Pass me another bloody beer.

You may have read at Hog On Ice that I went fishing this past Sunday for a few hours with Steve and my neighbor Pat and his brother Mario. We left the house at about 5:20 am, picked up some ice and beer and made it to the boat by a few minutes before 6.

Turned out to be a beautiful morning for fishing. The seas were "un espejo" as my fishing Godfather would say. Like a mirror.

We headed out just as the sun was rising. That view, that peace of being out on the ocean at dawn completely cleanses you of all worry and stress. There really is no better therapy than that.

Now, Steve will say I was lucky this weekend - I was the one that caught the first 4 dolphins - because I had a ballyhoo rig, but a good fisherman always chooses what rig he wants to use.

The first Dorado - dolphin or Mahi Mahi for those who prefer the restaurateur name - hit at about 7:30 am. Thus officially, I could have had my celebratory first beer - and all other ensuing beers - right then. But it was too early for me.

So I waited until 8 am.

I also took the liberty of smoking one of my celebratory cigars, given to me by Cuban Crafters cigars for the Cuba Nostalgia Convention. Steve was thinking I had done a little mariwiti on those cigars, because as soon as I lit that puppy, we hit upon a school of Dorados.

If you've been out dolphin fishing before and hit upon a school, then you know what Im about to say is absolutely true: We couldnt bait the hooks fast enough. We brought in 10 dolphins in about 5 or 6 minutes. We lost at least 4 because we just werent prepared and had no one to help bring them in.

It was a frenzy on the back of Steve's Hatteras. Fish flapping all over place, fishing lines getting tangled, guys screaming "Fish On! Fish On!". Fish blood on our shoes, fish blood on our shorts, our shirts, hands. Fish blood all over the boat deck.

And, most importantly, fish blood all over our beers, stored appropriately in our ever filling cooler.

Pass me another bloody beer.

Guess what Im having for dinner?

El Cafe Cubano has an important story, the kind you wish never had to be written. Just those title words make your heart stop and your stomach turn, not again you hope, not again. How does evil persist in this world? How can we stop it?

They call it "the Killing Compound" – the area of Camp 22 in North Korea's largest concentration camp.
Hidden away in the mountains in a remote northeastern corner of North Korea, close to its borders with Russia and China, Camp 22 has been purpose-built for the regime's scientists to have an unlimited number of prisoners on which to experiment.

Thousands of men, women and children are trucked to the nearby town of Haengyong. There they wait and, just as Nazi Dr. Josef Mengele did at Auschwitz, the North Korean physicians single out those who will die in gas chambers, or in biological tests, or face death in the human dissection rooms.

They are all branded as enemies of the state, "political victims" who have dared to speak out against President Kim Jong Il, the "Dear Leader" of North Korea.

The most shocking evidence centers on Camp 22. An MI6 file describes it as "larger than Auschwitz or Dachau."
"Hundreds of prisoners die there each week, the victims of biological or chemical experiments to test out [chemical and biological] weapons for North Korea's CBW arsenal," claims an MI6 report.

In one intelligence file is the allegation that newborn babies are taken from their mothers and injected with biological agents or given injections of chemicals that blister the skin, leaving huge keloids, the sores seen on the bodies of Hiroshima victims.
One woman, Lee Sun-Ko, who escaped from North Korea earlier this year, eventually ended up in America. She told her CIA debriefing officer that Camp 22's experimental laboratories are buried underground to avoid aerial reconnaissance and bombing.
Lee Sun-Ko's affidavit includes: "I watched guards select 150 prisoners, mostly women. Some had just given birth. Their babies were ripped from them. Some of the babies were laid face down on the ground and a guard injected them at the top of the spine. Other guards carried the babies away. When the mothers screamed and protested, they were severely beaten."

Brace yourself and read the rest of this horrifying story at World Net Daily.

Ive been wanting to subscribe to Lexis Nexis for some time now but have been unable to afford it. Lexis Nexis is the world's largest collector of public records and offers numerous client based information gathering services and products. It is, in essence, the ultimate web based research tool.

