quote:

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Federal Troops Seize Neglected Child In Pre-Dawn Raid
YPSILANTI, MI--Acting under orders from U.S. Health And Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala, a battalion of heavily armed federal officers seized custody of neglected 9-year-old Jeffrey Boyd in a dramatic pre-dawn raid of his Ypsilanti home Monday. "Jeffrey is finally safe and out of harm's way," Shalala said of Boyd, whose parents were written up by Michigan's Department of Child and Family Services last month for "failure to consistently provide proper supervision and nutritious meals." Shalala added that the extreme measures were regrettable, but were necessary to enforce the law.

The Onion -America's Finest News Source, April 26, 2000

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Well I'm a Bada$$ cowboy living in a cowboy day wicky-wicky-wak yo yo bang bang
me and Artemus Clydefrog go save Selma Hayek from the big metal spider
Wicky-wicky-wak wicky-wicky-wicky-wak
Bada$$ cowboy from the West Si-yiide

I was specifically addressing Omega's accusations that Cuba is some sort of ninth circle. That may very well be. (Of course, you seem to imply that I'm basing my views on information brought back by tourists. Apparently I need to make my posts more interesting, as it has become necessary for you to fabricate things for me to say.) It really doesn't change the issue. Nor do your examples of the hidden horrors of the island. Perhaps we should ask German tourists whether they'd rather travel to Miami or Havana? Explore the Miami Beach Ecstasy scene?

And on a wholly unrelated note, I went to high school with Fidel Castro. So there.

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"Oh, it's an anti-anti-WTO song. It's essentially a pro-Starbucks song. I saw this picture of a guy sticking his foot through a plate-glass window in a Starbucks in Seattle, and he was wearing a Nike. Man, couldn't you just change your shoes?"
--
M. Doughty

First off, the post in its entirety was not directed towards you. Someone ELSE made the statement about tourists, and it needed commented on. I should have made that clearer.

As for the rest, I was merely attacking evident doublespeak, 'fact' when the truth is 'possibility.' Which, as everyone knows, I do all the time, particularly in religious threads.

And pointing out that each side in this debate has potentially dubious information, as neither of the speakers here has, to my knowledge, lived in Cuba recently. (although the only person I know who ever spent any appreciable length of time in Cuba was a kid I roomed with for a semester in my junior college, an Equadorian, who described it as 'a hole' -- but I couldn't stand him, either.)

However, given the recent articles I've read about the Cuban economy, social situation, and prospects, I'd have to say that Cuba is a bit closer to Third World Country than it is to Worker's Paradise.
After all.. here, distributing pamphlets saying you hate OUR leader gets you a fan club, or at worst, a reputation as a kook. Doing it THERE, about Castro, gets you 20 years in jail.

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"Nobody knows this, but I'm scared all the time... of what I might do, if I ever let go." -- Michael Garibaldi

Of course Juan might like it there, but then WHY? What in the world in a place like Cuba would make it worth staying in when offered what he was offered to stay in a place orders of magnitude better in every measurable respect?

I listen to Rush because he is RIGHT, Daryus, and becuase he gives info that you can't get anywhere else. For instance, did you know that when Elian first arrived, EVERYONE in the Clinton administration was saying how great it was that he was here, and how much better a life he would have. But then, for no apparent reason, they ALL flip-flopped. And no one noticed! Also, no one is pointing out that Reno had to lie to get the warrant to enter the Gonzales home, she had to go to a magistrate unfamiliar with the case, she did not display the warrant before having the door kicked in, the warrant was the same kind of warrant that would have been used were Elian evidence of drug smuggling, that Elian is being denied his constitutional right to access to his lawyers, that, as far as I know, the Gonzales' in Miami still have legal custody, and that, assuming Elian is Juan's son at all, he's an illegitimate child, as the parents were divorced in '91 (meaning the laws regarding custody change). Did you know ANY of that? And did you actually read the editorial, or just react to the family name?

Funny, Sol, I thought Baloo was the oldest one here...

First:

Another difference between my data and Sol's is that mine comes from people who don't have a proverbial gun to their heads. The law in Cuba states that disemination of enemy propaganda carries a fourteen year sentance. Meaning that if you don't say what Fidel tells you to say, you're toast. Of course, in a dictatorship as Cuba's, Castro could have you shot if he so chose. The law is basically there so Castro won't have to deal with each case personally.

Dude, no offence, but how old are you?

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Okey, okey, here's my question:

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No I'm Spartacus!

