Gridlock News

Paul Gleason died over the weekend on Saturday. Gleason died of mesothelioma, a form of lung cancer associated with asbestos poisoning. Gleason worked in a number of movies from Johnny Be Good, to Die Hard and the Breakfast Club in which he played a notorious principle. He also made appearances on Seinfeld and Friends in recent years. Gleason was not just an actor. He played minor league baseball in the late 1950's. He was also a published poet, a father of two daughters and one granddaughter. Gleason a resident of Miami passed away . For additional details see 'Breakfast Club' Principal succumbs to Cancer by the AP.

After 108 years, the government can no longer tax your long distance phone bill and after August your long distance provider can no longer collect it from your bill. Plus, YOU can deduct the taxes you paid for the last three years (Back to 3/1/2003 - over 3 years) on your next tax return. You'll have the chance to itemize the actual taxes paid or eventually a standard deduction will be offered if you don't want to add up all those phone bill tax amounts. Who Wins? You Your Tax Preparer - if paid to prepare your taxes Phone Companies - Don't have to listen to us complain about this tax any more Who loses? Federal government no longer has funds for the Spanish American War. You - The average American Phone bill is 18% taxes. This only reduces it by 3%. Still have a long way to go! USATODAY.com - Feds cut off phone tax after 108 years

Reactions to the Enron criminal trial verdict - May. 25, 2006: "Enron founder Kenneth Lay was found guilty on six counts of conspiracy and fraud and former CEO Jeff Skilling was found guilty on 19 counts by a Houston jury after the trial in the biggest of the corporate fraud cases." Lay was separately found guilty of 4 counts of false statements and fraud. Skilling and Lay are looking at 20 to 30 years in prison each.

Vice President Dick Cheney could be called by the prosecution to testify in the case against the Vice President's former top aid I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby. Scooter is charged with lying to the FBI and a Federal Grand jury about how and when he learned about the identity of a CIA officer, whose identity as a CIA officer was later told to reporters and published. "Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald suggested Cheney would be a logical government witness because he could authenticate notes he jotted on a July 6, 2003, New York Times opinion piece by a former U.S. ambassador critical of the Iraq war."Cheney may be called in CIA leak case - Yahoo! News

Titled "AT&T's Implementation of NSA Spying on American Citizens" Wired Magazine today published documents submitted by Mark Klein, which provides a 'firsthand account' which 'tells how he discovered a secret room routing American internet traffic straight to the NSA'. Mark Klein has provided all the documents he says will prove his case. The NSA and AT&T and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) are operating under a court imposed gag order, but Mark Klein appears not to be covered. Wired outlines its reasons for going public with the documents here. They have published the complete text in PDF here. Mark Klein's background relative to this situation here. Including a picture of the Secret Room (right), the document shows manuals describing how to slice off a portion of the fiber optic light signals such that information could be read. It details where the equipment was specifically located in one office in San Francisco under AT&T's control and indicates that other such locations exist around the country. The document refers to the possibility that in addition to spying AT&T and or the government used this information not only as a means for fighting Al Qaeda but also as a means to bust up a union. The supporting documents focus on the fact that WorldNet customers were definitely targeted (see your DSL bill and look for the name of the actual provider), but also other major providers probably were spied on as well. The technology was there to monitor the entire internet.

In case you missed some of the uproar yesterday, General Mike Hayden made some comments that were less than glowing recommendations of the administration that has nominated him to the office of CIA director. During confirmation hearings in the Senate, Gen. Hayden made references that were not affirmations that the world is rosy and happy and better off under the current wartime strategy that the US is following. Here is the fast run down of his comments: Referring to Porter Goss's CIA stint "amateur hour on the top floor. . ." He criticized Rumsfeld's attempt to "find" Saddam links to Al Qaeda. Much of his discussions even in the early days of confirmation talked about the CIA's roles in Afghanistan and Iraq as being better left to the defense department, enabling the CIA to do what they do best, gather clandestine intelligence and perform analysis. He talked about the ineffective application of subjective analysis on intelligence. He criticized the efforts of Under Secretary of Defense Douglas Feith, who worked to gather the intelligence against Saddam. Hayden stated, "I got three great kids, but if you tell me, 'Go out and find all the bad things they've done, Hayden,' I could build you a pretty good dossier. You'd think they were pretty bad people because that's what I was looking for and that's what I built up. That'd be very wrong, OK? That would be inaccurate. That would be misleading." This analogy referred to Feith's attempts to find all the bad about Saddam, where there was much to find, however this unbalanced approach led Feith to avoid balancing information, and analysis, even deferring to intelligence products that were lest trustworthy. Applying the 'So What' Factor As I was taught to do when I worked in intelligence, I now apply the 'So What' Factor to these comments. So What do all these comments mean? This small bit of candor arms Hayden with the touch of credibility that he needs for the Republican leadership in the Senate to claim that they believe him when he says that his actions at the NSA regarding domestic spying are OK. Its a diversion. He might have given this candor anyway, however regardless of his integrity in conversation, his integrity in conduct will always be questioned based on his actions. These comments will apply the slight bit of wind to his sails to allow him to tack through the confirmation. No one questions Hayden's intellectual capacity, however raw intellectualism can be applied in ways that help or hurt. His inability to balance his intellectual capability maneuvering loop holes to subvert the constitution as the leader of the NSA with the integrity he should have developed as he advanced to the position of a General in the intelligence community turns a spot light on the character flaw that should prevent him from assuming office as the Director of the CIA. He could make a good leader someday, but he has not demonstrated that he understands his own mistakes and as such cannot show that he has learned from those mistakes and will do better in the future. He's made it obvious that he understands some of Bush's mistakes, but can't apply that keen intellect on his own decisions and actions. A successful leader with integrity must be capable of being honest with themselves and General Hayden has not shown that. Early Warning by William M. Arkin - washingtonpost.com