So, since I still have plenty of Babalu eyes tshirts and Che? Still dead! tshirts available, I thought maybe I could sell enough tshirts to offset to costs of a Lexis Nexis subscription. (I have been contacted a few times by different web advertising services, but I really dont know if I feel comfortable advertising on the blog and prefer to keep it the way it is.)

If you would like to help out, please consider purchasing a Che or Babalu tshirt. Each shirt is only $12 and I pay for the shipping. I have Large and Xlarge available. You can use the PayPal button below or email me if you prefer some other method of payment.

Enrique from the Down with castro blog has dug up a gem of a video.

Click here to see Ed Sullivan interviewing fidel castro.

You'll not only witness the naivetee of one Ed Sullivan or the absolute falsehood of castro's response, but you will hear one fidel castro speaking the evil imperialist English language. That's the same language he refuses to speak publicly, or with dignitaries or politicians or businessmen or even fawning worshippers such as Oliver Stone, Danny Glover, Harry Belafonte, et al.

Without commentary, via Cubanet:

Man's choice: abandon wife or house

HAVANA, Cuba - May 29 (Roberto Santana Rodríguez / www.cubanet.org) - Juan Carlos Linares has run afoul of Cuba's bureaucracy, and as a result has been fined for cohabiting with his wife.

Linares, who owns a house in Old Havana, said he cannot have his wife move in with him because housing authorities do not allow new residents to move into the historic district.

The wife, then, lives in a house in the Diez de Octubre municipality which, incidentally, she has been trying to buy for the last three years. That is to say, she has been processing paperwork for the purchase of the house for the last three years.

The problem, Linares said, is that if he registers as a resident in Diez de Octubre, he would lose the property in Old Havana.

So he lives with his wife in her house, but since he is not registered as a resident in the district, was fined last October 450 pesos, which by now have doubled to 900 since he hasn't paid.

And he won't pay, he said, even though he could be sent to jail for up to a year if he doesn't.

Linares said authorities have suggested to him that he either separate, at least temporarily, from his wife, that he visit her at night, or that he try not to be seen by any neighbors who could denounce his presence in the district.

Babalu Blog has the hiccups. If you tried to comment sometime after yesterday afternoon, you will have gotten a 404 error. We're working on fixing the problem. Hopefully comments will be back up soon.

Update: Just received a response from the folks Verve Hosting - who, incidentally, are awesome as they always respond to any issues or questions I have immediately - and have been told that they disabled the trackbacks and comments becuase of a major spike in comment and trackback spam. We have a few tweaks to make to the system and hopefully they will be back up and running by the end of the day.

If any of you are considering starting yur own blog or just need a great web hostfor your internet page or blog, I highly recommend Verve Hosting. Babalu has been up for three years now on their servers and has never been down or never had any serious issues. Tell them I sent you.

Update II, ten minutes later: Comments and Trackbacks are back up. See? Now what was I saying about Verve Hosting?

Morales will take coca cake to [the bearded beast] for his 80th birthday

La Paz, May 30 (EFE).- Bolivian President Evo Morales said Tuesday that he will take a cake made with coca leaves to his Cuban counterpart, fidel castro, when he visits Havana on Aug. 13, the latter's 80th birthday.

"Since we've been invited, why don't a few of us go to the birthday (celebration) and spend a day with comrade fidel," Morales said in a speech in the town of Escoma to inaugurate the first of 20 rural hospitals financed by Cuba in the Andean country.

"But what can we take him as a present? We could take him a poncho, we could take him a 'chicote,'" a whip with which to herd cattle, Morales said. [interesting]

"The coca growers say, 'Why don't we take a coca cake to fidel?' So, the coca growers will ... go with a coca cake," he continued to the laughter of the crowd.

Evo called castro "our wise grandfather," [barf] and he asked the crowd - most of whom were Aymara Indian peasants - for a round applause for the Cuban leader.

