“Human Zoo” Tourism Sparks International Outrage.

At last, human rights groups have called for a boycott of “human zoo” tourism. The press reports are absolutely shocking, and so are the headlines.

Here are a few quotes from two press reports,  one from The Daily Mail (UK), the other from the Herald Sun (Australia):

“Shame! Human safaris! Tourists treat natives like animals in a zoo!”

“Natives of one of the world's poorest countries are being humiliated on a daily basis - by tourists who pay to go on human safaris and treat them like animals in a zoo. Millions of visitors to this tropical island queue up each day to gawk at the half-naked natives and toss scraps of food at them."

"Human rights campaigners and politicians have condemned a video showing women from this island dancing for tourists reportedly in exchange for food."

"A spokesman for Survival International, which lobbies on behalf of disadvantaged peoples worldwide, said the video showed tourists apparently enjoying "human zoos". "You cannot treat human beings like beasts for the sake of money,” said the spokesman. “Whatever kind of tourism that is, I totally disapprove of that. It should be banned."

"In June last year, Survival International accused hundreds of travel companies – including the Smithsonian and National Geographic – of running "human safari tours" so tourists could see and photograph the natives. The London-based group called for tourists to boycott the island."

"Photojournalist Gethin Chamberlain uncovered the tours, which are not honestly advertised but sold under the pretext of a “cultural exchange.” He joined a tour run by an agency and was told that the tours were 'very popular' with the British, Germans, Spanish, Portuguese, Italians, Dutch, French, Swiss, Belgians, Scandinavians, Canadians, and Americans. “We get some Luxenbourgers too, and Andorrans.”

"Shamefully, many of the tourists go there to have sex with the natives. 'There have even been cases of native women having kids fathered by outsiders – but the babies are not accepted by their families and are sold to foreigners.”

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2084311/Shame-human-safaris-Tourists-pay-jungle-drive-treats-primitive-tribe-like-animals-zoo.html#ixzz1mDZ9Zs5x

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/travel/news/outrage-over-indian-islands-human-zoo-video/story-fn32891l-1226242317881

See it for yourself:

http://www.blippitt.com/human-zoo-on-andaman-islands-sparks-outrage-video/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joevc36AzNA

OH, SORRY IF YOU THOUGHT THE ISLAND WAS CUBA! Excusez-moi s'il vous plaît,

Very few words were changed or omitted from the articles cited above. And the identity of the location was left out.

THE FACTS ARE THE FACTS. TWO DIFFERENT ISLANDS, SAME PROBLEM.

Diane Sawyer just after she hugged and kissed Fidel Castro in 1996.

If you wanna know
If she loves you so
Its in her kiss!
(That's where it is!)

This week the media was flush with stories on the 50th Anniversary of the U.S. “embargo” of Cuba. From the New York Times to USA Today, most are running AP and Reuters stories (from Havana) which begin and end with quotes from “academic experts” deploring the “embargo” as “failed,” “archaic,” “cruel,” “political pandering to Republican Cuban-Americans,” blah, blah.

First off, a totalitarian regime bestowed both Reuters and the AP with press bureaus. There was a day when Americans understood what this implied. For those who’ve forgotten here’s Vicente Botin, who reported for Madrid’s El Pais from Cuba for years. “The Castro regime assigns 20 security agents to follow and monitor every foreign journalist. You practice self–censorship or you’re gone.”

And lucky for those foreign journalists. Because local Cuban journalists don’t get off so easily. They don’t get a discreet little note saying, “Dear foreign journalist, We need to talk. It appears that you have forgotten the code of conduct we so clearly stipulated upon your arrival in Cuba and the agreed-upon subject matters for your reporting. So let us remind you of these two:

1.) The diabolical Yankee blockade of our innocent little nation which makes us the world’s poster child for victims of wanton bullying. 2.) Our munificent and magnificent Health Care and Education, which makes us the world’s beacon of social-consciousness and charity.”

Cuban journalists who side-step the above in order to expose human-rights violation (by a regime that surpassed Stalin’s rate of political torture and jailings) can’t then tuck their tail between their legs, scamper onto a plane and zoom off. They can’t courageously grimace and shake their fists behind them-- after they’re 2000 feet aloft and 500 miles distant from Castro’s KGB-trained police.

