Heckuva job, Saakass.
Sunday, October 5th, 2008The pressures must be very intense right now on the European countries. Saakashvili has tripwired lots of problems for the US, Israel, Europe, Turkey… I guess Cheney forgot to tell him about the Silly String trick before giving the go-ahead to piss off Russia. Oops.
Extraordinary meeting held at request of several EU member states:
The President of the French Republic as current President of the European Council, has, at the request of several EU Member States, decided to convoke an extraordinary meeting of the European Council which will be held on Monday 1 September in Brussels.
This meeting will be devoted to the crisis in Georgia, particularly to the course of action that the European Union intends to take in terms of aid to Georgia and its future relations with Russia.
But there’s a big problem:
Sept. 1 (Bloomberg) — German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s ruling coalition is split over confronting Russia, its biggest energy supplier, for invading Georgia, threatening efforts to strike a united European response to a resurgent Kremlin.
…“Everybody in the EU is looking for Germany to lead on this, and if the Germans can’t get their act together, it’s very bad news for the rest of Europe,” said Shada Islam, an analyst at the European Policy Centre in Brussels. “It’s a bit of a gamble to hold this meeting, which may merely serve to reveal all the cracks and fissures in the EU’s Russia policy.”
Germany is the 27-nation EU’s biggest member and has the closest links to Russia, so it has most to lose from reducing economic ties that flourished under Merkel’s Social Democratic predecessor, Gerhard Schroeder, now co-head of a joint venture with Russian state-owned gas monopoly OAO Gazprom. Merkel’s own party, the Christian Democratic Union, is pushing her to confront Russia to improve its record on human rights and democracy. Her Social Democrat coalition partners, including Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, stress dialogue over sanctions or confrontational rhetoric because they don’t want to risk Germany’s place as Russia’s No. 1 European trading partner.
There’s a lot of hand-wringing going on because Russia has the upper hand and everyone knows it. Saakashvili has put Old Europe in a difficult position, and now they will make some decisions for their own interests.
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said on Aug. 28 that some EU states at the summit “will propose sanctions” while “others will be against.” The EU has to decide such measures unanimously, making sanctions unlikely because a single member state can block imposing sanctions on Russia. “Europe can’t do very much,” said Fredrik Erixon, director of the European Centre for International Political Economy in Brussels. “We mainly import energy from Russia and if we cut trade ties it’s going to be a very cold winter.”
Soon we will hear shrill, ear-piercing screams coming from the neocons because Everything’s Ruined!
Here is what makes this AVA unique. The Ridge area is 800 to 1200 feet high. The morning fog that is the norm during the summer months of this area is always below this altitude and that means the vineyards have a long day of sunshine. The afternoon winds that whip from the Pacific Ocean about 12 miles away can be fierce. This can cause evaporation in the vines as well as provide comfort from the heat. The hillsides can be steep and rocky and seemingly unfit for growing anything but the endemic vegetation. The vines are stressed and this results in grape clusters that are small, thicked skin, with a small amount of intense juice. This coupled with only 148 acres of vines means a very small supply of this mysterious and rather illustrious wine. We have tasted several Rockpile wines and they are intense, bold, with highly concentrated flavors. These wines go best with grilled red meat. They are big! We recently tried Mauritson 2005 Rockpile Ridge Zinfandel and Stryker’s 2004 Rockpile Cabernet Sauvignon. These two wines are absolutely amazing in my estimation.
Here is who makes Rockpile wines. This is close to a complete list but we may be missing a few. Mauritson Wines owns the most acreage of Rockpile wines, about 34 acres and they make various Rockpile vineyard designated Zinfandels such as Cemetary, Westphall, and Buck’s Pasture. Mauritson will be introducing a Bordeaux Blend and Malbec soon from Rockpile. Other wineries that make a Rockpile wine are Carol Shelton, Valdez, Rosenblum, Branham, JC Cellars, Stryker-Sonoma, Segeshio, and Hobo. Try a bottle and expect to pay about $35 or more, that is if you can find it.