Morales intends to undertake - with Cuban and Venezuelan backing - an international campaign to depenalize the consumption of coca, which in his country has been used for centuries for medicinal, ritualistic and nutritional purposes but which also constitutes the raw material for cocaine.

The medical clinic opened on Tuesday in Escoma, 180 kilometers (112 miles) northeast of La Paz, forms part of the medical cooperation provided to Bolivia by Havana, a program which so far has resulted in the construction of five ophthalmic centers within the framework of Operation Miracle, dedicated to treating cataracts and other vision problems among the Bolivian peasantry.

Some local doctors reject the presence of the roughly 770 Cuban physicians who are providing free medical services in Bolivia, and the former have scheduled a strike for Thursday claiming the Cuban medical personnel are engaging in unfair competition.

Havana is also providing educational aid to the poverty-stricken South American nation, in particular helping with a massive plan to wipe out illiteracy by 2009. EFE rac/bp

***

By the way, as all this clown-show idiocy is going on with Morales, here is a more serious story about the dangerous secret military sitution brewing in Bolivia, as reported by The Washington Times

...when you're young and dumb.

Seventeen year old Huey Freeman knows everything and anything about Che Guevara, fidel castro, la revolucion, etc..etc..

Another vicarious communist, promoting the Cuban revolution from the comforts and freedoms of the evil imperialist US of A, complete with computer, air conditioning, Nintendo and waaaaayyyy too much time on his hands.

Here's a question for you, Huey: Which way are the rafts heading?

Hat tip: Enrique.

I dont usually post any of those funny emails that are always passed around, but my boss just sent me this one and although Ive seen it before, I get a kick out of it every time:

El Cubano no corre: echa un patín.

El Cubano no es infiel: pega los tarros.
El Cubano no se sube: se encarama.
El Cubano no habla mucho: mete tremenda muela.
El Cubano no se enamora: coge tremendo metío.
El Cubano no es pícaro: es candela.
El Cubano no es inteligente: es un filtro.
El Cubano no se emborracha: coge nota, o curda.

El Cubano no es niño: es fiñe.
El Cubano no consigue: resuelve, mete mano, engancha.
El Cubano no es un experto: es un bárbaro, un salvaje, una fiera, un animal.
El Cubano no se baja: se apea.
El Cubano no cae: se destimbala, se despinga, se descojona.

El Cubano no te golpea: te rompe la siquitrilla.
El Cubano no baila: echa un pie.

El Cubano no es haragán: no dispara un chícharo.
El Cubano no piensa: mete moropo.

El Cubano no se equivoca: se enreda.
El Cubano no se muere: canta el manisero, guinda el piojo, estira la pata.
El Cubano no tiene obsesiones: tiene matraquillas quisquillosas.

El Cubano no se enferma: se pone maluco.
El Cubano no pasa hambre: se jama un cable.

El Cubano no es pobre: esta en la fuácata, esta pelao.
El Cubano no esta delgado: es un güin, un esqueleto rumbero.

El Cubano no se vuelve loco: se desconchufla, se le cruzan los cables, le resbala la azotea, les patina el coco.

El Cubano no se cansa: se desguabina, se descuarejeringa, se desmondinga.
El Cubano no ignora a alguien: lo tira a mondongo.

El Cubano no es culto y lector: es una polilla.

El Cubano no dice "toca mal el piano": dice "machaca las teclas".
El Cubano no forma una confusión: forma un arroz con mango.
El Cubano no es ostentoso o pretencioso: se da lija.
El Cubano no conquista a una mujer: liga a una jeba.
El Cubano no dice "come despacio": dice "respira, niño!"
El Cubano no tiene una novia delgada: la novia es un bacalao o un pestillo.

El Cubano no dice "me lo has puesto difícil": dice "me la pusiste en China".
El Cubano no te dice que hiciste algo excepcional: te dice "¡te la comiste!"

