WIP

Native North Americans who are still close to the land, and those who are still living anything close to the land in the rest of the world, would be wise not to jump head first into modernity anyway; because all of this grand civilization that so many are thumping their chests about here, is falling apart at this very moment. Modern civilization has been like a voracious fire burning everything in its path and leaving nothing but ruins; since our present economy has to grow to stay alive, and keep consuming more and more energy and resources to maintain itself. The party is going to come to an end at some point, and a new, steady state economy that is built on sustainable living practices is going to be the only way the human race has a future on this earth. And we better hope that there are still people out there who know how to live off the land. A lot of old skills will have to be rediscovered by many people as energy becomes more expensive, and food needs to be grown locally again.

How about there's this civil war, this terrorist attack, this uprising etc.....would that be a better alternative?

typical right wing trope! that our individual identities should only matter, and there are no group identities. It's the same bullshit story given to blacks in the U.S. by rightwingers....who also claim to be colorblind....but somehow manage to tailor voter "fraud" legislation that somehow manages to strike large numbers of blacks off the voter rolls....I wonder how that is possible with all of those colorblind Republicans! As long as people are attacked or marginalized as groups in a society, they have a group identity, even if they would rather not have to deal with it themselves and just be treated like everyone else. Sometimes it's not an option! I mentioned previously that the history of Canada, specifically British North America, was one of dealing with the natives often from a position of weakness, especially prior to the American Revolution, when large numbers of United Empire Loyalists crossed over into Upper and Lower Canada, to bolster European numbers. After the English strengthened their hand through immigration and force of arms, the policy became one of assimilation and ignoring any treaties signed previously. Even though the boarding schools and other attempts at forced assimilation have failed and been scrapped, there still seems to be a collective ethos to just ignore these issues until there's a blockade or some other major incident in the news. If I was a cynic, I would have to conclude that the Government doesn't want to settle any claims until they can get a full appraisal of unexploited resources still in the ground, and land expropriated for pipelines and tar sands tailing ponds before they settle land claims.

Yes, I don't think Chretien's philosophy about federalism was very far off of his mentor - Pierre Trudeau's view that all lands claims be settled with the end goal of ending any nation status of Aboriginal bands, with the full assimilation of all Aboriginals as Canadian citizens. Trudeau was not only opposed to Quebec nationalism, he was against any separate national identities existing in Canada, including natives. Chretien was just a little more cautious than Trudeau about his choice of words, but his core beliefs about federalism were the same as Trudeau's.

