contributions

by MATT KELLEY
WASHINGTON - Unearthed under legal pressure, three-decade-old documents portray President Bush as a capable and well-liked Air National Guard pilot who stopped flying and attending regular drills two-thirds of the way through his six-year commitment - without consequence.
The files, many of them forced to light by Freedom of Information lawsuits by The Associated Press, conflict with some of the harshest attacks Democrats have levied on Bush’s Vietnam-era service, such as (…)

by Maureen Dowd The New York Times
WASHINGTON In yet another attempt to prove to President George W. Bush that he is man enough to run this country, John Kerry made an animal sacrifice to the political gods in a cornfield in eastern Ohio last week.
Four dead geese are not too high a price to pay for a few rural, blue-collar votes in a swing state. As long as Kerry doesn’t slip and ask Teresa to purée the carcasses into pâté.
Tromping about in a camouflage costume and toting a 12-gauge (…)

By B Raman
In his campaign for election as president of the United States, Democratic Senator John Kerry has been blaming incumbent President George W Bush for the failure to capture or kill Osama bin Laden during the battle at Tora Bora in Afghanistan toward the end of 2001. According to Kerry, the US failure was due to the fact that instead of using US troops in the battle, Bush outsourced the job to the Afghan warlords, who let bin Laden escape.
Kerry’s claims are partly true and (…)

By Carter Dougherty International Herald Tribune
FRANKFURT Soaring oil prices and concerns about the U.S. economy are driving the dollar back toward historic lows against the euro, threatening additional pressure on the European economy as it struggles to exit a soft patch, analysts said Monday.
After strengthening in recent months, the dollar has reversed course quickly over the last week. This has been driven by continued spikes in the cost of oil and persistent worries that heavy (…)

"They wrote in the old days that it is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country. But in modern war, there is nothing sweet nor fitting in your dying. You will die like a dog for no good reason." Ernest Hemmingway
By Sheila Samples
10/26/04 "ICH" — My friend Bernie says anyone who believes that George W. Bush’s war on terror isn’t a miserable, howling failure is surely a member of the media, a perp over at the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), or has had "the lobotomy." (…)

By Rick Jervis Chicago Tribune staff reporter
The injured never stop coming, and their wounds tell the story of the war.
A surge in head injuries attests to an increase in roadside bombs, which spray shrapnel under the lips of Kevlar helmets. Severe burns reveal insurgents are frosting homemade bombs with jellied gasoline. An Army helicopter filled with wounded Marines is a sign that car bombs, which pack a bigger explosive punch, are rising.
The staff of the Army’s 31st Combat Support (…)

A Times Editorial
President Bush had one last chance before the Nov. 2 election to back up his campaign talk of fiscal responsibility with action. He failed the test by signing into law a $136-billion giveaway to corporations that his own Treasury secretary called "a myriad of special interest tax provisions that benefit few taxpayers."
Unlike the four previous tax cuts he championed, Bush wasn’t proud of this one. He signed the bill quietly aboard Air Force One with no ceremony, and (…)

by Flavia Colgan Finally, the Kerry campaign has put its finger on the Bush administration’s Achilles heel: incompetence, and a terminal case of flip-flopping. "If you can’t get flu vaccines to Americans how are you going to protect them against bioterrorism?" Kerry said yesterday. "If you can’t get flu vaccines to Americans, what kind of health care program are you running?"
The response? The Bush administration’s response to the flu vaccine crisis, which has been growing worse every (…)

In South Africa, there has been a rapid increase in child mortality - more than 106 000 children under the age of five die each year.
A study released in 2003 by the Burden of Disease Research Unit of the Medical Research Council (MRC), has shown that the below-five mortality rate in 2000 was estimated at 95 per 1,000 children.
Infant mortality has risen to 60 per 1,000 live births, compared to the 1998 figure of 45 per 1,000.
The sharp increase in child mortality has been attributed (…)

by Medea Benjamin
After months of traveling from swing state to swing state, I have been astounded by the number of people who are furious with the “war president” George Bush, and have dedicated enormous energy to registering, educating, cajoling, and exhorting people to vote. Californians have invaded Nevada, New Yorkers have flooded into Pennsylvania, folks from Massachusetts have adopted New Hampshire, and here in Florida, there is a deluge of activists from all over the country. These (…)