Instead, a Cuban journalist who forsakes self-censorship gets grabbed by this KGB-trained police and thrown in a torture-chamber. In fact, according to “Reporters Without Borders” (headquartered in Paris, not Miami) Cuba jails journalists at the highest rate of any nation on earth. Stunningly, the total number of journalists jailed in Cuba (a nation of 11 million) is only slightly behind that of China (a nation of 1.4 billion!)

With this datum in mind let’s revisit what some of America’s swankiest journalist and Media Moguls have to say regarding the world’s top jailer and torturer of journalists:

“Fidel Castro could have been Cuba’s Elvis!” That’s multiple-Peabody and Emmy award- winning Dan Rather. (And yes, CBS has a Havana News Bureau.)

But Diane Sawyer was so overcome in Castro’s presence that she lost control, rushing up, breaking into that toothy smile of hers, wrapping her arms around the Stalinist-mass murderer and smooching him warmly on his bearded cheek.

“You people are the cream of the crop!” beamed the mass-murderer to the beaming throng he’d come within a hair of nuking in 1962.

“Hear, hear!” chirped the beaming guests, while tinkling their wine glasses in honor of the smirking agent of their near vaporization and world leader in jailing and torturing their Cuban counterparts.....

Our friends at Townhall help disseminate many more items items unknown outside our ghetto

Unreal

Is any man's private life a reflection of his character, or of his ability to lead a nation? In the case of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, we Cubans have known for a long time that something was rotten in the Kingdom of Camelot, and that the king himself was rotten to the core. Now we have further proof of this. His betrayal of Brigade 2506 in April of 1961 was no moral hiccup, but simply another manifestation of his congenital inability to discern the difference between right and wrong. New revelations made by Mimi Alford, a former White House intern who became JFK's sex toy, have shocked even the most hardened cynics this week, including some who are die-hard liberals. Yet, even when shocked, the acolytes strain to argue that private sins of the worst sort --even cruelty -- can be excused.

In this New Republic piece by Timothy Noah, we see slicing and dicing worthy of a De Luxe vegamatic. We also get a few of the sordid details:  http://www.tnr.com/blog/timothy-noah/100566/jfk-monster

If you want more sordid details, without excuses, go here: http://thelasttradition.blogspot.com/2012/02/mimi-alford-youve-read-secondhand.html

Warning: these pieces are not suitable for young children or recovering perverts.

Mauricio Claver-Carone in the Miami Herald:

Support Cuba’s dissidents, commissioners

Among Cubans and Cuban Americans, a number of foreign companies have earned a place in the “hall of infamy” for their outright complicity with the Castro dictatorship. These include Spain’s Sol-Melia hotel chain and Canada’s Sherritt mining company for profiting from long years of the Castros’ apartheid brand of tourism and exploitation of Cuba’s natural resources.

However, Brazil’s Odebrecht construction conglomerate is now placing itself in a reprehensible class of its own. Foreign companies that seek to do business in Cuba generally recognize they must choose either to profit from the monopoly of the Castro dictatorship or from Cuban Americans in Florida’s free market.

In the 1990s, Sol-Melia and Sherritt shamefully chose the Castro dictatorship, giving up opportunities in Florida. Odebrecht feels it is duly entitled to both.

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff traveled to Cuba last week to promote the company’s business arrangements with the Castros’ dictatorship. These include enlarging the Port of Mariel, which Raúl Castro considers the single most important project to ensure the economic survival of his regime, and a new 10-year agreement to revitalize the island’s moribund sugar industry. During her trip, Rousseff made a point of shunning Cuban dissidents and even refused opportunities to criticize the Castros’ human-rights record.

Meanwhile, a couple hundred miles to the north, for more than a decade Odebrecht has been seducing Miami-Dade County commissioners, taking in more than $4.8 billion in taxpayer dollars — much of it from Cuban-American victims of its business partners in Havana.

Continue reading HERE.

