Transterrestrial Musings

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"In a few months, we'll have him back with us," Retamar said.

How much do Cuban taxidermists charge, to stuff a wild bore?

Posted by Steve at August 7, 2006 03:29 PM

I don't think that it's very good advice for the US to just ignore Cuba. Nonetheless the White House will mostly follow it, because they have their hands full in Iraq. It's going to be Iraq, Iraq, and Iraq until January 2009 at the earliest. Some people even say that it's a world war, just a very strange one where 80% of the Allied response is in one country.

Is it unlibertarian to intervene in Cuba? Technically yes, but with the $300 billion fiasco in Iraq in the background, only a purist could level that criticism. Compared to a three-week orgy with 10 prostitutes of both sexes, a copy of Playboy is downright chaste!

Posted by Mike Johnson at August 7, 2006 03:48 PM

Some people even say that it's a world war, just a very strange one where 80% of the Allied response is in one country.

Mike, this is as cockeyed a view as I've heard. Are you saying 80% of all allied military, boots on the ground, is going to and from Iraq? Or that 80% of allied military spending is going to Iraq?

Facts and figures welcomed, rhetoric, not so much.

Posted by Steve at August 7, 2006 04:28 PM

Well, given the relative absence of force in South America, sub-saharan Africa, Australia, or Antarctica, clearly the term "world war" hardly applies to World War II, either.

And in the so-called "World War I," few, if any, resources were applied to North or South America, or anywhere on the Pacific littoral, and mighty little in Africa. So, really, rather than calling it "World War I," I'd guess that some would prefer to call it "the really big European war."

Posted by Lurking Observer at August 7, 2006 04:42 PM

Typical Leftist thinking, applying so-called affirmative action and quotas to warfare, instead of going where the enemy is. (Also typical, trying to divert the topic to something else.)

Isn't taxidermy what they did to Lenin and Mao?

I'm just hoping the evil bastard in Cuba has the stamina to outlast Franciso Franco.

(The Allies did grab Germany's possesions in Africa and the Pacific, and take on the Ottoman Empire, leaving us with a mess still to cleaned up a century later.)

Posted by Raoul Ortega at August 7, 2006 04:48 PM

Are you saying 80% of all allied military, boots on the ground, is going to and from Iraq?

If you count actual combat "boots", yes, that's correct. About 80% of this "world" war is in Iraq. As it has been for three years.

I guess instead of "World War IV", you could call it "World War in Iraq".

Posted by Mike Johnson at August 7, 2006 04:57 PM

Possibly off-topic...

I'm interested in your side-comment about DDT for a couple reasons.

First, from what I can tell it's totally insane that we're not using DDT a lot more than we are. Most of the harm it was supposed to do, it didn't really do, and any harm it did/does was/is far outweighed by the benefits.

Second, what does our behavior about DDT tell us about other "scientific" issues? For example global warming: human caused or not (and possibly true or not), where does it rank on the list of things we should be spending time and money worrying about, and would it be a lot smarter to mitigate it rather than trying to stop it with questionable things like the kyoto treaty?

This link is a paper about economists thinking about the best investments for improving our world:

http://www.free-eco.org/articleDisplay.php?id=513

Their list: clean water, public health, primary education (especially of girls), and inexpensive dietary improvements. Addressing global warming
didn't make the cut.

Interestingly, DDT usage would fit under item two of that list, and maybe item one by some stretch of the imagination.

Third--and I don't consider this a convincing argument, just a thought--was there a "scientific consensus" at one time that DDT was clearly very bad for the environment, and it turns out that scientific consensus was wrong? What other things do we have broad "scientific consensus" about that might be wrong?

Posted by Jeff Mauldin at August 8, 2006 12:59 AM

Mike,
your 80% argument, as I expected, is not right. The U.S., who has the biggest presence in Iraq, doesn't have anywhere near 80% of our troops tied up in, going to, or supplying Iraq. We have 2.3 million people currently in the active and reserve services.

