News – Partisan Issues

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Why The USMCA “Non-Market” Clause is Not a “Trump Veto” and Is Actually Good For Canada & Mexico

There is much hype on the so-called “non-market” clause in the USMCA (aka. NAFTA 2.0): ‘Astonishing’ clause in new deal suggests Trump wants leverage over Canada-China trade talks: experts SOURCE Chinese embassy in Canada condemns ‘US veto’ clause in North America trade deal SOURCE Beijing attacks USMCA clause seen as blocking efforts to expand trade with Canada, Mexico SOURCE Alarm bells ring over non-market economy clause SOURCE and it many political opponents wrote things like: Conservative MP Michael Chong accused…

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What’s Wrong With the UCP Position That Alberta NDP Caused Their Own Oil Pipeline Mess?

There are many quotes from the Alberta United Conservative Party that effectively say, the Alberta NDP caused their own oil pipeline mess by empowering those that oppose the oil industry: How was someone like Tzeporah Berman named co-chair of the ‘Oil Sands Advisory Group’ given her clear positions BEFORE appointment? Outrageous that the NDP ever chose to validate and raise the profile of someone like Tzeporah Berman – Jason Kenny Source Before we go any further, you should know my personal…

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Massive Chinese Chip Hack Shows How Great Apple and Amazon Are… Even If They Won’t Take The Credit

Today Bloomberg released a report stating that, at the direction of the Chinese Government, a massive China based ‘board’ manufacturer named SuperMicro added hardware to servers that were sold to Amazon and Apple. While the specific details of what was implant is not fully known yet, it is safe to say that such a hack would almost certainly: give complete access to all data running through the servers in question provide at least some access to non-infected servers On its…

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Calgary 2026 Winter Games Construction, Scale, Support & Budget In Pictures

In case our detailed article on the budget and buildings was too much, this simplified version explains the Calgary 2026 Winter Olympic bid in pictures and graphics: CLICK ON ANY GRAPHIC TO MAKE IT LARGER 1: Calgary 2026 Olympic Venues CLICK ON ANY GRAPHIC TO MAKE IT LARGER 2: Calgary 2026 Olympic Budgets CLICK ON ANY GRAPHIC TO MAKE IT LARGER 3: Calgary 2026 Olympics Scale & Timeline CLICK ON ANY GRAPHIC TO MAKE IT LARGER 4: Calgary 2026…

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Budget Breakdown of Calgary 2026 Winter Olympic Bid

The first rough budget, presented to City Council in the summer of 2017, for the Calgary 2026 Winter Olympic Bid was CDN $4.6B. (Click the pie chart to the right). After spending about $30 Million on a more formal evaluation, a more thoughtful budget of CDN $5.23B was presented to Calgary Council in September 2019. Here is a breakdown of the proposed spending. NOTE: Be sure to skim through Calgary 2026 Winter Games Construction, Scale, Support & Budget In Pictures What Calgary…

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The 2026 Calgary Winter Olympics Will Cost Double What They Say, If History Is A Guide

On September 12, 2018 the City of Calgary authorized a plebiscite (special vote by citizens) to decide if Calgary should proceed with it’s Olympic bid so we decided to find our how far off the final official budgets were from the actual costs. The numbers are staggering. Below is a table we constructed that includes the “final budget” numbers and budget overruns for every Olympics since 1976. UPDATE: Sept 19 2018 Calgary 2026 Winter Games Construction, Scale, Support & Budget In…

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VIDEO: What Can & What Can Not Be Done About The Trans Mountain Pipeline Court Decision?

