The Lasso of Truth

Snow Day!

It took me an hour and a half to drive the 20kms to work this morning.  My ass hurts, my temper is frayed and I have a slew of work to catch up on...but this still made me laugh this morning:

How do you like your cheap vacation now?

Canadians just love their cheap Cuban vacations but every silly sucker with a mind to save a few bucks on some sun and sand has to ask themselves, how much is my freedom worth..?

“It’s just been an absolute nightmare,” Danette said..

Two days after arriving in the impoverished country, a popular holiday choice among Canadians, the mother and son decided to rent a car and head to the city of Canaguey.

Danette’s cousin, who tagged along on the vacation, and his Cuban fiance were also in the Hyundai Accent, driven by Cody.

Just 40 minutes into their trip, Danette said they were travelling through an intersection, which had no stop signal or traffic light, when a large truck “broadsided” their vehicle.

All four occupants of the Hyundai were badly banged up and had to be driven to hospital by locals, Danette said.

Cody and his mom were released two days later, but Danette is certain her son would have been hospitalized longer back home. The cousin spent one day in hospital and his fiance, who needed surgery to repair her liver, was released after a week.

“She’s fine now though,” Danette said.

But the LeCompte family’s troubles were just beginning.

After the accident, they learned about a “bizarre” Cuban law that dictates any accident resulting in death or injury is treated as a crime and the onus is on the driver to prove innocence.

“You’re guilty until proven innocent,” Danette said, adding Cody hasn’t been charged with anything.

Their travel agent, a Sunwing representative advised them Cody was not allowed to leave the country. Three months later, Cody still doesn’t have a court date and he has no idea when one will be set.

I suppose the denial of basic rights and unjust imprisonment is just fine -- for Cubans.  As long as the Margaritas keep coming to your lounge chair.

Let's just hope little Cody didn't have a copy of Harry Potter in his suitcase.

A look into the Obamacare crystal ball

[The] healthcare system is unable to provide sterilized needles, clean water, food and medicine, and patients are forced to undergo agonizing surgery without anesthesia

Thankfully, not the socialized medicine offered in the US and Canada...yet...

"I was screaming so much from the pain, I thought I was going to die. They had tied my hands and legs to prevent me from moving," said a 56-year-old woman from Musan who had an appendectomy performed without anesthesia.

In keeping with its socialist ideology, North Korea once boasted of providing free, universal healthcare with a network of more than 44,000 general practitioners who would even make house calls. Although hospitalization remains free, the facilities are unsanitary and have no food, bandages or medicine.

We used to be closer to the precipice, up here on the north end of the border, but you Americans (ambitious as ever!) are careening past us at lightning speed.

Dragging the 21st century into the 3rd world

Hugo Chavez finally admits he's a Twit...

A close aide to Chavez, Public Works Minister Diosdado Cabello, announced a Twitter account had been set up for the president.

But the designation doesn't come without it's challenges...

Hugo Chavez is starting to use Twitter to counter his opponents online, forcing a president who often talks for hours to sum up each thought in 140 characters or less.

And here, I thought everything he says could be summed up as "blah, blah, blah".  That fits.

Hitler fancied himself an artist

Obama pretends to the Messiah role, and Qaddafi thinks he's the next H.G. Wells...

Of course, what most people really want to know about the Libyan leader is whether he’s a complete loon… and reading Escape to Hell does tend to confirm the widespread suspicion that Qaddafi isn’t playing with a full deck. His writing has a rambling, stream-of-consciousness flavor reminiscent of Chairman Mao’s less coherent essays, suggesting that dictators are often edited with a very light hand. Combine this with his excursions into surrealism and frequent recourse to the high-ironic stance, and it’s often difficult to make head or tail of his work.

Not in the good graces, it seems

A story that makes even this staunch atheist wonder if there isn't really a God...

The El Niño weather phenomenon appears to be taking sides as it parches leftist-ruled parts of South America and brings bounty to US farmers and corporations. One of the severest droughts in decades has given Venezuela's socialist president a political nightmare as hydro-electrical power dribbles to a standstill, unleashing blackouts, rationing and protests.

[..]

