Burn Notice Coming Back July 10th

This summer is going to be awesome.

Seven Songs: Better Late Than Never

Martin In The Margins has tagged me for the seven songs list. Basically, as the rules state:

List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they’re not any good, but they must be songs you’re really enjoying now, shaping your spring. Post these instructions in your blog along with your 7 songs. Then tag 7 other people to see what they’re listening to.

So here I go...

Bat for Lashes - What's a Girl To Do
It's a really catchy song and the video kills.


RJD2 - The Horror
A great song to listen to over and over again. The video is also incredibly awesome.


Pitchshifter - Genius
Don't get better than this.

Billy Joel - Piano Man
That's right.

Giant Drag - Wicked Game
Best cover I ever heard.

Johnny Cash - The Man Comes Around
...and when he does come around, you better not be there.

Benny Benassi - Satisfaction
Easy lyrics to remember.

I would tag 7 other people, yet I don't have anyone else to really tag. It also would have helped if I responded to the tag sooner. Oh well.

Seven Songs: Why not 10?

The Media During Election Cycles: Hillary Wants Obama to Die!

The first Presidential election I paid serious attention to in my lifetime was the 2004 elections. I had my TV on nonstop flipping news channel to news channel to get the latest on the primaries (and eventually the actual election itself). One thing that caught me by surprise was the blatant exaggeration of the media. The most mundane incidents turned into serious in depth journalism, with experts brought on to confirm what the anchor already confirmed. It was like a bad script. I was mystified why Howard Dean’s scream received more than even a minute of coverage.

Well this election cycle is no different. This time its against a word (which apparently no one can say) used by Hillary Clinton in defense of her staying in the race. The word is "assassinate" and the historical reference is Bobby Kennedy. In an attempt to convince people that past primaries have actually lasted into the month of June, she used examples. Yet one example is too taboo to use, like say for instance Bobby Kennedy (who happened to be assassinated in June, while he was campaigning). If you use that reference and simply state history, you'll be put at the stake. Commentators will yell at you, pundits will loop you, and experts will tell you to drop out. In other words, a circus will take place, with you in the lion's den.

Roll Call's Mort Kondracke talks about just this, revisiting past elections where “Aha!” moments have defined how candidacies have been covered by the media.
Excerpt below:

This ought to be the last word on the flap over Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's (D-N.Y.) use of the word "assassination": Ridiculous!

Or, if two words are necessary, how about: Enough already! Clinton is being hammered not for anything she actually did or said - or even meant - but because the media and her political critics want to diminish what little chance she has left to win the Democratic presidential nomination.

The media can love you and it can destroy you.

Presidential News Coverage 101: Find a statement, over exaggerate it and twist it to fit a story. Loop it a few times and you get "news."

Where I found the Kondracke article:
Real Clear Politics

Nepal: Monarchy No More

Say goodbye to the king.

Nepal's newly elected leadership changed the country from a monarchy to a republic just before midnight Wednesday, a historic move that ended about 240 years of autocratic rule in the country.

After approving the move by an overwhelming vote, the body said it would send a letter to 60-year-old King Gyanendra and his family, informing them that they have 15 days to vacate the royal palace.

Of the 564 members of the assembly present for the vote, only four voted to keep the monarchy.

The group met all day in a convention center to reach the agreement and even continued to work after the facility was bombed.

Out with the old, in with the new (just hopefully, not more Maoists).

Russia the "Peacekeeper"

Russia lied about not shooting down Georgian drone.

MOSCOW, May 26 (UPI) -- U.N. investigators probing the downing of an unmanned Georgian reconnaissance aircraft said it was hit by a missile fired from a Russian fighter plane.

The findings refute Russia's claims that it wasn't involved in the April 30 incident, when the drone recorded its own destruction over Abkhazia, said The New York Times, which got an advance copy of the report.

Good ol' Putin.

Three Story Sunday

South American nations form a union similar to that of the European Union.

The leaders of 12 South American nations have formed a regional body aimed at boosting economic and political integration in the region.

At a summit in Brazil, they signed a treaty which created the Union of South American Nations (Unasur).

Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said the move showed that South America was becoming a "global player".

