After Second Power Outage, 10 Million Cubans Endure Saturday Afternoon Blackout (msn.com) 167
The Miami Herald reports:
Cuba's electrical grid shut down again early Saturday, leaving the island without electricity after authorities tried but failed to restore power following an earlier nationwide blackout on Friday. The island's Electric Union reported a second "total outage" at 6:15 a.m., just hours after officials reported they had restored power in a few "microsystems" all over the island... The country has been going through its worst economic crisis since the fall of the Soviet Union, and the government lacks money to buy oil in the international market to meet domestic demand.
Cubans irked by the daily blackouts defied the country's Draconian laws punishing criticism of the government and left several comments in official news outlets calling for government officials to resign. The second outage will likely exacerbate public frustration as food begins to spoil because of the lack of refrigeration.
Two hours ago, Reuters reported that Cuba's government "said on Saturday it had made some progress in gradually re-establishing electrical service across the island, including to hospitals and parts of the capital Havana..."
"Most of Cuba's 10 million people, however, remained without electricity on Saturday afternoon." Traffic lights were dark at intersections throughout Havana, and most commerce was halted...
Cuban officials have said even if the immediate grid collapse is resolved, the electricity crisis will continue. Cuba produces little of its own crude oil, and fuel deliveries to the island have dropped significantly this year, as Venezuela, Russia and Mexico, once important suppliers, have reduced their exports to Cuba.
Mexico experienced a historic drop in production, according to the New York Times, while Venezuela is selling its oil to foreign companies to ease its own economic crisis: The experts had warned for years: Cuba's power grid was on the verge of collapse, relying on plants nearly a half-century old and importing fuel that the cash strapped Communist government could barely afford... Cuban economists and foreign analysts blamed the crisis on several factors: the government's failure to tackle the island's aging infrastructure; the decline in fuel supplies from Venezuela, Mexico and Russia; and a lack of capital investment in badly needed renewable systems, such as wind and solar.
Jorge Piñon, a Cuban-born energy expert at the University of Texas at Austin, highlighted that Cuba's electricity grid relies on eight very large power plants that are close to 50 years old. "They have not received any operational maintenance much less capital maintenance in the last 12 to 15 years," he said, adding that they have a lifetime of only 25-30 years. "So, number one, it's a structural problem, they are breaking down all the time and that has a domino effect," he said. Compounding the problems, Cuba burns crude oil as a fuel for its plants. Experts said Cuba's own crude oil production is very heavy in sulfur and metals that can impair the thermoelectric combustion process. "So they have to be constantly repairing them, and they're repairing them with Band-Aids," said Mr. Piñon...
"If they can't turn these plants back on there is a concern that this could turn into another mass exodus," said Ricardo Herrero, the director of the Cuba Study Group in Washington. "They are really short on options," he added.
Cubans irked by the daily blackouts defied the country's Draconian laws punishing criticism of the government and left several comments in official news outlets calling for government officials to resign. The second outage will likely exacerbate public frustration as food begins to spoil because of the lack of refrigeration.
Two hours ago, Reuters reported that Cuba's government "said on Saturday it had made some progress in gradually re-establishing electrical service across the island, including to hospitals and parts of the capital Havana..."
"Most of Cuba's 10 million people, however, remained without electricity on Saturday afternoon." Traffic lights were dark at intersections throughout Havana, and most commerce was halted...
Cuban officials have said even if the immediate grid collapse is resolved, the electricity crisis will continue. Cuba produces little of its own crude oil, and fuel deliveries to the island have dropped significantly this year, as Venezuela, Russia and Mexico, once important suppliers, have reduced their exports to Cuba.
Mexico experienced a historic drop in production, according to the New York Times, while Venezuela is selling its oil to foreign companies to ease its own economic crisis: The experts had warned for years: Cuba's power grid was on the verge of collapse, relying on plants nearly a half-century old and importing fuel that the cash strapped Communist government could barely afford... Cuban economists and foreign analysts blamed the crisis on several factors: the government's failure to tackle the island's aging infrastructure; the decline in fuel supplies from Venezuela, Mexico and Russia; and a lack of capital investment in badly needed renewable systems, such as wind and solar.
