The Party Nations

Who hasn’t idly wondered which countries hammer down the most alcohol?  Thankfully, the World Health Organization has released a report that answers that crucial, nagging question.

Where does the U.S. stack up?  We’re middle-of-the-pack, actually.  Americans consume, on average, 9.4 liters of alcohol per person, per year — about half the average of the booziest nations.  Of that amount, 31 percent is consumed in spirits, 16 percent in wine, and 53 percent in good old beer.  I feel that I have done my share in the beer category, at least.

Who’s number 1?  The wine-swigging French?  Nope, they barely crack the top 15, finishing at number 14.  What about Ireland?  That would be wrong, too — the Irish barely beat out the French, finishing at number 13.  How about our vodka-guzzling Russian buddies?  Closer, but not quite.  The Russians finish at number 4.  No, the top three are Hungary, the Czech Republic, and overall winner Moldova.  The studly Moldovans pound down 18.22 liters of alcohol per capita and they apparently aren’t picky, either:  they drink about as much spirits (4.42 liters) as beer (4.57 liters) and wine (4.67).  In short, Moldovan partiers will be happy to drink just about anything you put in front of them before they collapse.

Where in the world is Moldova, anyway, you ask?  It’s a former part of the Soviet Union, located between Romania and Ukraine.  It’s also so small — only slightly more than 4 million people — that a few serious tipplers could skew the national average.

 

 

Banned From Buckeye Land

The Terrelle Pryor saga continues to grind along, and it isn’t pretty.

Pryor, who will not be using his last year of eligibility at Ohio State — he was suspended for the first five games, anyway — wants to enter the NFL supplemental draft.  In order to establish his eligibility for that draft, he has to show that he cannot return to OSU.  As a result, his attorney asked for a letter confirming that Pryor could not return to the Buckeyes.  Athletic Director Gene Smith obliged by writing that Pryor was ineligible because he had failed to cooperate with NCAA and OSU investigators, and also by announcing that Pryor is banned from any contact with the Ohio State athletic program for five years.  Of course, Pryor can still attend classes and get his degree from Ohio State.  Anyone want to wager on that happening?

So now, the guy who was the most heralded recruit Ohio State had landed in ages, and who was often touted as a Heisman Trophy candidate, has left the program in disgrace and, now, has been excommunicated.  What’s next — declaring that no Ohio State player will ever again wear the forever tainted no. 2 jersey?  How much has changed since Pryor led the Buckeyes to another victory over Michigan only 8 months ago!

 

A Time Travel Update

Scientists have conducted experiments that have confirmed that individual photons cannot travel faster than the speed of light in a vacuum.

For a time, it was thought that photons might be able to travel faster than the speed of light.  That prospect left open some tantalizing possibilities, because under Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity, if an object could travel faster than the speed of light it could evade principles of causality.  That is, an event’s effect, by traveling faster than the speed of light, could theoretically precede its cause, and time travel conceivably could occur.  The most recent experiments have ruled out that possibility, as least as it relates to photons.

Fortunately for fans of time travel everywhere (and everywhen), Einstein’s theories still permit random intersections of curved space-time continuums — i.e., wormholes — through which time travel could occur.  Thus, it remains possible that Star Trek‘s Dr. Leonard McCoy could inadvertently cause the Nazis to win World War II and that H.G. Wells’ Time Traveller could save Weena from the Morlocks, and you should still take care not to accidentally kill an ancestor and thereby prevent your own birth.