The long—anticipated Fidel Castro Death Watch is underway. His exact condition is a state secret, which means that the heat wave on the East Coast today may be nothing compared to the climate Fidel currently faces. Meanwhile, bloggers are having great sport.

Okay, I suppose Fidel, for all his brutality as a dictator, has a soul somewhere, and we should have some compassion. But that particular reservoir is pretty well depleted in my case, drained by my knowledge of what he has done to the Cuban people, not to mention his unsavory activities overseas.

Pretend Pundit catches Time Magazine ludicrously portray his enforcer brother Raul as a reformer. James Taranto of Opinionjournal.com memorably dubbed Raul the "crown price."

Those "reforms" must not yet have kicked in, as Rocco di Pippo of The Autonomist discovered a visitor from the Cuban Ministry of Culture logging on to an article sarcastically entitled "The Wonders of Castro's Paradise" and hastily beating a retreat before anyone discovered the heresy. Good luck, fella!

Meanwhile Greg Richards writes:

Fidel Castro has gone into the hospital for what is apparently a complicated operation on his GI track. 

 

The proudest claim of the Castro regime is its universal health care.  Am I the only one who wonders which local clinic Castro has entered for the operation?  And which ward he is recovering in?