It's getting hot for Airhead Amerika, but it's not "global warming"

STATE PROBES 'KID' LOAN TO LEFTY RADIO

By DAVID SEIFMAN in New York and FREDRIC U. DICKER in Albany

August 6, 2005 -- State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer yesterday opened an investigation into the Bronx social-services agency that made $875,000 in bizarre loans to Air America radio, The Post has learned.
"We are looking into it in consultation with the city's Department of Investigation," Spitzer spokesman Darren Dopp revealed.
The highly unusual loans to the left-wing radio network were made by the Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club — which was visited by one of Spitzer's investigators yesterday, officials said.
Dopp said Spitzer's probe is examining "the conduct of the board of [the] charitable not-for-profit organization. The question is: Was their action appropriate?"
Spitzer has jurisdiction because his office oversees charities in the state.
Hillel Valentine, a longtime member of the executive board of Gloria Wise — almost entirely funded by government contracts and grants — told The Post that "a gentleman from the Attorney General's Office" had visited the organization yesterday.
"I expect that," said Valentine, 80, a former assistant chief in the New York Transit Police Department. "That's their job. I would do the same thing myself."
He referred all other questions to a public-relations firm retained by Gloria Wise, which said it could provide no further information.
Valentine has previously said Evan Montvel Cohen, Air America's founder who was working as a $74,000-a-year development director at Gloria Wise, pushed through the loan by "conning" everyone on the board.
Cohen sold his interest in Air America to Piquant LLC, which agreed to repay the loan in installments to Gloria Wise even though it claimed no legal obligation to do so.
The first payment of $50,000 was made yesterday, and it was deposited into an escrow account controlled by Air America's lawyer.
That unsettled city investigators, who had recommended that the entire $875,000 be placed into an escrow account that no one could touch without their approval.
"Air America has not followed that recommendation," said Keith Schwam, a spokesman for the Department of Investigation.
"DOI was informed today that Air America's check for $50,000 was deposited into Air America attorney's escrow account. No provision has been made for DOI to approve disbursements from that account."
Until its downfall, Gloria Wise and an associated agency, Pathways for Youth, had grown into one of the largest social-service providers in The Bronx with an annual budget of $10 million.
It provides a wide spectrum of services, from senior centers to after-school activities.
All of its city contracts were yanked once the loan to Air America was uncovered.
Gloria Wise is now struggling to stay afloat with a reduced schedule of programs. It is also searching for a new executive director to replace Charles Rosen, who resigned abruptly on June 30.
After the Air America scandal erupted last month, Internet bloggers and Republican critics began pounding Spitzer for not intervening.

http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/26675.htm

Franken just bought a new home as well, I wonder if he sleeps well at night knowing where the money came from? He's a liberal, the end always justifies the means, no matter what. I emailed the program director at the Tahoe radio station that just dropped Airhead Amerika, he was nice enough to write back, it seems they are a for profit operation : )

Air America Radio is stuck in the ratings cellar

Now that it's possible to compare ratings for this spring to last year's start-up, it's clear the network has yet to climb out of the cellar.
Air America's overall ratings, which rose initially after all the free publicity, faded before the November election and haven't recovered.
Still, it isn't yet time to call the coroner. "Air America is going to take a long time to grow ratings," said Michael Harrison, editor and publisher of the trade publication Talkers magazine. "People unfamiliar with our industry think ratings are like box-office receipts. But they're not. Radio ratings are slow to build.
"The network got an initial bump from the enormous amount of free press it got. There was a curiosity factor. Now, it is settling in."
Air America's programming is carried in part or in whole on 67 stations (ed.-66 as of yesterday). Most are in smaller markets, such as Albuquerque, N.M., and Albany, N.Y. (Locally, it airs on KTNF-AM, 950.) The flagship show, hosted by author, former "Saturday Night Live" writer/comic and Minnesota native Al Franken, airs from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. weekdays.
Franken originally named his show "The O'Franken Factor" (now "The Al Franken Show") to tweak his archrival, populist pundit Bill O'Reilly, whose TV show "The O'Reilly Factor" on the Fox News Channel outdraws all other cable talk shows and whose "The Radio Factor" draws more than 3 million listeners nationally.
Measured season-to-season — the most accurate way to assess audience preferences, because listening patterns vary throughout the year — Air America has lost audience in major markets, including New York and Boston, since April, May and June of 2004.
Franken, best-selling author of such anti-conservative tomes as "Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot," chose to go head-to-head with gabber Limbaugh in many markets. This, it turns out, was not such a good idea.
Limbaugh, still the giant among talkers, with 14.75 million listeners on 600 stations, has squashed Franken, whose ratings have dropped 50 percent in Boston since spring 2004; he is down 14 percent in New York.

http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/entertainment/12277313.htm registration needed, this site is torture to register on, unlike GITMO.

