Venezuelan president: US tectonic weapon caused Haiti quake

On Monday, BB contributor Arthur Goldwag posted a survey of conspiracy theories around the Haiti earthquake, mostly rants about how a US weather weapon disguised as an atmospheric research system in Alaska called HAARP (image above) actually triggered the catastrophe. Now, Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez has reportedly jumped on the bandwagon, blaming the earthquake on a test of the "tectonic weapon." From PressTV:

President Chavez said the US was "playing God" by testing devices capable of creating eco-type catastrophes, the Spanish newspaper ABC quoted him as saying.
The outspoken leader had earlier accused the US of occupying Haiti "under the guise of the natural disaster..."
Venezuelan media have reported that the earthquake "may be associated with the project called HAARP, a system that can generate violent and unexpected changes in climate."
HAARP, the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program, is a study run in Alaska directed at the occasional reconfiguration of the properties of the Earth's ionosphere to improve satellite communications.
Former US Secretary of Defense William Cohen in 1997 expressed concerned over countries engaging "in eco-type of terrorism whereby they can alter the climate, set off earthquakes, volcanoes remotely through the use of electromagnetic waves."

Chavez says US 'weapon' caused Haiti quake

Previously:

David Pescovitz is Boing Boing's co-editor/managing partner. He's also a research director at Institute for the Future. On Instagram, he's @pesco.

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Visual Echo

Attention Mr. Chavez,

Leave 100 Buh-buh-BILLion dollars in small unmarked bills in a green leather ladie’s handbag behind the candy machine in the La Paz bus stop at Noon local time this next Saturday, or you and your little cheesey country can sift rocks for the next decade. This is your only warning.
zio_donnie

i am pretty sure that “el Ejecutivo que dirige Hugo Chavez” translates as the Hugo Chavez administration.
- lorq
  
  Actually, we both may be right. One meaning of “El Ejecutivo” is “executive” or “administrator,” another is “the government.” So ABC may also be attributing a statement to “the government led by Hugo Chavez” — in the form of a text excerpted from a TV station website — or it may be attributing it to an administrator on the site. The question is, did Chavez himself say this — or not? Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t. The Boing Boing article just assumes he did. (What does anyone make of the images of the ABC article and website in the article to which I provided a link? Any opinions?)
  - zio_donnie
    
    i don’t know if Chavez actually said any of this but i am pretty sure that my translation is the correct one. i sincerely doubt that the phrase “el Ejecutivo que dirige Hugo Chavez” refers to site administrators or what not. it means the HG Administration. if it is true or false is another matter.
Bill Albertson

Hmmmm. While I believe Nikola Tesla may have invented something that could do this, I don’t think that the US has ever produced anyone who could replicate his work since then. Or even teams of people who could replicate his work, otherwise WWII would have been very short indeed.
monday2sday

Perhaps the story does owe more to US political maneuvering than it does to an actual, documented theory proposed by Chavez. In fact, no doubt it does. On the other hand, rampant speculation about secret Alaskan death rays is endlessly enjoyable (if less than responsible).
Anonymous

Weren’t we expecting that one from Chubby Chavez?
GuidoDavid

In the past it has been spread fake (duh!) Nostradamus prophecies about ChÃ¡vez, also
Anonymous

Good afternoon, CHAVEZ. This is Scorpio. I have the Doomsday
Device. You have 72 hours to deliver the gold or you’ll face the
consequences. And to prove I’m not bluffing, watch this.
[activates a remote]
Anonymous

Chavez has only touched the tip of the actual US conspiracy.

An obscure fact has gone unnoticed, but the US Government has secretly been paying worldwide corporations trillions of dollars for a most devious plan! Through the cyclical taxation system of redistributing funds, billions of individual transactions – done in small amounts to keep the program on the down low – US officials have in fact, been releasing invisible gases via devices that systematically and quietly release them into the air. When having fully saturated the entire world in these invisible gases in approximately 40 years – the damage being completed beyond repair – America will have laid waste to millions of square miles of land around the world between the Tropic bands. By laying waste to the areas between the Tropic bands, prices of agricultural goods will soar to the benefit of American farmers, and approximately two billion people (in 2050) shall die within years, as they suffer from the side effects of these invisible gases.

