Tag: corporations

Why are taxpayers paying for pipelines private companies used to build?

Canada’s pipeline sector, once entirely funded by private investment, is now leaning on taxpayer subsidies after years of federal regulatory hurdles.

On Tuesday’s episode of The Ezra Levant Show, Noah Jarvis, Ontario director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, joined Ezra to discuss two newly floated pipeline proposals — one from Alberta to the Port of Vancouver championed by Prime Minister Mark Carney, and another to Ontario backed by Premiers Doug Ford and Danielle Smith. 

Both projects are expected to require significant government subsidies, in sharp contrast to a decade ago, when private companies competed to build pipelines without a dime of public money, including proposals that were later killed by federal decisions, such as Northern Gateway and Energy East.

“The government is very much in the way right now,” Noah said, pointing to the Impact Assessment Act, passed by the Trudeau government in 2019, and the industrial carbon tax as key barriers driving up the cost of producing Alberta oil.

Noah cited a recent Fraser Institute report suggesting the industrial carbon tax, if it climbs to $140 per tonne, could add roughly 20 percent to the cost of producing a barrel of Alberta oil. Canada, he noted, is the only country that levies such a tax on its oil and gas producers. He urged Smith and Ford to pressure Ottawa to repeal the Impact Assessment Act and roll back the carbon tax, rather than turning to subsidies. 

Ezra questioned why neither proposal has any backing from producers, calling the Vancouver route’s estimated $30-billion price tag “insane,” and describing the Ontario pipeline as “at best, PR gimmicks, and at worst, government white elephants.”

“You don’t have to spend all this money,” Ezra said. “Just get rid of those blockages and blockades and regulations.”

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Flock Safety CEO Says If You Don’t Like His Pervasive Surveillance Cameras, You’re A Terrorist

Garrett Langley is the founder and CEO of Flock Safety, an Atlanta-based public safety technology company specializing in automated license plate readers and drone surveillance. 

In the video below, Langley refers to the organization ‘DeFlock’ that works to stop the expansion of his products, as terrorists.

Langely also freely admits his company tracks people. In the video he admits his company uses AI to integrate massive amounts of data to track anything that moves in the view of his devices.

The Flock System has also been disclosed to contain microphones and other capabilities, to track audio, bluetooth, etc.

This is not freedom, this is Big Brother.

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Seeds of Surveillance: The Track and Trace Playbook

QR codes are usually associated with convenience. In the Seed Act 2026, they become something else entirely: extending traceability to what is grown before it enters the supply chain, changing who has control over our food.

The Seed Act 2026 is presented by the Union Government of India as a necessary modernisation measure to curb the circulation of fake or substandard seeds.

The stated aim is the rollout of a new nationwide traceability system that mandates QR codes on all seed packets, compulsory registration for all commercial seed entities and significantly heightened penalties—up to ₹30 lakh (€27,000+ euros) and three years’ imprisonment—for seed fraud.

The government has consistently maintained that the Seed Act 2026 is designed to regulate only the commercial seed trade and will not interfere with the long-standing rights of farmers to save, sow, exchange or share seeds within their communities.

Officials emphasise that these traditional, non-branded and community-based practices remain a vital part of India’s agricultural heritage and are explicitly exempt from the registration and digital traceability requirements imposed on commercial entities.

While the government maintains that the Act will rebuild farmer trust, streamline quality control and strictly protect the traditional rights of farmers to save, share and exchange seeds, critics like the Samyukt Kisan Morcha (an umbrella coalition of 400+ farmers’ unions) view these reforms as a well-worn corporate strategy of enclosure that eradicates seed and food sovereignty.

Critics argue that these government assurances are insufficient and potentially misleading. They contend that by failing to explicitly define and protect community seed systems as a distinct sector, the Act leaves them vulnerable to administrative overreach.

Farmer organisations worry that without clear, ironclad legal safeguards, the pressure to comply with registration and branding requirements—especially for small-scale seed producers who may use simple packaging—will effectively force them to adopt the same burdensome and costly standards as large corporations, gradually pushing decentralised, village-level systems towards extinction.