Air America Lost Another Station Today

As the scandal involving the airheads at Air America grows, today the list of cities polluted by the bile and ignorance that spews from their mouths grew shorter. Looking at the Google cache their page boasted 67 stations this morning.

http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:JzBzNVyQfZYJ:www.airamericaradio.com/stations+&hl=en

But now it's down to 66, after losing South Lake Tahoe, NV - KTHO-AM 590 AM.

http://www.airamericaradio.com/stations

"Mr. Franken said he has learned details of the story only in the last week. "
From the New York Sun today Franken tries to spin it, but also states: "Piquant LLC, current owner and operator of the radio network, found a record of the transfers while conducting a "forensic" investigation into the finances of the previous owner, Progress Media, which was run by Mr. Cohen. That internal probe was conducted before the city agency became involved,"
Yet it was June 24th when the hammer fell from the New York authorities investigation.

Friday, July 08, 2005Gloria Wise City-Funded Programs Transferred Following DOI Investigation
On Friday, June 24th, New York City’s Department of Investigation announced that Gloria Wise and Pathways for Youth had been determined “Non-Responsible City contractors” based on an on-going investigation “concerning allegations that, among other things, officials of Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club approved significant inappropriate transactions and falsified documents that were submitted to various City agencies.” from http://www.nynp.biz/newspage.shtml

Now that was more than a week ago, yet Franken says he just found out last week, bullshit, now who's the liar?

From the NYSun again: A spokesman for the Department of Investigation, Keith Schwam, said that if Air America discovered the transfers before the city probe began, "They neglected to tell anyone at DOI or in the city about it."

So now if I use the standard they have used for Karl Rove, they are guilty of embezzlement, covering the crime and now it's time to see Fanken, what was it, "frog marched" off to jail. Case closed.


Update:
I noticed this at Daily Kos-
Air America a success--from 4 to 67 stations in 1 yr
by enthusiast
Wed Jul 20th, 2005 at 00:06:44 PDT
Man, am I happy to see Air America continuing to grow. At this rate, they'll be up to 100 stations by year's end. I think this is helping, ever so slowly, to turn the tide.
Who's your favorite? Mine's Jerry Springer. I think he speaks to the mainstream and talks sense. I hate his sensationalistic TV show, but love his radio show.

Start counting back down, LOL. Springer? Sounds about right. fools.

Muhammad's example

The key figure in the struggle between Muslim reformers and fundamentalists is Muhammad. Ordinary Muslims must be allowed to think clearly about the Prophet's moral example

by Ayaan Hirsi Ali
After the carnage of the terrorist bombings in London, Tony Blair defined the situation as a battle of values. “Our values will long outlast theirs,” he said, to the silent acquiescence of the world leaders who stood alongside him. “Whatever [the terrorists] do, it is our determination that they will never succeed in destroying what we hold dear in this country and in other civilised nations throughout the world.”

But which values are we fighting for? Those who love freedom know that the open society relies on a few key shared concepts. They believe that all humans are born free, are endowed with reason and have inalienable rights. Governments are checked by the rule of law, so that civil liberties are protected. They ensure freedom of conscience and of expression, and ensure that men and women, homosexuals and heterosexuals, are treated equally under the law. People can trade freely, and may spend their recreational time as they wish.

