Free Republic

Admittedly, the Egyptian uprising, the nullification of Obamacare and the ongoing ramifications of "Snowpocolypse 2011" could render the controversy about an MTV original program insignificant by comparison. After all, MTV is only out to destroy an entire generation. No big deal. Every adult - not just parents - should take the time to learn about the MTV show "Skins," a new "teen drama" that the Parents Television Council (PTC) has deemed "the most dangerous show on TV." Be careful when you go hunting for information about "Skins" lest your spouse conclude you've developed an interest in child pornography. The publicity...

KANO, Nigeria (AFP) – Islamic police smashed 80,000 bottles of beer in the Nigerian city of Kano on Tuesday to enforce a sharia law ban on consumption of alcohol that exists in much of the country's north. Over a dozen veiled female sharia police, called Hisbah, destroyed the beer bottles with sticks amid shouts of "Allahu Akbar" (God is Great) on the outskirts of the northern city in a ceremony. The ceremony was attended by government officials as part of "efforts to rid the state of immorality," said Kano state Hisbah chief Saidu Dukawa. Kano city is the capital of...

Two lanes of southbound U.S. Highway 101 in Sunnyvale reopened at about 9:15 a.m., following a crash in which a big rig transporting vodka overturned and spilled the product onto the roadway, city spokesman John Pilger said. The big rig overturned shortly before 8 a.m. at North Mathilda Avenue, spilling vodka and fuel and temporarily closing all southbound lanes. Emergency personnel have extricated the driver of the big rig, but Pilger did not know the driver's condition. The left two lanes on the southbound side have reopened, but authorities are advising commuters to take alternate routes if possible, as traffic...

NEW Year’s Eve tends to be the day of the year with the most binge drinking (based on drunken driving fatalities), followed closely by Super Bowl Sunday. Likewise, colleges have come to expect that the most alcohol-filled day of their students’ lives is their 21st birthday. So, some words of caution for those who continue to binge and even for those who have stopped: just as the news is not so great for former cigarette smokers, there is equally bad news for recovering binge-drinkers who have achieved a sobriety that has lasted years. The more we have binged — and...

Did you know that the commonwealth has the death penalty - for beer? A crazed cannibal could eat an entire elementary school and the Massachusetts justice system would give him three hots and a cot until he died of old age. But if a six-pack of Sam Adams ends up with the wrong crowd? It’s the rope. Actually the vat. This weekend, according to the MetroWest Daily News, the state Alcoholic Beverage Control Commission loaded 250 cases of beer and 155 bottles of liquor on a conveyor belt and dropped them to their doom in a government-sanctioned execution. Hangin,’ it...

Middle-class wine drinkers will be the focus of government plans to make drunkenness as socially unacceptable as smoking, The Times has learnt.---snip-- “We want to target older drinkers, those that are maybe drinking one or two bottles of wine at home each evening,” a Whitehall source said. “They do not realise the damage they are doing to their health and that they risk developing liver disease. We are not talking here about the traditional wino.”

Commentary Mel Gibson is the latest reminder of the perils of drunken driving. But in his case it was talking while intoxicated that attracted so much attention. Typically, of course, it is not what someone says under the influence that concerns the public, but what he does. Safety is our main worry. And the goal is to keep the person from driving while intoxicated. That was the aim of the judge who in June handled the case of another high-profile arrestee, Representative Patrick J. Kennedy of Rhode Island. Mr. Kennedy pleaded guilty to driving under the influence after crashing his...

When Alcoholics Anonymous and other 12-step programs are examined in controlled studies, a new review reports, scientists find no proof that they are superior to any other intervention in reducing alcohol dependence or alcohol-related problems. The researchers, led by Marica Ferri of the Italian Agency for Public Health in Rome, found little to suggest that 12-step programs reduced the severity of addiction any more than any other intervention. And no data showed that 12-step interventions were any more — or any less — successful in increasing the number of people who stayed in treatment or reducing the number who relapsed...

In another experiment, published this year in the journal Neuroscience, Dr. Crews found that even a single high dose of alcohol temporarily prevented the creation of new nerve cells from progenitor stem cells in the forebrain that appear to be involved in brain development. The damage, far more serious in adolescent rats than in adult rats, began at a level equivalent to two drinks in humans and increased steadily as the dosage was increased to the equivalent of 10 beers, when it stopped the production of almost all new nerve cells. Dr. Crews added, however, that adult alcoholics who stop...

