Count Bobulescu

According WSJ, Uber's Travis Kalanick (1st negative) recently raised $400M from the Saudi Sovereign Wealth Fund (2nd negative) for his newest venture CloudKitchens a sort of We Work for delivery only restaurants. If the restaurant industry is to be disrupted, I'd prefer it was done by someone other than Kalanick. Contrary to the Axios claim, that immigrants of color will be the biggest losers, I think it will be the TGI's of the world. Not that the small ethnic restaurants won't get hurt, but those pad sites can be expensive https://www.axios.com/restaurateurs-face-increasingly-digital-industry-571f5855-34a9-4de2-a406-5a2da1c4e647.html https://www.cloudkitchens.com/

Beyond the use of screens and electricity for power, I don't believe there's much overlap. The original TV's were radio for pictures, more like current wifi in deployment, tower to antenna The interwebs initially needed direct hardline connections. I'm sure there are some similarities I don't know about. Coincidentally, this Sunday's NYT Mag....... A cover to break the internet Photo illustration by Maurizio Cattelan and Pierpaolo Ferrari for The New York Times The N.Y. Times Magazine's annual Tech & Design issue explores the wild web, with an opening essay by deputy editor Bill Wasik, "The Future of the Internet": Perhaps the most profound force at work upon the internet right now is the simple passage of time. Everyone raised in a pre-internet era continues to age and disappear, while new generations grow up not merely as ‘"digital natives’’ but as life- long witnesses to the internet’s best and worst effects. ... For teenagers today, the internet is both a stage onto which to step boldly and a minefield through which to step gingerly — a double bind that has given rise to whole new habits of living online, in which self-expression and self-protection are inextricably linked. The issue includes looks at the heavily-regulated Chinese internet, by Yiren Lu ... the odd phenomenon of internet fandom, by Jamie Lauren Keiles ... and internet inequality, by Kevin Roose.

Wegmans has pulled out of Annapolis. No Wegmans For Annapolis

Didn't feel this was worth a thread yet, so thought I'd park it here for now. I'm less interested in these companies for their culinary attractions, more for their business plans.

Without wishing to contradict your claim of expensiveness, I would point out that the restaurants in Dublin, and EU generally, likely see a lot less of the proceeds of your check, than is the case in the US. EU sales taxes (VAT) mostly = 15-33% are always included in the price, and service charges (tips) are sometimes/often/always included, depending on country. Also, the excise tax on a bottle of wine in Dublin is 700% higher than the combined federal & DC excise tax. $0.50 vs. $3.60. On a 20 Euro wine in the grocery store, just under 7 Euro or 40% of the cost via excise and sales tax finds it way to gummint. Consequently, 10 Euro wines have faded into history.

I get a daily solicitation email from a marketing vendor, that I told was not getting my biz. I save them unopened. When I've collected 100, I'll contact them and tell them I'm thinking of opening and marking them all as spam.

The Queen, AKA Brenda, has acceded to BoJo's request to Prorogue (shut down) Parliament. The effect will be to limit time for debate on any proposals, or lack thereof. In a little over 24 hours 850K+ signed a petition in oppo. https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/269157

Think you're on the money there. In EU, Germans are considered the inventors of the auto. They are the world's pre-eminent engineers generally. If you need to buy an obscure part for an obscure industrial machine, and find that there are only three manufacturers globally, it's likely that one, two, or all three of them will be German. Such companies form the backbone of the Mittlestand, selling to a global market, but you've got to wonder if they'll lose market share to 3D printers. Mittlestand Rudolf Diesel was also.......

Dublin's my home town, but I haven't eaten out there much in thirty years, so I won't offer any reccies, other than to note that Patrick Gilbaud has been at the top of the pile for nearly 50 years. Not sure if that's good or bad news. Happy to answer any other touristy questions. Be aware that the islands generally can be a considerable time sink on a 10 day trip. While you can drive cross country from Dublin to Galway in a little over two hours on the expressway, both the air and ferry departures to the Aran Islands are close to an hour's drive west of Galway, on a slow road, then another hour sailing. In Dingle, be wary of a boat trip to Skellig Michael. I've heard horror stories on radio of boats with no life jackets, and the boat captain actually attempting to justify it.

I agree on the corn/ethanol issue, but that article you cited is 12 years old, and has long been overtaken by new developments. Elon Musk etc. No-one today would dare seriously suggest that growing corn is the panacea to reduced gasoline consumption. Food is at the top of the hierarchy of human needs. Unlike Amazon gadgets, people die without access to it. There's good public policy in having lower food prices. The earlier piece I posted about the BBC reporting on intensive farming beginning in the UK in 1947, reminded me about food rationing, which ended in the US in 1946, but not til 1954 in the UK. Intensive farming was right for the time, and times change.

Leaked UK Cabinet Office document says food, fuel, and med shortages after a no-deal crash out, are not worst case scenario, rather, are likely. No Deal Crashout Consequences

I was surprised to learn that foreign beef that has passed thru a US certified plant, in a foreign country can be labeled "Product of US". From NPR The question of whether grass-fed beef is better is complicated: Grass feeding takes more time and more land, but it helps with soil erosion and is closer to how cows evolved to live. But much of it is shipped halfway around the world to the U.S., and any difference in greenhouse gas emissions is up for debate.

