26 « September « 2015 « Quotulatiousness

September 26, 2015

The LCBO backs away from auctioning rare wines in Ontario

Filed under: Business, Cancon, Wine — Tags: LCBO, Ontario, Privatization — Nicholas @ 04:00

Rick Van Sickle on the LCBO’s recent decision to hand over the rare wine auction market to a private auctioneer:

Quietly last week, Ontario’s booze monopoly finally threw in the towel over its glitzy rare and fine wine auctions and awarded the contract to an independent auction house — another case of letting private industry do a job that the LCBO couldn’t handle.

Canadian auction house Waddington’s will now conduct the auctions under a special licence through the LCBO.

The company added a new addition to their portfolio of fine art and luxury goods – Waddington’s Fine Wine and Spirits Auctions. “Ontario wine enthusiasts will now be able to better manage their cellars of fine wines and spirits with this connection to the enormous world wine market,” said Waddington’s President Duncan McLean.

The Toronto-based, Canadian-owned auction company was awarded the exclusive contract to provide fine wine and spirit auction services in Ontario under the authority of the LCBO, a first for an Ontario auction company. Waddington’s conducted the LCBO’s Vintages Fine Wine and Spirits auctions from 2009 until 2013.

The inaugural live fine wine auction will be conducted Dec. 12 at Waddington’s Toronto gallery, and an online fine wine auction will be offered Nov. 23-26. These auctions launch what will be a regular schedule of wine and spirits auctions and events for which Waddington’s is currently accepting consignments. All wines consigned are stored in a secure, temperature, light, and humidity-controlled wine vault.

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Straight Up: The Issue of Alcohol in Ontario

Filed under: Cancon, History, Law, Liberty, Wine — Tags: Beer, LCBO, Ontario, Prohibition — Nicholas @ 03:00

Published on 24 Nov 2014

A documentary exploring the peculiar system of alcohol retail and distribution in Ontario.

The beverage alcohol system in Ontario is unique in the world. A government monopoly and a few private companies enjoy preferential access to the province’s consumers. Meanwhile, about 300 Ontario breweries, wineries, and distillers face a number of bureaucratic and structural barriers that effectively shut them out of the market in Ontario. This film tries to explain the origins of the beverage alcohol system in Ontario, and what it means for producers and consumers in the province today.

H/T to Eric Beiers for the link.

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Tiberius Caesar

Filed under: Europe, History — Tags: Leadership, Monarchy, RomanEmpire, Rome, Senate — Nicholas @ 02:00

A thumbnail sketch of the second Roman Emperor:

Upon the death of Augustus, Tiberius Claudius Nero stood as the last logical choice in a long and tumultuous line of potential heirs. In 14 AD, at the age of 56, Tiberius ascended to Imperial power as a somewhat uncertain figure. The continuation and success of the newly created Principate rested squarely on the shoulders of a man who seemingly had only a partial interest in his own personal participation.

For the first time the transfer of power from the greatness of Augustus was to be tested. The passing of this test would prove to be more a culmination of Augustus’ long reign and establishment of precedent than the ability of Tiberius to fill the enormous sandals of his step-father.

While Augustus was the perfect political tactician with powerful personality yet approachable demeanor, Tiberius was a direct contrast. He was a dark figure, keenly intelligent, sometimes terribly cunning and ruthless, yet pre-disposed to a more Republican ideal than any emperor that followed him. Tiberius’ failures, however seem to have been his inability to define his own role within the Principate and the roles of those around him, including the Senate. While he professed a desire for the Senate to play a more active role in Imperial government, he did little to illustrate what these roles should be. To an aristocratic body that had been cowed into general subservience through the sheer will and force of Augustus, defining a new role required more definitive action than the simple desire of Tiberius for change.

He was inconsistent in policy and behavior, sometimes dictating his own idea of order from the position of ultimate power, sometimes withdrawing completely in favor of any who might dictate the appearance of command. Mood swings and depression plagued him, perhaps resulting from a life spent as an uncertain member of the ‘Julio-Claudian’ family. Until his final ascension, and only after the deaths of several favored ‘heirs’, did Tiberius probably know for sure that the ultimate power would actually belong to him.

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QotD: The “stab in the back” theory

Filed under: Europe, Germany, History, Military, Quotations, WW1 — Tags: AntiSemitism, Communism, ConspiracyTheories, Propaganda — Nicholas @ 01:00

There’s this underlying tone, whenever you see people talking about the “Jewish-Bolshevik conspiracy to destroy Germany” and the “stab in the back” theory of why Germany lost World War I, that the latter was come up with out of whole cloth by the German aristocracy and military while the former was Hitler’s own insane twist on the theory.

Unfortunately, neither one of those statements is entirely true. First, while Germany would have ended up losing World War I even without its internal issues, the fact of the matter is that the morale issues and general disaffection that led the German high command to sue for peace in 1918 were exacerbated by socialist agitation. The most obvious result of this was the Kiel mutiny, when the sailors of the German navy refused to go out and have a last “glorious” battle with the British and proceeded to set up a socialist-led soldiers and workers council, and eventually forced the German government to overthrow the Kaiser. In other words, the “stab in the back” happened — it’s just that it was more of a result of Germany’s loss of the war than the cause of it.

As to the “Jewish-Bolshevik conspiracy” — well, the awkward thing is that a disproportionate amount of Jews were involved in leftism in this period. Many of the leaders of the Spartacus League, which was heavily involved in the 1919 Spartacist uprising that attempted to take over Berlin, were Jewish, as were many within the Bolshevik uprising in Russia itself. The reason for this, of course, was that a disproportionate number of Jews were intellectuals, and intellectuals are often attracted to leftism. Now, the emphasis on Judaism was part and parcel of a longstanding pattern of German and European anti-Semitism, while the destruction of Germany/the German people was a case of a toxic combination of “They believe, as I do, that their policies are bad for Germany” and projection.

However, it should be noted that both of these theories, like all the really powerful lies, had a little kernel of truth in them, and a lot of belief behind them. There had been a socialist uprising in Germany that served as the straw that broke the camel’s back, and there were a number of Jews involved in the German left.

Sarah Hoyt, “Social Injustice – 60 Guilders”, According to Hoyt, 2015-07-31.

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