Looks like it wasnt just us bloggers that took humbrage with Ana Menendez's tear into the Cuba Nostalgia Convention. I just received the following via email:

Dear Ms. Menendez:

First of all a disclosure: I am a contractor that is employed yearly by the organizers of CubaNostalgia to help set up and dismantle the event.

For some time now I have been reading your column and that has brought me to the inescapable conclusion that you are the typical card-carrying liberal, knocking down everything others do but not offering solutions or alternatives. For sometime I have been tempted to write to you but was never motivated enough to do it until now. Obviously my motivation, this time, has to do with the fact that I know the event CubaNostalgia and its organizers pretty well and have seen its effect on the thousands that go to it every year.

How do you think events get done? Do you think that a little fairy shakes her magic wand and voila! there it is? Events take imagination, creativity, planning, coordination, hard work and MONEY. Where does the money come from? It comes from gate and sponsorship (someone of your leftist persuasion would probably preferred it came as a hand out from the government).

Without the money there would be no event and there would be no seventy-something Cuban reminiscing about his/hers good time in the Tropicana There wouldn't be a sixty-something crying while listening to the song he proposed to his late wife at the Malecon in Havana. Nor a fifty-something, that came from Cuba recently, finding out about the good work that Jorge Mas Canosa did in exile, How about a forty-something, named Fidel, that only knew Castro's version of the Bay of Pigs invasion finding out the "real truth" at the 2506 Brigade stand. As important as all of that is, even more important is the fact that you would not see a thirty-someting Cuban American looking at a map of Santiago de Cuba with his grandmother and looking at the street where his family lived before liberty died in their country; or maybe a twenty-something buying, yes buying-why not?, a guayabera to emulate his beloved father. How about a ten year old kid learning who Antonio Maceo, the one you mention in your article, was through a pamphlet given at the event. Many of those people would also have the opportunity of seen at least the beautiful facade of the Colon cemetery since they did not have the privilege of seeing the real one as you probably have or will eventually.

Other brief points:
-As a reporter, you should get your story straight before you write it; the wheel with prizes was not at the Colon Cemetery and had nothing to do with it (it belonged to a Bank next door). I know, I know, it sounded cute (the Wheel of Fate vs.. The Wheel of Umbrellas and Visors, ha, ha) but you are supposed to be accurate, not cute.

-I agree with you, here we can sell a T-shirt with Che Guevara with a bullet hole in the head. Try that in Cuba and see what happens!

-Since you consider a $12.00 entrance a rip off. You need to ask the Herald for a raise in salary.

-Other than just roam around looking for fodder for your negative article, why did you not approach the organizers and ask them about their motivation to do the event?

-You say you saw people looking delighted or stunned. I guess "it is in the eye of the beholder" for all I, and others who made comments, saw was happy people.

-I imagine you do not think much of the judgment of Cubans and Cuban Americans since you feel the event is grossly offensive and yet attendance is up yearly.

-Before writing of the "Exile Bazaar" you should try and learn the true meaning of exile, what it entails and what emotions an event as CubaNostalgia arouses.

Ms. Menendez, other than write critical articles in the paper, what have you done in your life? Have you ever come up with a bright idea? Have you ever executed that idea? Have you ever been successful in executing the idea? I have yet to see one article you have written where instead of negatively criticizing something or someone, you instead offer solutions to the problem at hand.

I encourage you to continue along the same path, for that attitude of yours is precisely the one that has put the liberal camp in disarray and the reason that the conservative cause has gained so much ground in the last few decades. Please continue writing.

Ouch.

Update: Robert's doing a little Ana Menendez spanking as well at 26th Parallel.

I'll take outer planets for 1000, Alex.

Fasten your seatbelts, ladies and gentlemen. Humberto Fontova takes on the immigration issue, via NewsMax:

Illegals Love Mexico and Che
Humberto Fontova
Tuesday, May 30, 2006

The 62 senators who voted "yea" on last week's immigration bill apparently missed all the May Day marches. Either that or these senators were blind to the marchers' symbols and deaf to the their chants. Describing our legislative magnificoes as "out of touch" misses it.