So your saying of that amount, that we have 1.8 million people IN Iraq, or even in that area? If that ISN'T true, which it is not, then we don't have 80% of our resources going there either, do we?

We aren't even just fighting in Iraq, what about Afghan fighting? What percentage of that remaining 20% are there?

As I said, cockeyed view. And untrue, to boot, because it simply isn't so.

WWIII or WWIV, yes. A World War is gaged by the INTENT of the initiators.

The First World War, was about ground and politics, at that time the World was ruled from Europe, or so they thought. So WWI it was, is.

The Second World War was absolutely about world domination. The Axis said and acted on their imperialistic ambitions. So it too, qualifies WWII it was, is.

This current fracas encompasses the world. There are radical Muslims in almost every country on earth. All pushing for, or supporting that effort with their hard earned dollar, dinar, rupees, pounds. There is no doubt that the Islamofascists want us over run and destroyed, because THAT IS WHAT THEY SAY DAILY!!! It's world domination because if they ever managed to beat us, would they leave Belize or Western Samoa alone to live as they wanted? NO!!

One country World War.

There was a time, when all the fighting in WWII was happening just in France. All the other fighting had ceased in Europe and the Germans were pushing the Brits into the channel at Dunkirk. One country, probably 90% to 95% of the fighting, still considered by everyone part of WWII. The Japanese were in control of those parts of Asia they had sought, so little fighting was happening there either.

Both facts current, and facts historical blow holes in your argument.

Posted by Steve at August 8, 2006 06:40 AM

The U.S., who has the biggest presence in Iraq, doesn't have anywhere near 80% of our troops tied up in, going to, or supplying Iraq. We have 2.3 million people currently in the active and reserve services.

Wrong denominator. Well over 80% of American troops who are actually doing any fighting anywhere are in Iraq.

As I said, 80% of this "world" war is in just one country. It's "The World War in Iraq".

Posted by Mike Johnson at August 8, 2006 07:58 AM

One more comment:

There was a time, when all the fighting in WWII was happening just in France.

Yes, that was so for about a month, if you don't count the Sino-Japanese war. It was a byproduct of the fact that Britain and France had been fighting World War II as the "phony war".

Likewise this "world" war, 80% of it in Iraq, is also phony.

Anyway, the bearing that this has on Cuba is that those who want another Bay of Pigs invasion are going to be disappointed. Washington has its hands full in Iraq and they won't do it. Now is a good idea to engage Cuba — as Reason magazine proposed a long time ago, they should lift the futile embargo. The leftist letter-writers who want Cuba left alone are worried about men in Washington who only do three-card diplomacy: invade, insult, or ignore. That thinking is indeed deeply unlibertarian, but its espousers have shot their wad.

Posted by Mike Johnson at August 8, 2006 08:24 AM

And with that piece of asinine "brilliance," Mike J puts himself into Jason "by 24 hours, I meant 24 working hours" territory.

Posted by Lurking Observer at August 8, 2006 08:24 AM

Lurking,
I knew he'd weasel word out of it. He usually does. He reroutes and rewords. Next he'll say I like destruction and killing, he did the other day anyway. If he knew how to be concise to start with, he'd have nothing to say.

I looked up my facts before posting so I know him to be wrong. From Dunkirk in May, until The Battle of Britain started in July, there was little fighting in Europe, but that in defense of the countries that fell to the Nazi onslaught, or just gave up. No fighting happened between the Germans and the Allies, the major Allies that fought the majority of the war and ultimately defeated Nazi Germany, and the Japanese Empire.

There was fighting in China, but by 1940 the Japanese were in control of what they wanted. They took French Idochina and Siam, in 1940, but easily and quickly.

This topic started out about Cuba, how did we get to Dunkirk?

