I'm sure it's just a "bad cold".

But with the superlative Canad, er, I mean Cuban health care system, Ol' Uncle Fidel will be up and around in no time.

We all knew it had to happen sooner or later, but DAMN!
Finally...

On behalf of left-leaning Canadians everywhere,especially his many admirers in the federal Liberal party, I would like to wish Mr.Castro a speedy recovery.

Can we get some samples of necrotising fascitis FedExed to Cuba stat? Need to make sure that he doesn't get up this time. An aerosolised version to spray his brother and all of his cabinet and senior staff would also be useful!

Going to be an interesting few days in Cuba.

Doug

The Cuban health care system isn't so bad actually, especially compared to other Caribbean/Latin American Countries. Based on outcomes it does pretty well.

Unfortunately, with Raoul as the People's Beloved Revolutionary Generalissimo and Perfect President for Life in waiting, it may yet be a while before things materially improve for the Cuban people. The reports I've read would indicate that Raoul is at least as hard core as Fidel. So the prospects for real change may yet be ten years off. I hope I'm wrong. And at least this may be a start.

Oops, misspelled Raul.

"The Cuban health care system isn't so bad actually..."

Allow me:

http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/archives/001553.html

DrD,

Yeah, but at least he's only 5 years younger. L'il brother can't have that much spirit left in him after 75 years of noogies from old Fidel. How many other siblings in the queue? How many other clones in the vat?

Is Fidel a "pull my finger" kind of older brother or more of a "That frosty galvanized pole tastes like strawberries" kinda guy? People need to know.

Kate

I'd choose a Canadian hospital over a Cuban hospital nearly every time. But that wasn't my point. Compared to other countries with similar levels of development in their region the Cuban system is quite good. I've been to hospitals in The Bahamas and Cuba, and the standard of care in Cuban hospitals compares favourably. But yes there are some holes in the walls.

Friends of mine who are more widely travelled in Central America say there is no comparison, the Cuban system is far ahead of those countries.

It will be interesting how Canadian MSM covers this turn of events in Cuba.
My guess is that the CBC has already a mushy gratuitous documentary in the event of Fidel's demise.
I can practically visualize the cortege as CBC's Peter, in hushed tones describes the somber Canadian unofficial delegation of Stephen Lewis, LLoyd Axworthy, Alexa, Jack Layton, Maggie and P.E.T Junior mourning the loss of a fellow socialist, albeit a despot.
I recall when Stalin died in 1953, people actually cried from sorrow, but then I recall also others crying for joy!
There may well by a flood of tears of joy in Florida from Cuban expatriates on this news.

Miami is partying HARD tonight. Hell needs another jack-booted dictator ASAP.

things aint gonna change a whole heckuva lot in cooba this year folks, regardless who the figurehead is.

look at any other cummunist state where a blood relative takes over. a brand new form of dynasty right in front of us !! ANY nation where power is handed over to relatives; how much changes ?? hmmmm ????

celebrate casto's imminent passing but dont hold your breath waiting for reforms and improvements on the cigar island.

he sure as shyt outlasted all those american presidents who tried to bump him off eh?

lets hope he joins his big fan pierre turdeau with all haste.

Castro obviously had/has a huge place in the hearts of the Cuban people. That has given him the ability to stay in power despite a not very impressive economic performance. And I say that willing to grant that he has delivered better health care, and literacy than, say, the Dominican Republic.

But will Cubans welcome his little brother the same way? Fidel had the revolution, the Bay of Pigs, and the Cuban Missile Crisis all working in his favour. Those are the type of events that make for mythic figures. But Raul will never be mythic in the same way, and with more and more information available over the internet, at some point, we can hope that Cubans say "Enough!".

this kind of thing should bring out CBCpravda at its best.

they like power transfer to relatives- see how they follow the Trudeau spawn and gush over ever move.

I thought it was just countries with Royalty that had brothers replace ailing and/or dying despots...er, rulers.

King Fidel is dead...long live Raul???????

Whatever, it's not looking good for the people of Cuba.

