3 Million Chisels (UPDATED)

During the next few hours Babalu blog will record its 3 millionth visit on our site meter. Our site metrics have never been a mystery. There's a button in the side bar that you can click to know exactly how much traffic we have and where it is coming from.

To mark the occasion we've asked our contributors to write a note of thanks to you, our readers. Some of you come infrequently, some visit several times a day and others are addicted. Regardless we're very thankful that you decide to share a bit of your time with us...

I’m sitting here trying to put my thoughts into words as Babalu approaches the 3 million unique visitor mark and it’s no easy task, let me tell you. The past five years – sheesh, I can’t even believe it’s been five years already – have been pretty incredible. We have, together, run the gamut of emotions. We’ve had tears of joy and tears of pain. We’ve had tears come just because they came. I can’t count the number of times I’ve sat here in front of my computer shedding tears simply because I happen to have been born Cuban.

Yes, folks. The tears have been many. And I know it may sound corny, but I truly believe – I truly hope – that each tear we have shed hasn’t been in vain. I hope that we have managed to somehow make a difference. I believe we’ve brought a few truths to light. I believe we’ve opened some eyes to the reality of Cuba.

I know sometimes it seems like our efforts fall short, but some walls can’t be taken down by bulldozers. Some walls need to come down brick by brick. And every day that there exists a place like Babalu and all the other great Cubiche blogs out there, we are chiseling and pulling bricks from the walls that keep Cuba in bondage. I truly, truly believe that.

There are people toiling out there, though, doing their darndest to lay those bricks we’ve managed to take down back on that wall. Yet I feel and overwhelming pride in the fact that there are a whole heckofa lot of people right now alongside us pulling bricks. All you need to do is look at that blogroll on the sidebar, which has grown almost exponentially over the years, and then look that the blogrolls of each to know that we aren’t just out here por amor al arte.

I don’t know if any or all of our efforts will actually have any impact in bringing change to Cuba, but I, like all of you I’m sure, am willing to stick around and fight the fight. I’m willing to hang out here in the trenches with you all for as long as it takes.

And I know I won’t be alone in these trenches because you are all here and no one, no one, made you jump into this fray. No one ordered you into battle. You came of your own volition. You fight because of your convictions and arm yourselves with what you deem is right and just and true.

Three million unique visitors may not seem like such an incredible milestone in blog terms – there are, after all, blogs out there that get millions of hits per day - but Cuba is a subject not many people want to talk about. Cuba isn’t something that’s on everybody’s mind all the time. It is, like we are on the net, just a small island. But, and I don’t want to sound arrogant and I certainly don’t want anyone criticizing the following as hubris, but I truly believe that we – not just Babalu but the entire spectrum of Cuban bloggers – are the voice of that muted island. Cuba speaks to the world through us, through Generacion y, Penultimos Dias, and The Real Cuba, Babalu and so many others.

So, before I get any more melodramatic and wishy washy, I want to say thanks. It’s been an incredible ride so far.

A huge shout out to the Babalu crew: What incredibly beautiful people you are and what an amazing, intelligent, talented and dedicated bunch you are. It is my utmost honor and privilege to count you all as family.

And to those of you that come by from time to time, that swing by here every once in a while and read, comment, chat, argue, discuss, debate, question, and toss in your two cents worth: I am forever grateful. Without you, there would be no Babalu. It’s your visits that make this humble blog not just one of the best, but a warm, loving home.

"It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds." -Samuel Adams

- Val Prieto, Founding editor

* * *

This “humble little blog”, as Val likes to call it, is about to reach a grand milestone: 3 million hits. That’s quite a feat for a little blog. This little island on the ‘net wouldn’t have reached that point without you, the reader. In all, there are 16 contributors to this blog. Some write more, some write less, all of us writing with the same love and conviction, but those words would just be echoes if you were not on the other end reading them. So I’d like to thank you from the bottom of my heart for coming by. Whether you pop in once a week, once a day, or every chance you get, just know that the site-meter keeps on going, upwards and onwards, and it is all made worthwhile, because of you.

- Amanda

* * *

Anyone who writes, no matter how infrequently, craves attention -- and maybe a little immortality. After all, words are still being read today that were written by a blind poet three thousand years ago. All of us write for ourselves, of course. Most of us have more stuff unpublished than published. We are a virulently self-critical lot, writers. But in reality, we write for you. Without the reader the writer's craft is just an echo chamber of the writer's mind.

On the occasion of our 3,000,000th visit, we take stock and realize that without you, constant reader, the fan, this would not be possible. You are the reason we write. All of you take what we give you and pass it along, digest it, analyze it, agree or disagree with it, yell at it, nod your head with it, shake a fist at it. It's all good. Without you, our existence would be meaningless.

Thank you for taking the dream of one person and turning it into a daily adventure where our ultimate goal is truth and justice for an oppressed people ninety miles away, and for all oppressed people around the world. Without you this would be nothing but gaslight.

Thank you, reader, for making this blog what it is.

- George L. Moneo

* * *

There’s a word in Spanish that we exiles use to describe our situation, “destierro.” Literally, it means to have been stripped of your earth, “tierra” - No home, no country.

As a young “desterrado,” I drifted further and further away from my earth, purposely avoiding the currents that lead back to it. I decided to pretend my home had sunk like the mythical Atlantis. Yet, I still drifted.

While drifting, one day, I came upon on Island from where you could see that earth that had been stripped from me. The people on that island all worked to help others understand the plight of desterrados and fought for those, who although had not been stripped of their earth, had been stripped of their humanity.

Eventually, I came to belong in that island oasis on the net without a bearded dictator. It’s an honor to be associated with people who selflessly give of themselves to ensure that other drifters and desterrados have a place to stop and admire our “tierra,” if only from afar.

Incredibly, the island has been visited three million times. I hope that at the very least, each visit caused someone to reflect on Cuba. I know I always look forward to pulling up to the Babalú island as I hope you do too. God Bless.

- Reinier Potts

* * *

I Got Hooked. I started reading Babalú a few years ago as a result of a Google search for “Cuba news.” From day one, I was hooked. The writing was always wonderful, sometimes provocative, but for the most part compelling. But the comments! There were people out there reading and caring and giving their opinions on what had been written. I loved the forum and the format. And like I said, I was hooked.

I confess that I lurked for over a year. I would come to Babalú first thing in the morning with my cafécito to get the news and to be entertained. I gave up my beloved newspaper for this better, more expansive, and much more interesting media. I was never disappointed.

While I loved reading the news aspect of it, I was always drawn in by the personal stories. The human drama, if you will. It was at this point that I started writing my own blog, My Big, Fat, Cuban Family. It was a perfect ying to the Babalú yang. I began writing about Cuban-American life and about how we Cubans try (and succeed) to maintain our cultural identity. I posted recipes and talked about my family and our idiomatic ways. When Val asked me to become a contributor to Babalú, I was so honored! But I also felt like this was the obvious next step for me. I love Cubans. I love being Cuban. I love our idiosyncratic Cubanisms. And I especially love Cuban families.

I confess that posting recipes every two weeks is a bit of a challenge for me, self-imposed of course, but still there. Because I decided my posts would be personal and that I would actually cook and take pictures and do step-by-step instructions instead of just posting recipes. The cooking feature was a hit in my home, which I expected, but the real surprise came when I started getting, not just comments, but mail.

Yes, I got mail. Lots of mail. Some had questions about how to make a certain recipe. Some had comments. But all had stories. THAT is when I was seriously hooked. I get to hear people’s stories. Stories that usually revolve around the heart of the Cuban home – the kitchen.

I get to hear about how Tia Conchita made the perfect croquetas and would I know how make those? I get to hear about how their moms would improvise in the kitchen after their exilio. I get to hear about how much they miss their abuelita. And I laugh and I cry and I marvel at what an amazing Cuban community has been brought together online. And I am oh-so-grateful to be able, not just to cook and post recipes, but to share life. To share Cuban-American life.

So thank you, not just to Babalú for being The-Best-Must-Read-Cuban-Blog-On-The-Web, but to you faithful readers who have given this “island on the web” such a beautiful Cuban-American face.

Oh yes, and thanks for trusting me with your lives. =D

Besos,

- Marta “La Cocinera” Darby

* * *

My fellow infidels. I’m taking a break from trial preparation to congratulate Babalu for 3 million visitors and especially want to thank Henry and Val for bringing me on board. I really enjoy being able to post my treatises and political and economic rants plus an occasional photo from the SW or the Obama Girl.

I also want to thank those that have taken the time to read my esoteric posts and who have engaged in civilized and educational dialogue. I’d like to say that I’ve tried to stick to serious issues rather than the typical lefty arguments like: “My candidate is better looking than yours and can shoot a 3 point shot.”

Can you believe that 3 million number? That’s more than the population of Miami Dade County.

So as we reach the milestone here I am toasting all of you with a shot of Café Cubano! Cheers!

- “Cigar Mike” Pancier

* * *

Congratulations to my fellow contributors, and to our readers. Your readership, your loyalty and your own contributions, not a mere number, are the truest measure of our success.

I devote a lot of what I write here and at my own blog to the plight of Cuban political prisoners and other dissidents on the island. The best thing readers could do on their behalf is to learn their stories, and to share them with your families, friends, co-workers, etc. Do not let them be forgotten. Be their voice, and be the voice for the hopes and dreams of a free Cuba.

- Marc Masferrer

* * *

I don’t usually write about myself, I prefer to stay on topic, Cuba. However, if you’ve met Marta, you know that she has a knack of making your tongue wag. You babble and tell her things you haven’t even thought about, let alone shared with anyone, for years—she’s a very talented woman. She asked me how I wound up getting involved with a bunch of Cubans, and then urged me to share. Okay Marta, here goes.

When I first found my way to Babalu a number of years ago, it was a much smaller island on the net than we are today. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that I would become a blogger and contributing writer here at Babalu.

Right from the beginning, I felt at home here, serendipity you might say, because even though I’m not Cuban, I too have a Cuban story. In fact several Cuban stories, to me they are a large golden ribbon woven among the threads of my life.

