Cuba has been slowly moving towards the west, first Mobile phones, computers and DVD-players. Now they are getting fast Internet access.

Logically the cable would go from Cuba to Florida..but of course that can't be done.

More after the flip

Time for another late-night mickt diary to be ignored.

Ask the average American where his money goes when he fills his tank and he will say "The Middle East".

So what are the facts? Based upon data from the U.S.Energy Information Administration, Keating says the U.S. produces 5.1 million barrels (34%) of crude oil per day while importing 10.1 barrels (66%) per day. The top five countries we import from on a daily basis are:

Canada - 1.8 million barrels
Mexico - 1.6 million barrels
Saudi Arabia - 1.4 million barrels
Venezuela - 1.1 million barrels
Nigeria - 1.0 million barrels

unreliable source because it doesn't fit the mainstream narrative

Doesn't this, from an article about Cuban doctors serving abroad, say it all about the opposition to Hugo Chavez in Venezuela?

"If it weren't for the Cubans, I don't know what I'd do," said Sosnelly Zarraga, a 23-year-old cosmetics saleswoman, who was waiting for a free blood test outside a diagnostic center in Petare, one of Caracas' poorest and most violence-ridden areas. "I'd have to pay a week's salary to get the same service."

That is precisely the kind of reaction that irks Milos Alcalay, a former Venezuelan ambassador to the United States and a critic of Chávez and of the Cuban presence in his country. "The gift'' of the Cuban help to Venezuelans, he said, can only be compared to a Trojan horse.

"Behind the facade of humanitarian help comes ideology," Alcalay said. "The fact that they are here is in itself political. These doctors have become Cuba's new soldiers, like the ones who went to Angola 30 years ago, but bullets no longer work. If Cuba were to send us soldiers, Venezuelans would recoil. But who is going to refuse a doctor?"

Mr. Peter Brookes do you really expect us to believe your propaganda? Your article in newspaper titled "Hugo's Arms Spree" is worst than George Bush approval ratings.  I hope this message gets to your peterbrookes@heritage.org website. In fact I hope this message gets across to all the news media who report on Hugo Chavez. Mr. Heritage Foundation senior fellow Peter Brookes, the former deputy assistant secretary of defense. Please sir next time take you write an article at least pretend that your a smart individual.

Just this week, my news filters started picking up what increasingly appears to be a disinformation campaign aimed at "poisoning the well" in Latin America:

* "DEA Reports Show That Mexican Cartel 'Thugs' Are Receiving Training From Iranian Revolutionary Guard"

* "Mexican Drug Cartels and Islamic Radicals Working Together"

* "The Caracas-Tehran Axes"

Something is up. They are cranking up the propaganda machine, perhaps in preparation for a future deployment of U.S. forces in Mexico, Colombia and/or Paraguay. For now, their intention seems to be to threaten and to terrorize. Imagine that.

Greetings everyone.  I write this diary entry from sunny Caracas, Venezuela.  I am here for a week to attend the wedding of my cousin this afternoon and have been spending quality time with the half of my family that I rarely see, largely thanks to the distance and expense associated with making the trip.  I thought I would share a very interesting conversation I had with my uncle as he was driving us to the Teleferico, an amazing cable car that takes you up into the mountains for a stunning view of the city...

fake news from www.richieville.com

Oil Countries Deadlocked
Should They Be Obscenely Wealthy Or Just Filthy Rich?

Richieville News Service - JIDDA, SAUDI ARABIA
Hopes for a breakthrough that would halt soaring energy prices were dashed today when oil exporters meeting here could not agree on exactly how stinking rich they should be. The emergency global energy summit ended without a hoped-for agreement to increase oil production. Instead, the representatives remained deadlocked, split between those who said that rolling in dough was sufficient for them at this time and others who maintained that they needed more money than they knew what to do with.

Austalia's "The Age" (The Age, June 9, 2008)  published an article this morning which reports that Venezuela's President, Hugo Chavez, has called on Colombia's FARC, a guerilla group which has fought the official Colombian government for 40 years, to release its more than 750 hostages and disband.

Sunday, he bluntly said what will no doubt leave many of his opponents stunned, calling into question the FARC's existence: "This far along in Latin America, an armed guerrilla movement is out of step, and that has to be said to the FARC."
And Chavez slammed the rebels, saying their insurgency was giving the United States the excuse to make of  terrorism in Latin America.

