Maybe that chef is going to use a state supplied rice cooker to prepare the wild rice!
That'd be a great propaganda coup!
This has been going on for a long time, but not very much publicized. They usually have "ferias de turismo" or "tourism fairs" where they bring chefs to create "fantastic menus" for the same hotels from where Cubans are banned. The worst part is when a Cuban chef is ordered to research and prepare such a menu while his family starves at home and the guy cannot even smuggled out a can of peas.
No, a Cuban is supposed to eat his picadillo de soya or to go and eat a McCastro Burger.... cagastro had the nerve to once extoll the virtues of worms (not us, but earth worms) as a nice source of nutrients. Needless to say that people were not in a hurry to eat a McCastro for a while.
This fantastic cooking show is happening after the failure of the following "popular urban farming programs":
Urban orchards: planted on small patches whenever a building use to stand. I never heard of a study to find if the land was contaminated or not or if you were planting your tomatoes on top of a septic field.
Chickens and eggs: They wanted Cubans to raise chickens in balconies and rooftops, with total disregard to health concerns given the close vicinity with the fowl and its excrements, which will wash down the rooftops during every rainstorm.
Tilapia: This fish was given to the "consumer" to be raised in tanks, fed with table scraps, and after your 55 gallon tank was full of them you can enjoy a non-sea-vessel-worthy-of-a-trip-to-Florida fishing moment in your own backyard. Again, no health concerns about fish that were eating their own crap since theres no possible hygienization of a 55 gallon drum overpopulated with a bad tasting fish.
Pigs: No caja china in sight. Pigs were raised out of desperation, clandestinely, in order to have something for the banned Christmas celebration, quaint, isn't it?
And cagastro's biggest stupid idea ever:
LA MINIVACA, or minicow.... A pigmy cow, not bigger than a sizable dog, to avoid selling milk to the Cuban people. They are still trying to produce such a monstrousity of genetics, not noticing that such an animal already exist, it's called CHIVA!!!! (goat)
Well, I'm going to have my other rich coffee... it's not chicharos tostados (toasted peas) like the G2 agent who overhears (and records) my conversations with my folks in Cuba has to drink.... too bad, well deserved for being a commie!
Again, cagastro is interested in socialized misery because that way people do not have the time and the energy to think of how to get rid of him, they have to prioritize, and number one is how to feed their families!

Maybe the Canadians can throw in some croquetas de ave to add a little local flavor.

Now that there's no hockey, just what good are the ^%$&^ng canadians anywhay?

It's been quite a weekend for communist feasting of this very kind - Alek Boyd over at VCrisis has the lowdown on the duck quesadillas the Chavistas were feasting on at a trade mission in Boston. These people are truly the Marie Antoinettes of our time!

http://www.vcrisis.com/index.php?content=letters/200503200817

Canada went to hell about the time they got rid of the Red Ensign and adopted the Maple Leaf flag.

Why are pigs illegal in Cuba? Most of what I eat in Miami is pork! All I can figure is, one morning castro tripped over a pig and now they're outlawed

That's a beautiful blog! I'll be back again...
by an italian blogger

That's a beautiful blog! I'll be back again...
by an italian blogger

I just came across this page:
http://www.therealcuba.com/index.htm

This expands (in depth) on the pictures that Val has already posted. The Webmaster has made a great job in indexing and grouping the pictures in such an easy and poignant way that even los mas maricones cultistas can find the CastroLie they are most comfortable with and hopefully CHOKE on the REAL CUBA.

Of outmost interest (for people like Hilda who bemoan the "embargo" and ignore in "IN-BARGO" imposed by THE BEAST of Biran, there are pictures of what Castro's apartheid has done to the Cuban people.

Cuba has become a slave colony, where the masters (foreigners) have it all while the citizens are "regaled" to conditions not even the Conquistadores on its darkest days imposed on the colonies.
FUCK YOU FIDEL! WITH THE FORCE OF A MILLION SUNS I HATE YOU!