Even with an informal exemption, the pressure to meet the ‘certified’ market standard could make traditional seed sharing increasingly risky. Critics argue that the rigid requirements for ‘certified, stable and uniform’ seeds will effectively criminalise or marginalise indigenous, locally adapted varieties, creating a dependency loop that forces farmers to rely on high-cost, proprietary inputs from large agribusinesses.

This would, in effect, mirror the pattern of corporate capture and loss of food sovereignty observed in other countries across the world.

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Big Corporations Get Rich From Their Secret Seed Patents — Taxpayers and Farmers Pay the Price

The U.S. is one of only a handful of countries that allows companies to hold patents on plant varieties.

As a result, a small number of corporations can — and do — suppress competition in the seed industry, stifle innovation and turn taxpayer subsidies intended for farmers into corporate profits.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has found that two companies control more than 70% of U.S. corn and soybean seed sales, and the top four cottonseed companies control nearly 94% of that market.

In a May court filing in a legal dispute between two U.S. seed companies, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) said patents on seeds are obstructing competition and research in the agriculture industry.

As researchers who work on plant breeding and seed policy, we have seen how that plays out.

When huge companies assert their patents, smaller businesses and public plant breeders, who often lack the legal resources to fight back, are frequently dissuaded from conducting research and development that might actually not be illegal at all.

And a lack of competition allows dominant companies — not always based in the U.S. — to collect large sums of taxpayer money that Congress allocated in hopes it would help farmers, not shareholders’ and executives’ bottom lines.

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Man Who Sued Pepsi Over Fighter Jet Finally Gets His Reward 30 Years Later

Three decades after suing Pepsi for refusing to give him a fighter jet, John Leonard finally got a reward that may be even better, according to a post at Supercarblondie. 

Leonard became the center of one of advertising’s most famous legal battles after taking a 1996 Pepsi commercial at face value. The ad, promoting the company’s Pepsi Points loyalty program, jokingly claimed customers could redeem seven million Pepsi Points for a military Harrier jet.

Rather than laugh it off, the Seattle college student raised enough money to buy the required points and submitted a claim for the aircraft. Pepsi rejected it, insisting the jet was never a real prize.

The article says that the case went to court, where a judge ruled that no reasonable person would believe Pepsi was seriously offering a fighter jet in a soft drink promotion.

Although Leonard lost the lawsuit, the bizarre dispute became legendary and was later chronicled in the Netflix documentary Pepsi, Where’s My Jet?.

Now, nearly 30 years later, Frontier Airlines gave the story a happy ending. As part of a Super Bowl campaign called “The Big Redemption,” the airline converted Leonard’s original seven million Pepsi Points into seven million Frontier Miles, effectively giving him free flights for life.

The airline even featured Leonard in a tongue-in-cheek commercial, handing him the keys to an Airbus A320neo as a nod to the decades-old saga.

Now in his 50s with a wife and children, Leonard joked that unlimited airline miles are far more practical than owning and maintaining a military fighter jet. After waiting three decades, he never got the Harrier, but he may have received an even better prize.

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Sony Playstation Deletes 551 Movies People Already Paid For

Sony delivered a brutal reminder this week that if you don’t own the physical disc, you don’t own the movie.

Even if you paid the full price to purchase the movie, you don’t really own the movie.

Sony has “confirmed a substantial wipeout that will result in over 550 titles being permanently deleted from personal libraries.”

“The list of movies and series that will be pulled from digital spaces is extensive and spans a wide range of prominent blockbusters, indie hits, and critically acclaimed titles that people have previously purchased to watch at home or on the move — but not for much longer,” adds the report.

This includes popular movies such as Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Total Recall, and Rambo: First Blood, along with outright classics such as Apocalypse Now and The Deer Hunter. Even some TV shows, like American Gods and Versailles, will be yanked.

