Much as been made of a brief quip by Fidel Castro in his recent set of interviews with Jeffrey Goldberg in The Atlantic. To wit: "The Cuban model doesn't even work for us anymore." These nine somewhat ambiguous words, offered without any further elucidation from the Bearded One, have sparked a voluble reaction across the political spectrum...

On Sept. 11, Lower Manhattan saw rival protests for and against the Islamic community center officially known as Cordoba House and popularly dubbed the "Ground Zero mosque." The anti-"mosque" protest organized by Stop Islamization of America—rightly called out as a hate group by Loonwatch—received much media hype, but this reporter failed to find it, after bicycling throughout the area. The closest was a dispirited and sparsely attended fundamentalist Christian rally at Church St. and Park Place, just a block from the proposed community center. A bunch of people who looked like they'd been bused in from the Midwest stood around as a preacher did his best firebrand routine, railing against pornography and abortion. There were big full-color posters featuring lugubrious photos of dismembered fetuses, looking like baskets of dessicated fried chicken. But where was Pamela Geller, and what did all this have to do with 9-11 or Cordoba House?

We just had to call out Cuban elder statesman and global rad-left icon Fidel Castro for his recent embrace of right-wing conspiracy theory (which nearly always has strong undertones, at least, of anti-Semitism). So we are particularly vindicated to see this. Jeffrey Goldberg interviews El Barbudo for his blog on The Atlantic this week. Amid a discussion of the threat of nuclear war arising from the West's showdown with Iran (a recent obsession of interviewer and interviewee alike) Goldberg writes that Fidel offered the following advice for his pal Mahmoud Ahmadinejad:

From the Daily Mail, Sept. 1:

The 33 trapped Chilean miners may not receive any wages while they are trapped underground, a union official has claimed. Evelyn Olmos says that San Esteban, the company that operates the mine, has said it has no money to pay their wages and absorb lawsuits, and is not even participating in the rescue.

Here we go again. From the Los Angeles Times, Sept. 8:

Self-styled communists helped fuel Westlake clash with police
When the Los Angeles Police Department faced hundreds of protesters on the streets of the Westlake District, some were people drawn to the event from other parts of the city for political reasons.

As we've had plenty of occasion to say before: Isn't it funny that those who invoke the supposed superiority of Western culture the loudest are the quickest to betray those values which supposedly make it superior (pluralism, tolerance, etc.)? And we'll also add—Way to win hearts and minds in Afghanistan! From ABC News, Sept. 4:

In a report issued Sept. 3, the US State Department determined that Mexico can receive $36 million in backed-up drug war aid under the Merida Initiative—but that $26 million, or 15% of an upcoming $175 million allocation, should be withheld for failure to meet human rights standards. The report especially cited the failure to try soldiers accused of abuses in civilian courts. It is the first time the State Department has called for withholding 15%, as permitted by the Merida Initiative's founding legislation, although the Department's backlog in approving previously allocated funds under the $1.3 billion program is responsible for the delay in releasing the $36 million. The Mexican government, in a statement, called the State Department findings an affront to its sovereignty: "The Merida Initiative is based on shared responsibility, mutual trust and respect for each country's jurisdiction."

In a successful operation Sept. 2, BP replaced the "blowout preventer" on the Deepwater Horizon well, although the "bottom kill" relief well is still underway five months and counting after the disaster began. (VOA, Sept. 2) Also Sept. 2, a new explosion ripped through an offshore oil platform off the Louisiana coast, throwing 13 crew-members into the water. All were rescued alive by a Coast Guard vessel. Mariner Energy of Houston, Texas, the owner of the platform, deployed three firefighting vessels to the scene and extinguished the fire. No oil is believed to have leaked from the platform, called Vermillion Block 380. (ENS, Sept. 3)