WIP

Our Government is constructing the "folk devils" here! They have determined that someone running over a soldier with his car is a terrorist, and yet all the cases mentioned here....including this planned 'Valentine's Day Massacre' in Halifax, are not: 'A group of murderous misfits' "We have averted a true tragedy here in Halifax," Justice Minister Peter MacKay told reporters after the arrests. "It would have marked our city and province forever." When asked if the suspects had "Columbine" beliefs, MacKay responded, "I cannot confirm that, but what I can tell you is that this appeared to be group of murderous misfits … prepared to wreak havoc and mayhem on our community." Who wants to wager that if the guy had a beard and went to mosque recently, and the girl started wearing a head scarf, that dickless McKay would have been talking about the dangers of homegrown terrorism?

There was no such thing as "normal roles" in immediate return hunter-gatherer societies. These were small communities that had to be highly adaptive to the availability of food and changes in their environment. Establishing cultural norms did not start coming in until 10,000 years ago. The problem today is that the long-running argument between Rousseau and Hobbes has been arbitrarily decided on Hobbes's side, even though the weight of evidence is running against the theme of "nasty, brutish and short" lives in prehistory to a glorious future just beyond our time horizon. The truth is that life did not become nasty, brutish and short until permanent agriculture became the way of life. The loss of prehistoric hunter-gatherer life was likely the distant memory and source of folklore tales that gave us garden of eden type myths in every agricultural society. And right now, cornucopia is about to come to an end at some point in the near future, when environment, overcrowding, and resource decline all conspire to end economies that have been based on constant and continuous growth. We live on a finite planet with finite resources! It's high time to start recognizing this simple fact.

Dawkins is a regular guest and in close agreement with Neocon atheist Bill Maher, on his HBO Real Time show. They are supporters of American and allied interventions in the Muslim World, and after at least 100,000 Iraqis died as a result of the U.S. led Invasion and Occupation....with more dying every day as the non-stop legacy, they have no legitimate right to point fingers at Islam as the most violent religion, while the West has been trying to manipulate their resources for the past several decades. Terrorism by "non-state actors" as the War On Terror terms them, is no different in actuality than terrorism deliberately instigated by nations! So, in the latest round, let's tally up the casualties from drone attacks vs. the shootings and bombings by Muslim terrorists and I'd say western terrorists are still winning the terrorism war....if that's any accomplishment. *My deconversion from Dawkins's new atheism came after reading a 20 year old essay he wrote called "Viruses of the Mind." What a piece of crap! His 'replacing bad religious memes with good scientific memes' to "cure" the "patient" of religion, sounded like it came off the scientology site.

Feel free to wallow in ignorance then! Psychology is divided into several branches dedicated to understanding the mind, and in modern times, as new devices have been developed to study brain activity, brain imaging results have to be correlated with tests developed by psychologists to gain any degree of understanding of how the brain generates a conscious sense of self, that is separate from the world around us. When it comes to understanding people's motivations, that's somewhat more understood than neuroscience. A good topic to look up would be Terror Management Theory, for some insight into how the basic fear of death has created almost every aspect of culture, and motivates many people to act violently, and even suicidally....like our whole culture is doing today!

I think it's mostly a dodge to avoid having to defend a set of beliefs. The simple reality is that everyone has a set of beliefs (worldview), so atheists have to establish beliefs and principles that guide them through life. Except for a handful of philosophers in earlier times, most of us are copying ideas that sound worthwhile and fit in with the established worldview we've already grown up with/ or changed later in life. Very few people are really motivated to drop their existing beliefs for something totally new...whether it's converting to a new, foreign religion, or deconverting to atheism. So, I get a little nauseated about the new atheist claptrap of building a secular world with no religion. Most people would rather adapt the religious traditions they've grown up with, than scrap it and try something new. And, some atheists have noticed that new atheist movements are taking on all the trappings of religion....establishing core principles and tenets of non-faith based usually justified by scientific evidence. But the new atheist doctrine that all religion is harmful and should be eradicated, is not something that can be demonstrated with any evidence. On the opposing side, religious traditions that have existed for centuries, more than likely have features that nonbelievers (including atheists) can learn from...such as ethics principles and even such mundane aspects as organization strategies. Modern atheist groups don't do a very good job at organizing for mutual benefit or giving aid to others. It might be better to learn from them than try to reinvent the wheel!

