Idiotic Wowsers

Site Issues 2008 Archive Room
#1

We’re in the grip of binge drinking mania down here. Having exhausted all the moral outrage and moral panic following their rather late discovery of paedophilia, date rape, drink spiking, and V8 emissions, the wowsers have discovered binge drinking. Apparently it’s everywhere and if it’s not stopped immediately every child born from now on will have two heads and three club feet (which is normal in Tasmania) and be in constant communion with the devil (which could be normal in Tasmania as they do have an animal called the Tasmanian Devil).

So what, you may ask, is binge drinking?

THREE glasses of wine during dinner is about to be redefined as a binge-drinking episode under the Federal Government’s new official drinking guidelines to be released next month.

In what one health professional has slammed as a message that “makes no sense at all”, the guidelines will say that having more than four standard drinks a day constitutes a binge. An average glass of wine is 1.5 standard drinks.

“That means that if a man is sharing a bottle with his wife and takes a slightly larger share, that he’s had a binge,” said Paul Haber, the medical director of Drug Health Services Addiction Medicine at Sydney’s Royal Prince Alfred Hospital.

…

A draft of the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) guidelines attracted controversy when it was released in October because it removed any difference between men’s and women’s safe drinking rates, saying that neither sex should have more than two standard drinks a day.

The former guidelines said men could safely consume four drinks, and women two. Risk was then graded according to the increasing number of drinks, with 11 or more for men, and seven or more for women, being “high risk”.

But the head of the council’s alcohol guidelines committee, Jon Currie, told The Sunday Age that when the final guidelines are released next month the two-drink limit will remain. He said the former safe limit for men - four drinks - would become the absolute upper limit.

“There’s a new section there that says on any occasion, if you’re going to set a top limit you really need to set a limit of four drinks at the most. So our definition of binge drinking will drop as well; that is new,” Professor Currie said.

http://www.theage.com.au/national/three-drinks-and-youre-out-20080614-2qng.html

I am pleased to report that I have been high risk since the age of seventeen, which means I’ve beaten the odds for over forty years. My cholesterol is below average and every liver function test I’ve ever had came up normal. Well, both liver function tests and the last one was about ten years ago, so maybe I’m dead and don’t know it and my ghost is filling up the bin with beer cans every night. :cool:

Dickhead wowser experts! Come the revolution, I’m going to give every one of them a Bundy O.P. rum (57% alcohol) enema, and follow it up with the Bundy bear, who I knew rather well a long time ago.

The term wowser — surely one of the most impressive and expressive of Australian coinages — is used to express healthy contempt for those who attempt to force their own morality on everyone. The person who abstains from alcohol (for whatever reason) is not thereby a wowser: s/he’s just probably very fit. But when s/he tries to force everyone else to do as s/he does, then s/he is a wowser. Or as C.J. Dennis defines the term: ‘Wowser: an ineffably pious person who mistakes this world for a penitentiary and himself for a warder’.
http://www.anu.edu.au/ANDC/pubs/ozwords/May_97/4._aussie_words.htm

#2

Nothing wrong with consuming alcohol, it is about choice after all.

The problem we have in the UK with binge drinking is the anti-social behaviour which results from it. From what I witness, it appears to be a combination of binge-drinking and girl-power.

Binge-drinking women turning to violence

By Nick Taylor
June 01, 2008 02:24am

DRINK-FUELLED violence by young women is soaring, according to figures released by Western Australian Police.

Latest crime statistics show more drunken and loutish behaviour by so-called ladettes - girls who mimic the binge-drinking and brawling antics of male louts.

The number of women arrested for assault and anti-social behaviour in 2007 was 30 per cent up on 2005 figures.

There has also been a significant rise in the number of women arrested for alcohol-related offences.

Alcohol-fuelled assaults leapt dramatically once females reached the legal age of 18 and began tapering off once they hit their 30s.

Other crimes like disorderly conduct, property

perhaps its an intrnational epidemic. :slight_smile:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-504676/Binge-drinking-crimes-young-soar-28-years.html

#3

The binge-drunk girls assault:)
Sound very danger :slight_smile:
Actualy some of drunk girls could bore any man to death.

