alcohol

A good explanation why drunks spin out and fall down.

Tv3 ran a news story last night about a supposed alcohol problem amongst our troops in the NZDF.

They cited 500 drinking related offences over 5 years. That is just 100 per year out of total of 10,000 troops or just 1%. They have 61 bars, that’s one and half bar incidents a year per bar. What a massive beat-up of a non-problem. Who are the wowsers that fed this crap to to 3News?

It is a massive over reaction and actually poor reporting on the part of 3 News.

When you compare the NZDF with the rest of New Zealand it is actually the rest of New Zealand that has the drinking problem not the NZDF.

In New Zealand a third of crimes in 2007-2008 were carried out by a person affected by alcohol and in serious offences, such as homicides, it was about half of cases.

Each year police here take 21,000 drunk people home or to the cells because they cannot remember where they live.

In fact if you look at Police crime statistics you can see public disorder offences (like disorderly conduct) which are highly likely to involve alcohol for the past year were well over 40,000, for just one year.

500 offences by the NZDF over 5 years seems small beer if you ask me. A total beat-up by 3News, they should actually apologise to the NZDF.

via the tipline

Here is a copy of a bill from one nights drinking in Las Vegas. It is real, I know a person who was there.

I do however have a few of questions.

1. Where is McCully and Groser this week?
2. What will the ministerial expense claims look like next release?
3. How would you go about covering this one up if it was you?
4. What one of these items is the hookers?

Note to Barry Colman and Busted Blonde, this is a real piss up using Veuve Clicquot. It is now nine months since the VRWC won the competition for Busted Blonde and still no party. Babies have been conceived and born in the time it has taken for this party to eventuate. Meanwhile in Las Vegas $189,375.98 USD was consumed prior to midnight at Tryst in Las Vegas.

Note the tip is more than the average wage in New Zealand. This is what the NZ tourist industry needs, not a bunch of wailing, dancing Maori in grass skirts feeding the masses greasy hangi for $50  a head begfore them back on the bus they came on.

Pedobear Power appeared on Q+A with P Holmes today and showed just how powerful the liquor lobby are. I mean after all they retain Chen/Palmer….and didn’t Geoffrey Palmer via the Law Commission make some of these suggestions.

Assisting commercial clients who will be or have been affected by current law reform issues in the area of waste minimisation, the sale of liquor, financial services, energy and telecommunications regulation, climate change, and local government reform

Hmmmmm…..is that a conflict of interest….even though Geoffrey has left the firm I can’t think of why he would leave his name on the firm for free.

Anyway so Pedobear Power turns up for an interview on Q+A, to save you the boredom of listening the the best leader National has never had this can be summarised from TVNZs press release.

• Government signals major overhaul of liquor laws tomorrow (So time to reform liquor laws, but no time to protect children from pedophiles through our own Megan’s law. The law Commission made their recommendations in April and Pedobear has acted now, the same Law Commission made recommendations regarding name suppression last year and still no action.)
  
• Exclusive: Councils will be able to create “Local Alcohol Plans” to make liquor licences harder to get (Why? Harder to get than what? Harder than a licence for brothel? What about a kindy, since Pedobear is pedo-friendly?)
  
• Local communities will have new powers to reject liquor licences based on how many are in their neighbourhood, where they are and what hours they’re open (Based on what evidence that the number of outlets affects the local populace?)
  
• Dry areas or 24/7 licences won’t be possible, however, as they won’t pass a new “reasonableness” test (Set by whom?)
  
• New: Government will set “default” national guidelines, including “maximum trading hours” (Six o’clock closing anyone?)
  
• Power says “no good will come” of queuing up to enter a bar at 5am, and promises action on that tomorrow (Wow, action from Pedobear. I feel sorry sorry for the bar workers who just finished their shift at 5am and want a drink and now Pedobear is going to deny that)
  
• Power again rules out excise tax, also rules out sales tax; refuses to rule out minimum price (Minimum price….drooool….This is exactly what the retailers and liquor want, no more cheap piss, bro, super-profits anyone?)
  
