On Castro and regime change

With this news that Fidel has handed off some of the titular responsibilities of running Cuba to brother Raul -- no spring chicken himself -- I have asked a Cuban-born American citizen to guest-post here in the next few days.

She emigrated in 1962 1961, in the arms of her mother and father, and lived in New York and Petersburg VA before moving to Texas in the late '70's, where I met and later married her.

Mrs. Diddie has a few blog-worthy tales to tell about her family's experience as political dissidents, asylum-seekers, immigrants, and then US citizens. Regarding the man ultimately responsible for my being introduced to my wife, I only hope that his now-timely demise doesn't force her to hasten a thoughtful posting. Her mother has end-stage Alzheimer's and her father suffers again from a return of the bladder cancer that he has valiantly beaten back five times over the past ten years, so getting a few of their recollections of La Revolucion published is urgent enough as it is.

Look for this post here hopefully by the end of the week.

"Killing people is like squashing an ant"

A former US soldier accused of raping and murdering an Iraqi girl compared killing people in Iraq to "squashing an ant," in an interview with a reporter about a month before the attack.

Steven Green, 21, a former private with the 101st Airborne Division, is under arrest in Kentucky and could face the death penalty if convicted of the March 12 murders of the Iraqi girl and three of her relatives.

Writing in Sunday's editions of The Washington Post, Andrew Tilghman, a former correspondent for the US military newspaper Stars and Stripes, said he interviewed Green several times in February at his unit south of Baghdad.

"I came over here because I wanted to kill people," he quoted Green as saying. "The truth is, it wasn't all I thought it was cracked up to be.

"I mean, I thought killing somebody would be this life-changing experience," Green was quoted as saying. "And then I did it, and I was like, 'All right, whatever.'

"I shot a guy who wouldn't stop when we were out at a traffic checkpoint and it was like nothing," Green was quoted as saying. "Over here, killing people is like squashing an ant.

"I mean, you kill somebody and it's like, 'All right, let's go get some pizza.'"

I don't think I can support a troop like Pfc. Green, nor for that matter any of the others who commit similar atrocities. I hold them less accountable than the liars who sent them to kill, though.

And as the world burns, Our Leader greets the American Idol finalists and keeps his T-ball season going.

Do you feel safer?

More rumor-endo

Since this blog so rarely traffics in rumor and innuendo, it's time for me to catch up with some of the latest scuttlebutt associated with our National League affiliate.

ESPN's Steve Phillips said tonight that the Rangers have offered Hank Blalock to the Astros for Brad Lidge.

They ought to take that deal. But the two teams might be discussing various trades; Baseball Prospectus' Will Carroll says the Rangers have offered Brad Wilkerson and Rod Barajas for Lidge, Morgan Ensberg and Fernando Nieve, something that seems too lopsided for Texas. If the Astros took Blalock for Lidge, they could then send Ensberg to San Diego for Scott Linebrink, with either Linebrink or Chad Qualls or Dan Wheeler closing.

The Orioles and Astros have also discussed a Miguel Tejada deal that includes Roy Oswalt, according to both BP and the Baltimore Sun. Morgan Ensberg and Adam Everett would complete the package and go to Baltimore.

I don't see how this makes the Astros better. Tejada is a huge offensive upgrade, but that doesn't make up for the loss of Roy O and the defensive downgrade. The Orioles may not be especially interested anyway, since they'd likely only have Oswalt through 2007. And Oswalt appears to have been taken off the table for now.

Next year the 'Stros gain many millions of dollars in the expiring contracts of Jeff Bagwell, Roger Clemens, and Andy Pettitte, money which they could use in pursuing free agents for 2007. I'd rather see them reload for next season rather than try to punch through something costly in order to try to capitalize on Clemens' final season (and possibly Pettitte's as well). That urgency alone suggests Tim Purpura may do something rash.

I hope he doesn't, but we'll know for sure by tomorrow's trading deadline.