Why Scotland Should Join Canada as the 11th Province

The push for an independent Scotland is heating up again. After the 2016 referendum on Brexit which would effectively withdraw U.K. membership in the European Union passed; it left a sour taste in Scotland where almost all shires voted in favor of Remain.

Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon is stoking talk of another Scottish referendum to become their own nation for the first time in over 300 years after the 2014 referendum failed. However, Scotland has a few options in moving forward, one being joining Canada as its 11^th province.

Canada is home to the largest Scottish population outside of Britain with 4.7 million Canadians claiming Scottish ancestry. Scotland would also have significantly more political power since they would comprise 12.6 per cent of the total Canadian population compared to only 8 per cent in Britain. It’s also increasingly becoming cheaper to travel from the British Isles to North America with several budget airlines expanding their overseas operations like Canadian airline West Jet.

“All Canadian provinces have more power, more independence, and autonomy than Scotland has right now,” Ken McGoogan, the author who first proposed a union between Canada and Scotland told CTV. “We know how to accommodate difference and we could easily accommodate the Scots.”

However, there are more tangible reasons that would be of benefit to Scots.

A petition that already has 188,000 signatures could soon be brought forward to the British Parliament that would allow for open movement of citizens between the U.K., Canada, New Zealand and Australia. All of which are members of the Commonwealth, share a common language and similar colonial history. It would also provide a post-Brexit solution for trade and labor in the U.K.

Although Scotland would leave the U.K., it would still benefit from this bill because the way in which Scottish citizens work, travel and trade in England will be virtually unchanged. Scottish citizens would also have universal health care in a system much similar to the NHS as well as all other benefits of Canada’s social safety net and its progressive constitution and Bill of Rights.

Of course, Scotland would be no ordinary province being thousands of miles away from mainland Canada. That’s why similar to Quebec, Scotland would have special designation within Canada, where they would have just as much autonomy in governing their own affairs, if not more than they currently hold within the U.K.

Opponents of the measure point to the ever-strained relationship between Anglo and French Canadians, where Quebec has sought numerous cracks at independence, the latest in 2015 where nationalists won by a slim margin. The push for an independent Quebec will never go away with talks of another referendum in 2018, and the prospects of Scotland seeking separation from Canada in the future (should they join) is likely if issues concerning equalization arise.

Canada’s greatest benefit to Scotland, however, is NAFTA. Scotland would have access to the entire U.S. market where its citizen’s buying power is significantly higher than in the E.U. But this doesn’t necessarily mean Scotland must choose between the two as they could also seek to rejoin the E.U. after independence.

Canada’s primary benefit of Scottish independence and joining Confederation is that if Scotland applies for E.U. membership afterward, it would provide a backdoor for Canada into the E.U. market.  Canada is already wary of President Donald Trump’s aggressive talk on trade with the Great White North, that’s why a plan B to alleviate dependency on the neighboring superpower is in Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s best interest.

Scotland has long felt alienated by being in union with the country in which they were colonized by and yearn for the freedom to determine their own destiny. Ultimately, Canada and Scotland would find prosperity and self-determination in courting this mutually beneficial and historic partnership.

 

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CIA Funding Companies that Specialize in Social Media Spying

By: Deirdre Fulton, CommonDreams.org
April 15, 2016

Reflecting the CIA’s “increasing focus on monitoring social media,” the spy agency’s venture capital arm, In-Q-Tel, has made investments in four social media mining and surveillance firms, The Intercept revealed Thursday.
According to a document obtained by journalist Lee Fang, In-Q-Tel is funding companies that monitor, collect, and analyze social media traffic and activities on platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. The investments were previously undisclosed.

For instance, Fang points to PATHAR, a social media intelligence company whose product, Dunami, is already being used by the FBI to “mine Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and other social media to determine networks of association, centers of influence and potential signs of radicalization,” as confirmed last month by the Center for Investigative Reporting.