I don’t want to bore you with long details, so here is one of them, the first.

I was once a very frightened small girl, for a good reason; my Mother left my Father and our home, and moved us from San Franciso to Los Angeles. There was no money, she was working long hours from early morning until late. A family who was a friend of someone Mom knew took us in. I remember feeling lost and panicked, everything was strange. From the very first day, the lady of the house made me one of her own; she went out of her way to comfort and to reassure; and thanks to her loving kindness, I was made to feel safe and secure in spite of the uncertainty of our situation. I remember her hugs, her smiles, her kindness, and one day over fifty years later, tasting what was to be my first Cuban meal, I remembered a smell, and then I remembered sitting at her kitchen table eating black beans and yellow rice.

Within a few months, things improved, and we moved on, and as children do, I didn’t think much about those difficult days, or my dark haired temporary mother, and Mom never understood why I love beans and rice, because she never served them. :)

Therefore, in honor of Babalu’s odometer turning over the 3 million mark, I like to thank each one of our readers for making this not just an island, but also a home on the net. We wouldn’t be here without you. One of these days, there will be a Babalu reunion 90 miles south, in a beautiful, prosperous and free Cuba.

- Ziva

* * *

How I met Babalu: I was watching Hardball, back before Chris Matthews took a left turn off the reservation and developed neurological symptoms at the timbre of Obama’s voice. In the middle of an interview, the topic of the Bay of Pigs came up. Matthews was dismissive, saying more or less, “Oh, yeah, and that’s when the rest of the country was going to rise up and revolt. We know they didn’t.” It was all I could do not to throw something at the TV. Oh, yeah, I thought to myself, the rest of the country, those who weren’t rounded up beforehand and had access to the information, could hear all about the brigade being torn to shreds after having been left in the lurch by your sainted JFK. I emailed him, of course, which probably increased the amount of scrap paper around the studio.

The frustration was palpable. No one was out there countering the misconceptions, the lies. The oppression and misery of the Cuban people had been forgotten or worse yet, consciously hidden. As the history receded, so did the truth. There seemed to be no way to get the information out. Then my brother tipped me to Babalublog. Here were Cuban Americans on their own platform taking on the MSM in fluent English, as well as having a bit of fun with our shared culture. Here was an English language format that made it that much harder to dismiss.

On a more personal level, I wasn’t alone in my anger, frustration, and even cultural identity because Babalu gave it voice, as it gives voice to that of many others. So as Babalu passes the 3 million mark, it is more than anything else an ever expanding group of people- posters and commenters alike- who rail, and laugh, and argue. After all, we are family. Most importantly, however, we are united in one goal: Cambio!

- Ruth

* * *

I became the “token” Italian-American contributing writer at Babalu in February when Val said he wanted me to have a set of keys to the blog. It came as a surprise to me that he would consider my non-Cuban voice important enough to speak on Babalú but I was honored to accept the invitation.

I don’t have any inspirational, personal anecdotes about life in Cuba and thankfully, no painful stories about my family having to leave their life behind. I just have what I call "second-hand" pain that I feel when I hear and read these stories from Cubans, and it always ends up making me angry enough to write something.

In the year and a half I have been blogging about Cuba, and the six months I have been with Babalu, it never ceases to bring a tear to my eye when a Cuban I don’t know emails me or adds a comment thanking me for taking up the Cuban cause. I’m sentimental and I have printed every one of the beautiful emails I have received and I read them when I don’t feel like blogging or talking up the cause anymore, which happens from time to time. I get inspired all over again because these are the people who give me courage to stand up for a free Cuba when other non-Cubans don’t care about it. These are the people who are so grateful that someone who is not one of their own has seen the light that they take the time to email a perfect stranger. These are the readers who have made Babalu the most widely-read blog about Cuba on the internet, and who have, in turn, included me into their gigantic Cuban family and made me feel welcome. I am proud to know Val, a man who stands up for what he believes in and does not waiver in his convictions, the other writers here, and to be a part of Babalú as it reaches the three million-visitor mark.

- Claudia Fanelli

* * *

Just like my Babalu colleagues I am very appreciative of you, the readers of this blog. I wanted to specifically recognize those readers who not only visit us regularly and comment but also those who have gone from a passive posture to an active one and supported our BUCL.org campaigns in the past. We put together BUCL as a way to involve different bloggers and take our activism from the online to the real world. We successfully carried messages about the real Cuba into the mainstream media. First we called attention to the complicity of Spanish businesses with the castro regime. Then we pointed out the hypocrisy of an alleged human rights champion (Sting, the lead singer of The Police) who vacations in Cuba and was planning a state-sponsored concert there. The concert never happened. In out third campaign we gave monetary and promotional support to the dissidence in Cuba. And none of it could have happened if readers had not stepped in and sponsored the campaigns in addition to our fellow bloggers.

Whenever we’ve had a petition or asked for your help in getting some item of Che Guevara paraphernalia off of local store shelves you’ve been there.

For all of that and more, I offer my heartiest and most sincere thanks.

- Henry Gomez, Managing Editor

* * *

I recall that from the first time I ever visited Babalublog, I felt I was at home. Without ever meeting Val in person, just reading his posts made me feel like I had finally reunited with my family. Not my personal family, mind you, but my Cuban family. That is what Babalu became for me—a meeting place where I could gather with my millions of Cuban brothers and sisters on the island as well as all over the world.

Last year, Val offered me the opportunity to become a contributing writer at Babalu. I considered it an honor and quickly accepted. But I have never forgotten the feeling I got the first time I visited. Nor have I forgotten that what makes Babalu the best damn Cuban-American blog in the world is not Val, myself, nor the other writers—it is its readers. Babalu is more than a blog, it is a community, a family made up of thousands upon thousands of Cubans who share the same love for Cuba and the desire to see it free of tyranny once again.

So on this momentous occasion, as we celebrate 3-million visits to Babalublog, I say thank you to all of the readers of Babalublog. You are my Cuban family, and you are the reason Babalu has reached this milestone. Without you, Babalu would be just another blog. But because of you, Babalu is truly an island on the net without a bearded dictator.

- Alberto de la Cruz

* * *

50 years ago when the U.S. State Department wanted to educate their new Ambassador to Cuba, Earl Smith, they sent him a batch of articles from Herbert Matthews of the New York Times. Today U.S. diplomats in Latin America regularly read Babalu Blog.

Better late than never, U.S. State Dept. Middle America could sense that with Cuba, as with most subjects, the Mainstream Media was trying to force feed them from an overflowing crock of crap. What they heard and read from the media clashed so dramatically with what they heard or read form their American friends and relatives of Cuban heritage--that something HAD to be wrong. Somebody was lying.

Thanks to the thousands upon thousands of you who come here for the truth and for an antidote Mainstream Media Hogwash.

Rush Limbaugh rejects the title of pied-piper, saying he simply broadcasts what middle America feels in their hearts and knows from experience. Here at Babalu we differ only slightly from that sentiment. Given the abominable coverage of Cuban matters in the Media, yes, we do provide more info.--we HAVE too. Because no one else will. But I think Rush's sentiment also applies to Babalu blog.

- Humberto Fontova

* * *

I wouldn't care about Cuba half as much as I do today if it weren't for Babalu Blog, plain and simple. It was exactly two years ago today that I discovered Babalu as I searched for the latest news on Fidel Castro's "temporary" transfer of power, and I ended up finding a whole lot more than I could ever imagine. That one Google search changed a big part of my life. All the pesonal stories, the constant promotion of freedom on the Island and the tireless and relentless efforts to convey news accurately continue to help me discover, appreciate and promote our culture.

About 8 months ago I decided to give blogging a shot and found that I really enjoyed it. Each post posed (and continues to pose) a new challenge for me as I develop my opinions and knowledge base. Thanks to Val and Henry, I was given the opportunity to start writing on Babalu and gained exposure to this vast and knowledgeable reader base. Thanks to you, the readers, and your insightful comments, I learn more with each post. You are quick to correct me if I'm wrong or enlighten me to additional facts and frankly, I love it and look forward to it with every post.

Keep reading and commenting and invite your friends to do the same, so we can all grow together and help further the cause of Cuban liberty. Thank you and God bless!

- Monica Simo

* * *

Journalists are often accused of having no feelings, of being completely devoid of the ability to truly sympathize with their subjects beyond that which flows from their pens. To a certain extent, this is somewhat true. When you're out in the field, there is no time to mourn, no time to shed tears. Your goal is the gathering of information and its dissemination, which must be carried out in as expedient a manner as is humanly possible.

That said, there are often times – when the pens are put down and the cameras are at rest – when the emotion built up over the course of covering a story – breaks through that stoic wall and is released, often through tears. My first experience with this phenomenon came about four months after the September 11th terrorist attacks in New York. On that morning, I had received a call from an editor at the office regarding what little she knew. I attempted to pay a cab driver $150 to get me into lower Manhattan, to no avail. A small group of us thus set off from Penn Station on 33rd Stree, on foot. Bill Biggart, a New York City photojournalist, never made it back and when Building Seven came down shortly after 3 p.m., it occurred as a thunderclap at our heels. Four months later, the nightmares would truly begin. They're gone now, but at the time, I didn't feel as though it was appropriate to share any of the emotion that had been slowly building inside my chest.

Fast forward a few years to the Autumn of 2007. Upon my return from a stint in Havana and an extensive post on Babalu concerning feelings on the ground amid the rampant rumors in both Miami and Cuba regarding Fidel's demise, I was crushed. So many of us in Havana were absolutely certain that the beast had finally been caged – from journalists to bicitaxi-drivers, the island was abuzz with anticipation. Plans had been concocted to overstay our visas and be smuggled out at a later date but in the end, it was all for nothing. My emotions again began to well up inside without any possible outlet, until I penned a post titled "The Longest Gaze," a testament to all that our families had gone through in decades-past, written from the viewpoint of a younger generation.

