The barbarism worsens

As we reported here, Miguel Sigler Amaya, an independent journalist, and one of the 75, and his wife, Woman In White Josefa Lopez Pena, were boarding an airliner from Havana to freedom on Sept. 20, when they were cruelly ripped off the plane just before takeoff by castro's thugs.

All of their papers were in order, but that made no difference to the brutes who were sent onto that plane to tear them off. "This man from State Security argued that although all of our documentation was in order I couldn't emigrate because I was a counter-revolutionary and they had the power and the force," Sigler said, explaining his ordeal.

Today, it's gotten worse. castro's animals violently attacked Senora Sigler and beat her in broad daylight in the streets of Havana. "This is a warning that we've wanted to give you for a long time," the foul thing told her.

The couple fears for their safety. castro does not want them in exile - he wants them dead. The U.S. Interests Section has warned that they fear for their safety.

Pray for this poor couple.

Countering CBS

Since CBS and 60 Minutes is staging yet another propped up "interview" with Elian Gonzalez, I'd like to call your attention to a documentary that shreds the Network and this "News Program" to bits. I ran this documentary during the Cuba Nostalgia convention and those that watched it were red faced with anger.

The Rats Below by Agustin Blazquez.

It is a fascinating story of intrigue and deceptions that the U.S. media censored because of the economic and political leverage of this corporation that sponsors many of the leading political programs on the major TV and Radio networks.

It is a story kept hidden because of the prevalent U.S. media dislike for a minority group in America.

It is a story of secret corporate manipulation of the U.S. government, the media and the American people creating support for their corporate greed, all while staying hidden just under the surface.

This complex story unravels through the testimonies of: DAVID HOECH, DELFIN GONZALEZ, DENNIS K. HAYS, JAMES B. LIEBER, JIM GUIRARD, LARRY KLAYMAN, MYLES KANTOR & REED IRVINE.

This limited Special Edition DVD also features Dan Rather “60 Minutes” an inside view, an 8-min. interview with Pedro Porro, A.I.A., retired Architect of the U.S. Treasury Department in Washington, DC. Mr. Porro participated in the production of a segment of “60 Minutes” and reveals what he found to be a serious manipulation specifically designed to influence the conclusions of the audience.

This interview was taped on May 18, 2003 - before the scandal on CBS about the “60 Minutes” Dan Rather segment criticizing president Bush in relation to his military service based on fake documents - Mr. Porro came forward and revealed this inside view.

Mr. Porro was hired in April 2000 as a translator (English to Spanish) for the interview by Dan Rather of Juan Miguel Gonzalez, the father of Elian Gonzalez, the 6-year old boy involved in an international custody dispute between Fidel Castro’s regime and a humble Cuban American family in Miami during the Clinton administration.

Mr. Porro participated in the 10-hour taping session for "60 Minutes." Greg Craig -Clinton’s lawyer during his impeachment process, who also acted as lawyer for Juan Miguel Gonzalez and as advisor to John Kerry during his presidential campaign - was present and involved.

While taping the Dan Rather interview, Mr. Porro observed what appears to be one more pattern of deception by Dan Rather, "60 Minutes" and CBS.

The DVD is available for Purchase at the link above, or if you live in Miami, it will be premiering at The Tower Theater, Saturday, October 22, 2005 at 8 p.m.

I am contacting Agustin Blazquez to see if he has a short video premiere that I can post here. Stay tuned.

An example of MSM spin

Here is an example of how the MSM focuses on a story that, in the grand scheme of events, is irrelevant to the greater story of opression in Cuba. Newsday, the lovely, liberal Long Island daily, via The Chicago Tribune, had a story yesterday on Posada-Carriles. A real exposé, this. Here is the lead:

The alleged terrorist said he crossed the U.S.-Mexico border into Texas as many other illegal immigrants do -- in the car of a smuggler. Then he hopped a bus to Miami. [My emphasis]

Mind you, this is a guy who has been acquitted twice and pardoned once! My question to Newsday, though, is very simple: where has your outrage been for almost 47 years now for what has happened on the island? Are the only "terrorists" those who battle fidel? You call Posada an "alleged terrorist" -- and he may well be -- but you don't focus that laser beam on fidel and his regime for their crimes against humanity with the same glee and intensity.

Why?

Cuba manipulating accords for political gain?

Gee, ya think?

Looks like last week's ugly incident 2 miles off the US shore where the Coast Guard and Homeland Security forces acted no different than castro's military against Cubans seeking freedom got some people off their asses:

U.S. says Cuba not trying to halt migrants

Cuba refuses to engage in dialogue over the 1995 migration accords, the U.S. State Department said, claiming the Castro regime uses the accords `for political gain.'

At a time when interceptions of Cuban migrants have doubled, the United States has accused Cuba's government of refusing to comply with 1995 migration accords designed to prevent another exodus to Florida.

Cuba doesn't try to stop migrants on vessels while they are still in Cuban territorial waters, and it refuses to issue exit permits to many citizens who receive U.S. travel documents allowed by the accords, according to a recent U.S. State Department report.

More than 500 potential migrants awarded one of the 20,000 entry visas the U.S. grants each year haven't been allowed out. Among them: 171 doctors.

Apparently, fidel hasnt lived up to his end of the visa lottery bargain since 1998:

Its refusal to issue exit permits to qualified migrants; 533 were denied this year.

• Its refusal to permit a new registration for the annual U.S. visa lottery, which allows as many as 20,000 Cubans to emigrate to the United States every year; the last signup for the lottery was in 1998;

• Its refusal to accept the return of Cuban criminals deemed excludable from the United States.

Read the whole thing below the fold.

Cuban officials, for their part, have accused Washington of dragging its feet on visas, trying to deliberately spark an exodus in an effort to topple the Castro government.

''The Castro regime's repeated allegations about purported U.S. designs to precipitate a mass migration crisis are patently false,'' James C. Cason, the top U.S. diplomat in Havana, said in a statement earlier this month as he prepared to leave his post.

``Cubans who don't have a choice to leave legally are risking their lives, in the greatest numbers we have seen since 1994, on dangerously inadequate watercraft.''

The State Department report comes at a time when the U.S. Coast Guard is seeing a major increase in the number of Cuban migrants trying to cross the Florida straits, a situation widely blamed on deteriorating economic conditions on the island.

Cuba, the State Department report said, ``has cynically chosen to manipulate [the accords] for political gain in an effort to continue to prevent the Cuban people's desire to live in freedom.''

The report reveals Washington's constant worry that another mass migration is a possibility.

'The government of Cuba remains unwilling to move forward on a substantive agenda and instead characterizes the U.S. government action as a political maneuver for which there will be `very serious consequences,' '' the report warns.

U.S. Sen. Mel Martinez is calling for the United States to reevaluate its position regarding the accords, citing Cuba's tendency to unleash mass migrations whenever the political situation on the island gets too hot.

''The Castro regime continues to use the accords as a tool of continued oppression and has furthermore used it as an escape valve to send his operatives to the United States,'' Martinez said in a written statement.

The 1995 accords were established by the Clinton administration in the wake of an exodus of an estimated 40,000 rafters and boaters from Cuba that overwhelmed the Coast Guard.

According to the document, Cuba's biggest impediments to ''safe, legal and orderly migration'' include:

Its refusal to issue exit permits to qualified migrants; 533 were denied this year.