#4

Around here it actually is fairly dangerous. Some of them are as liable to knife you as look at you. Not many by any means, but enough to be bad news.

#5

So, does this mean that all non-binge drinkers are to be expelled from Australia as persona non grata? :confused:

#6

I think they have their “Rehab” role model here:

#7

I hope so. :smiley:

#8

Talk about a rough relationship.

#9

Hasn’t done her record sails any harm. She’s in the running for the latest ‘Bond’ movie theme.

Anyway, that’s more on account of ‘H’ etc.

#10

Was reading in the Times, last week I think, of an Aussie guy being arrested for driving with his baby child. He had belted-in his beers, but not the child. The police were reported to have been astonished.

#11

Many of them could.

Binge-drinking blamed for rise in girl violence
By Richard Alleyne
Last Updated: 12:43PM BST 15/05/2008
A violent crimewave among girls, some as young as 10, has been fuelled by Britain’s binge drinking culture, it was claimed today.
According to the Home Office figures girls between 10 and 17 a quarter more crimes this year compared with a same survey three years ago.

At the same time there was a two per cent drop in crimes committed by boys, although young men still commit the majority of crimes.

The figures have been compiled by the Youth Justice Board, the Government agency charged with reducing offending among the young.

#12

This would be because his ape-like appreciation of the world told him that he could generate another child, but not another beer.

Stupid, irresponsible people are quite smart in their own sub-normal way.

Trouble is, they breed.

If you think about it, in a harsh way there was a bit of Darwinian selection at work there, if the police hadn’t interrupted him.

Now, for one of our all time drink-drive shitheads of the first order whose father has a lot to answer for.

‘All I can remember is Dad helping Thomas to drive’

Julia Medew
October 18, 2006

THOMAS Towle’s four-year-old son was steering his father’s car at up to 150 km/h before it ploughed into a group of teenagers in Mildura earlier this year, killing six of them, a court was told.

In an interview with police, Towle’s daughter Samantha, 9, said her father had allowed her brother Thomas to sit on his knee and steer because he wanted to “have a turn” at the wheel. “Dad was going really fast, and Thomas was sitting on Dad’s lap,” she said.

“Dad was helping Thomas and then the wheel slipped, or something … Dad was helping him steer and everything … all I can remember is Dad helping Thomas to drive.”

The excerpts from Samantha’s interview with police were recorded in a document outlining Deputy Chief Magistrate Jelena Popovic’s reasons for refusing Towle bail in Mildura Magistrates Court yesterday.

Ms Popovic, who decided Towle was an unacceptable risk of fleeing if released from custody, also referred to his record of interview with police, in which he explained why his son was sitting on his lap: "He, he, always asks if, if, he can sit on my lap when we drive, and I thought being late — that, and a very quiet road.

“You know, I can remember when I was a child, that I used to always want to sit on my dad’s lap when, whenever I had a chance. I mean, it’s not something I do in a suburban area, but it was … very quiet road that I, that I’ve allowed him to do it,” he told police just after 4am on February 19, five hours after the collision.

Prosecutor Jeremy Rapke, QC, also told the court yesterday that police believed Towle’s car was travelling at up to 150 km/h before he applied the brakes and lost control of the vehicle when it was doing 108 km/h.

“One has a compelling, to say the very least, case of culpable driving,” he said.

Mr Rapke said that while police could not prove how much alcohol Towle had consumed on the night of the collision, the police officers who interviewed him five hours after the incident said he smelt of liquor and had red eyes.

Sergeant Paul Cripps, of the major collision unit, told the court that Towle, who used heroin and amphetamines, was on a methadone program at the time of the collision, and had failed to take his medication at least twice in the days before the crash.

Towle, 35, formerly of Red Cliffs, who appeared on a video link from the Metropolitan Remand Centre yesterday, was charged with six counts of culpable driving, and five counts of negligently causing serious injury when he crashed into the group of teenagers while they were walking along Myall Road, Cardross, about 10pm on February 18. The father of five was also charged with failing to stop at the scene of an accident and failing to render assistance, leaving his two young children at the scene.

About 40 people attended the hearing yesterday, including many family members and friends of the victims.

