I’m interested in where Fidel Castro gets the dough to shore up his bankrupt regime. Can you illuminate? — Robert Henry; Los Angeles, California

In the wake of the collapse of the USSR, which bankrolled him to the tune of $4 billion a year, Castro has turned to Hugo Chavez, Marxist President of Venezuela, the world’s fifth largest oil exporter. In addition to shoring up Castro, he’s funding revolutionaries and terrorists throughout Latin America.

……………..

First thing’s first. The USSR officially collapsed in December of the year 1991. Venezuela elected Hugo Chavez president in December of the year 1998.

That’s an, um, seven year lag. How’d he float his way through those years?

I once heard an NPR report, circa 1994, that Cuba more or less had legalized Prostitution (which is to say it was illegal, but the government looked the other way) so as to bring in extra tourist dollars. Is that what that sailed Castro through all those lean years?

Next, I ponder the difference between the money proferred by the old Soviet Union, which fancied itself a Super Power, and the amount of money that could possibly be proferred by Hugo’s Venezuela, which fancies itself something like a hedge against super powers (ie: USA) — not a Super Power.

And just what is the power-relationship between Castro and Chavez supposed to be? Is Chavez the man in charge these days of the whole , with Castro simply a sort of Left wing Elder Statesman and Spiritual Guide? (Or do we just kind of blur them into one inseperable entity?)
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UPDATE. 10-13: I’m not the only person to have noticed this letter.

We have only a one party government. It’s the winners. And then everybody else is the losers. And the winners divided into two parties. The Republicans and the Democrats. What a charade the combat between the Republicans and the Democrats is. It’s rich kids…We had to choose between two members of Skull and Bones! — Kurt Vonnegut.

Dig deeper and you’ll find some comments from erstwhere:

In the mid-1930s, my father frequently stated the our two Political Parties were miss-named. They should be named “The Ins and the Outs,” because the “Ins” will do absolutely anything to stay in – and the “Outs” will do absolutely anything to get in – and that is what they both spend 99% of their time doing. Nothing else is really important to either Party, and those who want support in either Party must to the mark to get in, and stay in, Power! (Chic Stone)

FOR THE BULLS, LOSS HAD A FAMILIAR WRING TO IT Ian Thomsen, Globe Staff
The Boston Globe 04-29-1987

“It happened the same way all year long,” guard John Paxson said. “We were never a 48-minute team. I don’t know if it was that we relied on Michael at crucial times near the end of the game, which wasn’t good for him, nor was it good for us as a team.”[…]

“That,” Jordan said an hour later, “is the difference.”

PREDICTIONS LEFT BULLS IN PREDICAMENT; Jackie MacMullan, Globe Staff
The Boston Globe 11-07-1990

National publications decreed this was the year Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls would surpass the Pistons as the top team in the East. Now, after an 0-3 start, Jordan conceded his team put too much stock — and not enough work –into those lofty predictions.

“Of all the teams I’ve played with in Chicago, these are the most talented 12 guys with the same focus in mind,” he said. “The first team I played with had confidence like you couldn’t believe. They weren’t the best players in the league, a little spacy actually, but if this team had the confidence they did, we’d be a heck of a team.”

The Chicago Bulls went on to win that NBA Championship, then the next two, then Jordan disappeared for most of two seasons, then they won the next three Champions, then Coach Jackson left and became coach for the LA Lakers where he won three more Championships. Just saying.

And a quick look into google’s cache to figure out how sports fans talked about the Number One dract pick in the 1984 draft versus the number two draft pick:

Apr 23 1985, 12:54 pm :
Look at Portland. They could have drafted Michael Jordan, but they took Bowie instead. Everyone said that they were making a mistake. No mistake. Portland needs another guard like it needs a hole in the head. Yes, Jordan has had a great rookie season, but Bowie has done well and the Trailblazers are looking strong for the playoffs.