But tensions between several members will make it difficult for the group to achieve its goals, observers say.

More unity or more division?

Zakaria notes that terrorism has actually gone down (exclude Iraq).

You know that we are living in scary times. Terrorist groups are metastasizing all over the globe. Al Qaeda has re-established its bases in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Hizbullah, Hamas and other radical Islamic groups are gaining strength. You hear this stuff all the time, on television and on the campaign trail. Amid the din, it's hard to figure out the facts. Well, finally we have a well-researched, independent analysis of the data relating to terrorism, released last week by Canada's Simon Fraser University. Its findings will surprise you.

Is Terrorism losing its appeal to extremists?

Where I found this article:
Real Clear Politics

Russia and China join together to condemn the United States on its proposed missile shield.

President Dmitri Medvedev of Russia and President Hu Jintao of China met Friday to conclude a deal on nuclear cooperation and together condemn U.S. proposals for a missile shield in Europe. Both countries called the U.S. plan a setback to international trust that was likely to upset the balance of power.

Medvedev's choice of China for an early diplomatic foray as president seemed to signal a desire to continue Moscow's assertive foreign policy - particularly toward the United States - that was a hallmark of his predecessor, Vladimir Putin, during his eight years in office.

Russia and China condemning the United States? No way!

Just another Sunday.

Inside the Mind of the Serbian Radical Party

Der Spiegel has an interview with Tomislav Nikolic, leader of the ultra-nationalists in Serbian politics. Excerpt below:

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Doesn't Serbia realize that ignoring reality is only hurting Serbia and, especially, the Serbs in Kosovo? You as a realist should understand that Kosovo will never again be a part of Serbia.

Nikolic: Who says? We will use our veto to prevent Kosovo from becoming a member of almost all world organizations.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Which is a fine strategy to force Kosovo to become part of Albania. By taking such a step, Kosovo would automatically gain membership in those organizations.

Nikolic: Don't count on it. Otherwise there will be war in Europe. Or do you think that Bucharest will sit on the sidelines should the Hungarians in Romania demand to become a part of Hungary? It is not us but Europe that needs to face reality. For precisely these reasons, there are many countries in both Europe and elsewhere in the world which will never recognize the precedence of Kosovo.

Doesn't sound good.

Be sure to also read Marko Attila Hoare's (historian and blogger of Greater Surbiton) analysis of what is going on in Serbia.

They told us that the Serbian people were not like other Europeans. They told us that the Serbian people were so outraged over international recognition of Kosova’s independence that they would turn their backs on Europe and rally behind the nationalists. They told us that Serbia and Europe were parting ways because of Kosova. They told us that the Serbian people were crazy.

They were wrong.

At least people are standing up and say no to the Serbian Radical Party.

Serbia: Don't turn back.

Depiste the Pressure, FARC Still Operates

Despite some setbacks facing FARC, they are still operating and terrorizing the region. Colombia has made some progress into defeating the Marxist drug-peddling group, yet challenges still lay ahead. Click here for an article at the LatinAmerican Post.

Colombia's FARC guerrillas are reeling from military attacks and defections. While the ranks have fallen about 40 percent from a 2002 peak, the group nevertheless remains a potent force.

-- A six-year Colombian military offensive has put the FARC on the run, experts say, driving the guerrillas to more remote areas, neutralizing their ability to launch attacks and killing an unprecedented number of key leaders.

Colombian intelligence officials believe that the deaths -- including those of two top leaders known as Raúl Reyes and Iván Ríos in the past eight days -- desertions and captures have thinned the FARC's ranks from 16,900 in 2002 to about 10,000 today.

''They have less support of the population, less money, less discipline and don't have the same ability to carry out attacks,'' said Alfredo Rangel, a leading FARC expert who heads the Security and Democracy Foundation, a Bogotá think tank. ``The guerrillas are in decline.''

Will more military aid by the United States help? Will this effort to squash FARC have a backlash in the region, like say Venezuela? When will Colombia address its human rights issues? The questions are endless.

FARC: Unfortunately, still in operation.

Gates on Top of It

Article on the Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates.