The crisis has extended to Paraguay, where another leftist leader, Fernando Lugo, ordered the presidential palace lights switched off. In Argentina and Brazil – also with leftist governments – torrential rain and high temperatures have blighted crops with insect and fungi attacks.

A suspicious soul could ask whether El Niño, a Pacific weather system that influences climate worldwide, is on Washington's payroll. Monsanto and Dow Chemical are enjoying booming pesticide and fungicide sales in Argentina as farmers battle to save soy harvests. But in the US Midwest, farmers expect record corn and soy crops.

...and if he doesn't have a really keen sense of humor.

h/t

"Your paradise. Their prison."

I was 20 years old, driving home from some night club and passed a billboard shouting these words out from an idyllic beach scene.  Cuba was the subject, and at the time I knew and cared nothing about the political and social ramifications of what most Canadians consider as nothing more than a cheap vacation.

That billboard propelled me to learn enough to know better.

Sadly, most Canadians’ attitudes towards the world’s most accepted dictatorship haven’t changed...

In Raul's Cuba, as in Fidel's, dissent remains punishable by indefinite imprisonment, unemployment is considered antisocial and the government can lock away anyone a summary trial finds guilty of "dangerousness," a legal catch-all.

Once incarcerated, political prisoners are denied medical care, family visits and legal aid. Solitary confinement is a common and seemingly arbitrary form of discipline.

It's an old hobby horse of mine.  In light of Barack Obama's calls to lift sanctions on the island prison, it seems I'll be riding this one for years to come.

But who let him speak, anyway?

It's nice to see my country grow a pair, for a change...

Diplomats from Canada, the United States and many other countries walked out of United Nations General Assembly Wednesday to protest a blistering speech by Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that included scathing verbal attacks on Israel and the West.

"There is no way I am going to permit any official of the government of Canada to be present and give any legitimacy to remarks by a leader like that," Prime Minister Stephen Harper said earlier in Oakville, Ont.

[..]

He said Canada believes Ahmadinejad's abuse of human rights, detention of innocent people and "disgraceful, insulting" declarations about Israel and the Holocaust should be protested.

"President Ahmadinejad has said things, particularly about the state of Israel, the Jewish people and the Holocaust, that are absolutely repugnant," Harper said.

"It is unfitting that somebody like that would be giving those kinds of remarks before the United Nations General Assembly. . . .

"There are times when things are being said in this world that it is important that countries that have a moral compass stand up, make their views known and our absence there will speak volumes about how Canada feels about the declarations of President Ahmadinejad."

Rewriting Webster

In the dictionary:

ol⋅i⋅gar⋅chy  

1. a form of government in which all power is vested in a few persons or in a dominant class or clique; government by the few.

2. a state or organization so ruled.

3. the persons or class so ruling.

In socialist Venezuela:

1. Buy your own damn food and medical treatments...if you can find them.

The right man for the job

The world is just chock full of little ironies.

For example:  The lunatic currently squatting over North Korea is proliferating weapons and threatening to launch a missile attack on Hawaii, and who does the Great Obamanator send in to rough him up a bit..?

The USS John McCain, a navy destroyer, will intercept the ship Kang Nam as soon as it leaves the vicinity off the coast of China

Your right to let her speak

Handily referred to as “Big Sister” by a follow-up caller to the show, Jennifer Lynch, Chief Heavy at the Canadian Commission for Intentional Irony was on the radio with John Oakley this morning, and peppered among the litany of boilerplate rhetoric and token grievance politispeak, were plenty of awkward pauses and the occasional admonishment to the host for using “criminal language” to describe what her agency does.

Apparently the selective persecution of speech in this country, which compels victims to testify in their defense, provide evidence as ordered by the “tribunal” and submit themselves to fines and restrictions on their freedom of speech and choice, is, insofar as the Lynchmob is concerned, not akin to criminal prosecution.  I have to concede she is correct on that point, if only because at least with a criminal prosecution you have the right to defend yourself in a venue with a standard set of procedures and precedent, as well as a hope in hell of winning – something which cannot be said about the HRCs in this country.

Totally not free speech related, but interesting to note was the fact that I could almost envision J-Ly making the “quotes” action over the words “tragic events” of 9/11.

