(Part 2) Top products from r/CanadaPolitics

So I've finally decided to get serious about my beer brewing after making a half dozen or so more-or-less successful batches in my basement over the past 3 or 4 years. (Partial mash style for now, all-grain will come later.)

I picked up this book which seems to be a fantastic resource; I knew what all the steps were, but that book really cleared up why each step is necessary. And now I finally know what the actual difference between an ale and a lager is!

So now I'm planning on converting my propane-fueled outside burner to natural gas and to pick up a used chest freezer so that I can use it as a fermenting fridge. This is turning into an expensive hobby... but that should be the last of the capital equipment expenses (except for that really, really sweet looking conical fermenter).

Mark my words: I will master Pilsner.

Ultimately, I'd really like to compete in Beau's Oktoberfest homebrew competition. The winner gets to make a batch of their recipe at a commercial scale at Beau's facility and then they'll actually sell it in store alongside their own!

Great question, and I appreciate you putting me on the spot. One of the reasons I included that particular essay is that it offers a concise recounting of the history, citing textbooks, interviews with former members of the PLO, and news articles documenting the peace accords between Israel and it's neighbors. For a more in depth reading, you should check out this textbook cited in the essay; it's been updated a few times to cover recent events in the conflict.

For more reading, hears a detailed timeline of the conflict.

Various other resources over the documents of UN resolutions and peace treaties in the Middle East and Palestine/Israel, which covers the British Mandates as well as the Peace treaties between Israel and Palestine.

*Adding more data. This also list victims of terror attacks since 1968 and is updated annually.

Polls of the general views of Palestinians towards Israel. What's concerning is that a majority of the 'Oslo' generation thinks armed conflict is the best way to achieve their goals as Palestinians.

I’d recommend A Little History of Canada by HV Nelles.

Great intro to Canadian history. It’s about 250 pages so it’s not too intense and covers the main aspects of Canadian history so you can branch out into areas you find interesting. I found it fascinating.

Weavers work in climate science and predictive modelling got the Noble peace price. He worked in climate science for decades leading up to it, then pivoted and switched into politics with the Green party. He has also authored some good books.

https://www.amazon.ca/Keeping-Our-Cool-Canada-Warming/dp/0143168258

I'm personally a fan of An Introduction To Government and Politics: A Conceptual Approach by Mark Dickerson, Thomas Flanagan, and Brenda O'Neill and Canadian Politics: Critical Approaches by Rand Dyck, but there are literally hundreds of other books that will fit the bill.

Honestly, the easiest way to find what you're looking for is to just head down to the nearest university bookstore and buy whatever the required books are for their intro to Canadian politics course.

In your case, since you seem to live in Toronto, I'd suggest going to the University of Toronto bookstore and picking up the required book for "POL214 Canadian Government and Politics."

Interesting, though this seems it's not exactly a new message for Michael Adams. For over a decade, he's been writing opinions and books about it. Still, it's interesting to see the latest numbers and the actual polling data that shows the shift in attitudes, catching stuff like

>a mild backlash against feminism among Generation X men at the ages of 25 to 44 (foreign-born and Canadian-born alike).

that anecdotally, I see playing out. It's also striking to see that the regional spread in America is 69% to 42%, while in Canada even our highest regional rate (in Alberta) is 26%.

This isn't surprising. There have been numerous articles, like this and books like this around for years now. Some look at it as an opportunity to redefine masculinity, others take a more doom-and-gloom approach.

Start off with a text on public administration like Understanding Canadian Public Administration or Thinking Government. After that you'll understand enough to be able to make effective use of other sources.

> From the wikipedia article

To someone who likes to say what others do and do not understand: you don't understand what constitutes a reliable source. Even Investopedia would have provided a more concise, accurate definition: "Neoliberalism is a policy model of social studies and economics that transfers control of economic factors to the private sector from the public sector."

In a North American context, the nomenclature is somewhat difficult to reconcile with the rest of the world. Neoliberalism is more closely associated what is referred to as "neoconservativism" as in the "neocons" of George W. Bush's presidency. We're probably going to see it again under Trump.

Here is a book that will get you started on what neoliberalism means inside and outside of North America. However, familiarizing yourself with the Washington Consenus will give an idea of what mainstream American economists have advocated domestically and globally for the last half-century. The associated "Structural Adjustment Programs" (SAPs) have been implemented more easily outside North America, as they were conditions attached to IMF and World Bank loans (the conditions have since been largely abandoned because they've been empirically shown to not work). But there has also been less resistance since political masters in developing countries have been more easily bought (or supported by the UK and the US in other ways).

EDIT: including sources.

> Name me a single ISP that hides the full price of a phone from you when you buy it

In terms of breaking down the share of your phone plan that goes towards paying for the phone and the share that is just your service plan not a single one of them does.