It is Saturday morning, the last day of CPAC 2012, and yesterday was indeed an interesting day. Returning from a meeting outside the hotel, I came up the escalator of the Metro station located right outside CPAC to find a gaggle of Occupy protestors holding up signs and mindlessly chanting. I could not understand what they were saying, but I was able to glean from one of their signs that I, as an attendee of CPAC, am a bigot, a racist, and I hated gays. This was news to me, but I guess I have to take their word for it; who would know better what I am, me or some unwashed and ignorant kids who have never met me?

Nevertheless, I must thank them for the comic relief. Although my parents always taught me not to laugh at someone else's misfortune, I just could not help myself. Especially when a young racist, bigot, who hates gays posed next to them with his Romney sign.

But it was last evening when it got real interesting. I got into a long conversation with an Occupier who decided to infiltrate the conference. He was wearing a tie and a jacket, which by his own admission, felt like it was burning his flesh. This Occupier, who will remain unnamed, let loose a long string of inanities and ridiculous arguments as to why he and his people were wonderful and why we were all evil. However, when the conversation turned to Iran, his true colors came out. When he complained that we should leave Iran alone and let their government do whatever they want, I asked him about the Green Revolution and the activist in Iran who were killed by this government. This was his response: "I don't give a sh*t about that, they [the Iranian government] can do whatever the f*** they want."

There you have it in a nutshell. It is not the evil that bothers them, it is who is carrying out that evil. For people such as this Occupier, evil from some is acceptable, while evil from others is not.

It the same mindset and ignorance that has plagued the Cuban people for more than five decades. Since Fidel is considered a hero to these people, his evil is not only acceptable, it is good.

De madre

Yes, that's Chuck Norris.

Newt's CPAC speech:

It could happen. We should be making people aware of opposition in China every day.

So now they’re backing down, just an inch. Maybe an inch and a quarter.

But at this point, all one can see is smoke and mirrors.

About an hour ago, the White House announced that it had made an "accommodation" to the new federal mandate that would require all employers –including Catholic hosptitals and social service agencies -- to provide insurance coverage for birth control and abortions. White House spokespeople stressed that this was a mere “accomodation,” and definitely NOT a "compromise."

God forbid they ever compromise. As they see it, no compromise is possible with idiots who are not only stupid but evil.

And that’s the crux of the matter. This policy was set in place because the Obama administration is guided by a certain logic, and according to that logic, anyone who disagrees with their take on anything is not only a moron but mean-spirited, selfish, bigoted, mysoginistic, and perhaps even a crypto-Nazi.

It’s the logic of the left. Each and every one of the tenets they hold dear is not an opinion, but actually a fact, verifiable through empirical science. Disagreeing with their facts is the same as insisting that the earth is flat or that two plus two equals seven and a half. You have to be either really dumb or extremely perverse to insist. Maybe even insane. Or maybe all three, rolled into one nasty package.

It’s the logic of the extremist, whether to the far left or the far right. If I think this way, so must everyone else.

This is why Newsweek could have a banner headline that asks “Why Are Obama’s Critics So Dumb?”

In this case, the logic that was applied to Catholic moral teachings on the sanctity of life is simple enough: anyone opposed to birth control and abortion on religious grounds is no different from an Amish farmer who refuses to put a reflective triangle on the back of his horse-drawn buggy. In both of these cases, a very “peculiar,” “archaic,” or “ridiculous” belief gets in the way of what is eminently reasonable and of benefit to individuals and the community as a whole.

Of course, that kind of logic seems sound. Amish buggies without a reflecting triangle cause highway accidents in which both Amish and non-Amish citizens are hurt.

But the logic does not apply to the case of the recent health care mandate. It’s a category mistake, or in layman’s term, a mixing of apples and oranges. There is one hell of a big difference between an inanimate plastic triangle and a human fetus. And there is also a huge difference between asking someone to comply with the rules of the road when they decide to use the road and forcing someone to pay for something that they consider sinful or wrong.