Yes President Chavez, there is a vast and deep conspiracy in the United States, and you have only touched on the tip of the melting iceberg, as they would say.

(Interpreted: The US Conservative movement infecting local and national governments threatens any regulation of CO2, CO, O3 and a host of other gases that, if left to remain unchecked through the next several decades, could result in a chaotic world of vast land masses under severe weather disparities.)
David Pescovitz

More in this, er, Fox News story. (I know, I know, but it does discuss the ViVe TV origin of the story.)
slgalt

Someone just pointed out that crazy pants Chavez can now buy our elections through corporate personhood with Citgo. Thanks right wing Supreme Court!
Antinous / Moderator

Meanwhile, The Venezuelan government has taken six cable television channels off the air…
Anonymous

Now, if the US were SMART, it would (through back channels) foster this myth – that it used Haiti as a testing ground for this new weapon because it’s a low-tech, extremely poor country that wouldn’t/couldn’t catch on/fight back, that the Southeast Asian tsunami was an earlier test of this technology, that the US military has sent “damage assessment teams” to survey the damage to fine tune the weapon system, that the system can be targeted at any location on earth by locating six specially-equipped submarines with infra-sound/radio transmitters that don’t do much individually but can focus their collective transmissions at a particular fault on or near the earth’s surface by positioning and frequency, and that Iran and North Korea are the real intended targets.

Let that slip to Iran and North Korea, and they might just be crazy enough to believe it and change their ways. After all, it’s well known that Iran’s overdue for a big quake of its own.
stosh machek

‘…he needs to deflect attention from the zimbabwification of Venezuela.’
bingo. spot on. & big points for coinage of ‘zimbabwification’
Sork

I just thought of the emergency food that US supplies. It is likely contaminated with a new biological mind control spore which will be tested. Is this a new conspiracy theory or am I late?
hafe

ChÃ¡vez didn’t say that HAARP is responsible for the Haiti quake. It was the TV-Station ViVe

It’s a canard!

http://www.rebelion.org/noticia.php?id=99054
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  That might be the worst link ever posted on BB.
  - lorq
    
    Antinous: *Why* the worst link? Are we supposed to guess? It does show the the two texts in question — more than Boing Boing did.
    
    zio_donnie: I suspect you’re right. If you have a second I’d be curious to know what you think of the rebelion.org link.
    
    (By the way, just for the record, I’ve said here before that I do think Chavez is a leftist firebrand who says outrageous things. On the other hand, ABC is a right-wing newspaper.)
GuidoDavid

All I got is years of direct experience living with crappy propaganda like that coming from the government. In countries where people are not supposed to accept unconditional leadership, your explanation might work. In Venezuela, bullshit. Thye government is perfectly aware of what happens in Vive TV.
jingleyfish

Methinks the nutso dictator doth protest too much. Turns out Venezuela is the only country still not responding to international calls to cancel Haiti’s debt. Coincidence? I think not.

http://www.one.org/blog/2010/01/20/pressure-on-taiwan-and-venezuela-to-drop-haiti-debt/
Paul Escobar

TO DAVID PESCOVITZ & MODERATORS OF BoingBoing,
THE NEWS YOU ARE CITING IS FAKE.

Venezuela’s president NEVER made such claims.
This was an internet rumour which got picked up by a local TV station, & spread throughout the blogosphere.

For a detailed account of how it spread, I’ll refer you to the American BoRev website.
It includes hotlinks showing you how the rumour found its way across media outlets.

http://www.borev.net/2010/01/venezuela_rocked_by_72_magnitu_1.html

1. Some Venezuelan blogger wrote a weird story about the U.S. causing the Haiti earthquake with some sort of earthquake weapon.

2. A website operated by a Venezuelan state TV channel included a link to the post in their roundup of Haiti coverage from all over the country.

3. Some right-wing newspaper in Spain published a story about the link, referring to it as a Venezuelan state “press release.”

