AS LONGTIME CUBAN COMMUNIST LEADER FIDEL CASTRO EXPECTED ALL THIS TIME, the Cuban National Assembly "rubberstamped," essentially confirming, Fidel's previously-announced intentions to transfer power to his older brother Raul with immediate effect.

Which, as some Cuba watchers in the conservative camp and along Miami's Calle Ocho are quick to suggest, amounts to replacing one psychopath with another in the corridors of power just to carry forward the same psychopathic agenda epitomised by Havana's closest thing to a bumper sticker slogan: "Socialism or death!"

Not to mention wondering if the psychopathia is the byproduct of inbreeding.

Which makes Cuba only the second Communist regime (after North Korea's "Great Leader" Kim Il Sung transferring power to son and "Dear Leader" Kim Jong Il following the former's death from heart attack in 1994) in which nepotism prevails among the highest echelons of power and authority in service to an inherently failed socioeconomic and political agenda.

In Cuba's case, excusing an enforced anti-American paranoia based along nationalistic lines which, "if and when necessary," can involve fanaticism and violence. Looks like incentive enough for the GOP's "Great Within" to cook up an October Surprise in the form of a shock invasion of Cuba (televised exclusively by Fox News) leading to the installation of what amounts to a corporatist state having its own sick travesty of a "reality TV show" for "winning of hearts and minds" among the Lower Classes towards accepting free-market capitalism as Great White Father.

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IF "PING-PONG DIPLOMACY" HELPED CRACK THE ICE IN WASHINGTON-BEIJING RELATIONS back in the late 1971/early 1972 period, eventually leading to then-President Nixon's historic visit to China, perhaps "philharmonic diplomacy" could crack the ice in such between Washington and Pyongyang.

Demonstrating that "music is the universal language," the New York Philharmonic Orchestra has announced that it will be performing in the North Korean capital before a distinguished audience (in particular "Great Leader" Kim Jong Il, himself a psychopath in fatigues), with the same being telecast live on North Korean state television.

But then again, with all the power cuts and deliberate poverty in the name of its brand of Communism known as juche ("self-reliance"), whether there will be anybody watching north of the Demilitarised Zone anyway.

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FOR THOSE OF YOU WANTING PROOF OF JUST HOW DELIBERATELY BACKWARD NORTH KOREA IS BEING KEPT, study one of those night-vision maps of the Asia-Pacific region, with particular emphasis upon the Korean peninsula.

Note especially well where South Korea (especially its major cities of Seoul and Pusan) shows nighttime lighting brilliantly in contrast to just north of the DMZ--nothing less than total darkness.

Remaining so until just past the Yalu River into China.

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SO MUCH FOR THE COAL INDUSTRY'S "WINNING OF HEARTS AND MINDS" ATTEMPTS to push coal-based power stations as "clean" energy (as well-documented by Think Progress, with particular regards to sponsorship of recent Presidential-candidate debates on the vidiot's box and a notorious "dirty tricks" campaign in Kansas):

What would prevent the Army Corps of Engineers from conducting studies into adding value for money to the lock-and-dam systems on the Upper Mississippi, Illinois and Ohio rivers by retrofitting such facilities with hydroelectric generating capacity, in the process tapping into what may be the biggest and richest source of "green" electricity?

A source, no doubt, sure to make Hydro-Quebec, perhaps North America's leader in "green" electricity, envious and then some....

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AND TALK ABOUT THE GOP'S PSYOPS MASHEEN PUSHING FEAR AND LOYALTY-RELATED QUESTIONS as weapons of choice in Indecision 2008 (per what The Carpetbagger Report documents here, here and here, if you want documentation):

How do we know that the GOP isn't on especially friendly terms with the so-called "Church of Scientology" when it comes to "dirty tricks" for electoral purposes being perfected (especially so use of the "Fair Game" tactic to silence or intimidate real or suspected critics and opponents)?

And to what extent are Scientologist tactics, strategems and tricks being deployed as part of GOP campaign strategems?

And how are the GOP's leaders trying to cover their tracks of connexions with a Notorious and Evil Cult such as the "Church of Scientology" has been identified as being?

Have they no sense of Decency, Sirs, @ long last?

Have they left no sense of Decency?