The recent polls showing a large Bush lead seem to be designed to either discourage Democratic voters and/or condition the American public for a Bush victory based on vote rigging. The methodology that seems to be in use by Gallup and most other polling firms connected to large corporations are greatly over weighted to give Republicans excessive representation and do not give sufficient weight to Democratic voters based on historical voting trend. Polls by independent polling organizations that are using properly weighted samples (like Zogby, Pew Research, Harris and others) are not showing a significant Bush lead and some have Kerry ahead!

While most political analysts predict the largest Democratic voter turn-out in history, Gallup is predicting in their methodology that Republicans will be 7-8% more of the total electorate than Democrats actually voting on election day. Based on the most recent elections, Democrats have usually been 7-8% more of the total electorate when the actual votes were counted. The swing in numbers using Gallup’s distorted methodology would tend to give Bush a “fake” lead in the neighborhood of 15%.

AUSTIN --- Alice, we're in the Twilight Zone of Wonderland. Whee! John Kerry is disrespectful of our allies! Donald Rumsfeld thinks an election in three-fourths of Iraq is good enough. The No. 1 best seller in our nation is an untrue, vicious and ugly attack on a genuine, bona fide, certified war hero. Despite everything you have seen, read or heard about Iraq, all is tickety-boo over there, and anyone who says different is helping the terrorists.

        More than a year after "Mission Accomplished," we have still not restored water or electricity in Iraq back to Saddam Hussein's pitiful standards. The electricity is out between four and 14 hours a day in Baghdad, there is no potable water because of pipe breaks and contamination, the garbage is uncollected, and sewage runs in the streets. A year after Congress voted to spend $18.4 billion reconstructing Iraq, only $1 billion has been spent, and most of that has gone to overhead, contractors' profits, security service, insurance and property losses. The jobs have gone largely either to Americans or other foreigners in Iraq, with little benefit to the Iraqis.

If I were Ralph Nader (and given the number of people screaming at me about stabbing Kerry in the back I sometimes think I am), I'd get on the plane to Palestine and Baghdad, and spend less time on ballot access fights with lawyers working for the Democrats.

There are about six weeks left to run in this campaign, and Nader, the outsider candidate, needs to finish off with a bang, not a whimper. The Democrats have got him stuck in the trenches, running from one courtroom to another. It's the only campaign they know how to fight. They can't sell Kerry. Their hearts aren't really in it anyway, but when it comes to stopping people from being able to vote for Nader, they're firing on all cylinders.

Organized labor can't get Kerry to promise working people more than a hike in the minimum wage to $7, but here's the SIEU putting $70 million of its members' dues into the Kerry campaign and deploying hundreds of organizers across the country, working 24 hours a day to keep Nader off the ballot. It's tying Nader down. He's fighting 21 legal cases in 17 states, and as Nader himself concedes, "The ballot access has drained our time and our resources."

Dear Editor:

I believe that the 9/11 Commission, while necessary, has missed the forest for the trees; by focusing on the single-event attack, and not on the history of the Western powers’ Middle East and Third World foreign policies.

Pope John Paul II, along with many high-ranking Catholic leaders, has written extensively on how we should fight against terrorism, intelligently and morally, and not simply via repressive and punitive military operations. I quote the Pope as follows: “It is essential that the use of force, even when necessary, be accompanied by a courageous and lucid analysis of the reasons behind terrorist attacks.” One can follow Papal and Holy See views on this, and most vital issues of our day, by reading zenit.org.

In my own study of the Middle East’s history over the past century or so, I have come across some disturbing realities. In reading David Fromkin’s scholarly treatise on the time just after World War I, entitled, “A Peace to End All Peace,” I was quite