Does it count if the U.S. is supplying Patriot missiles to Turkey and setting up a No Fly Zone, like Libya and Iraq previously? US troops arrive in Turkey to begin operating Patriot batteries Turkish media reported on Friday that the 27-member team of US military forces had arrived in the southeastern city of Gaziantep. The team will also inspect the site of the batteries. On December 21, 2012, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the Patriot missile batteries will be installed near the southeastern cities of Adana, Gaziantep and Kahramanmaras. US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta signed orders to authorize deploying the Patriots and about 400 troops to Turkey on December 14. Washington will provide two out of six such batteries, while Germany and the Netherlands will each contribute two. All the six Patriot batteries are scheduled to be operational near the Turkey-Syria border by the end of January. The NATO military alliance approved a request by Turkey for the deployment of Patriot surface-to-air missiles in the border region on December 4. However, thousands of Turkish people held demonstrations against the military plan later. Now, since you are part of this group that is always screaming about needing vigilance against the Muslim threat, how do you explain the role Britain and then the U.S. has played in encouraging the Muslim Brotherhood....which seems to have an uncanny ability to carry out U.S. interests: What Is the Muslim Brotherhood, and Will It Take Over Egypt? The basics on the group that has Glenn Beck going batshit.—By Robert Dreyfuss | Fri Feb. 11, 2011 For the next five decades, the Muslim Brotherhood would serve as a battering ram against nationalists and communists. Despite the Brothers' Islam-based anti-imperialism, the group often ended up making common cause with the colonial British. It functioned as an intelligence agency, infiltrating left-wing and nationalist groups. Where's the US Been in All of This? Throughout the Mubarak era, the United States has had a contradictory, uncertain policy toward the Muslim Brotherhood. Robert Pelletreau, who served as ambassador to Egypt from 1991 to 1993, told me in an interview several years ago that he sought to open a dialogue with the group during his tenure in Cairo, and when Mubarak visited Washington, Pelletreau asked then-Secretary of State Warren Christopher to raise the issue with the Egyptian leader. "I'll never forget what happened next," he told me. "Mubarak sat up sharply, rigidly. 'These people killed my predecessor!' Then he raised this huge fist, and he slammed it down on the table hard, and everything on the table jumped and rattled. Bang! 'When they come out, we have to hit them.'" Edward Walker, who succeeded Pelletreau as US envoy in Cairo, was far more skeptical about dialogue with the Brotherhood, and for the most part, he supported Mubarak's efforts to suppress it. "I can't count the number of times Mubarak yelled at me about how the British were giving the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists safe haven," Walker told me in 2005. Since then, there's been little or no official contact between the US and the Muslim Brotherhood (though a few years ago, the Bush administration convened a series of meetings to discuss whether or not to engage them). The Obama administration has walked a fine line, too, signaling a willingness to make sure that the Brotherhood is included in any negotiations with the Egyptian military, while declaring that there have been no direct contacts between US officials and the Brothers. Obama administration officials have also expressed concern about the possibility that the group could come out on top once the dust settles in Cairo. Syrian rebels elect new military commander By Khaled Yacoub Oweis | Reuters – Sat, Dec 8, 2012 AMMAN (Reuters) - Syrian rebel groups have chosen a former officer to head a new Islamist-dominated command, in a Western-backed effort to put the opposition's house in order as President Bashar al-Assad's army takes hits that could usher his downfall. In Turkey, a newly formed joint command of Syrian rebel groups has chosen Brigadier Selim Idris, one of hundreds of officers who have defected from Assad's army, as its head, opposition sources said on Saturday. Idris, whose home province of Homs has been at the forefront of the Sunni Muslim-led uprising, was elected by 30 military and civilian members of the joint military command after talks attended by Western and Arab security officials in the Turkish city of Antalya. The unified command includes many with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and to Salafists, who follow a puritanical interpretation of Islam. It excludes the most senior officers who have defected from Assad's military. And, who is the Free Syrian Army? After Assad, is strict Islamic rule ahead for Syria? Tom A. Peter, Special for USA TODAY11:39a.m. EST January 3, 2013 ALEPPO, Syria — The voice of Islamist groups is growing louder in Syria as a number of Syrians in the battleground province of Aleppo are expressing increasing interest in establishing a government that leans toward a strict Islamic state. Syria analysts say the move is a shift in Syria, which has had a longstanding presence of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood but whose people have largely shunned radical Islamic jihadism. "Traditionally, Syrians have trended toward more moderate interpretations," said Mohammed Ghanem, director of strategy for the Syrian American Council. "If you look at the history of the country, we've never had those trends or patterns of the population shifting to those hard-line positions," he said. "This has never happened in the history of the country." STORY: U.N.: Analysis suggests 60,000-plus killed in Syria The shift comes as radical groups from outside Syria have increasingly become part of the fight against the regime of Bashar Assad, whose military has lost ground recently in its attempt to beat down a uprising against his dictatorial rule.................................... Foreign jihadists are in both fights. Their ultimate aim of creating an Islamic theocracy here is not new a new idea in Syria but they may be closer to their goal than ever before. The Muslim Brotherhood has been active in Syria for decades and it believes in a form of Islamic law and rejection of Western culture. But the secular Syrian regime created by Assad's father in 1971 has cracked down relentlessly and violently on dissent of any kind, including Islamist ideals. Wahhabist Sunnis, who form the backbone of the al-Qaeda terror group, have had no significant homegrown movement here. Assad did allow its members to transit through Syria to fight the Americans in Iraq, though, and his main ally in the region is the theocratic Shiite state of Iran. So, let's cut the bullshit here, that the U.S. Government is supporting a populist uprising in Syria! It's really about the U.S., Israel, Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia & the Gulf States, engaged in a religious, sectarian war against Iranian allies, with the ultimate aim being to take out Iran some time later this year....possibly. And, the deal with the devil, being made by the Americans again, is to support all of the groups on their terrorist watch lists in common cause against Iran. They may have different interests, but for now, they all have the same objective. The end result will be that Syria will end up an ethnically cleansed Sunni theocratic state, and either kill or expel all of the minorities: Shia, Alawite, Druze, Christian, and then we will hear American leaders once again decrying the danger of Al Qaeda and Islamic extremists.....until they once again are useful for some American foreign venture some time in the future! Andrei Arbashe, Christian Taxi-Driver 'Beheaded By Syrian Rebels & Fed To Dogs'

Well, if it's England for example, Brits today are less happy even though they are 3 times richer than the 50's: Britain is less happy than in the 1950s - despite the fact that we are three times richer. That BBC article was written more than six years ago btw.....long before recent austerity measures could be blamed for reducing personal satisfaction. So, once again, increasing consumption, energy use, and GDP, did not lead to greater happiness and wellbeing. And that comes as no surprise to anyone familiar with The Equality Trust, founded on research by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett: Equality Not Growth In Brief Further economic growth will not improve our health or well-being. For a better quality of life we need greater income equality.

I used to have a friend from Moosonee, who had an inside view of the problems for natives living in the far north.....wish I had been paying more attention back then! It wasn't my greatest concern in life at the time. It seems the problem for Crees and other groups living in the north, is that this is extremely inhospitable territory, and the bands living there had to be on the move on a regular basis prior to the arrival of white fur traders and settlers. The Hudson's Bay Co. wanted control of the land, and wanted natives to just stay in certain zones and run their trap lines. And, ofcourse the fur business went into decline for a number of reasons - pressure from European animal right groups, or just the bloody fact that real fur coats are expensive - especially in comparison with lighter, synthetic fibers. So, most of the bands are still stuck in isolated outposts many decades later, with little or no economic activity that was promised by the Federal and provincial governments, after they took over. Moosonee, for example was supposed to be Ontario's port city to the sea....like Churchill Manitoba. But, with Churchill already established on easier terrain with a better rail link, that idea never got off the ground. So, what do we do now? Does the Canadian Government have any responsibilities for people living in the far north? Or, are they just going to follow a policy of slowly trying to underfund them so they are starved out and have to move south? Worth noting that there are many times more former residents of Moosonee like my old friend; and if I knew a little more about Attawapiskat, I wouldn't be surprised if most of their population has moved out over the years also.

He's lying.....wouldn't be the first time!

