Cuba Gets Slammed By Ike, Lights Cigarette

Hurricane Ike gelled his hair, put on his best gold chain and went out seeing how many island he could hit. After thoroughly devastating Hispaniola, Ike went on to terrorize Cuba:

At least 58 people died as Ike’s winds and rain swept Haiti yesterday — and officials found three more bodies from a previous storm — raising the death toll from four tropical storms in less than a month to 319. A Dominican man was crushed by a falling tree. It was too early to know of deaths on other islands where the most powerful winds were still blowing.

Bad. Luckily, tourists visiting Cuba to procure whores and enjoy hotels and beaches forbidden to poverty-stricken (but literate!) locals have been kept safe. You can all breath a sigh of relief now:

Foreign tourists were pulled out from vulnerable beach resorts, workers rushed to protect coffee plants and other crops and plans were under way to distribute food and cooking oil to disaster areas.

“There’s no fear here, but one has to prepared. It could hit us pretty hard,” said Ramon Olivera, gassing up his motorcycle in Camaguey, where municipal workers boarded up banks and restaurants.

More than 100 people waited in bread lines at each of the numerous government bakeries around town as families hoarded supplies before the storm.

Yes, better safe than sorry. When reached for comment, Vice-Presidential hopeful Sarah Palin said: “What? Aid? To Cuba? No, AIDS are bad.”

Hurricane Ike slams into Cuba [Canada World]