A great book--it won the 2003 National Book Award for its author Carlos Eire--is "Waiting for Snow in Havana: Confessions of a Cuban Boy," about what it was like to grow up in an increasingly Castroized/Castr(o)ated Cuba from the perspective of a boy in a rather bizarre household, where his father, a prominent judge, thinks that in a past life he was King Louis XVI...

Eire and his brother are eventually airlifted out of Cuba to the U.S., to see their mother only three years later when she joins them in America, and never to see their father again.

Gray: Maybe it's time to begin comparing Canadian hospitals to Cuban ones...

I'm just waiting for the contrived outrage the next time a left-wing commentator wishes death on someone.

Moral relativism is a disease that rots the mind, Dawg.

Get some help for it.

If you cannot discerne the difference between wishing death on a specific repressive dictator and wishing death on a "someone", then please refrain from commenting here.

I say that not because I don't want you commenting here, but because I sort of like you, and you can really do better than that. That comment was Ti-Guy lite.

Will Raul be any easier for the CIA to kill than his brother?

I'd make that a torturing, murdering, "repressive dictator" who is, for some unfathomable reason, a hero to an awful lot of Canadians. What ignorance or stupidity or personality disorder or mental illness could explain such disconnection from reality? Whatever it is, it's evil and dangerous.

Cubans in Miami Await News on Castro
Aug 01 12:46 AM US/Eastern
By LAURA WIDES-MUNOZ
Associated Press Writer

MIAMI

"Cubans exiles took to the streets in anticipation Monday night after news spread that Cuban President Fidel Castro had temporarily relinquished power to his brother Raul and undergone surgery for an intestinal illness.

People waved Cuban flags on Little Havana's Calle Ocho, shouting "Cuba, Cuba, Cuba," hoping that the end was near for the man most of them consider a ruthless dictator. Cigars were lit, pots were banged and there were hugs, cheers and dancing as drivers honked their horns. Many of Miami's exiles fled the communist island or have parents and grandparents who did.

"We long for the day when power transfers in Cuba are the results of a free, democratic process and reflect the wishes of the Cuban people, not the preordained wishes of a dictator" said Joanna Gonzalez, spokeswoman for Raices de Esperanza, or Roots of Hope. "Although this transfer of power is being characterized as temporary, the oppression under which the Cuban people live is enduring and continues.""

If he dies will that idiot JIMMY CARTER be asking that we fly our flags a half mast for him? well old glory dont fly at half mast for any damn tyrants and despot and jimmy carter should get hit over the head with a stone to jump start his walnut sized brain

Is rooting, for intestinal bleeding bad?

The market for green one-piece Kim Jong jumpers just got cut in half.

I have to believe Spawn of Satan er, uh, Trudeaulite wants another shot at conjuring up a "real" tear for this dead commie dickhead.

The CBC is WD40ing the rigging on the flagpole, and layed in a boxcar of extraplush kleenex.

Yes, their healthcare system is remarkable, the literacy rate is top shelf and half the women in Cuba will prostitute themselves for makeup or a plastic watch.

Here's wishing the Cuban people good luck....that's to say, an incompetent surgeon for Fidel.

Did Keith Boag ever canoe down the Nahani with Castro?

Or was that Craig Oliver, I'm not alltogether up-to-speed on the Mesozoic era.

I couldn't help it.

Here's some leftist moonbattery of epic proportions, posted in all seriousness by someone over in the "babble" section of rabble.ca:

"Another important aspect to remember is that Cuba, with a population of 10 million+ citizens, has far more involvement, support and participation in its democratically elected government's decisions than any practically any other nation in the world. It is also a country that has far fewer dissidents than most other nations on the planet, especially the u.s. of a.."

What a remarkably ill mannered assholish, bad karma attracting headline that was, Kate. You act like a small dead animal sometimes. Meaning that you stink.

Lets not forget that along with their world class health care and literacy the Cubans also lead the world in converting '55 Buicks into ocean going vessels.

"Bad karma attracting". :)
That's the "drivin for show" John Daly we love.
Does el presidente for life attract bad Karma for murdering, torturing, and imprisoning his subjects?

Count on Jimmy Carter and Oliver Stone as pallbearers.

IIRC, Cuba was the third richest country in the Western Hemisphere when Castro took over.

Now it is so far LAST it is off the chart.

