http://www.history.org/foundation/journal/holiday07/drink.cfm
Early Americans really did not care what anybody thought about their love of alcohol. As a Georgian wrote: “If I take a settler after my coffee, a cooler at nine, a bracer at ten, a whetter at eleven and two or three stiffners during the forenoon, who has any right to complain?”
In another life, I am sure I enjoyed Gin Alley/Drury Lane quite significantly during Medieval times.
It wasn’t called Drury Lane back then, and gin didn’t peak until later anyway.
Brought to you by the Forumosa Time Travel Club. 
Crazy, 2 former major leaguer were killed by a rock bandits placed on the road.
Rock bandits?? How big was the rock and how fast were they going to result in two fatalities? Seems kind of absurd…
Idk, apparently it’s common is Venezuela. Bandits place big rocks on the road to stop car and then attack and rob them. It’s not really absurd, a decent size rock going fast enough will definitely do some damage and kill you.
I guess it’s the same idea behind how if you hit even a really little rock on your skateboard it totally fucks you up…
I assume the car lost control and crashed on hitting the object.
I think the rock was pretty big, they flipped on impact according to reports. The two killed were in the back without seat belts and throw out the back window. Two other players in the front survived. They were all still robbed, but they found the robbers. Awful.
Edit: some reports said they flip trying to dodge the traps. Idk if that means they still hit a rock and flipped trying to dodge or they just lost control and flipped.
Can you imagine living in a country like that?
It’s basically unlivable.
I wonder if there is a point of no return for a society? Can you even try to bring back a civil society back to a place that has people doing this to each other. Even the innocent ones will not be able to trust their neighbors. and those killing and robbing, idk if they can ever come back after losing their humanity living this way.
Countries have, kind of, recovered from much worse. Rwanda springs to mind.
I lived in the vicinity (Holborn) for a year in my current life. 
There are still standing pubs that have served liquor there for over 600 years. Jenever, a precursor to gin, has been around since the 1200s. But you are right – did not peak until way later.
I lived on Lambs Conduit Street for a while. Nice area. Couldn’t afford it now.
I remember looking at a 4 bedroom row house adjacent to the British Museum in 98 after grad school. It was 800K then. I remember thinking who would pay that much for an average row housing place (that sucked compared to our ocean front shit in Canuckistan). It would be at least 5 million now. Way, way overpriced. Instead of Chinese money (like in Vancouver), Gulf State money has made London housing prices super high.
Penny Marshall, age 75. I liked her, but I often wondered if she was baked half the time because of her chill, slow-paced style of speaking when not performing.
EDIT: I just read that she had been treated for brain and lung cancer in 2009, so maybe she was on some kind of medication. Didn’t mean to be unsympathetic.
She survived 9 years after brain and lung cancer, then succumbed to diabetes. Blimey!
“Schlemiel! Schlimazel! Hasenpfeffer Incorporated
We’re gonna do it!”
Watched that show as a kid and of course Happy Days, which it was an off-shoot of
I forgot to post this the other week.
BLOODTHIRSTY MOB OF “RELIGION OF MERCY” FANATICS DEMANDS DEATH OF INFIDEL FOR BLASPHEMY!!! 
…is not the headline this man will be remembered for. They finally got their wish, but it took about half a century.
He even went on the “Merv Griffin Show,” a popular television talk program, though the event, held before a live audience in a Broadway theater, was a debacle. He was given two minutes to speak. “The response was a violent one,” he wrote later, “forcing the director to close the curtains and order the band to play forcefully, and after this event a crowd greeted me at the stage door, demanding my death.”
He would make an interesting addition to our “Who is Christian?” thread.
His theology was esoteric and not easily understood, leaving most people, including many clergy, to react viscerally to its basic premise. Confusing matters was that the few theologians in his intellectual circle — including William Hamilton, Paul M. Van Buren and Rabbi Richard Rubenstein — did not agree among themselves on how God had died, why he had died or what his death meant. They were essentially writing God out of the picture, but they did not consider themselves atheists; Dr. Altizer called himself a Christian atheist, further muddying the waters.