It is the biggest Massachusetts political scandal since Boston Mayor Thomas Menino failed to call A-Rod a fag after a constituent shouted "Yankees suck" last week.

New Hampshire, as we all know, is a lawless, tax-free paradise of cheap hooch, fireworks, and loose women. It is basically the Tijuana of New England. So all Massachusetts residents who live near that porous border regularly drive across state lines, evading troopers and land mines and such, to buy their Irish whisky and bottle rockets.

That's why it is perfectly understandable that State Representative Rodrigues was spotted at a New Hampshire liquor store! Except that Rodrigues, who was driving his Crown Victoria with the Massachusetts House license plate at the time, is a member of the Massachusetts House Ways and Means Committee and he voted for the recent sales tax hike that added a brand-new 6.25% tax on alcohol. For shame, State Representative Rodrigues!

According to Closer magazine, via D-Listed, The Three C's and a D Of A Healthy Diet: Coffee, Cigarettes, Champagne, and Vodka. Kosher, yes, but how healthy is a diet of these four things? Are there benefits? Disadvantages, possibly? Let's take a gander. We could use to be a little cuter, a little more rockstar, and maybe, even, a little healthier.

1. Coffee! It's made from beans that are often picked by underpaid farm workers in South American countries, but that's okay, because it's a widely accepted practice, now. The beans are ground up, water is put through them, and a drink is made.
Pros: Coffee tastes good, especially when you drink it black. It has lots of antioxidants, which are things that apparently do something good for your cells, like prevent them from aging as fast. It's been proven to reduce the risk of Parkinson's disease, kidney stones, and combat asthma issues. It might be combative against Type-2 diabetes, liver cirrhosis, gall stones, Alzheimer's disease, and other things. It helps contribute to things like mental performance and memory, which are proven! And it's an appetite suppressant. Also, it makes you shit, which is good if you need to be skinny on the fly.
Cons: Well, it makes you go doodie, which isn't good if you're stuck on the beach with Kate Moss and you don't want to go in the water. Also, it's been controversially associated with increasing the likelihood of heart disease, though that hasn't been proven. It definitely ups cholesterol levels, which is funny, because people like coffee with eggs which have lots of cholesterol in them and that's some bad 1-2 shit right there. It can cause irregular heartbeats, but so can these two ladies (SWOON), so it must be especially bad for them because they have to look in the mirror all the time. It has unfavorable consequences on blood pressure, can trigger heartburn, can fuck up your sleeping cycles, and is pretty goddamn addictive. You can develop a pretty harsh dependence on it. Some people put cream and sugar in it, which makes it less great for you. Also, Sweet N' Low used to give rats cancer and it still might. Splenda looks like cocaine, which is neat. Also, it'll stain your teeth, but if you can't afford fake teeth, WTF are you doing drinking coffee?
Feed It To LilyMoss In Mass Quantities? Sure! There are worse things than being talkative and poopie.

2. Champagne A favorite of rappers and the fiscally liberal everywhere, probably for the mere effect of opening it, upon which a piece of cork shoots out with a wonderful noise and foam bubbles over the top of the bottle in a somewhat phallic, metaphorical release of opulence. There are lots of sparkling wines but only The Real McCoy can be called Champagne, because it comes from the Champagne region in France, where - other than the fact that they keep their local economy thriving - locals probably detest most of the people who drink it.
Pros: Bubbly drinks are filling. Drinking booze supposedly has lots of benefits, but the process by which Champers are made - making it bubbly - makes it healthier, I read somewhere. Also, in rats, consumption of Champers led to less damage when they introduced strokes in the rats! Poor rats, but good for strokes? It's a status drink! People drunk on Dom smell way less than people drunk on, say, Bakers bourbon, which will give you the distinct odor of an assy barn of horseshit left out to dry in the hot, blazing, summer sun after a monsoon.
Cons: Plenty of champers tastes like piss, but if you enjoy the taste of piss, then this isn't really a problem. Also, people who drink too much end up in bad places, like the gutter. Too much booze can leave you looking aged, which, compounded with all that coffee, won't help. Also, drinking a lot makes you do ridiculously stupid things, like talking a lot on stage.
Feed It To LilyMoss In Mass Quantities? Maybe! All the bubbles make it hard to drink too much and make you gassy. Also, Champ-hangovers are worse than regular hangovers so it kind of regulates itself. And if they have a stroke, well, shit! They're in luck. Finally, surely there's some kind of nutrient in something that comes from a grape.