Next I turn to that famed, but largely now forgotten, upset the Jaguars had over the Broncos a number of years ago:

NFL PLAYOFFS: MAN OF STEEL MARK BRUNELL WAS SUPER IN ENGINEERING THE NFL’S BIGGEST PLAYOFF UPSET SINCE 1969 AS THE JAGUARS BEAT THE BRONCOS; RICK REILLY
Sports Illustrated 01-13-1997

The Jaguars went to Rich Stadium in Buffalo for a wild-card game, banked in a field goal off an upright and won a playoff game where no visitor had ever won a playoff game. Now they have gone to Denver and brought home the most morning-coffee-spilling upset since Joe Namath and his New York Jets beat the Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III.

At the time, the only context you could put Denver’s loss in is with a string of disappointments: John Elway lead the Denver Broncos to three Superbowl Losses, each by a larger margin of defeat than the last, in the 1980s. (Simpsons riff: Homer: (Raising hand) Oooh, I want to be John Elway! (Homer starts day dreaming about being John Elway. The ball is snapped to Homer and he dives over the pile into the endzone.)
Announcer: Elway takes the snap and runs it in for a touchdown! Thanks to Elway’s Patanent last second magic the final score of Super Bowl XXX is Denver 7, San Francisco 56.
Homer:(Back to reality) Woo Hoo!)

But the Broncos, and John Elway, won the next two Superbowls, so everything is cool for them now, and this loss to the Jaguars… means nothing.

Likewise you look at the old Chicago Bulls storylines, and shrug. Michael Jordan: he ain’t no Larry Bird. And to debate Sam Bowie versus Michael Jordan is now like debating Peyton Manning versus Ryan Leaf…

Which brings me to the most puzzling of the Sports Illustrated Jinx covers, which I mused about last time I blogged about sports (for reasons that escape me, actually): Why in the world did the magazine have a cover-feature on the return of Ryan Leaf? (Actually all these covers crack me up…)

Originally I had this idea of having a regular guest blogger chime in once or twice a week, simply because I’ve always been afraid of a blog-stagnation here and feel the need to stir things up, and felt an additional voice would be an easy way to toss in a surprise every so often… I would have gotten around to asking an Aussie, but it never happened.

I did get Dick Cheney to guest blog here once. I never invited him again, as he’s kind of a potty-mouth. At any rate, I now have plowed through the depths of Federalist Bloggers and think that Alexandar Hamilton has something he wants to say. I think he has some good words to say here and there:
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George W Bush, spelling out Harriet Mier’s qualifications: When I came to office as the governor of Texas, the lottery commission needed a leader of unquestioned integrity. I chose Harriet because I knew she would earn the confidence of the people of Texas. The Dallas Morning News said Harriet that insisted on a system that was fair and honest. She delivered results. […]

I’ve known Harriet for more than a decade. I know her heart. I know her character. I know that Harriet’s mother is proud of her today. And I know her father would be proud of her, too.

To what purpose then require the co-operation of the Senate? I answer, that the necessity of their concurrence would have a powerful, though, in general, a silent operation. It would be an excellent check upon a spirit of favoritism in the President, and would tend greatly to prevent the appointment of unfit characters from State prejudice, from family connection, from personal attachment, or from a view to popularity. In addition to this, it would be an efficacious source of stability in the administration.

It will readily be comprehended, that a man who had himself the sole disposition of offices, would be governed much more by his private inclinations and interests, than when he was bound to submit the propriety of his choice to the discussion and determination of a different and independent body, and that body an entier branch of the legislature. The possibility of rejection would be a strong motive to care in proposing. The danger to his own reputation, and, in the case of an elective magistrate, to his political existence, from betraying a spirit of favoritism, or an unbecoming pursuit of popularity, to the observation of a body whose opinion would have great weight in forming that of the public, could not fail to operate as a barrier to the one and to the other. He would be both ashamed and afraid to bring forward, for the most distinguished or lucrative stations, candidates who had no other merit than that of coming from the same State to which he particularly belonged, or of being in some way or other personally allied to him, or of possessing the necessary insignificance and pliancy to render them the obsequious instruments of his pleasure.

