Alex Lightman

This is going to start a precedent. Cubans are tough and can be stubborn. Some will think, especially macho guys, “If some 60 year old wrinkly prune of a lady can do this, I can do it.” And they will jump in the water and start going for it. The US has a “Wet Cuban/Dry Cuban” policy. If you get one foot or one hand on dry land, you get residency, and can start voting in a year, so there’s an incentive. It’s like the 4 minute mile. After Roger Bannister did it first, something like 17 people did in shortly afterwards. People are just going to try to swim it.

BBC World Service – Programmes – Trying to swim from Cuba to Florida 30 years after first attempt

69% of voters in this online poll think it’s time to end the embargo. Yes, I know it’s not scientific, but this is very consistent with other polls, and despite 50 years of utterly lopsided demonization of the Cuban government. And despite the fact that no one has put together in one book all the arguments for lifting the embargo. Other than people involved in what I call the Cuban civil war, I can’t see any logical American being in favor the embargo once they see the case made.

Time to End the Embargo on Cuba?

Back from second trip to Cuba. Could not believe how many tourists were in Havana in the worst month of the year for tourist season. It was like Mardi Gras. It’s so odd to hear that CBNC is debating whether the embargo will work (it won’t – tourists are spending billions, and Cuba has as much oil as the US) and about these supposed “exiles” (who are flying back and forth whenever they feel like it).

I recommend visiting Cuba. The people are friendly, and you can see the US more clearly than from any other country that I know. I’ve been to 59 countries, including several of the communist countries in Eastern Europe, but Cuba is unique. On this trip I’ve been wearing my US Embassy cap with the star-spangled eagle around town, and no one has given me a hard time, though some people are startled by it. I don’t think they’ve seen it before.

Obama administration preparing to loosen rules on Cuba travel

Pretty amazing how the pharmaceutical industry has grown over the last century, and that almost half of it is in the US. We have 4.5% of the world’s population, but take over 45% of the ethical drugs. You’d think we’d be 10x as health as the rest of the world, (or 20x, since that would mean 95.5% take 50-55%), yet we aren’t. Either drugs aren’t as effective for Americans, or we don’t prescribe them correctly in type and/or dosage, or, on the whole, they don’t improve health.

Pharmaceutical Industry

Last full day of my second trip to Cuba, researching my book. Had several epiphanies about why the Cuba issue is worth look at closely, including how Miami Cubans are able to engage in reverse colonization, state capture, and municipal imperialism, and get unlimited US support for what amounts to a civil war of the rich against the poor.

Americans know what success is. It’s having SMART goals (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bounded), giving progress reports against those goals, and then saying, by the end of the time, whether you’ve achieved them or not. Afghanistan is failure in part because there were never SMART goals. Get rid of Al-Qaeda? They are stronger than ever in 7x larger and nuclear sub armed Pakistan. Get rid of Taliban? Look at the casualty figures, and tell me they aren’t also stronger than ever. Afghanistan is total failure, and anyone who wants to argue otherwise needs to show evidence of what the original goals were, and whether these were achieved. And getting adversaries to just relocate a few hundred miles has NEVER been an objective in any of America’s previous 15 or so wars, with the notable exception of Operation Desert Storm (getting Saddam Hussein’s Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait).

Petraeus Builds a Case for Success in Afghanistan

Articles like this, unlike the embargo, are actually useful. $8.6 billion in service exports is a huge factor. The average payment to Cuba is $350 – the article states $150 to $350, but this gives a substantial surplus to the state. I’ve been saying, though I don’t get the sense that people understand or believe, that Cuba practices state capitalism, not Communism. Did the USSR, which was 25x the size of today’s Cuba, make over $200 billion in medical services exports revenue? Of course not. This misunderstanding is part of why Americans have gotten nowhere with the embargo – they aren’t looking at it as Cuba, Inc., and focusing on the value proposition.

I think the claims of poor qualifications of the doctors in this article are erroneous. As for the people needing to bring food and linens to hospitals and clinics, so what? The medical care is free. Why, in a country were milk costs $16 a gallon (I saw this with my own eyes in stores), would the hospitals stock up with (very expensive) food, when their budgets are so low?

Cuba’s Cash-for-Doctors Program

Flying to Cuba for my second trip. Going to make the case that the Internet is the finest victory of Communism, and therefore wireless broadband should be unleashed along with all the other products of communist/communal effort, like Facebook, YouTube, etc. Going to take Clay Shirky’s Communist Surplus, I mean Cognitive Surplus, as back up.

