From an article of the same title by Steven Greenhouse and Michael Barbaro in the NY Times:

Wal-Mart, the nation's largest private employer, is pushing to create a cheaper, more flexible work force by capping wages, using more part-time workers and scheduling more workers on nights and weekends.

Wal-Mart executives say they have embraced new policies for a large number of their 1.3 million workers to better serve their customers, especially at busy shopping times — and point out that competitors like Sears and Target have made some of these moves, too.

But some Wal-Mart workers say the changes are further reducing their already modest incomes and putting a serious strain on their child-rearing and personal lives. Current and former Wal-Mart workers say some managers have insisted that they make themselves available around the clock, and assert that the company is making changes with an eye to forcing out longtime higher-wage workers to make way for lower-wage part-time employees.

Investment analysts and store managers say Wal-Mart executives have told them the company wants to transform its work force to 40 percent part-time from 20 percent. Wal-Mart denies it has a goal of 40 percent part-time workers, although company officials say that part-timers now make up 25 percent to 30 percent of workers, up from 20 percent last October.

Here's a link to an article that argues that Target may be "as bad as Wal-Mart".

From an article of the same title by Stephanie Simon in the LA Times:

With a pivotal election five weeks away, leaders on the religious right have launched an all-out drive to get Christians from pew to voting booth. Their target: the nearly 30 million Americans who attend church at least once a week but did not vote in 2004.

Their efforts at times push legal limits on church involvement in partisan campaigns. That is by design. With control of Congress at stake Nov. 7, those guiding the movement say they owe it to God and to their own moral principles to do everything they can to keep social conservatives in power...

The Rev. Rick Scarborough, a leading evangelical in Texas, has recruited 5,000 "patriot pastors" nationwide to promote an agenda that aligns neatly with Republican platforms. "We urge them to avoid legal entanglement, but there are times in a pastor's life when he needs to take a biblical stand," Scarborough said. "Our higher calling is to Christ."

The campaign encourages individual pastors to use sermons, Bible studies and rallies to drive Christians to the polls — and, by implication or outright endorsement, to Republican candidates. One online guide to discussing the election in church, produced by the Focus on the Family ministry, offers this tip: If a congregant says her top concerns are healthcare and national security, suggest that Jesus would make abortion and gay marriage priorities.

At a recent rally in Pennsylvania, Focus on the Family founder James C. Dobson told a crowd of 3,000 that it would be "downright frightening" if Republicans lost control of Congress. If there's a good Christian on the ballot, he said, failing to vote "would be a sin."

The law restricting political activity of churches and charities dates to 1954, when then-Sen. Lyndon B. Johnson pushed it through in a pique of anger over a nonprofit's effort to derail his reelection. Tax-exempt organizations, including churches, may not participate or intervene in political campaigns on behalf of any candidate. Intervention is broadly defined as "any and all activities that favor or oppose one or more candidate for public office," according to the Internal Revenue Service.

That sounds straightforward. In practice, though, there are many ways around the restriction, as the faithful recognize.

Did Dobson really say that? Failing to vote for a Christian "would be a sin"? It wouldn't be the first time (see the profile by Michael Crowley titled "James Dobson. The religious right's new kingmaker" on Slate.com from a couple years ago).

Dobson has probably done a ton of good in his career, but at the moment he seems to have lost it...calling it a sin to not vote for a Christian...erecting road blocks in the way of AIDS funding.

From The Week, September 15, 2006:

Strasbourg, France

Two elderly sisters are suing the British government for the same right to inherit each other's property that gay couples enjoy. Joyce and Sybil Burden, ages 88 and 80, have lived together in their Wiltshire home all their lives. When one of them dies, the other will have no choice but to sell the home to pay the inheritance tax. If they were gay civil partners, though, they would be exempt from the tax. The Burdens have appealed to the Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights, arguing that British law discriminates against siblings. Even if the court eventually rules in their favor, it could be too late to save the house. Human-rights cases generally take years to reach a verdict.