The comments posted beneath that missive were supportive and kind, but what I found even more remarkable, were the emails that poured into my account over the course of the next 48 hours. It's been said before, earlier in this post, but it's worth saying again – there are times when professional and personal pressures mount to such an extent, when feelings of hopelessness regarding the Cuban nightmare seem to take over, when a blogger just feels like calling it a day. I believe I speak for all of us when I say "I've experienced this on numerous occasions." The reader is always there, ready to express his/her thanks and sometimes, stories of a similar nature, delivered in a bid to assuage the pain I – for – one, often feel every time I land stateside after covering the Pearl of the Antilles.

For that and so much more, I am eternally grateful.

Warmest Regards,

- Anatasio Blanco

* * *

I missed the initial post on the 3 million reader mark last Thursday due to lack of internet access, but I wanted to make sure my thoughts are included, even if it's a few days late.

My journey into Babalu Blog began in early 2005 when I discovered the blog via, believe it or not, the Miami Herald. The paper ran a story on the blog, and the timing couldn't have been better for me. I had spent much of the previous few years searching the internet for news and discussions about Cuba and Cuba-related issues, and most of what I found was pro-castro and anti-exile sentiments, and very little actual information about current issues, in other words the TRUTH. It was frustrating, to say the least. Therefore, discovering Babalu Blog was, as Alberto mentioned above, like discovering my Cuban family all over again. I felt a connection rarely experienced before. Pouring through the archives and reading every post all the way back to the first one in 2003, Val's posts (with occasional postings from Mora, Amanda and George) perfectly captured my experiences and feelings from growing up in a Cuban-American household in the 70s and 80s to the present time when my interest in discovering the truth about Cuba and spreading the word peaked. To put it simple terms, Babalu Blog was something I could relate to at a deep and personal level. I became an avid reader, just like many of you reading this right now.

Three and half years later, my feelings haven't changed. I have had the distinct pleasure of getting to know most of the contributors, and even several regular readers, on a personal basis. My relationships with each and every one of them have enriched my life in many ways.

I'm sure I speak for most if not all of the contributors when I say that I still consider myself primarily a reader of the blog, despite my contributor status. This is what makes Babalu Blog special. The reader feels him/herself as an active and integral part of the blog, not merely an addition or afterthought that the contributors have to put up with. In essence, ALL of us are readers AND contributors. This special feeling is what drew me in three and a half years ago, and what continues to draw me in today. It is with this spirit that I sincerely thank each and every one of you for making this blog what it has become for ALL of us: a place that we can call "home".

- Robert Molleda

* * *

Moments of Truth

A couple of Fridays ago I had an insurance emergency that a very nice young lady from an insurance office in my office building took care of. She dropped everything she was doing on a late Friday afternoon and set my parents up with homeowners and flood insurance for their home. Today, she had a small emergency with her son and needed to pick him up from day care.

She couldnt because she couldnt get her car out of the parking lot.

Our office building has only 9 offices and the parking situation is pretty bad, considering that three of those office buildings are doctor's offices. All of us make do and while there are assigned and reserved parking spaces, we always work with each other. For example, if I need to park I can usually park behind an employee's car and, should that person need to leave, they let me know, and I quickly run out and move my car.

We're kinda like a small family here in this building, where we always do the "Good mornings" and "Good afternoons" and "have a great weekend!"

The newest occupants of the building are an attorney and his crew. They arent very friendly. No "Hi Vals!" from them, ever. Or Good mornings, afternoon or evenings.

Well, the insurance lady couldnt get her car out because one of the girls that works in the attorney's office was blocking her. So she went upstairs and knocked on their door. After five minutes of rigorous knocking, the girl finally opened the door and basically told her point blank and unapologetically "I am not moving my car. Deal with it." and then slammed the door on her face.

Nice eh?

Attorney office girl's car is the only car in the entire parking lot with an Obama 08 bumper sticker.

UPDATED Never Before Seen Videos of Cuban Healthcare on Maria Elvira Tomorrow TONIGHT

Via George at The Real Cuba: Tomorrow night Maria Elvira Live, Mega TV Channel 22 in South Florida and Channel 405 on Direct TV everywhere else, will feature terrible health care that regular Cubans receive.

The program will debut show many new videos taken clandestinely inside Cuban hospitals. Some of them will be included in a new documentary "Shooting Michael Moore" that is scheduled to be released in September. Cuban dissident Jaimel Hernández, who together with Dr. Darsi Ferrer was able to take these videos, will take part in the program. Hernández had to leave Cuba recently when state security went looking for him for taking these videos and threatened him with 9 years in jail.

George from the Real Cuba will also be on the show- we owe him a world of thanks for his tireless devotion to exposing the myth of the Cuban healthcare system. He is instrumental in getting these videos shown to the public.

Please make it a point to tune in to Maria Elvira tomorrow night tonight and also, spread the word to someone you know who thinks that Cuban healthcare is so wonderful.

UPDATE: This will air tonight (Thursday) at 8:00 pm EST

Dis, dat and de odder ting

Just a few quick Thursday Morning links:

First, our dear friends and colleagues at Penultimos Dias are celebrating their two year blogiversary. Drop on by and lend them your support. I hear their serving tremenda paella.

There's a new blog on this here internets thing dedicated to publishing works from the dissident movement in Cuba aptly titled "Disidente Cubano." Drop by and add them to your blogrolls and daily reads.

Good friend Aymee turned me on to yet nother Cuban exile blog, this one from France. Check it out right here, and do take in the great poem in this post.

Yes! She's that Marta.

Dont forget to listen to last night's Babalu Radio Hour with our special guest Bill Teck, the man behind Generation ñ and the first person to publish anything written by yours truly.

If you come across any ineteresting links, articles, or just want to vent, make the comments section of this post your own.

Obama plays the race card... again

Unable to articulate any ideas other than to take all sides of an issue and repeating his CHANGE mantra over and over again, Obama is left with few options other than to play the race card.

"Nobody thinks that Bush and McCain have a real answer to the challenges we face. So what they're going to try to do is make you scared of me," Obama said. "You know, he's not patriotic enough, he's got a funny name, you know, he doesn't look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills."

Poor, poor Barrack; born in the ghettos of Hawaii, he can only explain his inability to connect with a large segment of voters by blaming it on the color of his skin. His failure to express himself in any form other than to repeat, ad nauseum, the same meaningless message of "change," has nothing to do with it, I am sure.

How can you argue with success?

Republican senator Arlen Specter told reporters yesterday that during his Latin American trip next month, he hopes to meet with the great and munificent Cuban prince, Raul the Pragmatist, as well as the simian king of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez. "I am a firm believer in dialogue," the senator told reporters before boasting of his previous meetings with the dictatorial monarchy in Cuba.

Speaking to reporters on a wide range of subjects Wednesday, Specter said his experience has been that meeting with world leaders leads to change. . . .

Specter said he met with Fidel Castro during previous stops in Cuba and talked to him about drug interdiction. He said he'd like to follow that up with Raul Castro, as well as to discuss trade and tourism during a visit there. He said he believes the United States is "on the cusp" of re-establishing formal relations with Cuba.

Perhaps we can all thank the Senator for the great strides in freedom and change that has swept the Cuban nation where Cubans now have the the right to own cell phones they cannot afford, to own computers that cannot connect to the world wide web, to stay in tourist hotels that do not accept the currency they are paid in, and the most marvelous right of all, to own a toaster oven with no food to toast.

Now how can you argue with such success?

La Habana, Cuba

How the Mob Owned Cuba!

The book is being hailed to high heavens throughout the MSM. "Havana Nocturne; How the Mob Owned Cuba and Lost it to the Revolution."

Several facts get in the way of the books title and thesis. To wit: Cuba's Gross Domestic product in 1957 was about $2.7 billion. Cuba's foreign receipts in 1957 were about $750 million--of which tourism made up only $60 million. Gambling was a small fraction of this $60 million. Now-- HOW IN THE NAME OF SAM HILL(!!) could the beneficiaries of that tiny fraction of Cuba's income OWN the entire 'freakin country??!!

And nary a mention of how "the Revolution" has made multiple times that $60 million in cahoots with Colombia's cocaine cowboys.

But then everyone on this site knows better than to attempt to apply logic or facts to anything that appears in the MSM regarding Cuba. GEEEEEESH!!!

Quote of the day

"The agent says the players' choice has nothing to do with Cuban politics or freedom, but likely the money associated with landing a major league contract."

This according to an article in the Canadian media regarding the two Cuban baseball players that apparently have defected.

It is interesting that they say the choice made by these two young Cuban men had nothing to do with freedom or Cuban politics. Without freedom and their escape from the regime's politics, they stood no chance of landing a major league contract. Unless, of course, they expect us to believe that these athletes plan to sign multi-million dollar deals and remain good little communists.

Babalu Radio Hour tonight | NEW TIME 9:00 PM EDT

Join us tonight when we welcome a good friend and pioneer of the Cuban-American media scene in Miami, Bill Teck, founder of the late and lamented Generation Ñ magazine and the new Generation Ñ blog and multimedia website. Bill is one of the best people in the Miami media scene and it's a real pleasure to welcome him to our show.

The call-in number is (646) 652-4506, or you can send an email to me or Henry with questions or comments. The show begins at 9:00 PM EDT. Don't miss the opportunity to call in and participate. Be there. Aloha!

Cuba: Coma andante in Charge?

A Reuters article today, titled “[fidel castro] still a force, two years out of power” would seem to promise some definitive information. At first glance, you might think that the author is channeling the ghost of Pol Pot, or some other infernal specter, as no one outside the inner circle and assorted useful toadies really know how “alive” the surely putrescent- whether above or below ground- dictator is at any given moment.

Despite the headline, the rest of the article devolves into varying points of view, none conclusive. Seems far more likely that the name “fidel” has become the equivalent of the Biblical “Legion” for the cadre of old style, communist “hard-liners” opposed to any lifting of the economic and/or political yoke on the Cuban people. But, heck, that’s only my opinion.

