Canada to lay claim to north pole

TheGuardian

Published on Dec 10, 2013

Canada to lay claim to north pole

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Canada plans to claim the north pole as part of a bid to assert control over a large part of the resource-rich Arctic. The country’s foreign affairs minister, John Baird, said the government had asked scientists to work on a future submission to the United Nations arguing that the outer limits of the country’s continental shelf include the pole

Click for full Guardian article:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/vide…

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Polar Force: Putin orders Arctic military build-up in 2014

RT

Published on Dec 10, 2013

Russia will create forces in the Arctic in 2014 to ensure military security and protect the country’s national interests in the region, which President Vladimir Putin has named among the government’s top priorities. READ MORE: http://on.rt.com/kpqz0a

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Should U.S. Citizens Be Allowed To Shoot Down Drones? Colorado Town Postpones Vote!

MOXNEWSd0tC0M

Published on Dec 10, 2013

December 10, 2013 CNN

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Climate change causing wetlands to disappear in US

The US has an ecological problem. New research shows its wetlands are disappearing fast, putting wildlife and even the food chain at risk.&n…

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World of Spycraft: NSA and CIA Spied in Online Game

http://www.propublica.org/article/world-of-spycraft-intelligence-agencies-spied-in-online-games

Visitors play “World of Warcraft” at an exhibition stand during the Gamescom 2012 fair in Cologne, Germany. (Ina Fassbender/Reuters)

by Justin Elliott, ProPublica, and Mark Mazzetti, The New York Times, Dec. 9, 2013, 6:59 a.m.

Note: This story is not subject to our Creative Commons license.

This story has been reported in partnership between The New York Times, the Guardian and ProPublica based on documents obtained by The Guardian.

Not limiting their activities to the earthly realm, American and British spies have infiltrated the fantasy worlds of World of Warcraft and Second Life, conducting surveillance and scooping up data in the online games played by millions of people across the globe, according to newly disclosed classified documents.

Fearing that terrorist or criminal networks could use the games to communicate secretly, move money or plot attacks, the documents show, intelligence operatives have entered terrain populated by digital avatars that include elves, gnomes and supermodels.

The spies have created make-believe characters to snoop and to try to recruit informers, while also collecting data and contents of communications between players, according to the documents, disclosed by the former National Security Agency contractor Edward J. Snowden. Because militants often rely on features common to video games — fake identities, voice and text chats, a way to conduct financial transactions — American and British intelligence agencies worried that they might be operating there, according to the papers.

Takeaways: How Spy Agencies Operate In Virtual Worlds

GATHERING INTELLIGENCE: U.S. and British intelligence agencies — including the Central Intelligence Agency, Defense intelligence agency and Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters — have operated in virtual worlds and gaming communities to snoop and try to recruit informants. For example, according to Snowden documents, the U.S. has conducted spy operations in Second Life (pictured), where players create human avatars to socialize, buy and sell goods and explore exotic virtual destinations. (Second Life image via Linden Lab)

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Online games might seem innocuous, a top-secret 2008 NSA document warned, but they had the potential to be a “target-rich communication network” allowing intelligence suspects “a way to hide in plain sight.” Virtual games “are an opportunity!,” another 2008 NSA document declared.

But for all their enthusiasm — so many CIA, FBI and Pentagon spies were hunting around in Second Life, the document noted, that a “deconfliction” group was needed to avoid collisions — the intelligence agencies may have inflated the threat.

The documents do not cite any counterterrorism successes from the effort, and former American intelligence officials, current and former gaming company employees and outside experts said in interviews that they knew of little evidence that terrorist groups viewed the games as havens to communicate and plot operations.

(Transcript: What are intelligence agencies doing in virtual worlds?)

Games “are built and operated by companies looking to make money, so the players’ identity and activity is tracked,” said Peter W. Singer of the Brookings Institution, an author of “Cybersecurity and Cyberwar: What Everyone Needs to Know.” “For terror groups looking to keep their communications secret, there are far more effective and easier ways to do so than putting on a troll avatar.”

….(read more).

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Naomi Klein and Joseph Stiglitz on Economic Power

CUNYMedia

Uploaded on Nov 18, 2009

What is the role of the U.S. in the disposition of the world’s economic and environmental resources? How are financial markets best defended from economic shock? Does liberalization ensure prosperity?

Journalist Naomi Klein speaks with economists Joseph Stiglitz and Hernando de Soto in a conversation moderated by David Harvey, Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at the Graduate Center – City University of New York (CUNY)

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Neva Goodwin at MIT on “A New Economics for the 21st Century”

Efssociety

Streamed live on Feb 13, 2013

The New Economics Institute and New Economy @ MIT present a conversation with Neva Goodwin entitled “A New Economics for the 21st Century.” This is the 1st event in the New Economy @ MIT spring speaker series: “Building the New Economy”

Neva Goodwin is Co-Director of the Global Development And Environment Institute at Tufts University. She is the lead author of two introductory college-level textbooks: Microeconomics in Context and Macroeconomics in Context, published by M.E. Sharpe. These are the starting points for her endeavor to develop an economic theory— “contextual economics”—that will have more relevance to real-world concerns than does the dominant economic paradigm. Goodwin is also director of a project that has developed a “Social Science Library: Frontier Thinking in Sustainable Development and Human Well-Being.” Containing a bibliography of 10,000 titles, including full text PDFs of about a third of these, this material will be sent on USB drives or CDs to all university libraries in 137 developing countries. As a member of the board of Ceres and in other activities outside of her academic work, Goodwin is involved in efforts to motivate business to recognize social and ecological health as significant, long-term corporate goals.

