems to be this: who are we to judge? Last Friday, nine judges blind-tasted twenty wines, some from France (mostly expensive) and some from New Jersey (mostly cheap), at the author George Taber’s homage to the 1976 California-vs.-France Judgment of Paris. Of those 20, there was just one bottle for which we—and by “we,” I mean not Full Article…
Released today in the new issue of the Journal of Wine Economics is my review of Robert M. Parker, Jr.’s Parker’s Wine Bargains: The World’s Greatest Wine Values Under $25 (Simon & Schuster). The full text of my review is available for free (PDF; begins on p. 209). I also encourage you to subscribe to Full Article…
My talk at the International Food Blogger Conference in Seattle, “Recent Advances in Bullshit Reduction,” along with my panel session and discussion/debate with Robert Schroeder of the Federal Trade Commission and Foodista.com CEO Barnaby Dorfman about the new FTC guide to the disclosure of freebies and financial relationships in blog reviews, will be broadcast live Full Article…
If you’re registered in California, I encourage you to go out today and vote yes on Proposition 19, which will legalize, tax, and regulate cannabis—and take a major step toward treating drug use as a public health issue instead of a crime in America. It is time to end the failed policy of marijuana prohibition Full Article…
Britain’s Sun recently reported that supermarket giant Tesco sold two bottles of counterfeit Louis Jadot Pouilly-Fuissé, distributed by Hatch Mansfield, to a customer named Danny McGowan of Clacton, Essex, who described the fake bottle as having a label that “looked photocopied.” Apparently, the bottle was on sale for £5, down from a usual £14.49. (As of this writing, the Pouilly-Fuissé Full Article…
In response to yesterday’s post about censorship on the FIFA.com “Have Your Say” discussion board after the USA’s third goal against Slovenia—which was controversially nullified by referee Koman Coulibaly for reasons that remain unclear—commenter bdr on my blog has observed that FIFA is also now widely suppressing video of the disallowed goal under the guise of Full Article…
As of this writing, of the 343 comments to have been approved by the moderators on FIFA.com’s “Have Your Say” discussion board about today’s controversial US-Slovenia 2-2 draw in World Cup competition, not one of them contains even a passing mention of the main topic of discussion of every article that has been written about Full Article…
Is President Obama keeping the Sinaloa drug cartel in business? Here’s the news from today, according to the New York Times: 1,200 members of the National Guard have been sent to the border to “combat drug smuggling.” More drug-related violence can only be dealt with through greater enforcement, goes the Bush-McCain-and-now-Obama story. We’ve got to fight the Full Article…
Here’s the first of Seamus’ weeklong series of blog articles about The Beer Trials for the Powell’s website. In the article, he discusses a phenomenon that’s familiar to my experience as well: “conversations about how I could possibly have given famous and best-selling products poor ratings.” It is a basic human instinct, and (for those of Full Article…