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

As if there were not enough reasons to go mad, the proliferation of acronyms related to the crisis is such that one can hardly understand them.

The first was the G20, a selected group meeting in Washington that pretended to represent all. The second was the also selective APEC group which met in Lima. There was the richest country, the United States; with a per capita GDP of 45 thousand dollars a year. But there was also the 100th ranked country, the People's Republic of China, with a per capita GDP of 2,483 dollars; China is also the number one investor in US Treasury bonds.

Now, G192 is the way that Leonel Fernandez, President of the Dominican Republic, which is not a member of either of the two, calls the member countries of the United Nations attending an economic conference with Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel Laureate of Economics.

George Soros, an immensely rich magnate of Hungarian descent and an American citizen, was one of the attending personalities.

One would have to be a chess player to disentangle the arguments of such diverse national and business interests as are represented in the G20 and the G21.

The truth of the matter is that if a Third World country signed free trade agreements with eight or ten developed or emerging countries, --some of them traditional producers of abundant and attractive low cost goods or sophisticated industrial products, such as the United States, Canada, Japan, South Korea, etc.-- the nascent industry of a developing country would have to compete with the sophisticated products of the most developed countries' industries or the hard working hands of their powerful partners, one of which handles world finances wantonly. The only thing left to them would be to produce inexpensive raw materials requiring large investments ultimately owned by foreign companies fully protected from nationalizing whims. They would only have their extended hands waiting for a pious development support and an eternal debt to be repaid with their children's sweat. Isn't this what has been happening until today?

That's why I don't hesitate to show my solidarity with Chavez's position as he said that he disagreed with Lima's recipe. There are plenty of reasons. Let's see how the situation unfolds, and keep demanding out rights without ever bending our knees.

Alright here we go, something to put a few bob on - based on a football ball fan that fell a bit off the wagon until Messi showed up. Javier Hernandez, or Chicharito as he's known in his native Mexico, will link up with Rooney and score late in the first half. 

It will turn dirty and someone will get sent off around the 60th minute.

Messi will be unstoppable but won't score, Iniesta will put a goal in at the 83rd minute setting the game up to extra time.

Messi will then break the hearts of the Man U faithful at the 113th minute. 

Come on prove me wrong.

What do you reckon? Any better predictions? Let's see who's got the oracle sense, tell us and remember...Disqus!

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When "Sgt Pepper's", the Beatles' most ambitious album at the time, was released it's said that you could walk around Swinging London and hear splinters of the songs from every apartment and house you passed.

Such was the success and beauty of the album it became the soundtrack of '67.

Today with Radiohead's newest release in "The King of Limbs", history is being repeated. Facebook and Twitter are full of kids writing about it, the internet is full of illegal downloads and houses all over the world are full of Thom Yorke's haunting voice.

Kind of makes you feel comfortable to know there's something our generation shares.   . . read more

Six months is substantial amount of time for the possession of a can of paint, especially considering the leniency of the police and courts regarding drug possession charges. When did spray-paint overtake smack in the great race of illegal possessions? Not to mention these laws are directed mainly at minors; is it really worth locking kids up over something as trivial as this?

What we are lacking is street-art with class. The Premier does live in Western Sydney, and it’s no secret that things are done a little differently out that way, so maybe he’s getting the wrong impression of DIY urban decoration. But how is it graffiti manages to look so fucking cool all over the world, except in the glorious City of Sydney? Riddle me that.

Go Banksy, go!  . . read more

Before Kevin arrived Rupert had just been telling the camera “…some people may not like the bailout but it had to happen”. The “bailout” is the $700 billion W Bush proposal to…to… well the details are still being worked out but we can trust the W Bush regime to do something good. “It had to happen” because the financial ‘powers that be’ in the Empire State (NY’s logo) have decided they can’t trust either Obama or McCain and they want to control the next president’s agenda. Nothing happens for only one reason. They also want any money they can get and to make sure that any solution to the credit crisis (they’ve created) takes care of the upper class, executives and shareholders, before anyone else.

Murdoch’s good at presenting his desires as fait accomplits that are a single inevitable package but the devil is in the details. Obama has defined 4 key points that need to be in any rescue package – one point being support for the small homeowners with mortgages who are caught up in this crisis. McCain doesn’t list that as one of his criteria nor, surprisingly, do the bankers. Rupert, the head of the News-Fox empire, is pretty smart so if he was asked on camera he’d include the little people “if we can”.  . . read more

Does the banks' condition put the U.S. on the brink? What, because the banks won't lend without a bailout? I don't believe so. The banks remind me of the Sheriff in Blazing Saddles who takes himself hostage. The banks commit suicide by not lending. The banks won't lend without a bailout? Fine. Don't lend, banks. Don't lend starting now. You already have? Huh. Most banks in the DC area are advertising that they are not holding subprime mortgage-based assets and open for business to make loans.

If the banks won't lend and there is money to be made lending, someone else will lend, like the banks that are advertising. That's the free market, and the creative destruction should start now. If things are so bad that banks won't lend, the Taxpayers would be stupid to do so without the substantial potential for profit that the better plan provides. Paulson's plan provides only certainty, the certainty of losses. Why would anyone buy high for the certainty of selling low? [More] . . read more

Ominously, Rees-Mogg foresees “A momentum of negative events sweeping away financial flood defences; in the 1930s that force overturned democratic governments as easily as it overturned banks. The veteran journalist is referring to the 1930’s hyper-inflation crisis in Germany, which led to the destruction of the Weimar Republic and the rise of Adolf Hitler. “Before we get back to balance, we may see dramatic changes in politics, as well as in business and finance,” Rees-Mogg concludes.