3. Cigarettes. Oh, wonderful cigarettes. They're made of tobacco which was once farmed but is now mostly made in a factory. They're paper and synthetic cotton and might actually have some real tobacco in them sometimes, who knows? The idea is to light them on fire and smoke them and get a buzz from them. They come in all different kinds of packages with all different kinds of "flavors" and whatnot but for the most part are all the same.
Pros: Sometimes, they give you a buzz! They don't really taste good but sometimes smokers convince themselves that they do. Cigarettes with recessed filters make for great impromptu hipster coke spoons, like Parliament Lights! Also, appetite suppressant, diuretic, and social accessibility point of entry into possibly otherwise impermeable conversation!
Cons: They give you cancer, they make breathing more difficult, they make you smell, they're addicting, you're giving money to really bad people (as opposed to only kinda bad people with coffee and booze), they make you poo, they turn your teeth yellow and make your breath stank like ass, the give you a nasty cough, have killed at least two people you know or are related to, cost a shitload of cash if you live in New York ($11/pack?!?!), and have a strong social stigma attached to them. Children will give you far meaner looks if you're smoking than if you're drunk or strung out on caffine. And you don't want awful looks from children, do you?
Feed It To LilyMoss In Mass Quantities? Let's try not to. They are smelly enough with the coffee. Also, Kate has kids! Smoking in front of kids is kind of bad if only because they don't have a choice. Not that being drunk isn't bad, but they're going to get drunk one day. They don't have to give their money to Big T like us, who are terribly hooked.

4. Vodka. It's fermented grain booze often made with potatoes, and it's the reason the Russians can't ever get anything right besides getting totally krunk with the komrades. Vodka can be mixed with pretty much anything but by the end of the night as long as you have something to chase it with, you could mix it with Pedialite and be fine (note to self: try this sometime). Vodka tastes like rubbing alcohol with a nice bottom note of "ouch."
Pros: Gets you really drunk, really quickly. Some Moscovite doctor once noted that Vodka in small quantities will help prevent atherosclerosis, which sounds like something you'd want to prevent. Also, Vodka's pretty filling as a booze. If you drink too much of it, you don't have to work hard to "pull the trigger" because puking up vodka's a relatively simply, effortless process.
Cons: It's vodka. What isn't bad about it? Anything but vodka, please. Seriously. Malibu and Milk. Peach Schnapps. Bottom shelf tequila. Whatever. People don't realize how truly awful vodka is. Vodka is the worst. Vodka's like those older kids you first meet in high school who you think are so cool, and they take you out and you drink and smoke with them and then a year later, they're working at the Gap and doing lots of Acid, and you're like, woah, what the fuck? I thought you were cool. And they were like, so did we. And then you do everything you can to get out of town and never see these people again.
Feed It To LilyMoss In Mass Quantities? Sure. Whatever, they're going to do it anyway. Besides which, who are we to judge? Just look at them. Hotness in motion. Someone, somewhere has said that fame and beauty take sacrifice. In which case, color me hot. I know how I'm getting into shape this season.

A supervisor in the Office of General Services and a janitor reportedly got paid more than $28K in overtime while chilling in the back room, blazing. They narrowly missed making the city's "Top 10,000 Thieves" list.

Their so-called "man cave," situated inside the East Garage off Phillip Street, featured couches, a television and DVDs, a refrigerator, and rolling papers and scales to weigh marijuana...

Fisch's office alleged the men used the secret party lounge, located in a maintenance area, to sell drugs, get high and sleep while other janitors cleaned Pivoda's section in the garage. The IG's office said the janitor made pot deliveries in his OGS vehicle to electricians, plumbers and fellow state workers.

Just wait until the Inspector General finds out what Taco Bell employees in the state food court are doing on their breaks.
[Times-Union]

We've heard rumors (which we're trying to confirm) of at least two NYC media people who are trying to break into the liquor or beer business, either as investors or partners. It makes sense. Media jobs aren't secure. But selling booze is always secure—look how well the bootleggers did, even during the Depression! And who has their finger on the intoxicated pulse of drinkers' tastes more than a media person? No member of any other "professional" class, that's for sure!

