A simple political question: do you want a new PM?

PM Harper is now resorting to desperate racist tactics in a bid to keep his job.
He is now appealing to "old stock" Canadians- whatever that means.

The "old-stock Canadians" remark, instead of going unnoticed, immediately unleashed an onslaught of questions over what "old stock" meant, whether it had racist overtones and whether it was part of an overall Conservative campaign to engage in identity politics or stoke fears against other groups.

Stoking fear and racism is a common tactic of Republicans. The "silent majority" was a Nixon meme. I thought we were different here than Americans? Fear politics or politics of division is a society shattering way to hold onto power.  It distracts happy productive people with fear and uncertainty about their neighbors.  It is a tactic of dictators and oligarchs. It is undemocratic.

Harper is counting on a left split of votes to hold power; he is using fear, uncertainty, and doubt to keep a minority of votes.

The single biggest question Canadians need to ask themselves is this: on October 20, when the election is over, do you want to see Harper as prime minister again? If you don't, then you need to decide which opposition politician has the best chance of winning in your riding and vote strategically. You can't let him win through fear and racism.

#DonaldTrump supporter: Muslims want to kill us

Trump is getting more media scorn for not correcting a "mis-informed Trump supporter".

"We have a problem in this country. It's called Muslims," an unidentified man who spoke at a question-and-answer town hall event in Rochester, New Hampshire asked the mogul. "You know our current president is one. You know he's not even an American."

A seemingly bewildered Trump interrupted the man, chuckling, "We need this question. This is the first question."

"Anyway, we have training camps growing where they want to kill us," the man, wearing a "Trump" T-shirt, continued. "That's my question: When can we get rid of them?"

There were two issues raised; one crazy and the other sane; Obama is a Muslim and Muslims want to kill us.
Trump's response was not agreement, it was business-sociopathic code for  "Oh jeez a crazy person". But his first response was not this is an important question.  He did not want to engage and argue with this person. If you've heard as many business leaders as I have you know they're really saying fuck off and die even as they sound sincere more times than not. The first statement was bogus but Trump wanted to move along.

The unnamed Trump supporter was right on the other fact. There are Muslims training in camps (madrassas) indoctrinated to hate America and Americans.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92myDzAFgU4

The fact is the media is sidestepping the right issue to ridicule Trump  about the stupid question regarding Obama but not the very real part of the Muslims fomenting hate and death to America.

Of course the career politician Clinton thought this was a great time to support the false narrative of the media. This is pure cynical voter exploitation.

Hillary Clinton @HillaryClinton

Donald Trump not denouncing false statements about POTUS & hateful rhetoric about Muslims is disturbing, & just plain wrong. Cut it out. -H

10h ago

So let's argue about decorum and etiquette whether or not Trump didn't admonish this American over his fears.  Instead of a very real problem that can't be glossed over.

Neil deGrasse Tyson's Solipsism.

Neil deGrasse Tyson tweeted:

If your Personal Beliefs deny what’s objectively true about the world, then they're more accurately called Personal Delusions

to which I off-handedly replied:

 @neiltyson Objectively true in your solipsism; to the rest of us just another belief outside our own minds...

Then I realized few would understand what I said. Let me give you a concrete example:

Neil looks at a science-driven gauge that reads "7.0" units.

I look at the same science-driven gauge and I read "7.0" units as well.

Fact A: Gauge represents an objective transformation of a set of physical laws working in the universe to a reading of a representative scalar value.

Fact B: Science-driven gauge represents reality to Neil deGrasse Tyson.

Fact C: Science-driven gauge represents reality to me.

No matter how accurate nor precise the science-driven gauge is, I can't use it to prove the existence of Neil deGrasse Tyson. Nor can he prove mine. Standing in front of each other though we may be looking at the same gauge, I could be part of his "inception-like" dream about reality around himself.

Science-driven gauge exists in two realities but we can't use those facts, demonstrate they are, the same. This is the heart of solipsism. People assume it must be so because we can understand so much of the universe. But we are still using the old wet ware. It can be fooled and that's been proven.

Since he can't prove my existence using anything but his senses (even if he were to use a sensor he is still reading the dial with his own vision), then my existence can only be a belief he holds about the world around himself.  He can't know I exist outside what his brain provides.

Let me spell it out clearer still: belief in Jesus, or Buddha, or Santa Claus is just as uncertain as belief in a person standing beside you.

There is no tool nor technique that can confirm we exist outside our minds to date. Because we still interface through our senses. This is an open question.

So when he points out that beliefs - and by those he means ideas/memes like religion that are based on superstition, tradition, ancient folk stories, etc. - are better defined as delusions, he does not realize perhaps that we might just be delusions in other people's minds.