When he was told that some in the Army were dismissive of press reports on the mistreatment of patients at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, according to one witness, grew "very, very quiet." Within two weeks, the Walter Reed commander was out of a job.

This kind of decisive silence has been employed by Gates to good effect in scandals ranging from misdirected nuclear parts to the cremation of both fallen American soldiers and pets at the same facility.

To those who know this Eagle Scout with 28 years of experience in government, Gates' subdued efficiency is not surprising. To those of us who haven't had the pleasure, his transformational ambitions and strategic boldness are surprising indeed.

When Gates was nominated in late 2006, conservative suspicions and liberal hopes coincided. Gates, then a member of the Iraq Study Group, was expected to ease the American retreat from Iraq and begin the American engagement with Iran. Foreign-policy realism was back. When asked at his confirmation hearing if America was winning in Iraq, Gates replied, "No, sir" -- a candor that foretold change. But since Gates was the opposite of an ideologue, it was difficult to predict what form that change might take.

Once again, a great person to have in our government.

Where I found this article:
RealClearPolitics

Charlie Rose interviews Robert Kagen

They talk about Iraq, geopolitical struggles of today and yesterday, interventionism, United States influence in the world, and many other topics.

Very interesting.

Where I found this video:
RealClearPolitics

A FARC Leader Surrenders

Here is a Reuters segment:
I guess that Marxist revolution wasn't worth dying for, huh Karina?

Three Story Sunday

Chávez moves forward with more State control of the economy.

Faced with shortages of foods, building materials and other staples, President Hugo Chávez is intensifying state control of the Venezuelan economy through a new wave of takeovers of private companies and the creation of government-controlled ventures with allies like Cuba and Iran.

The moves come just months after voters rejected a referendum to give the president sweeping constitutional power over the economy and public institutions, leading to new accusations that Chávez is more interested in consolidating power than in fixing Venezuela's problems.

I'm still baffled how some people praise this man. Chávez is nothing more than an rising autocrat.

Uganda uses torture...a lot.

Denmark's Ambassador to Uganda was away when his wife looked out the window and saw a young man fall from the sky and land on her garden. She made a frantic call to her husband, Stig Barlyng, who immediately sped home to his residence in a posh suburb in Kampala. But by the time Barlyng arrived home, the guards from the Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence (CMI) headquarters next door had already overpowered Barlyng's guard and recaptured their escapee. "I went next door and I started yelling a bit, to put it mildly," recalls Barlyng, who is months away from wrapping up his ambassadorship. Barlyng had reason to be upset -- "the presence of torture in Uganda was handed to me on a silver platter," he says.

If money from the United States is going to this country, we need to have some transparency and policy changes in Uganda. I don't want my money going to a paranoid prone government who applies torture for the sake of stability.

In Rwanda, women are increasingly gaining more equality. One such area is in the economy, where businesswomen play an important role. Here is a Washington Post segment:

Another Sunday.

Russia: The Mask of Success

Russia isn't as nearly as successful as some may think, according to Boris Nemtsov. Kim Zigfeld of the Publius Pundit reviews Nemtsov's analysis of Russia, finding the apparent triumphs of the Putin reign to be nothing more than a failure. Click here to view the article.
Excerpt below:

Nemtsov begins by pointing out that Putin enjoyed an average oil price more than double what Yeltsin had to work with, five times greater in recent months, and that Putin has not used any of the oil windfall to “carry out economic reforms, create a modern army, and establish public health and pension systems.” All but the economy, he says, have degraded, and the economy has merely been “stabilized through a stroke of luck” having nothing to do with Putin.

He shows that there were already clear signs of recovery before Putin came to power, and argues convincingly that the problems Yeltsin’s Russia faced were those of the communists’ making, not Yeltsin’s. As important, he shows that Putin simply didn’t obtain power through policy success; he was named president arbitrarily by Yeltsin, and this was followed by the relentless use of electoral fraud and media suppression to guarantee his election. He writes: “We are all supposed to be over the moon at the success of the economy under Putin. In reality, however, it is not doing that well. Given today’s oil prices, our GDP growth has actually been remarkably modest.”