Jorge Piñon, a Cuban-born energy expert at the University of Texas at Austin, highlighted that Cuba's electricity grid relies on eight very large power plants that are close to 50 years old. "They have not received any operational maintenance much less capital maintenance in the last 12 to 15 years," he said, adding that they have a lifetime of only 25-30 years. "So, number one, it's a structural problem, they are breaking down all the time and that has a domino effect," he said. Compounding the problems, Cuba burns crude oil as a fuel for its plants. Experts said Cuba's own crude oil production is very heavy in sulfur and metals that can impair the thermoelectric combustion process. "So they have to be constantly repairing them, and they're repairing them with Band-Aids," said Mr. Piñon...
"If they can't turn these plants back on there is a concern that this could turn into another mass exodus," said Ricardo Herrero, the director of the Cuba Study Group in Washington. "They are really short on options," he added.
Time for it to become an US state? (Score:2)
In a few more years most of the formerly Cuban population will be living in the United states, might as well join the US entirely then.
No, they will turn into another North Korea... (Score:3, Insightful)
Nope, Cuba is Russian's North Korea. A brutal, puppet regime propped up by a superpower whose only reason for existing is a distraction and potentially a base for attack against the West. This is why the current regime hasn't been toppled because if it does get weak, Wagner will be sending people there to make opposition leaders disappear.
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North Korea has a peasant population less exposed to modern mass media and less connected to foreign family. It will be a long long time before Cuba has a similarly indoctrinated population. Also Russia is no super power. Pooh keeps the lights on in North Korea, Putler can't manage that for Cuba.
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Also Russia is no super power.
You can say that again. They're using artillery produced in the 40s [newsweek.com] in their two week operation.
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"North Korea has a peasant population less exposed to modern mass media .."
Because that those expose themself to modern media, get executed - especially if they watch K-Pop!
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Maybe the USA should adopt their univ
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You make Cuba sound like a paradise!
When are you moving there? Got any real estate tips for where I should look? Who is your real estate agent?
I can't imagine why the US has a long standing anti-Cuba policy. Can't have anything to do with being a Russian base 90 miles off our coast and all the fucking around they've done in Africa, Central America and Caribbean islands to spread their political philosophy of goodness and happiness for all or hosting Soviet nuclear missiles. And the policy continues to t
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I can't imagine why the US has a long standing anti-Cuba policy. Can't have anything to do with being a Russian base 90 miles off our coast and all the fucking around they've done in Africa, Central America and Caribbean islands to spread their political philosophy of goodness and happiness for all or hosting Soviet nuclear missiles. And the policy continues to this day because the same people are still in charge. Maybe that will all change at the next Cuban election... lol.
Hey yeah, you're absolutely right! It's the USA's job to put military bases & missile systems close to "non-aligned" countries' borders & to do all the fucking around in Africa, Central America, & Caribbean islands! How dare they!
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Oh no! The US is run by hypocrites!
Hey, you know what? Multi polar global politics is not a child's playground game. They were a threat and got beat up for letting themselves get used by the Soviets. Tough shit. They chose it. The Soviets didn't force them to sign up.
If they wanted to be treated nice they should have joined this team instead of the Soviet team.
They can make any decisions they like about who to ally with and suffer the consequences for their decisions. At anytime they could have chang
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Your arguments essentially boils down to, "We're the biggest arseholes on the planet."
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Way to go, ignoring how the world really works to put lipstick on the Castro Cuban pig!
As shitty as the US has been at times, we have also done a lot of good. Compared to evil shithead Castro (since that's the topic here) who only ever did evil from his crappy little island and broken economy. If the power roles were reversed oh yes I'm sure Castro would have turned out to be a really swell guy! He was just misunderstood.
