Good lord: more than half of all deaths of Russians aged 15-54 can be attributed to "excessive alcohol consumption."

You, the sweaty awkward one: you look like the type that desperately justifies your daily drinking. Science says it's good for your heart or your mind or something, right? Wrong! Lush!

This sexuadvertisingly-transmitted viral has been going around quietly for a while but we haven't seen it since we're not beer-guzzling porn freaks (professionally). We're sad to admit that this vibrator-featuring Bud Light ad is amusing on its own merits:

Helpful scientists have found that binge drinking increases the risk of lung cancer in smokers "regardless of how many cigarettes a day they smoked." There's very little hope for you, now. [Science Daily]

If you're like "I would only throw up and punch people and scream and start riots and fuck strangers and pass out when I'm drunk and that's the whole point," well, that's not REALLY HARDCORE, is it?
[via Adrants]

Did you know that any bar worth drinking in is now a speakeasy that would never tell the likes of you its secret location? If you didn't already know, then how do you ever expect to get into one?

Whoops! An eagle-eyed tipster spotted this today on the front door of Pete Wentz's East Village bar, Angels and Kings, which got smacked down with an NYPD closure. Looks like they were serving to minors.

We'll give you one guess: Which is the heaviest-drinking class of "professionals" in England? If you said "the media," you are well acquainted with the media's habits! In fact, we hear that some media workers here are going into the booze business as a dependable second job:

• A summer bar preview and a roundup of happy-hour specials. [AMNY, NYP]
• The restaurant at the Andre Balazs's Standard Hotel doesn't debut until June, but the outdoor patio—which serves food—has opened. [GS]
• More photos of Locanda Verde, which is now in the hands of Andrew Carmellini, NYC's "best young Italian chef," according to David Chang. [GS, P6]
• The price of beer and wine may go up if Washington gets its way. [NYP]
• Speaking of wine, now isn't such a bad time to be investing in it, FYI. [NYT]
• A recap (and photos) from last night's Taste of the Nation event. [Metromix]

We always figured it took something really special for Rachel Maddow to be able to put up with Keith Olbermann every evening. Now we have the answer, courtesy of author/Mac pitchman John Hodgman: A bit of La Fée absinthe mixed with Red Bull, apparently. [Twitpic via BYOT]

Good news: Coffee's not bad for you! Bad news: Unless you smoke when you drink it. But, good news: if you're an alcoholic you must drink coffee!

Last night, n+1 hosted a discussion panel at NYC's The New Museum entitled "The 90s vs. The 90s." You can guess how this went: I no longer love the 90s. Also, Emily Gould was there.

The authorities tried to help kids drink responsibly by putting the exact alcohol content right there on the bottle, but—to their dismay—kids just use this valuable information to get more fucked up:

Sure, getting blind drunk is all that makes life worth living, but continually having to lift the glass, gulp, and swallow? It's all such an effort, right? At long last, the technology to imbibe alcohol simply by breathing is becoming a reality. At an "experimental bar" called Alcoholic Architecture, a booze-infused mist is released into the air by a vapor machine, and to make it even more appealing, "when you breathe, instead of the alcohol going into your liver, it goes right into your bloodstream so breathing is a much quicker way of getting drunk." Sadly, this particular bar is located in London. But who knows, this could very well be the formula to salvaging New York's dying club scene, too. [ABC News]

Did you, who lived through the 80s, ever think you'd live to see the day when you couldn't make money with a mall in America, or with a pub in England? That day has come!

One unmistakable sign that Russia is truly in the doldrums as it suffers the effects of the financial crisis? No, not the fact that Moscow had 74 billionaires a year ago, whereas now it just has 27. Russians accustomed to drinking champagne have been forced to turn (back) to vodka! [Bloomberg]

Appalachian State University newspaper The Appalachian has kept us waiting for weeks for the rest of their cum-drenched four-part pornography series. What's the holdup? "Appalachian to research health effects of wine." Ah.

Page Six boss Richard Johnson went to a party in Palm Beach last week! And the local gossip columnist was there, in an amusing role reversal. Johnson's wife keeps him sober-ish:

Cocktail Recipes for the Recession [New Yorker]
Previously: Recession-Appropriate Drinks: Strong Ones [Cityfile]

Is there some sort of secret PR campaign by the advertising industry underway? Yesterday we heard that commercials make TV better, and now a study suggests we will basically mimic whatever it is that we see onscreen. Movies and ads that depict people drinking alcohol, according to new research, directly increase viewers' own propensity to toss back a few. It might be too grim to contemplate exactly what other behaviors are being mindlessly copied, although when an entire generation reaches adulthood unable to utter a sentence unpreceded by "like," we'll know to hold Adam DiVello accountable.