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

Now some will say it's an exaggeration to suggest that this marks Australia's evolution to a one party state.

But how else can you define the last week?

For instance, the CPRS has been debated rigorously behind closed doors with Turnbull taking credit for amendments that will supposedly save thousands of jobs whilst still protecting the environment. Yet, his party's and the media's response, has been to focus on internal bickerings and leadership spills. 

Ignoring any work Turnbull did.

This has basically led to Rudd's little legislative baby being seen as his accomplishment- a dangerous precedent that will allow him to distort future debates based on 'his' successes. It will also allow him to claim the mandate of the people as the opposition's opinion polls drop and they as a party become even more dispirited.  

Without a balance and without real debate, we should be scared.

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Apologising is a uniquely human action, it involves taking responsibility for a mistake and admitting you erred. In someways it also involves asking for forgiveness.

Kevin Rudd, Australia's former PM who was sacked by his own party last year, apologised last night for "killing" his Emissions Trading Scheme which he says brought about his downfall.

Whether this is true or not, his apology echoes another one he made in his first week in government. That "sorry" was to the aboriginal people of Australia who since British colonisation were oppressed, marginalied and literally stolen from their families. 

His apology in that instance was personal and was seen almost universally as a positive step towards reconciliation and healing. It didn't lead to a better livelihood for indigenous Australians and has to be seen now as a symbolic act without much substance behind it.

Hopefully this second apology for failing on climate change can lead to asking for real forgiveness by making some real progress.    . . read more

• Message 1 Reconciliation with our indigenous forebears to activate appreciation
• Message 2 Signing Kyoto to take a global position on the environment
• Message 3 Withdrawing troops from Iraq to break the U.S. sycophancy
• Message 4 Dramatically increasing the funding for public and university education to stimulate innovation and opportunity
• Message 5 Providing tax and financial incentives on the demand side for alternative and renewable energy

We're listening Kevin. Do you have the guts to tell? . . read more

Whatever.

Just three weeks after the clouds have lifted, we can see just how bad it really was. When we were in the frame we could not see the whole picture. Now we are outside, it's hard to imagine how and why we put up with it. Their meanness, lies, narrow mindedness and divisiveness have put enormous pressure on the youthful, creative and egalitarian culture of Australia.

Let's all pick up the challenge. The new millennium starts here. . . 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

There is another view, another vision — and it is our vision — which says that this nation and this people are at their best when we are a people and a nation committed to building a prosperous nation while at the same time not jettisoning our vision for a fair Australia and a fair society. In an absolute nutshell that is the divide between us — a view of the world which says it is about me, myself and I, and an alternative view which says that we are about an Australia which, sure, recognises that individual hard work, achievement and success are to be encouraged and rewarded but, at the same time, that we cannot turn a blind eye to the interests of our fellow human beings who are not doing well.

That has been the divide between us for a century and remains the divide between us today. Ideas in politics are important. They in fact affect everything that we do. They shape our vision of what is possible for the government to do for the nation. . . read more

In the wake of his defeat the attacks on Howard's legacy will turn ferocious, but at their heart will be an unease, a ritual exorcism of something deeper that Australians would perhaps rather not admit. For a decade Howard's power had resided in his ability to speak directly and powerfully to the great negativity at the core of the Australian soul - its timidity, its conformity, its fear of other people and new ideas, its colonial desire to ape rather than lead, its shame that sometimes seems close to a terror of the uniqueness of its land and people.

At the end of his concession speech, Howard claimed to have left Australia prouder, stronger and more prosperous. But it didn't feel that way. It felt like it had been a lost decade. It felt like the country was frightened, unsure of what it now is, unready for the great changes it must make, and ill-fitted for the robust debates it must have. There was a strange sense that Australia, which had seemed so often to sleepwalk, mesmerised, through the past 11 years, had suddenly woken up. But where it might go and what it might do and be, no one any longer knew.

From The Guardian. Richard Flanagan is a novelist. . . read more