The Cuban people are unarmed and defenseless so I do not expect any changes there as no one is willing to help them.

The left make excuses for Castro using literacy and health care examples which are IMHO laughable.

The great health care system is made by forcing unpaid doctors to look after wealthy NON Cubans (mostly from SA) for cash for the state (Castro).

It serves two purposes brings in the money desparately needed and for making propaganda about their Communist health care system.

Also the Canadian Islamic Congress loves Cuba because there are no Americans there and they have lots of company from Dippers and Libs who share the same belief that a world with no Americans is better.

Castro’s "History Will Absolve Me" Is Still a Revolutionary Classic

by Dr. Mohamed Elmasry -

http://www.canadianislamiccongress.com/ar/opeds.php?id=2814

"What a remarkably ill mannered assholish, bad karma attracting headline that was, Kate. You act like a small dead animal sometimes. Meaning that you stink."

Oh dear. Someone's leftie "cult-of-the-personality" testiness is showing, I think.

Never mind, should George Bush ever succumb to anything, you'd then have your big chance to be remarkably ill-mannered and "assholish" too.

Speaking of heros of the revolution, if those US imperialists got one thing right, it was the marksmanship of the Bolivian Army.

As favourite-moonbat-T-shirt-icon Che found out the hard way.

Ooops!

That should be "heroes"!

Given the choice between an emergency visit to ANY Caribbean or Latin American country- I'll chose Chuba, ( and thank you very mcuh!)
Also- given the choice between a 'democracy'
(led by Jean Cretien in Canukistan), and a 'benign dictatorship' in Cuba- Fidel Castro gets my vote again!

Anyone that calls themselves Canadian and has been in a Cuban Hospital should get there asses back to Havana and stay there. WE DONT WANT THE COMMIE SCUM messing up our country any more!

The headline should bet changed (but not until he is very dead)to "Best News of the Century"

Davie,

You epitomize why I hate leftist a$$holes. If you think Cuba under Castro is so wonderful, piss off and go there.

There is nothing at all benign about a tyrant dictator who jails people because they criticize the government.

You are an apologist for a mass murderer. Keep in mind the wars all over Latin America and Africa started by Castro. Angola along cost the lives of several hundred thousand.

I see no moral difference between the sub-human garbage that supported Fascists and the equally sub-human garbage that supports the communists.

Like the old adage goes, "kill a commie for mommy!"

Concrete

Haiti is for sure last in per capita GDP in this hemisphere and a quick look puts 5 other countries below Cuba in per capita GDP, so your statement about Cuba's wealth is false.

Free
Does that include tourists who don't get sick?

Warwick
"Apologist for mass murder" then "kill a commie for mommy" Can you see the contradiction?

Also Cuba is viewed as an ally by South African countries for their help in those liberation struggles. Particularly

That flashback link looks photoshopped. Why is the attacker dressed in a soccer uniform? Why is he unnaturally brighter than the rest of the clip? Why, when he retreats, do others pass him to help Fidel? The clip is pretty quick but it looks a bit like Zidane in the World Cup final.

No flies on you, eh sub-urban?

So sorry about Cuba not being dead last in per capita GDP gray.

The actual number now claimed (no way to verify) is $3000, up from $1700 in 1999.

Haiti is $1500. Not much difference unless one is interested in how badly Cuba can do.

The most interesting differences IMO are those from 1960 to now.

Castro took a thriving and wealthy country to ruin and many Canadians do not get it even after they visit the ruins of the once beautiful city of Havana.

Oh well, Cuba is cheap and has nice beaches and no Americans so who cares if the waiters are slaves.

To those touting the Cuban medical system, this from Babalu (great link Kate)

"...he explained that he was a little desperate to fix the [computer] problem since he had not been able to reach his brother by email in Cuba who had had cancer surgery recently. He went on to explain -- and I kid you not this is what he said -- that he had to send money to his brother so that he could pay for the anesthesia for his next scheduled surgery! According to him, they had given his brother chispa de tren (translation: 'train sparks,' a very strong Cuban moonshine) to partially dull his senses for the first surgery since there was anasthetic in the hospital and the only way to get it was to pay for it on the black market! This guy has zero reasons to lie to me. He is a good friend to my mom and I know him well enough to know that he is not a bullshit artist and that he is desperately concerned about his relatives on the island."