The terrorists, and the Shari'a-based societies to which they aspire, have an entirely different philosophy. Humans are born to serve Allah through a series of obligations that are prescribed in an ancient body of writings. These edicts vary from rituals of birth and funeral rites to the most intimate details of human life; they descend to the point of absurdity in matters such as how to blow your nose, and with what foot to step into a toilet. Muslims, according to this philosophy, must kill those among them who leave the faith, and are required to be hostile to people of other religions and ways of life. This hostility requires them to murder innocent people and makes no distinction between civilians and the military. In Shari'a societies, women are made subordinate to men. They must be confined to their houses, beaten if found disobedient, forced into marriage and hidden behind the veil. The hands of thieves are cut off and capital punishment is performed in crowded public squares in front of cheering crowds. The terrorists seek to impose this way of life not only on Islamic countries, but, as Blair said, on western societies too.

At the core of this fundamental challenge to the west lies a pre-medieval figure to whom the London terrorists—along with all faithful Muslims in our modern world—look for guidance: Muhammad. All faithful Muslims believe that they must emulate this man, in principle and practical matters, under all circumstances. When trying to understand Islamic terrorism, most politicians and other commentators have avoided the core issue, which is Muhammad’s example. The west, before embarking on a battle of ideas, must attempt to understand this figure, and his presence in the daily lives and homes of faithful Muslims today.

It is apparent on reading the Koran and the traditional writings that Muhammad’s life not only provides rules for the daily lives of Muslims; it also demonstrates the means by which his values can be imposed. Muhammad himself constructed the House of Islam using military tactics that included mass killing, torture, targeted assassination, lying and the indiscriminate destruction of productive goods. This may be embarrassing to moderate Muslims, but the propaganda produced by modern terrorists constantly quotes Muhammad’s deeds and edicts to justify their actions and to call on other Muslims to support their cause.

Muslims in Europe and across the world may be divided into roughly three groups. Firstly, there are the terrorists, who resort to violence (and their allies, the fundamentalists, who do not kill or maim, but provide terrorists with material and immaterial assistance). The second group, the reformers, are the polar opposite of the terrorists and may one day provide an intellectual counterweight to them. This group of people—although tiny, it is growing—may be characterised by its questioning of the relevance and moral soundness of Muhammad’s example. I, who was born and bred a Muslim, count myself among them. We in this group have embraced the open society as a true alternative to a society based on the laws of Muhammad—a better way to build a framework for human life.

The terrorists have far more power and resources than the reformers, but both groups vie to influence the thinking of the third group—the vast majority of Muslims. The reformers use only non-violent means to draw attention to debates over core values and the example of Muhammad. The terrorists and fundamentalists, however, use force, the threat of force, appeals to pity (“look at what the west is doing to Islam and Muslims”) and ad hominem smears. Their unwitting allies in the west defend so-called victims of Islamophobia; meanwhile, the reformers are shunned by their families and communities, and may even live under the fear of assassination. In short, the core of the debate is made taboo, and the fundamentalists attain a near-monopoly on the hearts and minds of the largest group of Muslims, the undecided.

Who are these "undecided" Muslims? They are the group to which Tony Blair refers when he says “The vast and overwhelming majority of Muslims here and abroad are decent and law-abiding people.” They live in Edgware Road and Bradford, and in Amsterdam and Saint Denis; they are not fervent observers of every ritual of Islam but they count themselves as believers. They are immigrants and second-generation youths who have come to the west to enjoy the benefits of the open society, in which they have a vested interest. But they do not question the infallibility of Muhammad and the soundness of his moral example. They know that Muhammad calls for the slaughter of infidels; they know that the open society rightly condemns the slaughter of innocents. They are caught in a mental cramp of cognitive dissonance and it is up to the west to support the reformers in trying to ease them out of that painful contradiction. They must be engaged in a process of clear thinking on how to evaluate the moral guidance of the man whose compass they follow.

It should not be offensive, or hurtful, to Muslims to call for clear thought on such an important question. This process should provide an alternative to the utopia promised by terrorists—the open society, and it gives Muslims, like Christians and Jews, an opportunity to liberate themselves from the ever-present menace of hell, which is the single most effective threat the fundamentalists employ. And yet suggestions like this cause many people in the west to flinch. Many hold that questioning, or criticising, a holy figure is not polite behaviour, somehow not done. This cultural relativism betrays the basic values on which our open society is constructed. We should never self-censor.

The western cultural relativists, who flinch from criticising Muhammad for fear of offending Muslims, rob Muslims of an opportunity to review their own moral values. The first victims of Muhammad are the minds of Muslims themselves. Moreover, this attitude betrays Muslim reformers who desperately require the support—and even the physical protection—of their natural allies in the west.