It seems Russia is sliding back (or already has) to an authoritarian regime, whose State dictates and restricts your conscious. When we look back at this time period twenty years from now, the question will be "Did we do enough to counter Putin?" The answer will be no.

Russia: Where have you gone?

Where I found this article:
The Moderate Voice

Russia and Georgia: Will the Tension Go Down?

Russia has detained a spy supposedly from Georgia, heightening the already high tensions between the two nations.

Russia's security service said agents detained a spy allegedly recruited by Georgia to support insurgents in the restive North Caucasus, news agencies reported Friday, adding to escalating tension between the ex-Soviet republics.

A Georgian official denied the allegation and called it part of a Russian "policy of provocation" aimed at Georgia, which is the focus of a struggle for regional influence between Moscow and the West.

Russia's relations with Georgia are badly strained as the small country's U.S.-allied leader courts the West. Tensions have increased sharply lately over Russia's increasing support for Georgia's breakaway Abkhazia province, a linchpin in Moscow's efforts to thwart Georgia's drive for NATO membership.

Doesn't look like they'll be trading ping-pong diplomacy anytime soon.

For more on the Russian-Georgian situation, and how absurd it really is (given the desired region is Abkhazia), read this great article at Foreign Policy Passport.
Excerpt below:

Abkhazia does have a beautiful coast -- so beautiful, in fact, that the most famous Georgian of them all incorporated it into Georgia proper back in 1931, setting the province on course for decades of ethnic tension and the economic isolation. Beautiful or not though, this week's map shows that much of Abkhazia's shore line is actually chock full of “pesticides and/or heavy metals (mainly inherited from the Soviet period)” (yellow patches).

All in all, I can see why neither Georgia nor Russia will give up their influence over this diamond in the rough -- what country wouldn't forsake regional stability for a few more nuclear waste sites?

All this fuss over that?

Russia or Georgia: Who is more to blame?

India Recovering from Bomb Blast

Reuters segment:

Question to perpetrator: Why?

The Name Game: Obama, Hillary, McCain

Person 1: Barack Obama is Michael Dukakis, he is a latte drinking liberal who is out of touch with the average American, who can't hold a handle to his opponents! He is WEAK on law and order, look at his record in Chicago, he is weak on crime.

Person 2: No, no, no, Barack Obama is Jimmy Carter! He is going to be weak when it comes to foreign policy, he is incompetent. He will be overwhelmed, and our enemies will take advantage of our weakness!

Person 3: Experience! Ha! Abraham Lincoln had hardly any experience, and what did he do....hmmmm...let me see, SAVE THE UNION! Obama is like Lincoln!

Person 4: Come on now, let's be real. Obama is George McGovern. He is the most liberal senator and is out of touch with the majority of Americans. Just wait for another landslide Republican win.

Person 5: Hillary Clinton is Richard Nixon. I mean, she is paranoid, tried to destroy her enemies and can't quit. Her personality bleeds Nixon, and let no one forget it!

Person 6: Nixon? No way. Hillary Clinton is exactly like her husband, Bill Clinton. All the drama we had in the 90's will come back to life, Whitewater anyone? We don't need another 4 years (possibility 8) of Clinton.

Person 7: John McCain is George W. Bush. Voting for him is voting for a Bush third term. He has the same aggressive foreign policy approach, the cowboy persona, which got us into Iraq. McSame! McSame!

Person 8: Not Bush, but Dole! Just look at his age! Bob Dole was at the same age McCain is now back in 96, and campaign finance problems, Dole all over again! He was also thought of as a maverick and straight shooter. Just wait, another downfall like that of Dole is waiting to happen!

Person 9: McCain is like Bush, yet the first Bush, number 41, Bush senior. The economy is looking bad, and McCain is going to sink.

Person 10: Wait a minute here. Barack Obama is Barack Obama. Hillary Clinton is Hillary Clinton. John McCain is John McCain. Each is his or her own person. These comparisons simply don't work.

Persons 1-9 in response to Person 10: Shut up!

The general election is going to be so much fun.

Inside a FARC Camp

So that's what the fuss was all about.

Where I found this video:
World Politics Review

Three Story Sunday

Lebanon is heating up.

