Miami -- It is there that a nutty bunch of Cuban exiles have controlled U.S. foreign policy regarding this insignificant island nation. These Cubans, many of whom were Batista supporters and lived high on the hog while that crook ran the country, seem not to have slept a wink since they grabbed their assets and headed to Florida.

And, since 1960, they have insisted on pulling us into their madness. Why is it that in every incident of national torment that has deflated our country for the past three decades-the Kennedy assassination, Watergate, IranContra, our drug abuse epidemic-the list goes on and on-we find that the Cuban exiles are always present and involved? First it was Lee Harvey Oswald's connection to the Cubans in New Orleans. (Or was it the Cuban exiles acting alone to kill Kennedy, or Castro ordering the assassination 'cause he just got bored with Kennedy trying to bump him off? Whichever theory you subscribe to, the Cubans are lurking in the neighborhood.)

Then, on the night of June 17, 1972, three Cubans- Bernard Barker, Eugenio Martinez, and Virgilio Gonzalez (plus Americans Frank Sturgis and James McCord Jr.)-were caught breaking into the Watergate offices of the chairman of the Democratic Party. This covert operation eventually brought down Richard Nixon, (so I guess there is a silver lining to that particular Cuban-exile operation).

Today, Barker and Gonzalez are considered heroes in Miami's Cuban community. Martinez, later pardoned by Ronald Reagan, is the only one who feels bad. "I did not want myself to be involved in the downfall of the President of the United States." Oh, well, how nice of you!

When Ollie North needed a cover group to run arms into Nicaragua to help overthrow the government, who else could he turn to but the Miami Cubans? Bay of Pigs veterans Ramon Medina and Rafael Quintero were key managers of the air-transport company that supplied weapons to the Contras. The U.S.-backed Contra War was responsible for the deaths of thirty thousand Nicaraguans.

One of the big bonuses to come out of our funding of these Cuban exiles was the help they gave us in bringing illegal drugs into the States, destroying families and whole sections of our cities. Beginning in the early sixties, a number of Cubans (who also participated in the Bay of Pigs invasion) began running major narcotics rings in this country. The DEA found little support within the federal government to go after these Cuban exiles, because they had organized themselves under the phony banner of "freedom groups." In fact, many were nothing more than fronts for massive drug-smuggling operations. These same drug runners later helped to run arms to the Contras.

U.S.-based Cuban terrorist organizations have been responsible for more than two hundred bombings and at least a hundred murders since Castro's revolution. They have got everyone so afraid to stand up to them that I probably shouldn't even be writing this chapter. I am, after all, one of the few unarmed Americans.

So why am I not worried? Because these Cuban exiles, for all their chest-thumping and terrorism, are really just a bunch of wimps. That's right. Wimps.

Well, the classic example of Unintended Blowback was when feminists convinced the Canadian government to pass stringent laws against importing pornography, which were (inevitably) then used to confiscate a shipment of feminist-oriented lesbian erotic publications.

well, don't take it as too close a parallel, but I'm not sure that the chicken and the pig deserve equal say in whether the farmer is going to have bacon and eggs for breakfast.

As for me, I don't know if I'd be upset when my child-to-be is eliminated by a woman choosing abortion; but I do know that I get upset when my child-to-be is eliminated by a woman choosing not to have sex with me.

i've been thinking that the flash in a camera or even a camera-phone might serve as a usable taser if you ran the wires out the side.

remember those search sites from back when, where humans organized the sites for you into categories, etc.? well, nowadays wikipedia has become a well organized front end for web pages, and google indexes wikipedia.

"When men are freed to do as they please they create glorious masterworks, miles long bridges, building sized structures going to the moon, solutions to diseases, Hamlet."

Well, I don't know where you live. When most men, especially under the age of 60, around here are freed to do as they please, they fuck incessantly and irresponsibly and become completely engrossed by random sex.

otherwise, we'd have a hell of a lot more bridges and Hamlets.

i still remember visiting the ape compound (didn't have bars, was separated from the human visitors by a "moat" and a high wall) at a small zoo many years ago; when a human family held up their little kid to get a better look, the apes got all excited and held up their baby, to get a better look at the cute little human. then one of them starting throwing pieces of fruit to the humans. not "at" the humans, as far as i could tell, but to them. slightly disquieting, on many levels.

"I've not seen the show but

I'm sure it's of the hand held fuzzy high contrast variety."

why is it people named anonymous are always eager to share their ignorance with us, when we didn't ask?

perhaps oddly, this nonpartisan uniter not a divider shtick is the thing i like least about obama. clinton (William) had the same kind of force of charisma, and he didn't do so well at taming the rabid right. on the other hand, he did get things done, to some degree. on the other other hand, the rabid right legacy continued after his demise.

there is no way i can work with somebody that ugly around. he needs to do something about it.

Jew bad.