I thought I went into enough detail before in a long post, to distinguish between brainwashing and emotional manipulation. Like I said, back when I was young, and was fascinated with a couple of books on this subject, there were a number of experts who took brainwashing seriously; and there were claims....I don't know how reliable they were....that one or two frame images of popcorn displayed to movie audiences were proven to increase the sales of popcorn at the theatre. If a marketer can't leave a trail of breadcrumbs through subliminal messaging to the desired goal, they still are able to affect viewer's emotional state -- especially frequent viewers, who watch hours of television. If it wasn't for the billions of dollars spent on advertising, it could be written off as a coincidence perhaps; but the changes in buying habits compared to pre-television consumers have to take the volume of advertising and change in ad strategies since the 60's. I recall that back in the 70's, when the three major U.S. beer producers ramped up their advertising in a war over marketshare, the end result was that beer sales increased for all of the brands, because the new lifestyle ads were drawing in demographics that were not beer drinkers previously, like women and younger people. Nowadays, people go out and shop and buy stuff that they can't even explain why they need it in a coherent sentence. I'm sure marketing has had a lot to do with the trend, and considering problems we have today with the environment and resource scarcities, overconsumption couldn't come at a worse time!

Did you miss this aspect of relationship between economic growth and wellbeing: “The findings uncover some troubling truths about the connection between our economy and our wellbeing,” says Romanow. “When Canada’s economy was thriving, Canadians saw only modest improvements in their overall quality of life, but when the economy faltered our wellbeing took a disproportionate step backward. I keep seeing the point that improvements to wellbeing are marginal during times of economic expansion (up to a general level, where improvements stop and even decline during times of economic increase), while the declines during recession are much greater, in studies made of developed, developing and undeveloped economies all over the world. The message to economists is that personal wellbeing do not track GDP numbers! Otherwise, we would be twice as satisfied as the population of the 1950's, and not less satisfied, with increases in depression and anxiety-related disorders. Maybe the economists should have learned that old truism: money can't buy happiness! And, as noted above with the Canadian study, an end to the recession will not see a 13% increase in sense of wellbeing. If you noticed the contentious, often irrational debate about gun control in the U.S. and the causes of the recent spike in extreme violence incidences (as exhibited on at least a couple of the discussion threads here!), many Americans, from professionals to just average folks trying to figure out what's going wrong, are at a loss to try to explain the cause, or causes. It appears that the U.S. will finally have no choice other than dealing with their lax attitude about guns; since there doesn't seem to be any other strategy to reduce the violence. Even the NRA made note of negative social trends that are believed to be root causes (not that the NRA has been any help dealing with them!), but those will be expensive, long term issues to deal with....if they are ever dealt with, while taking the gun away, or severely restricting access and use, will reduce the likelihood that the gun is available when the perpetrator goes postal! The psychological devastation from austerity measures taken in Europe are even worse than the U.S.; so if similar drastic spending cuts, cuts to infrastructure, and tax increases occur in the U.S., it's unimaginable to try to guess what the level of gun violence will be under a similar scenario. To understand America's economic decline and unraveling collective identity, we have to go back to the promises made (and promises broken) of Neoliberal economic theory, as the U.S. has seen one of the largest increases in income inequality of any nation on the planet during the last 30 years, and consider all of the warnings from the social scientists of the possible repercussions of allowing poor sectors of the economy decline to third world status in an extremely wealthy, extremely materialistic society. Poor neighbourhoods have already seen their schools defunded, their parks and recreation facilities left to rot and become territories for drug gangs, their housing to crumble...not to mention the increase in homeless population who have no permanent places to live, even if they have children. As long as the poor were marginalized in urban no-go zones, and up to half of the young male population was carted off to prisons, America could function smoothly.... more or less! But, since 2008, a large segment of the white middle class has lost their jobs, lost their homes, and taken huge psychological hits that are still uncalculated in monetary and societal terms....but they still have guns, and some of them have been looking for causes of their anguish and looking to lash out. Conservatives were warned for many years that there would be a price to pay for allowing so many people to fall through the cracks; now it looks more and more like the U.S. is a nation becoming unhinged, after allowing it's social infrastructure to largely disappear. In his book, America’s Engineered Decline, William Norman Grigg, editor of the New American, contends that America’s decline has occurred because it is exhibiting the same characteristics of poverty, crime, and illiteracy and ill health that are found in third world countries. Grigg cites a quote by Mahatma Gandhi who said the roots of conflict and violence within a nation are “wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, commerce without morality, science without humanity, worship without sacrifice and politics without principle.” Whatever the causes, the decline of America as a dominant world power, with serious internal economic and social issues, has already begun, and is not likely to be reversed, without substantial political, economic and social changes Nope! Compare a study with stress and wellbeing with what's happening to the Australian economy, after allowing itself to become dependent on resource exports for its economic viability: Australia facing a hard landing: Andy Xie Australia may suffer a financial crisis in 2013 Inequality and the top 1% in Australia The Aussie story of the last 30 years: embrace Neoliberal economic theory and globalization -- transition from protectionist economy to unregulated economy dependent on resource exports to China, Japan and Korea -- see dramatic increase in wealth and income inequality -- see declines in health, mental health and wellbeing....if you don't like that article, this one dealing with Australian youth paints an even bleaker picture: What’s causing the decline in the health and wellbeing of young people? Read further: Though, there is a declining trend in the percentage of population living below the poverty line, the progress is not matched due to the increase in the monthly household expenditure. It is evident that monthly household income, expenditure and food expenditure have increased between 1995-96 and 2010. However, food expenditure has increased at a faster rate than that of income.................Higher growth rate of household expenditure than the income may indicate that more people are suffering to manage their livelihood in the recent times. VIII. POPULATION UNDER POVERTY