• Its refusal to permit a new registration for the annual U.S. visa lottery, which allows as many as 20,000 Cubans to emigrate to the United States every year; the last signup for the lottery was in 1998;

• Its refusal to accept the return of Cuban criminals deemed excludable from the United States.

The State Department has accused Cuba of these actions since at least 2003.

Calls and emails to Lazaro Herrera, the spokesman for the Cuban Interests Section in Washington, were not immediately returned.

The accords also established the controversial U.S. wet-foot, dry-foot policy, which generally allows Cubans who reach U.S. shores to stay, but repatriates most migrants picked up at sea.

Last week, 10 Cubans were stopped by U.S. authorities within sight of Miami-Dade's Haulover Beach. Television crews broadcast the scene of Coast Guard and Customs agents hosing down the migrants and slamming their vessel, briefly knocking several of them into the water.

The United States has yet to decide the status of the 10.

Since Oct. 1, 2004, 2,617 Cubans have been intercepted before reaching U.S. soil. That's more than double the number for the previous 12 months. The report blames the uptick on bad economic conditions in Cuba -- as well as Cuba's unwillingness to do much about migration.

Still, one Cuba expert, Unversity of Miami professor Jaime Suchlicki, doesn't think a mass migration from Cuba like the 1980 Mariel boatlift will happen anytime soon.

''A mass migration can only happen if the Cuban government looks the other way, and if the U.S. government doesn't react,'' Suchlicki said. ``Fidel is concerned about a crisis that would lead to military confrontation with the Bush administration.''

Cuban American congressional representatives condemned the wet-foot, dry-foot policy after last week's drama and called on the Bush administration to tighten the U.S. embargo of Cuba.

The Miami-based Cuban American National Foundation on Monday sent letters to Cuban American legislators and to President Bush to ask that wet-foot, dry-foot be terminated.

U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen said she was not surprised that Cuba is not complying with the migration accords.

''This is a corrupt regime that lies, cheats, manipulates, obfuscates and is therefore not to be trusted to live up to its obligations,'' Ros-Lehtinen said in a written statement.

Jan Edmonson, a State Department spokeswoman, said the department issues reports on Cuban migration twice a year, as required by law.

The United States and Cuba had regular migration talks until December 2003, when Washington canceled a scheduled meeting because it said Cuba was unwilling to cooperate. Since then, there has been little communication between Washington and Havana on the migration issue.

Herald staff writer Frances Robles contributed to this report

Can you pass me the Kool-Aid? (Part Deux)

Last week, I posted a link to a column by Tina Brown that was almost pornographic in its adulation of our erstwhile perjurer-in-chief. This week, from the New York Times comes this little ditty from screenwriter Nora Ephron titled After the Love Is Gone. Here is an excerpt:

I broke up with Bill a long time ago. It's always hard to remember love - years pass and you say to yourself, was I really in love or was I just kidding myself? Was I really in love or was I just pretending he was the man of my dreams? Was I really in love or was I just desperate? But when it came to Bill, I'm pretty sure it was the real deal. I loved the guy.

As for Bill, I have to be honest: he did not love me. In fact, I never even crossed his mind. Not once. But in the beginning that didn't stop me. I loved him, I believed in him, and I didn't even think he was a liar. Of course, I knew he'd lied about his thing with Gennifer, but at the time I believed that lies of that sort didn't count. How stupid was that?

The whole thing is way more honest an assessment of you-know-who than Brown's, obviously, but no less sickening in its delusional nostalgia.

Bon appétit!

More bad news....

It's a well known fact that fidel castro's regime has been more than openly hospitable with the Iranian government. Of course, we hard line extremist Cuban exiles have railed at this only to be once again ridiculed and ignored and played down.

The result of this friendship between Iran and Cuba that we were so vehemently protesting about is now more than apparent and can be catastrophic:

Cuba, Syria, Belarus Join IAEA Board, Boosting Iran

VIENNA (AP)--Cuba, Syria and Belarus joined the International Atomic Energy Agency's 35-nation board Thursday, bolstering the ranks of countries expected to oppose any decision to refer Iran to the U.N. Security Council in November.

Need I say more?

Let me make this perfectly clear: if you think of fidel castro as some two-bit, third world ruler past his prime, you are completely wrong, naive and havent been paying attention the past 46 years. Keep ignoring fidel castro and someday you'll be shouting "Venceremos!" from Main Street USA.

Hat Tip Stefania.

Le ronca los cojones.... (Updated)

Via Drudge:

ELIAN GONZALEZ TALKS TO 60 MINUTES: CASTRO A FRIEND AND 'FATHER'; WANTS TO SEE MIAMI RELATIVES, THOUGH CALLS THEIR ACTIONS 'WRONG' THU Sep 29 2005 12:01:11 ET

Elian Gonzalez, now a seventh grader in Cuba who calls President Fidel Castro a friend and "father," would see his Miami relatives again, despite saying their treatment of him five years ago was wrong. Gonzalez is interviewed by Bob Simon for a 60 MINUTES report to be broadcast ÊSunday, Oct. 2 (7:00-8:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network.

Gonzalez, 11, is a hero in Cuba after what happened to him when he was just 6 years old: His mother died at sea and he was rescued two miles off Florida, after which he was repatriated following a months-long tug of war between Gonzalez Miami relatives and his father and the Cuban government. In what Miami Cuban exiles would say is propaganda, Castro attended the boy's elementary school graduation and declared he was proud to have Gonzalez as his friend. The feeling is mutual. "It's also very moving to me and I also believe I am his friend," Gonzalez tells Simon. "Not only [do I think of Castro] as a friend, but also as a father," says Gonzalez. The boy believes that he could call the Cuban president on the phone if he wanted to.

Gonzalez gave a patriotic speech in front of Castro and cameras on the fifth anniversary of the day U.S. law enforcement officers raided his Miami relatives' house and removed him at gunpoint to be repatriated. It's all part of Castro's propagandist plans, says Ramon Sanchez, a Cuban-American who led demonstrations in Miami in support of keeping the boy in America five years ago. "[Gonzalez] is being brainwashed by the Cuban regime. When you see a child talking in the same exact way that the dictator has talked for 46 years, you know he has been indoctrinated," says Sanchez.

The boy says his Miami relatives, with whom he spent five months, tried to persuade him to stay in America. "They were telling me bad things about [my father]... They were also telling me to tell [my father] that I did not want to go back to Cuba and I always told them that I wanted to," he tells Simon. Gonzalez says he missed his father, school and his friends back in Cuba.

The worst parts of his Miami experience were the nights he found difficult to sleep through. "I would have nightmares and my uncles would talk to me about my mother it was better not to remind me of that because that tormented me... I was very little," he recalls.

One of those great uncles who cared for him during that time, Delfin Gonzalez, denies that Elian was unhappy and says he doesn't believe anything he says in Cuba because the boy is a prisoner there.

Does Elian ever want to see those relatives again? "Yes," he tells Simon. "Despite everything they did, the way they did it, it was wrong, they are [still] my family...my uncles."

60 MINUTES is close-captioned in Spanish; the signal is on the "CC3" menu item.

Developing...

Update: Come Monday, I am sure there will be many many people who will take the 60 Minutes interview as gospel. Everything the boy will have said will be taken as the real and final word. This, along with the fact that the Cuban-American community will once again be portrayed and stereotyped as a rabid bunch of extremists saddens me to no end.

But I will not apologize for my convictions and those of my fellow Cuban-Americans.

I will not apologize for being rabid. The usurption of my country of birth and my culture and my childhood and the separation of my family make it impossiblet to be anything but. If I am angry it is with good reason.

