Hadaroughdayhaulasshomebuybeeronthewaygethomeandchangetoshortsandateeshirthit
ManCamppopopenabeergrabashinerandhookitoncasttakeachugofbeernotasecondlaterIvegota nice, three pound Peacock Bass.

Made the whole friggin day disappear. I love America.

Do you want to get really pissed off?

JFK's nephew, actor Christopher Lawford has been in Australia complaining that the U.S. Blockade (sic) is interfering with his ambition to make a movie about the Cuban Missile Crisis from the "Cuban" point of view as suggested by, you guessed it, none other than castro himself. I guess it wasn't enough that thanks to his family, Cubans have suffered 47 years of terror and oppression, and watched their country reduced to rubble. Now Cubans are interfering with his movie making plans. Oh pardon me, sorry if Cuban suffering is inconveniencing your “Hollywood” plans. How trite, what a stupid, spoiled, good-for-nothing bum he is.

From Contact Music

Kennedy Clan Actor Says Cuba Blockade Affects U.S. Filmakers

Actor Christopher Lawford, a nephew of President John Kennedy who confronted the Soviet Union during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, has told Australian interviewers that he has been trying to make a film about that incident from Cuba's perspective but that he has been stymied by the U.S. blockade. Lawford, whose father was Rat Pack member Peter Lawford and mother is JFK's sister Patricia, told The Australian newspaper that he sat next to Prime Minister Fidel Castro in Havana during a screening in 2001 of Thirteen Days, a film about the missile crisis in which Lawford co-starred. "It was incredible," he told the newspaper. "I went there and sat next to the guy my uncles were trying to kill. But President Castro believes if president Kennedy had lived, the embargo would have been lifted and they would have normalized relations." In a separate interview with the ABC, Lawford said Castro "got up at the end of the film and he said, 'You've made a great film, but you've ignored Cuba, now you have to make a film of what was happening here in Cuba during those thirteen days." Lawford said that he had returned to Cuba six times in an effort to do just that "but as you know we have an embargo against Cuba which is one of the greatest foreign policy tragedies in the history of the United States."

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Via Michelle Malkin:

Shaw Heights Middle School in Westminster, Colorado has prohibited the wearing of "anything that is patriotic, including camouflage pants, because they have become a political symbol for a version of patriotism..."

Myla Shepherd, the principal, said that tensions over the immigration issue were apparent when more than 20 students came to school wearing camouflage jackets and pants, apparently to show what they call their patriotism and American pride.

Perhaps those patriotic kids in Colorado could learn a thing or two from the kids in San Diego, California:

The right to free expression comes with a specific ideology and a beard!

Dont worry about the blackouts, Comrades. fidel will be lighting your candles!

In a desperate and last ditch effort to keep the Cuban people from griping about the heat and lack of power this summer, fidel castro has unveiled a new plan to generate electricity throughout the island: Generators.

HAVANA - Cuba is racing to install thousands of container-sized diesel generators across the island to avoid another situation like the one last summer when widespread blackouts fanned popular unrest.

President Fidel Castro has taken personal responsibility for what he calls an "energy revolution" prompted by widespread complaints about the failings of Cuba‘s obsolete power plants.

His supporters say the first-of-its-kind energy plan is a stroke of audacious genius. His critics see it as a desperate blunder.

The generators are being grouped in clusters and connected to the electrical grid so they can feed the national system or operate independently in all 14 provinces.

"The unit consists of 32 generators in eight groups ... capable of generating 60.4 megawatts," state-run news agency AIN said of one cluster in eastern Holguin province.

Now, Im no electrician or electrical engineer or anything, but I had to run a generator for power for two weeks last year after Hurricane Katrina and all I can say is that it was a nightmare. First you have to have enough fuel and it needs to be nearby. You have to have oil and change the oil every certain amount of runtime hours. You have to have good plugs, the proper gap. Proper ventillation. Have to make sure you dont overload the thing. Etc.. And that was for a small 6500 Watt generator. Imagine what the maintenance on a megawatt diesel generator must be, if it is to be running constantly and powering a city?

LOGISTICS NIGHTMARE

Cuba is spending a further $250 million to replace old transmission lines, transformers and breakers so the grid can handle increased demand as Cubans still cooking with kerosene and wood fires go electric.

