WIP

It's not as if these themes are new! It's just that discussion of consumerism and limits to growth have been off the table of mainstream media since about the mid 70's. I can vouch for the fact that built in or planned obsolescence is part of product design. Part of the reason comes from the desire to reduce overall costs. Quality control may lead to certain components being improved to a greater degree than others. If the completed product has an average lifespan of five years, then its a waste of money to improve the quality of components that last for 10 or 20 years. It's more optimal if the whole thing is breaking down at about the same point in the product life. The net effect is that most products built today are not made to last. And, shrewd marketing strategies lead people to throw away usable products because of "perceived obsolescence." This is especially evident when it comes to clothes. Fashion trends keep many people buying new clothes because what they have now has suddenly fallen out of fashion.

How about the fact that we live on a finite world! It's not like there is an alternative to zero growth, or reduced consumption, it is going to happen with our cooperation, or without it. And the latter choice will have even more devastating consequences for future generations. Aside from a handful of examples...such as the reduction in paper production made possible by the decline in newspapers, books, snail mail, and written records, economic growth has by necessity meant using more energy and natural resources to produce more products. Their website is easy to find, and I figured anyone who honestly was interested in more in depth information would be able to find their way to the resources page. We've been over this before, and you didn't take more than a superficial look at the problem of overpopulation the last time either! Your source article in USA Today says the population of Earth is going to stabilize at about 9 billion in the year 2300. This U.N.-sponsored study is worth nothing, since it narrowly focuses on population and demographic trends, instead of making an attempt to incorporate other factors, such as the problems of soil depletion, declining availability of oil-based fertilizers and pesticides, declining availability of fresh water, and stresses caused by climate change. Most of the experts who study agricultural production believe that the population is not going to reach that 9 billion number in the first place, because food production yields are already in decline, and will continue to erode because so many major grain producing nations are losing arable land and water resources. The reality that no one hardly seems to want to face today is that there are already too many people on Earth to support in a sustainable system, and population numbers are going to fall either through gradual reduction or a crash that accompanies mass migrations, genocides, epidemics, famines, and a possible unleashing of remaining nuclear warheads. That way of lurching from one disaster to another could lead to extinction of the human race within the next 200 years. Most of human history has been to solve major crises by cobbling together last minute fixes. Survival of the human race will require making short term sacrifices for long term future needs.....something we have not been able to get a cooperative effort for until now.

I expected some Glenn Beck fan to be first in line to attack the source, but I could care less what the Tides Foundation does or does not do, because everything in mainstream media...whether it calls itself liberal or conservative...follows the same mantra of continuous growth and buying new shit! It's important to have at least one outpost of reason...even if it's only available on a Youtube channel, that makes the common sense point that our world does not, nor cannot grow larger to accommodate more people who want more new products every year.

This is a moot point for me personally, since I live in Hamilton Center, which is about as safe an NDP seat as they'll ever get! In all but one federal election, Dave Christopherson has received more votes than the combined Liberal and Conservative tally....which is why they are not even bothering to find major candidates to run. So, I can go ahead and give the Green Party an extra vote without worrying about some Harper lackey dividing and conquering in my backyard. But for many voters who would like Harper out, or at least make sure he doesn't get to his goal of majority government, choosing the most viable opposition party to support is serious business: More than 60 percent of Canadians do not support Harper and his government's contempt for democracy. Yet, he could win a majority with as little as 35 percent of the popular vote. Project Democracy.ca provides a handy little guide for the anti-Harper voter in more contested districts. Strategic voting becomes more and more crucial as the years go on, since our parliamentary system makes it more difficult for small parties to make the major breakthrough to win seats in Parliament; an already difficult task that is made worse by the increasing costs of running for office against the major parties, who also enjoy free promotion through their cozy relationships with mainstream media.

This short 20 minute video provides a good overview about why things are such a mess today, and why we will need more than cosmetic changes to our way of life to survive the fast-approaching limits to continuous growth that is being applied by a finite planet:

And the U.S. needs a dose of reality right now, since they still want to keep the myth of greatest nation on earth alive (just check out how President Obama feeds this rhetoric in his speeches, for a bipartisan example) while whatever metric you want to use as an example shows that America is in decline (except for that top 1% of course). http://www.equalitytrust.org.uk/why

It's also worth noting that most of the Bible, especially the New Testament keeps hammering away at the social gospel message of the importance of caring for the poor and less fortunate. The modern breed of fundamentalists need to explain their embrace of social darwinism and the socialism found in their own religious scriptures before condemning it elsewhere. Modern day fundamentalist Christianities are religions based on cognitive dissonance.