LINE Despite progress in reducing the overall incidence of poverty during the last two decades, the number of population living under poverty line is still increasing. Soaring food price and food IX.FOOD INFLATION AND POPULATION LIVING BELOW THE POVERTY LINE Bangladesh has already experienced a double-digit food inflation on point-to-point basis since July 2007. The soaring prices of essential commodities, especially, food prices have imperilled the poor and worsened equity. Food inflation has a profound nexus with poverty and inequality. Food inflation hits hard the poor since their purchasing power decreases due to the erosion in real income. XI.DOES INEQUALITY DRIVES POVERTY? The mainstream argues that sustained and equitable economic growth inevitably leads to poverty reduction. There is widespread concern that economic growth has not been shared fairly, and that the current economic crisis further widens the gap between the rich and poor. However, the impact of growth on poverty reduction can be lessened, if the growth is accompanied by rising inequalities. In Bangladesh, the number of people living in poverty has increased due to rising disparities in the distribution of resources within this country. Unequal accesses in different forms of services hamper the expected level of growth in reducing poverty. XII. QUESTIONING THE POVERTY LINE There is no denying the fact poverty measurement is plagued with many problems, particularly due it’s over emphasis on income. The official poverty measurement is determined through income and uses an unrealistically low estimate of USD 1.25. For example, if a person has an income of one USD per day is defined as poor, after one year his income has increased to USD 1.3 and is counted as non-poor. But, in reality, he may be faced with more problems to maintain his livelihood compared to previous year (though he is rewarded as non-poor). Increase in his income is not adjusted with the inflation. Another example, considering the present circumstances, a conservative estimate suggests a minimum spending of about Tk. 50 (USD 0.71) to obtain 2122 Kilocalories per day. That person also needs non-food essentials, including education, clothing, healthcare, accommodation, transportation etc. If a calculation is made based upon expenditure, considering these non-food essentials with food, it is very difficult to survive with the income of USD 1.25 per day per person. Recently Abul Barkat contradicted the estimate of the government about the number of poor in the country, saying that 83 percent population of the country is now poor and not the 32 percent as the government claims (The Daily Star, 9 October 2011). Deficiency of equalizing income augmenting employment system The growth process in Bangladesh has not been matched with increases in jobs. Moreover, the people have entered into labour market with wages below the poverty, creating a huge amount of people, who can be termed as “working poor.” The report also notes the effects of increasing population and environmental degradation, are having on the economic wellbeing of the poor, but doesn't go in to enough detail, focusing instead primarily on how wealth is distributed. This can be expected from a liberal/progressive think tank, which does not challenge globalization and the shift to a textile export economy directly, but wants to tinker around the edges with how the benefits are distributed. This might be a good point to step back and take a look again at the issue that motivated me to do a little reading about the situation in Bangladesh -- that fire which killed more than a hundred employees, and the role globalization and foreign multinational corporations played in contributing to the cause of that fire! As was noted earlier on, from memos sent by Walmart reps to the Tazreen owners, Walmart and the other buyers of cheap clothing made at their factories expected costs to be continuously reduced. They cared nothing about safety standards, decent wages, decent working conditions etc.....everything was about THE MONEY! And if Tazreen raised their prices, whether to increase wages or spend on upgrading the facilities, or if, as advised by a liberal think tank...... the Bangladeshi Government increased taxes or regulations on these operations, Walmart was threatening to cancel future contracts and go to Sri Lanka, or other dirt poor regions of the world, where they can get people to work for slave wages! So, what does that tell you about globalization? Or the likelihood that benefits of globalization will filter through the to the lowest rungs of the ladder.....the rural poor in third world countries, which supplied one of the core arguments for free trade and globalization policies back 30 years ago? What Tazreen represents on the contrary, is that free trade has not only allowed wages and working conditions to decline in the West, but also to remain marginal in those new startup operations in the third world, as well as causing inequality in developed and third world nations to increase dramatically. Globalization has allowed a return to the abominable conditions that Charles Dickens wrote about at the start of the Industrial Revolution in England 150 years ago. And this time it's worse! Because a sweatshop that puts children to work for 12 hours a day, and allows physical and sexual abuse of children and female workers to go on, would eventually not be tolerated if it was next door or at least in our home town. But when the sweat shop is half way around the world......out of sight, out of mind for most people! It's a return to slavery and the colonial economy whether or not the terminology is used. And the only time a sweatshop in Bangladesh, or anywhere in the third world makes the news over here, is when more than 100 people die in a single fire! Did you notice that some of the interviews with rural Bangladeshis who moved to the cities to work in sweatshops were invariably unhappy with the choice, and moved because they felt they had no other options? Their land is being expropriated from them through the same forces of globalization and trade liberalization that are building these sweatshop factories. While multinational corporations are interested in cheap labour, especially for making textiles, they are also increasingly interested in oil....which the Government has dealt away without benefits filtering down through the population, and land is becoming the hot commodity, even in crowded third world countries for private and national corporations to grow cash crops. This is happening on a large scale in Africa, and it is happening to a smaller degree even in Bangladesh, as Indian and other companies fence off area to grow cash crops and displace landless peasants who had previously rented the land to grow a variety of food. But, even the landless sharecroppers preferred growing their own food, and having at least a little control over their daily routines, rather than go to a foul, polluted city and work 12 to 14 hours a day in a sweatshop, to try to earn enough money to buy food of dubious quality at the local markets. And then the other great intangible has to be factored in -- that the move to third world cities in Asia and Africa has come at the cost of breaking up family relationships that extend back generations. These are people who have never dealt with this "nuclear" family situation before, and it is a primary motive behind the rise of religious fundamentalism and extremism, as ways to deal with the alienation and social isolation that happens after they move to the cities. And, once again, these are factors that can't be calculated by economists! But, they are important for wellbeing and personal satisfaction.

