Yesterday's Channel 4 Insider programme was most illuminating. Zubair Mulla exposed that there is a chemical in this country that is killing 60 people a day - a daily toll equal to the 7/7 bombings. Doctors and ambulance people are complaining that 60-70% of their time is being taken up dealing with the effects of it.

Worse still, the government is afraid to do anything about it because the people contaminating the country with it are such a powerful lobby.

The programme was talking about alcohol.

Comments

[joe90]

If you don't drink alcohol,
then you have a shorter life expectancy - according to our resident Hippocrates here, this is a proven fact.

I can think of a few things that might affect life expectancy and having access to alcohol definitely isn't one of them.

I know of countries with access to alcohol, aren't nominally Muslim by faith, and their life expectancy is lower than that of First World Western societies - I wonder why that is?

Obviously,
our resident Paracelsus doesn't know much about this subject either.
How many is that now?

[Sohaib]

John, I'm struggling to think of anyone simultaneously more stupid and more arrogant than you. How about dropping the presumptions about my supposed fear of alcohol, and just acknowledge that I've not even mentioned the subject here?

I was merely pointing out that you were trying to divert from your boo-boo of casually mentioning "many reliable history sources" for the Prophet supposedly enjoying date-wine, then following my request for details with some nonsense about you "parusing" (sic - presumably drunk while doing so as well as writing about it here) a "first-rate wine guide".

And then you have the cheek to preach about the scientific method and irrefutable research! You don't have a clue buddy.

[John Palubiski]

Soahib, I run across many references over the years to Mohammed's penchant for date wine prepared by his wives.

So what?

Isn't the whole affair just between Mohammed and his chianti?

Whose business is it, anyways?

And to judge by what you've written, were I to take the time and locate these references, you would still object to and dismiss them, no matter their accuracy their validity or their source

I've seen other posters here present you with irrefutable pieces of evidence negating, contradicting and disproving several of Islam's "divinely inspired" certainties, but you are unable to accept or even entertain the possibility that this evidence had some validity.

If you seek the truth, then you need to be prepared, to be ready to encounter realities, shocking realities that run counter to your own.

But you clearly aren't.

[joe90]

came across the reference to the date wine while parusing a first-rate wine guide.
- which wine guide, out of the many historical whatitsnames you've claimed to have read over the years?

...cultures which consume moderate amounts of alcohol are more advanced, more egalitarian, more prosperous and have LONGER life expectancies.
- such as Central and South America perhaps?
- or parts of Eastern Asia perhaps?
- or southern Saharan Afica maybe?

Apart from western countries where longevity has just about nothing to do with alcohol, where has alcohol increased a country's overall lifespan?

john paracelsus repeats words like 'science' and 'fact' parrot fashion - it makes me think he doesn't know what he's talking about - but then, that has already been proven time again, but which he continues to deny, refute, negate, dismiss etc, and that is a fact proven using the scientific method of argumentation whose facts can be verified and validated by checking his vacuous comments on this very blog -
- this is, in fact, a not very shocking reality rather, it is in fact, a very sad scientifically obvious one.

[Sohaib]

John - never mind the presumptions. Where's the evidence?

[John Palubiski]

Sohaib, were I divulge that info, you and you twitchy cohorts would then approach the editors of these guides and threaten them unless the offensive passages were censored.

I believe in protecting free-speech against the encroachments of the 7th century, so I will not provide you with what would only amount to yet more targets for your islamist aggressions.

The "offending" and well documented passages in those wine guides will, thus, remain.

You may be supremacist, but I've a news flash; western culture is far superior to anything the Islamic world has ever come up with, and since I'm neither your secretary nor your research assistant, you'll just have to get off your butt and find those wine-guides yourself.

You'll learn a great deal about wine at the same time.

[joe90]

What you've got there, in my learned opinion john no-hopeski,
isn't protecting freedom of speech but intellectual cowardice and definitely a breach of the rules of evidence, as far as normal scientific methodology goes.

Imagine if everybody went around doing what john peanut-brainski was doing here -
ie shouting their racist ignorant mouths off and claiming they're being scientific
- and they refuse to tell you their sources, and claim nobody else has a right to scrutinise and investigate them, if they don't like them!

Yes, you are all very modern and progressive john!

As usual it's difficult to know where to start with john pea-brainski -
- he has no idea what science is, even though he's been making claims based on its authority
- he refuses to be open and straightforward, by producing the sources he claims his knowledge is based on (standard scientific operating procedure)

He claims he is protecting democracy and openness by being secretive and unaccountable - the crime he is accusing others of being guilty of!

How are people to defend themselves against aggressive 7th century backwardness, one wonders, when those who sees themselves as the self-proclaimed champions of western modernity, are as thick and dense as a bag of wet cement!

[DrM]

Palplablinski proves again why he's a blithering idiot, now pretending to be a man of science. Just when I think I've read the stupidest post ever, you go and post another. Wow, there are some components in wine that may of be benefit for cardiovascular health so that means that wine is the way to go for preventing Myocardial infarctions! Sounds like an excuse for an obese juice hound too lazy to get up off his fat sagging behind. The antioxidant effects of red wine have been shown to be clinically insignificant in the prevention and management of heart disease. I take it you don't read medical journals do you, moron?
The Islamic prohibition for alcohol beverages derives from the understanding that it does more harm then good, something which is accepted as canon in medicine. There is no prohibition against using alcohol based cold medicine or the like. Thanks for your contribution palpablinski, but if I had wanted to hear from somebody with your IQ, I'd be at my local supermarket talking to the vegetables.

