A responsible press would encourage Obama to smoke more and drink less.
Obama comes from two long lines of alcoholics: His father died driving drunk. His half-brother David died driving drunk. His half-brother Roy was an alcoholic before discovering teetotaling Islam and changing his name to Abongo. His maternal grandfather Stan was a barfly.
Back during the Pennsylvania primary, Hillary was always gulping down boilermakers, hoping (I imagine) to provoke Barack Jr. into responding in kind to demonstrate his regular guyness and then going off on a Barack Sr.-style bender. (Barack Sr.'s standing order at his favorite Nairobi bar was two double shots of Jack Daniels as soon as he walked in the door.)
With that kind of genetic background combined with his stressful job, the President should avoid drinking.
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
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Well, as he's apparently Irish from Country Longford, I'd wager he might just do both.
Abongo?
And no one has picked up on that except you?
Grist for the non-PC irreverent, that.
doubt obama will have to worry about dying while driving drunk...i'm sure he'll have a chauffeur the rest of his life.
Mean-spirited, IMO. People don't usually blame politicians for the black sheep in their families, at least in my experience. This post was prompted over a beer?
Interesting observation, as always.
How Obama Handles Stress has been a concern for me since the election.
McCain, for all his flaws, took the worst the commies could dish out and maintained his composure. Obama, on the other hand, is accustomed to pampering and could be a house o' cards for all we know -- has the man ever felt real stress? As you point out, he's certainly predisposed to falling apart.
(What worries me is that presumably there are Evil Steves working for Iranian intelligence, NK intelligence, etc. Americans may blithely overlook Obama's psych weaknesses, but those guys sure won't.)
As I'm sure you know, smoking cigarettes is a proven way to reduce society's health care costs. Most medical expenditures are in the last days of life. Funny that this hasn't been put forward as a cost containment strategy.
I was born and raised in Washington DC. Drinking beer on the lawn in July in the afternoon is not an approved activity. Obama should show some respect for local culture. Mint Juleps, please!
To me, Obama's non-teleprompted suggestion that the group meet to discuss it all "over a beer" was the suggestion of a functional alcoholic. Seriously - unable to view the situation, even in passing, as something that some alcohol couldn't solve.
Question: is the length of time a race has been drinking the only consideration in that race's ability to handle booze?
At first glance for me it would seem to be: ever seen a Sumerian at an AA meeting? White people began agriculture and booze later than the Fertile Crescent folk and the Chinese, which would seem to explain why we are more avid drinkers and why we tend to have more of a problem with it, especially the further north and west one goes in Europe.
The North American Indians didn't ever invent booze I don't think, which is why they can't handle it.
Yet the sub-Saharan Africans didn't invent alcoholic beverages (I don't think) so their exposure to it would be relatively recent, and they don't seem to share either whitey's thirst or rate of alcoholism.
Any help appreciated, I've googled and wiki'd and can't fully answer this one.
Token on topic comment: Obama inviting two guys over for a beer just seems too...white a thing for Obama to do; a bit too anomalous, like, Gates-tricycle anomalous.
"Hillary was always gulping down boilermakers, hoping to provoke Barack Jr. into responding in kind to demonstrate his regular guyness and then going on a Barack Sr.-style bender."
Is this true? Man you Americans play hardball.
The other upside is that if he sticks with cigarettes he won't go around making a nuisance of himself in dotage like Jimmy Carter.
"McCain, for all his flaws, took the worst the commies could dish out and maintained his composure."
Are you kidding? McCain is famous for his temper:
http://blog.case.edu/conservativemovement/2008/01/29/john_mccains_top_ten_temper_explosions
"White people began agriculture and booze later than the Fertile Crescent folk and the Chinese, which would seem to explain why we are more avid drinkers and why we tend to have more of a problem with it, especially the further north and west one goes in Europe."
East Asians (Chn/Jap/Kor) aren't very good drinkers. Roughly 50% of them lack an enzyme necessary to breakdown alcohol, making it alcohol more or less intolerable in any non-trivial amount. This is the "Asian flush" phenomenon, where Asians get bright red in the face (and elsewhere) after just a few sips or so.
I don't believe other populations have anything comparable to the Asian flush. I've noticed Northern Europeans can get a bit red after a large amount of alcohol, so they might have a mild version of this. Though it's probably mostly due to fair skin.
It's possible that his stepfather Lolo Soetoro liked his drinks too. He died in his 50's from a liver ailment.
Peter
Full coverage at "The Root." My reaction: WTF?
OK. It's time:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GWsfCZnqYc
"People don't usually blame politicians for the black sheep in their families, at least in my experience"
Sure, they do. Remember James Earl Carter? Remember Billy Carter?