First, I'm glad you got something out of my look at media manipulation. On this issue, my beef isn't with Christians who are informed by faith; it's that today's rightwing Christians have turned the Bible and JudeoChristian heritage on its head, with the inversion of 'blessed are the poor' to blessed are the rich! The kind of Christian teaching that has come out of American evangelical circles after the time of men like William Jennings Bryant, is almost the exact opposite message that he championed when he was a populist advocate for farmers and factory workers against the rich and powerful during the years when populists took control of the Democratic Party and made some reforms like busting up monopolies and crooked banks. In today's Prosperity Gospel - tinged evangelical message, Jesus must have said 'blessed are the rich, for they are self-starting job creators who have gained their wealth through the blessings of the Lord, as a reward for their talent and hard work!' I haven't seen it; but it must be in some new translations of the Bible being used these days!

Obamacare was a proposal that originated at the Heritage Foundation's think tank, and was offered up by Bob Dole as a counter to Hillary Care early on in the Clinton Administration. It is not a single health care system; but a mishmash that puts restrictions on health insurance companies, while providing them a larger market base. Obamacare looks remarkably similar to car insurance here in Ontario. It's mandated that you have to buy insurance from one of the private insurers, if you want to own a car. When it comes to personal health, the stakes are much higher, and this plan is a sellout to the Insurance industry, regardless of controls and tinkering around the edges. Big Labor in the U.S. is almost dead! Unions are in decline, and are almost at the point where workers will have to go out on wildcat strikes and fight police and hired goons just like they did a hundred years ago! It's history repeating itself. And George Soros is not any kind of leftist that I would recognize! The facts are more correctly that he is a disaster capitalist who has personal issues with conservatives and with the Republican Party as an institution. It could also be that he just decided that his own needs could be better addressed by buying the DLC and the Beltway Liberals, rather than chip in to the same pot that the other billionaires are contributing to at the GOP. Take a closer look at any of the Soros-sponsored media arms of the Center For American Progress. If you look at Think Progress, it's sub groups like Joe Romm's Climate Progress, you will discover that these "leftists" never point their guns at currency market manipulators like Soros, who have enriched themselves at the expense of third world nations. Nor does Think Progress have much to say about defense spending, war crimes and military overreach by U.S. forces....trade globalization agreements....a quick term search at Think Progress reveals that they haven't even featured a blurb about the new round of TPP closed door discussions since February.....and that is another of the hazards of depending on a billionaire to support "progressive" ideas! I could also mention how the Soros-funded antiwar groups like Move ON.org took down their tents and rolled up the carpet on that issue as soon as Obama was elected, and wars, war crimes, attacks on civil liberties etc. were okay as long as they were carried out by a Democratic president.

Is there a point behind where the server network is located for MLW? Did I miss something in this side debate over nothing?

Thanks for that! I'll take a look at it. I know I don't appreciate playlists like the crap Apple does with every new edition of Itunes - which tries to eliminate your ability to manually control what you put on your Ipod or other devices. It's bad enough for those who primarily listen to podcasts, rather than music; but now I find that I have less control over managing music playlists....since they want to do that for me also....and direct me to the Itunes store for things 'I might also like.'