Seems to me that the Muslim-baiting fascists on these threads focus laser-like on anti-Jewish acts, including terrorism, perpetrated by Muslim suspects, but turn a blind eye to the fact that the growing Nazi white nationalist right wing movements across Europe don't consider Jews to be part of the white man's club...as most of the far right does on this side of the Atlantic. So, while a few Jewish voices here march in lockstep with the antiIslamic crusade, on the other side of the world, the far right doesn't distinguish between Jew nor Muslim! Like they say, be careful who you choose for friends, especially when you make alliances framed around mutual hatred of a third party! The latest from France 24: Some 300 tombs defaced at French Jewish cemeteryhttps://twitter.com/France24_en/status/567065463796940800/photo/1

I want to bring this back to the topic - Brian Williams...in case anyone forgot, because I forgot to post this comment by his former boss- Bob Wright, which encapsulates everything that's wrong and fraudulent about MSM news today: Wright, who was in charge when Williams was hired from CBS and began a news show for sister network MSNBC in the ’90s, said, “Some of this puffing up [exaggeration] is accurate, but Brian Williams has helped NBC News. He has been the strongest supporter of the military of any of the news players. He never comes back with negative stories, he wouldn’t question if we’re spending too much. All the stories are very accurate. It’s ironic the military people are complaining. These were the people he held in high esteem. Sometimes it's fascinating to have a look into the thinking of evil and despicable people, because here was the guy in charge of CBS and NBC news divisions during his career telling us that a newsman is a propandist who serves the centers of power in government and the economy. The best thing that could happen now is that it's the end of the 10 million dollar a year men like Brian Williams, and nobody cares what they have to say about anything anymore!

That may be true if your religion - the faith in technology and future progress is the true religion! I see a dystopian future coming at us in the coming years and decades. So, I don't give a crap whether a religion is based on reality or fantasy, as long as it helps people live their daily lives and be better towards others. I don't see any evidence that the religion of antitheism is a good religion, and as this world becomes increasingly polluted and ravaged by war and increasing inequality and deprivation, I don't see a good future for the religion of atheism either!

And on the opposite side, we have to place a watchful eye on these Dawkins-type of atheists who declare that religions of all sorts must be eradicated. These antitheists may declare themselves to be against religion, but they have cobbled together a religion with anti-religious tenets, many of which cannot be substantiated with evidence....just like any other religion!

Don't believe everything people tell you! In psychology, we learn that the vast majority of our decisions are made from an unconscious level that we don't have conscious access to, because a sense of belief and certainty are secondary emotions/ NOT the results of conscious thoughtful deliberation...as the philosophers of old imagined it. Most of what we do is use our higher brain function to conflate justifications for the choices that we desire. At best, someone who does develop an appreciation of logic and reason, will let go of beliefs and conclusions that are lacking in evidence or have much merit. So, when a Muslim says he is on a suicide mission in the name of Allah, it is far more likely that he is a rootless young man looking for purpose in life, and doesn't see any value any longer...for whatever reasons, in continuing on in life in this world. So the only purpose he can find is killing himself and making a glorious exist from the world of the living. And when it comes to religion, it's been pointed out time and time again, that the modern phenomena of the suicide bomber did not begin in Israel/Palestine, but in Sri Lanka, when a large number of Tamils began carrying out suicide bombings during the long-running civil war. So, if it's about religion...who's religion? Any religion can be turned into a suicide cult if you have the key ingredients mentioned above.

