US Dad Should Get Custody of Son, Brazilian Judge Says

Brazil's chief justice on Tuesday ruled in favor of a U.S. man who has pursued a five-year court battle to gain custody of his son.

According to the court's Web site, Chief Justice Gilmar Mendes ruled David Goldman's 9-year-old son must be delivered to him by the boy's Brazilian relatives, as a federal court ordered last week.

The ruling put Goldman one step closer to finally being reunited with his son, Sean. The boy was taken by Goldman's now-deceased ex-wife to her native Brazil in 2004, where he has remained. Goldman has been fighting to get him back from the boy's stepfather.

Goldman's New Jersey-based lawyer, Patricia Apy, said late Tuesday that she believed Mendes' order required that Sean be handed over immediately, but she said Goldman's attorneys had not heard from lawyers for the Brazilian family.

Lawyers on both sides have said there was still a chance for the Brazilian family to appeal to Brazil's highest appeals court, though the chances of success seemed slight.

Goldman, who lives in Tinton Falls, N.J., declined to comment until he learned more details about the 50-page ruling.

U.S. Rep. Chris Smith, a New Jersey congressman who traveled to Brazil to offer his support, said Goldman was pleased.

"He was elated, a big smile came to his face, but he said 'I'm not going to let my guard down until it's wheels up," Smith said.

Goldman has seen earlier rulings ordering Sean's return be blocked, and for days his supporters have expressed worries the Brazilian family might try to flee or hide Sean.

Calls to the Brazilian family's lawyer were not immediately returned.

Both the U.S. and Brazilian governments argued that the case clearly fell under the Hague Convention, which seeks to ensure that custody decisions are made by the courts in the country where a child originally lived - in this case, the United States.

A lawyer specializing in the Hague Convention said Tuesday's decision by Mendes was the only right one to make.

"It would be virtually impossible to reconcile international law with a ruling in favor of the Brazilian family," said Greg Lewen of the Miami-based law firm Fowler White Burnett.

He said that if the Hague Convention were not followed by the chief justice, "the State Department should immediately issue a travel advisory warning parents not to go to Brazil with their children."

Goldman launched his case in U.S. and Brazilian courts after Sean was brought by his mother in 2004 to her home country, where she then divorced Goldman and remarried. She died last year in childbirth, and the boy has lived with his stepfather since.

In an interview with The Associated Press on Sunday, Goldman said he would allow Sean's Brazilian relatives to visit with his son if he won the case. "I will not do to them what they've done to Sean and me," he said.

The case has affected diplomatic ties between Brazil and the U.S., and has been discussed by President Barack Obama and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

Last week, a U.S. senator reacted to the case by blocking renewal of a $2.75 billion trade deal that would remove U.S. tariffs on some Brazilian goods. The hold was lifted after Tuesday's ruling and the U.S. Senate quickly passed the trade measure.

The U.S. State Department pressed for the boy to be returned. But a Brazilian Supreme Court justice on Thursday stayed the lower court decision ordering Sean to be turned over to his father.

Goldman and Brazil's attorney general both filed appeals Friday asking the Supreme Court to overturn the justice's decision to block Sean's return while the court considers hearing direct testimony from the boy. On Tuesday, Mendes ruled the order no longer valid.

The Brazilian family's lawyer, Sergio Tostes, had told the AP that he would like to see a negotiated settlement, saying he wanted to end the damage being done to Sean and to U.S.-Brazil relations.

"We're raising the white flag and saying: 'Let's get together, let's talk. We're the adults, we have responsibilities, so let's start to have a constructive conversation,'" Tostes said.

Goldman, however, was never in a mood to negotiate.

"This isn't about a shared custody - I'm his dad, I'm his only parent," Goldman said. "This isn't a custody case - it's an abduction case."

RDJ's 'Holmes' Too Gay for Studio Execs

Robert Downey Jr.'s allusion to the fact that his 'Sherlock Holmes' character may have been partners with Watson both professionally and domestically has studio executives up in a tizzy. We're on team Sherlock no matter what side he chooses!

