Building a New North American Partnership for the Future
BE YOUR OWN LEADER
Nov 6, 2014
By Dana Gabriel
The globalist controlled Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) have called on the U.S. to work more closely with Canada and Mexico to build a new North American partnership for the future. The pivot to North America would focus on greater trilateral cooperation in areas such as energy, economic competitiveness, border management, law enforcement and continental perimeter security. Throughout the years, the incremental steps towards a North American Union have been used to further chip away at the sovereignty of all three NAFTA countries.
The CFR-sponsored Independent Task Force on North America, co-chaired by retired General David Petraeus and former president of the World Bank Robert Zoellick, recently released their report, North America: Time for a New Focus. The Task Force maintained that, “Now is the moment for the United States to break free from old foreign policy biases to recognize that a stronger, more dynamic, resilient continental base will increase U.S. power globally.” They explained that, “If the three North American countries deepen their integration and cooperation, they have the potential to again shape world affairs for generations to come.” The Task Force also described how, “Recent developments have created opportunities for the North American countries to build on past work and to advance their partnership to a new stage.” The move by Mexico to open up its energy sector to private investment, along with increased oil and natural gas production in Canada and the U.S. are some of the driving forces behind the renewed push for deeper North American integration.
The Task Force report highlighted the need to expand the North American energy relationship. This includes developing a regional energy strategy and strengthening continental energy infrastructure. The approval of Keystone XL pipeline, which would link Canada’s oil sands to U.S. Gulf Coast refineries was also at the top of Task Force to-do list. They acknowledged that, “delays have damaged U.S.-Canada relations and have the potential to slow, at the very least, greater North American energy integration.” As part of efforts to move beyond the dispute, both countries have signed a Memorandum of Understanding on Energy Cooperation in areas such as research, regulation and trade. In an example of the importance that energy issues could play in the upcoming 2016 election, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, a possible candidate for the Republican presidential nomination gave a speech in September, where he detailed North America’s Energy Opportunity. Not surprisingly, the majority of his policy ideas were in sync with the CFR’s Task Force recommendations.
The 2014 North American Leaders Summit also identified energy as a trilateral priority. In a joint statement, the leaders announced that the energy ministers from all three countries will meet later this year, “to discuss opportunities to promote common strategies on energy efficiency, infrastructure, innovation, renewable energy, unconventional energy sources, energy trade, and responsible resource development, including the development of relevant technical studies.” To help build on the trilateral energy meetings, the Task Force suggested, “the creation of a North American Energy Council to provide advice to federal policymakers and highlight issues that the three independent legislative branches could address.” The council’s responsibilities would include, “identifying improvements to the safety and security of cross-border energy infrastructure; areas for cooperation on environmental and safety standards; energy-efficient technologies and practices; and barriers to collaboration.” Although it has since been disbanded, the North American Energy Working Group has already laid some of the groundwork with regards to trilateral energy integration.
In order to further establish an overall continental agenda, the Task Force argued for the restructuring of the U.S. federal government by, “creating new North American offices within the National Security Council staff and U.S. State Department.” This includes, “designating a senior U.S. official as the North American ‘champion’ who will press for consistent policies across agencies and topics.” The Task Force also encouraged, “greater U.S. congressional engagement with the Mexican congress and Canadian parliament.” In addition, they proposed that, “the U.S. government support interactions and possible cooperation among governors, premiers, mayors, legislators, and other officials.” Throughout the report, the Task Force emphasized that, “The goal should be trilateral where possible, bilateral where necessary.” While they praised the progress that separate U.S.-Canada and U.S.-Mexico initiatives have made, they also pointed out that the continued reliance on some of these bilateral efforts has in many ways, “inhibited the development of a broader vision of North America.”
The Elections: Déjà Vu All Over Again
nsnbc
Nov 8, 2014
Shamus Cooke (WC) : Eventually the tired game will exhaust itself. Beneath the billions of dollars, U.S. elections are lifeless events. The predictable flopping from Democrat to Republican and back again, with voters given no real choice but to punish the party in power — by electing the party that was punished previously. This endless, irrational dynamic is the foundation of the U.S. electoral system.
The motor force pushing this logic is money, billions worth per cycle. The richest 1% threw nearly $4 billion to influence voters and to prepay for political favors from the winning candidates.