The teenagers killed were: Shane Hirst, 16; his sister Abby Hirst, 17; Stevie-Lee Weight, 15; Cassandra Manners, 16; Cory Dowling, 16; and Josephine Calvi, 16.

In her written refusal of bail, Ms Popovic said Towle’s admission that his son was sitting on his lap at the time of the collision was of critical importance. She said that while Towle allegedly told someone to call an ambulance, the fact that he fled soon after the crash, leaving his children, one of whom was injured, made him an unacceptable risk.

“One must be left with the concern that the applicant is an unacceptable risk of fleeing when under pressure, and that the pressure of these proceedings could be sufficient to cause him to flee,” she said.

Towle’s defence counsel, Brendan Murphy, QC, who yesterday accused police of destroying Towle’s vehicle before his lawyers could view it, said his client would vigorously contest the charges at his committal hearing next year.
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2006/10/17/1160850931568.html

And a fine upstanding citizen he was before that little traffic deviation, too.

THOMAS Towle’s criminal file:
JUNE 6, 1991: Whyalla Magistrates’ Court – assault, community service order for 12 months with a special condition of undertaking 160 hours of community service.

NOVEMBER 6, 1991: Mildura Magistrates’ Court – attempted theft, fined $250.

DECEMBER 6, 1991: Port Pirie Magistrates’ Court – larceny, bond of $150 to be of good behaviour for 12 months.

AUGUST 21, 1995: Mildura Magistrates’ Court – driving a motor vehicle while having a blood-alcohol reading over.05, fined $250 and driver’s licence cancelled for 11 months.

APRIL 28, 2000: Whyalla Magistrates’ Court – driving an unregistered vehicle (two charges), fined $200 on the first charge; fined $150 on the second charge.

SEPTEMBER 24, 2001: Mildura Magistrates’ Court – possession of a drug of dependence (amphetamine), good behaviour bond of 12 months.

OCTOBER 1, 2001: Mildura Magistrates’ Court – driving a motor vehicle while having a blood-alcohol reading over .05, driver’s licence cancelled for 12 months; driving a motor vehicle while licence cancelled; disobeying a traffic sign, licence cancelled for three months on final two charges; fined a total $750.

MARCH 4, 2002: Mildura Magistrates’ Court – theft, fined $250; attempting to obtain property by deception, fined $250.
http://mildura.yourguide.com.au/news/local/news/general/criminal-record-of-thomas-towle/287897.aspx

#13

Still, you can see where Mr Towle gets his lack of respect and concern for others from.

Thomas Towle’s father places blame on Mildura crash victims

Terry Brown and Russell Robinson
March 11, 2008 08:57am

THE father of road menace Thomas Towle made an extraordinary rant against the Mildura crash victims this morning, saying they had ‘no respect for the law’.

Mr Towle railed against those he claimed were demonising his son, including the parents of the six teenagers killed in the crash for which his son was found guilty of dangerous driving.

“Those parents said Tom had no respect for the law. If you take the emotion out of it, those teenagers had no respect for the law.”

“They’re single parents . . . those kids tend to be more disruptive. I know more about those kids than you do.”

“I’m suffering loss and grief, same as (those parents) are,” he said on 3AW.

He went on to rant about the issue of teenage drunkenness, and “bottle shops that sold grog openly”, suggesting that new measures being introduced by the Rudd Government to curb binge drinking might be better spent policing roads in his locality.

“There’s not too many teenagers on grog that have much respect for the law,” he said.

Mr Towle also expressed anger that the “mates” of the victims who had been “crying at the funerals” had staged parties in the weeks after the deaths.

Mr Towle said that it was “very hurtful” for him to see his son “on front pages as an ogre”.

When it was suggested that his son could face a long stint in jail, Mr Towle said he’d be “very, very surprised”.

"This isn’t America. We don’t sentence people to multiple years in jail.

“The judge knows more about this case than you or I do, he’s not stupid.”

A distraught Karen Hirst, aunt of Abbey and Shane Hirst, responded.

“I cannot believe what that man has just said, it has just dumbfounded me," Ms Hirst said.

“For one, Abbey and Shane, and I’ve seen the toxicology reports, did not have any alcohol in their systems.”