Oh wait, he did do one good thing. He had Che Guevara killed; the only guy he ever
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A British politician, who's since passed away, once said, "You can tell that you're from an empire when everyone you meet abroad dislikes you & you can't understand why." meaning that the culture of empire pervades all aspects of life & its subjects (no longer citizens in any meaningful, participatory sense) have been exposed to nothing but jingoistic propaganda & sincerely believe that they're the most culturally & morally superior country in the
Re: No, they will turn into another North Korea.. (Score:2)
Not only is Russia burning through so many resources and proving the failure of those weapons over and over. Russia is turning towards North Korean conscripts to keep throwing bodies into the breach.
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Not only is Russia burning through so many resources and proving the failure of those weapons over and over. Russia is turning towards North Korean conscripts to keep throwing bodies into the breach.
A lot of the more modern Russian weapons are pretty good. The problem however, is the support and maintenance is often missing. In addition, they are stuck in a WW2 paradigm of throwing cannon fodder at the problem and lives lost be damned.
So the difference? In WW2, the Germans horribly mistreated the Russians, and had plans of killing many millions for Germany's lebensraum so throwing huge masses of humanity at the Germans made sense because it was better to die quickly in battle than fall into German h
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Only if they bring their delicious recipes.
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Since when does the US get a choice of who immigrates? Hundreds of thousands were caught trying to come in last year, including the ones not caught it won't be too long before most of them are in the US regardless.
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Since when does the US get a choice of who immigrates? Hundreds of thousands were caught trying to come in last year, including the ones not caught it won't be too long before most of them are in the US regardless.
Uh, the Chinese Exclusion Act, the Immigration Act of 1917, the Immigration Act of 1924, etc. Europeans have essentially always gotten a free pass, aside from occasionally turning away a few undesired poor Europeans. But Asians have always been turned away aside from the few times when cheap laborers were needed.
Re:Time for it to become an US state? (Score:5, Informative)
Hi, please join us in 2024. Thanks!
The border has been porous at best for decades under both parties and wide open for the last 3.5 years. Estimates vary between 11m and 35m people have illegally entered and stayed. The fact we can't even properly estimate is telling. In comparison the entire US military including reserves, national guard and coast guard is 2 million. No one is being kept out.
A bit of intellectual honesty goes a long way to making a good point.
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Hi, please join us in 2024. ... No one is being kept out.
There are various aspects of "kept out." Being allowed to cross the border. Being allowed to stay. Being allowed to work. Being allowed to access government services. Yes, in 2024, there is still a lot of being kept out.
Compared to 100 years ago, considering the aspects of keeping people out other than crossing the border, there is far more keeping people out today than 100 years ago. 100 years ago, people could just arrive, and if they got past immigration, then there were no legal restrictions on st
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Since when does the US get a choice of who immigrates?.
Pretty much since Democrats started running things. Weird how 20,000 Haitians [ohio.news] started to show up in a city of 60,000 people and only right-wing outlets complained about it. A hundred immigrants show up in Martha's Vineyard and you'd think the entire place had been glassed.
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Why would the US take them. They are resource poor and bring no assets besides people, of which the US has plenty. They would be an economic drain.
Cuba was vegas before vegas, and can be Vegas II again, but no, the cubans want to go at it alone, but under a momre modern non-communist western type govt.
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The Cubans are all coming to the US at a very rapid pace.
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Pinky's Brain writes:
The Cubans are all coming to the US at a very rapid pace.
About half a million people in 4 years is 125,000 per year, which works out to 0.00037 of US population.
I swear to GOD I am going to install fire extinguishers at head height so people coming in the door with their hair on fire can be immediately served with what they so desperately need; a bucket of ice water in the face. Besides, if you want to talk about who "belongs" somewhere, justify your presents in the US.
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Lying with statistics.
They mostly go to south Florida where it is now difficult to get a public facing job if you aren't fluent in Spanish.
And what percent the Cuban population is that?