4. Fox News reports the Spanish story, saying the earthquake weapon claim comes from “Hugo Chavez’ mouthpiece.”

5. Randomly, Vladimir Putin’s English language teevee channel Russia Today claims that Chavez himself made the statement. This video report is picked up all over the fucking place, Drudge sirens!!

6. Right wing news “analysts” opine about what level of threat this represents to the United States.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  THE NEWS YOU ARE CITING IS FAKE.
  
  And yet, oddly, everyone claiming that it’s fake is trying to prove it by linking to opinion pieces on personal blogs. That standard of proof would go a long way toward explaining why lapdog pseudo-socialists are cheering while Venezuela heads toward being the poorest country in Latin America.
  
  These stations chose to ignore the law and refused to air recent announcements.
  
  That statement goes a long way toward explaining why totalitarian apologists are cheering while Venezuela heads toward becoming the most repressive regime in Latin America.
Anonymous

Secret Service Agent: “Good Morning Mr. President. What would you like with your morning paper today? Freshly Squeezed orange juice made from oranges that came from our finest groves in the country? An espresso? Your slippers?”

President Obama: “mass earthquake in Haiti. well done please. kthanx lol”
Paul Escobar

To Antinous:

Since the private media participated in the 2002 coup against Chavez, the government has been working through legal mechanisms to deal with them.

Venezuelan law states that cable stations with 30% or more Venezuelan content must air occasional government announcements.

These stations chose to ignore the law and refused to air recent announcements. Because cable providers could be liable for their violations, cable providers have dropped them.

This law was enacted by Chavez’s party, which currently holds a majority. Like all elections in Venezuela, these were monitored by American, EU & OAS monitors. Of course, this will never satisfy the Venezuelan opposition movement.

You can argue that this law is stupid & whatnot.
But it’s wrong to hide the context.
Anonymous

Well, if the Earth stops spinning and people start dying because our electro-magnetic field starts falling apart, then we will know the truth. And send Aaron Eckhart to fix it.
Calladus

Huh. And all this time I thought the quake was caused by everyone in China jumping up and down at the same time!
djn

The worst part is that I just know this will have the conspiracy nuts in a frenzy. HAARP is one of those things that attracts a disproportionate amount of them – especially in youtube comments. Ugh.
webmayin

When HAARP was first introduced, it was fully funded by the DOD, and there was very little reason given to anyone, other than quips amounting to ‘We’re just going to try to mess with it a little.’
The ‘It’ that was commonly referred to was the ionosphere, the electromagnetic field that surrounds the earth, and gives us spectacular Aurora Borealis, and also happens to protect us from the high energy particles that run through space. Without it, the earth would quickly run up serious heat, regardless of how many cars and factories were in operation. I don’t know if it’s true that Tesla originated the idea of using the ionosphere as a ‘weather weapon’ but the fact remains that what little we know about the ionosphere, it could very possibly be popped like a bubble by any bunch of monkey-headed scientists who want to ‘mess with it’ by pumping GigaWatts of radio frequency directly into it’s axis.
Seriously, America, isn’t it time you knew all of the details of how your money is being spent? Physics is a wonderful field, and there are many opportunities of learning, but is it really important to learn something that has potentially devastating costs in the process of learning it?
Anonymous

While this is 99% bullshit (I keep 1% because you never know…) what about the oil addiction?
I’m almost sure that pumping oil out of the ground at this rate for decades could trigger some catastrophes. I mean, if you pump oil out and don’t fill the empty space the earth surface is going soon or later to settle on its own in a very violent way.
Am I telling BS as well as Chavez?
djn

You mean the GW of energy that are a tiny fraction of what the sun pumps into the same layer all year around?
Even the peak intensity of it isn’t anything special compared to a good aurora.
Dan Mac

Doesn’t surprise me. The US military invasion of Haiti is a very strong meme right now in the progressive internet press and comment boards:

http://rabble.ca/babble/international-news-and-politics/new-thread-world-response-haiti

