statism watch

Andrew Mayeda and Mike De Souza, Canwest News Service
September 10, 2008

TORONTO — Green Leader Elizabeth May will participate in the leaders’ debate after the Conservatives and NDP dropped their opposition to her appearance in the broadcasts.

Moments after the Tories backed down Wednesday, the broadcast consortium told May she would be welcome at the English and French debates Oct. 1-2 in Ottawa.

“If the NDP has decided to change its position, we would not stand alone,” said Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s chief spokesman, Kory Teneycke. “We’ve made our point.”

May said she was pleased after hearing that NDP Leader Jack Layton and Harper had backed down, calling it a “delightful change in circumstances.”

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Steve Watson, infowars.net
September 10, 2008

Independent presidential candidate says he supports 9/11 truth movement 

Independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader pledged support for a new investigation into the events of 9/11 Monday, commenting that the 9/11 Commission was “flawed, right from the get go”.

Nader was questioned by members of We Are Change Ohio at a campaign rally in Cincinnati, Ohio earlier this week.

Asked if he supported the 9/11 Truth Movement and the efforts of activists and victims’ families to expose the lies surrounding the attacks, Nader responded;

“I was there when they were collecting signatures in the audience and I supported it.” Nader commented, referring to We are Change’s activities at the meeting.

“The 9/11 Commission, first of all, it took the members of the great families to push the administration even to have an inquiry, can you imagine an attack like that and the government didn’t even want to have an inquiry?” stated Nader.

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techdirt.com
September 10, 2008

It seems like every few months, well respected security researchers come out with yet another report about just how insecure various e-voting machines are. The amazing thing is how hard the various e-voting companies have fought against allowing these researchers to look at their machines, always insisting that the federal certification process (the one that’s were later shown to have not done a very good job testing the machines) was fine. Of course, even the Government Accountability Office has admitted that the federal certification process sucks.

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CBC News
September 10, 2008

Armed police officers will soon be patrolling 27 Toronto high schools.

It’s part of what the Toronto District School Board calls a school resource officer initiative and is a result of last year’s Falconer report on school violence. Following its release, the board said it would draft a plan to increase safety in schools.

Toronto lawyer Julian Falconer led a three-member school community safety advisory panel set up after the fatal shooting of Jordan Manners at C.W. Jefferys high school in May 2007.

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Jenny Anderson and Ben White, IHT
September 10, 2008

Only days after the Bush administration assumed control of the nation’s two largest mortgage finance companies, Wall Street was gripped by fears that another big financial institution, the investment bank Lehman Brothers, might founder — and that this time, the government might not come to the rescue.

Waves of selling wiped out nearly half of Lehman’s value in the stock market on Tuesday, leaving the firm, one of the nation’s oldest and largest investment banks, in an all-out fight for survival.

The plunge fanned worries about the troubles plaguing the broader financial industry and sent the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index tumbling 3.4 percent. The decline more than wiped out the market’s rally on Monday, when stocks surged after the weekend rescue of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-chartered mortgage giants.

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