A few more names to add to the "PERSONA NON-GRATA" list after the communists are ousted. It keeps on growing and growing, almost like the duracell bunny!

asi es val desgraciadamente a NUESTRA isla le ha tocado lo peor y el futuro de nustra libertad se ve cada dia maslejano ,porque la funcion del embargo es una cosa que al tirano no le afecta en lo absoluto y siempre lo usa como excusa para achacarle todas las bestialidades que el comete contra el pueblo cubano ...ahora el que crea esa patraña es comemierda o cumunista
de todas maneras este pais tiene un embargo de dos caras ya que por un lado hablan de un embargo y por el otro hay varios millonarios norteamericanos haciendo negocio con ese hijo de puta .
entonces en que quedamos estan con nosotros o solamente es un juego politico para ganar nuestros votos es una situacion bastante y confusa que al final no nos lleva a ninguna contundente derrota para el tirano ..basta ya de jueguitos y que le suenen un bloqueo naval a ese singao de fidel
aunque solamente esta e mi opinion y a lo mejor muchos tendran otros puntos de vista sobre este tema ..pero al final de todolos que sufrimos somos nosotros
los cubanos que queremos ver a nuestra patria libre de ese cancer que nunca termina al contrario cada dia se arraiga con mas fuerza destruyendo todas nuestras esperanzas al igual que la del pueblo cubano ...hasta cuando caballero tenemos que seguir sufriendo ..hasta cuando el mundo va a despertar y darse cuenta que cuba grita libertad .
fidel y sus esbirros no entienden lo que es el dialogo ni nada eso .
ellos ejercen la violencia para mantenerse en el poder y seguir abusando y con la violencia desgraciadamente es la unica arma que sera util para despojarnos de esa infame pandilla de degenerados
VIVA CUBA LIBRE
FREE TOCORORO

This I say to the Canadians:

May your mother's and wife's womb dry out.

Val - there has to be a hell for people like this.

THERE you go again, Blab-alu :-)

Funny how you like to knock those damn Canucks and Euros. But I wonder if you have the cojones to DENOUNCE ISRAEL, a key U.S. friend and ally?

After all, aren't they HYPOCRITES?

They vote on the side of the U.S. during the annual U.N. ritual of condemning the embargo year after year. They have not had formal diplomatic relations with Cuba since 1973.

Yet you do know, don't you, that an Israeli company DOES BUSINESS in Cuba. . .?? I believe it is in the citrus industry. May not be much, but still pretty hypocritical in my book.

AMAZING considering Castro had close ties with Arafat/PLO in the past! In fact, there's a significant number of Israeli tourists visiting Cuba, and not just the "budget backpackers" type.

And besides those hated Canucks and "Old Europeans", there's Scandinavians and a whole spectrum of Latin-American tourists visiting Cuba.

Are all these folks commie scum too??

Go ahead. Call me naive, perhaps myopic; but if I'm blind, you're suffering from tunnel vision! You don't seem to understand that for every zealot you attract here, you are alienating twice as many.

Haven't you realized yet why all those scumbag Canucks and Euros don't like the U.S. embargo?

Because they KNOW it's all about the politics. They KNOW how our electoral system works. They KNOW it's not really done for ethical reasons. They KNOW how U.S. business interests operate in other poor Latin-American & third-world countries.

This is just a bizarre, perverse example of NIMBY (Not In My BackYard, or in this case, not in my ex-homeland). Having said all this Mr. Blabber-lu, instead of ending my post the usual way, "kiss my yuma ass", I will simply pose a rhetorical question: WHOSE Yuma's ass will YOU kiss tonight. . . ? ;-)

Turbo,

Who you trying to convince, me or yourself? Cause if it's me, youre wasting your time.

canadians are replacing the extravagance of the americans during Batista's regime. Shame on both nationalities. And on the hysterical rantings of some.

On the subject of Canadians and Cubans, I was left 'boca abierta' during a Toronto exhibit of Canadian photographers who had 'done' Havana, staying at rented premises for a month. One of the photographers was known to me, as well as her leftist politics. So it was no surprise to hear the MC for "Friends of Cuba" introduce the Cuban Consul by using the US as a scapegoat for Cuba's troubles ("poor Cuba, it's all the US's fault"). But what knocked my socks off was reading the comments from this late 30-something photographer and art instructor who stated, in print, "I wish Canada were more like Cuba". She wasn't referring to the weather. I nearly choked.

now instead of f g screaming, you can all do something proactive for a change. Write a letter to the editor at the globe and mail: letters@globeandmail.ca .