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/jan2010/hait-j22.shtml

http://themoderatevoice.com/60137/haiti-update-on-progress-of-the-u-s-%E2%80%9Cinvasion/
g

seems like an unsubstantiated quote. you guys should consider updating, at least to mention the possibility that it is untrue
rick386

Mr. Chavez,

You’re a fvcking retard. Tell me why, even if it were capable, the US would do such a thing. So it could spend a bunch of money helping another country in the middle of a recession? So it could thin out it’s military even more policing and providing logistics and infrastructure in yet another country? So it could flout the morality of mass murder?
There is NO benefit to occupying Haiti. Sugar is cheap enough. The US doesn’t need the farmland. Especially farmland of Haiti’s depleted quality.
Paul Escobar

LET ME MAKE SOMETHING CRYSTAL CLEAR…

The original source was an unsourced article posted on the “Vive TV” website.
VIVE TV is NOT a traditional state broadcaster.
While it’s government funded, it’s actually meant to be a niche user/community generated media outlet.
Think of it as a poor mans “CURRENT TV” (Al Gore’s little experiment).

The traditional state broadcaster in Venezuela is VTV (Venezolana de TelevisiÃ³n).

And at that, we’re not even talking about any media they’ve aired.
We’re talking about a ridiculous unsourced article which their website administrator placed among an aggregate.

My god.
It’s like I’m talking to 911 truthers.
Antinous, if not bloggers, who else is supposed to waste time contradicting BOING BOING’s irresponsible bandwagon jumping?
Only idiots like me, and the suberb “Abiding in Bolivia” blog:
http://casa-del-duderino.blogspot.com/2010/01/omg-hugo-chavez-madness-takes-down.html
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  LET ME MAKE SOMETHING CRYSTAL CLEAR
  
  And the best way to do that is to grind your elbow into the Caps Lock key.
  
  Perhaps instead of shrieking, you’d like to cite a credible news source. Of course, you’d have to find one. Or you could just get the Venezuelan government to seize one for you.
ifthenwhy

Nothing like a big dose of crazy Chavez on a Friday afternoon!
- gATO
  
  Nothing like a big dose of crazy Chavez on a Friday afternoon!
  
  That made me chuckle, but I sincerely advice everyone to stay away the 24/7 dose… :(
Brainspore

Duh. They’ve been testing that thing in California since 1906.
Architexas

We’d obviously use it against a country like Haiti because of the imminent threat of nuclear war posed by Haiti, what with all their intense nuclear research centers and reactors and all that. We’d never use it against an innocuous country like Iran. Good call, Chavez. You’ve found us out.
McGrude

Occupying Haiti… LOL what is Chavez smoking? Did Venezuela send personnel to aid in the relief?
- Anonymous
  
  USA, Canada and Venezuela have been fighting over Haiti for years because of a mountain called ” St Nicolas “. The moutain is on top of Cuba and dominates Venezuela. If the US takes over haiti, Cuba is destroyed.
- Anonymous
  
  OMG he makes me so embarrassed to be Venezuelan…
- Cowicide
  
  Not that I believe this particular conspiracy or anything… but what was Former US Secretary of Defense William Cohen smoking then?
webmayin

djn- The amount of energy released is irrelevant to the frequency that it is attuned to. Tidal waves are created by constructive phase interference. In the case of all waveforms, power being the square of the amplitude, harmonic resonance gives the possibility of amplitude 2(squared) + 2(squared) = 4(squared) = 16. Interference can also act destructively, in the case of opposite phase, where amplitudes 2 + 2 = 0. I still say that messing with the frequency of the ionosphere is a pretty sketchy idea, considering that there are real benefits by spending money in different places.
Anonymous

How have the actions of Hugo Chavez effected the investment environment within Latin America? Commodities expert Robert Petrucci explains
http://www.alternativelatininvestor.com/commodities2.php
mccrum

Of course we’ll have to invade Haiti, we don’t have enough poor and destitute as a result of natural disasters in the US that we need to import them. How else are we supposed to repopulate New Orleans since so many decided to stay in Houston or the other cities they fled to?
- dougrogers
  
