Fausta's Blog

American and Latin American Politics, Society, and Culture

June 16, 2009 By Fausta

Iran on fire

From Noticias 24:

agencia3_2009-06-15_1245087918orig

Michael Ledeen:

The young Islamic revolutionaries of the late 1970s are now middle aged, and do not wish to slaughter their neighbors. That is why the mullahs have imported killers from abroad: the five thousand or so Hezbollahis who, according to Der Spiegel, have been brought in from Lebanon and Syria. Dissidents on Twitter report clashes with security forces who do not speak Farsi, and there are even some rumors suggesting that Chavez has sent some of his toughs from Venezuela. Who knows?

The other great threat to the regime comes from the upper reaches of the clergy. Do not be surprised to see some senior ayatollahs denounce the regime; many have done so in the past (Ayatollah Montazeri has been under house arrest for years, and Ayatollah Boroujerdi has been subjected to horrible torture for criticizing the lack of freedom in Iran). We are still quite early in this process.

But the key element is the people. They are only just beginning to understand the reality of their situation. Virtually none of them imagined that they would be in a revolutionary confrontation with the regime just two days after the electoral circus, and few of them can realize, so soon, that they can actually change the world. I think the Mousavis now understand it (they know that they are either going to win or be destroyed). It remains to be seen if they can instruct and inspire the movement.

Much will depend on their ability to communicate. The regime has been waging a cyberwar against the dissidents, shutting down websites, cell phones, Facebook, and the like. As most people have learned, the basic communiations tool is Twitter, which somehow continues to function. Bigtime Kudos to Twitter, by the way, for postponing its planned maintenance so that the Iranians can continue to Tweet. Would that Google were so solicitous of freedom.

We don’t know who’s going to win. The Iranian people know that they’re on their own; they aren’t going to get any help from us, or the United Nations, or the Europeans. But paradoxically, this lack of support may strengthen their will. There is no cavalry on the horizon. If they are going to prevail, they and their unlikely leaders will have to gut it out by themselves. God be with them.

Don’t miss the Cyberwar guide for Iran elections:

2. Hashtags, the only two legitimate hashtags being used by bloggers in Iran are #iranelection and #gr88, other hashtag ideas run the risk of diluting the conversation.

and

4. Help cover the bloggers: change your twitter settings so that your location is TEHRAN and your time zone is GMT +3.30. Security forces are hunting for bloggers using location and timezone searches. If we all become ‘Iranians’ it becomes much harder to find them.

I did that just now.

I’ll be on CNN Live’s Blogger Bunch panel today at noon to join the discussion on Iran.

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Filed Under: CNN, Iran Tagged With: Fausta's blog

June 10, 2009 By Fausta

On CNN Live’s Blogger Bunch

Matt Lewis was also in the podcast.

I’m on @CNNdotcomLive panel at 12:08 talking about the SCOTUS rejecting the challenge to the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy first instituted during the Clinton administration. See you there!

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Filed Under: CNN Tagged With: Fausta's blog, gay rights

June 4, 2009 By Fausta

On CNN Live’s Blogger Bunch at noon

UPDATE

Earlier today:
I’ll be back on CNN Live’s Blogger Bunch at noon today. The subject will be President Obama’s speech in Cairo.

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Filed Under: Barack Obama, CNN, Egypt, Islam, Middle East. Tagged With: Fausta's blog

May 29, 2009 By Fausta

More Alvaro in Venezuela

Álvaro Vargas Llosa continues his visit to Venezuela with a TV interview (in Spanish) where he explains why countries that respect property rights and free enterprise are the countries who prosper:


La Entrevista (ÁlvaroVargas)
by noticias24

The main message of his interview is that the participants at the Cedice conference on freedom and democracy:

“We have come to share the idea that political freedom is fundamental for Latin American civilization. The ideas that economic freedom and respect to private property are basic ingredients for prosperity.”

