Three days after Thanksgiving and our posters are wading through a slough of despair. Come on folks, look on the bright side for a while. Have a little faith in our collective abilities to deal with the world's problems, to survive and continue to prosper. There are some years ahead when the wealthy nations are going to be forced to realize that they can't live forever on borrowed money, that real work rather than paper shuffling and fiat creation will have to be done and that sacrifices will have to be made, but we have been through worse than these present problems and we have survived.

As to population problems and Japan in particular, that country's biggest concern in the coming years will be their decision years ago to limit family sizes. They are headed for the day when there will be two people working for each older person living off the product of their labours. Demographers have even predicted the date, not too far into the future, by which the last Japanese person will have passed away!

WASP families here in Canada are shrinking in size and many young people are choosing not to have children at all. Meanwhile, those who have immigrated here and our First Nations people are reproducing much more aggressively. The demographics are going to change dramatically. We are also being told in western Canada that we are facing labour shortages in the near future and that more immigrants will be needed to do the necessary work. On and on it goes. But don't despair, we can handle it!

On the subject of WikiLeaks, the whole thing reminds me of the old Mad magazine serial titled "Spy vs. Spy." I would expect that the "revelations" that are to be published will contain information that other countries' spies are already aware of since they have been intercepting the U.S. messages while th U.S. has been intercepting theirs and round and round she goes. Meanwhile, all will express their shock and distress about the leaks.

Have a turkey sandwich and a cold one and put your feet up!