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

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

Like vultures to carrion.

And it is also a universal truth that if these images of devastation are explosive enough, the world's philanthropic businesses and wealthier countries will begin a race to see who can give the most.

The Boxing Day Tsunami is no better of example of this.

There you would regularly hear news bulletins telling us that Australians have given the most of any country (per capita) and more generally, how the world had got together in a Christ-like spirit of giving.

Yes, this was true and the feeling of kindness toward the unfortunate other was genuinely palpable. 

But, the response to that disaster and the terrible earthquake in Haiti have been a little cringe-worthy.

Haiti for years has been a solid shadow of sadness.

Occasionally opinion pieces would appear telling us that the U.S had again spent so many dollars but that project had again disappeared into a vacuum of corruption. 

Occasionally the strangeness of a State so close to America, but so desperately poor, would twinge a pain in us. 

But of course when the pain was slow and endemic the world did nothing.

So again a country that seems a poster-child for what humanity can't do, will soon be faced with the world's burning attention. And then as the eyes turns away, there will be an amazing crushing feeling as they become as poverty stricken and desperately ruined as before.   . . read more

Like cheese, wine and surrendering, France is famous for it's protests; yesterday though they misfired when they stood against changes to the state's pension law.

With the world's demography dramatically widening at the older end of the spectrum there will have to be vast changes to how we think about welfare, work, and tax the world over- the French though are sticklers for tradition and retiring at 60 is a tradition they want to keep.

Too bad frankly. 

Rising the minimum retirement age from 60 to 62 years old will save the country 70bn euros.  

So for all the old people who have managed to manipulate a keyboard, don't pretend you're not (or won't be) a burden to the rest of us.

Shut up, get back to work and blame your parents for creating your booming generation which should be going out like a whimper- allowing the rest of us to mop up after you. . . read more

There has been a lot of discussion about the behaivour of Australian soldiers and the apparently sick culture that breeds sexual abuse and misogyny with the Skype scandal that rocked the Australian Defence Academy a couple of weeks ago, 

The reactions have been interesting; there has been a massive media push to see the army reformed and also a lot of defenders of the soldiers saying that this is an isolated incident and not representative of the whole.

The defence has even led to a Facebook version of a chain email being sent around, it reads:

"Sources revealed that today 99.99% of the ADF did their job without scandal or inappropriate behavior and showed dedication and commitment to ADF Values. The source went on to say that unfortunately this doesn't sell papers so is unlikely to make mainstream media. Post this to your status to show your support for these ADF members."

A great statement and perfectly true.

It's true that the vast majority of Australian defence personnel do engage in behaivour up to scratch with their values.

Values which tolerate repeated invasions into other states, mass murder of civilians and state endorsed torture.

Kind of makes non-consensual filming of a sex act seem insignificant. . . read more

We aren't going to change that, for reasons that are deeply entrenched in our societies, and these are extremely powerful interests, with the ability to at least slow real national progress. Thus we have a need (radical change) which is blocked by a political reality. In such a conflict, even the most fundamental of steps - a real international price on carbon - will be an extremely hard-fought victory at the national level in all our countries.

We need national action, but maybe it's time to rethink the rest of the approach. After all, legislation and markets, while absolutely essential, represent only one instrument in the tool chest we need to fight climate catastrophe. We also need technical invention, widespread innovation diffusion, new models and new approaches. And these things are much more difficult for the carbon lobby to stymie, if done at the proper combination of local and regional levels. . . read more

In the world of international politics or law it's dangerous to do anything without the risk of setting a precedent that others will use as an argument for similar actions to be taken in similar situations. 

As Laurent Gbagbo the disputed President of the Ivory Coast is captured by French forces and as Gaddafi looks close to collapse, a precedent is being set - repressive dictators that inspire mass rebellion will be met by the West.

The question we have to ask though is whether this seemingly positive precedent will spread elsewhere? 

Bahrain tried but was too close to the Saudi sphere, North Korea is too crackpot for the West to get involved, Zimbabwe seems off the radar and Iran and Saudi Arabia seem too big and too ruthless to be threatened. 

So what's the lesson?

If you're a brutal dictator hope that your crazy or crazily rich enough to stay in power?  . . read more

So far the Vatican has remained fairly tight-lipped and less than likely to agree to a situation which derides the traditions of canon law and shows the Church to be answerable to anyone but God.

Things might be about to change.

It has been reported that Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins- both stabbing thorns in the side's of the spiritual- are seeing whether the Pope can be arrested under the international law of crimes against humanity when he travels to Britain later this year.

I until yesterday thought this was an impossibility for the simple reason that Heads of State have a long-standing immunity from international law and it would be a siginficant coup if this tradition was overturned.

Then I read that ex-pat Australian Geoffrey Robertson had given Hitchens and Dawkins advice that basically said that due to the special legal existence of the Vatican and that the state has never been a full member of the UN- maybe the Pope isn't considered a Head of State in the normal understanding of the term.

It is unlikely, but wouldn't it be amazing to see a frail old man pretending to be God's representative on earth having to stand before the secular world's new master and commander- the rule of law.    . . read more

8. The Arctic's floating sea ice is headed towards rapid summer disintegration as early as 2013, and could lead to a 5 metres rise in sea levels. Expect fire sales of properties with water views.

9. Hordes of refugees will flee sinking coastlands and head for lands with secure food supplies. Faced with the influx, citizens of rich nations will split into factions: Neo Fascists, Eco-pagans and Lost Souls. It will not be pretty. Fascists will protect borders and creature comforts at the point of a gun. Pagans will demand the conversion of armies into a united First Earth Battalion, with a mission of planetary restoration. Lost Souls will exist primarily in Second Life, where it is always 2007, the ice never melts and no-one dies.

10. The return of “Can Do” men and women. Life will be less about fine dining and bad movies, and more about creating edible gardens, resilient communities and carbon neutral children.

11. Water theft will be punished by a thousand hours of community service.

12. Zero population fanatics will popularise “self pleasuring” as the higher goal of eroticism, with the option of enhancement by customised robots. . . read more