Execs to Robert Downey Jr.: Not So Gay, OK?

Publicists for the upcoming 'Sherlock Holmes' movie are very concerned that its star, Robert Downey Jr., can't stop hinting that the great dapper detective's relationship with Dr. Watson may involve more than just solving crime. "When Robert joked with Letterman that they might be 'homos,' Warner Brother executives died," laughed one industry insider who believes Downey is messing with studio bigwigs.

During Downey's interview on Letterman, he was asked if Holmes and Watson had "a different level of relationship." Downey quickly shot back with a smirk: "That they were homos ... That is what you're saying"

A chuckling Letterman replied "In a manner of speaking, yes ... that they were closer than just out solving crimes." After further banter, Downey left it up to the people. "Why don't we observe the clip and let the audience decide if he just happens to be a very butch homosexual," he said.

"The studio wants to position this as an action-packed adventure, not 'Brokeback Mountain 2,'" my insider joked.

Yet fear not -- I have been told the film will not disappoint any hardcore Holmes fans, and if the world's sneakiest sleuth does have a secret love that dare not speak its name, he doesn't kiss and tell in this film. There is, however, a good amount of man-on-man bare-chested fighting, so make of that what you will.

Wall Street's 10 Biggest Lies of 2009

Say goodbye to 2009, the worst economic year since the Great Depression.

Say hello to the billionaire bailout society in which the super-rich gamble, lose and get bailed out by the rest of us.

To save the system from total collapse we poured trillions of dollars into the financial sector. The result? Banks still are refusing to lend. Thirty million Americans are looking for full-time jobs and 49 million are skipping meals including one out of four children. But Wall Street again is reaping record profits and bonuses.

Not only are we richly rewarding those who wrecked our economy, but also, we have to put up with hundreds of fabrications about how the big banks got us here. Here is my biggest, fattest lies list for 2009:

1. "Government programs for low-income home buyers caused the financial crash."Wall Street defenders were quick to blame the Community Reinvestment Act, which urges banks to loan money in minority communities. In fact, almost none of the CRA loans are sub-prime and the vast majority are doing well, thank you. Blaming government programs deflects us from the real cause: Wall Street's incredibly reckless creation, marketing, selling and trading of "innovative" new securities that supposedly removed the risk from pools of risky debt. It didn't work. Wall Street, not the poor, crashed our economy.

2. "Income inequality is good for everyone." Lord Brian Griffiths, Vice-Chairman of Goldman Sachs at least had the nerve to say what so many of the super-rich really believe:

"We have to accept that inequality is a way of achieving greater opportunity and prosperity for all."

Unfortunately, the facts suggest otherwise. There is a high correlation between the mal-distribution of income and economic crashes. The last time our wealth and income distribution was as skewed as it is today was 1929, and that's not an accident. When too much money is in the hands of the few it runs out of real world investment and gravitates towards speculative investments. This inevitably creates asset bubbles and crashes. Record pay and bonuses on Wall Street and high unemployment are connected. (See The Looting of America Chapter 11).

3. "The rising number of billionaires is a sign of economic health." It's accepted media wisdom that the more billionaires the better. China with 130 billionaires now trails only the US, which has 359, according to Forbes magazine. But in our billionaire bailout society, the rising number of billionaires signals a collapsing middle class. Ponder this statistic: In 1970 the ratio of the compensation of the top 100 CEOs compared to the average production worker was 45 to 1. By 2006 it was an astounding 1,723 to one. Does that look healthy to you?

4. "Paying back TARP means banks are no longer on government welfare." Bank after bank is rushing to repay TARP funds during the worst economic year since 1937. They want to get out from under the Pay Czar (not that he's been sufficiently tough on the banks under his purview.) Banks that were insolvent only a few months ago now say they have the financial strength to refund tens of billions of dollars to the government. Where did all that money come from? Much of it comes from other government welfare programs for Wall Street (over $12 trillion worth) that aren't publicized. (See Nomi Prins's excellent accounting.) It may be the case that our banks are paying us back with our own money. Now that's financial innovation.

