Wrecker45

In the lead up to Christmas last year I was challenged to quit drinking for 5 weeks. I chose the dates of the 5 weeks, so it didn’t impede too much of my social life and was able to do it easily. I over indulged at points over the holiday period but not excessively. I drove Christmas day because we have both mine and my wife's family parties to attend at locations that seemed like separate ends of the Southern Hemisphere. I tell myself anyone who drives Christmas day when going to events surrounded by family and friends full of drinkers has the balance right. Since Christmas I was challenged again to go for a longer period of abstinence by someone very close to me who abstains completely from alcohol. This time I have found it much more difficult. I haven’t chosen the dates and feel I am missing out at social events where others are drinking. I feel like I am letting my mates down if I don’t have a beer with them at their event(s) whether it be a birthday, birth of a child or anything else. It has started to affect me to the point where I have begun googling about stress and abstinence. Not least because where I once would have had a couple of drinks at the end of a stressful work day and masked the stress, I am now copping the full force of the stress and it is taking a toll on me. To my surprise there seems to be an army of studies and literature showing drinkers live longer than teetotallers. Don’t get me wrong. There is study after study demonstrating alcohol increases your chances of liver cancer, mouth cancer and oesophagus cancer. Alcohol is extremely problematic if you have the genes that predispose your risk to breast cancer. There is a social problem with domestic violence and other alcohol related mishaps. I am not trying to glorify alcohol nor am I trying to evade hard facts. Epidemiological and longitudinal studies clearly demonstrate that if you drink at a moderate level (up to or less than 21 standard drinks a week for males) you are increasing your chances of living longer overall compared to a non-drinker. The most surprising findings for mine were that people who drink 6 standard drinks or more daily are likely to live longer (have a lower mortality rate) than those who abstain completely from alcohol. With everything in life including my personal biases I like to hear the alternative opinion. So I have written to a number of anti-alcohol type bloggers requesting they send me a link to any credible studies with actual human observational data that show abstinence is not reducing your life expectancy chances compared to drinkers. I am yet to get a response. Can anyone here link to a study with actual observation that finds teetotallers outlast even alcoholics? Would appreciate your help.

There has been a prosecution coming from the Royal Commission and there are other ongoing investigations. I can't blame Gillard for having no invoices for work done 20 years ago. That is fair and reasonable but setting up a trust fund in a name almost identical to the AWU for her then boyfriend to purchase the house they both lived in stinks. Donating $292m of Australian Tax Payer money to a body she goes on to chair as soon as she leaves parliament stinks. These are the type of people Trump needs to drain the swamp of. On your last point we finally agree on something and this is exactly what Trump is advocating. Let's drain the swamp.

Because ISIS is a real problem.

I never said the Marxists are responsible for all the economic problems in America or the TPP agreement, just said they are stupid. As for draining the swamp it is about getting rid of people who mainly fall into one of the two categories below 1) the ones who are making decisions to feather their own nest 2) the ones who are hellbent on disrupting and breaking the existing system Excuse the Oz examples I don't know enough about the American leaches. A good example from number 1 is Julia Gillard who was sacked from the law firm she was a partner at for her role in setting up a slush fund for the illegal purchase of her then boyfriends house and who was later found by a Royal Commission to have acted improperly. Then she goes into Parliament becomes PM and donates $292m of Australia tax payer funded money to the Global Partnership for Education. Which after retiring from parliament she she goes on to chair the Global Partnership for Education. A good example from number 2 is in Victoria we have Marxists like Roz Ward who are somehow propelled into positions where they can implement "safe school programs" that have nothing to do with safe schools or educational outcomes and are all about bringing down the system. When I cheer Trump for draining the swamp it is about getting the Roz Ward's of the world out of Washington and taking the stench with them.

I believe he is going to fix climate change. Cut the funding for researchers reliant on it and problem gone.

Brayshaw goes pretty well on both. Agreed with CB above though it is only important to kick on your non-preffered under pressure. It is going to be a more rushed kick anyway. Just need to be able to do it rather than picture perfect.

Hunt, Harmes and Weiderman good in last.

They're not trying to "fix" the system that made them billionaires. Capitalism works just fine. They're draining the swamp of anti-capitalists that are desperate to break the system. The socialist and cultural Marxists are a special kind of stupid.

It's my understanding Lottoland (Aust) have taken out an Australian bookmakers license. So I assume they are still being taxed heavily.

He sent it to the Washington Post as well but they chose not to run with it.

Let's take the Daily Mail out of this. This is written by Dr Bates himself https://judithcurry.com/2017/02/04/climate-scientists-versus-climate-data/#more-22794

Drain the swamp. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4192182/World-leaders-duped-manipulated-global-warming-data.html#ixzz4XqjDhls3 A high-level whistleblower has told this newspaper that America’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) breached its own rules on scientific integrity when it published the sensational but flawed report, aimed at making the maximum possible impact on world leaders including Barack Obama and David Cameron at the UN climate conference in Paris in 2015. The report claimed that the ‘pause’ or ‘slowdown’ in global warming in the period since 1998 – revealed by UN scientists in 2013 – never existed, and that world temperatures had been rising faster than scientists expected. Launched by NOAA with a public relations fanfare, it was splashed across the world’s media, and cited repeatedly by politicians and policy makers. But the whistleblower, Dr John Bates, a top NOAA scientist with an impeccable reputation, has shown The Mail on Sunday irrefutable evidence that the paper was based on misleading, ‘unverified’ data.

He's both better and worse than I expected at the same time.

Macca - would you like a bet on Trump lasting the full 4 years?

The thing I like best about the quick pace of his draining of the swamp is the perpetually enraged serial protestors can't protest about everything at once. Next week he will likely pull out of the Paris climate agreement. The following the UN will can kiss a large slab of their funding goodbye. Ohh what to protest about.

Jara aren't you generalising Muslims by saying their alienated and demonised offspring are more likely to be radicalised?

ASIO?

Was that before or after a brick fell from the sky and hit Salem in the head?

Davey, Yze or White. Stynes could ruck all day. So i'll have Tingay for White.

Tingay pretty stiff to miss.

If those blokes who ran out on flinders st with their baseball bats to try and stop him, were actually able to do enough damage to stop him they might have found themselves in trouble.

I know what you're saying Biffen. Ice can turn the most well meaning placid person into an aggressive monster. But when someone with a pre-existing axe to grind zoops themself up on it, it can be worse.

Lucky he can handball 45m. Shouldn't be a problem.

Tom Elliot wrote this back in November last year. http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/opinion/tom-elliott/voters-should-be-able-to-judge-the-judges-tom-elliott/news-story/5097563a68fa8a02d5906b8fe98b342c It reasonated with me then and it still does now.

I didn't go but have been told snippets of info. Like I posted earlier Maynard had very quick and clean hands in the match simulation they were doing. Jordan Lewis very big on directing players how to create space. Was ordering Oliver to keep running to create space in the match simulation. Were a couple of other examples about it that I have forgotten but the message I got was Lewis (and Macca) both yelling at people to keep running to create space. Hunt's burst away pace was scintillating but we all knew this.