NEARLY a billion bottles of French and Italian wine are to be turned into fuel and disinfectant because producers cannot find buyers.The EU agriculture commissioner yesterday announced plans for a radical shake-up of the wine market to prevent over-production. In the meantime, it was agreed that the EU will finance the conversion of millions of bottles of French and Italian wine into industrial alcohol. The growing popularity of wines from the New World has been blamed for the decline in the appetite for traditional European produce. "Europe is producing too much wine for which there is no market," the commissioner,...

A HUMILIATING accident. An apparent memory lapse. A sudden, emotional confession. Representative Patrick Kennedy's car crash on Capitol Hill early Thursday and a news conference a day later had a familiar rhythm, especially for those who study addiction or know it firsthand. Mr. Kennedy, a six-term Democrat from Rhode Island, said that his addiction was to prescription medication and that he planned to seek treatment at an addiction clinic, as he had done before. "I struggle every day with this disease, as do millions of Americans," said Mr. Kennedy, who is 38. But will a cure that apparently didn't take...

(Ionia County, December 8, 2005, 5:45 p.m.) A beer truck overturned on a road in Ionia County, causing quite a mess. It happened Thursday afternoon on M-50 near Nash, just west of Lake Odessa. Police say the beer truck was turning the corner and its load shifted, causing the driver to lose control. The truck flipped onto its side, spilling the beer all over the road. A produce truck coming the other way swerved to miss the beer truck, and ended up in a ditch. It took several hours for crews to clear the road.

They say people need to look seriously at toll Lahser High School students compare the death toll from the 9/11 terrorist attacks to the toll from alcohol in public service announcement to be shown in Detroit. Story

ESPN.com: NBA Monday, November 17, 2003 Rodman, 42, voluntarily sought help -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ESPN.com news services Dennis Rodman has voluntarily entered himself into a program for alcohol abuse, his agent said Monday. Darren Prince, of Prince Marketing Group, said the former NBA rebounding champion has been seeing a private counselor for the past 3½ weeks. "Next week will be Dennis' one-month anniversary, but we'll take it one day at a time," Prince said. Prince said Rodman, 42, still wants to play in the NBA this year but first must get his life in order before contacting teams for tryouts. Rodman was...

CREDIT: SCOTT DUNLOP Bartender Christopher Ewert pours beer in the Grawood pub on Dal's campus. Pub crawlers at Nova Scotia’s largest university have heard their last call. Dalhousie University has banned the boozy events, where large groups of students band together to visit strings of bars. “The university doesn’t approve of or condone pub crawls, and we will not permit them to be advertised or organized on campus,” said Eric McKee, vice-president of student services. “In some respects, relatively high-risk alcohol-use behaviour is involved, and we are not in control of what goes on during pub crawls. They occur...

LOUISVILLE, KY. (AP) - More than 1,000 gallons of tequila spilled into the sewer system Monday after a worker tried to unload it from a truck into an already full storage tank at a distillery, officials said. The tequila overflowed at a rate of 100 gallons per minute, resulting in 1,500 to 1,800 gallons entering the city sewer system, said Phil Lynch, a spokesman for the Brown-Forman Distillery. Fire and sewer officials were called because of the flammability of the 80-proof liquor, he said. Water was used to dilute the spilled alcohol. "It was a simple case of human error,"...

Tequila Leak Floods Kentucky Sewers Fire Department Called Out To Flush Alcohol LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- A leak at a Kentucky distillery Monday morning sent as much as 1,800 gallons of tequila down the drain. The leak developed at the Brown Forman Distillery in Louisville and sent the Pepe Lopez Tequila into the city's sewer system, Louisville TV station WLKY reported. Workers at the distillery were supposed to pump the tequila, which was just delivered from Mexico, from a tanker truck into an empty storage tank. Instead, an employee connected the truck to an already-full tank and flipped the switch....

<p>The whiskey flowed more freely than anyone wanted yesterday morning when 1,500 gallons of Southern Comfort flooded a portion of the Brown-Forman Corp.'s bottling-supplies warehouse on Garland Avenue, forcing the facility's evacuation.</p> <p>''There are going to be some happy rats tonight,'' said Bud Schardein, executive director of Metropolitan Sewer District, which reported no problems with the water supply downstream of the warehouse after the liquor was washed into the sewers.</p>