​Even 50 years after the Bay of Pigs invasion, the Central Intelligence Agency is still refusing to release its entire official history of the bungled operation.

In response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, the CIA explains that the final volume of its five-volume history should be withheld because -- hilariously -- it would "confuse the public with inaccurate historical information." Which is pretty much exactly what the CIA has been trying to accomplish ever since it botched the operation to topple Fidel.
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​The annual Reporters Without Borders Press Freedom Index is out, and Cuba continues to have the least freedom of the press in our part of the globe. No other country in the Americas even comes close to Cuba's lowly ranking. Meanwhile, the United States fell 27 places in the rankings in a worrisome development.
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​In a move that Republican presidential hopefuls will probably milk for all it's worth as they travel in and out of Miami this week, former Cuban President Fidel Castro today called the field competing for the Republican presidential nomination, "the greatest competition of idiocy and ignorance that has ever been."

Though, before you take this as proof positive that Castro loves Democrats, remember this is the same bearded old crank who called President Obama "stupid" this past September and said that a robot might be preferable to anyone, Republican or Democrat, running for president.
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via Dailmer

German car giant Mercedes-Benz and its comically mustachioed CEO Dieter Zetsche are getting railroaded on the Interwebs today after advertising a new car sharing program under Che Guevara's face and the slogan: Viva la revolucion!

Nein! Cuban activists including Felix Rodriguez -- one of the guys who helped hunt Che down in Bolivia -- are calling for mass Benz protests. But really, Mercedes' biggest crime is advertising laziness.
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Still (technically) alive

​Living in Miami actually makes it much easier to quickly judge whether reports of Fidel Castro's demise are true. Just open your window: Are horns honking? Are fireworks exploding? Is anyone running down your street yelling El hijo de puta está muerto?!

If not, then Fidel is probably not dead. Such was the case last night when the Twitterverse exploded with millions of false tweets that the dictator had kicked it. Turns out a "Fidel is Dead" email virus might be to blame yet again.
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​We just usually read Parade magazine for Howard Huge cartoons and "Ask Marilyn," but the magazine actually keeps a somewhat frequently updated list of the world's worst dictators. For the first time this year, Raúl Castro and Hugo Chávez made the top ten list.
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via Wikimedia Commons

​In a few short weeks, the world's eyes will turn to Havana as a powerful but highly controversial leader with millions of devout followers lands to shake hands with Fidel Castro. No, no, not the pope -- he's not coming until sometime this spring. We're talking about Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the dour Iranian leader who announced this morning that he's taking a break from designing "Islamic" women's fashions to pay a visit to Cuba and Venezuela in January.

We can only imagine the fun Fidel, Hugo and Mahmoud will have while kicking around the American oligarchy and comparing notes on living under international sanctions.
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​It's that most special time of the year in Havana, when Raul Castro dresses up as Santa Claus and frees thousands of prisoners as a holiday gesture. Of course there's a long list of convicts excluded from his Christmas amnesty -- most notably hundreds of political prisoners, and Alan Gross, the American contractor who's been held for two years in Castro's jails.

Some political prisoners excluded from the release were upset enough to literally sew their mouths shut, one dissident tells the Telegraph today.
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​Pobre Fidelito. Being a dying dictator was his idea. But now Hugo Chavez has fat cancer, and Kim Jong Il went to ride his giant rabbits in the sky.

Nobody's paying attention to the totally dead antics of Fidel Castro. He's like the fourth-grade girl who wore Silly Bandz before it was kewl. Now that everybody's got death, el jefe supremo grande con extra jalapeños just doesn't feel special anymore.

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​How many more ruthless, brutal dictators are going to kick the authoritarian bucket this year before Calle Oche finally gets to hold that damn parade? Fidel Castro's rolodex of entrenched, old-timey leaders is getting dangerously thin.

Muammar Gaddafi: whacked. Ali Saleh: deposed. Zine Ben Ali: tossed from office. Hosni Mubarak: Facing criminal trial. And now, even Kim Jong Il -- the crazed, nuke-hoarding overlord of North Korea -- has called it a regime and died. Who will ring up Fidel on his birthday?
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