My advice to Queen Jackboot…if you’re reading from prepared notes, you shouldn’t sound like you are and when you reach the mucky, stench-filled bottom of a very deep hole, you shouldn’t keep digging.

Das Kapital: The Musical

You think I'm joking.

For realism, they may want to consider including a score of music made from the wailing and moaning of abject misery...

A Chinese director is planning to stage a musical based on the founding text of communism, Karl Marx's Das Kapital.

The plot will revolve around a group of office employees who find out they are being exploited by their boss

There will be singing and dancing in this stage version of the classic communist treatise, which is due to open in Shanghai next year.

"We will bring [Marx's] economic theories to life in a trendy, interesting and educational play, which will be fun to watch,"

From the dirt of his shallow and well-deserved grave...

Watchoo talkin' 'bout Willis..?!

Fidel Castro says President Barack Obama "misinterpreted" his brother Raul's remarks regarding the United States and bristled at the suggestion that Cuba should free political prisoners or cut taxes on dollars people send to the island.

[..]

The former president appeared to be throwing a dose of cold water on growing expectations for improved bilateral relations -- suggesting Obama had no right to dare suggest that Cuba make even small concessions. He also seemed to suggest too much was being made of Raul's comments about discussing "everything" with U.S. authorities.

And one for the rank hypocrisy file...

The ex-president has previously expressed admiration for Obama, but this time he blasted the new U.S. president for showing signs of "superficiality," and called on him to wait no longer before lifting the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba.

"We are living in a new era. Changes are unavoidable. Leaders just pass through; peoples prevail," Castro wrote.

I've been waiting for this one to "pass through" for almost 50 years.  Like chronic constipation, nothing seems to loosen the stool.

h/t

When your opponents disagree with you...

Just have them arrested on trumped up charges...

The Venezuelan government has called for the arrest of a key opposition leader on charges of corruption.

Manuel Rosales, who is mayor of the country's second city, Maracaibo, has said the charges against him are politically motivated.

The move comes just days after President Hugo Chavez sent troops to two major ports, including Maracaibo, in states run by the opposition.

Mr Rosales ran against Mr Chavez in the last presidential election in 2005.

Nothing but pure genius

You all thought it was a flub, but no...it was an expertly crafted diversion to distract from tougher questions...

I didn’t hear you mention the name of Roxana Saberi, the American journalist who was arrested in Tehran on trumped-up charges in January and still languishes in Evin prison, in your appeal to Iran last night. Or did I just miss it among all the words of poetic conciliation?

Because he's too busy asking them for a do-over.

The only good thing to come out of 9/11

...was 19 dead Muslims.

And that, my dear friends, is enough to qualify me as an international criminal...

But Islam affirms itself as the last and final revelation of God's word, the consummation of all the mere glimpses of the truth vouchsafed to all the foregoing faiths, available by way of the unimprovable, immaculate text of "the recitation," or Quran.

Though it is written tongue-in-cheek in the language of human rights and of opposition to discrimination, the nonbinding U.N. Resolution 62/154, on "Combating defamation of religions," actually seeks to extend protection not to humans but to opinions and to ideas, granting only the latter immunity from being "offended."

...

For example, Paragraph 5 "expresses its deep concern that Islam is frequently and wrongly associated with human rights violations and terrorism," while Paragraph 6 "[n]otes with deep concern the intensification of the campaign of defamation of religions and the ethnic and religious profiling of Muslim minorities in the aftermath of the tragic events of 11 September 2001."

You see how the trick is pulled? In the same weeks that this resolution comes up for its annual renewal at the United Nations, its chief sponsor-government (Pakistan) makes an agreement with the local Taliban to close girls' schools in the Swat Valley region (a mere 100 miles or so from the capital in Islamabad) and subject the inhabitants to Sharia law. This capitulation comes in direct response to a campaign of horrific violence and intimidation, including public beheadings. Yet the religion of those who carry out this campaign is not to be mentioned, lest it "associate" the faith with human rights violations or terrorism.

Vive la revolucion!