Media workers [in the UK] are the biggest consumers of wine, drinking on average one and a half bottles a week. They are also the biggest drinkers of spirits, liqueurs and shots, taking on average 3.2 measures a week, finds the poll by YouGov for the government's Know Your Limits campaign.

People in the profession also drink 10 units more a week than the next heaviest drinking professionals – IT workers.

Bow down, IT workers! We applaud the entrepreneurial spirit of these forward-thinking moguls of the future. If you are a media person breaking into the booze industry—or know of any—email us and brag.

[Guardian UK. Pic via]

From the great state of Colorado, Schaffer began his political career in the Colorado General Assembly at the age of 25. He served 3 terms in the House. But in 2008 he lost his race for the Senate to Mark Udall. And apparently he has no real-world skills, but he does have his wife's homemade margarita mix recipe (hint: it's lime juice).

And so here he is, explaining that he drank away his embarrassing loss, at home, with his wife, and begging a reporter to join him in some afternoon on-the-job tequila. And we're sure his margarita mix will sell great, because nothing says "authentic margarita" like "Republican from Colorado."

Rattner, a former Times reporter and future Obama appointee (probably), has a wonderful relationship with Times publisher Pinch Sulzberger, and, according to Michael Wolff, "a careful relationship" with Rupert Murdoch. So only the Daily News reported on his wife's little incident, and then they scrubbed the story from their website.

Because apparently Rattner is a big pain in the ass:

I've often written about Rattner. And while I don't believe I've ever said anything particularly grievous about him, except that he's a social climber, in each instance his response has been nearly feral-he's called my editors; he's written letters and had letters written on his behalf; he's dissed me to anyone, it seems, who would listen.

It's a real shame that no one in New York covered this, because the story of the traffic stop is pretty great. Ms. White was pulled over after she stopped dead in the middle of the EZ-Pass lane of the Throgs Neck Bridge. When the cops walked over to ask if she needed assistance, White "stared blankly at deponent with glassy eyes and stated in sum and substance: 'WHERE DO I GO NOW?'" That is an existential drunk driving stop, right there.

White pleaded guilty, paid a fine, and had her license suspended for 90 days, and now her husband will save the auto industry.

Pic via Esther Dyson.

This is our new presidents' greatest advantage over the last loser: he drinks! Probably in moderation, but he does drink. When he invites "two dozen key members of Congress" to the White House this evening for cocktails, he'll share in those cocktails. Sure, Bush could've joined them in a non-alcoholic beer, but no one enjoys drinking with a reformed alcoholic. It'd be an awkward, stilted evening. No laughs, no camaraderie, no eventual singalongs to Tom Petty courtesy John Boehner's iPod.

Yes, we finally have a president who can drink, like a grownup, with other grownups.

The stimulus bill may be watered down with pointless sops to right-wingers whose votes it doesn't need to pass, but the drinks will once again be strong.

This was emergency legislation, because otherwise how would the massive mobs of people coming to DC to mill around and smell the hope get properly lubricated? The current DC bar close is a pathetic 2 a.m., forcing people to continue drinking at their homes (or on the national mall and at various monuments) at a criminally early point in the evening. But from January 17 through the morning after Hopey's Inaugural bars will serve until the sun comes up, and then they'll continue serving again, a few hours later. Thanks, Obama!

(The trains will run until 2 a.m. the night after the inaugural, which is still 2 hours better than usual. God that town sucks.)

Peru has successfully promoted its national drink "Pisco Sour" during the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leaders' Summit, Peru’s Environment Minister Antonio Brack said Sunday.

He noted that the flagship drink of Peru was well acepted by international guests, including Japan's Prime Minister, Taro Aso.

"Pisco Sour has been the "star" of the APEC Summit, the drink was served in several meetings at the Government Palace and the APEC Summit venue,” he told CPN Radio.

"We have achieved to place our products including pisco on international markets, but also kiwicha, sweet potatoes and traditional Peruvian potatoes", said Brack.