I will not apologize for being viewed as an extremist. You can be nothing but extreme after having to leave a country under the direst of circumstances such as the Cuban exile has had to do.

I will not apologize. I will not.

The Cuban doctors who can't come

castro has made a lot of noisy racket about his bid to ship 1586 unneeded doctors to our country in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. But he left out one little thing: he's witholding exit papers for ONE HUNDRED SEVENTY ONE Cuban doctors who've GOT travel papers to the U.S. and aren't allowed out of his detested, oppressive dictatorship. These doctors' papers are all in order, there's a treaty in place to allow their departure, and castro promised to let them out.

He's reneged. Miami Herald reports today:

More than 500 potential migrants awarded one of the 20,000 entry visas the U.S. grants each year haven't been allowed out. Among them: 171 doctors.

Given castro's insistence on sending his 1586 doctors, it's quite astonishing that he won't allow these 171 out. He claims his motives are humanitarian, given this Katrina business but that sure as heck doesn't extend to letting these Cuban doctors out to help the victims. Only his hand-picked teams of spies and subversives are on the short list to go make trouble in New Orleans.

Clowns like Jesse Jackson and Governor Blanco don't get this. They think President Bush's efforts to keep castro's 1586 subversive troublemakers out is proof of Bush's "meanness" and to "black people." It's all a load of hooey.

The fact is, 171 doctors are ready and waiting to get out of Cuba and castro, lying about his promises, just isn't going to let them. Any more than he intends to let Dr. Hilda Molina out to visit her grandchildren. Or Doctor Oscar Biscet out of his brutal dungeon. castro is very particular about who he lets out of the country.

Miami Herald has this full item buried at the bottom of this very good story here.

Riddle me this....

As George posted yesterday, Spanish President Zapatero has asked his socialist Venezuelan and Cuban counterparts to have their armies march alongside the Spanish army in this year's October 12th parade in Madrid. Perhaps you may recall that Zapatero did in fact disinvite US troops for last year's parade.

Now, here is a opportunity for fidel castro to bathe in the world's limelight. An opportunity to show the world that his regime is indeed legitimate. To have his lauded troops rub elbows in solidarity with European troops. To garner his highly coveted kudos from the MSM. In short, it's a major propaganda tool that fidel has been handed by the Spanish on a silver platter.

Yet castro has declined the offer citing that "Cuba has no troops for this kind of event."

I find castro's response, as with anything stemming from him and his regime, highly suspect. fidel castro is perhaps the world's greatest manipulator of the media and the public in general, and his passing up such an ample opportunity to show the triumph of his revolution to the world is completely out of character. Somethings is amiss.

Could it be that castro is worried about something else?

Could it be that castro has not the means to send troops to Spain?

Could it be that castro may be worried about his troop's reception by some Spaniards?

Could it be that he fears defections from his lauded military?

Could it be that these elite troops are all busy masquerading as doctors throughout the world?

Could it be that castro is worried about negative publicity from human rights groups in a country where he is not in control?

Could it be that castro would be criticized for human rights violations by other members of the EU?

What, oh what could it be? What prey tell, could the answer be?

Babalú Revisions

I have made some minor changes to the sidebar that Ive been meaning to make for some time now. First, and most importantly, I added a graphic and link for Ya No Mas!, George Moneo's brilliant meme that is more than deserving of top billing on this site.

I have also added the sidetitle "Cubiches" where all blogs by bloggers of Cuban descent, in exile here in the states and elsewhere, are prominently displayed. There are no blogs linked from Cuba for obvious reasons. When I first started Babalú, I was basically the only blogger in the blogosphere writing about Cuba and Cuban issues. You have no idea how proud I am now to have seen that list grow from infancy to where it is now. Es un privilegio - a privilege - to be among such fine company. There are some new blogs there that I have been remiss in adding to the old blogroll before. Please make sure you drop by and lend them your support. And if I have missed someone, please email me and let me know.

I've changed the "links" sidetitle to Honorarios Cubiches - Honorary Cubans - because each and every blog linked there has offered support for the cause of a free Cuba and most if not all have written and linked and helped this blog gain readership and with that and through their blogs helped many more people become aware of the plight of the Cuban people.

I am currently behind in responding to my emails - I have about 400 new emails that I havent even opened yet - and am doing my best to get to each and every one. So, if you've emailed me and havent heard from me, please dont think it's because I havent wanted to respond, I just havent had the time with so much work and the damn vertigo and its associated doctors visits.

I know I havent been posting as much as usual, another side effect of the vertigo and its domino effect, but I expect to be up and kicking ass at 100% once I get the dizziness shit and cholesterol shit and triglycerides shit squared away. A big thanks to Mora, Robert and George for keeping Babalú afloat these past couple of weeks and to all of you out there that send links and news items of interest.

One thing of note, as Mora noted in a post below and also written up by Jorge of The Real Cuba (with more photos), today marks the anniversary of the birth of the Commitee for the Defense of the Revolution, fidel castro's infamous CDR's. These are the rats of the revolution. The snitches. The lowest of the lowest of the lowest of humanity. Los Mea Postes as reader Luis comments in Mora's post. These are the people that turn in their neighbors for even the smallest of things: having an extra chicken, an extra pint of milk, new shoes, a satellite dish, soap... you name it. Anything that you could have in Cuba that was not provided you by the government is fair game for these CDR bastards. They inform the state on you and then reap the rewards of keeping said chicken and soap and milk and shoes.

Today is truly a sad day in Cuba as it is the birthday of the slow death of the independent Cuban.

But I will not dwell on that birthday. Today I will dwell on another birthday. Today makes 45 years that my wife and her family exiled to Miami. On this day 45 years ago, freedom for my wife and her family was born. Gracias, Tio Sam, for this big, wonderful birthday cake of liberty.

Cry me a river

Nobody likes the embargo. It's inconvenient. It separates Cubans from their families. It causes suffering. It invites corruption. It lets Canadians and Europeans have unfair advantages. It isn't easy. But onward we slog, supporting it, because it's the only way we can communicate with castro.

What a pleasure it is then to hear him bawl 'uncle.' That's just what the barbudo is doing, whining and whinging about the embargo as his all-encompassing excuse for his own failures. Apparently, not even Hugo Chavez is making it up to him. He lost half his tourists since the U.S. crackdown and now has to make do with half of what he used to enjoy over in those palaces of his. His fortune is down, he doesn't get all the things he'd like.

It makes me feel good all over on the inside to hear him yell. Let's keep arresting those leftist sandalistas who continue to violate the embargo. Don't give castro anything he likes. Read it here.

Rats of revolution "celebrate"

The cornerstone of castro's revolution is a detested group of nosey parkers known as "Committees for the Defense of the Revolution." They are castro's own neighborhood snitches who spy on every neighborhood to learn everyone's business - who's sleeping with whom, who's gay, who has what disease and needs what medicine, who has an illegal business, who bought contraband, who got an extra serving of meat, who has marital problems, and worst of all, who thinks independently.

They're also thugs. Whenever some "act of repudiation" happens against dissidents - I'm talking about rock and bottle throwing, name-calling, gangland assaults, forcing children into bullying others - it's the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution who are involved.

There is no nastier, grubbier, more vicious group of people in Cuba. Everyone hates and fears them. They've been around like a cancer for 45 years. There's no getting away from them. They amount to the judge, jury and executioner in castro's Cuba. They have the power to stone you, put you in jail, denounce you before your neighbors, take away your possessions and ask you any question they like. And they have a direct line to castro to write or say anything they want to say, never mind the truth. How would you like these grubby little men and women, no matter where you lived, knowing everything and having a right to know everything? Think it would make you insane?

