Since the days of Alexander the Great, binge drinking has been a very popular past time - leading to him apparently killing a friend and burning down Persepolis while drunk.

Those are some Great shoes to fill.

Yet, governments, schools and the media have repeatedly tried to teach us of binge drinking's dangers. 

Dartmouth University has taken the lead, instigating a new nationwide policy to curb heavy drinking by their students.

Pour me another glass.

Binge drinking is defined as "the consumption of five or more drinks in a row by men — or four or more drinks in a row by women — at least once in the previous 2 weeks. Heavy binge drinking includes three or more such episodes in 2 weeks."

Seems I don't know anyone who isn't a heavy binge drinker.

Do you think this definition should be changed or should we change people's attitudes? Or should you follow HPD's no fools guide to drinking a lot but not dying?  . . read more

After Tunisia erupted in popular protests, pundits all over the world were writing about the event as if it was a trigger-point for similar rebellions to take place in similarly repressive dictatorships all over the Middle-East.

I like many was sceptical.

Pundits love to heap significance on an event as if it's world changing or the start of something special - most often they're wrong or are connecting dots that don't exist. 

It seems though that this time their predictions were right; Bahrain is splintering and the once fighting fit Gaddafi is lying on the ropes - looking as if he'll have to throw in the towel like Ben Ali and Mubarak. 

It seems like the implications of these protests can't be overstated. 

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There are few people in this world who would defend Gaddafi as a sane and viable leader of Libya; but I think there would be even less that would see the logic in the U.S selling guns to someone as psychotic as him and then parading about as world police.

It's the equivalent of a sheriff giving an outlaw a six-shooter and then acting surprised when he starts popping off the town folk. 

The second one U.S plane gets shot down by one U.S surface-to-air missile, all the military big wigs should get together and make a decision once and for all - "we have to stop shooting at tyrants we've given guns to".

What do you think about Libya? What do you think about the obvious contradictions in U.S foreign policy and how do you think they should be addressed? Tell us and remember...Disqus!  . . read more

One of the most interesting things about the popular rebellions in Egypt and Tunisia is thinking about what will happen next. Leaders have been toppled or are close to being toppled but it doesn't seem that anyone is jumping at the bit to fill the void that's been created.

In Tunisia this is most obvious as the incoming government of who-knows-what remains leaderless, while in Egypt the oppressed Opposition and the Muslim Brotherhood will fight it out for factional dominance.

I know with this incredibly electric movement of democracy and hope that I wouldn't want to step up to the mantle- it will only take one dip in the economy or a feeling that nothing is moving forward for protests and chaos to reign once more.    . . read more

If the shock of Egypt’s unexpected uprising and success has a debt to anything, it is journalism. The lack of raw power only hides the strong impact that this trade has. Journalists themselves look timid, out of place, running around perhaps accompanied by a cameraman, harmless mischief-makers. But Egypt showed how everyone’s a journalist, how journalism embodies the voices of the people and gives them an outlet that reverberates throughout the globe- by Sumer Dayal (UNSW, Sydney)  . . read more

Why you might ask?

Well for a 21 year old like me, my formative years have been framed around events like 9/11, the Tsunami, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, climate change inaction, economic collapse etc. 

Now objectively, that lists of disasters and travesties may make that decade the worst in history but thankfully I grew up in the most insulated country on earth, which means my childhood was as rosy as any kid's in the 50s and as free-thinking as any hippy's in 60s.

In my youth I didn't see death, destruction or destitution and when I came anywhere close to seeing despair I saw it as a tourist- with a ticket that could always take me home. 

Now this life I've led hardly makes me able to say that the last decade was or wasn't the worst, but I hope for chrissake that if the next decade is a repeat performance of the last that I, and as many people as possible escape the worst of it. 

Merry Chistmas. 

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Those familiar with Huntington's  ‘Clash of Civilisations' are well aware of his theory on conflicts between different religions. The last few weeks have shown how close his theory is to actualisation. Churches are burning in Indonesia, the most populous Muslim state, and Christians are being bombed in Cairo.

On the other hand, let's not forget about continuous Muslim persecution in the West.

Now Sudan goes to the polls to divide the country into its Muslim and Christian sects - physical borders aided by theological differences.

What the Sudanese actually want is peace - religious difference matters little except to create the violence. What we can learn from this is that we should not get carried away with forming our cliques. The challenge for the future truly is protecting the freedoms of one and all.

One hopes that a free society doesn't mean a stupid focus upon voting like Iraq - it's when the ballot can be cast by Muslims, Christians and all forms of people living together as one.

It's not the vote that matters.

It's the person giving it.   . . read more

I always found it strange that when Saddam Hussein was being compared to Satan at the onset of the Iraq war, that they CIA didn't just pop him off and be done with it - surely they had the skills to do it?

So again, with Gaddafi having proved himself psychotic and willing to kill his people; why can't a sniper on the roof or a drone in the sky explode the man that's apparently at the head of everything?

It says to me two things; either the CIA isn't the all encompassing scary spy organisation that could kill anyone in the world at any moment, or they don't really want Gaddafi dead.

In all likelihood it's the former; the U.S probably does want Gaddafi dead, but when you find out that a full 75% of the world's oil is in the hands of state governments - it makes sense why the U.S might not want to create a vacuum at the top.

The need for stability might overrun their desire for democracy. 

Do you think this a fair assumption to make? Or do you think the hesitancy to put in ground forces and really commit to this war might have more to do with Iraq and Afghanistan? Tell us and remember...Disqus!

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