Another firm in In-Q-Tel’s portfolio is Dataminr, which “directly licenses a stream of data from Twitter to visualize and quickly spot trends on behalf of law enforcement agencies and hedge funds, among other clients,” Fang writes.
Geofeedia, also on In-Q-Tel’s list, “promotes its research into Greenpeace activists, student demonstrations, minimum wage advocates, and other political movements,” Fang reports. “Police departments in Oakland, Chicago, Detroit, and other major municipalities have contracted with Geofeedia, as well as private firms such as the Mall of America and McDonald’s.” FBI and CIA scraping of the internet for social media users’ “digital dust” is hardly a new phenomenon.

In 2009, Wired reported that In-Q-Tel was “putting cash into Visible Technologies, a software firm that specializes in monitoring social media,” as part of “a larger movement within the spy services to get better at using ‘open source intelligence’—information that’s publicly available, but often hidden in flood of TV shows, newspaper articles, blog posts, online videos, and radio reports generated every day.”
And in 2011, the Associated Press wrote about the CIA’s “Open Source Center, [where] a team known affectionately as the ‘vengeful librarians’ also pores over Facebook, newspapers, TV news channels, local radio stations, Internet chat rooms—anything overseas that anyone can access and contribute to openly.”
However, Fang argues, “[t]he recent wave of investments in social media-related companies suggests the CIA has accelerated the drive to make collection of user-generated online data a priority. Alongside its investments in start-ups, In-Q-Tel has also developed a special technology laboratory in Silicon Valley, called Lab41, to provide tools for the intelligence community to connect the dots in large sets of data.”

Such blanket data collection and analysis is worrisome to privacy advocates like Lee Rowland, a senior staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, who told The Intercept: “When you have private companies deciding which algorithms get you a so-called threat score, or make you a person of interest, there’s obviously room for targeting people based on viewpoints or even unlawfully targeting people based on race or religion.”

Fang reported just last week on In-Q-Tel’s investments in Skincential Sciences, a cosmetic company that has “developed a patented technology that removes a thin outer layer of the skin, revealing unique biomarkers that can be used for a variety of diagnostic tests, including DNA collection.”

This article (CIA Funding Companies that Specialize in Social Media Spying) originally appeared on CommonDreams.org and is licensed Creative Commons 3.0.

Panama Papers Could Bring Down British Prime Minister David Cameron

By: Amando Flavio, AnonHQ.com

(ANONHQ) Thousands of people have marched through the streets of London demanding the resignation of the Prime Minster of the United Kingdom, David Cameron, over his involvement in the Panama Papers scandal.
Mr. Cameron is amongst world leaders, celebrities, billionaires, and other influential people facing scrutiny since the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) published reports, revealing the secret financial crimes being perpetrated by these powerful people, with the help of a Panamanian law firm, Mossack Fonseca.
The ICIJ accessed millions of documents hacked from Mossack Fonseca, in which the law firm illegally helped elected leaders and other top officials to set up secret shell companies and offshore accounts to evade tax. The scandal has already claimed the head of the Prime Minister of Iceland, Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson. Mr. Gunnlaugsson resigned last week after intense public pressure was mounted on him.

When Mr. Cameron was named in the papers, the mainstream media pretended as if they have not heard it. But pressure from anti-corruption bodies and other activists, such as NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, started a social media campaign with the hashtag #ResignDavidCameron. 

#ResignDavidCameron went viral on many social media platforms, prompting Cameron to finally admit that he made about £30,000 ($42,375) from an offshore tax haven, set up by his late father. He admitted that between 1997 and 2010, he and his wife Samantha Cameron, owned shares in his father’s Blairmore Investment Trust, a multimillion-pound offshore trust fund managed by Mossack Fonseca.

However, Mr. Cameron also said he sold the £30,000 shares in 2010, four months before becoming Prime Minister, and that he has done nothing wrong.
But protesters on Saturday took their activism on the Internet to the streets of London, including Number 10 Downing Street, the official residence of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

This is SW #London right now #ResignDavidCameron pic.twitter.com/6yC1QyNixJ

— Ihtisham ul haq (@iihtishamm) April 9, 2016

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The protesters chanted “David Cameron must resign, tax evasion is a crime.” They also floated a giant pig with Cameron’s face on it, as they marched to the street of Whitehall.
Protesters said they are even appalled in the whole scandal, after another secret letter leaked revealed that Mr. Cameron urged European Union (EU) leaders in 2013, to shield offshore trusts from a crackdown by law enforcement agencies across Europe.