Are you aware Cuba's official population went down from 2023-24?
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Being a minority when the majority are people from another culture sounds great. We should invite in foreign majorities everywhere to replace our culture. Theirs is obviously vastly superior which is why they want to come here to help improve ours.
Oh wait, no, you weren't serious. You were just virtue signaling. Sorry, I mistook your post for a serious adult comment you actually meant.
Refugees [Re:Time for it to become an US state?] (Score:2)
Why would the US take them. They are resource poor and bring no assets besides people, of which the US has plenty. They would be an economic drain.
You are unaware of the "Cuban Adjustment Act of 1966"? Cuban refugees have special status. It's legacy of the cold war.
For years all Cuban refugees were accepted into the US, no questions. There was a "readjustment" of the act in 2017 (part of the efforts to normalize political relations with Cuba), but Cuban refugees still have a preferred status on admission to the US.
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Hasn't Netflix recently released a glamorised, sensationalist account of one of those brutal Marielito gangs called "Griselda"? There's been plenty of other films & TV series about that period of mass migration fro
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Netflix? Fuck Netflix. There's a much better known movie that tells that story from the 80s.
"Say hello to my little friend! Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat!"
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Why would the US take them. They are resource poor and bring no assets besides people, of which the US has plenty. They would be an economic drain.
The US already made that decision, soon after acquiring Cuba from Spain after the War of 1898. We kept Puerto Rico and for a while Philippines, but we decided to cut Cuba loose . The one asset be retained was a lease on a 75 sq mile tract of land "for the defense of the Panama Canal." We know that as Guantánamo today.
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In a few more years most of the formerly Cuban population will be living in the United states, might as well join the US entirely then.
It went so well for puerto rico....
The will probably go at it alone, but under a more efficent non-communist govt. Or so they hope.
I live in venezuela, and have a few cuban friends, both emigrants, as well as professionals temporarily here by bilateral agreements in the health sector... and that seems to be the prevalent opinion.
importing fuel (Score:2)
Cuba "burns crude oil as a fuel" to generate electricity, and it all has to be imported. Could they have built solar farms and wind? Sure. Does their failure to do that have anything to do with the US embargo? No.
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Cuba "burns crude oil as a fuel" to generate electricity, and it all has to be imported. Could they have built solar farms and wind? Sure. Does their failure to do that have anything to do with the US embargo? No.
Wind and solar are not practical in an island state ravaged by hurricanes. Tides and geothermal for the win!
Also, they had (in cooperation with Venezuela) a plan to expand and modernize the "refineria cienfuegos", but more than 1 milliard U$D got lost on the road. If the project had completed, instead of burning crude, they could have burnty the less desireable refined product instead, and export the desirable ones for more U$D to keep the infrastructure running.
They have hydro, but most of the 162 plants a
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>> Wind and solar are not practical in an island state ravaged by hurricanes
Yeah they are. And burning imported oil to generate electricity is incredibly foolish.
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>> importing crude oil from Saudi Arabia
Actually, as the article clearly stated, they were importing oil from "Venezuela, Russia and Mexico".
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You make it look like storms devastate each and everything to the ground in Cuba, which is not true.
However yes solar would need to be build with much more sturdy structures, but already in contrast wind turbines designed for such areas (also South-China, Japan and so on) will withstand storms quite well - with a few damages, but these would also happen to every other structure.
There is virtually no country other than Island that uses geothermal extensively and "tides" well simply spoken, and its good that
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Wind and solar are not practical in an island state ravaged by hurricanes.
Don't make things up [wikipedia.org].
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Cuba "burns crude oil as a fuel" to generate electricity, and it all has to be imported. Could they have built solar farms and wind? Sure. Does their failure to do that have anything to do with the US embargo? No.
Wind and solar are not practical in an island state ravaged by hurricanes.
*looks at Florida*
Hey uh, you DO know there’s 987 million metric fucktons of solar panels down in the Sunshine State, 90 miles north of there, right?