Chavez is the middle of a three-day-long cadena, which is his TV broadcast that has to be carried through all the licensed TV and radio stations in the country. He’s been singing songs and reading Mario Benedetti’s poems. Not that he’s satisfied with that – he wants Globovisión shut down permanently: Chavez demands Venezuela TV station be punished:

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez threatened on Thursday to personally take action against an anti-government TV station if the nation’s authorities do not punish the channel, which expects to be closed.

He’s done it before (as readers of this blog know)

Two years ago Chavez refused to renew the license of Venezuela’s largest private television station, which was implicated in a brief coup against him. That provoked international criticism and anger in Venezuela but did not dent his popularity.

That station, RCTV, is now available only on cable systems and has ceased to be a political force.

In his speech at Cedice yesterday, Álvaro asked “why is [Chavez] so afraid of Globovisión, since he controls all the media?” During his press conference at Cedice he discussed the benefits of microloan programs.

Álvaro Vargas Llosa is a fellow at the Independent Institute. The Independent’s blog has been posting on Álvaro’s trip.

In the meantime, Reuters says that Álvaro’s dad, Mario is stirring things up: Novelist Vargas Llosa stirs up left and right in Latin America. Good for him.

——————————-

Please note there won’t be a podcast this morning, since today is a very busy day. However, you can catch me on CNN’s Blogger Bunch at noon (yes, again). The panel will be talking about Padre Alberto.

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Filed Under: CNN, Communism, Hugo Chavez, RCTV, Venezuela Tagged With: Álvaro Vargas Llosa, Cedise, Fausta's blog, Globovisión

May 21, 2009 By Fausta

Fausta on CNN.Com

UPDATED with video

Earlier today,
I’ll be a panelist on CNN.com Bloggers Roundtable today at noon Eastern. See you there.

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Filed Under: CNN Tagged With: Fausta's blog

April 16, 2009 By Fausta

CNN: “Not fit for family viewing”

I twittered about this last night,

Doug Ross has the transcript:

CNN [Susan Roesgen]: “Let’s see… drop taxes… drop socialism. Okay, let’s see. You’re here with your two-year old daughter and you’re already in debt. Why are you here today, sir?”

Man with child: “Because I hear a President say that he believed in what Lincoln stood for. Lincoln’s primary thing was, he believed that people had the right to liberty and the r –”

CNN [Susan Roesgen]: “What does this have to do with taxes?”

Man: “Are you going to let me speak?”

CNN [Susan Roesgen]: “What does this have to do with taxes? Do you realize that you’re elibible for a $400…”

Man: “Let me finish my point! Lincoln believed that people had the right to share in the fruits of their own labor and that government should not take it. And we have clearly gotten to that p–”

CNN [Susan Roesgen]: “Right, right, right — did you know that the state of Lincoln gets fifty billion dollars out of these stimulus — that’s fifty billion dollars for this state, sir!”

Man: “Ma’am, ma’am, ma’am, I’m… can you stop this, sir?”

CNN [Susan Roesgen]: “Alright, we’ll move on… (to audience) I think you get the general tenor of this, uh, it’s anti-government, anti-CNN, since this is highly promoted by the rightwing conservative network Fox and… since I can’t really hear much more, I think this… is not really family viewing, toss it back to you, Kera.”

Moe has more quality reporting from Susan:

Won’t be suprised if Susan gets a promotion.

UPDATE
Whoa! Gateway Pundit gave a speech:

Hoft rocks!

Marc from PoliGazette was in Houston.

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Filed Under: CNN, taxes Tagged With: #teaparty, Fausta's blog, media bias, Susan Roesgen, Tea Party

March 13, 2009 By Fausta

CNN’s Patricia Janiot: Chávez is “very attractive”

Via Noticias24,
Senior anchor for CNN en Español Patricia Janiot declared in an interview with journalist Cristian Savio that Chávez is “very attractive,” and has “overwhelming charisma,”
(My translation: If you use this translation please link to this post)

CS: What political leader impressed you the most?
PJ: Beyond his political position – I believe that a politician, the more he shows himself as a person and further away from the gods of Olympus, the better – there’s no doubt that Hugo Chávez os “the character.” He’s the epitome of the populist leader, with plain tastes, overwhelming charisma and the ability to involve himself in his sorroundings since he has a point of reference that also interests you. He’s a combination comedian, military, President and religious leader: a very appealing combination, even more so than his oratorial ability. He’s very attractive to any journalist.

