Starting the New Year Right.

In the spirit of tidying up odds and ends, thought I'd put together a few articles I've been holding.

Can't make this stuff up. Since he has nothing better to do and apparently no intellect to do it with, Jude Law is spending the holidays in Cuba. Well, seems his room at the Nacional is inhabited by the ghost of old blue eyes himself. Personally, with all the venues he has to choose from, I can't see why Frankie would choose to haunt his old room, instead of, say, Vegas, or even Hoboken. The more likely explanation is that some enterprising Cuban was rifling through the fridge in Law's room. Read the article

You know it's gotta be bad. Even the ministry of disinformation has had to admit that Cuba's growth rate didn't hit the much touted forecast of 10% growth in the economy this year. According to the regime, the actual rate was 7.5%, that's including the fudging the regime does by including their valuations of social services like health care. Aspirin, anyone? In any case, whatever figure they pull out of their fidel caps is irrelevant to the populace which has seen no benefit from the phantom "growth" of the last few years. Article here.

Round up the usual suspects. Wayne Smith is at it again. In his latest opus, Cuba "changes" and the US "stagnates." He bolsters his assertions with the sagacious, oft quoted statement by Larry Wilkerson labeling our Cuba stance "the dumbest policy on the face of the earth." But Smith takes heart in the wishful thinking that Miami is "evolving," apparently young Cuban Americans, we are to believe, are clandestine Democrats.

I really have to wonder what fuels these types. If they cared about the Cuban people, they would be denouncing their oppression by the Havana Mafia with at least half as much vigor as they devote to that latest species of bogeyman, the Miami Cuban. If their concern is the good of the United States, they are defining that objective as allowing governments to seize American assets with impunity, upholding the right of Americans to vacation cheaply in a slave state, "trading" with a government that has not moved an iota from its virulent Anti-American stance in a half a century, and in the process bolster a moribund dictator and a totalitarian state in its death throes.

Can anyone be this deluded, I have to ask myself? Is it possible, or is it more sinister? I don't know. I do not question that some may have differing opinions, but every point on which he builds his arguments is either false or a misrepresentation. Cuba has not "changed," except in so much as Raul is the nominal head of the government. And all of those discussions have resulted in what? Where was he on December 10, when the regime showed its true face?

Read it yourself. I'm not linking to this piece of trash. It's at Worldpress.org.