5. "Wall Street's freedom to innovate must be protected." Congressional leaders are tripping all over themselves to say new regulations will not discourage Wall Street innovations, something they claim is vital to our economy. Oh really? Do those "innovations" add anything useful to our country other than new casino games for the super-rich? Former Federal Reserve Chairman, Paul Volker, recently blew the whistle on this fabrication:

"I hear about these wonderful innovations in the financial markets and they sure as hell need a lot of innovation. I can tell you of two - Credit Default Swaps and CDOs - which took us right to the brink of disaster: were they wonderful innovations that we want to create more of?

.... I wish that somebody would give me some shred of neutral evidence about the relationship between financial innovation recently and the growth of the economy, just one shred of information....

The most important financial innovation that I have seen in the past 20 years is the automatic teller machine... How many other innovations can you tell me of that have been as important to the individual?" ("What Has Financial Innovation Done for You?")

6. "To retain critically needed talent, Wall Street must be free to pay top salaries and bonuses." Where would they flee if they just got paid like normal people rather than like gods? The British are putting in place a 50 percent tax on bonuses. Also, compensation is much, much lower in the European Union. But the real lie is that we need such "talent" in the first place. That kind of "talent" just crashed our economy. That kind of "talent" is widely overpaid - no way should bond traders receive 10 to 100 times what is earned by the best neurosurgeons in the world. Something is really wrong and it starts with the lie of banking "talent."

7. "Overpaid American workers are the real cause of unemployment." The New York Times writers who concocted this argument didn't think they were lying. But this is one of the most preposterous ideas put forth during 2009. ("American Wages out of Balance" New York TimesNovember 11, 2009) Edward Hadas, Martin Huchinson and Antony Currie informed us that:

"American manufacturing workers should take average real wage cuts of as much as 20 percent to get into global balance."

They don't mention that the average non-supervisory worker has already taken an 18 percent cut in real wages between 1973 and 2007. What's worse, they claim that if workers don't take these additional cuts, these "overpaid" working stiffs will be the cause of another Great Depression. They write:

"But if American wages get stuck above global market-clearing levels, as in the 1930s, the result could well be something approaching Depression-era levels of unemployment."

Not a word is mentioned about how Wall Street's gambling caused all of this unemployment and how the continued failure of Wall Street banks to lend is stalling job growth, right now.

8. "I'm doing God's Work." Lloyd Blankfein, Chairman of Goldman Sachs said what too many Wall Street leaders truly believe: that they are so privileged and entitled that it seems as if the heavens bless their work. Why else are they earning hundreds of millions of dollars? Mr. Blankfein believes he is creating a virtuous circle by raising capital for corporations who create jobs and help our society prosper. But Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, Morgan Stanley and the rest of the apostles helped to bring the entire world economy to its knees. Does that mean God likes unemployment and widespread hunger?

9. "We're out of money." Who's we? Yes, the middle class is tapped out but the super-rich haven't even begun to pay their fair share for the mess they created. Yet the top 400 richest Americans alone are sitting on $1.27 trillion or so in wealth. Here's a dangerous thought. What if we had a very steeply progressive wealth/income tax that reduced the net worth of the super-rich to "only" about $100 million each? You wouldn't be suffering if you had $100 million kicking around. Now do the math: The 400 richest x $100 million each would equal $40 billion. That would leave about $1.23 trillion to help pay back the country for the Wall Street meltdown that we, our children and their children will be subsidizing.

10. "We are becoming a socialist economy." Somewhere between 68 and 78 percent of the US GDP is private sector activity, the highest among developed nations. And much of the government expenditures go to private contractors as well. But there's a kernel of truth in the socialist scare: What do you call a society that encourages the private accumulation of wealth without limit, and then when the super-wealthy get into serious trouble, we bail them out with taxpayer funds - largely from a declining middle-class? That's not free-enterprise. That's not socialism either. It's something new and it deserves to be called the billionaire bailout society.

