Tony LaRussa DUI footage

Courtesy of the fine folks over at the Smoking Gun, check out the footage of the traffic stop and subsequent events from Tony LaRussa's March arrest earlier this year.

2 out of 3 Aussie women binge drink

According to a recent article at tvnz, two out of three Australian women surveyed in an online survey were binge drinkers.

Hold on a second, though. What is the definition of a binge drinker? Five units of alcohol - or five drinks.

Now, I'm not an expert here - but if a standard unit of alcohol is the whole one shot = one beer = one glass of wine... then I'm pretty sure that they've set the bar too low.

A Long Island Iced tea, for example, is a drink that can commonly contain two to three shots of alchol. (See: http://www.webtender.com/db/drink/1310 , http://www.webtender.com/db/drink/1436 , http://www.webtender.com/db/drink/1698 for examples). I really don't see someone who has two Long Island Iced Teas over the course of an evening out with friends as a binge drinker.

Of course, If I am misinterpreting what a standard unit of alcohol is, then this may be a bigger problem than it seems. If wikipedia can be trusted, then a 500ml can/bottle of standard lager (5%) generally contains around 2.5 units.

So, if an Australian woman has more than two cans of standard lager in an evening with friends, she's a binge drinker.

Someone has an agenda. I don't think it is me.

Man gets arrested for DUI with 0.0 BAC

Check out this story. It's not that he was pulled over even though he was sober - I have no problem with that.

The problem I have is that even after he blew a 0.0 and took a urine test that cleared him, he was still prosecuted.

Look - if the guy is too impaired to drive - it's up to the DMV to not license him. Obviously someone thought he should have a license at some point. It seems harsh to charge him with DUI even though he is obviously not under the influence.

Hit a streetsweeper, get a DWI

Here's an interesting story out of Buffalo.

Lohan serves 84 minutes for DUI

Yep, you read that correctly. 84 freaking minutes. To put that in perspective, if you watched Herbie fully Loaded, you suffered for 17 minutes more than she did.

Alcohol users by country

Here's an interesting map that I saw posted on another site that I frequent (Hi Fark!) Check this out Hopefully you can't see your house from here :)

According to Reuters UK, two separate medical groups in London are calling for higher taxes to be placed on alcohol. This would presumably be to decrease the number of alcohol related health issues.

Here's another take on it from the BBC, leading off with the children.

An interesting statistic from the first article - alcohol-related deaths doubled to over 8,386 in 2005 from 4,144 in 1991. They don't, however, say how many Brits there were in 1991 and 2005. Just for fun, I tried to look this up.

According to A site which I've never heard of the population in 1991 was 57,808,000 and in 2005 it was 60,210,000.

So... let's solve for X, shall we?

1991 -- 4,144 deaths per 57,808,000 = x per 100,000 people. x ~ 7.16 deaths per 100,000

2005 -- 8,386 deaths per 60,210,000 = x per 100,000 people. x ~ 13.93 deaths per 100,000 people.

It isn't much comfort if one of your loved ones is part of those who have died as a result of alcohol, but lets not get swept up into calling this an epidemic. I don't ever advocate people drinking to excess or at the cost of their health, but I wonder how bad this problem really is in the U.K., or if this might just be a scare-tactic statistic.

I just googled to see how close I was on the real statistics and it is actually lower than my back of the napkin computation. It looks like the death rate went from 6.9 per 100,000 to 12.9 per 100,000 from 1991 to 2005.


Here is the fascinating thing, though. Look at this graph:



The rate of deaths for people in the 15-34 range has climbed - but the dramatic shifts are in the 35-54 brackets and 55-74 brackets.

Most likely, this is due to higher lifetime rates of drinking for people in Gen X and the Baby Boomers, or it is due to a higher incidence of deaths for this group being attributed to drink.

I would like to see what is being reported as alcohol-related to see if there is a decline in other categories that might correlate - areas that were previously called something else, or to see if the definition has changed over time.

This smells of an agenda. This whole thing is purported to be for the children - but it doesn't appear that they are the ones with a problem.

PS> I wasn't aware that children were legally buying alcohol in the U.K. I would assume they are stealing it since no one should be selling it to them, unless I misunderstand their laws. How does raising the tax rate affect a shoplifted bottle of booze, or one lifted from their parents?

Paris Hilton has an opinion about Drinking Elephants

You can't really make this kind of thing up. Paris Hilton seeks to save drinking Indian Elephants

DUI templates may not reflect facts

Here's an interesting entry over on the DUI Blog.

I'm not in favor of people driving drunk, but I'm also not in favor of people being railroaded. Our laws exist for a reason, and it isn't just so that we can "Get" cops on a technicality. We need to follow the laws, and they need to follow them as well.

Man arrested after calling 911 for more beer

Honestly - no one I know was involved in this incident :) An NBC affiliate's website has the story of a local man who was arrested after calling 911 for more beer

Rebecca De Mornay busted for DUI

According to TMZ.com, Rebecca De Mornay was arrested the night before Halloween.

.09 Isn't exactly in the "menace to society" range, but she probably should have known better.

San Diego considers beach booze ban

As a former resident of San Diego (1992-2005) I'm not happy with the thought of banning alcohol at the beach. I can't imagine an Over The Line (OTL) weekend that would be booze free. It's not that you have to be drinking to enjoy the beach, but that drinking at the beach is a very pleasurable experience. I would hate to see the actions of one mob ruin it for everyone.

Anyone familiar with the history of San Diego beach culture would know that there have always been fights down at the beach, and there probably always will be fights. You also know how to avoid getting into a fight, and who is going to fight. This isn't some Jekyl and Hyde unexpected transformation.

By the way, the guys who want to fight are going to break the rules anyway. There are already laws against fighting - let's just enforce those against the bad element and leave the law abiding folks alone.

Sunday

Brain damage from alcohol threatens 1 in 5 in New Zealand. I can't really say much except for Holy Crap! Hopefully this is a case of someone making sensationalistic conclusions based off of data that doesn't really support the finding.

You know, sometimes it might seem like I'm too hard on these Hollywood starlets who get themselves into trouble. I sometimes feel a little bad for them.

Then I read about Paris Hilton collecting one million dollars for an evening of work, and I don't feel bad at all.

If you can make that kind of cash and have the lifestyle that it provides, you can put up with little old me out on the internet.

Hey, speaking of Paris, watch her act out in a Toronto sex shop. There is a link in the story here to the video.

Lohan leaves a bar, sober

Hey, everything has to start at some point, right?