Reply to Shady - post #40 How about providing us with an authoritative source, so we can examine this "long" history of "jihad." Because a quick synopsis would reveal that the pseudohistorians you are likely using as references, cherrypick out the violent or violent-sounding quranic verses and declare that Islam is a religion that began in violence and has carried on as a violent religion to this day. Wouldn't be so laughable if it wasn't for all of the contrived excuses to justify Christendom's empire building that has attempted to dominate the entire world in our time....although the core religious tenets of Christendom seem to be in the process of being cast off in favour of a new faith in secular humanism. First off, I'm not even going to bother dealing with the fact that the term "jihad" is not the Arab equivalent for war in the first place! Bu, since warfare under Islamic rules is the only understanding of jihad that you want to deal with, I'll stick to that portion of the understanding of jihad. Are you declaring that jihad or any Muslim nation or society should have never engaged in warfare to begin with? And right from the very beginning...soon after the death of their Prophet, the first caliph saw divisions within the caliphate that was supposed to spread forth and conquer the world. A governor from Syria rose up and questioned the authority of the first caliph and considered himself to be the one who should be the legitimate ruler. As opposing armies faced each other, each side picked their own scholars to argue and hopefully settle the dispute. But, while they were talking, a movement rose up (the Kharijites) who determined that both sides had to be in error because they were both trying to acquire power for themselves. Right from the beginning, the caliphs were made aware that compromise and pragmatism would be necessary, before they could even begin to try to expand the caliphate. In the realms of Christendom, the Church of Rome became the heir to an empire that controlled the entire Mediterranean, and had to turn what was originally an end-of-days messianic cult into an established religion with political and economic structures, as well as 'Christian armies' for defense and offense. But, there was nothing originally within Christianity that was useful for establishing earthly institutions, and definitely no guide for any use of authority...especially having to fight and kill on a battlefield! And that's why St. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas had to utilize Aristotle to craft a Christian version of "just war" theory! Just sayin! In recent history, we went through a period of European colonization of most of the Middle East, with the few remaining independent states (Saudi Arabia) doing so as economic protectorates of foreign empires (America). Worth noting that within traditional Islamic teaching, no provisions were made for how to live as minorities within non-Muslim nations. It was just assumed that...as Islam spread forth, Islamic lands would be under Sharia rules and law. But, as Muslim territories were conquered by foreign Christian empires....and especially after many Muslims joined migrations westward to Europe and North America for better economic opportunities, the whole process of being a Muslim in a foreign land, was something that had to be crafted without any existing precedents. So, all of this crap about Muslims needing their own reformation is total b******it, because reformations and accommodations had already been made over the centuries...just like every other major, existing religion in the world! What is different in our time, is the ramifications of OIL. They have it/ we want it! When Muslim nations find a banana republic despot of some sort installed by foreigners as their government, they might not accept it. Especially when they learn of how much of oil revenues is being sucked out of the ground beneath them for foreign export, while only a privileged minority favoured by the government see any economic benefits of the oil. So, where are we today? My primary contention is that the tensions that exist and are growing between Muslims and the West, are being created either unintentionally or deliberately by foreign intervention.....I think more likely the latter now. Because Islam serves as the useful foreign threat to justify increased exploitation of oil-rich territories, ramped up military spending by weapons-makers, and attacks on civil rights and freedoms in our own countries....just as the threat of communist infiltration did half a century ago! So much attention in our media is focused on every incident where a Muslim kills a cartoonist or attacks a synagogue...as we are learning from the latest attack in Denmark by a Muslim who was also a member of a criminal gang...but somehow allowed to move about freely without surveillance! So, when I look at headlines with the same stupid catch-phrases "we are all Danes today" similar to the "je suis Charlie" ones a month ago; I wonder where are the "we are all Yemenis or Pakistanis" as Obama sent one drone bombing after another indiscriminately at territories that were uncontrolled, and took out at least four times as many civilians as legitimate targets. Where the hell was all the je suis back then? The greatest potential damage done by the deliberate pouring of salt onto existing wounds....which is what I consider the various Islamophobia tropes to be, is that here in the West, we will force Muslim minorities to become further insular and withdraw as much as possible from mainstream society. Why would they want to liberalize or become more western when they are subjects of hostility and suspicion, and facing increasing levels of violence. Odds are that these strategies will increase 'fundamentalism' and the likelihood of engaging in terrorism. If things continue to degrade, I expect that at some point France, and then other Euro nations...and eventually America and Canada, will jetison their pretensions of liberalism and start calling for pogroms and ethnic cleansings of Muslims to remove the threat within. If Islam is an unreasonable and violent force in the world...as your side contends, then there is no other option than total war. The only thing I despise is that so few of the Islamophobes ever admit that total war against Islam is an option they are considering.

Exactly! If a Muslim uses his car to run down a soldier, it's a terrorist attack and we need more of our rights and freedoms taken away for our collective protection from the Islamic threat. If it was anyone else....it was just some a**hole who killed a soldier...end of story!