Ha! The "Obamateur"

I think the folks over at My Vast Right Wing Conspiracy may have coined another great name for the Messiah:

The Obamateur™

Classic!

Statement from Lt. Colonel Chris Simmons on Classified Information

I received a lot of emails in addition to the questions posed in the comments section about whether or not Chris Simmons would be providing classified information on the Cuban spies on the Oscar Haza show tomorrow night. The idea is absurd, given his position in the government and the fact that he has dedicated his life to catching spies. But, to get a direct answer from the horse's mouth, I contacted him this morning and told him readers were wondering how he could do this. Here is what he said:

"Naturally, I would never divulge US classified information. However, I have in my possession declassified US Government information (only some of which was publically released), previously undisclosed eyewitness accounts of espionage-associated events (also unclassified due to the sources or data provided), and information provided to me from Cuban intelligence defectors now under US control (ergo, the material is Cuban classified information). There is some public-domain information thrown in there as well. I will divulge no US classified information and the USG has no ongoing or anticipated investigations of those I identify. Not every spy's career ends with an arrest; sometimes public awareness is enough."

My apologies to our detractors who were hoping to catch an opportunity to pounce on someone "declassifying" information, but that is not what is happening.

If you would like more info on the topic of Cuban spies, you can visit the Cuban Intelligence Research Center website HERE.

Bob Menendez Wants More Oil From Hugo Chavez--Apparently

"In selling his absurd coastline drilling plan to the American people, " said Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez last week, "McCain has time and again pointed to advanced technology that would supposedly eliminate the threat of massive oil spills. ... Having to cancel your big oil drilling photo op (in Louisiana last week) because of a massive oil spill is like canceling a crime safety photo op because the house next door just got robbed. Look up 'irony' in the dictionary and you will find a description of this turn of events."

Look up "idiocy" in the dictionary and you will find Menendez's comment. Look up "jackass" and you should find the faces of all the eminent journalists quoted above from the pages of America's most eminent journals.

The rest here at WorldNetDaily.

Obama's mentor

Frank Marshall Davis, Obama's putative mentor in Hawaii, was a real flesh and blood communist. No way around it, libs: he really was a commie. There's a great piece today from Accuracy in Media detailing the whole thing. A snip:

The story of Frank Marshall Davis, Obama’s Marxist mentor, is completely intertwined with the story of the Hawaii Democrats rise to power.

Conybeare is joined in denials by UH Professor of Interdisciplinary studies Dr. Kathryn Waddell Takara. In the Star Bulletin of June 29, 2008 she gives a non-denial denial: “Frank Davis loved democracy. But he was a fierce critic of racism and injustice, and in those years, anyone who was that controversial got labeled a communist.”

But in the work she is so “angry” to see cited, Dr. Kathryn Waddell Takara writes (parenthesis added):

“Davis’s initial contacts with Hawaiiall had extremely strong ILWU ties. (Communist party member) Paul Robeson’s own Hawaiiacquaintances, which he passed on to Davis, insured that ‘when I came over, one of the first things that I got involved with―well, I met all the ILWU brass, (Communist Party executive committee member) Jack Hall and all of them, and I went―they had both of us over to various functions for them―Harriet Bouslog (Communist Party executive committee member) was also a good friend.’”

These contacts were arranged by leading Communist Party members on the mainland. But in her writings Takara identifies none of them as such:

“Davis himself recalls that even before he left for Hawaii, (Communist Party member Paul) Robeson and (Communist Party member Harry) Bridges who was head of the ILWU and the CIO in the Pacific Region, suggested that I should get in touch with the Honolulu Record and see if I could do something for them.”

Takara’s implied claim that Davis was just tagged Red because he was “a critic of racism” might lead Senator Inouye to ask: Has she lost any sense of political reality?

CANF Trustee Assassinated in PR

From the AP:

Ex-official of Cuban group killed in Puerto Rico

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - Authorities say a former official with a Cuban-American group that was once the foremost voice representing the exile cause in Washington was shot dead in a Puerto Rican suburb.

Police say 64-year-old Emiliano Infante Segrera was killed Monday afternoon outside a suburban San Juan hardware store by a gunman inside a car. He was a longtime trustee of the Miami-based Cuban American National Foundation.

Police Lt. Luis Diaz told the newspaper El Nuevo Dia that Infante appeared to be shot by an expert marksman. The killing is under investigation and no arrests have been made.

Francisco Hernandez, the foundation's president and co-founder, said Tuesday that Infante devoted his life to promote democracy on the communist nation.

El Malecón - Havana, Cuba

And the Cubans keep defecting

While the media keeps fawning over the so-called reforms being carried out by the great and munificent Raul the Pragmatist, the ones who have to live in this monarchical dictatorship--the Cuban people themselves--are not feeling as content with the royal decrees. Meaningless reforms and cosmetic changes to oppressive regulations does not a free nation make.

Two members of the Cuban baseball team in Edmonton, Canada for a tournament have gone missing. Two more players are also rumored to have defected.

Cuba's extra efforts to try and stop some of their best players from defecting at international tournaments has once again hit a snag.

Two prominent players from their 2008 IBAF World Junior AAA roster were missing Tuesday.

Starting pitcher Noel Arguelles and infielder Jose Iglesias were last seen Sunday night at their team meal at the University of Alberta's Lister Hall.

I guess the right to own cell phones they cannot afford, to own computers that cannot connect to the world wide web, to stay in tourist hotels that do not accept the currency they are paid in, and the most marvelous right of all, to own a toaster oven with no food to toast, was not enough to entice these Cubans to remain as slaves to the Cuban regime.

Hunger-striking Cuban prisoners in critical condition

Four Cuban political prisoners on hunger strike at the Holguín Provincial Prison are critically ill, but the dictatorship continues to refuse to give into their demands for better living conditions and greater respect for their human rights, according to a report posted at Payo Libre this morning.

The prisoners are suffering from fever, hypoglycemia and low blood pressure, brought on by not eating for more than a week now. Also, prisoner Juan Carlos Herrera Acosta — who began his protest on July 18, and a few days later sewed his mouth shut to show his resolve — has contracted infections near his mouth.

The other three prisoners — Alfredo Domínguez Batista, Orlando Zapata Tamayo and Luis Mariano Deliz Utria — joined Herrera in protest on July 21.

Despite the refusals by prison officials to give into the prisoners' demands, family members of the prisoners continue to try to develop a formula that would save their lives, according to the Payo Libre report.

(Cross-posted at Uncommon Sense.)

An Op Ed That Will Make Human Beings Sick and Liberals Gloat

Yes folks, the ACLU and radical lefties who hate and damn the USA and cream in their pants over Obama and who swoon over the scumbags in Gitmo couldn't be any happier with this story .... They would not be any happier if all the terrorists in Gitmo were released to kill more Americans.

Read it and be ill.

Captive Miranda, Lord knows I have not given a thought to the paperwork you sent me.

Let me tell you, Captive, that our release is not in the hands of the lawyers or the hands of America. Our release is in the hands of He who created us.

The poem, "To My Captive Lawyer, Miranda," was written by Abdullah Saleh Al-Ajmi while he was a detainee at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. No doubt, it would have given the former detainee, who was released in 2005, immense satisfaction to know that his last earthly deed was referenced in Justice Antonin Scalia's dissenting opinion in Boumediene v. Bush. That's the recent Supreme Court decision that gave Guantanamo detainees the constitutional right to challenge, in habeas corpus proceedings, whether they were properly classified by the military as enemy combatants.

Abdullah Saleh Al-Ajmi, on the left, in a martyrdom video posted on an al Qaeda Web site.

Al-Ajmi, a 29-year-old Kuwaiti, blew himself up in one of several coordinated suicide attacks on Iraqi security forces in Mosul this year. Originally reported to have participated in an April attack that killed six Iraqi policemen, a recent martyrdom video published on a password-protected al Qaeda Web site indicates that Al-Ajmi carried out the March 23 attack on an Iraqi army compound in Mosul. In that attack, an armored truck loaded with an estimated 5,000 to 10,000 pounds of explosives rammed through a fortified gate, overturned vehicles in its path and exploded in the center of the compound. The huge blast ripped the façade off three apartment buildings being used as barracks, killing 13 soldiers from the 2nd Iraqi Army division and seriously wounding 42 others.

Using the name "Abu Juheiman al-Kuwaiti," Al-Ajmi is seen on the video brandishing an automatic rifle, singing militant songs and exhorting his fellow Muslims to pledge their allegiance to the "Commander of the Faithful" in Iraq. Later, Al-Ajmi's face is superimposed over the army compound, followed by footage of the massive explosion and still shots of several dead bodies lying next to the 25-foot crater left by the blast.

Abdullah Saleh Al-Ajmi killed 13 people in this March 23 truck bombing in Mosul, Iraq—after he was released from U.S. custody at Guantanamo Bay.

In 2006, Al-Ajmi's "Miranda" poem was included in a recitation of detainee poetry at a "Guantanamo teach-in" sponsored by Seton Hall Law School. The all-day event was Webcast live to 400 colleges and law schools across the country and abroad. Some of the lead attorneys pushing for detainee rights participated in the event, which began with organizers boasting about the diversity of the event's participating schools as exemplified by the American University of Paris, the American University in Cairo, the U.N. University for Peace in Costa Rica, Princeton Theological Seminary, and Parsons School of Design in New York City. One of Al-Ajmi's lawyers gave a presentation about detainee treatment entitled, "Insults to Religion."

Marc Falkoff, a former Covington & Burling attorney-turned-law-professor who represents several detainees, read the poems and later published a selection of them in a book ("Poems from Guantanamo: The Detainees Speak," Iowa University Press, 2007.) In his introductory remarks to the students, Mr. Falkoff described Al-Ajmi and the other detainee poets as "gentle, thoughtful young men" who, though frustrated and disillusioned, expressed an abiding hope in the future. "One thing you won't hear is hatred," he said, "and the reason you won't hear it is not because I edited it out, it's because it's not there in the poetry." Then how to explain the fact that -- on the advice of Al-Ajmi's attorneys -- "To My Captive Lawyer, Miranda," was excluded from the published collection last year? Mr. Falkoff, who also has a Ph.D. in literature, refused to explain further, though he insists on describing Al-Ajmi's verse as a "love poem to his lawyer."