One of the key organizers of the protest, Abi Wilkinson, a freelance journalist based in London told International Business Times that Cameron’s alleged tax evasion was only one catalyst for the march. She said Mr Cameron’s request to EU leaders to shield offshore companies, and the fact that British oversea territories were deeply involved in the leak, means the Prime Minister can no longer be trusted.

“Though Cameron’s personal tax affairs expose his hypocrisy, the thing that made me feel I had to organize something was the revelation about Cameron personally intervening to block an EU crackdown on tax avoidance. Britain is the hub of the tax avoidance world. The fact that more than half of the 300,000 companies named in the Panama Papers operate through U.K. overseas territories and crown dependencies shows the extent of the problem, particularly given Mossack Fonseca isn’t a law firm with any special link to the U.K.,” Abi said.

#ResignDavidCameron protest in #Londonhttps://t.co/lTZzKPELH8 pic.twitter.com/kQowNqN2ml

— Bogdan Maran (@BogdanMaran) April 9, 2016

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After the protest, on Saturday evening, Mr. Cameron issued a statement that the week was terrible for him and that he has learned his lessons regarding his involvement in the leaked papers.

BBC later published a story claiming that Mr. Cameron had fulfilled his income tax obligations dating back from 2009 when he was the leader of opposition.

But Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the opposition said Mr. Cameron should publish his full tax returns, dating back to before he became prime minister in 2010. He said the public wants to know why Mr. Cameron put his investment money outside the country in the first place.

“I want to see the papers. We need to know what he’s actually returned as a tax return. We need to know why he put this money overseas in the first place, and whether he made anything out of it or not before 2010 when he became prime minister. These are questions that he must answer,” Mr. Corbyn said.

This Article (Panama Papers Could Bring Down British Prime Minister David Cameron) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to the author.

Panama Papers leave world leaders in suspense

By: Corey Savard

The biggest leak of sensitive data ever unfolded yesterday when the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists released telling documents of world leaders and influential figures stashing their cash in overseas tax havens through Panama City, Pan.-based law firm Mossack Fonseca.

Members of Russian PM Vladimir Putin’s inner circle as well as Iceland Prime Minister Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson, whom’s revelation has sparked protests in his country’s capital are implicated in what Edward Snowden is calling the“biggest leak in the history of data journalism.” Other notable names in initial documents included are actor Jackie Chan, soccer star Lionel Messi, African dictators, and drug lords with many more soon to follow in the coming days and perhaps months as part of 11.5 million leaked documents that dwarf both Wikileaks and the Edward Snowden leaks combined.

It started a little over a year ago when a “John Doe” contacted German newspaper Süeddeutsche Zeitung (SZ) and offered them a plethora of internal documents formerly held secret by Mossack Fonseca, which specializes in selling offshore property in Panama, a well-known tax haven, which world leaders have utillized to escape paying taxes in their own country that should have gone to schools, hospitals and public services. All while  wilfully deceiving their own citizens. The anonymous source who leaked the 2.2 terrabytes of emails, documents and pdfs said his motive was to “make these crimes public.”

However, offshore companies are not illegal as they work through loopholes created by trade deals, for Mossack Fonseca specifically, the free trade deal passed by the U.S. with Panama in 2011, which Democratic primary candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders warned of the country’s bank secrecy laws and unwillingness to work with foreign investigations that would lead to the international event we see developing.

 

Leonardo DiCaprio Donates $1 Million To Conservation Efforts In Africa

American actor Leonardo DiCaprio (photo via Siebbi/ippernity.com

By: Briana Blaschke, Anti-Media

Actor and renowned philanthropist Leonardo DiCaprio has made waves with a sizable donation to another environmental project. Following his January donation of $3.4 million to the indigenous groups of Ecuador to help them stand against oil and timber tycoons, DiCaprio has announced a donation of $1 million to ocean conservation efforts in the small African nation of Seychelles. DiCaprio has long been an advocate for environmental efforts, and has consistently used his influential media platform as means to call attention to injustices and demand for change; while many other important media figures have touted this same message, DiCaprio sets himself apart through his actions, consistently donating millions to research and conservation projects.