Here's hoping that in 2010 we can begin to undo it.

Lost Emails - Wanda Sykes

Lady Gaga: The Unlikely Queen of 2009

Five Grammy nominations. Four consecutive top 10 singles. Three consecutive #1 songs. An well-received headlining world tour. A meet-and-greet with Queen Elizabeth. A show-stopping appearance on Saturday Night Live. It can't be denied -- Lady Gaga had one incredible year. Usually, stats like these are reserved for the huge one-name acts: Madonna, Britney, Beyonce. But it appears it's time to add one more name to that list: Gaga.

The fact is not many thought she'd be around this long. She had one-hit wonder tattooed all over her. Sporting an insane wardrobe of in-your-face leather and plastic, elaborate masks, and dresses made of bubbles and Kermit the Frog heads, Gaga bounced onto the pop music scene late last year. And most people were counting on her bouncing right back out once her debut 'Just Dance' enjoyed a nice run on the charts. But Lady Gaga surprised everyone and released another chart-topping song. And then another. And then one more.

The surprising part is that her success is so counter-intuitive. She follows no rules. She repels the norm. If you've seen it before, Lady Gaga's not wearing or doing it. So, how did this boundary-pushing little blonde take over mainstream America?

Music journalist Faith-Ann Young offers her opinion, "Her success isn't about her stockings or wigs or bodices. It's a medley of time, place, occasion, talent, money, and shock value. She's coming at a time when a lot of the music scene is rather banal and staid and people are quite desperate to feel something. There hasn't been a Madonna, Prince, or David Bowie to rejuvenate pop in a while." Maybe it was just time for someone to shake pop music's foundation a little bit. Enter Lady Gaga.

Lady Gaga's unpredictable sense of style hasn't hurt her -- in fact, it could be argued it put her on the map. While her music is catchy and she clearly has true talent, her eccentric fashions are what most people first call to mind. You just don't forget someone walking the red carpet in a dress made solely of clear plastic bubbles. Case in point, Lady Gaga met the Queen of England in an Elizabethan-inspired, full-length, red latex dress and red glitter eye mask.

"It's interesting to have a style personality who goes beyond just being a risk-taker. She's pushing boundaries and is developing a signature style that isn't comparable to very many people on the pop culture and/or sartorial time line -- and that is quite an accomplishment!" says Susan Cernek, Glamour Magazine's online Senior Fashion and Beauty Editor.

Cernek continues, "The interesting thing about Lady Gaga is that she's a very '00s style icon. Where as the '90s were about flashy labels, bling, and demonstrations of sexual and financial excess, this decade is much more about personalization and individuality -- and say what you will about her, you've got to admit that Lady Gaga and her style is unique."

A winning combination of a stellar voice and attention-grabbing costumes was always the plan. Lady Gaga began as a performance artist in burlesque shows on the Lower East Side of Manhattan and those roots still heavily influence her every performance and appearance. Young remembers seeing her for the first time; "At Lollapalooza in 2007, Lady Gaga was a skinny brunette girl in a sequined silver bra, dancing with bravado under a disco ball. While she clearly had that burning desire for performance and fame at the time - the glamour and the mystique for which Gaga is known was not yet clear."

And just two years later, Lady Gaga is taking the world by glittery storm. Unabashedly performing every show and walking every red carpet as though she's performing back in the Lower East Side burlesque club. And it's working. Best of all, she's not hiding her intentions to shock and entertain. Cernek concurs, "She is a performer who is clearly performing for an audience -- and makes it transparent in her press statements that's what she's going for. While her costumes may be wildly outrageous, her motives for wearing them are fairly clear and straightforward -- which is refreshing."

But ornate sets and crazy costumes aside, Lady Gaga's voice is her ace in the hole. While many of her songs feature heavy electronics that alter her voice, her immense innate talent is instantly apparent when she sings live. Earlier this season, she was the musical guest on Saturday Night Live and performed two musical numbers. Gaga's second set featured her playing the piano and singing without backup vocals or additional instruments. It was a jaw-dropping moment -- and it solidified her place as pop music's new queen.