The left continually denounces all “hegemonic discourse” as evil. To the left, anything imposed by the strong and powerful is an act of violence. This is why “hate speech” is a crime, and why the world we live in needs to be described as “post-colonial.” Our own time is to be defined by the fact that the “hegemony” of white people is not only defunct, but officially identified as a very evil thing. Unfortunately, the left’s “hegemony” is only a one-way street. When they are the ones with all the power, their speech is never “hegemonic” – it’s just the opposite: it’s all about diversity and respect for the dignity of the individual. There is something very Orwellian in this power play: an attempt to foreclose discussion or disagreement through the use of coded language. Newspeak is used for control in many different ways, but no matter how it’s used, it’s always the same. It’s a verbal weapon of mass oppression. Those of us who lived in Castrolandia know all about this, first hand.

So, there you have it: forcing Catholic institutions to pay for abortions is not wrong at all, and neither is it a violation of religious liberty. It’s all about “basic fairness,” as president Obama explained today.

Go tell that to the fetus in the garbage can, or to the faithful Catholic who believes that the fetus, no matter how small, is a human being.

I think we all know who I'd like to see as my candidate in a brokered convention.

Conservatives gathered in Washington this week are increasingly relishing the prospect that the Republican presidential nomination fight will extend for months, and could even lead to a brokered convention in Tampa, Fla., this summer.

Fueled by former Sen. Rick Santorum’s stunning three-state sweep in Tuesday’s three primaries and caucuses, those at the Conservative Political Action Conference — the country’s largest annual gathering of right-leaning activists — said the chances for a stalemate in the delegate count grow with every stumble by former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.

“For the first time in a while, there is actually at this point a reasonable chance that the nomination could come down to a floor fight,” said Jeffrey M. Frederick, former Virginia Republican Party chairman.

The speculation even made it onto the dais at CPAC when Ralph Reed, founder of the Faith & Freedom Coalition, said during a panel discussion that 2012 could make modern political history.

“I would have said that the day of the convention deciding the nomination was over and was settled by the rise of the primary,” Mr. Reed told the audience. “I’m not sure that will be the case in 2012.”

Doesn't mean we have to take the field with the same team.

There was substantial controversy in the conservative blogosphere about Clint Eastwood's ad for Chrysler in which the actor/director claims it's halftime in America. Many feel that it's a not so subliminal endorsement of the Obama administration. Critics of the ad point to the half-time metaphor as a plea for a second term to "win the game." I think there's a degree of hypersensitivity going on here. First of all, one ad in February, no matter how good, is not going to get Obama reelected 10 months from now.

But more importantly, if one examines the ad with a less narrow focus it's not about the present administration, halftime being 4 years into a potential 8 year period. Perhaps it's about being 236 years into a 500 year period. Just yesterday Marco Rubio addressed CPAC and reprised his message from his maiden speech: the 20th Century was undoubtedly the American century and we need to make decisions to ensure that the 21st is an American century as well.

So I'm in total agreement with Newt Gingrich about this Chrysler ad. It is halftime in America and we need to make some strategic adjustments before we continue the game. And that means a new quarterback.

Val and I are having a great time at CPAC 2012 in Washington D.C. We are meeting plenty of wonderful folks and fellow bloggers trying our best to help them understand the miserable situation in Cuba. We are still amazed how many well-meaning people are out there who are not aware of the atrocities that take place in Cuba and have no idea what a threat the Castro dictatorship is to America and our way of life. This is a product, of course, of the MSM's concerted effort to hide the crimes taking place in Cuba and glorify the murderous and criminal Castro government. However, we are happy that so far, we have had a great response and support from everyone we have spoken to.

We would also like to thank our friends who have stood by us and given our cause for a free Cuba unlimited support. These friends include Ed Morrisey, Fausta Wertz. Peter Da Tech Guy, Jimmie at Sundries Shack, and many more.

The Obama administration's latest overreach regarding health care has been the cause of a lot wrenching of hair and gnashing of teeth. At the root of the kerfuffle is the announcement by the administration's Health and Human Services department that employer-sponsored health plans will have to provide birth control with no co-pay. The outrage has centered around the Catholic Church which doctrinally opposes anything but natural birth control. The debate thus far has focused on the religious liberty aspect of the policy. Many are saying this is an infringement on the first amendment of the constitution which guarantees religious liberty.

