statism watch

Aaron Dykes, Infowars.com
September 16, 2008

Barry Jennings, a key 9/11 eyewitness who was an emergency coordinator for the New York Housing Authority, has passed away at age 53 from circumstances not yet disclosed. A spokesperson for the Housing Authority has now confirmed his death, after weeks of rumors circulating online, but refused to give any further details.

This office has not yet been able to contact anyone in the Jennings family and the official cause of death is not yet known, but online comments have reported the date of death as August 19, 2008.

It is very unusual that a prominent — and controversial– 9/11 witness would die only days before the release of NIST’s report on WTC7 and shortly after a firestorm erupted over his testimony that he heard explosions inside the building prior to collapse of either tower and that there were dead bodies in the building’s blown-out lobby.

The BBC aired The Third Tower in July in attempt to debunk Barry Jennings’ account– which is both contradictory and damaging to the official 9/11 story– by making issue over whether or not he said he “saw” dead bodies in the lobby.

Yet Jennings own statement in an exclusive interview with Dylan Avery and Jason Bermas– which has not been denied– was: “The fire fighter who took us down kept saying, ‘Don’t look down.’ And I said, ‘Why.’ And we were stepping over people– you know, you can feel when you’re stepping over people.”

(more…)

Tim Naumetz, Canadian Press
September 16, 2008

OTTAWA–The Conservative party acknowledges in Federal Court documents that $1.3 million worth of advertising allotted to individual Tory candidates in the 2006 election was in reality produced for the party’s national campaign and had no bearing on candidates or local issues.

But the Conservatives, in a lawsuit mounted by candidate agents against Elections Canada, insist that federal election law allowed the party to place the ads on behalf of the candidates, and to give the candidates money which they then used to pay the party for the advertising.

In a final argument in the lengthy court case, the party also accuses Elections Canada of changing its interpretation of the law after the election and introducing rules that would have prevented the scheme.

The question of whether the Conservatives should have assigned the cost of the radio and television ads to their national campaign, which has spending limits under the Elections Act that are separate from the ceilings for local candidates, is central to what has been dubbed the “in and out” controversy.

Elections Canada alleges the Conservative party used the transactions to skirt its national campaign spending cap by $1.1 million.

(more…)

CBC News
September 16, 2008

NATO’s chief told an audience in Georgia on Tuesday that “the road to NATO is still wide open” despite opposition by Russia.

NATO secretary general Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said no country, including Russia, can prevent Georgia from joining the alliance.

“The process of NATO enlargement will continue with due caution but also with a clear purpose — to help create a stable, undivided Europe,” de Hoop Scheffer said at Tbilisi State University.

“No other country will have a veto over that process, nor will we allow our strong ties to Georgia to be broken by outside military intervention and pressure,” he said. “Georgia has a rightful place in this Europe.”

(more…)

BBC News
September 16, 2008

Higher levels of a chemical often found in plastic food and drink packaging are associated with cardiovascular disease and diabetes, a study has suggested.

The group with the highest levels of Bisphenol A (BPA) in their urine were found to be more than twice as likely to have diabetes or heart disease.

But the Journal of the American Medical Association research did not show that Bisphenol A caused the conditions.

And a UK toxicology expert stressed the study’s findings were “preliminary”.

Over two million tonnes of BPA were produced in 2003, although usage of the chemical is starting to decline.

As well as being present in packaging, people are exposed to BPA through drinking water, on their skin and in household dust.
(more…)

Paul Koring, The Globe and Mail
September 16, 2008

Abousfian Abdelrazik missed the flight that would have delivered him yesterday from a long exile in Sudan because Foreign Affairs officials failed to make good on their long-standing commitment to issue him an emergency passport if he could find an airline willing to carry him in defiance of the U.S. terrorism no-fly list.

“In light of the complex issues … it was clear that these matters could not be resolved in time for your client’s travel which you scheduled on Sept. 15,” Anne Turley, a government lawyer, said less than 24 hours before Mr. Abdelrazik’s scheduled flight home on Etihad Airway was due to depart Khartoum yesterday for Toronto via Abu Dhabi.

“They are trying to find reasons not to bring him back, instead of finding a way to get him home,” Yavar Hameed, the lawyer for Mr. Abdelrazik said yesterday.

The government had nearly three weeks to issue the emergency travel documents and had previously promised it would do so if Mr. Abdelrazik – a Canadian citizen – managed to find an airline willing to ignore the Bush administration’s “no-fly” blacklist. Ms. Turley suggested yesterday that the federal election was interfering with the process.

(more…)