I'm not anti-religion, just anti your kind of religion! And it's a valid question: if you have such a superior source of morality and ethics as layed out in religion threads, why do you toss that guidebook out in favour of moral relativism here in the dirty world of politics? Because I don't see offers of forgiveness or compassion towards people who fall outside of your universe, whether they be liberals, leftists, homosexuals, atheists, believers in other Gods etc. The only ones worthy of 2nd chances and rehabilitation seem to be those who work in service of the Conservative Party. This is not a unique pattern for conservatives. From the U.S. examples, it seems that Christian charity is only offered to people like David Vitters, Newt Gingrich, Mark Sanford, Rick Santorum or Ralph Reed....oh I could write half a page....the point is that these clowns issue brief statement of regret for their actions...claim they've asked God for forgiveness....never bother apologizing or making amends to the people they should be asking forgiveness from, and then continue on their merry way. The only third rail in fundie-conservative land is if they are nabbed in some sort of gay scandal. There seems to be no way back to their former positions of respect if they've done something queer....I guess there's still no forgiveness for that sin!

Rachel Corrie's death was not an accident; but instead a cover-up of a case of clear criminal negligence. The Israeli Government exonerated the two man crew of the armoured bulldozer, closed the case, and refused to release the complete report of the military investigation to U.S. authorities....which begs the question 'why is Israel the exception' when it comes to deaths of its citizens in foreign lands? If this was Egypt, Iraq, Libya or Mexico, the U.S. State Dept. would be demanding the results of any investigations. Except that no one is asking us to support Hamas, but we are being dragged deeper and deeper into becoming kneejerk backers of whatever policies the Israeli regime carries out within its borders and beyond, to our own detriment. It would be one thing if we at least had some capacity to criticize Israeli policies, but that will not happen as long as we have a Harper Conservative Government! Vittorio Arrigoni may be a casualty of a fight between Hamas and Fatah on the West Bank. Previously there was a Palestinian peace activist who ran a theatre company in Jenin, who was assassinated, likely by Hamas, but I don't believe anyone started a thread here lamenting his death...I guess it is the pattern of the Israeli war hawks and their likeminded supporters that a dead Palestinian is the only good Palestinian, regardless of his activities!

Am I missing a piece of the puzzle or something! Betsy, you are continually posting fundamentalist crap about how we can't be good without your God, and we can't be moral unless we are likeminded Christian fundamentalists; and yet as soon as you step out of your religion bubble you turn into the ultimate moral relativist in service of the Conservative Party.

The underlying metric is fatally flawed from the start, since it uses that premise that material wealth = happiness and wellbeing. It doesn't connect, and we are living in an overcrowded, overpolluted world that cannot afford the culture of materialism any longer. And having the oldest man in the world still did not raise U.S. ranking higher than 36! It's worth noting that the continued growth of the wealth gap, and the growing numbers of Americans who have lost health insurance are going to be likely factors for continued decline the next time we look at these numbers.

This seems to be the only time rightwingers look to Europe as an example to follow! Western European nations have done a better job with economic issues than North America, but one thing they haven't done is figure a way to interpret their national identities while becoming more cosmopolitan, and taking in immigrants from third world nations. The first red flag is that many, like Germany, did not even extend citizenship to children born of guest workers in the country. That alone, created two classes of people. French leaders have tried to put forth that being French has nothing to do with race or place of origin....but everyone knows this is bullshit! North African immigrants that arrived in the 60's, were dispatched to specially built suburban ghettos so that they didn't contaminate the main cities. So liberal Europe is not liberal on every issue! And the fact that none of you rightwing hawks itching to pull the trigger on someone, stop for a second to ask why 'if it's an issue strictly about religion', why we don't have the same problems here with our Muslim communities? I live in a neighbourhood that has a significant number of Muslims, from the Middle East, and even those places that make you cringe like Somalia...but I don't see the scary shit that you guys frequently post up...I didn't see any mob violence or demonstrations over the Quran-burning. One little factoid I recently came across about this story was that the Quran burning happened two weeks before anyone in Afghanistan knew about it, and it was President Karzai....yes the guy that the U.S. installed as leader, and you crazy rightwingers are insisting that we fight for, was the one who gave speeches and made it an issue over there. http://afghanistan.foreignpolicyblogs.com/tag/is-karzai-partly-responsible-for-recent-mob-violence/

Until you address the issue of income gaps, per capita GDP numbers mean squat. American life expectancy numbers are dropping, as are whole host of quality of life numbers. As Joesph Stiglitz points out in a recent editorial in Vanity Fair, the top 1% are in control, and managing everything for their own benefit. And...about those life expectancy numbers...if the U.S. was number one, why do they rank 36 among the list of nations? All of those European countries you conservatives hate...including France...rank higher than the U.S., and most of them rank higher than Canada, which is at number 11 on the list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy

It would have been smarter to maintain the more independent path in international affairs we had under Chretien.....never thought I'd be missing him, but he looks like genius after five years of Harper! It might at least be savvy and opportunistic to become the new White House lap dog if America was where it was 10 or 20 years ago; but now the mounting debt and military over-reach provides conclusive proof that the U.S. is a dying empire...and unfortunately not one like England, which quietly let go of its empire. If we have any influence in Washington, it should be telling them to back off, rather than waving pompoms and encouraging full speed ahead. And about Libya...the U.S. cut a deal with Gadaffi, and started supplying them with arms...many of which are now being used to bomb their own people....so just because the Obama Administration misjudged the strength of the Gadaffi Regime and has now found itself mired in a third war, that is the stupidest reason yet for joining in the fun and games.

As long as there are people like you, who believe that some people (us) are morally superior to other people (them), there will always be wars! Are we morally superior to the Arab World because we are part of a collective that has installed puppet governments in Arab nations for the purpose of plundering their oil and any other natural resources? Or, are the Arabs morally inferior because some of them respond to colossal military power with asymmetrical warfare...terrorism? Easy to feel superior, when you're feeling comfortable, but the hard times that we are just approaching are making me consider that some of the militia crackpots to my south are going to our greatest threat of terrorism in the near future...judging from their rhetoric, the accumulation of arms, and the small scale terrorist attacks they've carried out so far. The next 20 ro 30 years could get very interesting.

No, the lack of news only indicates that information from inside the forbidden zone is tightly controlled by TEPCO and the Government. The cesium contamination the refugees were asking about was soil contamination, not atmospheric measurements. There was one examination that found cesium 137 in nearby soil samples in the days after the evacuation, and then nothing more several weeks later while they are sitting in evacuation shelters wondering if they will ever be able to return home. A more recent report is even more troubling: a few days ago, an examination of soil 30 km from the plant found small amounts of radioactive strontium, which has a half life of thousands of years, rather than the 30 year half life of radioactive cesium. http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20110413p2g00m0dm009000c.html

That's what I was figuring also. People I know, who have spent time in France, have often remarked about how much more time they put into shopping for food and cooking than we do....TV diners are not big sellers over there apparently. Even if microwave ovens were as expensive as they were 30 years ago, having one, or having a bigger house does not tell us about the quality of life that the owners of big houses and new appliances are living.

The price of gasoline is not completely controlled by the oil companies, otherwise they would still be trying to keep prices low enough to keep alternative energy sources out of the marketplace and maintain their energy monopoly. Fact is they wouldn't be cooking tar sands out west, or drilling through two miles of rock under the ocean floors to try to keep the joyride going, if there was still cheap, easily accessible supplies of oil to meet the demand. Until a few years ago, whenever prices got too high, they could always count on Saudi Arabia to bump up their production to bring world oil prices down to what they considered the optimal level. Right now, oil prices are destined to keep climbing, and the only breaks we are going to see is when capitalist economies sputter into recession because of rising energy costs. Whenever economic growth improves, oil prices will go up to higher levels....so the era of cheap gas is in the past. There is always going to be price-fixing in commodity markets. Most of the run-up in oil and gas prices two years ago, was caused by hoarding and demands on the oil futures markets. But price-fixing is only telling a small part of the story. The savings you are getting on the reserve have more to do with having to pay less taxes, than on station owners holding the line on prices. In Hamilton, I can think of at least two gas stations that are always undercutting their competitors by 2 to 4 cents a liter, because the new highways cut the traffic count where they are located. So, the people who do a lot more driving than I do, will line up at the cheap stations rather than pay a few cents more at the ones that are trying to make a small profit, or at least break even on gas sales.

Apparently, you define quality of life strictly by consumerist measurements such as home size, or having the newest electronics crap....don't know if I can buy that one about the French not being able to afford microwave ovens....considering the food culture of France, that still motivates the French to avoid one-stop grocery shopping, in favour of making separate trips to grocers, bakeries, and butcher shops for their food....or maybe the French avoid the microwave for the same reason most of us avoid them for everything except reheating leftovers....because they make everything taste like crap! When it comes to "bigger is better," I've mentioned before that I consider the consumerism that we've been bombarded with from business, media, politicians, and celebrities, to be a curse, rather than a blessing; and no clearer proof can be found that the increase in home size has nothing to do with utility than the fact that sq. footage has almost doubled over the last half century, even while the baby boom that justified larger homes, went bust! People today, work more hours to buy better stuff...or at least to maintain what they've already purchased on credit...and growth in production and consumption does not improve health, life expectancy, or responses to questions on personal wellbeing. So many people are trapped on the media-driven fools quest to get a bigger house, and the latest fashion and consumer fads, and never stop to ask if it will improve their lives, or the lives of the people around them.