The recent Federal Court decision holding up the Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion project makes for great political debate and emotional exaggeration but is not nearly as onerous as many people are make out. Put simply the decision said just two things: Consultation that has already been COMPLETED needs to respond to concerns, not just acknowledge them There needs to be a short study of the impacts of Tanker traffic in the Vancouver area Neither of these are hugely difficult or…

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Cold Fusion is Not Dead: LENR Will Change Our World

What Happens To Transformational Technologies Like Fusion When Even Governments Say It Will Take Too Long To Develop? The short video below explains how technology that can fundamentally change the world through things like limitless energy is something that few investors or even governments want to fund. In this world of short-termism in which elected officials can only see to the next election and CEO’s are only concerned about the next three quarters, there are some who are willing to…

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VIDEO: What The Federal Court Ruling Against Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion Actually Said, Why & What’s Next

The recent Trans Mountain court case has groups on both sides fired up and stretching the implications. This video from BNN Bloomberg calmly explains that Federal Court ruled against the Trans Mountain pipeline on just two grounds: 1: TRANS MOUNTAIN CONSULTATION: The consultation with a small number of indigenous communities was not sufficiently responded to. There was not change in plan based on the previous consultation and the court found that that was not enough. It is worth noting, as we…

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VIDEO: Two Practical Solutions To Fix American Politics

Why is it so difficult to get large scale projects (like national debt reduction and major infrastructure projects) even considered in the United States political system? This is a question I started asking myself years ago when I discovered that the American electoral system has a 2 year cycle for Congress (aka Parliament). It is apparent that it takes more than two years of work to get a candidate into position and raise the money that is required to run…

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VIDEO: How Much Responsibility Do Facebook Google & Twitter Have To Block Russian Misinformation?

In an era of apparently undeniable Russian state sponsored interference in American and UK Elections social media companies like Facebook, Twitter & Google have been called to account for their part in the ‘attacks’. This begs the question, how much responsibility do internet and social media companies really have for blocking misinformation by primarily foreign entities? In this video Bloomberg explores Keith Rabois’, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist and PayPal Vice President, opinion that social media is just another form…

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VIDEO: Are Wages Stagnant Because Tech Firms Like Apple, Google & Facebook Have Replaced Worker Productivity With Technology Productivity?

This interesting video explains that while the world economy has recovered from the 2008 economic collapse, wages are still only growing at the rate of inflation; that is half of what they were growing before the Great Recession. This is because the 80% of corporate profits are now concentrated in just 10% of companies and mostly those are tech giants. The so called ‘superstar firms’ like Apple, Facebook and Google are advancing technology and intellectual property at a staggering rate.…

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Is Toronto City Council Too Large: Toronto vs New York vs Vancouver vs LA vs Chicago

There has been much debate in recent weeks about the size of Toronto City Council. Currently there are 47 elected councilors in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) and newly elected Ontario Premier (and former Toronto City Councillor) Doug Ford announced he is reducing that number to 25. You can make solid arguments on both sides of this issue: Reasons To Keep Toronto City Council at 47 Better representation The cost of each councilor only about 0.00008% of Toronto’s $14.2B annual budget…

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VIDEO: The Biology of Why Facts Don’t Win Fights

This site is all about the facts. We strive to provide only a core analysis of the facts and try very hard not to editorialize. However, we know that humans crave sensationalism and we had always attributed outlandish claims and slanderous statements on other sites (Fox News, PITA, YoungTurks, Breitbart, …) as the root cause of their high traffic. It was less of a surprise and more of a clarification that biology plays an important part arguments. Put simply, facts…

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Solar & Wind Just Keep Crushing Production Predictions

Over the years many knowledgeable people have downplayed the contributions that Solar and Wind can play in the future. On the other side we keep hearing about massive increases in Solar and Wind electricity production due to costs dropping precipitously. So we wanted to know how often the so called experts are correct and how often their predictions are wrong. For the purposes of this article we will focus on predictions from the IEA (International Energy Association) because it is…

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Most Popular Course In Yale University’s History Teaches Students How To Reduce Stress Through Real Social Interactions

Yale Professor Julia Santos teaches the most popular class in Yale University history on how to reduce stress through routine real, physical social interaction. Social Media give today’s students the impression of interaction but it is so cursory as to only cause increase angst because students end up unnecessarily comparing them selves to others. What students (and everyone else) needs is routine social interactions like a coffee at Starbucks every morning where they talk to the staff or retail jobs…