Then from the comments: "This is a fact of life for many Cubans on the Island. I know of several people that have family in Cuba that needed surgery and they had to sent via the Red Cross not only the anesthesia for a surgery, but also the tape, gauze, surgical instruments, alcohol, bed sheets, surgical gloves, masks etc. etc. etc."

I have read many similar stories over the years. Of course, you can't trust anything you hear from those 600,000 Cubans stupid enough to risk their lives on rickety rafts to flee the Great Utopia. Wonder how many drowned in the attempt. Cuba must be GREAT, right?

My impressions of Cuba during my admittedly brief and totally touristy visit were of a country that has been on a death vigil for years. There was this pervasive sense of resignation -- waiting for Castro to die so that the country could move on. Our resort staff learned their English by watching CNN! They received wealthy tourists from Mexico. They could see what the outside world was like. And they were frustrated to no end that Cuba was being kept under developed.
Castro is a complex figure (not in the Belinduh sense). His eradication of the mafia, breakup of the old guard elite and implementation of universal education and the structure of universal social security systems seem to have been genuinely popular. At one time he seems to have genuinely wanted something better for the average Cuban. But he had zero understanding of economics and having created the infrastructure for human economic development, (a la Amartya Sen "Development as Freedom") immediately crushed any prospect of its flowering by implementing rigid state central planning/collectivization. The corrupt, oppressive bueaucracy, mass killings and suppression of dissent inevitably went hand in hand. And despite being slapped in the face with ecomonic failure Castro could not change.
Cuba is a lesson that Marx got it backwards. A socialized human infrastructure (health care, education) may represent a good first step in preparing a poor country for the final stage of economic development -- a democratic free market system with private property rights (a la Hernando de Soto). I hope that those Cuban people, who can smile so easily, will soon have something truly worth smiling about.

Cuba has wonderful hospitals and doctors, just not for Cubans.

Gray,

"liberation struggles" from who? You're an idiot if that's what you call the petty and violent bickering between warlords. The Afro-Marxist thugs that Cuba supported have no intention of "liberating" anyone. Nor do any other commies. You either believe it and you're a fool or you don't and you're a lying propagandist.

There is no contradiction in my words. Those people who were killed by the twin evils of communism and fascism were innocent. What those vermin did was mass murder innocent civilians en mass. Those followers of these evils were propagators of death and like those found guilty in the Nuremberg trials, they deserve to be hung or worse.

It takes a lefty to be so devoid of the morality required to see the difference between the guilty and their victims. That is why you're on the side of Hezbollah's terrorists, Cuba's communists, and probably own a Che shirt too. How many teenagers did Che execute? Did you know about them?

That's why I hate lefties. They earned my hatred and contempt.

Castro was good to the Cuban people. He did nothing to hurt Canada. I know alot of people who holiday in Cuba they loved it. The people like Canadians and visa vera. It's not the system I would like to live under but the people of Cuba like it.

rebarbarian
"Cuba has wonderful hospitals and doctors, just not for Cubans.".

That is the truth.

Does anyone remember that deputation of NDPathetics going to Cuba to study Cuban health care?

Will CBC cover the funeral live? Will CBC females swoon and toss ginch on the casket? Will Martin, Cretin or Strong be pallbearers? Will Margaret Kemper-Trudeau recite a poem?

a holiday on a beach in cuba is like saying
Cozumel is Mexico or Sharm el Sheikh is Egypt.

Cuba is a hole with a few high end beaches and gated resorts along the fringe for foreigners.

10% of Cubans have fled the subsidized socialist paradice.when the USSR isnt sending them money , they live on the backs of the Columbian poor.Castro is a begger of the highest degree.

Gray siad;
Free
Does that include tourists who don't get sick?

Anyone who would go to Cuba should stay there.

Cuba is as cheap as the morals of those that visit.

Warwick

The liberation struggles I 'm talking about are Namibia, Angola and South Africa. Cuba is highly regarded by Namibia and South Africa (don't know about Angola) for their help and both are multi-party democracies.

As for Hezbollah and a Che T-shirt, you're grasping at some rather silly strawmen there.