Did you know that it was a Venezuelan who kept a burned out car on his lawn who dreamed up the idea of OPEC and the OPEC embargo? He wanted to make it more expensive for Americans to drive. I cannot believe that the US would not understand that the Cuba embargo creates a situation in which every candidate for head of state of a Latin American country must say whether he or she agrees with the US embargo of Cuba. If you say you don’t agree with it, then the US considers you an enemy. If you say you do agree with it, then you look to the voters like a kiss-ass sell-out. And thus as a result of the Cuba embargo, pro-Castro, anti-Embargo of Cuba, (and thus seemily or actually anti-US) candidates win elections in Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Paraguay, Argentine, and Brazil, the most likely rival to the US in the Western Hemisphere.

Having seen Cuba deal with an embargo, I don’t agree with the last line of this article that Venezuela’s economy would collapse if it didn’t sell oil to the US. Venezuela could simply sell to other countries, and take out the cost of transportation. There is still a shipping glut, so it’s conceivable that the Venezuela could eat the cost of transportation, and sell farther away, which would mean that the US would have to pay more. China needs reliable supplies of oil.

However, to return to the start of this post, I’m not so sure the US really wants a Venezuelan reminding the OPEC countries that they were able to increase oil prices 400% by embargoing the US in ’73-’74.

It’s also worth pointing out that Chavez was elected. The US says Cuba has to hold elections to get the embargo lifted. I have NO doubt that if free elections were held that one of the Castros would win if he ran. If neither ran, it’s entirely possible that someone who hated the US and was more aggressive would win. How could someone be pro-American and run for office in Cuba, given how the US has treated the Cuban people? A Chavez in Cuba would be the best the US could hope for, but should expect worse. My advice: lift the embargo first and play nice, and then have elections, if you want a pro-US government in 10 years onwards.

Venezuela’s Chavez threatens U.S. oil supply cut | Reuters

This article is dated yesterday. I going to finish my book 100 Reasons to End the American Embargo of Cuba by the end of August (manuscript), and during the marathon I was reflecting on a FB conversation with Chris Grayson, whom I got so irritated by that I unfriended him over his assertion that support for ending the embargo was equivalent to support for Fidel Castro. Chris also said that some of my FB friends had written him, saying they didn’t want to say it to me, but agreed with him privately. During my run, about mile 13 in Golden Gate Park, I had an epiphany: I should INVITE all the criticism and welcome it…with the clear understanding that if you put it on Facebook and I quote you completely, I can use it in my book.

So, BRING ON THE CRITICISM of Fidel Castro, Cuba, Cubans. Please tell me in the STRONGEST terms possible why the US embargo is Cuba is a GREAT policy, and why we should keep it in place, and even what Cuba should be required to do before any part of it should be lifted (American travel, medical equipment sold without requirement of responsibility for end use, etc.) Go ahead, change my mind. Show me the error of my ways, and how wrong headed my thinking is!

Chris Grayson, Alexander Muse, Silence Dogood…bring it! I honor your intellects and integrity, and am I’m happy to accurately represent your quotes.

Newsweek

Slander and libel is ugly, especially from sports competitors who did the same thing, and still lost. In this interview, Landis says he saw Lance Armstrong using EPO. EPO stands for Erythropoietin. “EPO is a glycoprotein hormone  that controls erythropoiesis, or red blood cell production. It is a cytokine for erythrocyte (red blood cell) precursors in the bone marrow.”

The reputation damage from Landis comments about Armstrong taking a hormone is all out of proportion, and in this case the punishment doesn’t not fit the crime. It’s absurd to say that money, carbon-fiber frames, etc. are not performance enhancements, but that a hormone is a drug and therefore Lance is a terrible person because he’s a druggie. Landis, you suck.

Pseudorobodinothespianasarians! Heather Knight robot delight. Audiences will pay to see robots (well, giant robot puppets) perform live, as long as they are dressed up in science fiction garb. $250 million since 2007 and $40 million this year, nipping at the heels of Taylor Swift.

People want jobs, but they should be thinking how to make something awesome in the Experience Economy, starting small and scaling it up. The age of jobs is over. It’s now the Age of Projects. One big tip: most of the top 50 grossing movies are science fiction, but almost none of  the top grossing plays (you could call Starlight Express, Cats, and Phantom of the Opera if you wanted) and none of the top music tours are science fiction. Someone should get a clue from the success of Walking  with Dinosaurs and put science fiction on tour.

Baby Eater, T-Rex Star in $250 Million ‘Walking With Dinosaurs’

Why there is Dengue fever in Florida? Two potential contributing factors

1. Because the US has rules that effectively stopped Cuba from getting medicines and water filtration equipment that would help to maintain optimal world class health standard. (Used to be part of embargo, but food and med can be exported…if the US company gets license, and promises it won’t be used by military, which is impossible to be in control of after a sale is made, so this point is mostly window dressing).