CS: And [Argentinian President] Cristina Fernández?
PJ: She made a very good impression, I met her before she became president. Beyond her strong personality, she comes across as letting you know what to expect of her. She tells you what she means to your face. She’ll tell you outright if she doesn’t want to answer a question. She won’t evade it or change the subject.

CS: What are your thoughts on the turn to the left in Latin American politics?
PJ: It strikes me as a natural swing after the neoliberal decade that left so many of us in ruins. It’s a natural process in any country: when something doesn’t work, we look for the opposite. But nowadays the difference between the Left and the Right is how distanced they are from the United States. Even the governments on the Right are closer to fighting inequality and poverty, so the difference is the degree of alienation from the US.

Readers of this blog may remember that CNN en Español’s freelancer Mauricio Funes is the Communist party candidate running for President of El Salvador.

Janiot follows in the steps of tyrant-worshiper Barbara Walters, who idolizes Fidel Castro,

Another distinguished CNN alumna, Lucia Newman, is now working for al-Jazeera.

These and other headlines from the region in today’s podcast at 11AM Eastern . Chat’s open by 10:45AM. See you there!UPDATE
Welcome, NewsBusters readers!

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Filed Under: al-Jazeera, Argentina, CNN, Cuba, Hugo Chavez, journalism, Venezuela Tagged With: Fausta's blog

January 10, 2009 By Fausta

Staged video? No problem! CNN says it’s “genuine”

UPDATED
Please scroll down

Here’s the video:Everything in it is staged:
The CPR
The blood stain that looks like someone spilled 2 tablespoons of cranberry juice
The undamaged roof where supposedly the IDF dropped a bomb, complete with undamaged plastic chairs
and on and on.

Charles has posted the three versions of the video; the one here is the full report posted at CNN’s website report posted by the UK’s Channel 4.

CNN had taken it down and now reposted it, claiming that “Journalists SAY” it is genuine. What journalists are those? CNN’s Palestinian stringers.

Gaza video genuine, journalists say
(CNN) — There’s no truth to accusations by bloggers that a Palestinian camera crew staged a video showing the death of the videographer’s brother after an Israeli rocket attack, said the team’s employer.

“It’s absolute nonsense,” Paul Martin, co-owner of World News and Features, said of accusations leveled by bloggers at videographer Ashraf Mashharawi.

“He’s a man of enormous integrity and would never get involved with any sort of manipulation of images, let alone when the person dying is his own brother,” Martin said. “I know the whole family. I know them very well. … [Mashharawi] is upset and angry that anyone would think of him having done anything like this. … This is ridiculous. He’s independent.”

Leave it to the bloggers to point out,
Charles:

According to Internet Haganah’s database of terror website hosts, in 2004 nepras.net, which lists Mashharawi as general manager, was the operator of the main Hamas website and the website of Hamas’ radio station Voice of Al Aqsa.

A doctor commenting at Charles’s website

I’m no military expert, but I am a doctor, and this video is bullsh-t. The chest compressions that were being performed at the beginning of this video were absolutely, positively fake. The large man in the white coat was NOT performing CPR on that child. He was just sort of tapping on the child’s sternum a little bit with his fingers. You can’t make blood flow like that. Furthermore, there’s no point in doing chest compressions if you’re not also ventilating the patient somehow. In this video, I can’t tell for sure if the patient has an endotracheal tube in place, but you can see that there is nobody bag-ventilating him (a bag is actually hanging by the head of the bed), and there is no ventilator attached to the patient. In a hospital, during a code on a ventilated patient, somebody would probably be bagging the patient during the chest compressions. And they also would have moved the bed away from the wall, so that somebody could get back there to intubate the patient and/or bag him. In short, the “resuscitation scene” at the beginning is fake, and it’s a pretty lame fake at that.