Learn more about Neva Goodwin at the New Economy movement at www.neweconomicsinstitute.org.

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Bob Massie on “The State of the New Economy Movement”

Efssociety

Streamed live on Feb 20, 2013

A conversation with Bob Massie on “The State of the New Economy Movement,” presented by the New Economics Institute and New Economy @ MIT.

Bob Massie is President and CEO of the New Economics Institute, which is building a coalition to accelerate the transition to an economy that prioritizes the wellbeing of people and the planet. Previously, Bob served as President of Ceres, co-founder and chair of the Global Reporting Initiative, and initiator of the Investor Network on Climate Risk.

This is the second event of the spring speaker series: “Building the New Economy.” Watch the first event with esteemed economics professor Neva Goodwin here:

About the New Economy Speaker Series:

If you have ever wondered what exactly the “new economy” is, or you want to engage in some structured discussion with your peers and leaders of the movement, this series is built for you.

“Building the New Economy” will provide a conceptual grounding for the flourishing New Economy movement, covering the most important themes and issues. We are taking an experimental approach to our lunch series. Don’t come expecting a lecture. For 15 -20 minutes, each invited speaker will discuss the issue at hand (from economic growth to alternative consumption models) and the remaining time will be opened up for a facilitated conversation with 20 of your peers and colleagues.

Learn about upcoming events and get involved with New Economy @ MIT: https://www.facebook.com/groups/newec…

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The Battle Over Cross-State Air Pollution

http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2013-12-10/battle-over-cross-state-air-pollution
Tuesday, December 10, 2013 – 10:06 a.m.

In this Oct. 14, 2013 photo, tons of coal sit next to a Big Sandy power plant unit near Louisa, Ky.  (AP Photo/Bruce Schreiner)

Eight East Coast states have petitioned the Environmental Protection Agency to impose tougher air pollution standards on the coal-producing Midwest. The Supreme Court will hear arguments on air quality mandates. Diane and her guests discuss the battle over cross-state air pollution.

Guests Dina Cappiello, national environmental reporter, The Associated Press.

David Hawkins, director of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) Climate Center; former co-director of the organization’s Clean Air Program

William Yeatman, senior fellow, Center for Energy and Environment at the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI)

Gene Trisko, chairman, Midwest Ozone Group Governmental Relations and Communications Committee

Maggie Hassan, governor, State of New Hampshire (D)

Related Links

“Eastern States Press Midwest to Improve Air” by Coral Davenport (NYTimes)

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The spying game: Companies monitor activists because they can | Grist

http://grist.org/politics/the-spying-game-companies-monitor-activists-because-they-can/

By Heather Smith

Chris Goldberg

Back in the ’40s, my grandmother lost her scholarship to college after the school found out she had attended a meeting run by a communist organization. Whoever made the call that my grandmother was a communist rabblerouser no longer deserving educational subsidy was clearly acting on bad intel. It would be hard to think of a more terrible communist than my grandmother: She loved playing the stock market.

As someone who enjoys hanging out with both spooks and radicals, I leave a greater trail of troublemaking by proximity than the people who snooped on my nana could have ever dreamed of. Selfishly, I wonder, thehow does this affect me? The epic growth of Homeland Security in the last decade has also led to a commensurate growth in people trained by federal intelligence agencies working for private intelligence firms. Wal-Mart’s internal security department, for example, is filled with former agents from the C.I.A., the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and other government agencies.

There’s a good deal of spying that you can do on a person before you move into the realm of illegality. It’s still perfectly legal to use a false identity — including fake ID cards and other documentation — to gather information, as long as your lie doesn’t net you certain kinds of information that have been established (usually via a court ruling) as protected under privacy law. Searching through trash for information is perfectly legal, as long as the trash is on a curb or other public property.

Still, information shows up — mostly in lawsuits between corporations, or corporations and their employees — that suggests private security firms routinely use surveillance in ways that break the law, like tracking cellphone calls and using keystroke loggers to obtain access to private email accounts. Wal-Mart’s former director of marketing sued the company for wrongful dismissal, after Wal-Mart somehow obtained access to the Gmail account of another employee that she was having an affair with, and fired both of them for violating company policy. The case was settled out of court.

The question is: Are the intelligence tactics developed for the War on Terror leaking into private sector investigations? When a private investigations firm named Beckett Brown International (later renamed Si2) imploded in 2001, a former investor began to share documents from the company with former intelligence targets. Among the discoveries: The company, which was founded and run by former intelligence officers, was spying on Greenpeace for Dow Chemical (Greenpeace was on a campaign to get chlorine out of paper plates and napkins, which Dow objected to) and a coalition of anti-GMO organizations that called themselves GE Food Alert, who were campaigning to keep GMO corn out of Taco Bell products. Beckett Brown went so far as to hire a police officer in Washington D.C. to get access to the locked dumpsters at Greenpeace headquarters. A lawsuit later filed by Greenpeace against Dow Chemical revealed that Beckett Brown was also probably tapping Greenpeace’s phone calls.

….(read more).

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