Since the generators began to arrive, blackouts have all but disappeared. But the real test will come with the hot summer months when demand peaks.

Cubans give the energy plan mixed reviews.

"Those of us who support the revolution support the plan; those who do not, as always, think it is crazy," a Communist Party militant said.

"There is no doubt it is an ingenious, though expensive, way for them to quickly solve their immediate problems," a Western diplomat said.

"The question we all have is what will happen in a few years. Generators have never been used as the basis of a power system before, anywhere," he said.

Cuban officials brush off such concerns and insist the strategy has been well thought out.

But foreign electrical engineers say it is a recipe for a logistics nightmare as thousands of generators will have to be constantly supplied with diesel and their engines serviced.

Cuba would have been better off in the long run building generating plants, an Italian engineer said.

(emphasis mine)

Perhaps the reason that generators have never been used in this manner is because it's absurd. This, like every other heralded plan from La Revolucion, is a mere Bandaid on the gaping wound that is Cuba's infrastructure. It is not only shortsighted, but a complete waste. It's the electrical version of the Mini-cow. The smoke and mirrors approach to keeping the Cuban people from complaining about their reality.

Here's a sample of that electrical reality, from Cienfuegos.

Photo courtesy of Joe Papp.

Where forth art thou, Journalists?

Would someone tell the MSM to stop hitting the snooze button and wake the hell up?

Prison officials try to forcibly reeducate independent journalist

CIEGO DE ÁVILA, Cuba, April 4 (Luis Esteban Espinosa, Agencia Jóvenes sin Censura / www.cubanet.org) - Imprisoned independent journalist Normando Hernández González says he was thrown down a flight of stairs by the "reeducator" of the Kilo 5 prison where he's serving a 25-year sentence.

Hernández González told the Cuban Foundation of Human Rights in a telephone call that Reinier Armenteros Pulgarón twisted his arm, threw him down the stairs and dragged him to a solitary confinement cell when he refused to accept reeducating. He said he shouted "Down with the tyranny of Fidel Castro" and "Long live human rights" as he was being dragged.

The prisoner's wife, Yaraí Reyes Marín, said the incident occurred March 28 and that her husband was held in solitary confinement for seven hours.

Independent journalist held by police in Havana

HAVANA, April 4 (Leonel Alberto Pérez Belette / www.cubanet.org) - Independent journalist Julio Aleaga Pesant has been held since March 31 by the national police at a station in the capital's Vedado district on a charge of lewdness.

According to Aleaga's wife, police showed up at their home and took a computer and documents and her husband to the station. A Cuban woman accused him on posting on the Internet photos of her.

Aleaga is an advisor to the Cuban Liberal Movement

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We received this in our inbox tonight:

It is about time that we start thinking for ourselves, rather than mindlessly voting Republican. It makes us no better than those indoctrinated cubans still on the island. Isn't it time we forgave the dems. for the Bay of Pigs? Do we reeeeally believe the war in Iraq was a great idea? Do we reeeeally buy that the largest deficit in our nation's history is nothing to worry about(as is global warming)? Do we truly think Bush is the best thing since plantains? Come on,chicos,let the new generation of cuban-americans vote logically, not by rote. A former Rep. who no longer buys the rap.

Here are my answers:

1. Yes, I do think for myself as do all of the others who write on this blog.
2. No, I will not forgive the Dems for Bay of Pigs.
3. Yes, the war in Iraq was a necessary first step to combat Islamic fascism. Next stop: Iran.
4. We have been in a deficit spending economy for the better part of seventy years so, no, I am not worried.
5. No, I am not worried about global warming. We are in a natural cycle that the Earth goes through. Anyone who thinks we puny humans can hurt a planet that has been around for four billion years is an imbecile.
6. No, Bush is not the best thing since plantains. Plantains are the bomb. However, the alternative to Bush is like eating plantains out of a dirty toilet.
7. I have always been an independent thinker. Unfortunately, until the Dems stop fielding candidates like Algore, John "I have a plan and served in Vietnam" Kerry, and the execrable Hillary, I won't be voting for them within the next two or three geologic periods.

Those are my answers. Feel free to answer away in the comments

Any other questions?