Remember Billy Beer?
From wikipedia:
"In 1977, he endorsed Billy Beer capitalizing upon his colorful image as a beer-drinking Southern boy that had developed in the press when his brother ran for President. Carter's name was occasionally used as a gag answer for a Washington, D.C., trouble-maker on 1970s episodes of The Match Game. Carter was known for his outlandish public behavior. For example, he once urinated on an airport runway in full view of the press and dignitaries"
"As I'm sure you know, smoking cigarettes is a proven way to reduce society's health care costs. Most medical expenditures are in the last days of life. Funny that this hasn't been put forward as a cost containment strategy."
I'm head scratching on that one.
Since most med expenses are in the last days of life, how does dying younger of cigarette-induced lung cancer, heart disease or emphysema REDUCE health care costs, with its comcomitant need for hospice or intensive care in the last days, as opposed to dying at an older age of some other cancer or passing away quietly in your own bed due to natural causes?
If most lifetime health care costs are run up in the last days of life, what difference does it make if those last days come in the 6th decade or the 8th?
Now, getting rid of 'em young so we don't have to pay Social Security checks for as many years, yeah, that I can see your point.
"Anonymous said...
"As I'm sure you know, smoking cigarettes is a proven way to reduce society's health care costs. Most medical expenditures are in the last days of life. Funny that this hasn't been put forward as a cost containment strategy."
I'm head scratching on that one."
Cancer typically carries off people a lot quicker than, say, for example, Alzheimers. And if it's a cancer for which not much can be done, then it's obviously going to be cheaper to treat. As for heart disease associated with smoking - well, it can be pretty cheap to die of a heart attack. Then of course there's the savings on social security as you pointed out.
I agree--since his dad was an alcoholic, he should be very cautious. On the other hand, if he had a tendency that way, wouldn't it have made itself known by now? And the rethuglicans would have have made that known during election.
Drinking worked for Grant and Churchill, just sayin.
Seriously - unable to view the situation, even in passing, as something that some alcohol couldn't solve.
Yeh? And?
"What worries me is that presumably there are Evil Steves working for Iranian intelligence, NK intelligence, etc. Americans may blithely overlook Obama's psych weaknesses, but those guys sure won't."
And PRC and Russian. They are all going to have a fucking field day.
I said: "McCain, for all his flaws, took the worst the commies could dish out and maintained his composure."
Anon replied: "Are you kidding? McCain is famous for his temper"
I should have been more precise.
Of course you're right that McCain has a temper; my point was not about his temper, but about how in Vietnam he apparently accorded himself well under the stresses of imprisonment and abuse. He could have walked out of that POW camp, but he chose not to for the sake of his men.
That's a concrete demonstration of pretty impressive inner strength, and it's orthogonal to the issue of his temper. McCain may fume before his friends, but the data show he would not crumble before his enemies. Obama? Too little data.
"McCain, for all his flaws, took the worst the commies could dish out and maintained his composure."
The man would've gone to nuclear war over Georgia.
I don't think he's ever been stable. The temper thing combined with the bloodlust.
I hope that Obama's beer party fails. I don't like Obama's taste in beer anymore than I like most of his policies. Left-wingers definitely have worse taste in beer than the right. Libertarians have the best taste in beer by far. Anyway, such a "weird" photo op. Maybe Crowley is really a Russian or Chinese agent and he planned this all along with Gates just so that he could get close to Obama for his secret mission. If it goes according to plan, maybe Obama will get drunk enough and spill the beans about some secret projects the government is working on.
Anyway, interesting discussion about historical alcohol consumption and alcoholism. Probably one of the biggest myths ever told about the Native Americans is that they didn't have alcohol until the Europeans arrived(this is only true of the Eskimos and other northern groups).
Their methods were crude, and they lacked the population density to sustain a regular alcohol industry, so they couldn't produce alcohol in the quantities settled Europeans regularly produced it in. The Native Americans of eastern North America were more settled and agricultural than the natives of the west who were still mostly hunter-gatherers, so the eastern natives had more access to alcohol. Also, sub-saharan Africans have long had alcohol, but they had the same limitations as the Native Americans.
What they did not have was the process for distilling alcohol, since that was invented in Persia or the Middle East and enthusiastically adopted by the Europeans for making liquor.
Once a regular supply of alcohol was made available to the Native Americans on reservations, their communities were devastated. All too many of them never recovered.
The Chinese have one of the oldest civilizations in the world yet most of them lack the enzyme to properly metabolize alcohol, even though they had the means to have an alcohol industry from very ancient times. What most Europeans can get away with drinking is almost deadly toxic for somewhere around half of the Chinese population.