You'd be right.

Now, to add insult to injury, castro's made a big whoop de doo to celebrate these neighborhood snoops. This photo here reveals the local sentiment.

Some party. Do they look like they have much to celebrate?

UPDATE: The Real Cuba has more here.

11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to rehear the Cuban spy case

Federal prosecutors have asked the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to rehear the Cuban spy case.

By Curt Anderson The Associated Press Posted September 28 2005, 6:02 PM EDT MIAMI -- Federal prosecutors asked the full 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to reconsider the case of five suspected Cuban spies whose convictions and sentences were tossed out last month by a three-judge panel of the court.

U.S. Attorney R. Alexander Acosta said in a statement Wednesday that the three-judge panel's decision runs counter to previous U.S. Supreme Court decisions in similar cases, although he did not elaborate.

``Consideration by the full court is necessary to secure and maintain uniformity of decisions in the 11th Circuit'' with the nation's highest court, Acosta said.

The petition asks for rehearing by all 12 active members of the Atlanta-based 11th Circuit, which considers federal appeals in cases from Florida, Alabama and Georgia. The case could possibly reach the Supreme Court.

Circuit Judges Stanley F. Birch Jr., Phyllis A. Kravitch and James L. Oakes ruled Aug. 9 that the convictions and sentences of the Cubans were invalid because of extensive pretrial publicity, community prejudice in Miami and inflammatory remarks by prosecutors. The judges ordered that a new trial be held outside Miami.

The five were convicted in June 2001 of illegally serving as agents of a foreign government as part of the so-called Wasp Network. The ringleader, Gerardo Hernandez, and two others were also convicted of espionage conspiracy, and Hernandez was convicted of murder conspiracy for his role in the deaths of four Cuban exiles shot down by Cuban MiGs in 1996.

All of those convictions were overturned by the three-judge panel. The Cubans' attorneys and supporters did not immediately return telephone calls seeking comment Wednesday on the prosecutors' latest action.

The five acknowledged being Cuban agents but said they were spying on exile groups opposed to Cuban President Fidel Castro, not the United States. Cuba has made them national heros, with Castro predicting the case will end in victory.

The five Cubans have remained in federal prison pending outcome of the appeals. Three received life sentences, one got 19 years and one got 15 years.

(H/T Mike Pancier)

Congress to Vote on July Arrests in Cuba

Cuban-American blogger and Washington D.C. correspondent Sirimba has the latest on a House resolution condemning the July arrests of opposition members in Cuba who participated in anti-government demonstrations. The resolution is up for consideration today.

Also check out her post on Miami and Cuban-American Congressman Lincoln Diaz-Balart possibly becoming the next Chairman of the Rules Committee in the wake of Congressman Tom DeLay's indictment and resignation as House Majority Leader.

Please make sure to visit Sirimba's blog, it is well-written, informative, and full of anti-castro goodies, all from her Washington D.C. angle and perspective.

castro the conquerer of Venezuela

Pedro M. Burelli, a Venezuelan oil director, has written an astoundingly good essay on castro's takeover of Venezuela. It's an incredible read. It describes castro's ancient dreams of having Venezuela his rich colony and how his own sucker, Hugo Chavez, has just plain handed it over to him without argument. It's castro at plunder. It's so good I'm posting it, but read the documents in the original here.

On a historical obsession finally realized: Fidel Castro milks PDVSA

PMBComment: one of the most interesting debates raging in Venezuela today is if Cuba has colonized Venezuela, or on the contrary, the island has become an annex of Venezuela. The matter is relevant because it is more than obvious that the main beneficiary of the Bolivarian Revolution is the repugnant nomenklatura of the island-prison. They have seen their political fortunes resurrect with the price of oil and as a direct result of Chávez's growing dependence on their recognized survival and despotic skills. A de-facto Confederation has arisen between Cuba and Venezuela, and not surprisingly the bankers at that other Confederation: Switzerland, are all smiles.

The attached internal Board document from PDVSA shows one more dimension of this intimate relationship. A company that was once chastised - by Hugo Chávez - for investing in social infrastructure in the areas surrounding its operations in Venezuela - a "state within a state" was the favored epithet – today approves millions of dollars for investments in endogenous social development (sic, and an oxymoron) in Pinar del Rio, Cuba.

Tapping Venezuela's oil wealth was always an obsession of Fidel Castro who in the early 1960's trained and financed guerillas to undermine the country's nascent democracy. The resolve of a nation and the fidelity of its Armed Forces put an end to the absurd pretensions. For the next three decades, but particularly after the nationalization of oil in Venezuela in 1976, Castro attempted to draw PDVSA into Cuba. He offered us the "opportunity" to invest in his decrepit US-expropriated and Soviet-retooled oil infrastructure and also tried to entice PDVSA to explore for oil in offshore blocks. Time and time again, PDVSA's Board passed on theses "opportunities". Fidel could never understand why a state-owned enterprise could refuse to follow the lead of what he opted to believe were sincere expressions of interest from Venezuelan ministers that visited the island out of curiosity more than real commercial interest.

The control of PDVSA became a must for the Cubans after the April 2002 fiasco. A few weeks before these unmemorable events, oil shipments to Cuba had been suspended due to lack of payment. Even after Chávez returned to power and Ali Rodriguez – Cuban trained guerilla leader of the 60's ( a.k.a Comandante Fausto) – was installed as CEO of PDVSA, the negotiations to refinance what at the time was a measly $146 million dollar account payable for CUPET went nowhere. At the time, PDVSA continued to be run under strict commercial rules, and management was not about to risk legal sanctions for succumbing to political pressure in this case. The Cubans were outraged and frustrated that junior officials at the company could disregard Rodriguez's orders. That all was solved after Chavez lured dissenting managers into a strike (he relishes telling the story of how he was the mastermind behind the disastrous two-month-long "paro petrolero") and proceeded to first lock-out striking workers, and then fire them and anyone else they felt had failed to understand that the revolution was here to stay. With 19,000 workers conveniently out of the way, the company's ability to function evaporated instantaneously, but Cuba's ability to milk it was significantly enhanced.

According to some estimate the unpaid bill for PDVSA's crude and oil products shipments to Cuba stand as at US$4.3 billion. Since no formal audited accounts are published by PDVSA it is hard to know for sure this, or any others hard facts about the once powerful, competent and transparent company.. Every so often the amount is apparently "amortized" by assigning some ludicrous deemed value to Cuban doctors, trainers (for sports and asymmetric warfare) and all sorts of "experts" who act as if the country is indeed theirs. The going rate for this "technical assistance" would shame Harvard educated surgeons, German Olympic coaches, Sandhurst's toughest and McKinsey's golden boys and girls.

What matters is not who rules over whom, but the fact that Chávez has been willing to mortgage our natures future by destroying PDVSA to satisfy the evil whim of Fidel Castro and in doing so engorged the accounts of their combined band of sycophants, facilitators and apologists. This, my dear friends, is perfidy.

-Pedro M. Burelli

Bad news from Spain

Some bad news has arrived to Val from Spanish blogger Luis I. Gómez (Desde el exilio, HispaLibertas, and Libertad Digital). Here is a news item (in Spanish) from a Spanish newspaper, La Voz de Galicia.

