It's unclear to me from this BBC article whether Ry Cooder will actually have to pay the $100,000 fine levied against him under America's Trading With The Enemy Act for the crime of recording music with actual Cubans. Hold on -- according to this piece in The Scotsman, it was reduced to $25,000. *Sigh.*

Happy Birthday to Cooder, by the way, who turned 56 on Saturday. Ditto for Dee Snider of Twisted Sister, who turned 48. Wow, blogging sure is fun. I'm gonna stop now.