I saw that too. Interesting that their crack internet reporter did no more than show screenshots of major print outlets. Everything else on the 'net is just rumors, don't you know.

Also interesting because I had a long debate with myself about using a goat-related term for Castro today and decided it wasn't ladylike. Glad to hear someone else stepped up to the plate.

Eugenio de Sosa Chabau, a Cuban classmate of John F. Kennedy, WARNED President Kennedy about Soviet missiles in Cuba way before the Cuban Missile Crises… Warning fell on deaf ears.

http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/human-rights/nightmare.htm

Many Cubans, while risking their lives, gathered enough information in Cuba to present to the U.S. government about the missiles arriving in Cuba from Russia. That information was ignored.
The information was considered RAMPANT RUMORS...

Final result: Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962.

Hey Val...saw this and it cracked me up:

"The speaker of parliament, Ricardo Alarcon...expressed disgust over celebrations taking place in Miami's Cuban exile community, 'vomit-provoking acts' he said were being led by 'mercenaries and terrorists.'"

Wow! Methinks they doth protest too much.

Story here: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060801/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/cuba_castro_48

well I had to vent on this thread as the others are running dry. EL 51 suggested the annexation of Cuba as the 51st state. God forbid as I responded on that thread
"EL 51
NO THANK YOU. We Cubans are not so ignorant that we cannot rebuild and run Cuba. Cuba is to be a sovereign country. Why do you have a problem with Cuba's independence? I am Cuban and proud of it. I don't want to be a citizen of the 51st state.
This is one of my greatest fears. I would fight to the death against this. Cuba is for the Cubans.
Not for the opportunists."

for that matter EL 51 the commies can keep Cuba. If it can't be Cuba then it no longer would matter. 51st state or commieville it would be lost to the Cubans either way.

We Cubans want Cuba back and if you think that having it back just for nostalgia is our motivation you are way off.

It dawns on me that when he actually croaks, Val will be inundated with ... stuff. Phone calls and celebrating and meetings and perhaps travel and who knows WHAT else!

And, he will be too busy to read his comments then. Probably because there will be thousands of comments. And this may slip past him, so I'll say it now ...

Thank You. For all the things I would never hear if you didn't write. I mean that from the bottom of my heart. You do something extraordinary every single day. And one day ... maybe one day soon ... the inevitable will happen.

Actually I don't mind Cuba as the 51st state. If Cuba would of been annexed a long time ago - say after the Spanish American war, Castro would of never happened. Cuba would of been the greatest asset to the Union!

Give ungrateful Puerto Rico her independence and let them have their own Castro and see how they like it.

I have always been curious about predictions made by astrologers or psychics and I have searched the net far and wide looking for a predictions of Castro's death.The only one I could find states that he would step down because of an illness.Check it out:
http://www.vertice2000.cl/esoterico/esoterico-019.php