His foundation’s generous allowance to Seychelles constitutes as the world’s first debt swap that specifically targets climate resiliency and ocean conservation. The Nature Conservancy, an organization that works to conserve oceans and lands around the world, and DiCaprio’s foundation are working together to tackle conservation efforts and research in Seychelles. The deal is intended to protect more than 400,000 square kilometers of habitat, effectively increasing the Nature Conservancy’s protective reach from less than 1 percent to more than 30 percent. The funding will also go towards the creation of the second largest marine protected area in the West Indian Ocean.

The total amount of debt to be restructured is $21.4 million, according to the Seychelles government. A low interest loan, in combination with donations from private organizations such as the Leonardo Dicaprio Foundation, has allowed for the country to commit to protecting its waters. Given that its economy is a “blue economy” centered around ocean-based tourism and lucrative fisheries, as well as the beauty of its coral reefs and beaches, the government is determined to help protect the future of the ocean.

His foundation’s generous allowance to Seychelles constitutes as the world’s first debt swap that specifically targets climate resiliency and ocean conservation. The Nature Conservancy, an organization that works to conserve oceans and lands around the world, and DiCaprio’s foundation are working together to tackle conservation efforts and research in Seychelles. The deal is intended to protect more than 400,000 square kilometers of habitat, effectively increasing the Nature Conservancy’s protective reach from less than 1 percent to more than 30 percent. The funding will also go towards the creation of the second largest marine protected area in the West Indian Ocean.
The total amount of debt to be restructured is $21.4 million, according to the Seychelles government. A low interest loan, in combination with donations from private organizations such as the Leonardo Dicaprio Foundation, has allowed for the country to commit to protecting its waters. Given that its economy is a “blue economy” centered around ocean-based tourism and lucrative fisheries, as well as the beauty of its coral reefs and beaches, the government is determined to help protect the future of the ocean.

Nature Conservancy’s director Matt Brown stated that the Seychellois government is committed to protecting and properly managing its marine resources in upcoming years, serving as an important model for similar agreements in other regions of the world. The culminated effort between the government, environmental organizations, and funds from private donors has created enough financial clout to sustain conservation efforts throughout this region.
Read More: http://www.trueactivist.com/leonardo-dicaprio-donates-1-million-to-conservation-efforts-in-africa/?utm_source=fb&utm_medium=fb&utm_campaign=antimedia

 This article is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Briana Blaschke and theAntiMedia.org.

OPINION: Why the terrorists hate us

By: Corey Savard

To turn on the nightly news and see people frantically running for their lives, clothes bloody and ripped, faces pale with fear, it’s enormously apparent the world shares in the grief of the 34 killed and the hundreds wounded in multiple bombings in the Belgian capital of Brussels.

It’s a global grief that resembles the outpouring of mourning and memorials for the November bombings in Paris, but the Mar. 13 ISIS terror attacks in the Turkish capital of Ankara, where at least 32 were killed when cars laden with explosives approached city buses carrying commuters on their way home from work. 

Brussels has shown again the divide that exists between the world’s richest nations and the tertiary Muslim countries we rarely, if ever acknowledge in our day-to-day. Despite the tragedies in Turkey and attacks last year in Mali and Lebanon, their flags do not drape Facebook display pictures of Europeans and North Americans, as has been the fashion for our allies France and Belgium, but tend to forget Turkey is a full-fledged member of NATO. Yet, people still stand in disbelief and wonder “why do they [Islamic extremists] hate us?”

The ignorance of Western nations towards innocent people in empoverished and war-torn countries has grown rescentment in ethnic communities like Molenbeek, a multicultural working-class neighbourhood rife with radicalization. A hate that comes out of living in a segregated society such as Belgium’s, where the Muslims of Molenbeek often speak Arabic rather than the dominate French and feel like second-class citizens.

