contributions

by Tania Branigan
It might not boast the cachet of staying at the Ritz or Savoy, but 5,000 backpackers will be bedding down at one of the most exclusive addresses in London next week, turning the Millennium Dome into the world’s biggest youth hostel.
The much-mocked attraction is to be turned into a dormitory for thousands of activists and young people travelling from across the continent for the European Social Forum.
Like many of the capital’s residents, the mayor appears surprised - (…)

By DOUG THOMPSON
You almost have to feel sorry for the bumbling idiots that infect the Bush Administration like lice.
Almost.
The two faces of George W. Bush They have told so many lies, twisted the facts so many times and changed their stories so often that you need a playbook to keep tabs on all the misinformation that comes out of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
From the time George W. Bush started building his propaganda campaign to justify the invasion of Iraq, he insisted his (…)

By Pepe Escobar
In the end, Darth Vader did not eat Robin alive (no Batman to the rescue). Much to the contrary. The cyclopic spinning machine is ruling that the only vice-presidential debate in the US election, between incumbent Dick Cheney and challenger John Edwards in Cincinnati on Tuesday, was a tie - but not if you consider the numerous Darth Vader instances of, euphemistically, "stretching the truth".
Dick Cheney played a snarling, almost lethargic Darth Vader, sliding toward the (…)

by Jim Hightower
Governor Jeb Bush is out to make his state of Florida the next Florida.
In 2000, Jeb used such crude tactics as illegally purging voter lists to help engineer his brother’s 537-vote "victory" in that election - and now, here he goes again. As one peer of Florida’s GOP establishment candidly puts it: "A Democrat can’t win a statewide election in Florida without a high turnout of African-Americans. It’s no secret that the name of the game for Republicans is to restrain (…)

Veterans Advocate Bobby Muller, former Georgia Senator Max Cleland and Iraqi Freedom Veteran Jeremy Broussard issued the following statements today in response to attacks by Dick Cheney on John Kerry’s service:
Statement from Veterans Advocate Bobby Muller:
“While US servicemen are dying in Iraq, Vice President chooses to focus on gutter politics. Cheney revealed his true colors, in a desperate attack on John Kerry and those of us who served our country in Vietnam and worked to save the (…)

by Alliance for security
If science was going to design a drug not to give troops going into a war zone, it might look a lot like Mefloquine hydrochloride known by the brand name Lariam. Approved in 1983 by the Food and Drug Administration, this anti-malarial product was developed by the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in collaboration with the World Bank, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the pharmaceutical giant, F. Hoffman-La Roche (Roche) of Basel, Switzerland.
Since its (…)

by John Brown
As the Bush administration’s purported objectives for invading Iraq turn out to be strawmen, there’s been an uptick in rhetoric about the Iraq as a front in the global war on terror. And it’s working. Unfortunately, few on the left or the right are willing to challenge this notion that 9/11 launched the United States into a "world war." Certainly not the current Democratic contenders. But the real intellectual heavyweights behind the "World War IV" concept come from the (…)

by Jane Stillwater
I always thought that the goal of Halliburton’s no-bid contracts was to amass vast amount of wealth for Dick Cheney.
I was wrong.
It’s not about the money.
After watching Cheney on TV the other night, I had a big epiphany. "The guy could care less about money. Or even Iraq. Or even — gulp — oil." Nope. Dick Cheney is playing a larger game. He wants power! You could see it in his face.
Halliburton has been systematically fleecing Americans for a reason and it’s (…)

by Jason Leopold
Here’s what we know so far about Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction: of the 600 or so sites identified by United States intelligence and Iraqi officials as places where the country biological weapons may be hidden, about 100 of these sites have been searched over the past six weeks and not a single spec of anthrax or other WMD has been uncovered.
Two skeletal trailers that may have been used to develop anthrax or botulism, scrubbed from top to bottom when it was (…)

New York Times
The Mystery of the Bulge in the Jacket
By ELISABETH BUMILLER
Published: October 9, 2004
WASHINGTON, Oct. 8 - What was that bulge in the back of President Bush’s suit jacket at the presidential debate in Miami last week?
According to rumors racing across the Internet this week, the rectangular bulge visible between Mr. Bush’s shoulder blades was a radio receiver, getting answers from an offstage counselor into a hidden presidential earpiece. The prime suspect was Karl (…)