Archive for May, 2007

Useful idiots, eh?

By
Castro Death Watch
 – May 10, 2007Posted in: Castro's Fellow Travelers, Cuba's Healthcare System, From Other Blogs, Media, Useful Idiots

Just when we thought the issue of how Castro manipulates his life expectancy numbers to make Cuba look better than it really is, had been settled…

Along comes some Canuck news outfit parroting the Castro talking points:

Fidel Castro may be ailing, but he’s a living example of something Cubans take pride in – an average life expectancy roughly similar to that of people in the United States. They ascribe it to free medical care, a mild climate, and a low-stress Caribbean lifestyle, which they believe make up for the hardships and shortages they suffer.

“Sometimes you have all you want to eat and sometimes you don’t,” said Raquel Naring, a 70-year-old retired gas station attendant. “But there aren’t elderly people sleeping on the street like other places.”

Sounds like food is optional in Castro’s fantasy land, eh?

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Granma is right about one thing:

By
Castro Death Watch
 – May 10, 2007Posted in: Media, Miscellaneous, Politics

“The height of absurdity.”

For Granma, it’s more than a headline, it’s their entire philosophy.

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He could feed half the island by himself

By
Castro Death Watch
 – May 10, 2007Posted in: Castro's Fellow Travelers, Cuba's Healthcare System, Politics, Useful Idiots

Michael Moore is back in the Cuba news spotlight this week. This time, the feds are after him for breaking the Cuban embargo law:

The U.S. government has launched a probe into whether maverick director Michael Moore, whose 2004 documentary “Fahrenheit 9/11″ skewered the Bush administration, broke laws when he went to Cuba for a new movie about U.S. health care.

U.S. citizens face “civil and/or criminal penalties” for unauthorized travel to the communist country, the U.S. Treasury Department warned in a letter to the Oscar-winning director that was posted on Moore’s Web site on Thursday.

Now, why would Michael Moore-on go to an island filled with people starving to death, you ask? Oh, it’s because the useful idiot wanted to take some of the people who got sick helping out at the World Trade Center during and after September 11, to Cuba for the “wonderful” health care they have there. In other words, he wanted to use these folks as pawns in a political game to embarrass his country for his new movie, appropriately named “Sicko.”

What a Moore-on.

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AT&T/BellSouth, whatever, they suck

By
Castro Death Watch
 – May 9, 2007Posted in: Administrative Notes, Miscellaneous, Useful Idiots

Whatever they want to call themselves–AT&T, BellSouth, HellSouth, POS–they suck.

In case you’re wondering why I haven’t posted in a few days, it’s because my DSL disservice was disconnected. Not for lack of payment on my part, nor because I called to disconnect. But because a new neighbor (I live in a condo) gave them MY address as the address to connect their new disservice.

Of course, when the idiots at the same ol’ same ol’ AT&T looked up my address, they saw existing phone and DSL disservice there.  Well, with existing disservice at an address, you can’t connect new disservice. So they did what came natural: they disconnected my disservice.

I have been fighting with the idiots to restore my disservice ever since. Except now, I want to cancel it and tell them to get lost.

In case you’re wondering, I’m now using Juno’s free service. It’s only slightly slower than AT&T but much cheaper. And unlike AT&T’s DSL, I don’t have to worry about some idiot disconnecting me.

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I want to add this to my investment portfolio

By
Castro Death Watch
 – May 6, 2007Posted in: Castro Is Dead

And pray for the price to go up, WAY up:

On Tuesday, when Castro failed to make an appearance at May Day celebrations in Havana, the Herzfeld (the Herzfeld Caribbean Basin Fund [ticker: CUBA]) fund soared 11.8 percent. This closed-end fund, which trades on the Nasdaq exchange just as stocks do, invests in stocks that stand to gain once the United States lifts its trade embargo against Cuba.

The fund’s share price has been tightly correlated with Castro’s health for the past year, rising when news reports have indicated that the Cuban leader is gravely ill and falling when there are signs of his recovery. Castro temporarily stepped down as president on July 31 last year after emergency surgery, naming his brother, Raul, as acting president. The fund’s share price leaped 12.8 percent the next day.

Castro met with President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela on Jan. 30. From that point until early last week, the fund plunged 21 percent on speculation that Castro had recovered.

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I can’t believe the source

By
Castro Death Watch
 – May 5, 2007Posted in: Anti-Communism, Defection

For readers who wonder why I’ve been silent on the recent hijacking of the airplane in Cuba by a group of young conscripts… well, I’ve been extraordinarily busy this week. I do have a “day job,” after all.