Miranda, antelope, I am madly in love with captive Roman gazelles.

I pledge that if I ever see you outside this jail, I shall capture you and take you in a starry night.

In light of Al-Ajmi's deadly suicide attack, his poem seems less, as Mr. Falkoff insisted in a recent interview, "a trope about being a prisoner of love," and more about taunting his lawyers and mocking the American legal system. As any devotee of the successful "Law & Order" television franchise knows, "Miranda" is more than a fanciful female name. It is also the name of another infamous prisoner -- Ernesto Miranda, the career criminal and itinerant sex offender whose 1966 landmark legal case resulted in the "Miranda rule," requiring law enforcement officers to inform criminal suspects in custody of their right to remain silent and their right to an attorney during questioning.

It is easy to imagine the detainees' attorneys, upon first arriving at Guantanamo in 2004, earnestly explaining to their incredulous clients how the Miranda warning works. Incredulous, because detainees would certainly grasp that extending the full array of Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights to unlawful enemy combatants would have a devastating effect on vital intelligence-gathering efforts. Indeed, lawyers have already become part of the al Qaeda tool kit. When Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was apprehended in Pakistan in 2003 and handed over to the U.S., he reportedly told his initial interrogators, "I'll talk to you guys when you take me to New York and I can see my lawyer."

After the Boumediene decision, that is no longer an empty threat. While Justice Anthony Kennedy stated in his 5-4 majority opinion that detainees are entitled to habeas review in the federal courts, he failed to expressly outline what legal standards the government would have to meet for detainee cases to pass constitutional muster. Many legal experts contend that if the habeas lawyers succeed in attaining for detainees the same degree of procedural rights as those extended to ordinary criminal defendants in domestic cases, "lawyering up" would mean the end of terrorist questioning, not the beginning.

If this is what "Miranda" represents, no wonder an Islamist suicide bomber would love her.

Miranda, what can I say? The heart is incarcerated in prisons of injustice, tortured and deprived, targeted with sharp, poisoned arrows by the hands of oppressors who have no mercy. Tell the mothers about their sons, the prisoners, brothers in bondage . . . they shall walk home.

But many in the detainees' home countries aren't welcoming them with open arms. The bombings carried out by Al-Ajmi and two other Kuwaiti nationals have stirred a public outcry from their fellow citizens. Al-Ajmi's own father has reportedly threatened to sue the government of Kuwait for issuing his son a passport and failing to live up to the terms set forth in the transfer agreement with U.S. State Department as a condition of his release. Kuwait's negligence and the State Department's failure to follow up have resulted in calls from the public for the detainees to stay right where they are and for Guantanamo to stay in operation.

"I believe the U.S. State Department knows the prisoners well, their way of thinking, and their plans after being released from prison," wrote Ali Ahmad Al-Baghli, Kuwait's former Minister of Oil, in the Arab Times after news of Al-Ajmi's suicide attack broke. He specifically criticized the outspoken leader of the Kuwaiti detainee families committee, Khalid Al-Odah, (interestingly, he is one of the "translators" Mr. Falkoff acknowledges in his poetry book), whose son remains at Guantanamo. Al-Odah hired a Washington, D.C., public-relations firm to "humanize" the detainees with sympathetic press.

"We cannot romanticize them into fallen heroes of Western neo-imperialism," wrote Shamael Al-Sharikh, a columnist for the Kuwaiti Times, in an article advocating that Guantanamo stay open, "because we are as much potential victims of terrorist attacks as [Americans] are."

As an example of where we might be headed after Boumediene, consider the situation in Britain. In June, Abu Qatada, a radical imam wanted in connection with bombing conspiracies in several countries, was released from jail after seven years of fighting his deportation. Qatada, whose recorded sermons were found in the Hamburg apartment of the 9/11 hijackers, was described by an immigration appeals commission as a "truly dangerous individual" who was "heavily involved, indeed at the center of terrorist activities associated with al-Qa'eda."

But judges in Britain will not extradite him to Jordan, where he was convicted in absentia, because his lawyers allege that the evidence against him might have been obtained by torture. Sending him packing under these circumstances, the court ruled, would violate the European Convention on Human Rights.

The result is a perverse situation in which, to protect the human rights of the man who issued a fatwa to kill the wives and children of Egyptian police and army officers, the British public pays a yearly tab of $1.1 million to cover Qatada's round-the-clock police surveillance, housing and welfare assistance for him, his wife and five children.

For those who scoff at the idea that U.S. judges would release a dangerous terrorist here, think again. As Attorney General Michael Mukasey pointed out in a speech earlier this month at the American Enterprise Institute, the Boumediene decision was vague on every detail but one. The ruling said that for habeas review to mean anything, the court must have the power to release. What do we do with a graduate of al Qaeda training camps who hasn't yet committed an act of violence? What do we do if no country will take him? If Congress doesn't intervene, the most difficult detainee cases may end up being administered by federal judges who are dismissive of concerns about enemy combatants returning to the battlefield.

"Courts guarantee an independent process, not an outcome," wrote John Coughenour, the federal judge who presided over the trial of "millennium bomber" Ahmad Ressam in a Washington Post op-ed just this Sunday. Yes, and that is precisely why Congress has an obligation to formulate the substance and parameters of that process. Judges do not make law or policy. The scope of their review is limited to the immediate case before them.

Unless Congress weighs in, judges -- unaccountable to the body politic -- will decide what standards of proof and rules of evidence will apply to these detainees, resulting in an ad hoc, case-by-case body of law which focuses on the rights of the detainees, not on the consequences for our war fighters who risk their lives to capture them. Since when do we leave it to judges to decide when and to what degree our troops are required to engage in police duties in the heat of battle?

Further, judges only rule on the applications made by the lawyers who come before them. Despite their rhetoric about "rule of law," attorneys are not charged with acting in furtherance of the national security interests of the public. Their obligation is to their clients alone, the detainees. Hence, we have witnessed the six-year campaign by Gitmo lawyers to pressure the U.S. government into releasing dangerous men before their cases come before a military tribunal or are heard in the federal courts.

David Cynamon, a senior attorney at Pillsbury Winthrop Putnam Shaw, is one of the lead lawyers negotiating the repatriation of the Kuwaiti detainees. In an email last fall to Pentagon officials, Mr. Cynamon expressed frustration with what he perceived as foot-dragging in the release of the last four Kuwaitis still held at Gitmo. He attached an exhibit which compared the unclassified information on all original 12 Kuwaiti detainees who were captured in Afghanistan. "I find it impossible to deduce from this chart," he wrote, "that the four who remain are any more (or less) [sic] dangerous than the ones who were returned." After Al-Ajmi's devastating suicide attack in Mosul, one hopes the Pentagon is giving his chart a second look.

Meanwhile, the habeas attorneys' effort to smear the United States and paint their clients as innocent victims continues. "Poems from Guantanamo" was taught this spring in an undergraduate course called "Writers in Exile" at City University of New York in Queens, a short distance from Ground Zero. The book's introduction states that the detainee poets "follow in the footsteps of prisoners who wrote in the Gulag, the Nazi concentration camps, and, closer to home, Japanese-American internment camps." One of the students, posting on the class blog, wrote of the detainees' plight, "Wow, I had no idea. For the first time in my life, I am ashamed to be seen as an American."

Your whole being and your heart will be captivated by this night, who drove the Romans to madness. You will forget everything about Rome and will live the life of faith in Islam.

Abdullah Salem Al-Ajmi, the detainee who wrote of turning the tables on his lawyer, Miranda, should haunt the dreams of every member of Congress.

Ms. Burlingame, a former attorney and a director of the National September 11 Memorial Foundation, is the sister of Charles F. "Chic" Burlingame III, the pilot of American Airlines flight 77, which was crashed into the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001.

Why Wikipedia is bullcrap, part 2,434,430

I've posted several times, here and elsewhere, that Wikipedia is utter garbage posing as an encyclopedia. The fact is that it's a message board where a group of highly motivated jerks with a bunch of time on their hands publish their version of history as if it were absolute fact. I don't have anything against message boards. But don't confuse Wikipedia with a real source of reliable information.

Well P.J. Gladnick explains how Wikipedia, the message board that used to bill itself as "the communal encyclopedia that anyone can edit" now has a bunch of self-appointed censors that prevent changes from being made to entries unless they approve of them. P.J. says, "Wikipedia [is] comedically twisting itself into knots to justify the exclusion of any mention of the alleged John Edwards scandal."

More nannying (and racism) from the left coast

It seems the city of Los Angeles has decided to impose a ban of fast-food restaurants. But don't get ahead of yourselves. Not everywhere, just in low-income neighborhoods:

L.A. blocks new fast-food outlets from poor areas
Jul 29, 5:22 PM (ET)
By Christina Hoag

LOS ANGELES (AP) - The Los Angeles City Council has approved a one-year moratorium on new fast-food restaurants in a low-income area of the city.

The moratorium unanimously approved Tuesday is a bid to attract restaurants that offer healthier food choices to residents in a 32-square-mile area of South Los Angeles.

Councilwoman Jan Perry says residents at five public meetings expressed concern with the proliferation of fast-food outlets in the community plagued by above-average rates of obesity.

Nearly three-quarters of the restaurants in South L.A. are fast-food outlets. That's a higher percentage than other parts of the city but the restaurant industry says the moratorium won't help bring in alternatives.

It's bad enough that they think banning fast-food is okay and that being paternalistic is okay and that telling people what they should be eating is okay. In addition to all that, they are too stupid and self-righteous to realize they (and lots of fellow liberals) are nothing but racists. Let me have our good friend Steve Graham from Hog on Ice explain it. This is pure conservatism folks. Read and learn:

Let White Folks Tell You What to Eat: Los Angeles Decides Only Caucasians are Smart Enough to Design Their Own Diets

Have you read about this? The Los Angeles city council has approved a one-year ban on new fast food restaurants...that only applies to minority neighborhoods.