…………….
Alexander Hamilton was co-author of The Federalist Papers and member in good standing of the Federalist Party of George Washington and John Adams. Not to be confused with the deplorable Federalist Society.

This page is a much better resource of information on the curious new choice for Supreme Court Justice than is this, which is simply a batch of editorials. While Molly Ivins may offer some keen insight into Harriet Miers, there’s something intrinsically novel about simply spelling out what is known and leaving it to create the picture.

A picture of what?

She has made campaign contributions to Democrats (Al Gore, Lloyd Bentsen, DNC) back in 1988, but has given much more to Republicans – and exclusively so after 1994 [via Americablog, Newsweek and Slingshot].

To support Al Gore back in 1988 is akin to supporting Joseph Lieberman in 2004. Which makes the next statement not in conflict:

RNC Chairman Ed Gillespie claimed she was a “conservative Democrat” in the early 1980s before she became Republican [via Political Animal].

For that matter, despite the wonkiness of the dates, I have a feeling that the following bit of speculation is generally if not specifically and totally true:

There is also a story that she turned Republican after becoming a “born-again” Christian in the early 1980s, but this is contradicted by the fact that she donated to Democrats like Gore in the late 1980s [via Americablog].

I do not think you can underestimate the “Born Again” nature or the nature of her new-fangled hard-core church on her “judicial philosophy”.

In fact, Miers has proven herself to be a GOP hack and both a personal and political crony of President George Bush. She was “a top-level regular in the “Strategery Group,” where Bush’s top political advisers contemplated how to use the levers of government to advance the Republican Party. And it continues on to worship of every Bush policy decision and covering up of every Bush scandals over the years.

# Westlaw records show that she has only argued 4 cases in Texas state courts in 30 years [via Is That Legal]. Commenter Kenneth points out that it is quite possible that she argued many more cases which were not reported online.
# She seems to have argued only 3 cases in 30 years at the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals (and lost all three) [via Is That Legal].

And it is there that I throw up my hands and shrug. Is she the least qualified nominee offered up for Supreme Court Justice in American history? We know that Harry Truman offered up cronies for supreme court justices — one of the reasons his approval rating rarely piqued above the 50% thresh-hold. And Nixon offered up a Justice whom Senator Roman Hruska defended with the statement that “Medicore people deserve representation on the Supreme Court, too.” What I’m going to need to do is to research back in time to figure out what this batch of justice’s qualifications, or lack thereof, was.

In the realm of political and judicicial decision-making… I cannot say I sympathize with the right-wing complaint that she might not be anti-gay or anti-abortion enough. Would you please keep in mind that Justice Roberts was passed with a full half of the Democratic Caucus vote? Senator Brownback’s demands that she flesh out where she stands on the issue smacks against the olde canard about being against “Litmus Tests”.

Which is a good thing that James Dobson has it that “When you know some of the things I know — that I probably shouldn’t know — that take me in this direction, you’ll know why I’ve said with fear and trepidation … I believe Harriet Miers will be a good justice”. Did Karl Rove tell him something, or does this mean he knows the nature of her goddamned deviant church?

Okay. I’ll come out officially: I oppose the nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court. For whatever that’s worth. Got that? Get your Senator to defeat her nomination, please, and throw her to the dustbin of Supreme Court nominations, along with Nixon’s mediocre pick and Reagan’s nutzoid pick of Judge Bork. (Where Clarence Thomas oughta be, but never mind.)

Senate phone number: 1-800-SOB-U-SOB. (It’s so kind of the Senate to come up with an easy to remember phone number like that.)

She rose to her present position by her absolute devotion to George Bush. I mentioned last week that she told me that the president was the most brilliant man she had ever met. To flatter on such a scale a person must either be an unscrupulous dissembler, which Miers most certainly is not, or a natural follower. And natural followers do not belong on the Supreme Court of the United States.

So saideth former Bush speech writer, coiner of the phrase “axis of evil”, and author of “The Right Man”, David Frum. He deleted it from his blog within half an hour– which is an act that every blogger is familiar with.