It seems that Socialist Prime Minister Zapatero has decided to allow fidel and hugo chavez, and members of their armed forces, to participate in the October 12 celebration of Dia de la Hispanidad (Hispanic Day). Luis says (and we agree) that the decision on the part of the Spanish government to allow these two -- and their armed forces -- as part of this celebration is shameful and humiliating. Links to Luis's posts in Spanish will be made when received.

Luis closes his communication by saying that ¡la libertad terminará triunfando! -- liberty will be the final victor!

Let us pray he is right.

And the first lemming is....

Madeline Baro-Diaz

While the Miami Herald, the Washington Post, and Reuters have also covered the Posada Carriles ruling as of 6:30 AM today, it is our very own local castro cultist Madeline Baro Diaz that has covered this story for the Sun Sentinel with her unambiguous and usual bias.

Baro and the Sun Sentinel join Venezuela Analysis - a known tool of the chavista propaganda machinery - Ahora Cuba, Prensa Latina and the Cuban News Agency in decrying the injustice of not sending Posada to a sure death by mock trial.

Way to go, Baro! The quote at the end from the Cuban American Defense League, a well known castro appeasement organization, was sheer brilliance coming from such a lemming, or perhaps, you were just following the script laid out for you.

Judge rules Posada-Carriles won't be shipped to Cuba

At last, a ruling!

According to Reuters:

EL PASO, Texas, Sept 27 (Reuters) - A U.S. judge has ruled that anti-Castro Cuban exile Luis Posada Carriles may not be deported to Cuba or Venezuela in a case that has raised questions about the Bush administration's "war on terrorism".

Immigration Judge William Abbott found that Posada, a former CIA operative wanted by Venezuela for trial in a 1976 Cuban airliner bombing that killed 73 people, faced the threat of torture in those countries and therefore could not be returned under the United Nations Convention Against Torture, a government spokeswoman said on Tuesday.

Reno still doesnt get it

Shits on the majority of her community once again.

Maybe it's because she's the daughter of two local liberal newspaper reporters. Maybe it's because she is a bigot who harbors a disdain for the Cuban-American community. Maybe it's because she's a castro cultist. I dont know.

What I do know is that Janet Reno sent a boy to an island prison to be brainwashed and molded into a propaganda machine for a regime that is responsible for the deaths of untold thousands. A regime that systematically oppresses its people. A regime that openly and wantonly violates the basic human and civil rights of its people. A child sent back to hell despite evidence from the boy's father that he did not, in fact, want the child returned to Cuba.

Now, years later, what does Madam Reno have to say about sending Elian back to fidel castro?

"...one of the moments I'll most remember was seeing photos of Elian smiling when reunited with his father.

I feel almost joyful about it, because that's what people came to this country for, to be able to stand on the street corner and call me names."

The above quote is from a lecture at Duke Law School's Great Lives in the Law series at Duke University.

Mere words cannot even begin to express my undiluted hatred for this disgrace of a human being.

One day, Janet, your sins will be paid for in full.

Jay Nordlinger: Honorary Miami Mafia Member

Not only is Jay Nordlinger an honorary member of the Miami Mafia, but his attention to and solidarity with the cause of freedom for Cuba makes him a Made Man in Mafia speak. Today he takes on the Che chic once again, and with the prestige and exposure of the National Review Online and his Impromptus column, sheds light on the plight of Cuban Political Prisoner of Conscience Dr. Luis Milan Fernandez:

And have a taste of Cuba, in the form of a report from the Coalition of Cuban-American Women:

According to the testimony of Lisandra Lafitta, wife of the physician and prisoner of conscience Dr. Luis Milan Fernandez, her husband, a man free of mental ailments, has been arbitrarily confined since February 18, 2005, to a psychiatric ward of the Boniato Prison Hospital in Santiago de Cuba. Dr. Milan, serving a 13-year prison term, is forced to share a cell with patients suffering a variety of mental disorders . . .

Dr. Milan is unable to sleep due to the incessant mosquitoes and suffocating heat (40 degrees Celsius in the shade). To escape this situation he sleeps on the floor, under his bed.

Following an inspection of the Boniato Prison on June 10, 2005, when trucks arrived and guards with dogs searched every cell, Dr. Milan lost all his maps and the personal letters he had received from different countries. . . . Also, he is prohibited from receiving any medicines or food that his family takes him.

Dr. Milan, who is 35 years old, has always been a very healthy man. When he was transferred from the Prison of Canaleta in Ciego de Avila (where he was confined along with 146 common prisoners) to the Combinado del Este Prison in Havana, where he underwent a medical check-up, penal authorities diagnosed the following illnesses: a tumor in the left humerus, loss of hearing, pulmonary emphysema (he does not smoke but was exposed to cigarette smoke in the Prison of Canaleta), hypertension, swollen nasal turbinates, and an enlarged liver. Dr. Milan refuses to undergo the required biopsies and surgical procedures required to treat these ailments since he does not trust the medical personnel in the prison.

Dr. Luis Milan Fernandez is a member of the Independent Cuban Medical Association (Colegio Medico Independiente de Cuba). In June 2001 he and his wife, a dentist, signed a document titled "Manifiesto 2001," calling for recognition of fundamental freedoms in Cuba. . . .

Friends, I get 15 or 20 of these a week, and share very few of them. Some are more gruesome or outrageous than others, but they all speak to one, central fact: Cuba is a Communist hell, made all the more sorrowful by the huge and unshakable support the regime receives from Free World elites.

Gracias, Jay! For your solidarity and your neverending support.

Hat Tip Scott.

Music Copyrights and Cuban Musicians (UPDATED)

An interesting legal case regarding music copyrights is being heard in Cuba.

It seems that Peer Music, owner of many copyrighted songs written by Cuban musicians still on the island, is claiming that the Editora Musica de Cuba (EMC), the "national" music publisher of Cuba, is laying a claim to the songs. Peer, rightfully, is suing for its rights. The EMC claims that Peer illegally copped the rights for a few bucks and a "drink of rum" way back before the glorious revolution.

Sounds like a typical music copyright case in the US with 1950s era R&B singers, right? Absolutely not. The key difference is that in the US, the aggrieved parties had standing to bring the case and, in many cases, prevailed against the big names in the record business (Atlantic Records being one). This case involves a defendant (Cuba) who has obtained EVERYTHING it owns through the nationalization of assets that did not belong to them. In other words: theft.

While I feel badly for the musicians on the island, I hope Peer prevails in the case if only to send the message to the thieving Beast on the island that private property means something to people. Property is not just something for him to take at will.

Latin music case reopens in Cuba
By Stephen Gibbs
BBC News, Havana

A High Court judge hearing a case over vintage Latin music has travelled to Cuba to hear evidence from witnesses.

The elegant marble floors of one of the grandest villas in all of Havana have begun echoing to the footsteps of British lawyers.

Villa Lita, in the heart of the capital's Vedado district, has been chosen as the setting for an unprecedented legal examination.

The English High Court has come to Havana to hear witnesses in a case which asks who owns the UK publishing rights to some of Cuba's best-loved songs.

Examining the evidence is Mr Justice Lindsay.

Last May, mid-way through a case in London, the British judge made the decision that justice would be best served if he came to Cuba, after an attempt to hear from several Cuban witnesses via video link failed, due to technical problems.

He is presiding over a case which has been brought by the US-based Peer Music.

In the 1930s, 40s and 50s, in the midst of a vogue for Cuban music in the United States, Peer signed up hundreds of Cuban musicians.