  Those are actually pretty good reasons.
Dan Mac

Anyone who reads alternative sites won’t find this surprising. There has been a steady stream of stories and comments about the Military Invasion/Coup of Haiti since the Earthquake.
samples:

http://rabble.ca/babble/international-news-and-politics/world-responds-earthquake-haiti

http://www.countercurrents.org/cohen220110.htm
Nash Rambler

Venezuela had better shut the hell up, if it knows what’s good for it. *finger hovers over “QUAKE” button menacingly*
Antinous / Moderator

Chavez just devalued Venezuelan currency but made changing prices illegal. Now they’re seizing stores. One of the world’s most oil-rich countries now has rolling blackouts. Of course he needs to deflect attention from the zimbabwification of Venezuela.
cymk

Finally someone is telling the truth, because we all know that earthquakes didn’t exist until 1993 when the US established HAARP. Chavez is sounding crazier and crazier each time he rants about the US.
dz-015

The Anti Press: Truth over delusion: Hugo Chavez did not accuse the U.S. of causing the Haitian earthquake
http://theantipress.blogspot.com/2010/01/truth-over-ideological-delusion-hugo.html
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  You just linked to a blog that’s put up 10 posts since 2007 as a citation?
Yep

Yes! The US wanted to take over Haiti. and we needed a multi-billion dollar Dr. Evil weapon to do so. It was either that, or 4 guys, a Boston Whaler and a bad attitude.
Anonymous

Either it was HAARP or the Wardenclyffe Tower. Most problems stem from those two things.
Anonymous

We’re watching you, Hugo.
Arthur Goldwag

From what I read, there was a story on the website of Radio Nacional Venezuela by Professor Vladimir Acostas,a consistent supporter of Chavez, that speculated about Haarp, “tectonic weaponry,” and covert US territorial designs on Haiti.

A couple of years ago Cass Sunstein and Adrian Vermeule published an academic paper on Conspiracy Theories. They were professors at Harvard Law School at the time, but now that Sunstein is an official in the Obama administration (he heads up the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, a department of the Office of Management and Budget) its prescriptions for how governments can attempt to correct â€œharmfulâ€ theories via â€œcognitive infiltrationâ€ of the groups that promote them has come under critical scrutiny in the conspiracy community. I intend to write about both the paper and the controversy soon, but I bring it up now because one of the explanations it offers for how conspiracy theories gain traction seems especially germane to the situation in Haiti:

“Whenever a bad event has occurred, rumors and speculation are inevitable. Most people are not able to know, on the basis of personal or direct knowledge, why an airplane crashed, or why a leader was assassinated, or why a terrorist attack succeeded. In the aftermath of such an event, numerous speculations will be offered, and some of them will likely point to some kind of conspiracy. To some people, those speculations will seem plausible, perhaps because they provide a suitable outlet for outrage and blame, perhaps because the speculation fits well with other deeply rooted beliefs that they hold. Terrible events produce outrage, and when people are outraged, they are all the more likely to attribute those events to intentional action.”

Given the USâ€™s shameful colonialist record in the Caribbean, Latin America, and South America, itâ€™s not surprising that people would look to it as the author of this latest catastrophe. Assigning the blame to HAARP, the New World Order, or the US government has the added benefit of exculpating God.
- Arthur Goldwag
  
  Sorry…minor correction. Sunstein was at the University of Chicago.
Tom Hale

And, I’m thinking the Norway Spiral was a failed US attempt to strike at Russia first. Who knows what country will be the next victim of an American Seismic Strike? or was it America’s Weather Weapons? Obama’s Meteorological Futuristic Geothermal Nuclear Fission Weapon?
_OM_

…The truth is that Chavez slipped in the shower, and his fat butt caused the quake through the butterfly effect.
LILemming

What is it about sitting on top of large amounts of oil that turns a region’s leaders into loons? (not excluding Texas and Alaska, btw)
- Architexas
  
  No kidding. Rick Perry has a bad case of the crazies…
Moriarty

Phase 3: Profit!
UncommonSense

Then why didn’t the quake strike Venezuela (or Iran, North Korea, etc)? Specifically Chavez’s Presidential Palace? Oh, that Chavez. What will he say next?