Here's hoping the biggest loser in this is Bibi. It's a measure of his electoral concern. Now he looks craven, stupid, and even more vulnerable. The group funding the trip, has funded similar for D's in the past, without incident. There's also talk on the hill about reprimands for both ambassadors,

I feel fortunate never to have posted much of anything on FB. I reluctantly joined to appease family members, and was quickly surprised by the extent of digging into my background. Now, they're on my list, but low down, as potential advertising platform. Makes me feel dirty, but I'm trying (unsuccessfully) to look at it as my revenge.

25+ state AG's have called on the FDA for more regulation to control spurious claims.

That's a good article. Can't say I'm surprised, for all the reasons outlined in the piece. The non-alcoholic category is as hot as CBD. Will be interesting to watch the transition from niche to mass market. Volume up, price? My experience is that Europeans are more susceptible than Americans to the claimed benefits of exclusivity, and the US price will end up lower. Won't be many wholesaler distribution issues in future. Who will move into the space formerly occupied by Seedlip?

There'll be no ~!@#$%^&* here. Below is more appropriate for the Brexit thread but still relevant here.

There's no dispute that the US is the worst CAFO offender. I simply challenged your blanket claim that CAFO's were non-existent in EU. I have zero intention of debating the distinctions between Large, Massive, and "Mega" (as used by The Guardian). You don't reform unless you have a problem...... CAFOTHEBOOK Wiki....

That's a debatable premise to begin with. Because (unless you can show otherwise), the inefficiencies associated with small scale high end production typically result in higher per unit resource consumption. CAFO's exist in Europe. UK alone has almost 800. One for every 65,000 people. Facts, not emotion, please Jul 18, 2017 - "Rise of Mega Farms: How the US Model of Intensive Farming Is Invading the World" on the guardian.com

I'm not so sure about never,.....US is a follower in this domain. Your view of the general US population smacks of EU style elitism. Your plea for a tax exemption for small or boutique producers seems to me to be 100% self serving, and counter intuitive. The consumers who can afford to pay the tax, would be given a break.....gimme a break.....

That's depressing, more than glass half empty. I guess it's OK, if you're only here for a short time, and a good time, party on...... Now that really is depressing......

A proposal in Germany this week to raise the sales tax on red meat, to combat global warming has attracted support from across the political spectrum. Currently in Germany, meat like most foodstuffs, attracts a reduced rate of 7%. The proposal would raise it to the standard rate of 19%. The change would add approximately $1 to a pound of Rib-Eye, with the revenue dedicated to various remedial actions. There have been similar proposals in Scandinavia, that so far have not materialized into anything concrete. Lots of ancillary issues, like the effects on low income consumers in food deserts, whose cheapest quickest easiest access to sufficient protein may be a fast food outlet, and reduced income for beef farmers. Globally, the US has the highest per capita red meat consumption, about 50% more than the EU. How long before this becomes a realistic proposal in the US, and would you support such a tax?/ Will Germans Swallow a Meat Tax Per Capita Meat Consumption

The time has come, the walrus said, to talk of many things, of cabbages and kings.

The process in Md seems better. Make an online appt. in 30 minute slots at any DMV. Show up with your docs. Out in 30 minutes at noon midweek.

A 7-2 consumer friendly ruling from SCOTUS this morning. Here's how Sean O'Leary (Irish Liquor Lawyer) described it.......... Writing for the majority Justice Sam Alito made a statement that is going to resonate in the liquor industry for years to come. He held that reading Granholm as only extending to producers has no sound basis and Granholm stands for the proposition that the Commerce Clause prohibits state discrimination against all out-of-state economic interest. As the debate over how Granholm applies is at issue in many wine shipping cases, Justice Alito may have ended the debate and provided a clear principle for these cases that were previously muddled by the lack of clarity after Granholm. Only time will tell how lower courts apply this principle, but the probability is high they will follow it! Justice Alito made a very clear statement today. Here is the excerpt from the opinion. “The Association resists this reading. Although it concedes (as it must under Granholm) that §2 does not give the States the power to discriminate against out-of-state alcohol products and producers, the Association presses the argument, echoed by the dissent, that a different rule applies to state laws that regulate in-state alcohol distribution. There is no sound basis for this distinction. The state laws at issue in Granholm discriminated against out-of-state producers. See 883 F. 3d, at 621. And Granholm never said that its reading of history or its Commerce Clause analysis was limited to discrimination against products or producers. On the contrary, the Court stated that the Clause prohibits state discrimination against all “‘out-of-state economic interests,’” Granholm, 544 U. S., at 472 (emphasis added), and noted that the direct-shipment laws in question “contradict[ed]” dormant Commerce Clause principles because they “deprive[d] citizens of their right to have access to the markets of other States on equal terms.” Id., at 473 (emphasis added). Granholm also described its analysis as consistent with the rule set forth in Bacchus, Brown-Forman Distillers Corp. v. New York State Liquor Authority, 476 U. S. 573 (1986), and Healy that “‘[w]hen a state statute directly regulates or discriminates against interstate commerce, or when its effect is to favor in-state economic interests over out-of-state interests, we have generally struck down the statute without further inquiry.’” Granholm, supra, at 487 (quoting Brown-Forman, supra, at 579; emphasis added).