Did I just wake up in a George Orwell novel? Can this really be happening?

Here is the rationale. People in South Los Angeles are 50% more likely to be obese than people elsewhere in the city. And about 45% of restaurants in that area serve fast food. Therefore the answer is to take the fast food away from them. I know I'm crazy, but it seems to me that the only real solution to obesity is personal responsibility. Let me go even farther. I think minorities have the same right to decide what they eat as Caucasians. I guess I should be locked up.

This ban is blatantly racist. Once again, leftists are showing us they think minority members are too stupid to take care of themselves, and because leftists lack the ability to perceive their own faults, they don't even realize they're doing it. If a leftist does a thing, it can't be racist. You have to wonder how far that principle can be pushed. Maybe in a few years, black people and Mexicans in Los Angeles will be required to turn in their driver's licenses, so they can lose weight by walking. Hey, it would be healthy. And think of the lives that would be saved, because fewer drivers will be on the road, having accidents.

The sad thing is, minority activists probably won't even perceive the racism. They're so used to milking the big white Santa Claus, they'll think this offensive paternalism is "progressive" and enlightened.

If I were black or Hispanic, and I lived in Los Angeles, I'd be irate. And I'd be very worried about "helpful" ideas the council might foist on me in the future.

Liberals think "the soft racism of lowered expectations" is a canard. They think it's something conservatives say in order to avoid helping minorities. And regrettably, a small faction of true racist idiots infests the political right, and sometimes their set of hateful, stupid ideas intersects with the well-intended set of ideas of the conservative mainstream. But overall, conservatives are sincere and right when they say the left treats minorities like children or as if they're slightly retarded.

Fast food restaurants locate in poor neighborhoods because they serve food the poor can afford. You can't put a Spago on every corner in Compton and expect good results. And you don't have to get fat just because you eat fast food. Companies like Wendy's and McDonald's realized a long time ago that they needed to offer stuff that was healthier and lower in calories, and those items are available right now. Everyone remembers the famous case of the woman who got mad at propagandist Morgan Spurlock, decided to eat at McDonald's every day, and lost weight. And you don't have to eat fast food; any fool with two pots and a stove can cook. And if you choose to eat fast food and be fat, that's your right.

Minority members are going to have to decide whether or not they want to run their own lives. Consenting to the heavy-handed mothering of the leftist state means giving your rights away. If you live in South L.A. and you're not offended by the fast food ban, you don't realize how little respect the ban's proponents have for you.

These are the times we are living in folks: when do-gooders, compassionate, tolerant liberals, insult Blacks and Hispanics by telling them they are too stupid to know what's good for them.

Cuban Intelligence Expert to Reveal Names of Castro Regime Spies in Florida

If you saw the videos I posted a few weeks ago with Lt. Col. Chris Simmons, who is a U.S. Army counterintelligence agent and expert on Cuban intelligence, you may have learned that Oscar Haza of "A Mano Limpia" challenged him to reveal the names of the Cuban spies that are in South Florida. He has accepted the challenge and will reveal the specific names of the spies on "A Mano Limpia" on Thursday, July 31st at 8:00 p.m. He will also be on “Ninoska a las 3” with Ninoska Pérez-Castellón at 3:00 p.m. on WQBA 1140 AM on Friday, August 1st.

Lt. Col. Simmons was a key figure in the identification, investigation, and debriefing of convicted Cuban spy, Ana Belen Montes. She was the highest-ranking Cuban spy ever sent to prison in the United States. He also was the lead military official in the expulsion of 14 Cuban spies serving under diplomatic cover in May, 2003.

He recently completed the draft of his first book, "Shadowplay: Cuban Intelligence Operations in Latin America & the Caribbean."

You can also catch an interview with this great American right here on the Babalu Radio Hour next week (August 6th), when Lt. Col. Simmons is George Moneo's guest. Save the date, this is sure to be a great interview.

Cuba's problem is closer to psychiatry than to politics

Great column by Carlos Alberto Montaner that explores why raul castro is not being more bold in reforming Cuba's terrible economy:

Raúl is governing to please Fidel, not to solve the country's never-ending woes. His overburdened psychological biography can be summed thus: a whole life trying to get his admired older brother to value and praise him. Ever since childhood, and especially since adolescence, when his parents placed him under Fidel's tutelage, Raúl has tried to gain Fidel's appreciation.

But Fidel is narcissistic, the kind of person emotionally incapable of admiring other human beings. Other people exist only to applaud, not to be applauded. In addition, Fidel knows that Raúl's psychic subordination guarantees that his work, even if it is a monstrous failure, will not be dismantled as long as he lives. The invisible rope he placed around his younger brother's neck, a rope Fidel will never loosen, is a guarantee of the prolongation (albeit temporary) of a regime that no one believes in any longer.

What will happen when Fidel dies? Will Raúl continue to please his brother's corpse, or will he manage to throw off the yoke? I don't know. Raúl is 77, and very few people that old are capable of changing. His personality disorder fits perfectly within the broad syndrome of ''co-dependency,'' and shaking off those chains is not at all easy. Deep down, Cuba's problem is closer to psychiatry than to politics. Perhaps it has always been thus.

Read the whole thing at Herald.com.

A little shakin' goin' on in LA

Generation ñ reborn

It's a great feeling to see a fellow Cubano succeed, especially if that person played a small yet pivotal role in your life. It seemed like just yesterday (though it's been about 10 years) I'd wait impatiently every month for my Generation ñ magazine to arrive in the mail so I could devour it from cover to cover. I loved the Cubanisms scattered throughout and the interviews with famous Cubans and Cuban-Americans, and of course the stories (including quite a few pieces written by a certain uncle of mine). I was even lucky enough to hang out a time or two with Bill and his then-girlfriend Lynn. Generation ñ's abrupt departure left a gap in my Cuban-American heart.

Well, Generation ñ is back, and with a vengeance. We've mentioned our friend Bill a few times before, and it seems that people are paying attention. He was featured a bit over a week ago in the Miami Herald, and just yesterday in the local morning news. Check him out, and check out Generation ñ online. If you liked the magazine, you'll love the site. Bigger, Better and With More Cowbell.

(Cross posted at Brandon's Puppy)

Victory for Private Business - Fed Judge Strikes Down Florida's Gun at Work Law

While I'm a big supporter of the 2nd amendment, I'm also a bigger supporter of private property rights. This law infringes on business owners' rights in deciding who can have a gun on their private property.

Basically this law stated that a private business could not ban employees or customers from bringing weapons in their cars on their business property. If the business fired the employee or refused to allow the employee or customer to bring a weapon, they could be sued for damages. The federal judge issued a temporary injunction striking down most of the law. Hopefully the judge's ruling will stand. Otherwise, there's no telling what other crazy requirements private business owners will be forced to do against their will.

You can read the article by clicking below:
Download file

Read the judge's opinion here.

Shameful

It pains me to no end when one on our side, the good guys, falls off the wagon and does stuff like this. Sickening. Stevens is the longest serving Republican Senator. If the charges are true, they should throw the book at him.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Sen. Ted Stevens from Alaska, the longest serving U.S. Republican senator ever, was indicted on Tuesday on seven counts of making false statements, according to a federal grand jury indictment.

The U.S. Justice Department has scheduled a news conference for 1:20 p.m. to make an announcement "regarding a significant criminal matter."

A federal law enforcement official said the news conference would discuss the criminal charges against Stevens. The 28-page indictment outlining the charges against Stevens was released by the Justice Department right before the news conference.

The Heat in Havana, Cuba

What to do in Havana during the long dog days of summer when you have no money and no transportation to get to a beach?

Photo H/T: Patricia de la T.

A fresh take on Cuba and Microsoft

George for TheRealCuba.com made me aware of an article that was published on Computer World's web site about how poor Microsoft is damaged by the U.S. trade embargo on Cuba. I know, I know, boo hoo. Ziva posted about it yesterday.

Well new friend Jorge Costales has posted his response to the article at his blog.

Get your Cuba fix with Cubanology.com

Our good friend Jose Reyes of Cubanology.com has been posting items about Cuba for as long as I can remember. Certainly before I started blogging.

If you haven't visited his site, or haven't visited it recently, I highly recommend that you do.

Among the features that you will find there is the Cubanology Bi-weekly Cuba Report, a blog of sorts in which invited guests post essays.

Also you will find a great gallery of political cartoons that's updated very very frequently.

An exhaustive list of anti-castro blogs and web sites.

A section with Chistes Cubanos.

And much more.

You really should bookmark Cubanology.com

In the mail....

I just received my review copy of "The Bay of Pigs" by Howard Jones, Oxford University Press.

Obviously, I've yet to read it, but from perusing the "Acknowledgments" alone, one would think that no Cubans had been involved in the research for this book, much less veterans of the Bay of Pigs.

What if it were your home?

One of the more stinging critiques Cuban exiles get is that we are all here waiting for the castro regime to topple to regain all of our properties and homes. I've always taken issue with that because not all of us were rich landowners and not all of us, rich landowner or not, would go back to Cuba to try to regain what was usurped. Pragmatically speaking and in my opinion, it's probably too late and too much water under the proverbial bridge for those who lost properties and businesses to attempt to get them back.

Still, though, imagine if everything your parents and grandparents had worked for, toiled for, possibly through generations, was taken away without so much as a glance at the rule of law, just like that. Try to imagine that. One day, youre visiting your parents or grandparents home here in the states and some government official comes in and says "You must move out immediately, we are taking this home for the people." No compensation, no explanation, no due process. Nada. One minute your family owns a home and the next your family is on the streets and you have absolutely no right to complain and no one to complain to.

Now imagine that after almost fifty years after your home had been usurped and after years, possibly decades of living in exile and living with the pain, anger and frustration of having had your home taken from you, you find out that said home is now being used as a "casa particular." Where your old home isnt used to house "the people" but to provide omnipotent tourists - foreigners - a cozy little vacation getaway.