The media is doing it again. This time, ABC has published inaccurate information about Obama's stances on the issue of Iran, making it look like he had changed stands on the issue when he had not. This, from the same media that lied to us about the evidence during the leadup to war. This, from the same media that brought us Judith Miller. This, from the same network that gave us right-wing propaganda under the guise of a debate. This, from the same network that has obvious conflicts of interest.

UNASUR, is an acronym that I believe we will all need to know very well in the coming years.

Friday was a monumental day in the History of the Western Hemisphere, and there was all but a complete blackout in the corporate media about this:

South American Nations Form New Regional Grouping: UNASUR

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez described UNASUR as the culmination of the region’s search for unity since South American independence two centuries ago. "Only in unity will we later have, progressively, complete political, economic, cultural, scientific, technological, and military independence," Chávez commented.

Luis Posada Carriles, an admitted terrorist wanted for crimes in Latin America, had a nice dinner the other night.

...the man being honored by 500 fellow Cuban Americans at a sold-out gala was Luis Posada Carriles, the former CIA operative wanted in Venezuela on terrorism charges and under a deportation order for illegally entering the United States three years ago.

Posada Carriles should be behind bars right now.  He's an international terrorist who was trained and financed by the US government.  He was the ringleader in the bombing of a Cuban airliner that killed 73 people, has bombed hotels in Havana and abroad, tried to assassinate Castro, all with the full knowledge of the CIA.  But he's not only free, but feted as a hero.

If you read the Washington Post as religiously as I do, you probably have a pretty good grasp of the taxonomy of Latin American leaders.

I know Hugo Chavez is a controversial topic even on sites like Daily Kos, but I see the two sides going at it as unequal.  One side repeats only unsubstantiated talking points, innuendo, and rumors.  The other side has been studying the situation for a long time, and has a deep and comprehensive understanding of the Venezuelan situation.  This article, and the link within it to the Center for Economic and Policy Research, should give people a basic understanding of the Venezuelan economy in the last 10 years, and give a proper context to the lies being spread about Venezuela and it's popular president, Hugo Chavez.

While the U.S. Congress is holding hearings yet again, scoring points at the expense of oil company executives while doing nothing, somebody's actually doing something about it:

...Iran was preparing the world for an emerging stable energy supplier, making new relationships, strategic trading partners and restructuring the Middle East via its influence in Iraq. All the meanwhile defying the US and its imperialistic ambitions.

After 9/11, the Bush administration got a tremendous opportunity to not only unify the country around a common cause of fighting terrorism, but to unify the world against radical Islam. 9/11 made the world aware of the possible ramifications of having a brutal regime like Taliban in unstable places of the world. Instead, Bush-Cheney administration squandered that opportunity and instead chose to bully the world into its national cause. It chose to do so by following the Neo-Conservative dream of finally invading Iraq, creating a client state and securing energy resources for another several decades. During this time, the moderate Iranian government headed by Khatami offered the US help in Afghanistan. More importantly, it indicated its willingness to engage US diplomatically for the first time since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. The Bush-Cheney administration again chose to ignore that diplomatic gesture hoping that it would get even more concessions under its newly announced Grand Strategy.

According to a report appearing at the website of El Espectador (an independent newspaper in Colombia), [about]an investigation by officers of the Ecuadorian air force, 10 high-technology bombs did the job in the attack to the FARC encampment on March 1st, 2008.  None of the bombs used can be carried by Colombian planes.  For the sake of providing this information to this website’s readers, following is my translation of the report (found at http://www.elespectador.com/...    ), and the Spanish text (with misspellings included).  Apologies are offered beforehand for any defects in the use of the English language.

[Updated to add [about] above]
[Updated to take out Spanish language text, since it is available via link.]

As a native of Maracaibo in Venezuela, close to the border with Colombia, I watched in much distress as tanks and the threat of war showed their face in our peace-loving land.  I will avoid the politics behind it all.  My interest is sharing my joy at what happened after the war machinery rolled away, and a heeeeoooooge concert for peace took place, starred by some of the greatest in Ibero-American music.

MIL GRACIAS A JUANES, RICARDO MONTANER, JUAN FERNANDO VELAZCO, CARLOS VIVES, JUAN LUIS GUERRA, ALEJANDRO SANZ Y MIGUEL BOSE

Blessed by the peacemakers.

I hope you enjoy this as I did.

Get out the popcorn and watch John Pilger's excellent documentary on the real American agenda in the Third World. Spreading democracy? Hardly. Try propping up murderers, dictators and rightwing terrorists so we can loot the resources of poor countries.