SUPREME COURT OVERTURNS GORE ENDORSEMENT
Just moments after former Vice President Al Gore endorsed former Vermont Governor Howard Dean for President in Harlem yesterday, the Supreme Court overturned his endorsement by a 5-4 margin.
The Court, finding the former Vice President’s endorsement of Mr. Dean unconstitutional, transferred his endorsement to President George W. Bush instead.
(BOROWITZ, unearthed by Joel Sogol)

INTERNATIONAL RUM FESTIVAL
Preparations are already underway in Havana for the International Rum Festival, scheduled for June 6 to 9, 2004 to coincide with festivities for the 485th anniversary of the founding of the city of San Cristobal de La Habana.
During that period, Havana will be transformed into the world’s capital for quality rum thanks to fruitful exchanges between producers, retailers, bar tenders and rum-lovers from around the globe and particularly from those regions where rum is produced from the sugar cane and select honeys from the Caribbean, Mexico, Central and South America."
(GRANMA, unearthed by Cuban Daily News Digest)

ADIOS RUBEN
"Ruben Gonzalez, one of the stars of the Buena Vista Social Club band, died Monday in Havana. He was 84. Gonzalez was the pianist of the group that helped spark a renaissance of traditional Cuban music."
(NPR)

IT'S WORKED SO WELL FOR THEM
"Israeli advisers are helping train US special forces in aggressive counter-insurgency operations in Iraq, including the use of assassination squads against guerrilla leaders, US intelligence and military sources said yesterday."
(GUARDIAN, unearthed by Common Dreams)

THE KETTLE IS BLACK
"President Bush cites dictator Fidel Castro's recent crackdown against dissidents as reason to prolong the 42-year-old Cuba embargo. Yet the Cuban people know that Bush himself has imprisoned, indefinitely and without due process on that same island, hundreds of Muslims as 'enemy combatants' of the United States. The hypocrisy isn't lost on anyone. Although Bush shouldn't be compared to Castro, whose atrocities are many, the president's high road to moral superiority ends at the Guantanamo gulag. Once again, Castro can thumb his nose at a U.S. rationalization for the embargo."
(DAYTONA NEWS-JOURNAL, unearthed by Cuba News Digest)

CHE FACEPLATE OPTIONAL
"Cubans wear them like fine jewelry, but they don't glitter. They ring. They chime. They even vibrate. Cellphones, old news in most of the Americas, are the latest rage in this socialist nation. They're a symbol of status and power, a way to slip into the wireless world, if only for a moment."
(DALLAS NEWS, unearthed by Cuba Daily News Digest)

CHANGING FACE OF CUBA, PART 2
"In such areas as trade, the environment, the arts, even tourism, Americans are choosing to work with Cubans despite an economic embargo"
(NAPLES DAILY NEWS)

CHANGING FACE OF CUBA, PART 3
Bracing themselves for burgeoning tourism, Cuban environmentalists and their international counterparts focus on conservation efforts.
(NAPLES DAILY NEWS)

CHAPLAIN SPEAKS OUT
"Captain Yee was held in solitary confinement in a South Carolina Navy brig for nearly three months while he was under investigation, permitted only two 15-minute telephone calls a day after a month and, his lawyers said, barred from speaking Arabic to his wife, whom he met while studying Islam in Syria in 1997."
... He was released last week without any espionage charges brought against him. But in a twist that Mrs. Yee said was more devastating than the espionage investigation, the military has charged him with adultery — a violation of military code — and possession of pornography, in addition to charges that he had disobeyed orders by taking classified information home.
... Shaheed Nuriddin, a close friend of the Yees, said: "The adultery was worse. The Army had come to her and said, `You don't know the man you married.' And this was after they kept trying to get her to identify her husband as a terrorist."
(NYT)

SCAM BAITERS
Scam-baiters start by replying to emails from African fraudsters trying to fleece recipients with fake charities or investments.
The baiters pretend to fall for the scams while secretly humiliating the fraudsters, whom they call 'lads.'
Typically, they make endless demands for proof of identity that force the lads to forge passports, bank accounts and documents. Sometimes the lads are told to photograph themselves in ridiculous poses, with loaves of bread on their heads, or clutching signs with secret passwords.
(STUFF unearthed by www.dailyrotten.com)

COINTELPRO ALL OVER AGAIN
A confidential FBI memo confirms that the federal government is targeting innocent mericans engaged in nothing more than lawful protest and dissent.
In the memo the FBI advocates spying on peaceful protesters and ndicates that protesters who engage in civil disobedience or other disruptive acts should be treated like potential terrorists. It confirms that the government has monitored the actions of peaceful protestors and wants intelligence about protestors to be reported to the nearest FBI field office or terrorism task force.(ACLU, unearthed by Wilson Myers)

CHANGING FACE OF CUBA, PART 1
"....More than ever, their presence represents a change in the minds of a growing number of Americans with which the U.S. government may soon be finding itself in the position of playing catch-up. "
(NAPLES DAILY NEWS and featured in CUBANET, unearthed by Cuba Daily News)

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)