Lebanese soldiers deployed in the northern city of Tripoli on Sunday after fierce battles between rival clans as the Hezbollah-led opposition handed over control of west Beirut to the army.

The Arab League was set to hold emergency talks in Egypt on the crisis amid regional Sunni Muslim fears about Shiite Iran's influence in divided Lebanon.

A security official said fierce battles erupted overnight in Tripoli between Sunni supporters of the Western-backed government and members of an Alawite sect loyal to Hezbollah, which is backed by both Syria and Iran.

One woman was killed and at least five people were wounded as thousands fled the clashes . The fighting eased by mid-morning and the army was able to enter the affected areas.

Many homes and businesses in districts where the battles raged were torched, shop windows were broken and bullet casings littered the streets, AFP correspondents reported.

Residents of Tripoli could hear heavy machine gun fire and the thump of exploding rocket-propelled grenades throughout the night.

Going to get worse before it gets better?

Somalia still trying to exist.

Fifteen men and one woman sat on the floor of a sunlit room. It was hot. Many people were sweating. The elders of the Ayr clan had called a political meeting, and very quickly it was clear that their attitudes toward the nation's newly empowered transitional government were unanimous — and bitter.

"The government is weak," said Mohammed Abdi, an Ayr elder. "We can't support it."

Somalia, which has been an archetype of Africa's ills for so long, has waited 16 years for this government. The United Nations has invested millions of dollars into propping it up. American officials are so intent on its succeeding that, in the interests of regional stability and counterterrorism, American forces have ventured onto Somali soil for the first time in more than a decade to hunt down the last of the Islamist leaders who held a firm grip on much of the country until just a few weeks ago.

Peace in the Middle-East? How about peace in Somalia?

Sudan cuts ties with Chad.

Sudan says it has cut off diplomatic relations with Chad, blaming it for helping rebels from Darfur to launch an attack on Sudan's capital, Khartoum.

Both Chad and Jem rebels deny working together to launch the assault on the Khartoum suburb of Omdurman, which the rebels say they have taken control of.

The government said the rebel advance, the closest they have come to Khartoum, had been defeated.

An overnight curfew imposed on Khartoum has been lifted, but not in Omdurman.

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir made the announcement that his country was breaking off diplomatic ties with Chad on state television.

"These forces [behind the Omdurman attack] are all basically Chadian forces supported and prepared by Chad and they moved from Chad under the leadership of [rebel chief] Khalil Ibrahim," President Bashir said in his televised statement.

How can things get worse in that region?

Just another Mother's Day.

Hezbollah's Beirut

Two Reuters videos:

and...

If there is any question to what Hezbollah wants, watch these videos.

Lebanon: Civil war coming?

The Strength of Russia?

Nothing like showing the rest of the world your strength by displaying your "Troops, tanks, warplanes and missiles."

Troops, tanks, warplanes and missiles paraded across Red Square in Moscow Friday for the first time since the Soviet collapse. The display came as Russia celebrated its May 9 Victory Day over Nazi Germany. VOA Moscow Correspondent Peter Fedynsky reports the show of force was intended as a signal of renewed Russian military strength.

Troops shouted "hurrah" to the accompaniment of martial music at Moscow's Red Square commemoration of the Nazi defeat 63 years ago. Other cities throughout Russia and in other former Soviet republics also held parades to honor the many millions who died in the war and also the veterans who brought it to a successful conclusion.

Russia's new President Dmitri Medvedev told participants in Moscow that the histories of the World Wars serve as warnings that armed conflicts are not born in and of themselves, but are ignited by those whose irresponsible ambitions override the interests of entire nations and continents.

Kremlin Gazprom Bureaucrat (KGB) Dmitri Medvedev takes his "turn" in leading as Putin "watches" on.

Oh Russia.
"I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma" ~ Winston Churchill, October 1939

China Cracks Down

The Chinese government is getting paranoid, is it because of a legitimate threat from terrorists? Or maybe it is really democracy movements they are so scared about. Independence movements? You can never be sure.