Yes, we can even see some of how the advertising world learned how to hone their skills of consumer manipulation in TV shows like the period piece drama - Mad Men - about that golden age of advertising in the late 50's and early 60's, when the Madison Ave. marketing firms started hiring psychologists as marketing consultants, and advertising started changing from trying to annoy the audience with catchy jingles and repeating the product name as often as possible in a 60 sec. ad. Advertising went from trying to assault the senses with a product, to attacking the subject's feelings of inadequacy in lifestyle ads that hardly even mention the product itself. I first learned about subliminal manipulation when I picked up a paperback copy of Subliminal Seduction by Wilson Bryan Key, when I found it in with the 2 to $5.00 books on sale at a bookstore back in the 70's. The book was a bestseller when it was released, a few years earlier; and that in itself is something that you would not see today! Because, back then, the proliferation of right wing think tanks was only beginning....and they weren't armed with all of the hired propagandists they are stocked with today to go out and saturate the media with opposing or confusing rhetoric, every time they hear a message they don't like. It took at least a couple of years for the corporate world to mount their counter-attack. What they could attack, were the weaknesses in Key's research and conclusions....first, that he had degrees in communications and journalism, which gave him a peripheral awareness of how advertising works; but he did not have advanced degrees in psychology or ever work directly in psychological research himself; and had to rely on a few trusted sources for their technical analysis of how the mind reacts to unconscious messaging. And even so; back at that time, in the 60's and early 70's, the effects of brainwashing and unconscious manipulation had been overstated by even many of the professionals. And in the media, this was still the era of where movies like "The Manchurian Candidate" - proposing that brainwashing could turn anyone into a programmed, involuntary assassin - were taken seriously. Now, it is more generally recognized that subconscious awareness can affect anxiety levels, but not direct the subject right to something like a product choice. So the advertiser will rely on attacking the subject's sense of self-worth, and presenting happy, self confident people with the product. A lot of controversy and condemnation of Key's work by the ad industry, surrounded his emphasis on the use of embedded messages in ads. These embeds were everything from profanities to sex and death, airbrushed into print ads. An example would be that beer and liquor ads feature the stuff in a glass with ice cubes, that had to be painted on to the photos by a highly trained airbrush artist...since real ice melts to fast under the hot lights used for the scene. Key may not have even had any awareness of a phenomena called Paradolia - which arises from the pattern recognition programming in the visual cortices of the brain, and gives us an in-built predisposition to see faces (in particular) and animals, words etc. in a random pattern. It can even happen when looking at a blue sky. Also, some airbrush artists working for ad agencies, have admitted that they sometimes play games like paint in words and images into a scene just for kicks, and see if anyone can find them afterwards. I recall a story about one artist who had recently broken up with his girlfriend, writing "______ _______ is a whore" in a liquor ad he had been working on. So, it's not a strong case to rely on embeds to prove that the marketing firms were deliberately manipulating consumers! But, that's not the only tools the advertisers were using. The consultants studied scenes for how test audiences reacted to other forms of manipulation, and in the years since Key wrote this book, there have been a number of published neurological studies using brain imaging to test the effects of subliminal messages. And it happens outside of advertising - as was shown a couple of years ago in a combined, coordinated study of U.S. and Iranian university students, who could be manipulated in the degree of acceptance of a terrorist attacker or the bombing of an enemy village depending on how two essays were worded. I recall a specific case on daytime TV, where Wilson Bryan Key demolished a critic live on air, when he ambushed him with a large blow-up of a very popular Benson & Hedges cigarette ad of the time....that was framed around a scene of a staged bench-clearing brawl hockey fight near one of goal creases. Key showed that when you just hold the ad up normally, everything looks like a typical snapshot of a hockey fight....until he turned the picture on end, and you could clearly see that the goalie's stick did not have the usual COOPER logo on it, but said C A N C E R! This was too blatantly obvious to deny, and B&H changed the ad as soon as possible....again, indicating that they were aware that an artist had airbrushed out the original logo to insert the word - cancer into the scene. But, how does an image connecting a cigarette with death....and death from a primary cause of harm from smoking? You have to accept at least some part of what is known as Terror Management Theory for an answer to that question. Because the company, their advertising agency, and more specifically - their psychologists who had been used as a consultant, obviously believed in TMT, and if we go by the increase in the popularity of cigarettes with young people every time a new, larger warning label is put on a pack of cigarettes, we can only conclude that TMT explains a lot about our psychological predispositions and our culture as well. Where I differ from Wilson Bryan Key also, is that he was centrally focused on media and advertising, as the cause of growing neuroses, and unhappiness in the general population (consider that this was during a time of growing material prosperity) and the increase in impulsive decision-making by consumers. I would say that marketing is a big part of how we have changed over recent decades; but other factors, like the increasingly competitive hierarchies arising from growing inequality and the introduction of television and later - computers, cell phones, tablets...pretty much every new personal technology has further increased the general population's sense of isolation and decreased ability to cooperate for common purpose.

That's how it all began back in the middle ages, and how it has returned, now that the old aristocracy has almost succeeded in gutting the working middle class of factory workers, construction and skilled tradesmen. As a sidenote, a quick glance at this so called "Fiscal Cliff" drama in the U.S. seems to indicate that the professional class is the only Democratic Party constituency that Obama bothered to try to protect. It's been noted previously, that he has never mentioned the 'poor' in any of his rhetoric, and now it looks like when he talks about the 'middle class,' he's referring to the professionals....who have unions btw....that's what professional associations are, after all! Don't try to slant my words to fit your libertarian BS. Like I said before, when I was in more competitive surroundings, I felt the unconscious need to strive for more material status symbols much more than I do now.....and that is a statement about society! Because we are social animals, and being selfish and materialistic has a recoil effect on those who spend their lives filling their heads with libertarian and objectivist BS.....even those who think they are the winners of the game! It's one thing for teenagers and young people with few responsibilities to follow this nonsense, but people who don't grow out of the self-centered stage in life, usually live long enough to realize that their toys don't provide real meaning and satisfaction in life. Unfortunate that our politics and our new technologies are giving disproportionate emphasis on individualism.

Provincial governments don't negotiate trade deals! FTA and NAFTA, were both out of the hands of Ontario (as is the secret TPP going on right now behind close doors), or any other provincial government, so get real! You are grossly inflating the role a province has in setting policy for the manufacturing sector of the economy. Hudak's right to work for third world wages scheme, is just borrowed model legislation that has previously been handed to Republican governors in the U.S., to gut their middle class of any stragglers who are blue collar workers. Any jobs left after Hudak or any other conservative policymaker, will be the barely minimum wage jobs that Americans have to take in the former industrial heartland. I think Ontario must be full of nothing but drunks, if this is the no.1 issue in the Province!

Oh sure, now that Ontario has gone from having to support the nation through its manufacturing base, to becoming a have-not province itself (thanks in some part to other provinces using 'oil' to inflate the value of the Canadian Dollar), now all of a sudden, it's time to end the Equalization Program!

