Originally Posted by mr dave

actually bell aliant in eastern canada does this. they're a telecommunications company that started with land line phones, then moved into high speed internet, and recently branched off into satellite tv.

here's the kicker though, even if you have high speed internet with them (like the service i'm using RIGHT NOW to post this comment). if you want to get satellite tv they REQUIRE that you also get a phone line, nevermind that the tv service uses their internet backbone; nevermind that their long distance phone service sucks ass compared to the voip line we already have. if we wanted satellite tv in the apartment we needed to get another phone...

it's hard to say how this is being handled, my roommate filed formal complaints with the CRTC (Canadian Radio and Telecommunications Commission) but they proved to be worthless and pussyfooted around his complaint.

as for the whole norway vs. the world, uhh yeah... WTF? i've always liked those scandanavian countries, plus jaga jazzist is from norway so the nation is an automatic yay! in my book.

idol worship and the cult of personality are not concepts that are native to any specific nation. it happens everywhere. tv just makes it far simpler to spread the shenanigans. so long as people continue considering their wants as needs they'll continue to allow themselves to be lead by the nose through whatever means available.