Elections have become corporate PR campaigns, with corporations doling money out equally to both parties. This bi-partisan vote buying guarantees that, aside from a couple of fervently debated social issues, a consistent, core economic agenda is firmly in place that favors the 1%.
This is why voters always punish the party in power. The ruling party earns the hatred of working-class voters by proving their love for the corporations and billionaires. The economy — and specifically jobs — has always been a priority for voters, but the economy is used by politicians to enrich the already-rich, who under Obama have received 98 percent of wealth created since he began as president. Such brazen inequality doesn’t happen by accident, but by policy, and no politicians are complaining about it.
During the “heated” debates of the midterm election, there was virtually no discussion of the economy. The two parties have nothing to debate about on this issue; they’re in total agreement. The same is true about foreign policy and the $700 billion dollars annually spent on the military.
Neither party complains that U.S. taxpayers have spent, according to a reputable study, $4-6 trillion dollars on the ongoing wars of Afghanistan and Iraq. Bi-partisan consensus prevented the topic from reaching the campaign trail, while guaranteeing that the insane and completely futile war policy continues.
Most Americans understand that U.S. politics equals legalized corruption. And consequently voter turnout sank to a new historic low of 38 percent. But even this number is highly misleading. One need only imagine if national congressional elections were voted on separately, instead of sharing the ballot with state elections and local ballot initiatives that voters actually care about. If this happened voter turnout would plummet to the teens, or lower, and could not be mislabeled “democracy.” The popularity of the U.S. Congress hovers around 10 percent, which means that 90 percent of the population consistently views this body as an alien entity, serving the interests of the parasitic super-rich.
Brain decoder can eavesdrop on your inner voice
Intellihub.com
Oct 30, 2014
As you read this, your neurons are firing – that brain activity can now be decoded to reveal the silent words in your head
New Scientist
TALKING to yourself used to be a strictly private pastime. That’s no longer the case – researchers have eavesdropped on our internal monologue for the first time. The achievement is a step towards helping people who cannot physically speak communicate with the outside world.
“If you’re reading text in a newspaper or a book, you hear a voice in your own head,” says Brian Pasley at the University of California, Berkeley. “We’re trying to decode the brain activity related to that voice to create a medical prosthesis that can allow someone who is paralysed or locked in to speak.”
When you hear someone speak, sound waves activate sensory neurons in your inner ear. These neurons pass information to areas of the brain where different aspects of the sound are extracted and interpreted as words.
Ontario to ban smoking on patios and playgrounds
Metro
Nov 7, 2014
TORONTO – Ontario will ban smoking on all restaurant and bar patios as well as at playgrounds and publicly owned sports fields starting Jan. 1, 2015, the Liberal government announced Friday.
Associate Health Minister Dipika Dameria said regulations will also be amended to ban the sale of tobacco on college and university campuses.
The changes to the Smoke Free Ontario Act will replace a patchwork of municipal regulations governing smoking on restaurant and bar patios, and will not hurt their businesses, she added.
Facebook boosted US election turnout via psychology experiment, company reveals
RT USA
Published time: November 04, 2014 05:54
Edited time: November 04, 2014 07:36
Reuters/Dado Ruvic
Facebook manipulated the news feeds of almost 2 million American users during the 2012 presidential election without telling them. The manipulation led to a 3 percent increase in voter turnout, according to the company’s own data scientist.
In a stunning revelation, the three months prior to Election Day in 2012 saw Facebook “tweak” the feeds of 1.9 million Americans by sharing their friends’ hard news posts rather than the usual personal posts. The effect was felt most by occasional Facebook users who reported in a survey they paid more attention to the government because of their friends’ hard news feeds. Facebook didn’t tell users about this psychology experiment, but it boosted voter turnout by 3 percent.
The experiment was first shared with the public in two talks given by Facebook’s data scientist, Lada Adamic, in the fall of 2012, and more details were disclosed recently by Mother Jones. In those talks, Adamic said a colleague at Facebook, Solomon Messing, “tweaked” the feeds. Afterwards, Messing surveyed the group and found that voter turnout and political engagement grew from a self-reported 64 percent to more than 67 percent.
Ello -The Facebook Killer?
September 26, 2014 (Tony Cartalucci – LocalOrg) – Ello, a social network alternative to Facebook is expanding its user base immensely, even as it remains in beta testing. Market watchers and tech trend analysts attribute the influx of users indicative of Facebook’s waning popularity due to its invasive, profit-driven, monopolistic, and downright creepy conduct. Facebook’s incremental, manipulative policy and terms of use have been described as everything from a greedy business practice, to a government sanctioned means of mass manipulation and soft censorship.