It's all about that naval base and control of the oil going through the Gulf. But, the problem here for U.S. foreign policy is what legitimacy does the U.S. have, giving lectures on human rights, when they are willing to look the other way and deflect attention from dictators who are needed to carry out their objectives? It's also an unprecedented violation of international law; yet the U.S. did nothing when an ally started arresting doctors and jailing them for treating patients in hospitals. But the real question is whether the non-action against the Bahrain dictatorship is an indication that everything is being set up for a regional war between Sunni and Shia nations?

Could have fooled me! I guess you're saying that I was collateral damage then. But, most atheists don't consider atheism or even secular humanism, to be their most important identifying feature. But, atheists who have taken the time to join or try to establish atheist meetup groups, or even those who become active in the online atheist communities, are trying to organize a movement around what they don't believe in. I can't see much of reason why this would be the most important cause, unless we're living in a place that threatens our basic freedoms. Then I'm lost on who the "Novella" was that you referred to. I assumed you were referring to Steven Novella - the neurologist who somehow finds time to be a very active blogger and podcaster, as well as president of the New England Skeptical Society... which sponsors the Skeptic's Guide to the Universe. His blog posts on NEUROLOGICA can be lengthy. Actually, most of his ideas are very mainstream for humanists and utilitarian moral theorists. It's just that he goes way further than most, in his bold claims about moral objectivity than most humanists; but all humanists face the same problem as Harris in trying to find purpose in an uncaused universe, or trying to use an understanding of our evolutionary heritage, and how kin altruism and reciprocal altruism would have come as a result of useful biological adaptations for our ancestors, and this blind emergent evolutionary process - devoid of any intrinsic values itself, somehow leads to the discovery of objective moral principles to apply as universal principles to use as a guide for making ethical decisions. It's not only a problem for Harris; it's a problem for humanism in general.

So, that makes it excusable just to pretend those treaty obligations never existed?

There is no such thing as the perfect music for all times and all occasions! The only time I listen to hard rock or anything close to metal these days, is when I'm down in the basement - in my little home gym trying to get psyched up to get started and then to finish working out with weights. For some reason, when I'm driving (which usually only happens on the weekend) I start getting nostalgic for music I listened to many years ago. When I go out for a run, and I'm not flipping through my podcasts, I'll go for something that has a fast beat, but isn't too distracting. And for some reason, when there's snow on the ground and it actually starts getting cold outside, that's when the only thing I want to listen to when I go out for a run is a somewhat obscure Christmas album made by Loreena McKennitt in the late 80's called "To Drive The Cold Winter Away." To me, the collection of songs have a stronger connection to winter, than they do to Christmas specifically; especially this morning (on New Years Day) when I went out for a late morning run for about an hour, while there was little traffic...little noise except for crunching snow...the air was still and cold, with a wind chill of 13 degrees on the old Fahrenheit scale....this was the perfect music to accompany the sights and sounds of a bright, sunny and cold winter day: To Drive The Cold Winter Away (1987) LYRICS: White are the far-off plains, and white The fading forests grow; The wind dies out along the height, And denser still the snow, A gathering weight on roof and tree, Falls down scarce audibly. The road before me smooths and fills Apace, and all about The fences dwindle, and the hills Are blotted slowly out; The naked trees loom spectrally Into the dim white sky. The meadows and far-sheeted streams Lie still without a sound; Like some soft minister of dreams The snow-fall hoods me round; In wood and water, earth and air, A silence everywhere. Save when at lonely intervals Some farmer's sleigh, urged on, With rustling runners and sharp bells, Swings by me and is gone; Or from the empty waste I hear A sound remote and clear; The barking of a dog, or call To cattle, sharply pealed, Borne echoing from some wayside stall Or barnyard far afield; Then all is silent and the snow falls Settling soft and slow The evening deepens and the grey Folds closer earth and sky The world seems shrouded, far away. Its noises sleep, and I secret as Yon buried streams plod dumbly on and dream.

It's always got me how we hear about "radical Islam" on a regular basis since 9/11, but no one asks why the U.S. Government is keeping the primary sponsor of Wahabbism - Saudi Arabia's royal family - in power! Without U.S. guns and ammo, the regime would have collapsed years ago. There are too many issues going on in the world, for me to have an indepth knowledge of what's going on in Syria; but I can figure out that we are not being told the whole story....just as we weren't told the whole story about Libya's regime change. We could figure out that the Assad Family isn't very popular outside of their core supporters...since they have absconded with a good portion of the nation's wealth....like many dictators in the region. But, just as the Qadaffi Regime in Libya was supported by the U.S. and western powers, right up until they turned on him and decided to pick a new favourite, the same thing has happened in Syria -- remember the Maher Arar Case! What was most significant to me about that story, was that the U.S. was sending prisoners to places like Libya and Syria, and now they are trying to overthrow the Government by bringing in a bunch of Qataris, Sunni Iraqi militias, and Saudis...and maybe a few others have been payed to go there as part of something called "the Free Syrian Army." Just going by who the U.S. is supporting and who they're trying to overthrow, it looks like they have clearly taken sides with Sunni-dominated regimes against Shiites and other minorities in the Middle East. After all, there is no talk about regime change or ending the dictatorship in Bahrain -- a 75% Shia nation, ruled by a Sunni royal family, who has even gone as far as going into hospitals to arrest doctors and nurses so they can't treat injured demonstrators.....yet Obama and Hilllary, have nothing to say about Bahrain's war crimes! I've heard that there is even circumstantial evidence that the spike in bombings and terrorist attacks in Iraq are being instigated by the U.S. and Turkey against the Malaki Government, which is considered too friendly to Iran and Russia. A personal story came my way back in early November, when a friend from work told me about a surprise visit from his younger brother - who is a pilot in the Forces Air Command. According to 2nd hand information, he and other pilots were told that all leaves during Christmas were cancelled, and same goes for into 2013 until further notice. And that was why they were giving them the opportunity to go on early holiday visits. From what I was told, his brother says he wasn't given detailed information, and the rest of what they have been told to expect is classified, but it seems to have something to do with the Middle East situation. And that has left us wondering what does the U.S. and their new sidekicks - Canada, and likely England too, have planned for this year?