I'm here to tell you that this issue is not about religious liberty. This is about liberty. Period. Where the hell did the President or the federal government get the power to mandate that ANYTHING must be covered by employer health plans? I would argue that if this new mandate were about bunions instead of contraception it would be every bit as grotesque an abuse of power by the federal government.

The state have always had differing approaches to regulating the health insurance industry. In some states certain basic procedures and tests are mandated to be covered free of charge to the insured person. But now we have blanket mandates coming from Washington DC. Anyone that says that ObamaCare is not a top-down one-size-fits-all federal takeover of the health industry is lying through his teeth or simply doesn't understand the ramifications.

Literally since the day ObamaCare was jammed through the congress with no bipartisan support we've been discovering unsavory aspects of the law. It stinks more today than it did then. Let's not make this a religious liberty issue. It affects every American, not just the minority who think artificial contraception isn't moral. The real question is are we are subjects of this government or is the government subject to us, its citizens?

I guess yelling and screaming does work:

"With the White House under fire for its new rule requiring employers including religious organizations to offer health insurance that fully covers birth control coverage, ABC News has learned that later today the White House — possibly President Obama himself — will likely announce an attempt to accommodate these religious groups."

Raul Castro and Che Guevara availing themselves of state-of-the-art U.S. communications equiptment provided them by CIA operatives in Santiago Cuba, Robert Weicha and Park Wollam (1957-58)

I refer to the tens of thousands of dollars delivered by the CIA's Robert Weicha to the Julio 26 Movement, along with the state of the art communications equipt. that became Radio Rebelde, from where Fidel, Raul and Che broadcast their utterly bogus “guerrilla" victories island-wide, along with their plans to uplift Cuba into a Caribbean Shangri-La inspired by the principles of Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill and Thomas Jefferson.

Furthermore, these CIA operatives working undercover as "U.S. Consuls" in Santiago tried repeatedly to meet with Castro himself to better coordinate their clandestine financial aid. In July 1957 Frank Pais wrote Castro to say that U.S. diplomat (CIA officer Robert Weicha) craved to meet with him. "We do not raise the slightest objection to the U.S. diplomat's visit!" replied an eager Castro. "We can receive any U.S. diplomat here!"

“Me and my staff were all Fidelistas,” Robert Reynolds, CIA’s Caribbean Desk Chief 1957-60)

"Everyone in the CIA and everyone at State were pro-Castro, except ambassador Earl T. Smith. (Robert Weicha, CIA operative in Santiago de Cuba 1957-59)

Robert Hill, then responsible for the US State Department's relations with Congress, told the newly-appointed US Ambassador to Cuba, Earl Smith: "You are assigned to Cuba to preside over the downfall of Batista. The decision has been made that Batista has to go." (Hugh Thomas: p. 165)

So when Cuba "Experts" claim that U.S. officials have a history of plotting with Cuban dissidents to secretly slip money into their palms and plot "regime-change"--THEY'RE RIGHT!

Unreal

Via Fellowship of the Minds: Oh yes, they can. And if you let them, they will...

Via Notes from the Cuban Exile Quarter:

Don't end economic sanctions on Castro regime

The 50th anniversary of the establishment of US sanctions by President John F. Kennedy on the Castro regime in Cuba is an excellent moment to reflect on whether they should be maintained, changed, strengthened or abolished. The argument made below in 2003 holds true today but unfortunately the trade embargo on Cuba for all practical purposes was ended in 2000. Economic sanctions remain but since 2001 there has been over $3.5 billion dollars in trade between American businesses and the Cuban dictatorship. The human rights situation on the island has not improved.

President John F. Kennedy signed a decree broadening trade restrictions with Cuba on February 7, 1962

FLORIDA TODAY

Feb 13, 2003

Don't end embargo on Cuba trade

By John J. Suarez Guest Columnist

There is a tragic sham that harms Americans, but it is not the trade embargo on communist Cuba. Rather, it is the cliche that "to pull down barriers," by ending trade sanctions on a ruthless communist dictatorship and provide it with subsidies would bring political reforms.

The sham seen today in China is proof that such a policy would also be a disaster in Cuba, and only serve multinational interests and Cuba's communist regime.

