contributions

by Jane Stillwater
Part 1: Recruiting for the "Trib Force"
Remember that Twilight Zone episode where the aliens arrived on Earth and presented our leaders with this glorious plan for the planet entitled "How to Serve Man". Well. In the final scene, "How to Serve Man" turns out to be a COOKBOOK!
For those of you familiar with the "Left Behind" series of books dealing with cult Christian longings for Armageddon, you will immediately recognize no child "Left Behind" as code words too. (…)

A Fox News Channel producer who filed a sex-harassment lawsuit against talk-show host Bill O’Reilly filed new accusations Tuesday, alleging she has lost her job because she complained to Fox about her alleged mistreatment.
A lawyer for O’Reilly and Fox denied that Andrea Mackris has been fired or retaliated against in any way.
Mackris, 33, said that by September 29 she had told top executives of News Corp., parent company of the Fox News Channel, about the alleged harassment and hostile (…)

By Alan Wirzbicki
WASHINGTON — Supporters of President Bush are less knowledgeable about the president’s foreign policy positions and are more likely to be mistaken about factual issues in world affairs than voters who back John F. Kerry, a survey released yesterday indicated.
A large majority of self-identified Bush voters polled believe Saddam Hussein provided "substantial support" to Al Qaeda, and 47 percent believe that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction before the US invasion. (…)

By LINDA McALPINE
LA CRESCENT, Minn. - Even though her grease pencil-stained hand cramped with the cold, Lys Swift knew she simply couldn’t stop writing. On a chilly afternoon two weeks ago, Swift set out to write the name of each and every coalition soldier who had been killed in the Iraq war and the date of death on her teal Geo Prism.
"I was freezing and I wanted to stop and go inside the house and warm up, but then I remembered that they don’t have that luxury anymore and I just (…)

Edited by Tom Mertes, Verso (London, New York), 2004; price $19/£13
By V. SRIDHAR
The annual celebration of the resistance to globalisation, in particular the dominant neoliberal version, has within the space of a few years acquired significance as a rallying point for people around the world. Diehard advocates of neoliberal globalisation like to portray "globalisation’s discontents" as Luddites, without a sense of the unfolding process of globalisation, which is portrayed as being not (…)

By ERIK ECKHOLM
Managers of a security firm that won large contracts in Iraq warned their bosses in February of what they called a pattern of fraudulent billing practices, internal company memorandums suggest.
The memorandums, written primarily by two company managers, charged that the security firm, Custer Battles, repeatedly billed the occupation authorities for nonexistent services or at grossly inflated prices.
The company, which quickly grew to garner security contracts worth $100 (…)

By MICHAEL MOSS
Republican Party officials in Ohio took formal steps yesterday to place thousands of recruits inside polling places on Election Day to challenge the qualifications of voters they suspect are not eligible to cast ballots.
Party officials say their effort is necessary to guard against fraud arising from aggressive moves by the Democrats to register tens of thousands of new voters in Ohio, seen as one of the most pivotal battlegrounds in the Nov. 2 elections.
Election (…)

Charlie Brooker Saturday October 23, 2004 The Guardian
Heady times. The US election draws ever nearer, and while the rest of the world bangs its head against the floorboards screaming "Please God, not Bush!", the candidates clash head to head in a series of live televised debates. It’s a bit like American Idol, but with terrifying global ramifications. You’ve got to laugh.
Or have you? Have you seen the debates? I urge you to do so. The exemplary BBC News website (www.bbc.co.uk/news) (…)

BY BISHOP THOMAS J. GUMBLETON
President George W. Bush has visited Michigan many times during the campaign, including a recent visit to Farmington Hills, but he has never stopped in Detroit’s inner city. If he did, he would meet firsthand many men, women and children who have dramatically experienced the effects of his policies.
When Bush travels the country, he often says that he stands "for a culture of life in which every person counts and every being matters." These words resonate (…)

$136 billion measure assailed for catering to special interests
WASHINGTON - With no fanfare, President Bush Friday signed the most sweeping rewrite of corporate tax law in nearly two decades, showering $136 billion in new tax breaks on businesses, farmers and other groups.
Intended to end a bitter trade war with Europe, the election-year measure was described by supporters as critically necessary to aid beleaguered manufacturers who have suffered 2.7 million lost jobs over the past four (…)