"CASTRO'S CUBA was no place for a socialist like me:"

Neil Clark says that he went to Havana in search of a left-wing Utopia and discovered instead an island fortress of poverty, corruption and currency apartheid.

AL-SADR has just announced the Mehdi Army cease-fire will be extended 6 more months.

MY QUESTION IS: if the NY Times had been working for so long in the McCain story, and therefore knew the sleazy stuff, why did it endorse him? Can't be because John Podhoretz was right?

THAT made me laugh.

AHEM:

[Bob] Geldof is an Irish rock and roll singer and longtime social activist who has helped, along with U2 rocker Bono, raise awareness about need in Africa. His most well known achievement is organizing the Live Aid concert in 1985, which raised money for debt relief for poor African countries.

But Mr. Geldof has remained closely engaged with African affairs since then, and he spoke off the cuff to reporters today who were waiting for a press conference with Mr. Bush and Rwandan President Paul Kagame.

Mr. Geldof praised Mr. Bush for his work in delivering billions to fight disease and poverty in Africa, and blasted the U.S. press for ignoring the achievement.

Mr. Bush, said Mr. Geldof, "has done more than any other president so far."

"This is the triumph of American policy really," he said. "It was probably unexpected of the man. It was expected of the nation, but not of the man, but both rose to the occasion."

MUSHARRAF has just conceded defeat in yesterday's election in Pakistan.

ADIOS, Fidel. Good grief.

UPDATE. A tempest in a teapot, says Val Prieto.

DESPITE economic slump, solar companies are glowing.

GLOBAL WARMING will save lives. More here.

BY A HAIR:

Latest election survey: The PP has cut back the Socialists' lead, according to the most recent poll taken by the CIS, the government polling agency, and why we need one I don't know. It's PSOE 40.2% and 155-163 seats, to PP 38.7% and 153-157 seats. Zap has lost his advantage, and the race is now too close to call. News: The Socialists in Catalonia have collapsed, from 37% of the vote to 27% in only three months. The blackout and the Great Transport Snafu have hurt them badly.

THE POLITICS OF BIOFUELS, or in other words, how to be hoist by your own petard.

EVEN the NY Times can't deny:

Iraq’s parliamentary leaders on Wednesday pushed through three far-reaching measures that had been delayed for weeks by bitter political maneuvering that became so acrimonious that some lawmakers threatened to try to dissolve the legislative body.More than any previous legislation, the new initiatives have the potential to spur reconciliation between Sunnis and Shiites and set the country on the road to a more representative government, starting with new provincial elections.The voting itself was a significant step forward for the Parliament, where even basic quorums have been rare. In a classic legislative compromise, the three measures, each of which was a burning issue for at least one faction, were packaged together for a single vote to encourage agreement across sectarian lines.

ZAPATERO a major case of foot-in-mouth disease? You bet:

Zap did an interview with pro-Socialist talk-show host Iñaki Gabilondo last night on Cuatro, the TV station owned by Prisa. Zap didn't say much of anything, but right after the interview ended, Gabilondo asked Zap off the air what the Socialists' surveys predicted. This was a much more interesting question than any of those he asked during the interview. Anyway, somebody left a microphone on, and everybody heard Zap's response, "Fine, but it helps us if there is tension." That is, he's in favor of open political conflict with the PP in order to stir up the citizens and make them angry in order to bring out the Socialist vote. Major case of foot-in-mouth disease. That's our Zap.

THAT'S SAD.

FIVE MYTHS about those nefarious neocons.

THE TRUTH about European Union election observers in Venezuela.

JUST LIKE in the old days:

U.S. fighter planes intercepted two Russian bombers, including one that buzzed an American aircraft carrier in the western Pacific during the weekend, The Associated Press has learned.

A U.S. military official says that one Russian Tupolev 95 flew directly over the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz twice, at a low altitude of about 2,000 feet, while another bomber circled about 58 miles out. The official was speaking on condition of anonymity because the reports on the flights were classified as secret.

17.000 "HONOR CRIMES" each year in the UK. Sheesh.

THATS FUNNY:

AL-QAEDA is on the ropes, by its own admission.

IS SPAIN an influential country?

But many observers say Zapatero has led Spain into the geopolitical wilderness largely because of his pathological dislike of the United States. He believed that if he would cut Spain’s ties with America, former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and former French President Jacques Chirac would embrace Spain as an equal member of an anti-American axis. That did not happen. Today Chirac and Schroeder have been replaced by pro-Americans, and Zapatero, who in 2004 promised to bring Spain ‘back to Europe’, is arguably the most isolated leader in Europe. Moreover, he is the only leader in Europe who is not on speaking terms with the United States.

STUPID RACISM by Spanish sports fans, again. Jerks.

MARK STEYN:

My favorite headline of the year so far comes from The Daily Mail in Britain: "Government Renames Islamic Terrorism As 'Anti-Islamic Activity' To Woo Muslims."

Her Majesty's Government is not alone in feeling it's not always helpful to link Islam and the, ah, various unpleasantnesses with suicide bombers and whatnot. Even in his cowboy Crusader heyday, President Bush liked to cool down the crowd with a lot of religion-of-peace stuff. But the British have now decided that kind of mealy-mouthed "respect" is no longer sufficient. So, henceforth, any terrorism perpetrated by persons of an Islamic persuasion will be designated "anti-Islamic activity." Britain's Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, unveiled the new brand name in a speech a few days ago. "There is nothing Islamic about the wish to terrorize, nothing Islamic about plotting murder, pain and grief," she told her audience. "Indeed, if anything, these actions are anti-Islamic."

Well, yes, one sort of sees what she means. Killing thousands of people in Manhattan skyscrapers in the name of Islam does, among a certain narrow-minded type of person, give Islam a bad name, and thus could be said to be "anti-Islamic" — in the same way that the Luftwaffe raining down death and destruction on Londoners during the Blitz was an "anti-German activity." But I don't recall even Neville Chamberlain explaining, as if to a five-year old, that there is nothing German about the wish to terrorize and invade, and that this is entirely at odds with the core German values of sitting around eating huge sausages in beer gardens while wearing lederhosen.

Still, it should add a certain surreal quality to BBC news bulletins: "The Prime Minister today condemned the latest anti-Islamic activity as he picked through the rubble of Downing Street looking for his 2008 Wahhabi Community Outreach Award. In a related incident, the anti-Islamic activists who blew up Buckingham Palace have unfortunately caused the postponement of the Queen's annual Ramadan banquet."

THE TOP FIVE celebrities that zombies would avoid eating.

ALEXANDER COCKBURN:

While the world’s climate is on a warming trend, there is zero evidence that the rise in CO2 levels has anthropogenic origins. For daring to say this I have been treated as if I have committed intellectual blasphemy.

Read the rest.

TO PARAPHRASE Churchill on democracy: it's true, the Iraq war has been the biggest disaster -with tactical, strategic and intelligence failures, with huge leadership problems- except all previous wars. Today's reading.