Glad you mentioned it! Why the hell does NATO even exist today, 20 years after the fall of the Soviet Union (the stated reason for its creation), and why have successive U.S. administrations continually pushed NATO membership further and further east ever since? The purpose of NATO today is to carry out the global interests of the world's largest multinational corporations; which each have net value greater than most of the nations on Earth. NATO's main role on the world stage seems to have more to do with crippling the U.N. -- which because of the policy of each nation having an equal vote in the General Assembly, has many times frustrated Western global interests to extract resources and trap third world populations as menial labourers, often working under unsafe and unhealthy conditions.

After Guergis realized there was no way back, and apparently no suitable reward for maintaining party loyalty and keeping her mouth shut, she started pulling out the knives against her boss and former allies...does this surprise anyone? So now, part of the election spin cycle from the Conservative Party is to send their army of lackeys out to trash Helena Guergis far and wide, so that whatever she says will have little impact, both inside the CP, and with the voting public.

How about if we have a Canadian Armed Forces that sticks to its principle mandate of defending our shores and borders? Even with a minority government, Harper has turned Canada from being a potential honest broker internationally, into a lap dog of the United States. We are just another proxy ally on beck and call to carry out the wishes of the Whitehouse and the Pentagon...no different than Ecuador, the Georgian Republic, Kazakhstan, and whole host of other lackeys. Why should Canada have any involvement with Libya? And why was Harper so quick to jump in and carry out U.S. foreign policy interests? And why would anyone with an ounce of sense want to give Harper full control of the wheel with a majority government?

Since Helena Guergis is one of your's, the old Chinese proverb applies: there is no honour among thieves!

If we're ever able to mine down and find the historical Jesus, I'm sure he will turn out to be a cult leader who convinced a small band of followers that he was the Messiah....that verse sounds a lot like the ramblings of a paranoid, controlling cult leader when it comes from a Jim Jones or a David Koresh...but that's exactly what they tell their followers to do. The Christianity we have today is the creation of Paul, who turned the Old Testament version of what the Messiah was supposed to do, into a story of sacrifice for the sins of the world.

Throwing a punch is yet another of those things that looks easy, but is difficult to actually do it well. At the elite level, it's an art, that some people have, while most will never be able to copy, no matter how much work they do in the gym. It's no different than many other athletic skills though. I could compare it with swimming...which is something I tried to improve on when I wanted to try competing in a couple of triathlons a few years ago. I watched videos...worked on my form and technique...and there are 70 year olds who can swim faster than me using half the effort! Maybe that triathlon analogy fits a comparison with MMA! Since it is impossible to excel at the elite level in both running and cycling, it takes a different kind of build to be the best grappler, than it does to be the greatest boxer. But, just like triathlon competitions started out with cyclists trying to build enough of a lead to coast through the run, and runners trying to stay close enough on the bike to close the gap in the final running stage...the sport ended up being dominated by hybrid athletes, who are neither the best cyclists nor the best runners, but reasonably good at both....and the same thing seems to be happening in the UFC with these grappler/strikers. I only watched a couple of her fights, so I didn't get a real reading on her skills. Brute strength can cover for a lot of other weaknesses....worked for years for Matt Hughes! I was thinking that, since most of these MMA women are training with men in gyms...I recall reading something about Gina Carano, that she is the only female fighter at Randy Couture's club, so they are used to having to train with guys every day. It depends on how well the competition develops in female MMA. Even if they have to match her up against smaller male opponents, if Cris Cyborg can't find real female competition, the only way she would improve her fighting skills in the cage, would be to go up against male opponents. I thought of this while recalling the problems Anika Sorensen had when she was so far ahead of the LPGA competition, that she wanted to try to make the cut at the PGA to improve her game. The reaction from most of the top male golfers was pathetic; I hope things will be a little better if a mixed MMA event happens. It happens all the time in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu! Since BJJ is a fighting style that relies less on upper body strength, and more on knowing what techniques to use and how to execute them, women who overcome their inhibitions about grappling and rolling around on the mat with guys can really excel at the sport. Upper body strength doesn't go that far in this sport; and since women are relatively equal to men in leg strength, and have greater flexibility in the hips and shoulders, a lot of women can develop better technique than their male opponents.