@ #4 – Venezuela has sent doctors, search and rescue teams and supplies, actually. I am not an apologist, but let’s be fair.
Paul Escobar

Antinous / Moderator,

You don’t have a “credible news source” to back up your sites claim!!
You’re simply linking to any right-wing rag that recycles the false “Vive TV” article.

Yet you’re demanding the Venezuelan government or BBC/CNN refute something they don’t even know exists?!
This is like asking Obama or Katie Couric to refute 911 conspiracy theories!
It’ll never happen, nor should it.

As I’ve previously explained, “Vive TV” is NOT the main state broadcaster. It’s a niche community channel.
What’s at issue is a false article their website administrator posted…not their reporters, directors, or officials.

If anything, it’s on you to point out the day/event/broadcast Chavez supposedly made these comments.
After all, you’re complaining that he’s on TV alot.
So it shouldn’t be a problem for you.

Of course, you won’t find anything…
Because as I keep telling you: It never happened.

Anyways, I’m tired of dropping my jaw at the lunacy on display here.
Leave this article.
It’ll be a testament to your sites rigorous editorial practices.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  Admit it. You’ve got bupkis.
Anonymous

America is looking for arable land & cheep labour (slaves) to grow sugar cane to make bio diesel close to home.
Anonymous

Hey! Chavez IS NOT Venezuela, ok? Many people here strongly disagree with him. Actually, we want to get him out of here… help!
- Brainspore
  
  Hey! Chavez IS NOT Venezuela, ok? Many people here strongly disagree with him. Actually, we want to get him out of here… help!
  
  I hope you are able to find a better leader for your country, but be careful about asking for help on that sort of thing. Most of the time when the United States “helps” another country change its political leadership it doesn’t work out very well for anybody.
  - Ocker3
    
    As a friend of mine pointed out, how many US-style democracies have survived and now thrive around the world? Compare that to how many UK (Westminster) style democracies survive and thrive around the world? Yes, spread power to the people and give them a vote, but give them a system that has been proven to work in Many different countries, with many different histories and cultures. (I’m an Australian, not a brit)
    - Machineintheghost
      
      Excellent point, and all the more puzzling because the U.S. Constitutional system was itself modeled on the British system as it was imagined to be at the end of the 18th century, only with an elected rather than hereditary head of state and upper house of the legislature, and with a supreme court that could overturn ordinary legislation. In later years, the U.K. discovered that it could get by just fine with the upper house and the supposed sovereign as mere figureheads, leaving all real power in the house of commons. This doesn’t square with American constitutional theory at all — no formal separation of powers, for instance — but it has worked very nicely in practice for a long time, as you note. I only hope the Westminster system isn’t running into the ground right now.
GuidoDavid

Right, ChÃ¡vez said nothing. Only his sockpuppets did
Teller

I’m not making up my mind about this until I hear from Danny Glover.
Sork

Iran and North Korea are the real intended targets

North Korea doesn’t lay between tectonic plates. The closest edge is through Japan. Iran only has a plate edge in the Persian gulf, which would damage UAE more than Iran since Teheran is in the north part of the country.
zio_donnie

i think that hollywood blockbusters are the best weapon the americans ever invented. without disaster blockbuster films i sincerely doubt that a leader of a country would argue with a straight face that a “weather weapon” exists let alone that it is being used.

without movies average folk would not have the visual aid of what a quake really is. seen from the ground it is a demolished house. seen from above it is a point on the globe. easy to destroy with the click of a mouse of the allmighty americans.

may sound stupid but many believe that movies hold some percentage of truth. even scifi movies.

weird how life is imitating art more and more.
TheMadLibrarian

So, Emperor Ming, what would you like to smite your enemies with today?