Young sums it up Gaga's success well. "The musicians who survive this industry have to have talent AND the business acumen to surround themselves with the right people to develop themselves. Gaga is talented; she can play the piano and sings and dances. But many people can do that. The girl has got fire within her as well. She got to Lollapalooza on sheer guts. Also, she's had a big label Interscope promoting her for two years. And lastly she's got great artistic friends. Madonna had Maripol as a stylist in the '80s to pave her distinctive look. Gaga has Nicola Formichetti and Matt Williams and others. And as for publicists, it pays to have Perez Hilton as a BFF."

Carrie Underwood Engaged to Mike Fisher

'Before He Cheats' singer Carrie Underwood may seem cynical in her music, but the 'American Idol' winner is lucky in love; Underwood and her hockey player boyfriend are engaged. The Ottawa Sun spilled the good news moments after Mike Fisher spoke to reporters at an Ottawa Senators game. "It's true," said Fisher. "We're both obviously excited and very happy."

Fisher's teammate Chris Neil admitted he already knew the big news, adding, "I think it's great. It's a long time coming. There's going to be a lot of broken hearts in Ottawa with all those girls who are in love with Mikey."

"I'm happy to confirm that Carrie Underwood is engaged to Mike Fisher, and the couple couldn't be happier," her rep told PEOPLE. "No wedding date has been set at this time."

Underwood, 26, and Fisher have kept details of their relationship private, though Underwood called out their romance in the liner notes of her latest album 'Play On.' "I love you so much!" she wrote to Fisher. "You make my life better in every way! I thank God for you every day."

Fisher, 29, proposed to Underwood Sunday, after the couple had dated for a year.

Branson opens doors to spaceship

Billionaire entrepreneur Richard Branson on Monday unveiled the winged rocket his company developed to give paying customers a brief taste of space.

The 300 people who have given Branson's Virgin Galactic $20,000 deposits toward the $200,000 space-ride tickets were invited see SpaceShipTwo in its Mojave, California, hangar. CNN was given an early peek.

The first flight in 2011 -- after 18 months of testing -- will launch from a spaceport under construction in New Mexico, Branson said.

Another aircraft will carry the 60-foot-long SpaceShipTwo to 60,000 feet above the Earth, where "they will drop away and they will then go to 2,000 miles per hour in 10 seconds, where they get propelled into space," Branson said.
Its hybrid rocket motor -- still under development -- will reach a suborbital altitude high enough to reach the edges of space and weightlessness, according to Branson.

"Once in space, [passengers] will unbuckle their seats," he said. "There are enormous windows, which no spacecraft has had before, for them to look back at the Earth. They can float around and become astronauts."

The cabin, which seats six paying passengers, is 90 inches -- nearly 8 feet -- in diameter, which provides "lots of room for zero-G fun," Branson's Web site said.

The first voyage will carry Branson, his wife, mother and children, the entrepreneur said. "Actually, that's my mum on the side -- a younger version of my mum on the side of the spaceship," he said.

After just a few minutes of space tourism, SpaceShipTwo will glide back to Earth, landing where it began the trip in New Mexico, he said.



About 80,000 people have placed their names on the waiting list for seats on SpaceShipTwo and its successors.
"What we want to be able to do is bring space travel down to a price range where hundreds of thousands of people would be able to experience space, and they never dreamed that [they] could," Branson said.

He said he hopes the technology will lead to a new form of Earth travel, jetting people across oceans and continents faster through suborbital routes.

"We would love at some stage, obviously subject to government approval, to take the engineers and start looking at shrinking the world," Branson said.

The spacecraft was based on the technology and carbon-composite construction developed for SpaceShipOne, which won the Ansari X Prize in 2004 for the first privately funded human flight to the edge of space.

The reusable spacecraft is a joint effort by aviation designer Burt Rutan's Scaled Composites and Virgin Galactic, a space tourism venture that is a subsidiary of Branson's Virgin Group.