Wanna hear a funny story about Israel Business with Cuba?

Israel invented an irrigation system that uses a fraction of the water needed to irrigate the same amount of land.
It is called “MicroJet”.
One of the FEW (and there are VERY few) companies in Israel that is willing to deal with Castro agreed to sell Castro the “microJet” system. Money upfront! Now, by the way the company is actually NOT Israeli; It IS in Israel because they sell an Israeli invention… but that is inconsequential to the story.

So Castro in al his megalomaniac glory declares in a public speech that Coffee production was going to increase 100% with the new irrigation system “CUBANS” had invented.

The irrigation system was bought without guarantees or support (Castro didn’t wanna spend the extra bucks)

The Cuban “engineers” set up the system (which the Israeli company advised them against) and the moment this thing goes to work every god damn Coffee plant it fed dies!

Ah ! Says the Cuban government! SABOTAGE, the Israelis have done something under the orders of the USA goverment to sabotage our coffee crops!

Threats go back & forth between Cuba and Israel (now the Israeli government HAS to get involved in a private business transaction between an independent company and Cuba.
After Israel decides to send IT’S engineers to Cuba to see what the hell happened , a curious thing comes up.

The microJet method consists of an irrigations system which comprises hundreds of individual mini hoses that deliver tiny amounts of pressurized water to individual plants. This water is SPECIFICALLY controlled so only the right amount of water is delivered.
Well, the Cuban engineers bought the BLACK hose version of the microJet. Now you have black rubber hoses all over the coffee fields, the sun and heat of Cuba along with the black hoses were bringing the water to almost boiling point, in fact cooking the coffee plant upon contact.

Cuba appealed to the Israeli government to intercede and get either a refund of millions of USD spent on this folly or to get the “white” reflective version.

The Israelis told Castro that this was a private business negotiation between an independent vendor and Cuba and in all honesty Castro could go and fuck himself.

Cubans never heard of the MicroJet system again nor the 100% increase in coffee production.

Was this a plan of the Israeli government to fuck Castro up? Or was it Castro’s “engineers” lack of sufficient technical knowledge, poor planning skills , total disregard for due diligence and lack of hard currency to buy the guarantee and support that was recommended to them?
YOU decide!

The incident did bring a new term into Cuban lingo, when something turns out to be a TOTAL disaster Cubans call it “Another MicroJet”

Suspect ethics from that Israeli company (based in Israel: it is Israeli - y punto).

Are the microjets like the microcows?

Surely they are!

Maybe fidel should have let loose a little green to buy the white hose. After all, he is worth half a billion.

And here's a question for Turbo7x7: does the "7x7" after your handle indicate your total IQ? Is this IQ of 49 only in your "Yuma ass," 'cause it sure sounds like you sit on your brains...

fidel trades with the rest of the west and he still cannot fix his economy! When does it stop being our fault and its starts being his? Hmm? Are we always going to be the straw-man you fidel sycophants strike at when things go poorly for uncle castro? I understand: it's never his fault. It's our fault, us yanquis and gusanos.

If you really think the embargo is so bad, then go and apply to be a trade rep for him in Canada, Sweden, or elsewhere. You can help coordinate trade and make the US look bad since everybody else wants to trade with Cuba, right?

Do you really believe stopping the embargo and beginning trade again will miraculously transform the Cuba of 2005 Cuba into the Cuba of 1958 that was an economic powerhouse? You are daft. Cuba was a powerhouse before fidel because it was A CAPITALIST COUNTRY, you moron. As long as fidel has a command economy and not a full-blown market economy NOTHING WILL GET FIXED. Get it? Or did you flunk Economics as well as History?

Do you know why fidel wants more and more foreign exchange in dollars and euros? Every dollar and euro he gets that he can spare (cough, cough, chuckle) is going into his bacteriological weapons program in Pinar del Rio, to the armed forces, and to his intelligence services all over Central and South America that foment revolt and impose leftist governments. Ninety miles away we have someone who is producing weaponized germs, and some in this audience still want to supply him the cash so he can buy the metaphorical rope he'll hang us with...