Also you hate "lefties", so what? I hate Lima Beans. What does either of those hatreds that have to Cuban Healthcare and Cuba's perception by South African Countries?

DrD

Interesting post. It brought to my mind a piece by US Columnist Ralph Peters about Cuba's chances to develop once the regime changes. I'll try to find a link.

"Also- given the choice between a 'democracy'
(led by Jean Cretien in Canukistan), and a 'benign dictatorship' in Cuba- Fidel Castro gets my vote again!"

Whatever we might think of old Jean and his Libranos, to compare the duly elected leader of a legitimate political party in a democratic country with an unelected dictator-for-life in a communist authoritarian state is beneath contempt.

Get a grip on yourself, "davie."

Presumably, you are currently actively consulting with the Cuban Embassy in Ottawa about immigrating to that socialist paradise post haste.

In case anyone is interested in what Castro actually did and what is likely to happen after him, there is an article by a former Canadian diplomat posted to Cuba in to-day's Ottawa Citizen:
http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/opinion/story.html?id=04544ddc-7919-4d8f-b3cf-c83be17f643e

It is firewalled and too long to type out. But it might temper the views of some of the pinnacles of western civilization on this thread.

agitfact,

Let me guess whose appointment this former CDN diplomat was: Trudeau.

Castro was Trudeau's pallbearer. Trudeau and his cabal of communist apologists can be counted upon to excuse Castro as they did the USSR, China, Cambodia (before the truth was too public to deny,) and every other mass-murdering, tyrannical communist scumbag.

Are there worse things than Castro? Of course. And Trudeau was a fan of all of them.

I didn't read the story as it's behind the firewall so it may have been someone else's appointment but I doubt it. Our diplomatic corp is a pathetic left-wing clique of scum whose ranks should be purged in a manner fitting their hero Stalin.

Here is the link I mentioned earlier

http://carlisle-www.army.mil/usawc/Parameters/01winter/peters.htm

Warwick,

the former diplomat's name is Harry Sterling. Don't know when he served in Cuba, or in what capacity.

But I simply have to see your bile explode all over the screen of my monitor, so I will laboriously type Sterling's conclusion for you.

"Therefore, to suggest that Castro's departure would be a blessing for the Cuban people and democracy is simplistic. These are the same kind of simplistic assumptions thatled to the disastrous quasi-civil war in Iraq, which the U.S.-British invasion unleashed with untold suffering on all sides.

Nobody needs another Iraq in Cuba. Not even Castro's enemies."

Gray,

thanks for the "Parameters" link. I am going to post the money paragraph to go straight to the point:

"Cuba may be a small problem in the geostrategic sense, but it certainly fixes America's attention. The instability likely to embarrass us in Cuba will come after Castro's disappearance, as the island's current regime weakens and dissolves. The Batista-Cubans we have harbored in South Florida, whose political influence has maintained one of the most counterproductive of American policies, will try to reclaim, purchase, and bribe their way into power in the land they or their elders exploited then fled. The Cubans who stayed in Cuba, for better and worse, do not want their rich relatives back. And were we to be the least bit just, we would recognize that those who stayed behind have earned the right to decide how their island will be governed in the future. For all our ranting about the Castro dictatorship--which may not be admirable, but which is far more liberal and equitable than many of America's client governments (tourists clamor to go to Havana, not Riyadh)--an honest appraisal reveals that the average Cuban, though impoverished by the policies both of his own government and of the United States, enjoys a better quality of life than that of the average resident of many a "free" Caribbean state. If we intervene at some future date to protect the "rights" and the "legitimate property" of the Miami Cubans at the expense of the Cuban people themselves, we will shame ourselves inexcusably. Post-Castro Cuba, on its own, has an unusually good chance of evolving into a model democracy, but it will not do so if we sanction and support the carpetbagging of emigres who have never found American democracy fully to their tastes."

For those suspecting lefty propaganda, "Parameters" is the US Army War College quarterly. Moonbat it ain't.

Ok, as soon as he goes, we deport all the Cubans to Israel and bring all the Israelies back to Cuba. PMSH can even organize the transportation now that he's got some experience.

Pull it off and I'll offer my Nobel Peace prize to Kate as payment for using her blog...