An ISIS militant featured in a propaganda video posted on a pro-jihad Twitter account (photo via MotherJones.com)

It’s easy to use Trump’s face as the evil American fascist that wants to use the full extent of the American military powerhouse against ISIS targets, when countless lives have been affected by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Wars where casualties from some air raids have included up to 90% innocent civilians. A number the U.S. military views as casualties in the “War on Terror,” which were started as an assertion of American hegemony through the perversion of the 191 member United Nations. This war on terror just like the “War on Drugs,” will never end unless America eases its imperialistic ambitions to police the world, which is not patriotic and does not serve the security of the planet, it only creates a designation of “us” and “the others.”

American influence is undeniable around the world. Whether it be Coca Cola available in every country (except Cuba and North Korea) or the fact that the  American flag is mounted on the moon, as if NASA accomplished the feat as separate from the entirety mankind. You hear the fear-mongering rhetoric from Kim Jong-Un’s Korean Central News Agency of the “imperialistic American pigs,” but we choose to laugh at his threats of nuclear destruction, where an attack on the U.S. or its allies in South Korea and Japan is routinely thrown around because of the suspicion they have nuclear weapons, while we huddle around the TV in fear to watch young mentally ill Middle Eastern men with nothing more than some Toyota pick-up trucks, guns (which any Texan arms enthusiast would put to shame) and pressure cookers stuffed with rusty nails. North Korea and ISIS are two enemies that exist on a house cards, but thrive off the same message that America is a ‘cancer,’ although both were born out the military’s over stepping in foreign policy, straying far from the touting of isolationism at the turn of the last century, but two presidents would eventually be forced to reluctantly go into two world wars and thus have reshaped geopolitics as well as global security still to this day.

ISIS is a grassroots movement that is as angsty and anti-establishment as voters in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, only these religious extremists have nothing to lose because they already lost their homes and families in U.S. drone strikes. Radical religious extremism born out of a radicalization vacuum created after the overthrowing of Saddam Hussein and the Syrian Civil War, both of which created by a American neo-conservative Congress that chose to forgo what could have been tremendous diplomatic milestone with a joint effort with regional powers Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Turkey, which current presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders advocated for, but the majority opted instead to carpet bomb Iraq as well as Yemen and  Libya to assert military dominance over a an extremely complicated Middle East. However, these wars masked their true purpose, to assert control over the world economy and it’s financial markets through securing of the oil supply and opium fields in Afghanistan. 

The media continues to fail us in presenting  all the terrorism around the world and have been very successful in making the ISIS flag a target for which to aim our paranoia. The fear of Islamic terror groups are uneven, the atrocities Boko Haram continue to commit in West Africa are not as ingrained in the Western collective enemies repertoire because they are black and cannot simply be separated as an “outsider” in the U.S., but if they were to move closer to Lagos, Nigeria, one of the largest cities in Africa, and the nearby oil-rich Niger River Delta, then you would see media narrative similar to the Ebola scare.

ISIS knows their plight to establish a caliphate in the Middle East free from American influence is a doomed crusade because they are false prophets and fervently condemned by almost all 1.6 billion followers of Islam, the world’s second largest religion, but through unspeakable violence ISIS exposes the gross contradictions of western democracy. National governments hastily folding on its values of Liberty and free speech with recent calls for closing the border to Syrian refugees fleeing the same enemy it swears to protect the world from and U.S. presidential candidate Senator Ted Cruz advocating for a police state-like monitoring of Muslim communities, giving legitimacy to extremist propaganda.

We see ISIS as a threat to freedom and “our way of life,” but in reality, our leaders and our xenophobia gives these psychopaths the satisfaction that they have made us cynical, cruel, hard and unkind.

OPINION: The bell of climate refugees it tolls for thee

By: Corey Savard

 

Sept. 9, 2015 – Roszke, Hungary – Syrian immigrants crossing the Hungarian-Serbian border near the refugee center in Roszke, Hungary. (Credit Image: © FORUM via ZUMA Press)

The oceans are rising, but humanity’s ship is not sinking evenly. The poorest nations are already suffering from the effects of climate change while the West ignores an impending future of unprecendented international humanitarian crises.

The Polynesian island nation of Tuvalu’s highest point is 2 metres (6.6 ft) above sea level and will be the first country to be destroyed by a rise of 1 ft. by 2050 and that’s only if humanity can limit global warming to a 2C increase. Despite efforts agreed upon at the 2015 G8 Summit to cut greenhouse admissions, Tuvalu and it’s just over 10,000 citizens pale in comparison to the on-going Syrian Refugee Crisis, but is indicative of a mass migration trend that will come to define the 21st century.