Please, I don't want to hear about the mean ole US and how its hurting the Cuban people with the mean ole embargo. And I do not want to be called a hypocrite. You guys have patented that one pretty much already. The tune from your little violin is boring. Boring and old. Yada, yada, yada.

"Are the microjets like the microcows?"
LOL - Actually NO
The microjets DO WORK in places like Africa, China etc.
Castro was just (as always) the expert who decided to save some $$$.
And as far as the logic of "Syd" The same thing has happened with every machinery bought outside Cuba and deployed and supported by Cuban staff.
Canadian water purification plants are working FINE in half the world, in Cuba they lasted 6 months!
The Japanese cleaning of Habana Harbor was a success(with experimental technology no less !) until Castro decided NOT to pay, and the Japanese ull the plug to the completion to the project. The harbor is again a sewege!
The italian digital phone gear is just gathering dust 'cause noone knows how to install it.

So the Canadian, Japanese & Italian companies are also guilty of "shady" deals or is it just that the brain power in Cuba is just NOT THERE!

Ref 7x7 - oh yeah, wonderful europe - preferring to add billions to chirac's swiss bank account than giving the Iraqi people a chance at freedom. The Canadians, they're just trying to be like their idol france.

As for south and central Americans vacationing in Cuba, I can easily write that off to people looking for a cheap place to vacation.

7x7? Just look at his email address - "@collegeclub.com". The world of ward churchill and other America-haters (which, sad to say seems to include most so-called professors at colleges and universities).

I'm willing to bet 7x7 was born here in the US - why is it that so many of our best Americans seem to have to be imported?

(okay, I'm giving too much credence to the mouthy minority)

George: The world over, whenever the US has some dispute with some place, US companies loudly complain that they're 'missing out' on trade deals and the Europeans are stepping in and taking advantage, raking in big profits. This has been the case in Iran, in Vietnam, in China, in Iraq. For all we know it's perfectly true. But how come we don't hear a whole lot of this line in the case of Cuba? castro repeatedly stiffs his foreign investors and although some of them like to keep coming back for more punishment, it's really amazing how little anything changes there. There's no cellphones, no Internet cafes, no trappings of the influx of foreign investors. It's not like that anywhere else. You can see cellphones in Nepal. But not Cuba. Trade with Cuba does not benefit consumers and it would be surprising if it benefits most investors. Nobody in the US is yelling about 'missing out.'

I'm not going to argue anything over the embargo, but I will say that the last time I checked the embargo was between Cuba and the US, not Canada or any of the European countries. I understand your problem with these people going to the island, but you speak as though Cuba is the only country with a corrupt government. There are dozens of countries around the non-Western world with governments equally bad (or worse), that Americans travel to all the time and do the same thing. I understand this blog is focused on Cuba, but these comments are almost laughable considering many of the people that are condemning people to hell for visiting the island would go somewhere like Jamaica in a heartbeat. I have a problem with inequality just like anyone else; when I see this sort of thing I see a problem. I don't, however, see it merely as a problem in Cuba, and to say Americans are somehow above being involved in it seems strange to me.

Mora, you are spot on! This never-ending rhetoric about the emabargo in the discourse about Cuba, is of course, one of the main arguments used to criticise the US and its policy.

My comment was directed at the useful idiots who use the embargo as a "weapon" against the "crazy Cubans" here in Miami by implying that ending it would bring nirvana to Cuba. Nothing could be further from the truth, as I stated in my post, and as is out forth here in BabaluBlog ad infinitum.

The current regime and its head are corrupt and evil beyond redemption. Any nation or firm that wants to do business in Cuba should have a collective psyciatric evaluation. I remember how infuiated I became when, years ago, the CEO of ADM (Archer Daniels Midland) came out forcefully in defense of fidel's right to buy US agriproducts. I am still pissed about it.

Killcastro, wd love some primary or secondary source links to the commercial failures in cuba, using foreign technology. meanwhile, tourist development by foreign operators doesn't seem to be affected by fidel's interference. like most foreign operators (so I'm told, second-hand, by the exec of a canadian mining company), fidel takes 50% of the profits, no questions allowed.