Here are just a few "casa particulares" that advertise via the internet. Dont forget to click "View Details."

The saddest part of all this is that the persons running these quaint Cuban bed and breakfasts probably arent the original owners of the homes and thus, not only are they profitting from what isnt rightfully and legally theirs, but their partners - those that allow them to rent said homes: ie. the Cuban government - are profitting as well.

Obama - Economic Illiterate

Yes infidels all of the liberal, or rather Socialist democrats are still creaming in their pants (not over the Obama girl) but over Obama. The liberals, I mean progressives, I mean neo-marxists love Obama so much that they'd consider sleeping with the guy (I'm talking about the men and women). You can see the libs swoon over this guy like a bunch of girlies at a Justin Timberlake concert. Sounds silly huh? Well it scares the beejesus out of me thinking that this Hahvahd educated opportunist putz could be our president. Sadly, W lowered the standard so much that this shmendrick is now a serious contender. Oy vay.

But for those who know economics (the dems don't know economics except for those written in the communist manifesto or in das kapital) here is a serious article on how Obamanomics is a serious recipe for disaster. So be warned. In fact, think about when in the last 50 years you had a liberal president with a democratic congress with a thriving economy? I dare say you won't find such a scenario and yet the misguided dems think they have the answers. The dems are a recipe for disaster. Enjoy the essay from today's WSJ.

Obamanomics Is a Recipe for Recession By MICHAEL J. BOSKIN

What if I told you that a prominent global political figure in recent months has proposed: abrogating key features of his government's contracts with energy companies; unilaterally renegotiating his country's international economic treaties; dramatically raising marginal tax rates on the "rich" to levels not seen in his country in three decades (which would make them among the highest in the world); and changing his country's social insurance system into explicit welfare by severing the link between taxes and benefits?

The first name that came to mind would probably not be Barack Obama, possibly our nation's next president. Yet despite his obvious general intelligence, and uplifting and motivational eloquence, Sen. Obama reveals this startling economic illiteracy in his policy proposals and economic pronouncements. From the property rights and rule of (contract) law foundations of a successful market economy to the specifics of tax, spending, energy, regulatory and trade policy, if the proposals espoused by candidate Obama ever became law, the American economy would suffer a serious setback.

To be sure, Mr. Obama has been clouding these positions as he heads into the general election and, once elected, presidents sometimes see the world differently than when they are running. Some cite Bill Clinton's move to the economic policy center following his Hillary health-care and 1994 Congressional election debacles as a possible Obama model. But candidate Obama starts much further left on spending, taxes, trade and regulation than candidate Clinton. A move as large as Mr. Clinton's toward the center would still leave Mr. Obama on the economic left.

Also, by 1995 the country had a Republican Congress to limit President Clinton's big government agenda, whereas most political pundits predict strengthened Democratic majorities in both Houses in 2009. Because newly elected presidents usually try to implement the policies they campaigned on, Mr. Obama's proposals are worth exploring in some depth. I'll discuss taxes and trade, although the story on his other proposals is similar.

First, taxes. The table nearby demonstrates what could happen to marginal tax rates in an Obama administration. Mr. Obama would raise the top marginal rates on earnings, dividends and capital gains passed in 2001 and 2003, and phase out itemized deductions for high income taxpayers. He would uncap Social Security taxes, which currently are levied on the first $102,000 of earnings. The result is a remarkable reduction in work incentives for our most economically productive citizens.

The top 35% marginal income tax rate rises to 39.6%; adding the state income tax, the Medicare tax, the effect of the deduction phase-out and Mr. Obama's new Social Security tax (of up to 12.4%) increases the total combined marginal tax rate on additional labor earnings (or small business income) from 44.6% to a whopping 62.8%. People respond to what they get to keep after tax, which the Obama plan reduces from 55.4 cents on the dollar to 37.2 cents -- a reduction of one-third in the after-tax wage!
[Boskin]

Despite the rhetoric, that's not just on "rich" individuals. It's also on a lot of small businesses and two-earner middle-aged middle-class couples in their peak earnings years in high cost-of-living areas. (His large increase in energy taxes, not documented here, would disproportionately harm low-income Americans. And, while he says he will not raise taxes on the middle class, he'll need many more tax hikes to pay for his big increase in spending.)

On dividends the story is about as bad, with rates rising from 50.4% to 65.6%, and after-tax returns falling over 30%. Even a small response of work and investment to these lower returns means such tax rates, sooner or later, would seriously damage the economy.

On economic policy, the president proposes and Congress disposes, so presidents often wind up getting the favorite policy of powerful senators or congressmen. Thus, while Mr. Obama also proposes an alternative minimum tax (AMT) patch, he could instead wind up with the permanent abolition plan for the AMT proposed by the Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charlie Rangel (D., N.Y.) -- a 4.6% additional hike in the marginal rate with no deductibility of state income taxes. Marginal tax rates would then approach 70%, levels not seen since the 1970s and among the highest in the world. The after-tax return to work -- the take-home wage for more time or effort -- would be cut by more than 40%.

Now trade. In the primaries, Sen. Obama was famously protectionist, claiming he would rip up and renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta). Since its passage (for which former President Bill Clinton ran a brave anchor leg, given opposition to trade liberalization in his party), Nafta has risen to almost mythological proportions as a metaphor for the alleged harm done by trade, globalization and the pace of technological change.

Yet since Nafta was passed (relative to the comparable period before passage), U.S. manufacturing output grew more rapidly and reached an all-time high last year; the average unemployment rate declined as employment grew 24%; real hourly compensation in the business sector grew twice as fast as before; agricultural exports destined for Canada and Mexico have grown substantially and trade among the three nations has tripled; Mexican wages have risen each year since the peso crisis of 1994; and the two binational Nafta environmental institutions have provided nearly $1 billion for 135 environmental infrastructure projects along the U.S.-Mexico border.

In short, it would be hard, on balance, for any objective person to argue that Nafta has injured the U.S. economy, reduced U.S. wages, destroyed American manufacturing, harmed our agriculture, damaged Mexican labor, failed to expand trade, or worsened the border environment. But perhaps I am not objective, since Nafta originated in meetings James Baker and I had early in the Bush 41 administration with Pepe Cordoba, chief of staff to Mexico's President Carlos Salinas.

Mr. Obama has also opposed other important free-trade agreements, including those with Colombia, South Korea and Central America. He has spoken eloquently about America's responsibility to help alleviate global poverty -- even to the point of saying it would help defeat terrorism -- but he has yet to endorse, let alone forcefully advocate, the single most potent policy for doing so: a successful completion of the Doha round of global trade liberalization. Worse yet, he wants to put restrictions into trade treaties that would damage the ability of poor countries to compete. And he seems to see no inconsistency in his desire to improve America's standing in the eyes of the rest of the world and turning his back on more than six decades of bipartisan American presidential leadership on global trade expansion. When trade rules are not being improved, nontariff barriers develop to offset the liberalization from the current rules. So no trade liberalization means creeping protectionism.

History teaches us that high taxes and protectionism are not conducive to a thriving economy, the extreme case being the higher taxes and tariffs that deepened the Great Depression. While such a policy mix would be a real change, as philosophers remind us, change is not always progress.

Not everyone in Hollywood is on the Obama train

Respected actor Jon Voight, father of actress Angelina Jolie, well known for his humanitarian work, writes a scathing critique of the audacious junior Senator in Monday's Washington Times:

VOIGHT: My concerns for America
OP-ED

We, as parents, are well aware of the importance of our teachers who teach and program our children. We also know how important it is for our children to play with good-thinking children growing up.

Sen. Barack Obama has grown up with the teaching of very angry, militant white and black people: the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Louis Farrakhan, William Ayers and Rev. Michael Pfleger. We cannot say we are not affected by teachers who are militant and angry. We know too well that we become like them, and Mr. Obama will run this country in their mindset.

The Democratic Party, in its quest for power, has managed a propaganda campaign with subliminal messages, creating a God-like figure in a man who falls short in every way. It seems to me that if Mr. Obama wins the presidential election, then Messrs. Farrakhan, Wright, Ayers and Pfleger will gain power for their need to demoralize this country and help create a socialist America.

The Democrats have targeted young people, knowing how easy it is to bring forth whatever is needed to program their minds. I know this process well. I was caught up in the hysteria during the Vietnam era, which was brought about through Marxist propaganda underlying the so-called peace movement. The radicals of that era were successful in giving the communists power to bring forth the killing fields and slaughter 2.5 million people in Cambodia and South Vietnam. Did they stop the war, or did they bring the war to those innocent people? In the end, they turned their backs on all the horror and suffering they helped create and walked away.

Those same leaders who were in the streets in the '60s are very powerful today in their work to bring down the Iraq war and to attack our president, and they have found their way into our schools. William Ayers is a good example of that.

Thank God, today, we have a strong generation of young soldiers who know exactly who they are and what they must do to protect our freedom and our democracy. And we have the leadership of Gen. David Petraeus, who has brought hope and stability to Iraq and prevented the terrorists from establishing a base in that country. Our soldiers are lifting us to an example of patriotism at a time when we've almost forgotten who we are and what is at stake.

If Mr. Obama had his way, he would have pulled our troops from Iraq years ago and initiated an unprecedented bloodbath, turning over that country to the barbarianism of our enemies. With what he has openly stated about his plans for our military, and his lack of understanding about the true nature of our enemies, there's not a cell in my body that can accept the idea that Mr. Obama can keep us safe from the terrorists around the world, and from Iran, which is making great strides toward getting the atomic bomb. And while a misleading portrait of Mr. Obama is being perpetrated by a media controlled by the Democrats, the Obama camp has sent out people to attack the greatness of Sen. John McCain, whose suffering and courage in a Hanoi prison camp is an American legend.

Gen. Wesley Clark, who himself has shame upon him, having been relieved of his command, has done their bidding and become a lying fool in his need to demean a fellow soldier and a true hero.