The mainstream media showed us something akin to a Fourth of July picnic by Okies from Muskogee – but bloggers from Babalu to Michelle Malkin didn't let them get away with it. They pulled a quick end run around the mainstream juggernaut and showed us what was really going on. Thus we saw the Mexican tricolor flapping everywhere. Thus we saw Ernesto "Che" Guevara scowling from countless banners, T-shirts and placards. He appeared as the movement's spiritual leader.

That's just the beginning, read the entire excellent piece here.

AP has finally gotten around to talking to the LEGAL immigrants who play by the rules and wait in line, often for years for a chance to enter the U.S. legally.

Carlos Carbonell is one of these honest people and his wife is stuck down in Hugo Chavez's Venezuela. So while she lives under the near-castroite oppression there, with a clown dictator who every day calls her an escualido and tries to steal her money and lets crime run rampant to terrify her, some Mexican ILLEGAL immigrants are jumping the queue so that they can get a new roof put on the house down in Oaxaca. What's wrong with this picture?

It's totally disgusting. AP can't bring itself to admit what a hellhole Venezuela has become but that's why this story is so important. Mexicans do not suffer the oppression and fear that Venezuelans do. That oppression ought to put them to the front of the line right there. But they aren't. Some (it's not right to say 'all') Mexicans are defacto ahead of them because they are more numerous and less willing to follow the law.

Read the story here.

Hat tip: Lucianne

On Memorial Day we remember those who have fallen to preserve our freedoms. We remember those who fell in Iraq, in Vietnam, Korea, Europe and the Pacific.

But as time marches on we tend to forget those that gave us our freedoms in the first place: American Revolutionaries, who fought British tyranny and gave this grand experiment in democracy a chance. I was fortunate enough to have been born in Philadelphia, the birthplace of our nation. Where the Declaration of Independence was signed, where the Constitution was drafted and signed, the first capital of our country. My school fieldtrips as a child were to the Liberty Bell, Independence Hall and Valley Forge. This instilled me a love for this country and a sense of history that is hard to describe.

Well today, Memorial Day, I finished reading Benning’s War, a novel written by reader and fellow blogger, Jeffrey M. Keenan. Benning's War is historical fiction set in 1780. It’s the tale of Isaac Benning, a veteran of the ongoing Revolutionary War, and his attempts to juggle his responsibilities to his family and his country.

Benning’s War is an enjoyable book and I recommend it highly. I’m glad to see another blogging colleague take the leap and put his work out there. If you are interested in buying Benning’s War it’s available here.

P.S. I'm posting this from Boston, Mass., another important historical Revolutionary city.

It carries a heavy price.

Take some time today to honor those who have fallen in the service to this great nation. Men and women who gave their lives so that you and I may live ours freely. Say a prayer not only for those who made the ultimate sacrifice, but for their loved ones still among us.

I am humbled and ever greatful for those who gave their all so that a 4 year old Cuban child would be able to grow to be a free American man.

IT IS THE SOLDIER

It is the Soldier, not the minister
Who has given us freedom of religion.

It is the Soldier, not the reporter
Who has given us freedom of the press.

It is the Soldier, not the poet
Who has given us freedom of speech.

It is the Soldier, not the campus organizer
Who has given us freedom to protest.

It is the Soldier, not the lawyer
Who has given us the right to a fair trial.

It is the Soldier, not the politician
Who has given us the right to vote.

It is the Soldier who salutes the flag,
Who serves beneath the flag,
And whose coffin is draped by the flag,
Who allows the protester to burn the flag.

If you'd like to sign our open letter for a free Cuba, in support of the embargo and against ENCASA you can read it here. You can "sign" by leaving your name, city and state in the comments section of that post or you can email me.

Ace blogger Tigerhawk went to Guadalajara this month, and asked to be placed in the hotel room fidel castro stayed in awhile back.