If we restrict the definition of hunter-gatherers to the more primitive ones that had fewer innovations and traveled more frequently, these groups are what the anthropologists term - Immediate Return hunter-gatherers. Having to be on the move frequently, made it necessary for these family bands to quickly adapt to changing conditions, because they had to hunt for and gather new food resources more frequently, and had no capabilities to store food of any kind for the long term. By being constantly on the move, a band of hunter-gatherers cannot become rigidly hierarchical, or their very survival is threatened. Many anthropologists studying the last remaining of these groups 50 to 100 years ago, were fascinated by the strategy they called Status Leveling - where even deserved success...like a particularly gifted hunter, would not be allowed to receive any acclaim or brag about how good he was at hunting. It was more important to maintain group cohesion than to allow even the most limited hierarchies to arise. In general, elders (both male and female) were listened to more intently by younger tribesmen and women, but they still did not have a formal leadership status. If they strongly advised a certain move at a certain time etc., it would be considered important by the group, but it wasn't quite the same as being a true leader and having decision-making power over the group, which became an aspect of life in later more settled hunter-gatherer groups and early horticultural societies. Even the gender roles we take at face value were not set in stone either. It was generally the men of a group who went on the long hunts, but that had more to do with their freedom from pregnancy and ability to travel longer distances, than with being men. Women tended to learn how to use weapons and hunt and repel invaders (recall that the Amazon River and Valley gets its name from an early explorer who wrote of savage women firing arrows at his boats). The hunting women did would mostly be small game from snaring, while men also did some gathering of plant foods...just not as much as the women of the group. When it came to childrearing, it was noted from studies of the Amazonians and other primitive groups that babies were frequently handed off to both men and women during different times of the day. One anthropologist of the 60's ( I forget the name) noted that the only clear distinguishing factor between the way men and women cared for babies, was that the women were much more interactive with the child, while the man might hold the baby while talking with a group of male friends, and grab some leaves to wipe the baby's butt when necessary, but carry on the conversation with his friends. So the picture of hunter-gatherer life before there was great outside influence on their cultures, are very egalitarian without even a great deal of distinguishing features between the lives and expectations of each gender. Even the first anthropologists like Johan Jacob Bachofen (who wrote his groundbreaking work - Mutterecht) in 1841 noticed that early societies were relatively peaceful, egalitarian, matrilineal and promiscuous (within set limits), still claimed that the rise of agriculture and patriarchy were necessary to make civilization possible. My question would be...even if this were true, was civilization worthwhile in the end?

That's probably why most people prefer to live in denial! I would have been a lot more optimistic if there was focus on sticking with real solutions to real problems ..especially on environment issues, instead of tinkering around the edges and hoping the future will be brighter. Over 30 years ago, Ben Bova - a science fiction writer and the original editor of a science and SF magazine called OMNI, wrote a near future SF story on the subject of global warming, where a group of scientists become aware of dangerous future trends and get together at the UN for a summit with international policymakers to cut the production of human carbon emissions as rapidly as possible. Back in the early 80's, it might have been a plausible plotline, but Bova, like most SF writers seemed to be more atune to science and technical topics than with human nature and how international politics would work. Because the real world results have provided worse information in recent years, with an even greater unwillingness to deal with climate change honestly! And you ask me why I'm a pessimist!

We don't hear as much about their attacks on military targets, which is the bulk of the war that allowed them to take over so much of Iraq and Syria. Certainly, beheading civilians carries a lot of shock value, but the ISIS terrorist attack that has scared the crap out of the Saudi oligarchs was the cross-border attack they made on a Saudi convoy that killed a top Saudi general a few weeks ago. That's got them all riled up about building a "maginot line" type of border wall across the desert to prevent attacks coming from Iraq. Once again though, the obvious blowback is ironic and almost laughable, since ISIS and Al Qaeda are largely products of Saudi designs to attack their enemies. So, they live in fear of having them come back at them.

Europe during the age of conquests, and America post-slavery were the societies that really refined and encoded racism to much greater degrees than any other society did before them. The prevailing European assumption was that the darker people were, the more inferior they were also. It's been noted that a century or two ago, English and American newspaper cartoonists were depicting the Irish as darker than English or naturalized Americans in their deliberately Irish-baiting cartoons at the time. The only other example I can think of off-hand, where a culture felt a strong need to develop hierarchies along racial lines is the caste system in India. It's supposed to be about Hindu beliefs in reincarnation etc., but what it really was designed for on a more subtle basis, was to prevent any racial mixing between invading Indo-Aryans from the north (who considered themselves superior and claimed the high caste positions) and the lowest caste - untouchables, were the Melanasian people who lived in southern and eastern India. From a psychological vantage point, we are hardwired to be more averse to people who look much different than we do for various reasons. This is likely a tribal artifact that is still active in isolated regions of the world, and more absent in modern, cosmopolitan cities, where someone can see people who came from all corners of the earth as they go about their daily lives. Racism and encouraging racism becomes a social problem when extenuating factors are included, like the economic and political power/or lack thereof of the group that feels oppressed or discriminated against by a majority. Reverse discrimination is usually of little consequence, if it becomes a problem, because most of us are not ruled or economically controlled by the group that might be reverse racist.