Here’s Sony’s announcement to all the suckers who purchased these 551 movies and TV series:

As of 1 September, 2026, due to our content licensing arrangements, you will no longer be able to watch any of your previously purchased StudioCanal content and the content will be removed from your video library.

That’s just another way of saying what came out of the fascist World Economic Forum ten years ago: “You’ll own nothing and be happy.”

Listen, I’m not trying to come off as superior here. About ten years ago, I naively decided to go full-digital with my obnoxiously huge movie collection. After converting, I sold my discs. Hundreds of them. Then came the realization that “owning” a digital copy meant nothing of the sort. It also meant that the Woke Gestapo was going into private digitized collections and vandalizing movies, even classics like The French Connection.

I have since rebuilt my physical media collection, but too many of the movies I once owned on Blu-ray are no longer available.

Oh, and it’s not just movies and TV shows anymore. You once owned a copy of computer programs by purchasing a CD. Remember that? Well, today you are forced to rent that program by the month or by the year.

Sony PlayStation also just announced that it will no longer sell physical copies of its games starting in 2028. You will only be allowed to buy a digital copy, which means Sony can censor it, alter it, or remove it any time it wishes.

If a movie or TV show, song, or novel means a lot to you, buy the physical copy or risk not only having your copy censored or removed, but also risk it disappearing forever — like Song of the South or The Path to 9/11 — for political reasons.

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Ford Hires Back Former Engineers to Fix Errors Caused by AI

Ford is acknowledging the challenges it faced with AI production and design systems after the automaker recently claimed the top spot in JD Power’s initial quality ranking for mainstream brands for the first time in 16 years. According to Ford, attempting to replace highly-skilled employees with AI-powered systems was a mistake.

The Verge reports that Ford has revealed that its reliance on artificial intelligence and automated systems in vehicle production and design created significant quality problems, forcing the company to bring back experienced engineers and technicians to correct mistakes made by its robots.

Charles Poon, Ford’s vice president of vehicle hardware engineering, explained during a briefing with reporters this week that the automaker believed simply introducing AI and adjusting existing design requirements would automatically yield high-quality vehicles. “Mistakenly, we thought that by just introducing artificial intelligence and adjusting the design requirements that we had, that that would produce a high-quality product,” Poon said.

The problem was compounded when some of Ford’s most experienced personnel departed before their accumulated institutional knowledge could be fully captured by the company’s automated systems. This loss of expertise proved particularly damaging because the effectiveness of AI depends entirely on the quality of data used to train the models. Ford had underestimated the value of veteran engineers who had worked through multiple vehicle-development cycles and possessed deep understanding of potential problems that could emerge during production.

To address this gap, Ford hired, promoted, or brought back more than 350 experienced engineers to rebuild its technical expertise base. These seasoned professionals were tasked with retraining the automated systems and mentoring younger engineers who were struggling to maintain vehicle quality standards. “That’s where some of our most experienced engineers have had experience solving and identifying those problems before they creep into the system,” Poon said.

Ford’s quality challenges have been well documented in recent years. The automaker currently leads the industry in number of recalls, with quality ratings declining over several years. Difficulties intensified during launches of the Explorer and Aviator models, supply-chain disruptions during the COVID-19 pandemic, and a growing number of vehicle recalls that damaged consumer confidence.

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Chevron Lands 20-Year Deal To Power Microsoft’s AI Expansion

Microsoft has signed a 20-year agreement with Chevron to power a massive new AI-focused data center campus in West Texas, underscoring the growing race among tech companies to secure reliable energy supplies, according to Bloomberg.

The project, known as Project Kilby, is expected to begin generating power in 2028 and eventually reach 2.67 gigawatts—enough electricity for more than 530,000 Texas homes.

Chevron is developing the project with Engine No. 1 and expects to make a final investment decision later this year. Despite the enormity of the deal and the inroads into powering AI directly, Chevron stock was little changed after the cash open.