Syd :
Actual "links" or documented proof of these things is just imposible, since the government will not publish these failures. The companies involved are not in the "anti-Castro" business , so they rather not get any publicity about the dealings. All of this is mostly common knowledge within Cuba, and MOST Cubans just find it hysterically funny. I do have a good buddy who is a famed Cuban economist who HAS to get involved in these fiascos just as part of his job.
A good source of info is any Cuban who may have an internet connection at work and chats on ICQ (for some reason there are a TON of them on ICQ)
Some of these people get internet connections at home (paid by their foreign bosses) and they are a GREAT source of information about the injustices of the system.
Case in point - A telecom Canadian company I know about, has to pay the Castro government $1,200 a month for each employee PLUS the employees salary in USD. The reasoning behind this is that the employee went to school for free and that money needs to be recouped. Now the salary the employee gets is in Cuban Pesos. Probably a LOT more than his neighbor is making but STILL is in Cuban pesos.
So a programmer in Cuba gets paid $300 USD by the company and he MAY receive 300 pesos at the end of the month. Most of the time the actual amount is a fraction of the actual salary even in pesos.
To the company this employee costs them $1,500 USD a month. A LOT of these foreign companies, supplement the employees salary with "freebies" like free breakfast, free lunch etc and as I said many pay for employees , phone, cell phone and internet connection.
The stories of CastroFuckUps are SO many someone should write a book about this.
From the VERY first days of the ROBOlution.!
I remember as a kid going t cut sugar cane, and I would get the machete and swing at the sugar cane as if I was swinging a baseball bat. This old (REALLY OLD) sugar cane guy was watching me and said " well... that is one cane that is NEVER gonna grow back"
Something to do with the angle and the height of the cut, that (if done correctly) would improve the growth of the cane for the next harvest. Incorrectly, it would kill it.
I think the most obvious and grievous fuck ups is the reconstruction of La Habana Vieja, because it is STARING right at you!
20+ Million Given to Castro to restore what was declared international patrimony and after almost 10 years nothing has been done.
The Spanish embassy was part of the re-construction, and the Spanish government sent its own engineers and architects to do it. The labor force was Cuban. I read the cost was 400% higher than it would had cost any place else because the actual materials that were made available to the Spaniards was SHIT , from the sand that was used to mix cement to the light bulbs it was all SHIT!
Now the only thing that SHINES in La Habana Vieja IS the Spanish Embassy , just BREATHTAKING at night always lit with their own energy transformers.

If you want another example of CCF's (Castro Cluster fuckups) this is also staring anyone in the face.

Take a ride down Calle 70 in Marianao (now PLAYA district) and get to what was called "Monte Barreto" There sitting in all its glory are about 10 condominium projects (Canadian funded) that were never finished because the cost overage was insurmountable.

Now, ride down to Calle 70 and Ave 1 You will see two building co-owned by a Spaniard Company and Cuba , these are two "twin" hotels named Triton & Neptune they are no more than 6 years old and are in ruins. In fact they were recently shut down. Reason? They used Cuban materials, steel, cement wood etc. all SHIT bought on the low balled priced god knows where.

Further up on Calle 76 you find the Melia Habana Hotel still a GORGEOUS building where the Cuban government wasn’t allowed to touch anything. The Melia chain paid through the nose but all materials were imported from Spain and this place is a JEWEL .. Now lest the cultist say "well there are NO materials because the "embargo" , remember MELIA BROUGHT THE MATERIALS FROM SPAIN ! A country Castro is fully free to trade with. So as always it is NOT a matter of the USA not selling to Cuba is the fact that Castro has NO money to buy anything of any quality and he has become just too accustomed to be the supreme whore of whoever is willing to fund his motherfucking empire.

yeah, killcastro, I'm aware of the foreign company salary payments in USD prior to their conversion by the Cuban govt to pesos.

and, I didn't expect cuban-based sources of information on the construction screwups, but rather, sources of info from other countries where there is no ban on freedom of expression.

not surprised about the melia (grupo sol) integrity of construction. met their president about 15 yrs ago - impressed me - honorable, a teetotaler, stands for no nonsense in a quiet way. and was involved with the group from a financing perspective. good group. wish i cd say the same for the cdn bank who screwed up.

which is precisely why i question some of these business deals which result in such local screw ups. granted, fidel's arm is strong. but are foreign arms (grupo sol excepted) so weak?