Benico del Toro channels a petulant, tantrum-wielding child when confronted by the grim reality that his romantic revolutionary hero was nothing more than a hate-filled, opportunistic, bloodthirsty murderer...

Guevara was instrumental in the creation of Cuba's forced labor camps, which were used to imprison and extract work from those who had committed no crimes but were thought to be insufficiently revolutionary.

The policy of extrajudicial imprisonment that Guevara favored would later expand to include political activists of all stripes, musicians, artists, homosexuals and others deemed to be dangerous to the maintenance of the Stalinist regime. (Librarians - WW.)

[..]

Critics of "Che" have suggested that the film whitewashes its protagonist's legacy and that it's impossible to understand the man by glorifying his more romantic aspects while ignoring his darker side.

"We can't cover it all," Mr. del Toro said. "You can make your own movie. You know? You can make your own movie. And let's see. Do the research."

Mr. Valladares is afraid that Mr. del Toro and Mr. Soderbergh's film will make people forget the reality that was Che Guevara's life.

"Benicio del Toro is just one of the many accomplices of the Cuban tyranny," he said. "All the murderers of people have had accomplices and people who made excuses for them. Stalin had them, Hitler had them, Pinochet had them, all the dictators have had apologists for them. Che Guevara and Fidel Castro also had them."

I guess that's the beauty of Hollywood, where everything has a do-over and life can be as good as the film editor cuts it -- you're not troubled by the grotesque details of reality and the most contemptible creatures catch the light of virtue, courtesy of selective willful ignorance and a key grip.

Governing by seance

The BBC channels the dead...

Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro has urged his country's leadership not to be disturbed by his illness or his eventual death.

In his second online article in two days, Mr Castro again praised new US President Barack Obama.

But he added that he did not expect to be following world events by the end of Mr Obama's first term in four years.

There has been much speculation on the health of the 82-year-old, who had not written a column for five weeks.

And more every day, Castro begins to resemble Norman Bates' mother.

Our favorite revolutionary murderer

Via David Thompson, poignant words on a long-standing thorn in my side...

I wish that Mr. Soderbergh and Mr. Del Toro could live in Cuba, not as the pampered VIPs that they are when they visit today, but as Cubans do, with no United States Constitutional rights, with ration cards entitling them to tiny portions of provisions that the stores don’t even stock anyway, with chivatos surveilling them constantly. How long would it be before Mr. Soderbergh started sizing up inner tubes, speculating on the durability and buoyancy of them, asking himself, could I make the crossing on that? How long before Mr. Del Toro started gazing soulfully at divorced or widowed tourist women, hoping to seduce and marry one of them and get out? Only then could they see why this insipid, frivolous and pretentious movie they have made is nothing less than an insult to millions of people, who really do live like that, and who’ve lived like that their entire lives.

Maybe then, they could put their considerable talents into making a Cuba movie worth watching.
The world so needs to take off those dumb Che t-shirts, and grow up. We face serious problems, and totalitarianism isn’t a solution to any of them, even when it’s dressed up in a beret and given a wispy beard, flowing locks and a surly stare, and looks really, really cool.

Where librarians go to jail for stocking Harry Potter...

Via Paul Tuns, this article on the spoiled rotten western teenager's favorite revolutionary accessory...

There have been some 16,000 such executions since the Castro brothers, Guevara and their merry men swept into Havana in January 1959. About 100,000 Cubans who have fallen foul of the regime have been jailed. Two million others have succeeded in escaping Castro's socialist paradise, while an estimated 30,000 have died in the attempt.

Which leads me to the nagging question that none of the Cuba-apologists I've met, have thus far been able to answer...if Communist/Socialist Cuba is the prosperous, happy-go-lucky paradise it is purported to be, why do so many thousands risk shark infested waters and death in order to leave it?

Hello pot...

meet kettle...

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and a top UN official urged industrialised nations Friday to alter their lifestyles and not let the global financial crisis hamper climate change efforts.

Industrialised nations should also help developing countries respond to climate change, Wen said at the opening of a two-day international meeting on global warming in Beijing.

"The developed countries have a responsibility and an obligation to respond to global climate change by altering their unsustainable way of life,"

I say we start by ending our over-bearing reliance on poisonous, defective Chinese products.