2. And then there’s this: “In May 1981, an epidemic of Dengue Fever killed 158 Cubans – 101 of which were children. A CIA agent later admitted to bringing the virus to Cuba.” Read more at Suite101: The US Blockade of Cuba: Cuban-American Relations and American Embargo

Dengue Fever Showing Up In Central Florida

If you want my advice on losing weight and being fit, it comes down to this. Obviously, if you have no money, one leg or a bum knee, then you can’t do this, but for those who can, this makes sense to me.

1. Walk, jog or run an hour a day, even if you have to split it up.

2. Do Crossfit. Nothing enables the average person to see so much progress towards so many fitness measures. Yes, World of Warcraft, has virtual measures, but WoW might as well stand for World of Weight-gain.

3. Get a health assessment from Karen Kurtak or someone like her. Read Transcend or Fantastic Voyage, both my Ray Kurweil and Dr. Terry Grossman, and get useful supplements for nutrition or fitness support rather than weight loss.

4. Replace your couch near the television with a treadmill, Concept2 rowing machine, or spin bike, and make yourself exercise while eying the boob tube or YouTube.

5. Have some dumbbells and a wobble board near your TV or computer, and every so often do some clean and jerks, curls, arm raises, shoulder shrugs, or thrusters (best), and play with the wobble board daily and have fun improving your balance.

“I’ve long felt that many so-called weight-loss supplements on the shelves of pharmacies and health stores are useless. Now two new studies back up my view – and, at a conference in Sweden, the researchers even went as far as to say these products should be banned. I agree with them. I’m angry they’re on sale at all, when manufacturers should be aware they don’t work and pharmacies stock them – and that they benefit from a loophole in the law.

The studies, one from Britain and the other from Germany, show that the supplements, often derived from plant extracts, are no more effective than dummy pills. No science.

When UK researchers reviewed studies on nine weight-loss supplements containing ingredients from bitter orange to green tea extract, they found no evidence that any of them worked.”

Cuba’s release of all its political prisoners would improve its relations with Europe and United States, and could lead to the lifting of a US embargo, the Spanish foreign minister said on Wednesday. Miguel Angel Moratinos welcomed as “good news” Cuban parliament chief Ricardo Alarcon’s announcement to AFP on Tuesday that his “government’s wish is to free all the people” not accused of murder.

The Spanish foreign minister said before parliament that such releases would yield “political consequences” for relations with the European Union and the United States, in particular a possible “lifting of the embargo” that Washington has maintained against Cuba since 1962.

These MIT Alumni trips look pretty interesting. Even if you don’t go on their tours, the itineraries for these can be good for inspiration for vacation, or even on a Vision Board to motivate getting something done and getting as a reward, if you think of travel as an incentive. Ngorongoro crater experienced more popularity because it’s the obvious inspiration for Ungoro Crater in World of Warcraft, though WoW playing visitors are disappointed that there are no fire elementals, no dinosaurs, and no bandwidth to play WoW at night.

China is future-savvy. America and BP are both future-stupid, at least with respect to the BP oil spill. Within 48 hours of its oil spill, China had dumped 23 TONS of oil eating bacteria on their spill, and within another 48 to 72 hours, the blessed bugs had munched over 20 tons per ton of bacteria – 460 tons, or one-third – of all the spilled oil. BP, with our complicity, sprayed the oil with poison, thereby killing the oil eating bacteria. And please don’t lecture me about oxygen depleted water. Anyone who has ever seen a pool, a fountain, or pond should have had the curiousity to see that aeration is a snap, and has been around for thousands of years. Don’t tell me BP couldn’t afford oxygen or oil eating bacteria.

Please read my hplusmagazine.com article on this, and then this, and tell me I don’t know more about cleaning up this spill than BP’s management.

PressTV.ir

One of the things I take away from Cuba is amazement that people who smoke like crazy, drink massive quantities of rum, have diets with lots of fried food, and spend average $200/yr on health care are as healthy as Americans who spent $7k/yr on health. My conclusion: US diet & “health care” are as unhealthy as universal cigarette addiction and minimal care focused on prevention.

Energy use per capita increases proportionately with per capita GDP until $25k/person/year. China’s per capita GDP is now about $7500 in purchasing power parity, so we can expect China to keep massively increasing energy for the next thirty years. However, I don’t think there is enough water for China to reach this without damming the Himalyas and cutting water for two billion non-Chinese, nor do I think that Chinese, who already die more from air pollution than any other cause, could breath in an environment that was 2x to 5x more polluted. China better get those wind turbines, solar cells and nuclear plants going big time if they want to keep that 11% annual growth going.