Muslims must reform their approach to Muhammad’s teachings if we are all to coexist peacefully. Terrorists and fundamentalists should not be permitted to dictate to us the rules of the game. Core western values must be maintained, and proclaimed. Our struggle should focus on persuading the large middle group of Muslims that they need not give up their religious beliefs if they engage in a process of clear and honest thinking about the need for Islamic reform.

http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=6994&category=&author=2299&AuthKey=101db99f2e2e77bef4c1ed56daf7fe6a

The roots of Islamic terrorism

Fundamentalism and fascism
Most commentators argue that Islamic terrorism is a fanatical perversion of Islam which deviates from its true teachings. They call for a Western-style modernization of the Muslim world, hoping thereby that radical Islam will be tamed.
This analysis misses the point. The nature of the terrorist threat is unambiguously Islamic and is not so much a deviation from Muslim tradition as an appeal to it. Al Qaeda's ideology draws on two traditions to legitimize itself: one classical, the other modern.
Regarding classical Islam, the oft-quoted remark that Islam is a religion of peace is false. It is historically illiterate to claim that war is foreign to Islam and it is theologically uninformed to argue that jihad is merely a personal inner struggle with no external military correlate.
On the contrary, Islam is linked from the beginning with the practice of divinely sanctioned warfare and lethal injunctions against apostates and unbelievers. Islam experienced no period of wandering and exclusion; from its inception, Islam formed a unitary state bent on military conquest.
The Prophet died a successful military leader who created a single Islamic polity that expanded - through warfare - all over the known world. The caliphate combined the double logic of a religious community and an imperial state.
This dual identity explains how Islam can be simultaneously peaceful and warlike. While the Koran enjoins that there shall be "no compulsion in religion," Islam still regards it as a holy duty to extend militarily the borders of the House of Islam against the demonic world of unbelievers: "He who dies without having taken part in a campaign dies in a kind of unbelief."
Coupled with this irreconcilability between Islam and its enemies is an extreme territorial sense of the sacred. Hence bin Laden's principal demand for the departure of all infidels from holy Muslim lands. When extremists say they are killing in the name of Islam, they are in part appealing to Islamic traditions of long standing. Al Qaeda's modern origins go back to Wahhabism, named after the revivalist movement founded by Muhammad Ibn'Abd al-Wahhab in 1744. Wahhab called for a return to a pure and unadulterated form of Islam closer to the ideals of the Prophet.
Faced with a decadent society, Wahhabism (not unlike some radical Protestant sects) reduced Islam to a scriptural literalism, an absolutism utterly hostile to other more medieval traditions. In this sense of direct rule by God, Wahhabism is a truly modern theology. Not unlike Descartes and Kant, it argues for the unmediated and total knowledge of its object.
Al Qaeda then blended this theology with fascism. The Indian Muslim Abu Ala Maududi (1903-1979) condemned the degraded nature of all contemporary Muslim communities. He characterized Muslim governments that did not implement stringent Islamic law as apostate and commanded true believers to wage jihad against them.
Maududi was a decisive influence on Sayyid Qutb (1906-1966), chief ideologue of the Muslim Brotherhood. Like Maududi, Qutb fused the history of Mohammed's travails with a revolutionary vanguard-type ideology that removed medieval limits on warfare by championing a modern death cult in the quest for a revivified caliphate.
The ideology instigated by these two figures is fuelled by dreams of a prior Islamic golden age. Al Qaeda sympathizers avidly read European fascist literature and pursue religious ends via atheist methods. Recruits to the cause are not the excluded uneducated poor, they are intellectuals with a radical critique of Western society and its impact on Islam.
Neither the "war on terror" nor political negotiations will overcome Islam's totalitarian turn. Western repression is everywhere fuelling the ranks of radical Islam. Equally, there can be no accommodation with an ideology that seeks to fashion the whole world in its own image. The essentially Islamic nature of this terror demands nothing less than a reformation in the name of an alternative Islam.
Islam, with good reason, will never embrace Western secularization. But it could begin to develop a critique of its history by recovering some of its aborted traditions. Islam must place true religious conversion (like that of Sufism) over territorial conquest.
Islam needs to restore the legislative authority of communal consensus to allow Muslims to develop along with, rather than against, the future.
(Phillip Blond lectures in philosophy and religion at St. Martin's College, Lancaster. Adrian Pabst is a research fellow at the Luxembourg Institute for European and International Studies.)
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/07/27/opinion/edpabst.php