• Supermarkets and other outlets will need to “persuade [government] that things are as pure as are being said” (Uhhhmmmm, no, how about government proves it isn’t? Freedom of trade, will Pedobear set loose hordes of outlet inspectors?)
  
• Focus of law change will be to reduce the harm caused by alcohol, especially on youth (and when it doesn’t, does Pedobear resign?)
  
• Justice Minister won’t say he wants the price of alcohol to go up, although confirms “the government has a view” on that to be revealed tomorrow (I just bet he does, and I bet it is Bill English’s view. Higher price more GST, more tax money to spend)
  
• Power doubts Steven Joyce would drive after he’d drunk three-quarters of a bottle of wine, even though he would still be under the drink-driving limit (Of course he doubts it, ever heard of VIP Transport, what Minister would ever drink and drive with those sorts of transport arrangement?)

Pedobear Power on Q+A

I’m confused. Just a bare few months ago we had Geoffrey Palmer, wearing his Law Commission hat, recommending draconian changes to our liquor laws, allegedly because of our “binge drinking” culture.

Then the Government is said to be considering raising the drinking age from 18  to 20, despite the party voting resoundingly to oppose such a move at its National conference.

And just last week we had Steven Joyce announce changes to drink driving laws adding even more confusion around the drinking age. Essentially the government is saying that at 18 you can drink, but you can’t drive with any alcohol in your system until your are aged 20 years.

This is all horribly confusing. To make matters worse the Government administration select committee yesterday heard submissions on the Rugby World Cup 2011 (Empowering) Bill which would make it easier to grant urgent approvals for temporary activities and facilities during the tournament.

So on one hand we have the Law Commission saying we have a binge drinking culture and on the other a government enabling quicker licensing for booze premises for the World Cup.

Mixed messages? I think so. Or perhaps there is a fair bit of lobbying going on behind the scenes filling the coffers of the lobbyists. Who would know?

I think for once the government has got it right on drink driving.

They have announced today that there is to be a zero alcohol limit for driver under 20 and for repeat offenders of drink driving.

Government changes creating a zero drink-drive limit for under 20 and recidivist drink drivers found widespread support this afternoon, but both the Labour Party and an alcohol watchdog say the moves don’t go far enough.

Transport Minister Steven Joyce today announced a zero drink drive limit for recidivist drink drivers and drivers aged under 20 from early next year.

It will be imposed on drivers after their second drink driving conviction and is likely to last three years after their disqualification period ends.

But the Government didn’t lower the legal adult blood-alcohol limit from 80 milligrams of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood to 50 milligrams.

Mr Joyce said that the Government will first do some New Zealand-specific research on the level of risk posed by drivers with a blood alcohol limit between 0.05 and 0.08.

I think they have got the balance right here. I’m not convinced on the general limit being lowered, but then I don’t drink and drive at all. If I am driving then i don’t touch a drop. Having a zero limit for recidivists is a brilliant move, though i suspect the drunks will still roll out thinking they can run the gauntlet…they have already proven their mental incapacity by driving drunk in the first place.

It seems that the public agree with the changes as well, especially for under 20 drivers. The Herald poll that goes with the story shows that 91% of respondents agree with the government. Labour of course disagrees, like the idiots they are.

But Labour said the Government had attempted to kick the issue of drink driving into touch by postponing a decision.

Labour’s transport safety spokeswoman Darien Fenton said the Government had failed to act decisively over the issue.

“Anything that will save lives on our roads is worth doing,” he said.

Darien Fenton is a miserable wench. She has a perpetual smack bum look about her that even the most talented photoshopper would have trouble fixing. Glad to see she is advocating the removal of all vehicles from the road, I hope Labour takes that position into the election, after all having no vehicles would definitely save lives and Darien Fenton thinks that is worth doing.