This is a perilous time, and more than ever, the world needs a united and strong America. If, God forbid, we live to see Mr. Obama president, we will live through a socialist era that America has not seen before, and our country will be weakened in every way.

The article is here.

raul castro and his Chinese model for Cuba

raul castro, who the media consistently and mistakenly refers to as Cuba's president officially took over in monarchical succession from his brother, fidel the terrible, back in February. But he's been the de facto tyrant for exactly two years now.

We were told that the 77-years young dauphin is more "pragmatic" than his predecessor and also very "organized." The long and the short of it was that raul was billed as someone who would be strikingly different than fidel, who even the media recognized as dogmatic and disorganized. raul was someone under whom we would see economic changes in Cuba and there has been much talk about raul's "admiration of the Chinese model."

With the intensity of the trumpets of Jericho the international media echoed official regime announcements of new "reforms" in Cuba. The reforms consisted of merely removing absurd bans on some consumer electronics like cellular phones and computers. The munificent prince raul also signed an edict that would make Cuban hotels open to Cubans. Imagine that!

Of course all of these reforms are meaningful only to the people in Cuba who can afford a $200 cellular phone or a night in hotel that costs about the same amount. That is to say very few people on an island where the average state-sanctioned salary is somewhere south of $20 a month.

There was talk about doing away with the "exit visa" or "tarjeta blanca" that keeps all the slaves on the plantation. But alas it was just talk. When Yoani Sanchez won Spain's equivalent of a Pulitzer Prize for online journalism she was not permitted to leave the country to accept the award in person.

Last year, when he was only the interim dictator, raul the pragmatic promised milk to his loyal subjects. They are still waiting. Now raul has organized a plan of austerity for the Cuban people because of the effects of the global economic crisis and, of course, global warming.

raul the reformer also signed several human rights accords. When Europe announced that it was dropping sanctions against Cuba, preferring instead "constructively engage" the practical one, he responded by arresting and harassing several dissidents.

The only thing Chinese about raul castro's policies thus far is that he's duped all of the compliant international media organizations...

¡Los cogió de Chino!

The most dangerous woman in Cuba:

Yoani Sanchez on Cuba's Carnivals:

So there will be celebrations in the same coastal area where -fourteen years ago- the residents of Havana showed their dissatisfaction in a social explosion. We will drink near the wall that has felt the weight of improvised rafts headed due north. There will be salsa and reggaeton along the same seaside avenue that for months has not seen an official demonstration with slogans and waving flags. On this Malecon that has seen us shout, depart and pretend we are going -for a few days- to have fun.

NYT on Cuba's Virgin of El Cobre

Article here.

Computer World: Shilling for Cuba's Castro Inc.

Don Tennant, editorial director of Computerworld and InfoWorld:

"The more I think about it, the more annoyed I get. There's just something fundamentally wrong when a U.S. company isn't allowed to compete in a market where the rest of the world is free to benefit from commercial engagement and entrepreneurism."

And what U.S. business is suffering from lack of trade with Cuban entrepreneurs? Poor little Microsoft! It's all the fault of the U.S.; no mention at all of any obstacles imposed by the dictatorship standing in the way of all that Cuban "entrepreneurism." [sic]

"When we left Vietnam, we thought it was lost forever. Now it is an ally. Later, Libya was a threat, and with the same leader as back then, they are now considered our ally," the reader wrote. "Yet after four and a half decades, our obstinacy has prevented us from [engaging] one of our closest neighbors and has prevented our companies from benefiting from the changes that have occurred there. We are truly the last bastion that has failed to recognize that the ghost of Khrushchev is gone."

They are accepting comments.

Rubio's remarks on Cuba revisited

On Saturday July 12th Ziva posted a video of Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio addressing the Cuban-American National Foundation (CANF) at the same luncheon where the main attraction was Barack Obama.

In the short video, Rubio explains why it is important that the future of Cuba never be negotiated with the castro brothers. He explains that there is "no statute of limitations on freedom" and takes the media to task for belittling our parents and grandparents, the historical Cuban exile community.

I re-posted that video on Monday July 14th because I thought it was wonderful and deserved to be seen during the week when readership is much higher. At lunch last week Val confessed to me that watches that speech every day because it inspires him. I have to admit that I've seen it at least ten times.

Then something happened shortly after I re-posted it. Our weekday readership which was averaging between 2,000 and 2,500 per day jumped up over 4,000 for several days. People were landing on the Marco Rubio post because a link to the video was being emailed around the Cuban-American community.

I bring this up because I noticed something interesting. The video of Obama's actual speech, the main event of that luncheon, which was posted by his campaign on May 23rd, the same day of the speech, has been viewed 28,944 times as of 2:00 PM today.

Meanwhile, Rubio's speech, which was a direct contradiction to the course of action Obama is advocating and which was posted by CANF on June 3rd, has been viewed 24,623 times. A lot of those views (about 19,000) came through Babalu.

Here's a presidential candidate that the news media is enamored of giving a speech that was widely hyped and the video which has been linked directly from his campaign web site barely gets more traction than a speech nobody even knew took place by a politician that is barely known outside of South Florida. I mean if you ask most Floridians who the Speaker of the Florida House is they will look at you like a cow stares at a passing train.

The media continues to play-up the fictional generational shift among Cuban-Americans like its going out of style. But what do you expect from them, they are after all the same media that belittles our parents and grandparents?

Fontova on Sharpton, Cuba and the absent MSM

Here.

D-cerca!

I couldnt help but shamelessly lift the following image from Gusano's most excellent post on raul's July 26 speechification:

Very funny political humor

I found this site this morning and had to laugh out loud when I read the posts. It's about a participant in a local Congressional election:

Joedilocks and the Three Very Bad Bears

A question of balls

After almost fifty years of oppression, the frustration felt by Cubans on the island, the exile community, and all others who love Cuba is understandable. Cubans have suffered countless atrocities at the hands of the regime. They have had their freedoms, their dignity, their culture, their ideas, and worst of all, their voice taken from them by the small minority that rules the island with an iron fist. Therefore, it is perfectly natural for many to imagine that if only the Cubans on the island that hunger for freedom and justice—the majority of the population—were to rise up against their oppressors, freedom would once again return to Cuba.

Few things in life are that simple, however, and there are many more factors that contribute to the hold the castro regime has on power. So, perhaps we should not be asking how many Cubans are there with the balls to stand up to the regime, but instead be asking how many Cubans are there that have the balls to continue oppressing, beating, and jailing their own.

It is not necessary to remind anyone that fidel and raul are both Cuban. It is not necessary to remind anyone that the CDRs are run by Cubans. State security and the local police are all made up of Cubans. The infamous actos de repudio and the beatings they administer to dissidents are all carried out by their fellow Cubans. The jails in Cuba are run and guarded by Cubans. The torture and beatings suffered by the jailed dissidents is committed by their fellow Cubans.

I do not think one can necessarily blame the current situation in Cuba on the lack of balls on part of the dissidence; there are plenty of men and women in Cuba with the testicular fortitude to stand up against a seemingly unconquerable foe. If anything, we should be considering the overabundance of balls by the Cubans who have chosen to forsake freedom and injure their own for a few extra pesos and some privileges.

This is the “new man” created by the regime. Back in December, I wrote a post about this “new man.”

They lurk throughout Cuba, hiding in the shadows of its dysfunctional oppressive society. Feeding on the misery of others, these Kafkaesque hoodlums fear only the end of the meals comprised of human suffering that the Cuban regime has provided for them. They have no ideology, nor allegiance to any one man or entity. Like animals acting instinctually during a feeding frenzy, they will rip the flesh from one of their own to satisfy their hunger.

Thugs such as these are found throughout the world, not just in Cuba. But they can only thrive in the dark worlds of tyranny where they become the willing accomplices of despots that have much higher aspirations, and much higher levels of intelligence. The thug, however, does not mind being the inferior creature; their limited intellect is able to recognize the usefulness of their insensate nature. They are scavengers that can neither hunt nor forage for their own survival, so instead they lie in wait for the next opportunity their masters provide them to earn a piece of bread, or a pair of tennis shoes.

One small group cannot control 11-million people. They need help. And unfortunately, there have been too many Cubans with the balls to help them.

Cuba, que lindo son tus paisajes...

Obama and his Union Thug Supporters

Happy Monday infidels. You got to love the Dems and their big money bag Unions. Where your union dues are used to support Mr. Obama even if you don't like the guy. What's great, is that you can't work the job unless you're in the union. All the pansy dems would be screaming if their union dues were spent to support GOP candidates, but their silence is deafening when the money goes to them. But what do you expect from the San Fran dems. They're liberal socialists, let them lose their souls.

The mighty Service Employees International Union (SEIU) plans to spend some $150 million in this year's election, most of it to get Barack Obama and other Democrats elected. Where'd they get that much money?

That's a question the Departments of Labor and Justice are being asked to investigate by the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation. Specifically, the labor watchdog group wants Justice to query a new SEIU policy that appears to coerce local workers into funding the parent union's national political priorities.

The union adopted a new amendment to its constitution at last month's SEIU convention, requiring that every local contribute an amount equal to $6 per member per year to the union's national political action committee. This is in addition to regular union dues. Unions that fail to meet the requirement must contribute an amount in "local union funds" equal to the "deficiency," plus a 50% penalty. According to an SEIU union representative, this has always been policy, but has now simply been formalized.

No other major institution could get away with its bosses demanding that every single one of its workers step in line behind its political preferences. This is the sort of imposed political obeisance that infuriates so many workers and turns them away from unions.

The SEIU political mandate may also violate federal law. Union and corporate PACs are supposed to rely on "voluntary" contributions, and it is illegal for them to use money secured by the "threat" of "financial reprisal." It's hard to see that an SEIU mandate enforced by financial penalties of 50% isn't a "threat" or would qualify under any definition of "voluntary."

There's more. As many workers who would rather not join a union realize, employees can be required to join a union or to pay dues as a condition of employment. It is illegal, however, for