Bloomberg writes that the site near Pecos, Texas, will use natural gas from the Permian Basin to fuel GE Vernova turbines and generate electricity directly for Microsoft’s planned data center campus. Because the facility will produce its own power, it will not draw from the grid.

“Consumers are concerned about and are already feeling the effect of power-demand growth,” said Jeff Gustavson, Chevron’s president of New Energies. “We specifically designed this, in this part of the country, to avoid any of that.”

The agreement comes as Microsoft accelerates its AI infrastructure buildout to compete with Alphabet and Amazon. The company has said it plans to double its data center footprint over the next two years, driving demand for large-scale, dependable power sources.

Chevron argues the project also creates a productive use for abundant Permian natural gas that is often wasted because pipeline capacity is limited. “This is the most abundant gas basin in the country, maybe the world,” Gustavson said.

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No New Laws Required… Private Biometrics Are Building The Digital ID Prison

That “black pill moment” is arriving faster than many realize. Not primarily through sweeping new government mandates, but through private companies quietly normalizing biometric data collection under the banners of “security,” “fraud prevention,” and “child protection.” They are erecting the infrastructure for a world where you cannot easily participate in daily life, commerce, or even basic online access without surrendering your face, your license scan, or other biometrics. Once the systems exist and the data flows, laws can simply ratify what private actors have already made routine.

In a recent commentary “Digital ID Black Pill Moment”, I highlighted a sobering reality: 186 out of 198 countries already have digital ID systems in place. Only a shrinking handful of nations lack foundational national digital IDs. As I wrote, “the global push for digital IDs is far advanced, likely past the point of no return, aligning with the UN’s 2030 goal of universal legal identity and enabling a globalist digital currency system that could control access to everything.”

Facebook/Meta: Selfie or Stay Locked Out

Government mandates are not required to finish building the digital surveillance prison. Citizens are willingly submitting their biometrics to access social media sites. For example, I am no longer on Facebook. They banned me during the Covid era after I began sharing information about the true contents of the shots and alternative treatments. A friend just sent me a Facebook post and I could not view it without taking a selfie and sending it to FB. No way was I going to comply.

Try viewing certain Facebook posts or recovering a flagged account, and you may hit this wall. Users are increasingly prompted to submit a video selfie turning their head in different directions so the system can map facial geometry to “prove you’re a real person” or restore access. The company states it uses this to combat scams and compromised accounts, and claims the video is deleted after verification.

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Apple’s New Subdomain Kills “Hide My Email” Cover

Apple is about to label every anonymous email address its paying customers generate, creating a new obstacle for privacy-conscious users.

Hide My Email, the iCloud+ feature that creates an alias “@icloud.com” address to shield your real inbox from apps and websites, has always worked because of one specific design choice.

The generated addresses were indistinguishable from any other iCloud account. An app receiving “randomword_terms_42@icloud.com” had no way to tell whether it belonged to someone generating anonymous aliases or to someone’s grandmother.

That forced services to treat all iCloud addresses equally because filtering out the anonymous ones meant filtering out millions of regular Apple customers too.

Starting later this summer, new Hide My Email addresses will use “@private.icloud.com” instead of plain “@icloud.com,” according to a developer notice the company posted Monday.

The “private” subdomain announces to any app or email provider on the receiving end that the person signing up doesn’t want to be identified and hands them a one-line domain filter to block those sign-ups entirely.

Apple presented the move as a domain unification, consolidating Sign in with Apple addresses (previously on “@privaterelay.appleid.com”) under the same new subdomain. The company told developers that existing addresses on legacy domains will keep forwarding mail and that app and email providers should update their filtering to accommodate the change.

The gap between “@icloud.com” and “@private.icloud.com” looks cosmetic but functions as a kill switch. Services can now ban all anonymous aliases without touching regular iCloud mailboxes, the same way they already block disposable email providers like Guerrilla Mail or Mailinator.

The plausible deniability that made Hide My Email useful, the inability for a service to prove an address was anonymous, disappears the moment Apple stamps it with a subdomain that says so.

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