Artist rights

Then, in 1959, came the Cuban revolution, and shortly afterwards the US trade embargo on the island.

When it became impossible to send royalties to Cuba from the United States, Peer says accounts were set up, holding the money for the musicians or their rightful heirs.

By the 1990s, some of their songs had almost been forgotten outside Cuba.

But the release of the Buena Vista Social Club album in 1997, followed by the film of the same name, changed all that.

Millions of people around the world heard for the first time the smooth sounds of Cuban traditional music, and loved what they heard.

Now Cuban music has considerable value. Its ownership is worth fighting over in court.

Peer Music says that its legitimate copyright has been unlawfully taken over by the Cuban state-owned Editora Musica de Cuba (EMC).

Musical veterans

For its part, EMC says that the original pre-revolutionary contracts which Peer signed with poor, uneducated musicians were "unconscionable bargains", signed for "at most a few pesos and maybe a drink of rum".

Preparing for the hearings in Havana, Graham Shear, the British solicitor defending EMC, said that his Cuban clients care deeply about the outcome of the case, which they believe is about more than money.

"They see it as about their cultural heritage," he said

In the coming three days, 12 witnesses, some of whom are elderly musicians, will be cross-examined by barristers from both sides.

The hearing began with the judge's clerk formally calling on witnesses to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

Quite what the 12 Cuban witnesses will make of the whole procedure is not clear.

The first to take the stand was the 83-year-old composer of the famous hit "Cha Cha Cha."

Under cross-examination he was asked to recall the details of the various contracts he signed with Peer Music in the 1950s.

If you closed your eyes it was possible, momentarily, to forget that this was all taking place a long way from London.

For the Cuban witnesses, it will no doubt be a novel experience to be cross-examined by a highly-paid British barrister.

But they will not see one of the more esoteric features of English law.

Given the tropical heat, all the lawyers have been given special permission by Mr Justice Lindsay not to wear their traditional outfit of wigs and gowns.

In that spirit he opened the proceedings sporting a cream linen jacket instead of his usual thick robes.

The battle is over copyright to 14 songs, whose composers have all died.

But it is being seen as a test case, which may determine who has the rights, across the world, to thousands of songs.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/entertainment/music/4282482.stm

Published: 2005/09/26 18:50:19 GMT

© BBC MMV

UPDATE 5:55 PM: Juan Paxety has an excellent take on this BBC article. He comes to pretty much the same conclusion as I do:

It's tough to tell who's right and wrong here. Music publishers have certainly cheated plenty of songwriters in the past - and maybe Peer cheated the Cubans. But we know that fidel castro has cheated everyone in Cuba - cheated them out of their freedom and their hopes and dreams. And unfortunately, it would appear that despite the press reports trying to put a human spin on the story, this is a fight between a music publisher and fidel. If you were a songwriter, which one do you think would be most likely to pay your royalties?

Welcome to America!

Now start making some money....

Remember the fifty dancers that defected back in July in Las Vegas? The whole Havana Nights troupe? These guys? The ones that California Mafia went to see and wrote about?

Si?

Well, if you're a capitalist, you're gonna love what I'm about to tell you.

They now have a website where you can read press clippings about the show, purchase advance tickets and read about the history of the show.

Best of all though, and in true American Capitalist form, you can also view and purchase items from their own line of Havana Nights apparel. They have women's apparel, men's apparel, music and DVD's, accessories, collectibles and souvenirs.

I recieved their brochure in the mail yesterday where the dancers are shown prominently modeling their line of clothes. You gotta love it.

An open letter to President George W. Bush

The Honorable George W. Bush
President of the United States
Washington, DC

Dear Mr. President,

I was born in Havana, Cuba in 1956. My parents, grandparents, and extended family came to this country shortly after the revolution in early 1960. I consider the United States of America to be my country, English my language, and America my home. I am extremely proud of my Cuban heritage. Cuba before castro was second only to this great country as a beacon of hope for immigrants. It was an economic marvel, the world's greatest producer of sugar and the world's best cigars. It had one of the lowest infant mortality rates in the Hemisphere, it was an early adopter of American technologies, and as a tourist destination, it was second to none. Cuba was a cornucopia of influences: African and Spanish, Old World and New, all combining to make a unique country and a rich, vibrant culture.

Since January 1, 1959 the country of my birth has been controlled by one of the most evil men in the sad history of the Twentieth Century. He has no rivals, but many equals: Hitler in Germany, Stalin in Russia, Mao in China, Pol Pot in Cambodia, Honecker in East Germany. In our hemisphere his evil and tyranny has been second to none. On January 1 of next year it will be 47 years of tyranny, executions, slave labor, and of the imprisonment of dissidents whose crime is that they disagree with Fidel Castro.

Cubans have fled the island since the revolution in an almost unending stream. Today, people yearning to be free of a tyrant, will do whatever they need to do to escape the clutches of Fidel and his monstrous regime. As in Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Afghanistan, these people just want an opportunity to experience the freedoms we take for granted here in the US.

The shameful and revolting events of September 23, 2005, when a boatload of refugees, risking everything to come to America to be free, were rammed by a US Coast Guard vessel and hosed like common thugs, is outrageous and un-American. It is a crime to treat people like this, people who are fleeing from oppression and to liberty! This spectacle, caught on film for all to see, makes me ashamed to be an American. Why the stark contrast between what the US Coast Guard did last Thursday and the heroic deeds they did in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina?

Would we have done such a thing in Berlin? Are we not in Iraq, a war I support for many reasons, to promote the very values the people on that boat risked everything for? How can we take the high moral ground and talk to the world about freedom, liberty, and of the dignity of a person’s right to be free, when we treat people like this? The people in that boat were following Jefferson’s dictum that “rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.” Cubans in exile practice that dictum on a daily basis, praying for the day Cuba is once again a free nation.

Mr. President, the former administration’s policy of “wet foot/dry foot” is a travesty of justice and a mockery of the values we hold dear in this country. I know you feel the same way. As a supporter of your election and re-election, as a contributor to your Party, and as someone who loves freedom, I urge you to sign an executive order rescinding “wet foot/dry foot” and to free the people who were so shabbily mistreated by our US Coast Guard.

The Cuban exile community awaits your response.

Sincerely,

George L. Moneo
Miami, Florida

To contact the President, click here.
To contact your Senator, click here.
To contact your Representative in the House of Representatives, click here.

Cuba que lindo son tus paisajes....

Alabaoooo!!!....

Vida Guerra, Cubanita del primer piso de La Habana transplantada a New Jersey.

I know I never post stuff like this, but I saw this picture and....."Ño!!!"

castro eating his own: Who killed Allende?

Right on the heels of news that Salvador Allende was on the KGB take, we now learn that Allende was not a suicide, but merely another murder victim of castro's violent regime. A new French book that opens up more intelligence files shows that St. Allende was not killed by suicide nor by evil reactionary Nixonite Americans, nor the dreaded source-of-all-evil Augusto Pinochet - but by castro, castro's own dirty-work agent.

After his agent took care of castro's "wet job," castro the murderer blamed it on Pinochet and the West. They've been taking flak from the left for it for decades.

Turns out it's all lies. castro was the killer of Allende. Now let castro stand trial for his killing.

A brilliant new Brazilian blog called 'Swimming Against The Red Tide' has the whole story here. Don't miss his brickbat at che tee shirt wearers - he gets the job done.