I'm surprised that the Omar Khadr story is still even an issue for debate! Even if the confession that he was tortured into writing was accurate, there were still no grounds for holding him in prison, as he was a minor (15 at the time) and whoever tossed that grenade was trying to escape capture in a war zone. But by the selective use of international law, the U.S. disregards the fact that he was a minor, but seizes upon the fact that Al Qaeda were "illegal" combatants, unlike those deemed to be legal combattants!

No, the left does not remove links to religion; just demands that it be recognized that Christianity, or more appropriately - Christendom is the religion with the greatest military and economic power in the world today...not Islam! As well, Muslims in the west are minorities who are often exposed to the same kinds of hate crime attacks that other minorities can face. This isn't the first time that Muslims...or even people suspected of being Muslims (like Sikh victims of crimes) have been targeted because of their religion and ethnicity. The left also demands that full context be applied to these snapshot stories of what this or that Muslim did, or this Muslim terrorist group etc. Right now - today, the United States of America is the greatest purveyor of violence in the world, while most of its violence is excused as fighting a nebulous War on Terror. The Islamic terrorist groups like ISIS or Boko Haram, are not the beginning of a story. They are a development in modern times that has been inspired by elements of foreign encroachment and exploitation, and the removal of any democratic means to remove foreign-sponsored dictators they are saddled with for generations. Terrorism is asymmetrical warfare, and it is not all that more disgusting and revolting than conventional warfare! The only difference is that it is in the media spotlight, while the hundreds of casualties to drone-bombings and uranium-enriched mortar shells are not!

His wife said it...pay attention! Every time a Muslim kills anywhere at any time, it's because of his religion, so since this guy is an atheist anti-theist (meaning actively opposed to religion), why can't his atheism be examined as a possible motive for killing three people for no good reason?

Most of your screed has nothing to do with the merits or demerits of PR, which is the only reason I brought them up....not whether they can carry out their promises in government. But, PR gave them the opportunity to join together and form a coalition to topple the status quo much, much more rapidly than can be done in FPTP governing systems. As for Greece....I'm not Greek, nor more than casually acquainted with the economic troubles regarding austerity...although my natural inclinations are to favour the people over international bankers. But it's ridiculous to accept the framing of this story as "the Greeks have been borrowing and spending other peoples money for a very long time". In reality, Greece had long been ruled by a fascist U.S.-sponsored military government, that mass executed leaders of unions and leftist parties under the excuse of "fighting communism." The autocratic post-coup leaders in Greece were allowed to borrow billions by the Eurobankers, just like they loaded up African nations in billions in debts to effectively retake their former colonies. And in all these cases, including impoverished nations like Haiti, or the Philippines (which I learned recently pays 44% of its federal tax revenue on interest payments to the international banking cabal), and after freely loaning dictators and virtual dictators enough debt to bankrupt their nations, the bankers demand full repayment by future governments that are saddled with debt in perpetuity! If the Greeks find a way to tell the Eurobankers and the IMF to go f*** yourselves, I'll be cheering for them from the sidelines!

I heard Osama Bin Laden was an angry and unstable dude!

Maybe he noticed the same thing I did: there are too many Islam and Muslim-bashing threads to keep track of all this BS! For example, how many threads do we need to discuss Charlie Hebdo cartoons? I don't want to spend all my time on the topic of pointing fingers at the other guy (and ignoring the ones that point back at us), so I'm pretty much where I started before the massacre at their HQ: real comedy and real satire does not necessarily comfort the afflicted, BUT it sure as hell afflicts the comfortable! I keep hearing endlessly how the Hebdo group are liberals...as if that matters a damn; but real liberal standup comics and comedy writers that I pay attention to, focus most of their comedy wrath on the rich and powerful, NOT the visible and religious minorities in a society....that's the comedy job of the fascists...Republican comedy, or Neonazi nationalist comedy in the French example.

