Their construction projects are everywhere. Kathleen turns to me, and with one word sums up the kind of low-life we are talking about here.

"Contractors," she says. "Bin Laden is a contractor." Indeed, it all made sense.

Easy with the abusive language, there. Some of us in SW engineering and other related work are also called contractors.

Anyone who works on a contractual basis is a contractor.

Apparently you and Kathleen have added some freight onto the word indicating something slimey or corrupt.

Sorry, but I won't be painted with that brush and I don't think all contractors should be.

Maybe you come from an area where all contractors are ALSO Mafia associates or something, but let's not poison some perfectly good semantics here.

A