One main difference. Florida is not an Island, and is connected to the rest of the US grid.
Aside from Wind and solar, florida, also has nuclear:
https://mynews13.com/fl/orland... [mynews13.com]
Finally, take a look on what happens to solar in extreme weather:
https://www.pv-magazine.com/20... [pv-magazine.com]
Wind and solar are cool and all in places where the weather is moderate, or places that have other things in their energy mix that can whitstand the extreme weather, or that are big enough to have the damage spread around. Cuba does not
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Finally, take a look on what happens to solar in extreme weather:
https://www.pv-magazine.com/20 [pv-magazine.com]... [pv-magazine.com]
Wind and solar are cool and all in places where the weather is moderate, or places that have other things in their energy mix that can whitstand the extreme weather, or that are big enough to have the damage spread around. Cuba does not comply with any of those.
So a solar farm was partially damaged when it took a DIRECT hit from both a hurricane and a tornado? I guess we can't build solar. Power lines are regularly downed by milder wind events than that so I guess we can't have power lines either. Tornadoes also regularly destroy homes when they directly hit them so no houses allowed in Florida or anywhere in tornado alley, who's going to let the residents know?
Watching Americans (Score:2)
Watching Americans enjoy this, while California and friends cans provide enough power.
Priceless.
Central American blackouts are the norm (Score:2)
lack of infrastructure, demand growth, jungle over growth and resource intensive maintenance conspire to cripple delivery of electricity. Burdened by low-wage earner incomes, stolen electricity and no-growth industrial base electric suppliers are strapped to past technology and distribution systems.
Server farms could be an opportunity were the avg. temp 86F not a roadblock. Panama has 800+ rivers but nary a hydro-electric generator due to the fact that those rivers flood during wet season. Solar is abundant
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existentially USA needs to decide whether to prop-up a Cuban economy or let it fail.
That choice has been made. The USA is not going to prop-up the current Cuban government.
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There're no similarities between Cuba/United States and Ukraine/Russia.
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Both Cuba and Ukraine overthrew a government friendly to a powerful neighbor
Both were invaded by that powerful neighbor, albeit Russia has been more successful
Both have a portion of their territory occupied by their powerful neighbor
Both became clients for their powerful neighbors opponents
Both of their powerful neighbors have threatened a nuclear war over their arming
Both believe they are victims of their neighbor's colonial ambitions.
Both are suffering power blackouts
Of course their are differences.
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US invasion of Cuban soil, and the imposition of sanctions, took place after Cuba pointed nuclear weapons at us.
That is inaccurate. The embargo had already been imposed in 1958, the Bay of Pigs invasion happened in spring 1961, and the Cuban missile crisis happened almost two years later in the fall of 1962.
If there was any connection it was the Soviet side wanting to deter any future invasions. I guess they accomplished that as part of the deal that ended the crisis, but they failed in the larger effort to put missiles within quick striking range of Washington.
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Its like pointing to Russia's friendly relations with Ukraine before the Maidan Revolution.
We can be friends so long as our puppet controls your government. The term for this is colonialism not friendship.
Or the fact that almost 20% of Ukrainians were ethnic Russians
What is the relevance? Does Russia have the right to wage war of conquest against a sovereign state because of the backgrounds of people who live there or the languages they speak? If not what is your point? This is the exact pretext Hitler pulled out of his ass to justify his aggression against other countries. Those poor oppressed German speakers.
before the most heavily ethnic Russian areas broke off.
You mean before Russian military invaded.
h [usmission.gov]
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Cuba is a top vacation spot for Canada.
As always, it's complicated (Score:2)
The embargo is certainly not the only factor, but it has indirect as well as direct effects. It pushed Cuba towards the USSR, and the dependency on subsidised sugar trade which lasted until the Special Economic Period in Peacetime. And it gave and continues to give Cuban politicians an excuse for all of the economic woes. Without the embargo Cuba might have had much bigger economic and political reforms over the past 65 years.
