Hadar fan Nr 1

Fidel Castro 100 today

I find him deeply inspiring, mainly because of his perseverance. That is the quality I admire most about him.

So, Another Fidel, this time to celebrate his 100th birthday anniversary.

Maaan, I need this bear hug. I love it how he would greet politicians, even at official events, he would usually be like:"oh, c'mon, let's forget about formalities, come here, give me a big hug, I need to embrace you".

happy 100th birthday, Fidel... i love you SO SO much... 😞😞

The fun part is that you could do this extremely easily by just bundling a key with an item you can't buy unless you're 18. Like a beer that includes a PGP key, or a pornographic magazine with a page that's a randomly generated key.

The site/app doesn't need to know WHO you are, only that you have access to something you can only get by being 18. This way they're putting the burden of verifying your age onto someone else, someone else who is already legally required to do exactly that.

But no one is interested in developing this because the point of age verification has never been age verification. it's always been governments trying to tie a real-world ID to internet identities, and companies trying to get more private information on users so they can sell it to advertisers.

In 2026, the financial siege that strangled Cuba for more than six decades became a military one.

Five oil tankers seized in a single month. 7.3 million barrels confiscated. One of the tankers was not even under sanctions.

The largest naval deployment in the Caribbean since 1962. US drones surveilling Mexican tanker routes. An executive order threatening tariffs on any country on earth that sells Cuba a single barrel of oil.

Mexico, facing $400 billion in trade exposure to the US, stopped shipments. Venezuela's supply was destroyed by force. No alternative supplier was willing to risk retaliation or seizures.

20-hour daily blackouts. Hospitals on generators running out of diesel. Families cooking with wood.

The Secretary of State testified to Congress that regime change is the objective. The President said: "I think it's just going to fall."

But the siege did not begin in 2026. It began decades ago, and it was never unilateral.

187 nations vote to condemn the US embargo on Cuba every year. 33 consecutive years. The most lopsided vote in UN history.

And every year, every country that votes against it lets its banks enforce it anyway.

The reason is structural.

88% of all global foreign exchange transactions touch the US dollar. 95% of cross-border dollar payments clear through 42 American banks. One country controls the pipes through which the world's money moves.

That is all it takes.

Any foreign bank that processes a Cuba-related payment faces ruin.

BNP Paribas was fined $8.9 billion.

Société Générale, $1.34 billion.

HSBC, $1.9 billion.

Standard Chartered, $1.1 billion.

ING, $619 million.

$13.5 billion in penalties against foreign banks from countries that formally oppose the embargo.

The lesson was received. Most foreign banks now refuse all Cuba operations.

Several countries passed laws making it illegal for their own companies to comply with the US embargo.

Total enforcement of those laws over 30 years: one fine. $15,000. Against a hotel in Mexico City.

The votes against the blockade are symbolic. The fines are real.

And the machinery does not stop at banking.

A US private equity firm buys a Dutch software company. 23 years of Cuban contracts, severed in a week.

A US corporation acquires two Swiss ventilator manufacturers. Deliveries to Cuba stop overnight.

An American cargo company refuses to deliver Jack Ma's donated medical supplies to Cuba. It was the only country in Latin America that did not receive them.

PayPal blocks any transaction containing the word "Cuba." Including orders for a cocktail recipe book.

Cuba does not lose these suppliers to politics.

It loses them to mergers, algorithms, and compliance departments that would rather cut off an entire country than risk a phone call from OFAC.

The result:

35 children on a pediatric ward vomiting 28 to 30 times a day because the anti-nausea drug essential for chemotherapy cannot be sourced from anywhere on earth.

An 89-year-old woman implanted with a pacemaker recycled from a dead patient, two years of battery life, because no manufacturer will sell to Cuba.

69% of necessary medicines unavailable.

Infant mortality rising for the first time in decades.

When one nation controls the infrastructure through which the world trades, and weaponizes that control to deny an island of 11 million people fuel, medicine, food, pacemakers, ventilators, software, insurance, shipping, and banking for more than six decades, while every other nation on earth formally objects and none enforces its objection, the word for that is SIEGE.

The longest siege in modern history.

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Seat 3 is the best, trust me Felt inspired to make my own. I originally considered to just make one including all of my faves, but then I decided if mine get included- everyone with a full portrait gets included. Introducing: the grimdarkest flight of the far future.