America normalized relations with Beijing in 1979. The belief then was that normal relations would lead to more human rights and a peaceful transition to democracy. The opposite has been the case.

In the Soviet Union, confrontation and economic isolation led to a relatively peaceful implosion of the regime. In China, the policy of trade and political engagement has led to a thriving economic system under communist control, and modernization and expansion of the military and state security apparatus.

In Cuba today, political opposition is growing, and human-rights abuses although systematic and pervasive have in practice declined in numbers. This is not due to the good will of Fidel Castro's regime, but a lack of resources.

Continue reading HERE.

At least the Castro regime was able to copy something we have correctly: Ecured, the Castro dictatorship's version of Wikipedia, is just as useless and filled with leftist propaganda as our own Wikipedia.

Via AFP:

Cuban 'Wikipedia' includes entry for dissident blogger

HAVANA — Cuba's EcuRed digital encyclopedia, inspired by Wikipedia and operated by the island's Communist Youth, has added an entry for award-winning dissident blogger Yoani Sanchez.

The unusual turn of events in the Communist country, where information is tightly controlled and dissent is barely tolerated, comes with a price: Sanchez, 36, is described as a "cybermercenary."

Sanchez has been speaking her mind on the "Generation Y" blog since 2007 and has long traded barbs with a regime.

The humor of Garrincha:

Translation:

"There he goes reflecting again..."

Looking for some bang-up entertainment? Cuban-American actor, filmaker and defender of freedom, Orestis Matacena has a new film, Two de Force. It's an action packed view of what might be going on behind the officially presented view of US - China relations. The cast includes Luke Steward as President Obama, Jesse Wang as Chinese Chairman, and Patty Kelly as Hillary Clinton.

From the films official website: It is 2012. The US delegation and the Chinese delegation meet in Beijing to discuss the US debt to China and all hell gets lose in a clash between these two super powers.

Enjoy the trailer!

Emilio T. Gonzalez at Univision:

Opinion: Illusions of Cuba clash with reality

The Castro brothers are as bad as ever, but some U.S. politicians and government institutions want to give them a free pass. (Flickr: fotoscubahoy)

Of the four remaining Republican presidential candidates, Ron Paul’s foreign policy views really stand out. His libertarian “we love everybody” mentality is naïve at best and dangerous at worst. His Cuba policy is a perfect example.

Rep. Paul easily dismisses serious threats posed by Cuba’s communist dictatorship, which just hosted a meeting with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

“It’s time to change. The Cold War is over. They’re not going to invade us and I just think that a better relationship and trade relationship,” he said at a recent presidential debate in Florida. “I think the people have changed their mind … I don’t think they see a Jihadist under the bed every night.”

Sadly, he is not alone.

A few weeks ago I received invitations to travel to Cuba by two venerable institutions; the National Geographic Society and the Smithsonian Institution. Both offered friendly “People-to-People” tours in accordance with U.S. Department of the Treasury regulations. One tour even offered to take their participants to the site of the 1961 Bay of Pigs debacle.

Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), Chair of the House Committee on Foreign Relations was outraged and rightfully condemned these trips. Chairman Daniel Lungren (R-Calif.) of the House Committee on Administration promised an investigation to find out why the Smithsonian Institution, a tax-payer funded organization, would schedule tours of a country listed as a state sponsor of terrorism by the Department of State.

But my dilemma clearly served to highlight that after 50-plus years of dictatorial rule in Cuba, some of our more prestigious institutions and politicians continue to see Cuba as something it’s not.

There is nothing that can be said about the Castro dictatorship that they cannot explain away or ignore outright. Somehow, when it comes to Cuba, normal rational and well-educated people tend to give this particular dictatorship a pass. People who are otherwise horrified at what the Kim’s totalitarian rule has done to North Korea or how China has ravaged and occupied Tibet, think that it is trendy to be seen in Castro’s Cuba.

The saddest part about all of this is that few nations in the past 50 years have been as virulently anti-U.S. and anti-democracy as Cuba. The gerontocracy ruling the island today is, with few exceptions, the same people that came to power in January 1959.

Continue reading HERE.