Less than 100 days before the start of the Summer Olympics, a creeping sense of unease pervades Beijing. The March riots in Tibet and the rough passage of the Olympic torch through some foreign cities has intensified official concern that the Games will bring trouble to the Chinese capital. In response, authorities have issued terror warnings, canceled public events and subjected foreigners to a higher level of scrutiny. Even as Beijing dashes to complete preparations to welcome the world in August, the city suddenly feels less welcoming.

A lovely location for the Olympics.

China: Bringing Order to the Orderless.

Eat Your Veggies

Well, it was bound to come, the push for rights given to...plants. Yes, that carrot stick you ate today, it felt pain, whether you noticed it or not. You might think this is total nonsense (which it is), yet apparently the Swiss government would disagree. An ethnics panel has deemed plants should be treated properly, given it is a living organism. Click here for more.

You just knew it was coming: At the request of the Swiss government, an ethics panel has weighed in on the "dignity" of plants and opined that the arbitrary killing of flora is morally wrong. This is no hoax. The concept of what could be called "plant rights" is being seriously debated.

A few years ago the Swiss added to their national constitution a provision requiring "account to be taken of the dignity of creation when handling animals, plants and other organisms." No one knew exactly what it meant, so they asked the Swiss Federal Ethics Committee on Non-Human Biotechnology to figure it out. The resulting report, "The Dignity of Living Beings with Regard to Plants," is enough to short circuit the brain.

A "clear majority" of the panel adopted what it called a "biocentric" moral view, meaning that "living organisms should be considered morally for their own sake because they are alive." Thus, the panel determined that we cannot claim "absolute ownership" over plants and, moreover, that "individual plants have an inherent worth." This means that "we may not use them just as we please, even if the plant community is not in danger, or if our actions do not endanger the species, or if we are not acting arbitrarily."

I wonder, will anybody stand up for the rights of a tapeworm?

After reading that, I'm going to double my veggie intake today and possibly pull a flower out of the ground (oh, I'm hardcore).

Where I found this article:
The Weekly Standard Blog

Three Story Sunday

We are entering an age of "The Post-American World" according to Fareed Zakaria.

We are living through the third great power shift in modern history. The first was the rise of the Western world, around the 15th century. It produced the world as we know it now—science and technology, commerce and capitalism, the industrial and agricultural revolutions. It also led to the prolonged political dominance of the nations of the Western world. The second shift, which took place in the closing years of the 19th century, was the rise of the United States. Once it industrialized, it soon became the most powerful nation in the world, stronger than any likely combination of other nations. For the last 20 years, America's superpower status in every realm has been largely unchallenged—something that's never happened before in history, at least since the Roman Empire dominated the known world 2,000 years ago. During this Pax Americana, the global economy has accelerated dramatically. And that expansion is the driver behind the third great power shift of the modern age—the rise of the rest.

As long as it's peaceful.

Iraq is caught between two powers.

Iran says it will back Iraq in its ongoing fight against its Shiite militias. That pledge came after a delegation from Iraq's ruling Shiite bloc pressed its neighbor on what it called fresh "evidence" it was arming and training militants.

The five-member group sent by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki returned to Baghdad Saturday, saying it had received a "positive" response after confronting officials with US and Iraqi intelligence on Iranian weapons caches that US officials say included weaponry manufactured in 2008.

"The delegation saw a positive stance from the brothers in Iran to support the government's efforts in extending the sovereignty of the state and to fight outlaws," Iraq's deputy parliament speaker Khalid al-Attiya, who visited Iran, said Saturday.

But the next day, the Iraqi government appeared to back away from its claims of Iranian meddling inside Iraq, highlighting the complexity and confusion over Iran's exact role in the Iraq war, its relationship with Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia, and the dilemma facing Mr. Maliki as his two chief allies – Washington and Tehran – engage in an ever-increasing war of words.

Iran, Iran, how long will you meddle with our affairs?

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is running out of time for a Israeli-Palestinian peace settlement.

Facing mounting Palestinian frustration at the pace of peace talks, the United States leaned on Israel on Sunday to lift restrictions that chafe West Bank residents and stifle an already limping economy.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice did not directly criticize close U.S. ally Israel, but had unusually direct remarks about the consequences of Israeli housing and roadblocks in the West Bank. Palestinian claims that Israel is deliberately expanding Jewish settlements on land the Palestinians claim for a state have dampened the high hopes for a peace deal before President Bush leaves office next year.