But if you do calculate it yourself you quickly realize you're paying a lot more than the up front cost of the phone. Here's one completely arbitrary example; https://www.virginmobile.ca/en/phones/phone-details.html#!/google3a/Black/64/TR20

The "full price" is $650, with a plan at $28/month, $500 with a $45/month plan, $250 with a $60/month plan, $79 with a $95/month plan, or "free" with a $105/month plan. Just to save $250 upfront, you're paying an extra $1080 over 2 years, on a phone that's only supposed to cost 650 up front. Compared to paying it off upfront, paying nothing up front means paying a total of over 1800 for the phone, nearly 3x the cost.

(Also you can buy a Google Pixel 3a from Google directly for $399 USD, or $540 CAD, or from Amazon for $399 CAD so already they're jacking up the price on the cost)

If you're going to pretend that make no money on that then you're simply lying.

It gets scummier though, because if you dont cancel the higher priced plan exactly when 2 years are up, they'll keep charging you the full cost of that plan and you get zero credit towards anything, they simply pocket the over-payment.

I thought the same until I read Everybody Lies which set out, for me, a convincing argument based on big data that people get more ideological diversity and come into contact with with more differing viewpoints thanks to the internet.

https://www.amazon.ca/Leviathan-Thomas-Hobbes/dp/0199537283/ref=sr_1_1/154-5195785-5062237?ie=UTF8&qid=1481467964&sr=8-1&keywords=leviathan+hobbes

https://www.amazon.ca/Social-Contract-Jean-Jacques-Rousseau/dp/0140442014/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1481468107&sr=8-1&keywords=rousseau+the+social+contract

https://www.amazon.ca/Second-Treatise-Government-John-Locke-ebook/dp/B004UJCSBG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1481468187&sr=8-1&keywords=locke+second+treatise

Otherwise, I don't think what you're looking for exists. I know the Supreme Court has written some flowery words about where the government derives its powers whenever it feels the need, but it's not in any one document, and I wouldn't know where to find it. We don't reinvent the wheel every time we build a car, and we don't rejustify the existence of the state every time we form a new one.

I'm surprised there wasn't at least a mention of The Triple Package. Despite it's shortcomings, it's a much more reasoned thesis than what he write about here.

Fair enough. That's actually a good example which, for some reason, didn't immediately jump to my mind. By the way, I don't know if you've looked up the estimates of the value of a life by economists but a life lost is already in the millions of dollars.

There was a Canadian book about this topic a few years ago. Been sitting on my bookshelf forever, haven't gotten to it yet.

https://www.amazon.ca/Trouble-Billionaires-Much-Money-Everyone/dp/0143174541

Microserfs by Douglas Coupland. If you haven't read it already, something tells me you should give this a read.

>it doesn't magically make them less lazy or ignorant, it just greatly increases the consequences of the fact that they're lazy and ignorant.

I couldn't agree more.

I have a couple of points to add which don't directly support either your or shawndw's side in the argument, but which add a layer of complexity to the picture.

Shawndw had said that

>Under direct democracy people will have nobody to blame except themselves

The problem with this is that, to take one of the best examples of direct democracy we have, according to élites in ancient Athens like Plato and Xenophon, the Athenian demos/people did not blame themselves; rather, when "the people" made a bad decision, individual citizens denied having voted for it and avoided the responsibility for the decision. Funnily enough, however, this could actually be an advantage, for because responsibility for a decision wasn't placed squarely on the shoulders of specific individuals, the demos was quite willing to admit its mistakes and change its collective mind on a decision.

In a system where responsibility is clearly held by certain officials, however, these officials are propelled by the phenomenon of cognitive dissonance/disconfirmation bias to cling to their beliefs more strongly when the flaws in them are pointed out. The reaction of the Bush administration to the non-discovery of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq is cited by some as an example here.

So I suppose this point isn't directly related to what you were saying—that direct democracy is unlikely to lead to greater knowledge among citizens, and therefore to more correct decisions, a claim with which I completely agree—but what I'm saying does indicate that collectivities may be more willing to correct their mistakes when they do screw up than officials blinded by pride, or simply by their habitual way of seeing a matter of policy.

British author and journalist Nick Cohen wrote about this in 2007 in his book What's Left?: How the Left Lost its Way: How Liberals Lost Their Way Where he discusses this unholy alliance came to be of the left and the Islamist far right.

The left have become so rabidly anti-US/West that they have adopted the idea of 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend". They have abandoned their core principles and will make bedfellows with those that are antithetical to their world view and goals. This is how you have British Labour protesters marching shouting "We are all Hamas" or have an ostensibly progressive organization to combat fascism named Unite Against Fascism have an Islamist Fascist serving on the board...

A principled left would be supporting Arab intellectuals, journalists, authors, professors, feminists, trade unionists, Marxists, etc. Instead we have the left supporting the far right Islamist movements in these parts of the world i.e. Hamas, Hizbollah, etc.