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So... why don't they build their own damn cars? I mean, it's been since the 70's that communism was the only party permitted to function in Cuba, ridding them of that nasty capitalism that would stand in the way of progress (aka moving "forward"). They ought to be self sufficient by now. Or, maybe they could depend on the other successful communist countries of the world for t
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If they asked, I'm sure North Korea and Venezuela would give the Cubans a hand and show them how to run a healthy economy.
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Yup, and it all leads back to the Soviet collapse. It just takes a while for an entire country to collapse like we're seeing now. Countries are big. They don't go down easy even when poorly run.
When I was in college we had this free daily "newspaper" called the People's Daily World. It was 100% pure Soviet propaganda about the joys and success of socialism around the world. A good read sitting in the back of a boring early morning class.
After the Soviets fell, the PDW stopped printing for a while and t
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Re: Miami Herald? (Score:2)
The USA should work for normalizing the relations with Cuba, and not waste any time. Because China will gladly take their place.
Normalizing relations with Vietnam was a very good move. It's arguably the only reason why Vietnam is not a Chinese puppet right now (well, and historic issues between China and Vietnam too, but it's secondary).
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Vietnam is not a Chinese puppet because they don't put up with outsider bullshit from anyone and China got their ass handed to them hard when they tried to invade in 1979.
I visited the Vietnamese museum they dedicated to the US/Vietnam war. The signage was all in English, btw. It amused me how the signs talked about the People's Great Victory over the Western Imperialists. Still in that mindset 40+ years later. China never stood a chance.
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It really means, "your post made me feel dumb and that hurt my feelings by undermining my worldview with facts and logic".
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Maybe the other communist countries could come to Cuba's rescue. The Soviet Union, or East Germany? Ok, I'm obviously joking there. Surely, North Korea will swoop in and affect the necessary repairs to get their comrades back up and running, though.
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Cuba wants to join BRICS. It's not clear if BRICS will let them in, though.
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Maybe the other communist countries could come to Cuba's rescue
The US embargo does not just block trade with U.S. Ships docking at Cuban ports are not allowed to dock at U.S. ports for six months. As a consequence, shipping companies from any country in the world has to choose between trading with U.S. or trading with Cuba.
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Re:Revolt or STFU (Score:4, Informative)
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The State will eventually collapse when the soldiers and thugs who oppress the people are suffering just as much as their victims. They all need to eat, have families, etc. Unfortunately, history tells us they are more likely to get a new dictator than any form of democracy.
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Cuba literally has no power and no solution is forthcoming. But they did have power. This is not the case for,keeping a few people happy. There is no electricity. The limited fuel they do have is dirty and destructive to their power plants. They will eventually get to the point where they can't keep the power plants running even if they had clean fuel for them from 'somewhere'. The oppressor class is impacted exactly the same as the normal people. There is no power. Even if they somehow managed to k
Re:But ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Given how most developed countries have free health care AND power, I don't think that's the problem here
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Yes I would say those are "free" because that's the generally accepted definition of the word.
When you go to the grocery stores and they have a plate of "free samples" do you go up the the employee and go "ackchually it's not free because we're paying for it indirectly"? Must be insufferable.
Anyways, back to healthcare, the US not only doesn't provide free healthcare to all its citizens, it also spends the most per person than any other country
Re:But ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Like nearly every other civilized country. Amazing that a rich and prosperous country like the USA can't find a way to keep its citizens healthy without worrying about going bankrupt.
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All that without power! Amazing country.
Re:But ... (Score:4, Informative)
No, Cuba, like other countries but even more so, has worse infant mortality. Here are some common ways to fudge the stats:
* The US tries to save premature births at a younger age than almost every other country, and their lower survival rate biases the results.
* Many countries do not count a birth as official until the baby has survived for a day or a week.
Another example of apples and oranges is murder rates. The UK, for instance, used to, and probably still does, only count a homicide as murder after it gets a conviction. Find a body with three gunshot wounds to the back of the head, and it's not murder until someone is convicted.