It’s not until the millions of people living in southeast Asia and east Asia begin to flee to the safety of wealthier nations in Europe and North America will the governments of the world act, but not in good faith as the United States and most of the European Union have been reluctant to accept Middle Eastern refugees, standards based in unadulterated bigotism that highlights humanity’s complete incompetence to rule the planet.

Syrian refugees jump the border into Turkey. (photo via Yahoo News)

Radical religious fundamentalists in the Middle East and the threat of terror attacks resulting from the immigration of Muslims has provided the platform issue for the paranoid to justify their xenophobia and hatred that echoes in the senates of the West. It has catapulted presidential elections and is pushing the dismantling of the E.U., that would send Europe back to its days of putting up border walls to divide the political ideologies of the 20th century, in reality they may now rise up once again to undo the progress the free world won with two world wars.

Global economic inequality is universally understood at family dinner tables when your mom repeats the mantra “You won’t eat your vegetables, while there are starving kids in Africa!” but it’s a reality we can no longer be removed from. When the disadvantaged nations in Africa and Asia, continents that have been devastated by flood, drought, war, and famine show up at your door asking you to answer their cry for saviour from disasters we in the global North have played a hand in facilitating.

The illusion of the mono-cultural society is fading, but has never been a reality in North America because it’s greatest accomplishments in railroads, civil rights, and technology would not exist without Asian immigration and the enslavement of Africans. Climate change is not only reshaping the map of the world, it’s reshaping demographics. Germany has made an agreement to accept  1.1 million refugees from Syria and Iraq, but over half of the world’s population (over 4 billion) stands in the path of natural disasters.

Wealthy countries are in denial of climate change and keep a pragmatic agenda that can’t even save the historically profound cities of Venice and Amsterdam, cities that gave way to modern banking and commerce will be under water by 2050, due in part to the greed the neoliberal and unhinged capitalism it thrives on. Not even the planet is safe from short-term fiscal gains.

Fortunately for big money, it’s influence will fight till it’s last flicker of power and this why the equally vulnerable financial capitals of New York, London, and Tokyo can afford take out a lease on time through a monumental investment in complex levees, with each city having to create a new marvel in human engineering.

Despite the 2,325 billionaires on earth (as of 2014), they will never accrue the debt humanity owes to nature. When in crisis, we seek the necessities of life and who are we the richest nations to trample over this planet without repercussions? Who are we to violate our own Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Constitution, and Magna Carta to deny the most poverty and environmentally-stricken people the opportunity of freedom in our privileged dream. A middle-class dream built on the yearning of refugees and the tireless spirits of history.

We will never save nature, but we can still save our soul in reforming our response to the impending refugee crises of this century caused by the irresponsible over-stepping of the U.S. government’s foreign policy and the environmental degradation of coastal nations because “any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee” – John Donne.

Ontario to experiment with universal basic income

By: Corey Savard

Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau (photo via agoracosmopolitan.com)

Well this is not the conservative federal politics Canadians have been accustomed to under Stephen Harpers nine years of fiscal spending (that actually lead to a massive federal deficit) and strife with the Obama Administration that has left Canadians with inequality growing every month in a stagnant employment market.

The Ontario government announced it will be experimenting with a basic income guarantee (BIG) for Canadians that qualify. Details have not yet been released, however it be a monthly salary that is actually part of larger austerity measures that alter the welfare state with strategic cuts to social services that will go towards giving citizens independence to meet everyday expenses.

This is the welfare state Canadians deserve, without having to completely reform our capitalist society. It’s creating not only a new standard for a citizen but for a human being to have the right to live, one of the most conservative values, but without freedom to pursue happiness there is no life, only complacency on a broken social ladder that does no benefit to the state, the economy or progress.

Critics to basic income such as the late American president Ronald Reagan who said it makes people “lazy and dependent on government,” but the Mincome BIG pilot in Manitoba in the 1970s showed the exact opposite unfolded. A basic income did not affect employment growth and in fact, women were able to “buy” maternity leave, who are the most effected by poverty with disparity apparent in unpaid housework.