And as you'd know if you actually read the thread, Mucus, I've said that anyone in Cuba'd be better off here, but they're not under our jurisdiction. Elian is.

"Afterall, how could there ever be any country in the world better than the US?"

Name a better one.

Just out of curiosity, which part of the USA is 'magnitudes' better? Stop being so damn parochial. Oh by the way, I suggest you get out more, try living in the now. Talk to people and attempt to apply these magnificent theories of yours in real life. Then observe the consequences. Take that on as your pet project.

You know, come to think of it, Santa does exist.

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"Blind faith is the crutch of fools"

In fact, should children receive any toys, on those special occasions that parents get to visit them in the Cuban Kid Concentration / Re-Education camps (they are afterall wards of the state and can therefore not live with family), those toys are wrested from the tiny little hands by Communist "Toy Squads" at which time they are delivered to Castro's palatial digs. He is rumored to enjoy stomping on each package one at a time till it is flat...at which time it is given back to the broken hearted child.

Yes, if only Santa could visit Cuba, it would be a happier place indeed.

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Compadres, it is imperative that we crush the freedom fighters before the start of the rainy season. And remember, a shiny new donkey for whoever brings me the head of Colonel Montoya.
~C. Montgomery Burns

quote:

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"Afterall, how could there ever be any country in the world better than the US?"

Name a better one.

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In whose opinion? Mine? Somebody from Sweden? Australia? England? Mexico? Bulgaria? Russia? Spain? Denmark?

I don't think the US is the best country in the world. You do. I don't live there. You do. I think Canada is the best country in the world. You don't live there. I do. Objectiveness is so passe.

Your woefully misconstrued opinions of Cuba are quite humerous indeed. You seem to think it's a vile, pithy hell-hole in which the populace (Those that do not die of typhoid fever) has to eat their own feces in order to survive (That is, of course, if they have the ability to eat, and haven't had their digestive system sold to mercenaries for money to buy nuclear devices in order to bomb the capitalist pig-dogs into submission.)

Have you actually been to Cuba? How are you so abso-fucking-lutely, positively certain that Cuba is quite literally hell on earth? How do you know that your views on Cuba are correct, and not a result of ignorance? The same type of ignorance that leads morons to believe we use dogsleds as a primary means of travel up here in Canada.

Now, no one has bothered to ask which Fidel Castro...

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"Oh, it's an anti-anti-WTO song. It's essentially a pro-Starbucks song. I saw this picture of a guy sticking his foot through a plate-glass window in a Starbucks in Seattle, and he was wearing a Nike. Man, couldn't you just change your shoes?"
--
M. Doughty

God bless Malson Canadian for that wonderful commercial!

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Okey, okey, here's my question:

Sol, which Fidel Castro did you go to school with?

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"Blind faith is the crutch of fools"

Ultra Magnus: You may think that Canada is the best country in the world. Even though I am a Canadian, I beg to differ. I simply try not to take too much pride in that.

Blue: It's MOLSON!!!!

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"My Name is Elmer Fudd, Millionaire. I own a Mansion and a Yacht."
Psychiatrist: "Again."

Note, those of you only reading this, how quickly we went from a discussion of the legal issues to a raging diatribe against a radio talk-show host (incidentally, I don't listen to Rush, I don't agree with him, and I own a book that points out numerous time he was wrong).

This is a variation on the ad hominem argument and guilt by association, tactics rejected by civilized debators since the time of Socrates... but still used by both politicians and television preachers today.

Nota also, that not one word was said in response to any of the legal questions raised in Omega's post.

Note the repeated refrain of 'how do YOU know what Cuba is like?' by people who aren't any more likely to know themselves. (Incidentally, I'd bet Canada is orders of magnitude better to live in than Cuba, either, but our opponents are thinking we mean 'better' in a narrow nationalistic way, rather than 'better' in a income-per-capita, freedom of speech, religion, and association, economic opportunity way, in which Cuba is outclassed by nearly every democracy/republic in every hemisphere, with the possible exception of the republics still struggling to come out from 75 years of former Soviet Rule -- and at least THEY can protest the way things are going now.

Or to put it simply, Given: (Democracy/Republic > Dictatorship)
Cuba = Dictatorship
USA, Canada, Germany, Costa Rica = Democracy/Republics

Therefore
USA, Canada, Germany, Costa Rica > Cuba.

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"Nobody knows this, but I'm scared all the time... of what I might do, if I ever let go." -- Michael Garibaldi