It was inevitable that start-ups and activists would seek to offer Facebook users an alternative that allowed social media to be used as a tool of empowerment, not insidious manipulation and censorship. Ello appears to be tapping into that with its manifesto which states:
Your social network is owned by advertisers.
Every post you share, every friend you make and every link you follow is tracked, recorded and converted into data. Advertisers buy your data so they can show you more ads. You are the product that’s bought and sold.
We believe there is a better way. We believe in audacity. We believe in beauty, simplicity and transparency. We believe that the people who make things and the people who use them should be in partnership.
We believe a social network can be a tool for empowerment. Not a tool to deceive, coerce and manipulate — but a place to connect, create and celebrate life.
You are not a product.
In theory, not only does Ello’s manifesto sound ideal, it is likely to attract a multitude of disillusioned Facebook users fed up with the big-tech’s monopoly, but who have stayed aboard for a lack of a better alternative.
Market Watch in an article titled, “Facebook killer called Ello gets the timing right,” reported:
There has been a lot of chatter on social media this week about a new social network called Ello, which is getting buzz for its anti-Facebook Inc. stance. But is the start-up, which accepts no advertising and does no data mining, ready for prime time?
Ello has apparently been gaining such a huge influx of new users that its servers were having problems in the past two days, despite the requirement that you need an invitation to join.
Market Watch notes that Ello’s popularity is due more to Facebook’s shortcomings than Ello’s superior performance – Ello which is admittedly still in beta testing and with features still being incrementally added.
I’m terrified of my new TV: Why I’m scared to turn this thing on — and you’d be, too
by Michael Price
Salon.com
Oct 30, 2014
(Credit: cobalt88 via Shutterstock)
From facial recognition to personal data collection, this thing is downright scary — and so are the implications
I just bought a new TV. The old one had a good run, but after the volume got stuck on 63, I decided it was time to replace it. I am now the owner of a new “smart” TV, which promises to deliver streaming multimedia content, games, apps, social media and Internet browsing. Oh, and TV too.
The only problem is that I’m now afraid to use it. You would be too — if you read through the 46-page privacy policy.
The amount of data this thing collects is staggering. It logs where, when, how and for how long you use the TV. It sets tracking cookies and beacons designed to detect “when you have viewed particular content or a particular email message.” It records “the apps you use, the websites you visit, and how you interact with content.” It ignores “do-not-track” requests as a considered matter of policy.
It also has a built-in camera — with facial recognition. The purpose is to provide “gesture control” for the TV and enable you to log in to a personalized account using your face. On the upside, the images are saved on the TV instead of uploaded to a corporate server. On the downside, the Internet connection makes the whole TV vulnerable to hackers who have demonstrated the ability to take complete control of the machine.
More troubling is the microphone. The TV boasts a “voice recognition” feature that allows viewers to control the screen with voice commands. But the service comes with a rather ominous warning: “Please be aware that if your spoken words include personal or other sensitive information, that information will be among the data captured and transmitted to a third party.” Got that? Don’t say personal or sensitive stuff in front of the TV.
You may not be watching, but the telescreen is listening.
I do not doubt that this data is important to providing customized content and convenience, but it is also incredibly personal, constitutionally protected information that should not be for sale to advertisers and should require a warrant for law enforcement to access.
Unfortunately, current law affords little privacy protection to so-called “third party records,” including email, telephone records, and data stored in “the cloud.” Much of the data captured and transmitted by my new TV would likely fall into this category. Although one federal court of appeals has found this rule unconstitutional with respect to email, the principle remains a bedrock of modern electronic surveillance.
According to retired Gen. David Petraeus, former head of the CIA, Internet-enabled “smart” devices can be exploited to reveal a wealth of personal data. “Items of interest will be located, identified, monitored, and remotely controlled through technologies such as radio-frequency identification, sensor networks, tiny embedded servers, and energy harvester,” he reportedly told a venture capital firm in 2012. “We’ll spy on you through your dishwasher,” read one headline. Indeed, as the “Internet of Things” matures, household appliances and physical objects will become more networked. Your ceiling lights, thermostat and washing machine — even your socks — may be wired to interact online. The FBI will not have to bug your living room; you will do it yourself.
PN 