I Want My TVM

Just how ridiculous has our government's policies on Cuba become? Well... what's more ridiculous than ridiculous? Maybe this:

The Bush administration has successfully overcome Cuban jamming of U.S. government radio and television broadcasts through transmission from a military aircraft, the State Department said Monday.

Spokesman Adam Ereli said the transmissions of Miami-based Radio and TV Marti took place for several hours on Saturday from an aircraft flown by the Air National Guard.

Assuming that the Florida ANG used a specially modified C-130, the hourly cost of the operation was on the order of $50,000 (not unreasonable). And let's say that several hours means 6, just to make it a nice, round number. That would make 6 hours of radio and TV $300,000, not including the costs of producing the programming. If you throw in the support costs of aerial refueling the C-130, which means launching a KC-135 and couple of hours of flight time for that aircraft and crew, the cost could easily triple.

These crazy policies have continued years beyond any possibility that Cuba is a threat to the US, and yet we get statements like these:

"These broadcasts will give the Cuban people uncensored information about their country and the world, and will help bring about a rapid and peaceful transition to democracy," Mr. Ereli said.

Note the utter lack of irony in that statement...