It isnt just about Football

I know more than a few people that dislike football mostly because of it's rough nature. But just like in life, sometimes through all the hardship and the pain, you find a moment that delicately touches the heart..

Via Michelle Malkin.

Perspective

Pedro Pan kid, professor of theology at Yale and author of Waiting for Snow in Havana Carlos Eire:

In the Wake of the Storm, Rage and Redemption

September 25, 2005
In the Wake of the Storm, Rage and Redemption
By CARLOS EIRE
THE worst may not be over for most of the evacuees from New Orleans. And the best may lie ahead, too. Being uprooted suddenly and violently, and not knowing when you will be able to return - or even if there will be anything left to reclaim - is as awful a shock as life can dole out.

It can also be a great defining moment. A profound loss may scar you for life, but it can also free you from illusion and make you stronger. This is especially true in the case of children.

I speak from experience, for I am also an evacuee of sorts. When I was 11 years old, a great disaster blew me away from home and family, leaving me with an uncertain future, and a white-hot smoldering rage at the unfairness of it all, a rage that even to this day is mixed with a weird kind of glee.

I was one of 14,000 children airlifted out of Cuba between 1961 and 1962 as part of Operation Peter Pan. Our parents sent us to the United States to save us from a monstrously disastrous revolution, not knowing if they would ever see us again, and not knowing where we would end up. Most of us had no relatives or contacts in this country, so we were all scattered to the four winds, shuffled off to any foster home or institution that could take us in. Some of us never saw our parents again. All of us had to adjust, and most of us learned how to thrive on adversity.

Children know how to adapt much better than adults. Everyone knows that. Move a child to a foreign land, and the child will learn the new language almost instantly, without an accent. Place a child in new surroundings, and within weeks the child may call the new place home and play with new neighbors as with the oldest of friends.

Children tend to embrace pain and the paradoxical nature of existence with grace to spare. Loss is gain and gain is loss. No problem. I lost my house and all my friends, and miss it all in my very marrow, but I love all these strange new things. I hate them, too. And I deserve to be happy, no matter what.

Children are blessed with an inner compass that always points toward that true north the ancient Greeks called eudaemonia and we call happiness. They are also quite adept at burying their pain.

But no one stays a child for long. All children who adapt to wrenching losses have to confront the pain they buried sooner or later, along with the anger spawned by it.

If asked how I would counsel the children evacuated from New Orleans, many of whom have ended up here as our neighbors, I would say that they need no advice. That inner compass will guide most of them through this dark night. But I might slip each of them a message in an envelope, sealed with a bright red stamp that reads "Open When the Rage Begins to Surface."

And what would the message say?

Embrace your rage. It is utterly justified. Nature dealt you a low blow, and your government made it worse. Your city deserved to have better levees, and in the richest nation on earth, you could have easily had them. Your leaders failed you at every turn, both before and after the storm, especially if you were among the poor. But embrace your survival, too, along with all of those surprising acts of kindness and all of the unexpected opportunities that came your way because of this disaster. Never forget that gain and loss are twins conjoined at the heart. You knew that as a child, and you know it still.

My predicament, though similar, is not quite the same. Forty-six years after it came ashore, the storm that sent me packing is still churning over the same spot, wrecking everything over and over, spewing out refugees constantly, with no end in sight.

There are now over 2 million of us Cubans scattered around the globe, waiting for the skies to clear, burying our dead in improbably odd resting places. Most of us consider ourselves very lucky and are profoundly thankful for the new lives we have found, even if we run into clueless dolts who wear Che T-shirts or dare to vacation amid the ruins we were forced to abandon.

Perhaps I should aim my advice at everyone who has watched Katrina from afar rather than at those who have suffered through it.

When you think of Katrina and its victims, keep in mind that exile is always a mixed blessing, and that those children blown away by this disaster will be sorting angrily through the ruins - and finding rough gems in the debris - for the rest of their lives.

Carlos Eire is the T. Lawrason Riggs Professor of History and Religious Studies at Yale University and the author of "Waiting for Snow in Havana: Confessions of a Cuban Boy," winner of the 2003 National Book Award for nonfiction. He lives in Guilford.

The cucarachas crawl

It has started. castro's apologists have gotten the word from Havana and are now out trying to foist castro's spies - errr, "doctors" - upon us. They haven't stopped trying. With the advent of Hurricane Rita, they seem to have gotten more aggressive, like cucarachas whose sewer seems to have been disturbed by the flooded storm drains. So now they are out.

Some wretched creepy-crawly, a new one, named Peter Bourne, is now writing letters to editors as castro wishes, one to the Birmingham News which didn't have the good sense to scrap the garbage and spray RAID. Their headline:

Cuba can teach U.S. about disaster relief

Sunday, September 25, 2005
PETER BOURNE

It has been more than two weeks since Cuba first offered to dispatch some 1,600 doctors, bilingual and specially trained in disaster relief, to the Gulf Coast communities devastated by Hurricane Katrina.

Unfortunately, with Hurricane Rita striking this weekend, forecasts indicate this year and next will be some of the most active hurricane seasons in history - accompanied by all the hazards their fury implies. For the public good, U.S. authorities at all levels should learn more about how small, resource-constrained Cuba reduces the risk of disaster and disease when these storms strike.

The rest will make you throw up here.

But who is this insect? Why is he sticking up for castro? Who turned down US aid and let his people suffer.

Well, Google him with Cuba. Google him with "Wayne Smith."

As you can see, it's not a pretty picture. Wayne Smith's been out shilling for castro, too, and along with this Bourne creep, they go way back. All the way to the Jimmy Carter days - who's been up to the shifty dealings described in this editorial here.

What a repulsive way to spend one's life. Defending the indefensible. Spreading lies. Maybe doing it because castro caught you in bed with young boys and showed you the photos, or else because you like the kind of privileged access castro gives you every time you traipse off to Cuba. Could be anything. What it isn't is upfront or decent.

This creepy cucaracha is out lying to defend a tyrant. He's our enemy. His feathery antennae are touching our shoulders. Somebody needs to step quickly and crrrrunch.

Political rumblings over wetfoot-dryfoot

Miami Herald has a new piece out describing Congress' anger at the evil spectacle we had to look at on Friday, the sight of a US Coast Guard boat ramming a boat full of human beings fleeing communist Cuba in a desperate bid to reach the shores of freedom. It was a human rights violation and an act against the entire Law Of The Sea of a jolting brazenness that diminishes our nation.

''The free world never threw anybody back over the Berlin Wall,'' (Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart) said. ``I denounce this policy.''

Are you listening President Bush? We know it's not your policy, but we also know you are the only one who can fix it. We need you to get cracking.

Read the whole thing here.

Our next president?

Get a load of this. Like two peas in a pod, Hillary Clinton praises Harry (i love you fidelito) Belafonte's statements condeming the US. Reprinted from NewsMax.com.

Saturday, Sept. 24, 2005 10:18 a.m. EDT

Hillary Clinton Praises Belafonte's Anti-US Rant

2008 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton praised anti-American activist Harry Belafonte on Thursday after Belafonte charged that U.S. foreign policy had "wrecked the planet."

"There's a lot of people out here who are really pissed off," Belafonte told the Congressional Black Caucus, with Mrs. Clinton and Rep. Charlie Rangel standing nearby.

"Our foreign policy has made a wreck of this planet," Belafonte complained. "I'm always in Africa . . . And when I go to these places I see American policy written on the walls of oppression everywhere."

The former calypso singer's anti-U.S. rant won immediate praise from Hillary, who stepped up to the microphone and told the crowd: "What Harry said is so important."