U.S. President George W. Bush, who quit drinking at 40, was apparently drinking a Peruvian cocktail during a meeting on Saturday.

Bush is reportedly looking forward to breaking a related personal vow during his next trip to Colombia.

Photo: ANDINA/Carlos Lezama

As the Telegraph reports:

He went on to conclude: "My name is Adam Smith, also known as Steve Zacharanda, who has just resigned from the Birmingham Mail, the Birmingham Post and the Birmingham Sunday Mercury, to set up my own magazine. F—- you, I'm doing what I want."

Steve Dyson, the editor of the Birmingham Mail, declined to comment on the video, saying: "This is an internal matter".

This man is a hero to journalists everywhere.

“Vodka and scotch sales are up, there’s no question about that,” said Chris Adams, executive vice president of Sherry-Lehmann Wines & Spirits, on 59th Street. He says that traffic in his store has increased this month—over the counter sales are up 23%, and delivery volume is up about 18%, compared to last year.

Ugh, vodka and scotch. Your fancy investment bank job disappeared, bro, time to switch to bourbon and gin like proper underclass types!

Now those of us who wear sweaters and wish we could read only by candlelight will be able to annoy our friends even more trying to pretend we know something about the red grape juice we're drinking and that's making me talk too damn much again and somebody just kicked me under the table. In related dinner party fodder news, Amazon plans to sell the biographies of first ladies-in-waiting Cindy McCain and Michelle Obama on the its e-reader the Kindle before they're sold in hard-copy anywhere else. Which makes sense, if only because there's not enough time to rush out these opportunistic political potboilers in paper form. (Photo by paul goyette)

Hey, the HuffPo typed it up!

Caller: I'm a student of print journalism, and I just wanted to know: what advice do you have for young people coming up into the field? Like, a lot of our professors are telling us how hard it is to get into the field at first. I'd just like to know, since you're in the field, if you have any advice on that.

[silence]

Caller: For instance, experience: is that important?
Larry King: Uh huh, sure.
Caller: Is that probably the most important?
Larry King: Well, it's way up there.
Caller: It's way up there...anything else?
Larry King: Pressure under fire, done this before, I don't want this to be his first surgery.
Caller: Okay...
Larry King: Applied himself well. These are the things that I'd have confidence in a young M.D.
Caller: Okay...I'm talking about the journalism field.
Larry King: I'm lost, what do you mean?
Caller: Journalism...I'm a student of journalism at a college and I was just wondering the most important aspect of getting into journalism. Not the medical field. I think you're exhausted from 30 nights.
Larry King: I am exhausted from 30 nights. No person, even those of us who are superhuman, those of us with Herculean appetites for the diverse and the bizarre, even those of us who have shown an aptitude to fight the good fight and stay the good long battle...even those of us can get tired. And your boy is tired after 30 consecutive nights. I have a half hour to go and I'm gonna do that half hour because I'm a pro, and that's what pros do. I'm a pro-fessional. Look it up in the book.
Caller: Okay...
Larry King: That's what we do, we're pros. We're never rude and we don't cop out. We don't tell you that we're ill or that we're looking for the farmhouse in the middle of the desert. Or that we're parched. We don't tell you that maybe the check didn't come through this month, and where the hell does it go anyway if you're a guy who's left 16 forwarding addresses?
Caller: Okay...
Larry King: So what do you do? What is the answer? Yeah, you're a little perturbed now. Kinda worried about the club.
Caller: The club?
Larry King: Don't worry about the club. Worry about, maybe, Jackie, my...haha, nah, don't worry. Okay, just cool it. Life is a breeze. Of course, some breezes as you know at 110 mph and get promoted up to hurricanes...I just thought I'd pass that along. Speaking of pass along, we're gonna pass along now to the newsroom, the Mutual Newsroom high atop the overlooking downtown, beautiful downtown studios of [slurred, Arlington?] Virginia, Washington DC. The Mutual Newsroom will get us up to date on the news headlines and we'll come back with more Open Phone America and we'll have our salute to my man Duke [?] by taking him to one of his favorite places, one of mine too: the town of Cooperstown, New York. This is the Larry King Show in Washington, and we'll be right back.

[via the Gallery of Graphic Design]