Why this is, I'm not really sure, but genes play a part.
I agree--since his dad was an alcoholic, he should be very cautious. On the other hand, if he had a tendency that way, wouldn't it have made itself known by now?
The lost years f'ing around at Punahoe so he didn't get into a great college.
The lost years at Clairmont so he didn't have a decent enough record to get into Columbia via the front door.
The lost years at Columbia so he didn't have a decent enough record to get into Harvard via the front door.
Obama pretty much admitted he got messed up with drugs in his life (not that the MSM would've reported anything but sweetness and light about the legend before his time).
"the rethuglicans would have have made that known during election"
Words like "rethuglicans" do so much for your credibility.
Christ yes. I'm going on ten days cold turkey and I'm still not fit to be anywhere near a red button.
~Svigor
First Obama shizzles, then he pizzles.
Times he shizzle-pizzles, other time he pizzle-shizzles.
In the immortal words of Fred Sanford to Lamont and Rollo, "I'll drink to that. I'll drink to anything."
"Yet the sub-Saharan Africans didn't invent alcoholic beverages (I don't think) so their exposure to it would be relatively recent, and they don't seem to share either whitey's thirst or rate of alcoholism"
This has always concerned me. I'm British and live in a town (actually a London Borough) that has a large BME (newspeak) population and yet you hardly ever see them out drinking... Where are they?
I wouldn't read too much into this. I think it's just another pathetic attempt on Barry's part to portray himself as a regular guy. His gaffes about the price of arugula, "bitter" rural types clinging to their guns and religion, Michelle Obama pissing and moaning about the cost of ballet and piano lessons while paying off student loans...
Barry and the harpie he's married to are a couple of liberal snobs who are trying to pretent they're not. Period. End of discussion.
Isn't Mccain a teetotaler now presumably due to past issues with alcoholism? Not that I would blame him with being tortured for several years.
Anon:"What most Europeans can get away with drinking is almost deadly toxic for somewhere around half of the Chinese population. Why this is, I'm not really sure, but genes play a part."
Back in the day, especially during the Medieval period, many Europeans drank beer every day instead of water because many of them lived in areas that were too crowded and polluted and thus prone to water contamination.
Those overcrowded Europeans often drank beer instead of water because the fermentation process of beer-making kills various germs/bacteria that was often found in the local tainted water that could potentially kill people via cholera, etc.
"And the rethuglicans would have have made that known during election."
Ah, Melykins, your faith in the the re-boob-licans is touching.
The fawning of the media and refusal to point out any flaws of BO during the campaign was surpassed only by the McCain campaign.
Re Rethuglicans
Melykins, you need to shake off the idea of Republicans as a ruthless political warrior class. That only exists in the minds of liberals (try firedoglake, even got their own youtube channel I see) and I suppose Republicans themselves.
Once you break out of the bipartisan political mindset you see the Reps for what they are. A bunch of feeble crypto-Democrats.
As someone pointed out; what about the McCain campaign, he should have rended Obama limb from limb. What happened...nothing. What about now with Sotomayor...nothing again.
By their very essence the Reps are the strawmen liberals dream off. They need to believe that somehow Reps are powerful and that plucky left/liberals are speaking truth-to-power and stealing victory from the very jaws of defeat against almost impossible odds.
Lose the Rethuglican and the whole narrative looks a lot more shoddy.
If most lifetime health care costs are run up in the last days of life, what difference does it make if those last days come in the 6th decade or the 8th?
1) Because health care costs tend to be higher in your 60s even when you live. My dad survived a heart attack in his early 60s. Heavy medical bills. He will also have heavy medical bills from whatever finally kills him.
2) OTHER COSTS. Like social security.
Mean-spirited, IMO. People don't usually blame politicians for the black sheep in their families, at least in my experience.
Neil Bush, and Billy Carter, as someone has already pointed out.
And, finally...blacks don't have a drinking problem? WTF? You think there was a reason Billy Dee was pushing Colt 45 for so very long?
Yeah, they probably don't have a drug problem either, because they're never toking with me and my friends.
Back in the day, especially during the Medieval period, many Europeans drank beer every day instead of water because many of them lived in areas that were too crowded and polluted and thus prone to water contamination.
The Mayflower passengers made their passage drinking beer the entire way - men, women and children. Kinda gives new meaning to the word "puritanical," doesn't it?
And even the Mormon "Word of Wisdom," the law which supposedly proscribes alcohol, allowed for beer. It took several decades to evolve into its current form.
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