[John Palubiski]

The Islamic prohibition for alcohol beverages derives from the understanding that it does more harm then good, something which is accepted as canon in medicine.

DrM, Islam "does" medicine about as well as it does opera, ballet, technologcal innovation and the visual arts!

The mere fact the Islamic world can't even grow enough food to feed itself, and the fact that life expectancies in most Muslim countries are some 15 to 20 years LOWER than in the "drunken" West is a pretty SOBERING thought for you, isn't it?

The wretched poverty and the stench of intellectual stagnation so characteristic the Islamic world are the purvey of the righteous, purity-obsessed prig.

Can you auto-prescribe, DrM?

If so, may I suggest four strips of bacon and a demi-bottle of Chianti?

Ponder that the next time those supermarket veggies look up at you and laugh.

[Osama]

Palubiski: The mere fact the Islamic world can't even grow enough food to feed itself, and the fact that life expectancies in most Muslim countries are some 15 to 20 years LOWER than in the "drunken" West is a pretty SOBERING thought for you, isn't it?

Palubiski earlier: Countries that have traditionally consumed moderates amounts of wine (ie Italy, France and spain) have higher life expectancies and lower rates of cardiovascular disease than ALL islamic countries.

The studies that irrefutably prove this are what is known in The West as "SCIENCE-BASED".

So in the same thread, Palubiski says Islamic countries have lower life expectancy than the West because they don't drink alcohol (scientific fact apparently), and then later in the thread it's actually because they don't produce enough food. Great work John.

[Sohaib]

Oh John, John. How priceless. Wine guides are not history sources, even if you're too drunk to know the difference.

What you don't know about me is that I indulge myself in all sorts of orientalist and missionary fantasies also sometimes described as "academic research". But your bizarre invention is more fantastical than most I've seen.

Idiot.

[John Palubiski]

Osama, with all due respect, you are missing the point. It is a FACT that the Islamic world has much lower life expectancies than the West. It is also a FACT that the Islamic world cannot grow sufficient food to feed itself.

Now, let me just SOBER you up, here. Given that the Islamic world is so pathetic it cannot even provide itself with basic foodstuffs, how can anyone in their right mind see Islam as the "answer" for humanity?

There are more people who die from malnutrition and lack of medicines every year in the Islamic world than from drunk-driving in ALL the countries of The West put together.

Any thoughts, supremacist or otherwise, on that?

Until such time as the Islamic world ( that means YOU) can match The West's progress in any field of activity you care to choose, you are NOT in a position to lecture/criticse anyone about alcohol consumption, or indeed ANY aspect of ANYONE'S behavior that contravenes the misguided diktats of Koranic "wisdom".

To do otherwise, Osama, is called "hypocrisy".

[Osama]

Paluwhisky: Until such time as the Islamic world ( that means YOU) can match The West's progress in any field of activity you care to choose, you are NOT in a position to lecture/criticse anyone about alcohol consumption, or indeed ANY aspect of ANYONE'S behavior that contravenes the misguided diktats of Koranic "wisdom".

John, I'm a Scot - born here, educated here, work here and raising kids here - so am perfectly entitled to air my opinions on matters pertaining to this country. Even if I lived in the Middle East I would still have a right to air them, though your charges about the Muslim world would then hold slightly more weight.

As it stands I cannot understand why you keep raising these points about genetic deformities and life expectancy. As it happens I don't think continued intermarriage between family members is a good idea, and I'm first in line to say the Islamic world needs to lift its game.

None of this, none of it, takes away from the damage being caused by alcohol in this country, and I'd ask you to get your head around the fact that my co-religionists elsewhere in the world have nothing whatsoever to do with this debate. It says a lot about your hating of all things Islamic when your debate stoops to such levels.

I know you've been caught out using wine guides as authoritative history sources, and contradicting yourself by saying it is simultaneously lack of wine that is the cause of low life expectancy in the Muslim world, then saying its lack of basic foodstuffs and medicines. Still your last post was ridiculous.

[George Carty]

JP: It is also a FACT that the Islamic world cannot grow sufficient food to feed itself.

Blame the Mongols for that one - they destroyed the irrigation systems which had been the bedrock of agriculture in the Middle East (as well as massacring so many Muslims that too few were left alive to rebuild them).

[joe90]

I quite agree john,
in order to solve its longevity and healthcare problems and its food shortages the Islamic world should do like the west does,
and promote drunk driving.

Your utter racist rubbish reminds me of nazi objections to Judaism.

[DrM]

LoL @ pissinski, don't change subjects so fast in a bid to cover up your non-credentials in junk science(or anything else for that matter). You spend way too much time in darkened rooms in front of your seven-year-old computer turning a whiter shade of pale. Whats up with that UNICEF report I wonder. You know, the one which shows Britain lagged behind on key measures of poverty and deprivation, happiness, relationships, and risky or bad behavior, the study showed. It scored better for health and safety of children but languished in the bottom third for all other measures, giving it the lowest overall placing, just below the United States. No wonder you turned out the way you did. Time to lower the drinking age and throw in an extra slice of ham, eh?
The antioxidant effects of red wine have been shown to be clinically insignificant in the prevention and management of heart disease, idiot. Thats the difference between someone who reads peer review journals and a BNP retard like you looking for an excuse to juice up to glue your sagging pimply behind to the couch contemplating the utter failure that is your life.
Do yourself a favor pissinki, juice up and go play Russian roulette with all chambers fully-loaded, it should do wonders for your circulation, antioxidants notwithstanding.