“Most Brilliant man she had ever met”???

Furthermore, there is no reason to believe that Miers’s nomination resulted from the president’s careful consultation with people capable of such judgments. If 100 such people had been asked to list 100 individuals who have given evidence of the reflectiveness and excellence requisite in a justice, Miers’s name probably would not have appeared in any of the 10,000 places on those lists.

And thus moves forth George Will. I take the moment to note here that Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid suggested the name Harriet Miers. His supposed reasoning is here… which somehow ignores her statement about Bush being the most brilliant man she had ever met.

The president has forfeited his right to be trusted as a custodian of the Constitution. George Will then moves forward with malarky spelling out his opposition to McCain — Feingold. It is important that Miers not be confirmed unless, in her 61st year, she suddenly and unexpectedly is found to have hitherto undisclosed interests and talents pertinent to the court’s role. Otherwise the sound principle of substantial deference to a president’s choice of judicial nominees will dissolve into a rationalization for senatorial abdication of the duty to hold presidents to some standards of seriousness that will prevent them from reducing the Supreme Court to a private plaything useful for fulfilling whims on behalf of friends.

I add that some of George Will’s same considerations oughta apply to selecting a president of the United States. And again I say: “Most Brilliant man she had ever met”???

Where did this Supreme Court nominee come from? Is this Bush looking out for himself for his post-presidency, in case he needs to seal off some “Executive Privilege” for him and his friends for current presidential misdeeds? (If only Nixon could’ve gotten a few “most brilliant man I’ve ever met” syncoprants onto the court, he might have had a dissenting voice on the matter of releasing the tapes that he could have continued to flaunt the Constitution by.) Maybe Bush want to exalt Clarence Thomas to a position as Standard Bearer of Supreme Court Qualifications through a system of Grading on a Curve Default? Not a meritocracy — a mediocracy!

Maybe you can connect this with the comment made to right-wing waverers that “she will uphold the War on Terrorism”. (You know… those nasty matters involved with Gitmo and the Patriot Act.) The Military use in case of Flu Epidemics? The wave of the future: deligitimize the rest of the government, and have the military step in to help!

Or maybe she was selected for the Jesus Factor: Miers’ longtime on-and-off companion — himself a Texas Supreme Court justice — and other confidants pledge that her judicial values would be guided by the law and the Constitution. But they say her personal values have been shaped by her abiding faith in Jesus and by her membership in Valley View Christian Church, where she was baptized as an adult, served on the missions committee and taught religious classes.

Miers joined Valley View 25 years ago. She and about 150 other members split off to form a new church within the past few weeks, saying they wanted a more staid and traditional place of worship.

You know what “more staid and traditional place of worship” is code for?

Or does that move me into the David Limbaugh Theory of Christian persecution? (Because I’d prefer the seats of power affecting the course of the nation be held by people who believe the Earth came into existence sometime more than 7,000 years ago… and God metes out punishment anyways, so just let God sort’m out!)

But I hear that that George Bush is God according to Miers, so it’s all awash.

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Oct. 3 – Iraq’s Shiite and Kurdish leaders quietly adopted new rules over the weekend that will make it virtually impossible for the constitution to fail in the upcoming national referendum, prompting Sunni Arabs and a range of independent political figures to complain that the vote was being fixed.

Under the new rules, the constitution will fail only if two-thirds of all registered voters – rather than two-thirds of all those actually casting ballots – reject it in at least 3 of Iraq’s 18 provinces.

Okay. I see a reference to “Calvin Ball” on the blogosphere. But to me, this looks more like:

Boxer: “Gee, Napoleon. I thought the rule on the barn wall said that the Constitution would fail if two thirds of ballots cast in 3 of Iraq’s provinces rejected it .

Napoleon: No. It’s always said “registered voters”, regardless of whether anyone votes or not. Go look at the barn wall and see for yourself!

(Scritched writing on the newly added line due to space limitations.)