In other road related matters I had an email from an expert in roading matters who suggested, in relation to doddery old fools driving the wrong way down motorways, that the matter could be solved easily.

Surely the way would be to ban all traffic on motorways unless it is travelling on the wrong side.

This would deal with the difficulties 83 year old unlicenced drivers have, and would also allow us to import left hand drive cars to capitalise on the change.

In one quick move we could legalise Chevy Suburbans and Cadillac Escalades to allow more greens to be carried in one vehicle.

Then we could be like Samoa.

According to Deborah Coddington:

One thing’s for sure, James Webster is not being used as a “pin-up” boy for the campaigners, as claimed by blogger Cameron Slater.

Slater, son of former National Party president John Slater, cruelly wrote this week about James Webster: “A toffee-nosed school boy drank himself to death … a dead thief and a liar who couldn’t handle his piss killed himself. I always said Kings boys were poofs.”

Fortunately, Slater’s influence is nil.

Talk about a stupid bint. If I allegedly don’t have influence then how come she is talking about ME! Quite what my father has to do with her comments is beyond me. Dad gave up being embarrassed about his son quite some time ago.

Her article is another in a long line of menopausal drivel that the HoS seems to line up these days from Wendyl Nissen and Deborah Coddington where they try to out-do each other on fucking tearful sob stories about losers or drop-kick subjects like growing your own vegetables. Next thing I suppose one of them will tell us tearfully how her husband likes the cock.

Thanks for the traffic Deborah, oh and tell your HoS pal Pork Chop to shove it.

The Labour caucus is blabbing, there aren’t happy campers in there, most notable is Grant “Daffyd” Robertson , the opposition spokesman for the homeless.

He has been caterwauling loudly (o loudly that The Whale has heard about it) that the Labour caucus is to be whipped on the drinking age with no allowance for a conscience vote. He is not at all happy with Goff’s conservatism over this issue. You heard it here first. Labour will NOT be allowing a conscience vote on the drinking age. Probably because none of them actually have a conscience.

Meanwhile the pin up boy for the campaign to restrict alcohol to minors is a dead thief and a liar who couldn’t handle his piss and killed himself.  I always said Kings boys were poofs.

A 16-year-old Auckland schoolboy who died in his sleep after drinking a bottle of vodka outside a party at the weekend had “everything to live for”, his uncle says.

King’s College student James Webster’s uncle, Donald Webster, said his nephew on Saturday told his father he was going to a friend’s house to study, but instead went to an 18-year-old’s birthday party with a bottle of vodka he may have taken from the house where he was staying.

The party organisers would not let him in with the alcohol so he sat in his car and drank the vodka straight from the bottle, possibly with friends.

Ok let’s dissect that hopeless repeating. A toffee-nosed school boy drank himself to death yet he “had everything to live for”. He lied about going to a friends house, he might have nicked a bottle of Vodka (poof’s drink) and possibly had some friends help him on his way. The only thing certain about the repeating is that the thief and liar is dead.

Now let’s get some things straight here.

• The law is already set at 18 so he was drinking illegally anyway. Strike 1.
• The law says you can’t can’t steal but he did that too. Strike 2.
• He lied to his father. Strike 3.
• The party organisers were the good guys.
• His friends aren’t. Strike 4.

Nothing about this activity and the resulting death has anything to do with raising the age of access to alcohol. If that were to happen then this kid would have just died more illegal than he already was.

The wowsers and anti-fun police need to blame no-one but the kid who died. He has found out all too late just exactly what personal responsibility looks like. The law doesn’t need changing.

This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to address the harm that is associated with excessive drinking,” Lianne Dalziel said. “We may not have a personal drinking problem, but we are all affected by problem drinking.”

Patsy Dalziel, unbelievably, opined the above when asked about the Law Commission Liquor law Report.

She ain’t nicknamed “Patsy” for nothing.

Never trust politicians that say things like “This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity”, what they mean is they were too lazy in their generation to do it and now they want to meddle in other generations.