I've been doing a lot of drinking lately. Some of it because I have a very high tolerance for alcohol now and some of it because I NEED a drink after teaching 40 teachers the joys of Linux. Some of them are great to work with, enthused, completely into it and really wanting to learn. Others.. are not so good. Either way, I drink. "Win or lose, we booze" is an excellent axiom I learned in my schooldays. And it seems more appropriate now than ever.

I read somewhere that LK is the worlds largest per capita consumer of alcohol. When you take into account that the 6th largest consumes 11liters of alcohol per per son per year, you can imagine what our consumption is like. Now consider this, 80% of the price of alcohol in LK is government excise taxes. So 80% of what we spend on booze goes to the government to pay for roads, medicine, wars, commissions and buletproof vehicles for government MPs. It is estimated that by closing down the bars for 5 days to celebrate vesak, the government lost over Rs65 MILLION in revenue.

I tend to hit the bars and pubs and nightspots with Mihirinie and her crew of party animals. Most of whom are richer than I am, and spend a lot more than I ever could. But it IS fun. Hopping from CH to Tantra to Sopranos to Zanziba to RnB can be a very enlightening experience. Certainly enlightening on your wallet. But partying like its 1999 has its benefits. I have networked with various people who have promised to help in the crazy things that I and the Linux Center do. So I can use that as shameless justification to the holier than thou masses.

That and the fact that I am gladly paying taxes to the government. Has anyone noticed that the tax on booze is the ONLY tax that the people are willing to pay happily? They may not pay their income tax or any other taxe, but by Eris we DO buy dat booze. In large quantities no less.

That of course doesn't stop the government from cutting down on us. They come down hard on the rights of the drinkers and the smokers, when we pay the government FAR more than anyone else does. Lets face it folks, the government wants to have its cake and eat it too. They want us to stop drinking, but expect the excise duties to support them, they take away the rights of the people to drink, and then expect us to give them money as well. They can have one or the other, NOT BOTH. Its time we boozehounds and party animals stood up for our rights.