Asked about settlements, Rice said she "continues to raise with the Israelis the importance of creating an atmosphere that is conducive to negotiations."

Is it even worth it? Yes.

Just another Sunday.

Cuba: It's All Castro

With the recent stepping down of Fidel Castro from his throne of dictatorship, some are wondering how Raúl (his brother) will change Cuba. Recently, some forms of economic liberalization has taken place, with many people being able to buy consumer products such as cell phones.

One question of inquiry that many may bring up regarding Raúl, is why him? No better confidant than your brother Fidel? Well played. Yet Raúl isn't the only Castro to fill in a new government position in the great República de Cuba, it seems the name Castro pops up in a list of political appointments.

Here is the list (Foreign Policy Passport /Cuba Transition Project):

During the past few years family members of both Fidel and Raul Castro have come to occupy important positions in Cuba's government. This Castro clan represents in addition to the military, the security apparatus and the Communist Party, a significant force in Cuba's political and economic structures.
----------------------------------------------------
Fidel Castro Diaz-Balart

Relationship: Fidel Castro's son

Position: Advisor, Ministry of Basic Industry
----------------------------------------------------

Col. Alejandro Raúl Castro Espin

Position: Raúl Castro's son

Position: Chief, Intelligence Information Services, Ministry of the Interior; Coordinator, Intelligence Exchange with China
----------------------------------------------------

Ramón Castro Ruz

Position: Fidel and Raúl's oldest brother

Position: Advisor, Ministry of Sugar
----------------------------------------------------

Dr. Antonio Castro Soto

Position: Fidel Castro's son

Position: Investment Chief, Frank Pais Hospital. Doctor for Cuba's baseball team
----------------------------------------------------

Major Raúl Alejandro Rodríguez Castro

Position: Raúl Castro's grandson

Position: Raúl Castro's military guard in charge of his personal security
----------------------------------------------------

Deborah Castro Espin

Position: Raúl Castro's daughter

Position: Advisor, Ministry of Education
----------------------------------------------------

Mariela Castro Espin

Position: Raúl Castro's daughter

Position: Head, Center for Sexual Education

----------------------------------------------------

Marcos Portal León

Position: Married to Raúl Castro's niece

Position: In charge of nickel industry, member of the Central Committee of Cuba's Communist Party
----------------------------------------------------

The list goes on. It seems if Raúl drops, another Castro is available to take over.

Nepotism in a dictatorship, no way!

Where I found this article:
Foreign Policy Passport

Democratic Primary Recap

I've been following this race too long.

Where I found this video:
Hotair

Time 100 is Here

The Time 100 most influential people list is out, click here to view.
Here is an excerpt of who I feel earns the number one spot (for his role in changing the direction of Iraq), Robert Gates:

Robert Gates
By Zbigniew Brzezinski

Robert Gates was President George W. Bush's surprising choice as Secretary of Defense. When he accepted that onerous appointment — in the midst of a painful war and two years before the end of the President's term in office — he simply stated that he felt it was his duty to serve.

Having known him for some 30 years, I know this statement was sincere. Gates, above all, is a patriot. But he happens to be also a very intelligent patriot, and that is truly reassuring. During his confirmation hearings before the Senate, Gates, 64, acknowledged the important role of Congress in any decision to initiate a new war. That earned him widespread bipartisan respect — and a wartime Secretary of Defense needs such support, particularly when the war is so unpopular.

Gates' professional career has focused predominantly on national security issues. He served on the National Security Council (NSC) staff under Brent Scowcroft during the Ford presidency. He then became my special assistant when I was in charge of the NSC under President Jimmy Carter. He was the first person I would see every morning and usually the last one in the evening. I came to value highly his grasp of foreign affairs and his political judgment.

His meteoric rise continued at the CIA, where he eventually became director under President George H.W. Bush. Cool, calm and collected, this is a man who would never be rattled by a sudden 3 a.m. phone call.

Brzezinski was National Security Adviser to U.S. President Jimmy Carter

Without the sound leadership Gates has brought, I don't know where we would be today.