IDF Prevents Tel Aviv Suicide Attack

By Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
The IDF nabbed two Fatah terrorists Friday night as they were on their way to carry out a suicide attack in Tel Aviv. One terrorist was caught near Sderot and the other in Jaffa, next to Tel Aviv. Army troops discovered a hole in the security fence next to Gaza and shortly later found an 18-year-old terrorist wearing a five-kilogram (11-pound) suicide belt in a field in Kibbutz Nir Am near Sderot in the Negev. The terrorist attempted to detonate the explosives upon his arrest, but the device failed.After an initial investigation, intelligence officials located the second terrorist, a 25-year-old Gaza Arab, near Tel Aviv where he lived with his Israeli-Arab wife and two children. He was able to travel freely in Israeli because of a change in Israeli law that eased restrictions for Yesha Arabs married to Israeli citizens.The terrorists were members of the Fatah party of Palestinian Authority (PA) chairman Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas), which committed itself at Sharm el-Sheikh in February to cease from terrorist attacks. Abu Mazen recently told ABC News in the United States that the "era of suicide bombings" had ended.Arab terrorists also lightly injured two IDF soldiers in an attack on the Jewish community in Hevron on Friday. The soldiers returned fire, but the terrorists escaped.

Perhaps this as what John Adams was talking about? Liberals and PC blinded conservatives must learn, muslims do not have to honor treaties with non-muslims, read the fucking koran!

When Will We Learn?

John Quincy Adams on Jihad War, Dhimmitude, and the Muslim View of Non-Muslims-

“As the essential principle of his faith is the subjugation of others by the sword; it is only by force, that his false doctrines can be dispelled, and his power annihilated.

They [The Russians] have been from time immemorial, in a state of almost perpetual war with the Tatars, and with their successors, the Ottoman conquerors of Constantinople. It were an idle waste of time to trace the causes of each renewal of hostilities, during a succession of several centuries. The precept of the Koran is, perpetual war against all who deny, that Mahomet is the prophet of God. The vanquished may purchase their lives, by the payment of tribute; the victorious may be appeased by a false and delusive promise of peace; and the faithful follower of the prophet, may submit to the imperious necessities of defeat: but the command to propagate the Moslem creed by the sword is always obligatory, when it can be made effective. The commands of the prophet may be performed alike, by fraud, or by force. Of Mahometan good faith, we have had memorable examples ourselves. When our gallant [Stephen] Decatur ref had chastised the pirate of Algiers, till he was ready to renounce his claim of tribute from the United States, he signed a treaty to that effect: but the treaty was drawn up in the Arabic language, as well as in our own; and our negotiators, unacquainted with the language of the Koran, signed the copies of the treaty, in both languages, not imagining that there was any difference between them. Within a year the Dey demands, under penalty of the renewal of the war, an indemnity in money for the frigate taken by Decatur; our Consul demands the foundation of this pretension; and the Arabic copy of the treaty, signed by himself is produced, with an article stipulating the indemnity, foisted into it, in direct opposition to the treaty as it had been concluded. The arrival of Chauncey, with a squadron before Algiers, silenced the fraudulent claim of the Dey, and he signed a new treaty in which it was abandoned; but he disdained to conceal his intentions; my power, said he, has been wrested from my hands; draw ye the treaty at your pleasure, and I will sign it; but beware of the moment, when I shall recover my power, for with that moment, your treaty shall be waste paper. He avowed what they always practised, and would without scruple have practised himself. Such is the spirit, which governs the hearts of men, to whom treachery and violence are taught as principles of religion.”



Sir Winston Churchill, from The River War, first edition, Vol. II, pages 248-50 (London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1899).-

“How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities - but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome."



Not politically correct, just correct.

HOUSTON (May 19, 2005)- A boat crew from Coast Guard Marine Safety Office Houston escorts a tug and barge during a maritime security patrol in the Houston Ship Channel. The Port of Houston is the second largest petrochemical complex in the world. Over 35% of all U.S. gasoline is refined here. 7,600 deep draft vessels arrive each year - 60% oil/chemical and 40% freight. Approximately 700 ships transit the Houston-Galveston Ship Channel each day.