The US has escalated its stance against Venezuela. The US has imposed a ban on all commercial arms sales and licensing of defense articles and services to the government of Venezuela. "For nearly a year, there has been a nearly total lack of cooperation with anti-terrorism, said Darla Jordan, a State Department spokeswoman. This move is highly unusual since the other nations on this list 'Cuba, Iran, North Korea and Syria, for instance' are also on the 'state sponsor of terrorism' list, and Venezuela is not." The US also claims that President Chavez has been harboring Colombian gorilla factions within the Venezuelan border. President Chavez has not imposed any retalliatory restrictions against the US at this time. With the anouncement earlier on May 15, 2006 by President Bush that the US would post 6,000 national guard troops on the US border and now the ban on arms sales to Venezuela, the US appears to be taking actions locally in the America's that may not result in increased popularity with other American countries. source

"BellSouth spokesman Jeff Battcher said the company's investigation found 'no contract with the NSA and we are confident that we have turned over no phone records.' Last week, Battcher said the company had 'not provided any information we would need a subpoena for.' On Monday night, Battcher said 'we cannot find anyone within BellSouth who has ever been approached by the NSA.' " BellSouth Says It Gave NSA No Call Records

Col Elspeth Ritchie, the US Army's top mental Health expert has indicated that soldiers suffering from mental illness potentially caused by post traumatic stress syndrome, have been forced back into combat. "Ritchie acknowledged that some deployment practices, such as sending service members diagnosed with post-traumatic stress syndrome back into combat, have been driven in part by a troop shortage." To read more . . . CNN.com - Report: Mentally ill troops forced into combat

Harry Potter has won a real life duel against a local Georgia witch (ex-witch) and a local missionary mother. Starting last fall Laura Mallory(left), a local missionary and mother, attempted to have the Harry Potter series removed from the shelves of all Gwinnett County, Georgia schools. Her efforts culminated in a hearing before the board of education on May 20, 2006. During this hearing Mallory partnered with several other members of the community ,including an reformed Wiccan witch, brought claims that the Potter series was 'evil', against her religion, and most plausible contained graphic violence and adult themes unsuitable for grade school children. A teenage ex-witch working with Mallory claimed to have seen spells from the Harry Potter books actually work and cause the death of one person, cancer in another and the burning of a family home. In tears she described how Harry Potter had ruined her life and that of her family. This was followed by parents and teachers representing the opposition to keep Harry Potter describing how the series had fostered a desire to read in thousands of Gwinnett County school children and to ban the books would cause harm to children and their educational development. Last night the Gwinnett County Board of Education decided to keep the books on the shelf. Laura Mallory has previously stated that she would take the issue to the State of Georgia if necessary. On a lighter side - Harry Potter was not available for comment and no press releases on the matter have been forthcoming from the Ministry of Magic.

USAToday has reported that the National Security Agency headed by General Michael Hayden (currently nominated to head the CIA) received information to compile a database to track the phone calls of millions of Americans. Some reports put the numbers of Americans impacted at over 200 million people, more than two thirds of the population. The database did not track conversations but did track who was called and by whom. A significant amount of intelligence can be gleamed from this information, which could have been used to identify and track terrorist cells. However, do to the extreme scope of the database it is unlikely that two thirds of the US population belongs to a secret terrorist cell. The information in the database could have been used for many other purposes from political shenanigans to corporate espionage or worse. The NSA is specifically prohibited from spying on US citizens within the US borders. The bush administration had previously acknowledge tracking calls from international caller coming into the US. Now information has surface to indicate that the NSA is spying on everyday Americans en masse. Several members of Congress have indicated that they will take this issue up with General Hayden before they will consider his nomination. Separately the Bush administration closed an investigation into this activity and refused to grant security clearances to investigators to seek further information. Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania stated that he will call the executives of At&t, Verizon and Cingular to ask them about the type of information and scope of information they provided. USATODAY.com - NSA has massive database of Americans' phone calls: "'It's the largest database ever assembled in the world,' said one person, who, like the others who agreed to talk about the NSA's activities, declined to be identified by name or affiliation. The agency's goal is 'to create a database of every call ever made' within the nation's borders, this person added."

