ALABAMA DELEGATION'S COMMENTS TO CUBANS
"On the agreement between Alimport and Alabama State Port Authority, we have agreed to work jointly in the movement of bulk, breakbulk, refrigerated and containerized cargo via our terminal facilities. Also we have agreed to work with our legislature for the lifting of the travel ban and promote tourism via Air, Cruises, ferries, etc, between Mobile and Cuba."
(RADIO HABANA)

BUSH'S BETRAYAL (OP-ED)
In Bush's first three years, nondefense discretionary spending -- which fell by 13.5 percent under Ronald Reagan -- has soared by 20.8 percent. His more libertarian-minded voters are taken aback to discover that 'compassionate conservatism' turned out to mean social conservatism -- a stepped-up drug war, restrictions on medical research, antigay policies, federal subsidies for marriage and religion -- and big-spending liberalism justified as 'compassion.'"
(WASHINGTON POST Op-Ed piece, featured in CATO newsletter)

THE ZERO FILES
"They are, in a way, the real-world equivalent of television's 'X-Files,' the fictional secret collection of FBI cases involving alien abductions and grand conspiracies that kept legions of fans entertained for nearly a decade."
(SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE, unearthed by Paul Whitehurst)

KENNEDY TAPE RELEASED
the National Security Archive has posted an audio tape of the President and his national security advisor, McGeorge Bundy, discussing the possibility of a secret meeting in Havana with Castro. The tape, dated only seventeen days before Kennedy was shot in Dallas, records a briefing from Bundy on Castro's invitation to a U.S. official at the United Nations, William Attwood, to come to Havana for secret talks on improving relations with Washington. The tape captures President Kennedy's approval if official U.S. involvement could be plausibly denied.
(NATIONAL SECURITY ARCHIVES, unearthed by CubaNews Digest)

OAKSTERDAMN!
"Here, cafes sell marijuana for medicinal use with the studied casualness of a Starbucks offering double-shot, soy milk, no-foam lattes. The model, as the nickname indicates, is free-wheeling Amsterdam, where cafe patrons openly enjoy joints with their espressos or beers. But there is one big difference: Oakland doesn't have Amsterdam's clear-cut laws, which make such sales unquestionably legal. "
(SUN-SPOT, unearthed by Paul Whitehurst)

CAPTIVES MAY BE RELEASED
"Time Magazines is reporting the possibility of an impending large-scale release from Guantanamo — which currently houses about 660 prisoners, most of whom were captured during and after the Afghan war. Time quoted American officials as saying that some of the detainees being considered for release had been captured by Afghan warlords and sold for the bounty offered by Washington for Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters."
(NYT)

SHOT IN THE ARM FOR CUBA
"It was Cuba's $1 billion gamble — to train an army of scientists, develop a sprawling biotech industry and tackle every disease from cancer to AIDS.
The bet paid off, Cuban officials say. Since 1990, Cuban scientists have developed dozens of new treatments and drugs, including the world's only vaccine against meningitis B. "
(SEATTLE TIMES, unearthed by CubaNews Digest)

WANTED: JOB AS A POET LAUREATE
So, this is why Roy Moore "quit" his day job.
(RETAKING AMERICA, unearthed by Linda McKnight)

PERSONAL USE OF MJ UPHELD IN ALASKA
"The Alaska Court of Appeals has rejected a request by the state to reconsider a decision allowing adults to possess small amounts of marijuana for personal use. "
(FAIRBANKS DAILY NEWS-MINER, unearthed by Paul Whitehurst)

CRITICAL COMIX ART
"Uncle Sam is a warning about the hubris of empire; if our society must now be seen through the scrim of 9-11, a citizen could do worse than give it a serious read. "
(VILLAGE VOICE)

JUVENILE DNA MAY BE CATALOGUED
"DNA profiles from hundreds of thousands of juvenile offenders and adults arrested but not convicted of crimes could be added to the FBI's national DNA crime-fighting program under a proposed law moving through Congress."
(USA TODAY, unearthed by Paul Whitehurst)

"ENEMY COMBATANT" CASE REACHES APPEALS COURT
"A federal appeals court panel cast doubt Monday on whether President Bush has the authority to designate an American citizen an 'enemy combatant' and detain him indefinitely without criminal charges. "
(CNN, unearthed by Paul Whitehurst)

STAR CHAMBER REDUX
"ASIF Iqbal, a British citizen, traveled to Pakistan in September 2001, planning to marry in the village where his father still lived. Before he could wed, he was captured. By whom is unclear. He wound up at the US camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where he has been living in a cell for 22 months. Like the other 650 men and boys there, Iqbal has no idea when, if ever, he will be charged with a crime, taken to court, or set free. He has no way to tell his side of the story to anyone except his jailers, much less prove innocence to a judge. This is exactly as it should be, the Bush administration says. These people have terrorist ties or were on the wrong side in the war in Afghanistan and are ineligible for the protections that international law provides, the White House maintains."
(MANILLA TIMES, unearthed by CubaNews Digest)

SPOOK REBELLION
"An unprecedented array of US intelligence professionals, diplomats and former Pentagon officials have gone on record to lambaste the Bush administration for its distortion of the case for war against Iraq. In their view, the very foundations of intelligence-gathering have been damaged in ways that could take years, even decades, to repair.
A new documentary film beginning to circulate in the United States features one powerful condemnation after another, from the sort of people who usually stay discreetly in the shadows - a former director of the CIA, two former assistant secretaries of defense, a former ambassador to Saudi Arabia and even the man who served as President Bush's Secretary of the Army until just a few months ago. "
(COMMON DREAMS, unearthed by CubaNews Digest)

CUBA POLITICS WORRY FARMERS
Cuba is now the United States' 35th largest agricultural export market, up from 208th just two years ago...
"doing business with Cuba is a lesson in working with paranoid, controlling bureaucrats who require loads of unnecessary paperwork at frequent stages of the deal. And he's not talking about the communist government in Havana. 'The difficult part has been, for the most part, working with our government: "
(VOA, unearthed by CubaNews Digest)