"They weren’t walking all over the road. What he said is just disgraceful.”

Ms Hirst said she could understand Mr Towle’s loyalty to his son, but she said he needed to open his eyes in regards to his son’s behaviour.

Yesterday, Mr Towle infuriated grieving families by saying his son has served “more than enough” jail time for killing six teenagers.

And he said he expected his son to walk free within days of his sentencing.

“Poor bloody Thomas is the one that’s suffering,” the 63-year-old told the Herald Sun. "I think he’s done two years’ jail, and that’s more than enough.

“If Tom gets sent for five years with three (minimum), he should be up before the parole board in a couple of days. He’ll be released in a couple weeks. He’s been a bloody model prisoner.”

Towle, 36, was found not guilty of culpable driving but guilty of six counts of dangerous driving causing death after he veered into the teenagers at Cardross, near Mildura, two years ago.

Graham Towle, a Pentecostal Christian who believes the end of the world is coming, has “Touched by the road toll” stickers on his car.

He blamed the teenagers, their families, the road conditions, the car suspension and God’s vengeance for the carnage.

“The parents did not even know where their bloody children were that night,” he said.

Mr Towle, who drives B-double trucks and carries a metal-covered Bible with him, credited prayer for his son’s escaping conviction on six charges of culpable driving causing death, which carry 20-year maximum sentences.

“Whose fault? Why does a volcano blow up? Why does a plane crash? It’s sin!” he said.

But the victims’ families - still angry that Towle was found not guilty of the more serious charges - were shocked by the call for his early release.

Carmel Calvi, whose 16-year-old daughter Josie died from injuries suffered in the crash, branded the comments “pretty disgusting and pretty low”.

“It’s everyone’s fault but his son’s,” Mrs Calvi said.

“Our kids’ time is for life. Our sentence is for life.”

Sharon Manners, who lost her 16-year-old daughter Cassandra, said she was shocked by Mr Towle’s call.

“No, two years is not enough,” she said. "I hope his sentence reflects the justice that we haven’t seen so far.

“He may have been cleared of those counts, but he’s still guilty of what the jury has found him guilty of. He should be staying there for a while.”

Marco Medici, who suffered horrific injuries, said: “I don’t think that’s right. He should stay there a lot longer, I reckon.”

Mrs Calvi and other parents of the young victims were exhausted and frustrated yesterday, a day after a Supreme Court jury in Melbourne acquitted Towle of six counts of culpable driving.

They called for an overhaul of court rules that prohibit prior convictions being divulged to a jury.

Towle’s prior convictions include eight counts of driving while his licence was disqualified or cancelled and two for drink-driving. “This is not just a one-off that happens by accident,” Mrs Calvi said.

Terry Hirst, who lost daughter Abby and son Shane in the tragedy, condemned the law and called for change.

“You look in the paper today and you find all these convictions. This man should not even be on the road. That is the problem,” he said.

“Betrayed is an understatement. I just cannot believe that the jury weren’t told about his priors, and they should have been.”

And Mrs Calvi’s former husband Vince, Josie’s father, said juries should know about prior offences “100 per cent”.
“They should know. If they don’t know, how do they know the sort of person they’re letting off?” he said.

"Something has got to be done. This is really major. It’s wrong, just so wrong, and it’s ended wrong.

“If I was the jury and knew everything now, I’d be feeling pretty terrible.”

Killed in the crash on February 18, 2006, were Shane Hirst, 16, his sister Abby Hirst, 17, Stevie-Lee Weight, 15, Cassandra Manners, 16, Cory Dowling, 16, and Josephine Calvi, 16.

Towle is facing a maximum five years’ jail on each of six charges of dangerous driving causing death.
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,23353123-2862,00.html

Towle got ten years with a seven year minimum before being eligible for parole. One year per death, and a year extra, for a total waste of food and space. :twisted:

Naturally, he’s appealed.

#14

Reminds me of an accident situation in the UK a couple of years ago. Some drink-crazed driver crashed his car into another, killing the occupent. When people gathered round to help and gave him grief for his reckless driving, he complained “What’s all the fuss about? It was only a poxy accident!”.