NEW TECHNOLOGY INCREASING SAFETY AND SECURITY OF SHIPPING TRAFFIC

The management and responsibility of overseeing the daily safe movement of all this traffic lies with the controllers at the Coast Guard Vessel Traffic Service Houston.
Until recently the controllers manually tracked the ship channel traffic, using a radio, closed-circuit television cameras and radar, but on March 18 the VTS evolved the way it operates with the implementation of two interactive systems: the Automatic Identification System (AIS); the Port and Waterways Safety System (PAWSS).
These two systems combined with the Distant Early Warning (DEW) line project significantly extends the furthest point out at which the Coast Guard can detect ships approaching U.S. waters, and have greatly increased the nation’s maritime safety and security.
The AIS is composed of a VHF radio, a Global Positioning System and a Minimum Keyboard Display, with a digital text display showing data of the six closest vessels. Similar to the black box carried by aircraft, the AIS continuously transmits a ship’s position, course, speed and identification.
This information is continually updated and received by all AIS-equipped vessels in it vicinity,” said Cmdr. Edgar Wendlandt, Chief of the Coast Guard’s Vessel Traffic Services Division. “An AIS-based VTS reduces the need for voice interactions, enhances mariners’ ability to navigate, improves their situational awareness and assists them in the performance of their duties, thus reducing the risk of collisions.”
AIS will eventually allow VTS controllers to send text messages and broadcasts to mariners, and will give the controllers the ability to select whether a message is transmitted to all mariners, a select group of mariners or just a single ship.
PAWSS is a computer system that displays the AIS signals. The system is real-time and more accurate than the previous system, significantly reducing controllers’ workload, while also improving the overall accuracy of the system and enhancing maritime domain awareness.
Extending the DEW line is part of the President’s plans to push out borders and key to the nation’s maritime defense.
The Coast Guard is leasing offshore communication towers to increase the detection range of the AIS. These offshore sensors will allow VTS controllers to monitor all AIS-equipped commercial ship traffic operating within 80 to 200 miles off the U.S. coast.
Prior to the use of AIS the Coast Guards monitoring and detection capability ended at the channel entrance buoys, approximately five miles off shore. The additions of offshore towers will expand monitoring capability throughout the Gulf of Mexico from Brownsville, Texas, to Pensacola, Fla., and eventually the entire U.S. coast.

So when liberals bitch and complain about homeland security, how many of them know a damn thing about this program? I know libs, it's all about the dollars, like the dollars the feds sent to NY for transit security last year, and they didn't even spend it. Just complain to hear yourself complain. No answers, just figures and no clue.
info: https://www.piersystem.com/external/index.cfm?cid=425&fuseaction=EXTERNAL.docview&documentID=72729

Dissidents held in Cuba crackdown

By Stephen Gibbs BBC News, Havana
Opposition figures in Cuba say at least 20 Cuban dissidents have been detained as part of a crackdown against the country's political opposition.
They are said to include the three main organisers of a public meeting of dissidents which took place in May. The Cuban government has not confirmed the arrests. Cuba's long-standing position is that dissidents are not representative of public opinion, but rather mercenaries in the pay of the US. According to relatives of those being held and Cuban opposition sources, Cuban state security agents visited scores of houses across Havana on Friday morning. The majority of those dissidents that are currently in custody were intending to take part in a protest outside the French embassy.
( I wonder why? Could it be the Cubans don't want the frogs helping Castro ?)

Power cuts
Some Cuban dissidents are unhappy at what they see as France's particularly soft line on Cuba. Among those detained are three of President Castro's most outspoken critics - Martha Beatriz Roque, Felix Bonne and Rene Gomez. About 200 delegates attended the rare public meeting they helped organise in May. At the meeting, delegates approved a resolution in which they described Cuba's system of government as Stalinist and its economic policies as obsolete. This clampdown might be linked to that meeting, but it also comes at a time when there are some signs of general discontent in Cuba. Weeks of extended power cuts, worsened by the after effects of Hurricane Dennis, have tested the patience of many Cubans.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4709661.stm