Actually, come to think of it, a person can defend the “scandal plagued Clinton” because of the nature of the scandal that ensnared him — that whole “It’s all about Sex” routine — may make it the principled position — regardless of political opinions as a whole. (Never mind in the real world, people tend to always “stand by their man” toward the bitter end.)

There was this man named Earl Williams from nearby Mabton who used the Letters to the Editor page of the local weekly paper as his soapbox platform. He was something on the order of a John Bircher — complaining of the government here, there, and everywhere, the treacherous Janet Reno, and the Socialism that is ensnaring this nation.

And he also complained about the Jeremiad that the Republican Party was carrying on against Bill Clinton and his sex life. Occasionally it almost looked like he was a Bill Clinton fan. I guess this was a sign that he wasn’t a party hack after all.

For his part, the newly double-indicted Tom DeLay has said:

Now you’re going to think I’m crazy. Our opponents, the Democrats, have no agenda. They’re the party of “no.” They just come up here and say, “No, no, no, no, no.”

And we’re doing a bold, aggressive agenda and have destroyed their credibility with the American people. That’s the makings of a very big election.

The joke is on someone there. A multitude of targets, actually. Him, us, tweedle dum, and him again.

I shuffled through the quotations I’ve gradually placed on the sidebar. It occurs to me that I’m missing some obvious points of departure, ie:

“As we know, there are known knowns. There are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns. That is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns, the ones we don’t know we don’t know.” — Donald Rumsfeld, Feb. 12, 2002.

And a few of the more prescient Bushisms that escape my mind right now.

I used to be enamored by this quote:

“America goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher of the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and
vindicator only of her own. Should the United States adventure into other lands, she might become the dictatress of the world. She would no longer be the ruler of her own spirit.” — John Quincy Adams

But I soured on it for a number of reasons. #1: In full context, the speech offered a number of qualifiers, and indeed Adams’s political counsel offers some countering opinions. #2, and more importantly: Since when do I celebrate the presidency of the supposed magnificent John Quincy Adams? Aside from this quotation, does anyone know anything about John Quincy Adams? (I know he lost the popular vote.)

And then there’s this quotation:

“Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind. And when the drums of war reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has ‘closed’, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry. Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded by patriotism, will offer up all their rights unto the leader and gladly so. How do I know? For this is what I have done. AND I AM CAESAR.”

Which is attributed to either Julius Caesar or William Shakespeare. If you don’t remember it from your high school reading of Julius Caesar, it’s probably because it is not from there — nor would it even properly fit the story. I have no clue where it comes from.

Other than that… I can’t come up with a clean copy of Warren Harding’s self-deprecating comments on his presidential abilities, along the lines of “I’m really not fit to be president.” A statement that probably, through acknowledgement of his own limitations, catupults himn to the Top 10 Presidents List…

Floating through the usenet posts once, I ran into a question regarding the scandal-enthroned Bill Clinton: Considering that he has betrayed so much of what Liberals say they believe in, and removed various Great Society and New Deal functions, why do you Liberals defend him? The answer that was forthcoming: He’s the best we can get while still winning. This chestnut wrapped up with a Thanks for the honesty.

I could add a few more replies to the answer. If you feel like calling Bill Clinton “the Best Republican President we ever had”, (or “The Best Republican President since Eisenhower” or “since Lincoln” — I have just gone through the words spoken by Ralph Nader, Jim Hightower, and Michael Moore right there), at least we have that qualifier to meet out against that dreaded “Republican”… ie: “Best”. You’re in sort of competent hands, as third ways are being created to bridge over newly cemented as second ways that were the former third ways. OR… appointing somebody that is not simply a political friend to head of FEMA was a welcome change in policy (and a historical abberiation.)

And so we arrive at the new Administration and unencumbered Republican Leadership. And I can just as easily shift the question around.

Tom DeLay, George W Bush, Karl Rove, Dick Cheney and the whole lot of them. How exactly do they measure up to the promises of 1980 and 1994? Excuse me if all I see is money and political decisions being moved in the direction of political coffers, and a few plays against various cultural issues.

Simply the thrill of being on a winning side.