You cannot compare stats across borders by numbers alone.
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I'd love to see your citations.
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I spent five or ten minutes googling around. Lots of sites say poor people in the US have higher infant mortality rates, but I only found one that directly addressed comparisons with other countries. It is cherry picked in that I stopped at this first one (searched for "infant mortality comparisons").
https://www.healthsystemtracke... [healthsystemtracker.org]
"International comparisons of infant mortality should be done carefully, though, as some of the variation is likely due – at least in part – to reporting differenc
Re:But ... (Score:4, Interesting)
The US tries to save premature births at a younger age than almost every other country, and their lower survival rate biases the results. Many countries do not count a birth as official until the baby has survived for a day or a week.
I had a right wing friend try to tell me that. When I asked him for a citation he couldn't give one. It's apparently just a free-floating fact in the right-wingosphere.
Another example of apples and oranges is murder rates.
Ah, argument by changing the subject. No. What is your source for the purported "fact" that the US tries to save premature births at a younger age (while presumably other countries don't count them?)
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Bud, it's my damned post. I can put as many subjects as I want in my post. Go troll somebody else.
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He was a friend. His politics were right wing. The phrase "right-wing friend" is descriptive.
Not sure why you seem to consider that insulting. Do all right wingers consider the description right-wing an insult?
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No, Cuba, like other countries but even more so, has worse infant mortality. Here are some common ways to fudge the stats:
* The US tries to save premature births at a younger age than almost every other country, and their lower survival rate biases the results.
* Many countries do not count a birth as official until the baby has survived for a day or a week.
I poked around a bit but couldn't find much backing you, it looks like Cuba outperforms the US for the simple reason that mothers get a lot of medical attention [nytimes.com].
For instance, I doubt this death would have counted toward infant mortality [cnn.com], but it seems reasonable that mother and child would have survived if they'd been in Cuba. Though neither countries is great by world standards [cia.gov].
Another example of apples and oranges is murder rates. The UK, for instance, used to, and probably still does, only count a homicide as murder after it gets a conviction. Find a body with three gunshot wounds to the back of the head, and it's not murder until someone is convicted.
You cannot compare stats across borders by numbers alone.
It seems like this might be a bit of an urban legend [quora.com].
You can look at the cited UK statistics where in 2014 15% homicides had no sus [ons.gov.uk]
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My point is that cross-border comparisons are impossible except in the broadest terms. 10 is worse than 1, but is 6 really worse than 5, or are they just measuring it differently? If one person measures a board at 2 inches wide and someone else at 5 centimeters, who is correct?
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My point is that cross-border comparisons are impossible except in the broadest terms. 10 is worse than 1, but is 6 really worse than 5, or are they just measuring it differently? If one person measures a board at 2 inches wide and someone else at 5 centimeters, who is correct?
So do you have any evidence that the given source isn't bothering to do any corrections, or are you just throwing out the conclusion because it didn't fit your political preferences?
Regarding your followup comment:
Also, thanks for the quora link.
The trouble with debunking uncited claims is it makes it harder to find an authoritative sources that addresses them.
But the quora link was only there to show a bit of analysis that someone else had done, the source that actually contradicted you was the gov.uk website.
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I have lived too damned long to expect any kind of consistency from bureaucrats. Perhaps you have always encountered a better kind. I have not.
Just within the US are 50+ different definitions of various crimes -- second degree burglary, sixth-degree this that and the other. The FBI can't even count crimes well, turning a 2% drop into a 4% increase, without any fanfare, and they don't agree with other statistical collections. Unemployment and other economic statistics are routinely revised 6 months or a
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Even if you're correct, and there's been no attempts made to adjust the data, there's also no reason to believe the error goes in the direction of your priors. You're just coming up with excuses to ignore the data.
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Also, thanks for the quora link.
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They should get solar panels from China!
Solar and wind in an island state ravaged by hurricanes?... Sure you jest. Geotermal and tidal for the win.