My point about this discussion of how did most modern societies become patriarchal in the first place, is that we have to go back to beginning of the story...not the way things are just prior to the industrial revolution! The fatalistic narrative that patriarchy is natural and inevitable....just as the aspects that come as baggage with patriarchy: violence, warfare, aggression and hierachical societies, are either modern cultural adaptations/ or natural biological aspects of basic human nature. Now, today there are still a wide range of advocates for patriarchy as normal/and only differ on whether there should be attempts to preserve patriarchy in the face of pressures from modern industrial society that given many women greater economic power and social status than they enjoyed under most patriarchal agricultural societies. Going back to the OP; this thread quotes a flimsy premise that the rise and fall of patriarchy is connected with the advent of writing, and I have gone back over the general subject area of paleoanthropology over the last couple of years, and find it at best - a small aspect of the story. Where we are today, is in a cultural shift that has greatly weakened patriarchy, brought about by economic consequences; mostly in the last half century, the value of the work educated women do has increased, while the value of traditional men's work in industry has gone in decline. The forces of consumer culture encouraged more women in the workplace, and now the religious conservative patriarchs are trying to figure out how to put the genie back in the bottle! But, the JudeoChristian branches of patriarchal religious traditions, which were forced onto most of the world, are still trying to portray patriarchy as the normal condition for civilized society that they are trying to take us all back to. And my main point is that...however we organize society and whatever sort of family arrangements we have in the future, our common origins were NOT as patriarchal societies, and certainly were not monogamous! Monogamy is an obvious recent cultural adaptation...which is most of the reason why it is so hard keeping marriages together over the long term. Most of the reason we strive to do so is because family has been fractured and busted down to nuclear family in modern times. So, if you let your marriage fall apart, and remain single for life, you may have no other close, everyday relationships that are not based on some sort of monetary transaction, and can endure through good times and bad! But, whether we can go back to the way things REALLY were or not, we should at least have some awareness of how radically different life was for our ancestors through most of the course of human history and development. Patriarchy should be seen as an aberration, and a dangerous development in human society that has built economies based on ecological destruction and exploiting the poorest people in the world as slaves in everything but name, to make a lot of the cheap crap for the more affluent nations. And it's a world still on the verge of nuclear annihilation, that has come back at us with a vengeance, now that America has a president who has either stumbled in/or deliberately created a proxy war with nuclear-armed Russia, that could end all life on Earth.

Good question! With Brian Williams alone, some of the grumblings that went on outside of MSM, such as his reports from Hurricane Katrina and even some of his other war stories, are also suspect! We do know that they have been accomplices to propaganda before...as I mentioned both the Tillman and Jessica Lynch hero stories required media complicity to keep a lid on the coverup afterwards. Same goes with the "babies being pulled out of incubators by invading Iraqi troops" that was the main story for "liberating Kuwait" back in 1990. Whether the invasion was justified or not, the U.S. Government seemed to really have a strong desire to have lots of propaganda stories as icing on the cake! Every time now that I hear or read about a new object of American regime change, I'm more inclined to take out my crap meter to get a reading, than to accept the story at face value!

Thanks! On that last point, I don't know if he's cut out to be a real comedian...he would have to do more than learn the lines of routines scripted for him. All he's demonstrated so far is that he showed a greater willingness to risk being mocked or making a fool of himself by trying to do comedy.....I think there is a celebrity graveyard outside the studio where they make SNL in New York. Even though I'm closer to 60, I'm with the younger generation who doesn't trust mainstream news and never watches the nightly newscasts. I for one, am not shocked that a newsreader (that is actually 99% of what he does) is not presenting an accurate or worthwhile account of the day's news. I've come across too many interviews with journalists who retired early because they were being forced towards infotainment and becoming shills for the industries that their corporate parents operate: weapons contractors, oil companies etc. So, my expectations for Brian Williams were not that high to begin with. But, he has set himself apart from the crowd, by showing himself to be a pathological liar! He began with an embellished story, and kept inserting himself further and further into the narrative as the years went by. When he starts using words like "We" and "Our" helicopter, you would almost think he was part of the mission, by the time he told the story to David Lettermen! So, he may be a little more narcissistic and delusional than the average teleprompter reader on television. I guess some of the soldiers decided it was time to pull the plug on this h******it. One pundit who's name I forget, made the point that the soldier who came forward to Stars & Stripes and blew up the story, is out of the service. That is important, because if this whole drama was another one of these war stories that is a collusion between the military and the news industry, it's likely that they were not willing to come forward while they were still active duty. yesterday and today, I've come across two separate stories about psychologists doing interviews and informing the public about the faultiness of our memory systems.....i.e. that every time we tell a story of a past event, a variety of brain systems that contain different elements of memory needed to be accessed, are used to create a new narrative each and every time. So, even for those of us who are trying to be factual and accurate, a story is likely to drift and keep adding more and more extraneous elements over time. I've read this stuff before, but the rise of psychologists in the news informing the public about it, seems to me like it could be damage control from NBC and even other media who might be concerned that their newsreaders will also be suspect. For me, if this story makes people more skeptical about the news presented to them by MSM, that's a good thing!