The executive branch declared today that the Chinese government is not manipulating currencies to devalue the yuan against the dollar, giving China an unfair economic advantage over the US. "The currency report, which the administration must present to Congress every six months, was delayed by a few weeks, until after Chinese President Hu Jintao and Bush discussed the issue at the White House on April 20. The administration had hoped that Hu would signal China would move faster; no such announcement came." US Manufacturers, the AFL-CIO and Democrats are outraged at the decision. The Democratic leadership in Congress is working to pass legislation which would penalize China for imports until the trade imbalance is corrected. This will not be possible if the executive branch of government is unwilling to enforce the existing legislation. U.S.: China not manipulating currency

There have been many conflicting reports about Keith Richards recent accidents, claiming that he fell from a coconut tree, fell from a palm tree, fell from a jet ski, fell from a coconut tree and then later fell from a jet ski. The circumstances are not and may never be clear on that score. However, Keith Richards apparently suffered more than just a concussion. He was released from surgery in New Zealand after undergoing brain surgery to releive pressure from a blood clot on/in his brain. Keith Richards Has Brain Surgery - New York Times

A judgement will be made by 10:30am local time in the London on May 8, 2006 in the case of Apple Corps (Owned by the members and estate owners of The Beatles) v. Apple Computer. If the verdict goes against Apple Computer, a penalty hearing would follow to determine the damages. Since Apple Computer has sold over 14 million Apple Ipods and 1 billion Apple Itunes, damages could be monetarily high. "Apple Corps counsel Geoffrey Vos argued that Apple Computer could go 'into the recorded music business in any way they want'. 'What they cannot do is use the Apple (trade)mark to do it,' he said." Beatles and Apple Computer await court decisionReuters.com:

For two years a bill has been stuck in the Mexican Congress. Originally approved by the house, it has been stuck in the Senate, until last week. The Mexican Senate voted up the bill Friday morning clearing the way for the bill to be sent to President Vicente Fox, who is expected to sign the bill. The bill would legalize small amounts of cocaine, LSD, heroin and other drugs. The political theory goes that today in Mexico, if a person is caught with a very small amount of one of these drugs, the charges will be dropped if the person can prove that they are an addict. Proponents of the bill argue that legalizing small amounts will clear the way for the police and other authorities to focus on larger drug dealers and criminals. Two political groups outside of the country, surprised last Friday, are working overtime to convince President Fox to reconsider. The Catholic Church is arguing that Mexican citizens are not prepared for the legalization. They are concerned that legalizing drugs openly could unleash untold havoc on an unsuspecting community in Mexico. The United States is similarly concerned, however all politics are local. The United States is also very concerned about having a neighboring country akin to Amsterdam where tourists including American citizens could flock to various areas to use drugs. This could in addition to the problems created in Mexico, return a population of American tourists back to the states with new found addictions. Its one thing for US families to allow their teenage sons and daughters to head south for spring break for late night parties, raves and binge drinking. Its a completely different matter for those same students to travel to a country that openly has legalized narcotic drugs. Regardless of the result, there will be many ramifications. It is possible that this could trigger a pre-American backlash against movements currently underway in the US to legalize the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes. Many groups have pointed to the wasted effort of law enforcement in the US arresting users of drugs. Mexico is using a them that has been lightly considered in the states. Mexico's implementation of this plan could pave the way for future iterations of US policy on the topic. A success could shed light on the path for the US, and a failure could do the opposite. Bloomberg.com: Latin America

Anna Nicole Smith went to the Supreme Court today to prove that she was one of the smartest Ex-Topless Dancers in the world by convincing the court that she was entitled to her late husbands $1.6 billion estate. Some of the same justices that ruled in President Bush's favor during the 2000 election voted in favor of Anna Nicole Smith, allowing her to continue pursuing her dream of collecting her late husband's oil fortune. Anna Nicole has been dancing in a dirty fight with her late husband's youngest son, E. Pierce Marchall. Their entanglement has been bitterly manipulated by both sides with accusations flying back and forth. Anna Nicole was 26 years old and a very smart topless dancer when she married her late husband, J. Howard Marshall II. He was 89 years old. He died a year after their marriage. Aside from intelligence, at contention in this case is a question of jurisdiction. The estate was originally fought over in a Texas jurisdiction, where Anna Nicole lost. She is intelligently fighting to have the estate reconsidered by California courts, which originally turned her down refusing to hear the case. The Supreme Court has decided in Anna Nicole's favor and so the case will now be heard in California courts. Anna Nicole has very astutely pushed to have the estate considered in California over Texas as estate and marriage laws in California will be heavily in favor of Anna Nicole as compared to the laws in Texas. Anna Nicole has been winning over and over since this battle erupted. It has gained her fortune and glory. She's now battling for an even bigger fortune. At large people have to reconsider just how intelligent Anna Nicole Smith really is. Her public image is definitely prone to dismissing her intelligence and abilities. However, sometimes the results prove the case. It remains to be seen whether or not Anna Nicole got lucky being in the right strip club at the right time or whether or not she can possibly repeat her success. A billion dollars or more will buy a lot of elixirs and plastic surgery. Maybe Anna has her eyes on a bigger prize, after all Bill Gates will turn 89 in late October of 2044. Afterall everyone has to start somewhere! Supreme Court Backs Ex-Playmate's Effort - Yahoo! News