Shwa

Maybe it is time to consider Universal Judicial Care and place all lawyers on government retainers.

That being the case then, psyops would be a more common term in popular media to refer to the public information aspects that you mention. But it isn't. Psyops is generally reserved for situations that include hostilities in one form or another. I don't think baby seals quite makes it worth the effort for psychological operations tactics. Yet. Food Labels in Canada It is hyperbole to bring psyops into this. I was agreeable to the fact that the Canadian government has been disseminating information through various media channels for a long time. If you want to call this psyops, you are free to do so.

My point is that your argument is skewed. You weighed three levels of local government access levels (Canada) to one foreign level (USA) and then made a general statement about "Canada" and the "USA." I think it would be a little clearer if you drew like examples from two other levels of jurisdiction in the US (state, municipal) and then made the comparison. Or you simply left out any references to provincial and municipal access levels altogether which would render your anecdote about emergency response times almost meaningless.

And my counterpoint is that they have been doing this sort of activity since 1867 and before, one way or another. And yeah, I hav heard the civil service joke, even though I do know that most departments employ individuals in their communications units who scan newspapers, radio and TV daily for references and information for their executive. We can expect them to operate in a vacuum after all. Internet forums, Facebooks groups and all other forms of social media are just that - media. Of course the government is going to monitor and respond. That is it's nature.

Of course it does happen; the government is not infallible. But I have said this already. But I would trust government sources - especially those motivated by and fo the public trust, much more than some n00b on some forum, or worse - corporate information operatives. What I would not deny is that you going from baby seals to psy-ops is hyperbole. So, in the case of food labels, you DO support the government telling you what to think? But different in degrees only. Now you are cherry picking, Besides, I am more than certain that some census information is used as input into developing psy-ops projects on Canadian citizens. I mean, they have our addresses and phone numbers after all... AGREED! I believe it has been going on - in one form or another - for as long as Canada has existed (and yes, even the psy-ops has too). The problem then becomes something of an ethics question. IF they have been doing this for years AND we still enjoy the level of freedom we do THEN is appears to be OK. I trust that most adults can think for themselves, whether reading a newspaper, watching TV or punting around on an Internet forum.

That's a fair thought, however, would you then submit to the majority, even when the majority commits terror? Is is the terror of the majority irrelvant in this case? The point being that some of the people some of the time believe that the only way they can end or relieve the oppression and terror against them is with violence.

The short answer is no, since that type of information - unless previously released under a request for information, does not fit the categories of the US FOIA: But why would the US government have ready datasets about emergency response times for state and city emergency services? Perhaps BC could enlighten us on how the emergency response services are structured in the US and how one could obtain that data. Not that I don't think the US is a leader - at least at the national level - for freedom of information, but I find it a titch dishonest that you would compare freedom of information at the city level and make a general statement about the national level. It might be more useful if you compared apples to apples in this case and find out the emergency response times of a similary sized city in the US. Houston, San Diego or Philadelphia for instance. How are their disclosure practices?

Have you tried to get "access response times from emergency services" from the US government? If so, what did they say?

Are you kidding me? How did you arrive at no accountability from the article that was posted? Truly, are you going on what the article was about or are you extrapolating your fears into a Fringe like psi-cops fantasy scenario? No, I can pretty well guess at this point and be fairly accurate. No. What I would like you to do is do some research into why we have detailed ingredients on food labels, why cigarette packaging is different from 25 years ago, why cereal boxes come in both official languages. Three prime examples should be enough. So you don't think the government makes decisions for the Canadian people - some without any consultation no less - based upon the "facts" contained in Census data? Substitute "social media" with cuniform clay tablets, papyrus, books, pamphlets, newspapers, radio, television, websites... and you'll get the idea.

So we have gone from correcting misinformation about certain subject areas to governmental psi-ops thought police? Is that what you got out of the article? Because going from baby seals to psi-ops is Fringe material. Alterverse. Walternate even. Really? Then putting the ingredients on food labels is bad then eh? Because when you read the labels, their words are going into your brain and you will think about them. You might even make decisions about those thoughts. I won't even discuss reading Hansard with you... That is, of course, if you can't think for yourself and make rational decisions. I stopped smoking pot because it made me paranoid. But just because you are no longer paranoid doesn't mean the government isn't out to get you. I wanted to join paranoid's anonymous, but they would never tell me where the meetings were. Of course not. Unless you use the statistics. And reports. And studies. And other compilations of data that go into making decisions. If you want to question their findings, please feel free to do so.

It's a small - very small - government contract. If you want to really blow a vein or valve, check out Contracts Canada. Wait, don't do that because they are spending all those tax dollars telling you how they spend your tax dollars. There has to be redundancy in there somewhere.

The government has been spreading their angle on everything through private firms since 1867 and before. Seriously Ghosthacked, come on now. From baby seals to psy-ops. You watch Fringe don't you? 143 years of Canadian history and you are only discovering this now?? Perhaps they are the poster that asks others to cite their sources and when they can't they produce alternative sources showing the 'other' to be off the mark. Is that so bad? TV is still the best way to influence people and the government has been doing just fine since the 50's. They even have their own TV & raio network and influence us about things like the the nutritional pyramid, the health of an average 60 year old Swede and baby seals. Then stay away from Stats Can!

But not much more than clipping news paper stories for the daily executive briefing. Even IF there is no response, internet communications and social media is a very good source of information for government departments. And trust me, the newspaper clipper does not make six figures.