Canada ranks last amongst OECD countries in childcare, but universal childcare is unlikely with a national debt of over $600 billion. BIG empowers mothers that would no longer have to rely on their partner’s income, their savings, or family financial support to feed or pay for private childcare, but who a basic income truly benefits is those who have no access to either of the three support systems.

Ultimately the Ontario government’s BIG experiment must thoroughly research its effects on population centres from the rural to the Greater Toronto Area. Minority single mothers make up the majority of Toronto’s poorest households, yet are reliant on the multitude of low-skill employment available in the city. While those living in rural Ontario will not have to choose between staying in their hometown or moving to a city to look for a liveable income that has the potential slow white gentrification.

Clinton Beware of the Ides of March

By: Corey Savard

Demoratic presidential candidate and the for Secretary of State in the Obama Administration (photo via CNN.com)

Last night’s Super Tuesday results were expected. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton won the support of Democrats in the the southern states (Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and Arkansas), states in which she carried the African-American vote, but victories that have zero credibility in a general election because they will most certainly support a Trump Republican ticket, based on voter turnout.

While Clinton supporters and the establishment media revel in what they see as a clear path to the White House in November, was given a crushing ‘bern’ in Minnesota, Colorado, and Oklahoma, states that are much more indicative of voting trends across the country. Adding fuel to Sen. Bernie Sanders’ political revolution is the shockingly close primary in Massachusetts, a hotbed of establishment Democrats, where Clinton won by a mere 1.4% and reminiscent of her widely perceived failure in the Iowa Caucus by winning with .3%.

However, Sanders was unable to to establish a strong hold in New England, which makes the next “Super” Tuesday on Mar. 15, the day Clinton’s campaign might very well unravel. If Sanders’ Millennial supporters turnout in Illinois, Ohio, Florida, Missouri, North Carolina, and especially if he wins the Michigan primary on Mar. 8, he will dig a stronghold in the delegate rich Midwest.

The Midwest is the manufacturing heart of the nation’s economy and one of the hardest hit by the 2008 Recession. It’s also home to many blue-collar union members which have been the biggest financial contributors to Sanders’ campaign and leery of Wall Street money in politics, which epitomizes 21st century Clintons.

This is a battle for the soul of American liberalism. Republicans are dealing with their own fight against the highjacking of the GOO by the radical outsider Donald Trump touting totalitarianism, but he’s a monster of their own creation, a consequence of the conservative establishment’s pushing of a national agenda based in fear and racism.

The situation for the Democratic party is similar, an outsider looking to bring dramatic change that taps into the collective concerns of Americans with a platform advocating for Free tuition for post-secondary education, universal healthcare, and a $15 minimum wage that are polling favourably nationwide.  The Vermont senator is forcing Clinton to realign her pragmatic policies further to the left, but it will not be enough to overshadow the lifelong progressive Sanders. A candidate that has been completely transparent, while Clinton refuses to release the transcripts speeches she gave to Goldman Sachs.

The divide in the Democratic party is just as alarming as the one across the aisle because failure by the establishment and progressivism will lead to a Donald J. Trump presidency. Clinton is not capturing the imagination of working class Americans like Sanders and Trump are continuing to do, and the superdelegates backing Clinton must come to the realization that Sanders supporters will not sell out their conscience to turn out at the polls for her in the general election.

 

 

Martin Lisius: America’s greatest Tornado Chaser

By: Corey Savard

 

Martin Lisius, founder of Tempest Tours, the top storm chasing tour company in the Midwest based in Arlington, Tx. (photo via Tempest Tours)

Sitting in front of the family’s ground model television, a little boy assembles his grade eight science project while he and his parents watch weatherman Harold Taft on Dallas-Ft. Worth’s NBC Channel 5, the founder of modern television weather news, reporting live on whether or not to close their windows for the night. Taft has reported on hundreds of tornadoes because his station is located in the world’s most tornado-prone region: The Great Plains, commonly referred to as “Tornado Alley.”

The top story: a tornado has touched down not too far from the family’s Arlington, Tex. home.