So the question is, were they re-enacting the resuscitation scene by repeating their actions on a corpse, because the child had died earlier? It’s likely that the answer is no, that child is still alive, and is just an actor pretending to be a child who was killed. Why do I say that? Because the big guy in the white coat, if he’s really a doctor, nurse, nurse’s aid, EMT, or any sort of health care provider at all would be entirely aware that tickling the boy’s sternum doesn’t really look like actual chest compressions. If the boy was dead, the man would have done a more convincing job in compressing the chest. The taps on the chest that he’s doing are the sort of thing you see in bad TV dramas, when you don’t want to make the poor actor playing the victim uncomfortable by really pushing on his chest. I think the man in the white coat knows this child is actually alive, and is making the simulated chest compressions gentle so as not to hurt the child. My guess is that he assumed the videographer, like those on better TV shows, would have been smart enough not to film as far down as the man’s hands on the chest.

Confederate Yankee: Anatomy of a media hoax

There is no evidence of any penetration or contact with into the roof surface itself at that point or anywhere else shown— not a single mark, despite the fact that drone-class warheads typically have impact-dependent fuses that means they would have detonated on impact, or if delayed, would have penetrated into the home before exploding.

Newsbusters

Also, note the non-denial denial in the text accompanying the video:

The cameraman isn’t accused of “manipulating images.” He and others are accused of staging the video.

Ed has the YouTube version of the video:

Won’t be the first time a major news service willingly gets manipulated by their Palestinian stringers.

Post corrected; I had first incorrectly named the Channel 4 video

UPDATE
The return of Pallywood? Yes.

Update 2
Dan asks, Why The Inconsistencies In Controversial CNN Videos?

At the very least it seems it might be an attempt by someone to alter the time-line of events and that a Channel 4 report actually pointed out that the family stayed home for some time and waited for the camera man / brother before taking the boy to the hospital.

In the third video (bottom) – of CNN’s full report – it claims the boy was taken home after the hospital – see 47 seconds in.

But in the second version posted from the UK’s channel 4, they use the same footage to suggest the boy “might” already be dead. That would mean the living room video was shot before taking the boy to the hospital – see 55 seconds in of that video. And at 2:20 in, the video actually says they drove from the hospital directly to the cemetery. That supports the living room video being shot after waiting for the cameraman to come off the road to the home. Why wouldn’t they have taken the boy to the hospital immediately?

Go read the rest.

UPDATE, Sunday 11 December
Commenter Brian,

1. :08 into the Youtube video, what kind of card or paperwork could the Norwegian doctor be bothering to move or “straighten up” while the Palestinian doctor is furiously tickling the patient’s chest? In my experience, anything that wasn’t priority during a trauma situation was summarily tossed on the floor and dealt with later.

2. What are those clear IV fluids shown running into the patients left arm? Are any of them as vital as plasma? Is plasma usually run into the arm, or into a larger vein/artery? My experience showed that prepping an IV line was a needle insertion process that took a couple of critical minutes. Would there have been time to prepare an IV process for clear fluids before a CPR process was even concluded?

3. Sound and visuals indicate that the EKG monitoring system was on and functioning, however at :20 into the Youtube video, the Norwegian doctor appears to then be applying some EKG stickers to the patient’s chest. Is this consistent or out of sequence in regards to EKG procedure?

4. :16 into the Youtube video, the Palestinian doctor, still applying the tickling method to the patient’s chest, appears to ask the Norwegian doctor a question, to which the Norwegian doctor prominently points to the EKG screen to explain something. In a month’s time of witnessing doctors in an ER and an ICU environment, I never once saw a doctor point to and explain monitor information to another doctor. Information that was visual was simply available and understood by all. (To me this would be like a professional NASCAR driver pointing to his speedometer to explain to another professional NASCAR driver how fast he is going.) Between professionals, isn’t vital information simply understood?

5. Why is there blood on the orderly’s gloves, but none on the Norwegian doctor’s gloves, nor on the Palestinian doctor’s gloves who is actually touching the patient?

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Filed Under: CNN, Hamas, Islam, Israel, propaganda, terrorism, videos Tagged With: Fausta's blog, hoaxes, lies

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