Strange bedfellows.

The Pinkos get an audience with the head of a state that hangs gay men in the street and still advocates the stoning of women...

The meeting, which took place in a cordial and positive atmosphere, was considered a great breakthrough.
“It’s rare for a head of state to take time during an official U.N. visit to meet with the peace community, especially in a situation where the host government—represented by the Bush administration—is so hostile,” said Evans, co-founder of CODEPINK. “The fact that the meeting took place and was so positive is, in itself, a major step forward.”

h/t

North Korea in pictures

Even the pictures one is permitted to take, tell a story...

In the Grand People's Study House in Pyongyang, in the library, officials reckon there is room for 30 million books to be stored... but only a couple of thousand books are available. I asked for a book in french. The girl gave me a book called “Guide des stations thermales et climatiques de Roumanie” dating back from 1980, a guidebook about the spas in Rumania...
The North Korean people can access a CD library and hear the recordings on big ghetto blasters. The choice of CDs is not massive.
The man on the picture was listening to the latest Beatles record. You can also listen to the radio, but only the national one, because the tuner is blocked on the frequency...
You can listen to the radio, or watch TV too but only the national channel because the tuner is also blocked on the local frequency... On the left: you can watch TV. The local channels. Or some propaganda DVDs. !

A stunning gallery with insightful commentary.  A brief glimpse into a reclusive world.

Old enemies and new war

More often than not, regional conflicts between old enemies involve so many menial complexities and subjective cultural influences that it makes them difficult to understand and follow.  For this reason, I'd rather defer the analysis to those who have more time and more interest than I, and that usually ends up being Rick Moran...

Russia has Georgia by the short hairs and can thumb its nose at the international community. Putin will prove the impotence of the United Nations once again (as if it matters to the legions of idiot enablers who still think the UN a place where grown ups solve the world’s problems) and, if he really wants to stick it to us, will engineer the overthrow of the pro western, pro-American Saakashvili and replace him with a toady. That would be as big a humiliation for the United States as was ever planned by the American left in Iraq.

Think of it; our closest and most valued ally in a region of the world that not only is strategically vital due to its oil and gas reserves but also serves as the backdoor to the Persian Gulf and Iran being summarily dismissed by Putin as if he were a grocery store clerk caught stealing a candy bar. What enormous satisfaction for Putin who has been chafing at the bit to assert Russian dominance in the region once again. Watching our impotent response to events in Georgia are other states in the Caucasus as well including the Ukraine which has its own issues with Moscow and could very well be next on Putin’s list.

...Who is not optimistic but I believe his assessment to be sound and reasonable by my amateur reasoning.

One thing is certain...Russia picked a good fight and a good time to wage it.  When -not if - they win, the decrepit old communist block and the hubristic KGB'er in charge will be licking their chops for more spoils, and they will have no reason to believe anyone will be willing or able to thwart them in those ambitions.

Toon tip to Townhall

Turning a blind eye to brutality

I've heard plenty of people get ticked off at those of us who support a consumer boycott of the Beijing Olympics.

"Why take it out on the athletes?", they say.  "These poor folks have been training their whole lives.  It's not their fault where the IOC chose to hold the games..." ad nauseum.

To which I can only say...

Any person who would devote their life's work and energy to the goal of Olympic greatness, deserves to have that accomplishment recognized on the world stage as a celebration of the height of their ability.  As such, to the man, they should all be outraged and incensed that their life's accomplishments have been denigrated and cheapened by the choice of this much-bloodied stage, for the celebration of their ascendancy.

Any athlete who values the freedom which affords them the ability to participate and succeed in this forum, should understand that to those who do not share their fortunate turn of geography, have been forced into silence in order to make this little vanity exercise at self-aggrandizement more palatable to the global public.

The stage where they accept their medals, celebrating their personal achievements, was built on the backs and graves of murdered dissidents, tortured peasants, the poor and truly oppressed.

I will not celebrate their ignorance of the suffering being inflicted on their unfortunate hosts.  Shame on every last one of them who thinks I should.

Good luck at the games.  I won't be watching.