In quotes aired nationally by radio host Rush Limbaugh, Clinton explained that in last year's presidential election, "we heard a lot . . . about moral values. And you know as well as I do that there's a big move on to get people to forget that it's not only private morality, but public morality that needs to be looked at and considered."

Hillary then charged that the Bush administration had made "a concerted effort to make it even harder for poor people and non-English-speaking people and elderly people to vote in this country."

Clinton was followed to the podium by Rep. Rangel, who wasted no time in disparaging President Bush as a racist.

"George Bush is our 'Bull' Connor," Rangel railed. "And if that doesn't get to you, nothing will be able to get to you, and it's time for us to be able to say that we're sick and tired and we're fired up and we're not going to take it anymore!"

Mrs. Clinton offered no objection to the president of the United States being compared to one of America's most notorious racists.

castro sticks his snout into Spain

The Iranians have an old saying: When the pot boils, the scum floats to the top. And so it is with castro, whose decided to take advantage of all the trouble in Spain to poke around.

The great Cuban writer, Carlos Alberto Montaner, who is now in Spain, writes something absolutely horrifying about the internal disintegration of Spain ever since Prime Minister Luis "bin Laden Got Me My Job" Rodriguez Zapatero showed up. It's an extraordinary essay about how creepy ethnic-communist groups have crawled out of the woodwork and are now threatening to break Spain apart and make it all communist. It's a must-read here.

But it gets worse. castro, as you may imagine, has begun snuffling around and is beginning to go into full-fledged interference mode. The 79-year-old psychopath is meddling into Spain's growing troubles like an evil old bruja. It's very bad news for Spain.

Today, the excellent Aleksander Boyd at VCrisis reports that the banned Basque Terrorist Party, ETA, has, all of a sudden, made common cause with thuggish barbudo and his oil-rich little buddy, Hugo Chavez. Alek has the photo of the gross campaign literature showing their mugs here.

This will present interesting problems for the pig-stupid Zapatero, who's done all he can to suck up to Chavez and castro.

Zapatero is in some kind of struggle with ETA, which keeps blowing up things, and in true weasel style, just keeps letting them as he strives to negotiate. Naturally, Spain's voters are getting alarmed at the state of their country. So now, Zapatero's problem, the ETA, has just made common cause the two creeps he's been courting' that he's just expended so much political capital on, castro and Chavez.

What a dilemma.

More ominously, the reality is: castro is now extending his meddling influence, not just into South America and the Caribbean, but deep into the heart of Europe, too.

castro is a power-mad monster. It's getting alarming.

When will the world wake up? castro has become EVERYONE'S problem.

UPDATE: Our friend Franco at Barcepundit reports a new ETA bomb attack here.

A message to President Bush

Mr. President,

Should fidel castro offfer once again to send 1,500 doctors to assist with the victims of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, please kindly accept the offer. Then, once your staff and castro's have cooridnated the logistics, send 1,500 INS agents with visas in hand ready to offer political asylum to the plethora of those doctors that will undoubtedly ask for same.

Of course, this is neither here nor there, as fidel castro's offer is nothing short of hyperbole and grandstanding, for there is no way he would allow himself to be on the recieving end of such bad publicity.

Accepting castro's offer would put him and his revolution between a rock and a hard place. Send doctors and have a mass defection, or not send doctors and expose the lie.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Clinton. You prick. (Updated)

A group of ten cubans apparently from Puerto Padre, Oriente, built a boat out of plywood and fiberglass with an engine and a makeshift sail and headed off to cross the Florida Straights and reach the shores of Florida's freedom. They left days ago and survived hurricane Rita in the open seas.

They were spotted a few miles off of Haulover Beach by the Coast Guard and Homeland Security agents and have been detained by the Feds and will undoubtedly end up being repatriated back to fidel castro's gulag.

Thanks, of course, to Mr. Bill "Blow Me Monica" Clinton and his ridiculously absurd wet-foot/dry-foot policy.

The above link is from Telemundo where they have a Slideshow of the whole fiasco.

Update: Via Local10 news more pictures.

Because this is what you do to human beings having risked life and limb to be free:

You hose them down. And if that doesnt work, you try to sink their boat:

I can understand the concerns with Homeland Security. I can understand the need to detain those trying to get into the country "illegally." But you simply cannot have a policy of handing out visas to those that make it to dry land and conversely treat those unfortunate enough to be caught in the high seas like criminals.

Hat Tip Yamy for the updated pics.

UPDATE II: Jorge of The Real Cuba has more photos up.

castro still trying to hurl doctors at us

The Washington Post blog has some interesting notes about castro still trying to foist his free Cuban "doctors" on us, in the wake of Hurricane Rita.

The Post's comments sheet could use some Babalu insights I imagine.

Remember: This doctor-bearing thug is the same castro who tried to obtain nuclear weapons from the Soviets in 1981 to point at the SAME people of Louisiana.

Now he wants to send them his loving doctors.

Somehow I don't think the smelly unkempt bearded pendejo has good intentions at all.

Read it here.

Vertigo/Doctors Update

OK folks, I know all of you have been on pins and needles waiting for information as to my vertigo and health altogether, so here's the scoop:

The vertigo is most probably a symptom of middle ear damage due to an ear infection I had last year. Apparently, there is a 90% probability that I have damage to the balance center of my right ear. Next week I have about 5 more tests to do at the UM Ear Institute at Jackson memorial Hospital. At which point teh ENT will determine a course of action to get rid of the vertigo altogether.

As for my general health, I have just found out that my cholesterol is in the 300 range and my triglycerides are in the red. You know theyre high when you doctor says "Ive never seen triglycerides that high." Glucose level is just over on the high side at 107.

So, from now on, I have to eat like a rabbit. No fatty foods, no pork, no fatty steaks or meat, no coffee, no beans, no milk, no ice cream, no carbohydrates, no sugars, and especially painful: no BEER.

The doctor also mentioned that I should "get some exercise" but didnt tell me where I could buy it. So if any of you know a good online exercise source, please drop me a line.

castro's achievement

Suicide. That's what's doubled in production since castro's taken over. Cuba has the world's highest suicide rate, with 100,000 people taking their own lives since the monster took over. An interesting analysis from Spain highlighting this disturbing "achievement" is here.

Finally we know the truth!

Juan Paxety, via his humble correspondent Mahone Dunbar, reports live from New Orleans with a journalistic scoop of universal proportions: George W. Bush has the power of G.O.D. Now we finally know how W. can send these storms to destroy cities at will. Wow. And all this time I thought it was the Jews -- sorry, Zionists -- sending the storms our way...

So you wanna go to Cuba, eh?

Pack light.

Customs seizes 80 pounds of goods from Miami resident

CIENFUEGOS, Cuba, September 19 (Luis Miguel González Leyva, Jagua Press / www.cubanet.org) - Customs officials at the Jaime González Airport in Cienfuegos last week seized 80 pounds of goods from a Miami resident and fined her. Marisolina Hernández, who lives in Miami, brought 150 pounds of goods, including clothing, medicine and eye glasses, for friends and relatives in Cuba. "Great was my surprise, pain and indignation when the functionaries broke open my packages and told me that I had violated the law, as the limit is 68 pounds per passenger plus an additional 20 pounds on which duty has to be paid in dollars," she said. "They acted like savage animals."

Well, those 26 tons of medicines fidel offered the katrina victims have to come from somewhere now, dont they?