The veteran journalist’s warning comes on the back of news that “U.S. regulators are bracing for dozens of American banks to fail over the next year.” According to an International Herald Tribune report, “Troubles are growing so rapidly at some small and midsize banks that as many as 150 out of the 7,500 banks nationwide could fail over the next 12 to 18 months.” [More] . . read more

In congressional hearings after the election democrat parliamentarians were scathing in their questioning of "bailout" officials as to when money from the bailout would start flowing to home mortgagees and when officials would start forcing banks into rewriting loans to reasonable interest rates instead of the "criminal" levels that were normal in sub-prime loans. (I "..." criminal because they no doubt were legal in the eyes of most courts, even in NSW, but that's because "possession is 9/10ths of the law" in that the law's main role is to protect the ones who already possess the most capital.) The U.S. Congress seem to be in open revolt against the officials who were explaining the way the W Bush/Paulsen plan was being implemented and why little people would be helped last.

In a credit freeze, like this one, who you help first is more than crucial - it shapes and controls the end result. The W Bush/Paulsen team seem focused on helping the super banks and corporations - still pretending the trickle down effect will take care of everyone else. But those receiving the multi-billions (some $300 billion so far) are not lending them out (except to each other) - they're holding them, waiting to buy out smaller corporations that are rich in assets but short of liquidity (because the big banks are not lending). The ‘trickle down' will come as financial blood from the biggest dinosaurs gorging on the middle banks that haven't been bailed out yet. But this fight is happening on a glacier of defaulting home loans and at the bottom of the glacier there are tens of thousands of small buyers (in small boats) bidding for the homes as the foreclosures drop them off the edge into the ocean. W's team think this is how capitalism should work. "I'm a free market person" W said at the end of the G20 conference.

In the polar oceans off the glacier the warming sea is decreasing the numbers of krill, that whales and other sea animals feed upon, and is increasing the number of jelly-fish-like ‘bubbles', that help the absorption of excess CO2 but have no nutrient value. A bad-good reality. On TV last week we've seen the "Atmospheric Brown Cloud" the permanent pollution cloud stretching from New Delhi across India, Thailand, China, Japan, out past Hawaii. They say that it could be gotten rid of in just a few weeks but, then, the global temperature would jump by over one degree because the dirt in this cloud is shading vast areas of the planet. Another ecological bad-good reality. There'll be lots more of them.

But up top the giant corporate dinosaurs disregard the fragile nature of the glacier they are fighting over, disregard the 9,000 homes being auctioned off every day, disregard the small businesses that need operating loans, disregard the human misery created by poverty, even disregard shipping letters of guarantee (that allow trade to occur) and build their war chests for devouring bargains while the economy keeps collapsing. Look at Citibank they get a $300 billion guarantee to cover high risk loans and the same day say they're now going out to buy more high risk loans going cheap - as Pres W Magoo would say "ah, the smell of capitalism, that's what makes America great".

Over 9,000 homes a day in the USA but who's counting .... Well a lot of people actually. It's strange and sad that America is the worst and the best of countries (worst + best does not = best). There are so many intelligent and caring people but so many wrongs that it's daunting. Large numbers (000,000s) of loans have been renegotiated but vast numbers remain on their downward slide. Now America has the terrible inter-regnum where the worst president in modern history remains in charge destroying America's wealth and future. Hundreds of thousands of people will be evicted in the weeks before Obama takes over and that's why the US Congress was in revolt last week, attacking the "bailout" officials, desperate to not hear a president say "I'm a free market person".

Even no less a capitalist than Steve (Rich List) Forbes has said people should accept that Fannie Mae & Freddy Mac are now owned by the US govt and should start offering 4.5% interest loans to stabilize the housing market - help people at the bottom of the housing glacier create a bottom price to save their homes. Even if they're not paying off much capital and it's similar to renting at least they have their own home, it's not sitting empty, being wasted or looted and it's like the water can start to refreeze into sea-ice at the bottom of the glacier, protecting the rest of the glacier that hasn't already melted.

W won't do it because there's still too much money to be made by his friends in this crisis (like Citibank) but hopefully, after another hundred thousand homes are lost, Obama will. And after he gets that started he can get onto the real problem - stopping the real glaciers from sliding down into the oceans. Saving homes from foreclosure is easy compared to getting America and China (& a few others) to stop destroying the world.  . . read more

This trend has nothing to do with real supply and demand, since the demand for clean energy technology could not be higher. With oil reaching US$100 a barrel, it is clear that we badly need green alternatives, both as consumers and as a species. So why is "homeland security," not green energy, the hot new sector? Perhaps because there are two distinct business models that can respond to our climate and energy crisis. We can develop policies and technologies to get us off this disastrous course. Or we can develop policies and technologies to protect us from those we have enraged through resource wars and displaced through climate change, while simultaneously shielding ourselves from the worst of both war and weather.

In short, we can choose to fix, or we can choose to fortress. Environmental activists and scientists have been yelling for the fix. The homeland security sector, on the other hand, believes the future lies in fortresses. [More] . . read more