Why? The decline in real incomes is forcing some of those trends in the other direction; such as young people leaving home at a later age, and sharing accommodations because they often can't afford to rent their own apartments. Also, numbers such as the ones I pulled up, would seem to indicate that incomes had risen substantially in the 80's, while in fact, most of the gains in household income were due to women having no choice other than to provide a second income. I know from my own example, that going from two income to one income household means doing some radical downsizing....starting with moving out of suburbia and back to the city....which all in all was a good thing; but I never would have expected years ago that if I was earning close to $75,000 a year, living on one income alone would not be enough to afford what is considered the typical middle class lifestyle. So, a more detailed breakdown of those numbers would reveal that the situation was even worse for the middle class. We have pretty much stagnated for the last 30 years, and have been trying to keep up with the professional class by moving from one income to two income marriages, and taking on a lot more debt than generations past. The pressure to try to keep up, goes on largely at an unconscious level, based on little more than how your neighbours' houses look and what kind of vehicles they have in their driveway. There were a lot of things I thought we needed while in suburbia, that were not really important after leaving it behind. Who chooses freely in the first place? When it comes to the concept of Free Will, I'm not sure if I even accept the compatiblist version, let alone any theory that we have a mind that acts independently of brain function. The whole marketing industry of advertising is based on grabbing the potential consumer at a gut, emotional level below conscious awareness, and putting an obsession in their heads. People can only deal with the pressures of conformity if they begin to understand how they are being manipulated in the first place!

Who's comparing atheism to socialism? If people like you want to take issue for the reasons I've given for my shift in political thinking, that's one thing; but I'm moving towards socialism because I don't see anything salvageable for the longterm in a growth-dependent capitalist system, which are destroying ecosystems and using up non-renewable resources at a faster and faster pace - putting us on the brink of extinction today. If it's a matter of what's important in life, stopping suicidal overconsumption is more important to me than deconverting people from believing in God or a hereafter. And, considering the condition the world's in today, I don't see evangelical atheism as providing much that is of real value in troubled times. If people want to know the truth, I'll tell people what I believe is the truth; if they want to hold on to a comforting myth....well, maybe that's better for some people in these times! And, I don't see how not believing in gods, provides a cause to rally around anyway! But, nowadays, in the internet age, there are all kinds of atheist online groups trying to do just that. If you join one of the atheist equivalents to facebook - Atheist Nexus or Think Atheist, the first thing you'll find is that the only thing to unite around is being against religion.....everything else is enemy camps -- left wing atheists vs. libertarians, vegans vs. omnivores, feminists vs. a rising clique of so called men's rights activists....and on and on....the only thing that unites these groups is religion is bad, and everyone will be better off by being an atheist. If you disagree, you discover that there are even slur words to describe atheists of little non-faith, like "faitheist" or "accommodationist;" I think both were made up by Jerry Coyne (Evolution Is True), who seems to have become the grand inquisitor of new atheism....always on the lookout for heresy - like the NCSE declaring that the organization has no interest in attacking religious beliefs and just wants to focus on proper science education. And don't pretend you're some kind of intellectual because you can toss out a reference to the Skeptic's Guide to the Universe! I listen to each episode too....at least part way....sometimes they get boring! Atheism only describes what someone doesn't believe in; and that leaves a void to be filled in with some sort of naturalistic worldview, because anyone who thinks about the big questions has to go with a set of assumptions about what sort of world we live in, and how it should work. A worldview may be informed by facts and science, but if an atheist adopts some sort of humanist philosophy as a grounding principle, assumptions start replacing facts. Just as I feel that a person's religious beliefs don't necessarily tell me alot about how they act in society....whether they are altruistic and show concern for others, or are selfish and self-absorbed, it's obviously the same thing when someone says they're an atheist. Atheism by itself, doesn't tell me a whole lot about what sort of people they are. ???????????????????? Okay, so that takes care of physics! But how about issues that impact on how people live their lives and make choices in life! For example, about two years ago, Sam Harris went on the lecture circuit to promote a book he had just published called "The Moral Landscape," wherein he claimed that science, using the scientific method and the latest technological breakthroughs in neural imaging, could....at least in theory....go beyond informing philosophers about moral issues and ethical choices, and make the jump right to using science itself to make the best choices, in a completely objective system that would bridge David Hume's Is/Ought Paradox, or according to Harris, demonstrate that there is not really a problem because there would be no gaps between factual statements of 'what is' and normative claims about 'what ought to be.' Is he right? Will science not only abolish religion, but abolish philosophy also? Or is he already substituting his own attitudes about the way the world ought to be, when he makes claims about where science will lead moral theory?