The Mexican hotel staff told him they'd yanked the plate off the wall apparently because it was driving traffic away and they no longer had any idea which hotel room the bearded beast had darkened, years ago.

castro: I hope you're reading this, Ozymandias. You're heading for oblivion and it's starting early.

El Confeti brings us this story from the Gleaner in Kingston Jamaica. Hopefully some people will begin to realize that castro's promises are worthless garbage.

LESS THAN a year after the 'Miracle Operation' programme, which allows Jamaicans with serious eye problems to visit Cuba free of charge to receive treatment from that nation's top ophthalmologists, several patients are now suffering from serious complications...

According to Dr. Albert Lue, head of the ophthalmology department at Kingston Public Hospital (KPH), several patients who have received eye surgery in Cuba are experiencing poor visual activity...

He said that in a survey of 60 patients who recently returned to Jamaica, three persons are now visually impaired, while 14 are suffering serious corneal damage.

Any guesses? I know for sure it wasn't Alisa V-R. or Ana M.

Andy Garcia, Cuba & Libertad [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

An e-mail in response to this piece today on the movie The Lost City:

As a freedom loving, che guevara hating, Cuban-American member of the extremist right wing Miami Mafia, I thank you profusely for your accurate review of Andy Garcia's Lost City. I had the privilege of seeing the movie at the University of Miami prior to its release and there wasnt a dry eye in the theater. I came here at the age of four and remembered nothing of the day my family left Cuba. But during the scene where Andy's character is finally leaving, he glances over and sees two young boys being stripped searched by milicianos, I completely lost it. I was one of those boys and had never truly pictured the moment. Mil Gracias

Posted at 12:56 PM

I havent been posting much about the immigration bill that has unfortunately just been passed by the Senate as there are many other, more well informed folks commenting and editorializing on it in the blogosphere already.

I do, however, have to state publicly, here and now, that I am extremely disappointed in our "Republican" Cuban-American Senator from Florida Mel Martinez. He voted "yea" for the amnesty bill, which included a last minute ammendment to said bill which states:

(b) CONSULTATION REQUIREMENT.--Consultations between United States and Mexican authorities at the federal, state, and local levels concerning the construction of additional fencing and related border security structures along the United States-Mexico border shall be undertaken prior to commencing any new construction, in order to solicit the views of affected communities, lessen tensions and foster greater understanding and stronger cooperation on this and other important issues of mutual concern.

Basically, the US government must now ask permission from the Mexican government before it secures our borders. This is the same Mexican government, Senator Martinez, that just deported 57 Cuban refugees seeking freedom from fidel castro's tyranny, the very same tyranny you fled all alone as a child via Pedro Pan. What kind of precedent will this set, Senator?

Not only that, Senator Martinez, the bill was cosponsored by none other than Senator Edward Kennedy, and we all know just how much the Kennedy clan has done for the freedom of Cuba. Not to mention that your "yea" vote allies you with such known castro supporters as Barbara Boxer, Chuck Schumer, Dick Durbin, etal.

You should be ashamed of yourself, first as a Republican, second as an American and third as a Cuban. While the US Coast Guard stops, detains and sends freedom seeking Cubans back to fidel castro, you have signed on to a bill that will allow immigrants, from a Democratic country that holds free elections, enter this country illegally without fear of repercussion and granting them "special" rights. All the while the oppressed in Cuba continue to languish and continue to risk their lives on the off chance that the US Coast Guard does not intercept them at sea as they risk everything to make it to these shores.

And still, not a damed peep from you, Senator Martinez, on the wet foot/dry foot policy. You prefer to grant amnesty to immigranst from a free country as opposed to exiles from a dictatorial state.

I can assure you, Senator, that this Cuban-American Republican will remember this come re-election time.

And here's a quick message to our Cuban-American representatives in the house: We elected you to represent our best interests, keep that, and all the images of Che Guevara during the protests in mind when this immigration bill crosses your desk and vote accordingly.