My take on the thing is I could understand why they want to leave. They just chose the wrong way to do it. I suppose desperation drives you to do irrational things. The young guys who did it are not going to get a fair trial–if they even get a trial at all–and the reason for their taking an airplane won’t fly (pardon the pun) with Castro.

Sadly, I think you can count in days how much longer these youngsters are going to remain alive. There’s not going to be an appeal. There’s not going to be an international “Free the Three” campaign. No long, drawn out drama. Just an execution of three young men whose only crime is wanting to be free.

That’s why I was surprised to find coverage somewhat sympathetic to the young men in the Seattle Times. Normally, we in Miami think of Seattle as an ultra-liberal enclave and so you’d expect their newspapers only to provide coverage sympathetic to Castro and not would-be defectors:

Cuba analysts said the deadly hijacking attempt reflected the discontent among the island’s young people. More than 20 percent of Cuba’s 11.4 million people were born after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the economic hardship that followed the fall of Cuba’s once-powerful benefactor. At least one-third of the nearly 1 million Cubans who have left the island for the U.S. since Fidel Castro came to power in 1959 did so after 1999, according to a Pew study of U.S. Census data.

“These were 19-, 21-year-old kids, and they obviously felt extreme desperation that they were willing to take those risks,” said Brian Latell, a Cuba analyst and author of “After Fidel: The Inside Story of Castro’s Regime and Cuba’s Next Leader.”

I think this says something important. Youngsters who have been indoctrinated practically since birth know instinctively that there is something terribly wrong with Castro’s version of Cuba.

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Loudmouthed Castro silent on this

By
Castro Death Watch
 – May 5, 2007Posted in: Castro's Fellow Travelers, Miscellaneous, Politics

I suppose it’s okay to criticize ethanol use when it’s President Bush who proposes it, but not when its proposed by Brazil, eh Fidel?

Brazil, a world leader in alcohol fuel, expects to produce a record 5.34 billion gallons of ethanol in the current sugarcane season, up 13.5 percent from the harvest before, the Agriculture Ministry said Friday.

No word from Castro who, thanks to his intestinal ailment, now spews hot air from both ends of his body, not just his mouth.

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Castro says no to drugs?

By
Castro Death Watch
 – May 5, 2007Posted in: Miscellaneous

Here’s an interesting story–from Pravda:

An exchanged (sic) of gunfire between border guards and drug traffickers aboard a boat off eastern Cuba led to killing of two suspected smugglers and wounding a third.

Here’s a funny line from the article:

“The government of Cuba laments the loss of human life that resulted during the clash caused by this grave criminal act,” the statement said. Cuba nevertheless “ratifies its permanent commitment to the battle against drug trafficking.”

Har, har. Since when does Cuba ever lament the loss of human life? Since when does Cuba battle against drug trafficking? Castro’s growing a sense of humor in his old age, it seems.

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Bravo!

By
Castro Death Watch
 – May 4, 2007Posted in: Bush, Luis Posada Carriles, Politics

The issue isn’t whether or not he did what he’s accused of doing (for which he has already been acquitted, I might add).

The issue is simply that ANY so-called “evidence” the Castro government would present is suspect on its face.

Three Cuban lawmakers have condemned the Justice Department’s decision to send FBI agents to Cuba to collect evidence against a terror suspect.

The FBI have reportedly been to Cuba recently to gather more information on the alleged involvement Luis Posada Carriles in a hotel bombing that killed an Italian in Havana in 1997.

“By asking a state sponsor of terrorism for evidence’ regarding terrorism, the Bush administration Justice Department demonstrates a shockingly profound ignorance of the nature of terrorism, of its origins and its state sponsors,” U.S. Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and brothers Lincoln and Mario Díaz-Balart said in a statement, The Miami Herald reported Friday.

Shame on the FBI for collaborating with Castro.

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Cuba #5 country where press freedom has most deteriorated

By
Castro Death Watch
 – May 3, 2007Posted in: Freedom of the Press, Human Rights, Media

In honor of World Press Freedom Day, May 3, the Committee to Protect Journalists has published a list called “Backsliders,” of the top 10 countries where press freedom has most deteriorated.

Surprise, surprise, Cuba made the list.

Here are a few choice lines from the article:

  • Other countries such as Cuba have long had poor records but have ratcheted up press restrictions through widespread imprisonments, expulsions, and harassment.
  • Authorities in several countries are silencing critical coverage by imprisoning journalists. Cuba and Ethiopia became two of the world’s leading jailers of journalists in the past five years.
  • Twenty-nine journalists imprisoned in massive 2003 crackdown. Four foreign journalists expelled after covering 2005 opposition meeting. Another 10 barred entry when Fidel Castro becomes ill in 2006.
  • Cases of government harassment increase in the past year.
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