No one said that all the information they put out will be agreeable and no one said that all the information they put out will be infallible. If you want an answer to the whole H1N1 thing, then you may want to consider that the federal government also uses the concept of contigencies. If you want to spin that into conspiracy, you are free to do so. But don't be surprised to have some federal bureacrat log on and correct you.

What??!!?

Did you actually read the link in the OP or are you going on musing of your own worst-case scenario fantasy? First off, where in the story does is say that the federal employee that responds on forums is a "six-figure" bureaucrat? Mostly likely it is a low level five-figure employee which is the typical staff type in most federal department's communications units. By and large, the federal executive class don't do front line services. Secondly, a federal employee who spends their day in a subject area, has been trained in that subject, has access to practically all the data available on thet subject is going to have a wee bit more expertise that you, Topaz or "some blogger in Bangkok." Finally, why do you think federal departments have communications units in the first place? The federal (and provincial) government has had access to popular media of all types throughout history including press releases, news magazine, TV and radio interviews, general correspondence. In fact, one of the main reasons that the news media is alive and well is directly due to federal department communications units who provide a heck of a lot of content to the news that people subscribe to. So who do you want the world to hear what Canada is all about? Topaz and some blogger in Bangkok? Gimme a break.

Argus says, So are you saying that these SUV driving fire bombers are not terrorists? They did not attack any population, they attacked property. The likely feel that their voice cannot be heard via the ballot box so thus their actions are acceptable. I am just wondering of these "Anarchists" are on-side with the boundaries you have drawn.

But one would think that advertising efficiently would not include paying for an ad that nobody will read. But it must have some readership or the editor/owner has deep pockets. It is a baffling existence. I am hoping the tenderfoot reporters get all they can out of it before flying the coop for better journalistic pastures. The other local chain in the Durham Region is the 'This Week' brand of newspapers which are exactly as you say above. The paper comes in at a few pounds per issue with a few ounces of news. Somedays the flyers are thicker than the entire weeks worth of news. But it is Metroland so they got big bucks behind them...

But ideals are never transmitted the same from person to person or regime to regime. While we can cite Marx's ideals in his particular expression of them, they have been much modified over the years and some of his doctrine has since been modified or rejected by adherents in subsequent regimes. We could say that communism in-itself has been undergoing it own synthesis process for over a hundred years now. What started out as Marx and a vanilla ideal has now become many flavours. Two of those flavours had skirmishes in the late 60's that resulted in deaths. Ostensibly over borders, but interally, no doubt, over the differences in their flavours. Marx would never have predicted that. So what I am getting at is unless you can provide a stable and widespread political ideology (thesis) it will be difficult to source out it's counterpart antithesis. In fact, one could make a very good argument that the two flavours of communism evidenced in the Soviet Union and China in the late 50's & 60's were the equivalent of thesis/antithesis and what was the final synthesis of that process? So the problem becomes one of scope. We can say "communism" or "democracy" but what do those terms really mean in relation to modern times? There appear to be broad ideologies only and I don't see any grand schematic of political change synthesized out of the clash of broad ideologies. There is change of course, the internal dichotomies doing their thing in the name of progress, and there are some clashes between different ideologies, although not necessarily opposite ones. Which kind of leads me back the Spanish Civil War. The two main combatants did not stop their fight to unite to crush the Catelonian anarchists.

Sounds good in theory, except in political theory there is the dealing with imagined ideals which never seem to play out in the real world. For instance is sort-of-fascism and sort-of-communism as dichotomous as their ideals? And it is true that certain ruling individuals or groups may hold to a certain ideology, but that does not always translate into the entire regime holding to those ideals and those 'ideological weak spots' have always added a little edge to any prediction. If there is a thesis/antithesis progression the actual results usually hold some very interesting surprises. You say that Facism and Communism make for great enemies, but was there the prediction that two totalitarian regimes would sign a non-aggression pact? It would seem that a totalitarian regime would be more of a theoretical dichotomy with a democratic regime regardless of economic or social ideological concerns of either. And even still, there are treaties and such signed between these sorts of regimes all the time.

Nothing beats 'The Central' where the editor - when he is actually editing for spelling, typos, etc. - is known to drop some choice words into his editorials. I beleive one time he actually printed the f-bomb to get his point across. This rag is about 90% advertising (see the 'personals' section in the classifieds) and uncredited news stories. There is the odd original story. http://www.ocentral.com/newspaper/index.html What kills me is the level of advertising in this newspaper. I doubt that any of the advertisers actually read The Central. But it is "Durham's Most Trusted Name in News"

The government has always had an interest in everyone's personal affairs: Vintage VD Posters

It is absurd! I need to find the code or icon to indicate text that is tongue-in-cheek or deeply sarcastic.

I think opening a new target window is ideal in a forum such as this since many of the postings refer to source or citations. If MLW was heaving on the advertising, I would agree, but such as it is, the new target in links is a great feature and I thank you for making the change.

So if millions of people walk away from their mortgages and car payments that would lower the household debt levels, this would skew the overall comparatives between the average in Canada and the US over the past 2-3 years would it not? I read some statistic that some 11% of Floridians were foreclosed. If that much household debt was wiped out, I would imagine that the overall household debt of the average Floridian would actually be lower than prior to that 11% being foreclosed. Would you agree? But I don't know if Americans - or some States in particular - simply allow the foreclosure process to absolve someone of the debt. BC - can you provide some insight into this?