They don’t run for the safety of the basement, they yawn and watch the rest of the local nightly news. Leaving his half-awake parents to watch the sports report, he bolts for the front door to get a look the homemade weather station he has perched on his family home’s roof. It’s an elaborate construction of milk cartons and coat hangers, but it’s spinning as violently as Taft’s most trusted weather detecting equipment.

This little boy is Martin Lisius. He would go on to win his middle school’s science fair in 1973 for his 3D model of a ‘super cell,’ a large rotating storm system that has the potential to become a tornado.

He is now the president and founder of Arlington, Tex.-based Tempest Tours. The company takes 6-20 people on a week-long road trip across The Great Plains on tornado chasing tours. He started as a storm spotter in 1987 when he was still in college, he then began to give tours, driving towards one of the deadliest forces of nature with only a van, a laptop, and a $5,000 investment. Tempest Tours made over $250,000 last tornado season and have expanded to Denver, Col. and Oklahoma City, Okla.

A reason for the company’s success is its crew, comprised of some the most knowledgeable severe storm analysts in the world, which include: a climatologist, a wind meteorologist, and a National Weather Service meteorologist. A chase begins days before when Lisius and his team track weather data leading up to “touchdown.” He then begins to track his target, a super cell, and plans the quickest, but also safest route for his guests to get one hell of a Kodak moment.

Lisius says Tempest Tours is “not for thrill seekers.” It’s for those who want to marvel at the complexity of our atmosphere.

“Forecast verification is more of a thrill for me than seeing a tornado. It’s really quite an ordinary, normal ‘everyday at the office’ thing for me,” Lisius said.

Easy to say when you’ve been chasing tornadoes for over 25 years and witnessed some of the largest and deadliest tornadoes in American history. Lisius can’t tell you the biggest tornado he’s ever witnessed because there are too many he never got the chance to measure, but the largest Tempest Tours has recorded was just under a mile wide.

There is one tornado Lisius will never forget, the Spencer, S.D. Tornado of 1998. It was the second deadliest in South Dakota history, killing 13 people and injuring 1/3 of the small town of just over 300. The tornado carved almost a half mile of damage through the town from 8:38 p.m. to 8:44 p.m., destroying most of the town’s 190 buildings.

Lisius takes risks seriously, this is why Tempest Tours is renowned for its safety measures and has been praised for the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity they offer by CNN, Group Tour Magazine, and ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

Guests are fully aware of the dangers in chasing a deadly natural force and are usually well-educated professionals.

Jenna Blum, author of the New York Times bestseller “The Stormchasers,” took part in her first storm chase in 2006 to do research for her novel and was satisfying a life-long fascination with severe weather. Her first chase was so memorable that she has gone back to Texas every year since to work as a guide for the company.

“The clients I’ve chased with over the years have become my close friends,” Blum said. “I call them my storm family.”

She says everything she knows about tornadoes, she learned from Lisius, which is the best teacher on the subject since Lisius is one of America’s most respected severe weather experts, having been a consultant for the 1996 box-office hit “Twister” and “Tree of Life” starring Brad Pitt, telling the story of a family during the 1950s tornado outbreak in Waco, Tex. Lisius was also the cinematographer for a 2010 Twister-inspired Chevy truck commercial he stars in as himself chasing a wicked storm through a hail of bricks and 4×4’s.

Lisius says having the opportunity to meet ‘90’s Hollywood star Bill Paxton, acclaimed director Jan Du Bont, and of all people, Oprah Winfrey, was an experience he will never forget, but in reference to the infamous ‘flying cow’ scene in Twister, “They didn’t care so much for accuracy because it’s Hollywood,” Lisius said. “The dust and debris would obscure the view of flying livestock.”

Lisius is living his dream of analyzing severe weather in his hometown just like his childhood hero Harold Taft on Channel 5 News, but gets much closer to the story than the north Texas meteorology legend. Tempest Tours aims to provide the most informative and safest tour, which Lisius believes truly gives his guests an appreciation of the rare and destructive phenomenon they are witnessing.

Despite his unconventional job title, he says a TV show of his work would be of little interest to Discovery Channel. “Nobody wants to see somebody relaxed and in control.”