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Has there ever been a serious attempt to normalize relations between the 2 countries?
The most sensible option, politics aside, would be for a US company to lay an undersea power cable connecting the main island to the North American grid.
Here, Basslink supplies bidirectional power from Victoria to Tasmania via a 370km connection.
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Has there ever been a serious attempt to normalize relations between the 2 countries?
Not really. Obama made the first steps toward ending some of the embargos and sanctions, but Trump put them all back into place and then Biden actually added restrictions.
The most sensible option, politics aside, would be for a US company to lay an undersea power cable connecting the main island to the North American grid.
That would make a huge difference for Cuba, but it's literally illegal for any company to do it thanks to the embargos that have been in place since the late 1960s.
Re:Solution is obviously soalr and wind. (Score:5, Informative)
>> Texas has had more state wide power outages than Cuba
Utter bullshit.
Re:Solution is obviously soalr and wind. (Score:5, Informative)
While certainly not state wide, Texas does lead the country in outages. https://www.texastribune.org/2... [texastribune.org]
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>> While certainly not state wide
I live in Texas, which is run by the corrupt GOP. They do a miserably poor job, but outages are not state wide and are not worse than Cuba.
Re:Solution is obviously soalr and wind. (Score:4, Insightful)
>> While certainly not state wide
I live in Texas, which is run by the corrupt GOP. They do a miserably poor job, but outages are not state wide and are not worse than Cuba.
Texas: At least our electricity situation is better than Cuba.
When they can barely beat "communist" Cuba, what does that tell you about texas?
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"How a state plan to put $10 billion toward Texas power plants was voted on by committee in the dark"
"The bill, Senate Bill 2627, provides $10 billion in low interest loans to companies to build gas power plants in Texas."
All funded by the Texas taxpayer...
https://www.texasstandard.org/... [texasstandard.org]
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>> the grid is far less reliable than when California had GOP governors
You mean Schwarzenegger? Show evidence.
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While certainly not state wide, Texas does lead the country in outages.
Certainly near the top but lead? https://generatordecision.com/... [generatordecision.com]
What I find interesting about that article is how much worse Texas is compared to California, despite many people comparing their outages.
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geekmux blathers:
As far as standing up, let me know when the next one spends $40+ billion trying to protect Constitutional Rights
That is quite laughable for many reasons.
First, no one other than the government (and only limited duty for a common carrier monopoly) has any duty under the law to protect your 1st amendment rights. None. Zero. Zip. Nada. It's known as private property.
Second: Trump started Truth Social because he wanted to control the posts and Twitter wouldn't let him.
Third Elmo's "X" is far more censorious of it's users than most, and any major site. Create an account, post personal insults to Elmo and
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1: when the government strong arms private companies to censor people that is a 1A violation
2: Trump? Truth social? So what? He can do what he wants with his company as long as the government isn't forcing him to do it
3: see #1 and #2, above. Still not a 1A violation
4: He doesn't care nor need to care. He chose to put freedom of speech from government control over profit. What's the problem? Why do advertisers flee? Because profit motive and fear of cancellation. So what? It's his site, he can do w
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iAmWaySmarterThanYou (No, you aren't, I've proven that twice before already) Blaters:
1: when the government strong arms private companies to censor people that is a 1A violation
And that company is free to seek the Federal Courts to tell the Executive to go piss up a rope.
2: Trump? Truth social? So what? He can do what he wants with his company as long as the government isn't forcing him to do it
I can always trust you to miss the point, then say something to prove mine.
3: see #1 and #2, above. Still not a 1A violation
I'm arguing that it isn't a 1st violation. Are you slow?
4: He doesn't care nor need to care. He chose to put freedom of speech from government control over profit.
If he (I'm assuming you mean Elmo, not tRump, tRump has already said he wants to stop all free speech) then he wouldn't delete accounts that insult him. It's not about FS - It's about feeding the ragin
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Also you sound rather emotional which clouds your judgement.