Posted by Steve at August 8, 2006 09:04 AM

I seem to recall the first comments out of the White House after the announcement was along the lines of "Anti-Castro Cubans in the US and Cuba... don't get to excited or take any actions". Later, I heard anti-Bush crowds protesting that the US do nothing. Now Bush and Condi are having to clarify the US position which is simply: the US doesn't trust Castro or his dictatorship, the US supports change in Cuba; the US isn't planning on doing anything different than stating policy at this time.

It's US policy folks and has been for decades, started by a Democrat President, and in place under administrations of both parties. The only President to actually attack Cuba was a Democrat.

Who cares about Iraq in this issue. We have plenty of reserve to take on Cuba. However, Cuba is not a military threat to the US, nor has it attempted to be for decades.

Posted by Leland at August 8, 2006 09:28 AM

How did we get to Dunkirk? An idiot playing semantic games rather than discussing issues.

Anyhow - we are seeing pretty much the Grand Slam of signs of a dictatorship in transition in Cuba. The brave statement by the Glorious Leader (not delivered by him), the Announcement of the Leaders Recovery in a Hidden Place, followed by the Brave Speech by the Heir Apparent about how Everything Is Normal - No Really, I Mean It. A classic pattern - and one that usually means the Glorious Leader is now Daisy Food. Add in recent reports of a propaganda campaign emphasizing the Revolutionary Spirit of the Heir Apparent, and reports of increased troops in the capitol, and it's a walk-off grand slam.

Castro may not in fact be dead (or dying al la Franco), but all the signs sure point to something big happening. If I were a betting man - I'd say he's in a coma, and will remain so until the sucession is resolved. Then he'll die. It's not impossible the situation is different, but there aren't many other ways to read the data.

Posted by Derek L. at August 8, 2006 10:19 AM

'World War' amounts essentially to a marketing term. Before WW2, WW1 was just 'The Great War.' To this day, Russians refer to WW2 as 'The Great Patriot War' again it seems to me, as a sort of marketing ploy to deal with the tremendous loss of life they experienced. The most important thing is just to realize we are at war, real war even if remote from many peoples lives, and we need to deal with it as such. To me, this means win (firstest with the mostest) and keep pounding hard until it's done. History seems to show that only politicians can lose it for us when Americans reluctantly go to war.

Posted by ken anthony at August 8, 2006 11:12 AM

I'm laughing at Anita Snow who works for a network that thinks our democraticly elected representatives can't be trusted but believes every word from the mouthpiece of a brutal totalitarian regime and his febrile fawning fanatical fellow anti-American lackeys.

Posted by Bill Maron at August 8, 2006 11:41 AM

Bill,
...Anita Snow who works for a network that thinks our democraticly elected representatives can't be trusted,

shouldn't that read, CONSERVATIVE elected officials?

The networks all seem to believe, parrot and use as the correct example, everything from the left. The MSM looks like the RCA Dog to me, The Masters Voice.

Posted by Steve at August 8, 2006 12:47 PM

Re: coma

With modern medical technology it is possible to maintain the Great Leader in a breathing state. Checking his brain function would of course be signs of Counter Revolutionary Tendencies.

We all know what to do about that, don't we comrades?

Speaking of Cuban medical wonders -

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS&grid=&xml=/news/2006/08/08/db0802.xml

Posted by anon at August 8, 2006 03:27 PM

So, if Raoul actually takes over, then Cuba will be in the proud company of Rumania and North Korea, in terms of Communist dictatorships that simply bequeath countries within their families, like favorite pieces of jewelry.

What a fine set of companions.

Ah, but as in Rumania and North Korea, no doubt the chattel appreciate having free health care and high literacy rates!

Posted by Lurking Observer at August 8, 2006 03:32 PM

anon,

Checking his brain function...

do we know how active, if at all, it was before he got sick? Don't you need a before, so you can measure the after? Hmmm?!

Posted by Steve at August 8, 2006 04:29 PM

Yes, Steve - we do. He appeared in public, speaking, on the 26th of July.

Posted by Derek L. at August 9, 2006 09:26 AM

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