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...decision ... and the adoption of Proposition 8, California has from its inception always limited marriage to the union of a man and a woman," wrote Charles Cooper, who served in the Reagan Administration's Justice Department with Olson, in his trial brief Dec. 7. "Indeed, until this decade, every State, nation and civilized society in every period of history had always limited marriage to opposite-sex relationships ... Contrary to Plaintiffs' contentions, the traditional definition of marriage does not reflect animus against gays and lesbians - in California or anywhere else." (See more about gay marriage...
...carried out his violent and, well, terrible orders. To facilitate their drunken revelry, Ivan opened kabaks, or taverns, that served vodka and other alcohol (no food). By 1648, with Russians developing a strong taste for drink, a third of the country's male population was in debt to the state-owned kabaks. When Moscow started collecting the debts, peasants responded by distilling and distributing vodka at home. (See the best pictures...
...used it in experiments - one of which led to a new kind of synthetic rubber.) Prohibition remained in effect during the 1917 revolution and subsequent civil war. But when the teetotaling Bolsheviks ran low on funds, they rethought their stance; by 1925 vodka was back on the shelves of state-run dispensaries. In World War II, every Russian soldier at the front was given a daily ration of vodka - roughly a shot's worth - and by the 1950s Russia had fallen completely off the wagon. In 1958, the communist youth organization Komsomol Pravda complained that members of its national soccer...
Drinking increased after the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union. Although personally fond of vodka, Boris Yeltsin abolished the state monopoly and instituted laws to keep drinking in check. He outlawed sidewalk liquor kiosks - prompting merchants to build tiny phone booth-size stores instead. He also raised the price of vodka, which only encouraged the black market for samogon...
...that of any other nationality in the world. Russian men have a life expectancy of just 60 years - largely attributed to alcoholism. Rosspirtprom, a government-owned company, oversees more than 100 vodka distilleries and controls an estimated 40% of Russian market. While President Medvedev's move, praised by the state-sanctioned vodka producers, almost certainly will fail to solve Russia's drinking problem, it's likely to generate significant income for Moscow...