Now there's a theory, or two

Ran across this, written by Val, via a surf from Technorati.

In all the CDC promulgations documents, facts figures statistics when you mention about the drunk driving, which alcohol drinks are you really referring to? Are they “high” alcohol drinks? Or are they “low” alcohol drinks?

Most probably their answer would be; it deals about all kind of alcohol drinks, spirits, wines, beers, alcopop or whatever the alcohol content in them High or Low’!

Now I tell them in my search so far in their document I found out that all their drunk-driving promulgation documents statistics basically points to the fact that almost all those drunk driving offenses and most importantly its accidents happens as a result of people who were consuming the HIGH ALCOHOL CONTENT beverages (that includes the standard “beer” having around 5% alcohol) all of which has been licensed by the authorities in the named of “Standard alcohol Drinks” (SADs*). On the other hand there are no fundamental research evidences or statistics that fundamentally suggests that the consumption of LOW Alcohol Drinks (LADs) having alcohol around 2% or less results or causes in any of these drunk driving offences specially its accidents!

And yes, "Standard Alcohol Drink" is a real term:

A standard alcohol drink is considered to be:
- One 12-ounce bottle of beer/wine cooler
- One 5-ounce glass of wine
- 1.5 ounces of 80-proof distilled spirits

And you can probably guess that low alcohol drinks were popular in the United States in the 1920s:

Near beer was originally a term for malt beverages containing little or no alcohol (one half of one percent or less by volume), which were mass-marketed during Prohibition in the United States. Near beer could not legally be labeled as "beer" and was officially classified as cereal beverage.[3] The public, however, almost universally called them "near beer."

The most popular "near beer" was Bevo, brewed by the Anheuser-Busch company. The Pabst company brewed "Pablo", Miller brewed "Vivo", and Schlitz brewed "Famo". Many local and regional breweries stayed in business by marketing their own near-beers.

But while the near beers were popular, they weren't popular.

Food critic and writer Waverley Root described the common American near beer as "such a wishy-washy, thin, ill-tasting, discouraging sort of slop that it might have been dreamed up by a Puritan Machiavelli with the intent of disgusting drinkers with genuine beer forever."

Let's go back a couple of centuries:

Small beer (also, small ale) is a beer/ale that contains very little alcohol. Sometimes unfiltered and porridge-like, it was a favoured drink in Medieval Europe and colonial North America where George Washington had a recipe involving bran and molasses. It was sometimes had with breakfast, as attested in Benjamin Franklin's autobiography. Before public sanitation, cholera and other water-transmitted diseases were a significant cause of death. Because alcohol is toxic to most water-borne pathogens, and because the process of brewing any beer from malt involves boiling the water, which also kills them, drinking small beer instead of water was one way to escape infection. Small beer was also produced in households for consumption by children and servants.

But back to Val's other concern (subtitle: Esperanto is so second millennium):

Different languages creates major division among the people and give raise to major problems in our human society. A universal language can unite the people of this world thus can solve resolve many of those problems....

[T]he world today needs a “Universal” Language. It should be new and should not be selected from any of the existing language to avoid any advantage disadvantage, and the sentimentalism over it. Its grammar should be founded upon today’s science and technology. It should also keep in mind there may be other species in this Universe so to communicate with in the future! Its main criteria; to be simple in its grammar and easy to speak as much as possible.

In this way the people of different languages all over the world can have a Common Understanding owning to this Universal language. So they can directly communicate or translate from their language into it. This I strongly believe will solve many of the major human problems that I mentioned above and establish a new world order. Has anyone put forward such suggestion before?

Well, there was Esperanto...and Babel...

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