“Hot hail!”
sidb

In fact, if you think about itâ€¦ hah, just kidding. Don’t do that.
Afterthought

Is it even possible for human actions to cause tectonic events?!?
Anonymous

Wait,wasn’t this the plot of an episode of The 6 Million Dollar Man???
GuidoDavid

http://www.vive.gob.ve/inf_art.php?id_not=15464&id_s=3

Here is the official website of the State TV, with this piece, marked as from RNV, Radio Nacional de Venezuela.

We know for sure everything in that website has approval seal from govt, just look at all the pieces throwing shit to the US rather than informing about Haiti.
- David Pescovitz
  
  Thanks for that link, GuidoDavid!
Paul Escobar

I’ve provided a detailed explanation of what happened.

All you’ve got is a link to “FOX News”.
No wonder your responses are so shallow. :)
Antinous / Moderator

I’ve provided a detailed explanation of what happened.

I could claim that Chavez is an alien. Maybe even link to a grainy video of an autopsy. But that wouldn’t constitute a credible citation.
monday2sday

Well huh. Hope he has also tasked teams of scientists to screen Kubrick films for Apollo space hoax clues and / or thumb through the Marvel Universe trying to locate Prince Namor’s underwater lair.
Anonymous

Read in the local newspaper that the source for Mr Chavez “El Gorilo”‘s statement was some russian agency. =/
Trent Hawkins

If you really think the US has a super weapon able to destroy a target anywhere on earth with no way to trace or prove that the US was in any way involve… if you believed that, then why in god’s name would you want to piss off the owner of that weapon?
kullervo

If it weren’t such a hideous disaster, this part would be funny.
Spaceco

Ok, if you are the head of a country, I think you owe it to the people you represent not to buy into obvious internet conspiracy wackiness.
- zio_donnie
  
  well in many countries THE INTERNET is the non plus ultra of technology, ergo their leaders use it and make their own conclusions of what they read.
  
  this means that your average b\tard is as good as a head of state/ prime minister/ king-queen/ dictator as any.
Osprey101

Next week’s headline: Big-ass ‘quake hits Venezuela. Scientists confounded: “There’s not even a fault running through that region.”
- zio_donnie
  
  it’s the Americans’ fault
GuidoDavid

That channel is definitively ChÃ¡vez mouthpiece, as all official media are. The quake-bomb is only one of the most repulsive and gross examples, but that is the kind of propaganda we are fed day after, and it is paid with our taxes and oil revenue. The govt. is trying to blame _everything_ on the US and the evil oligarchs, cast them in absolute evilness, they can do no good, they are not human, they are the enemy. Govt supporter newspaper and media have told people that people from European descent cannot be trusted, as they descent from fascists and that they must track Jewish people in the street and shout at them. This is a textbook example of the use of media for propaganda to create hatred.

PS: Why don’t you say clearly that “announcements” are usually ChÃ¡vez’ rants on some subject or another and advertisement for his Party? That is unconstitutional.

I am not going to translate this statement, straight from his mouth. I do not want to be accused of false translation. If any of you know spanish or know anyone who knows it well, please paste a translation here, but it is very disturbing:

“Exijo lealtad absoluta a mi liderazgo, porque yo no soy yo, yo soy un pueblo carajo, no soy un individuo. Yo soy un pueblo y a mi se me respeta y yo estoy obligado a hacer respetar el pueblo que amo y al que le darÃ© toda mi vida”. Hugo ChÃ¡vez FrÃas (23 de enero de 2010)

http://www.aporrea.org/actualidad/n149419.html
monday2sday

Just went to the HAARP site

http://www.haarp.alaska.edu/haarp/gen.html

They’re attempting to alter the Earth’s ionosphere (albeit temporarily) in order to improve defense (and civilian) satellite surveillance and communication. I know I know, this is prolly fine science but it is ALSO one spooky rewrite away from disaster porn.
- lysdexia
  
  Yeah, I flash on “The Quiet Earth” every time I see the HAARP array.
lorq

I think y’all might have jumped the gun on Chavez once again. Apparently ABC, the Spanish newspaper in question, cobbled this story together by attributing directly to Chavez — or *seeming* to attribute directly to him — something said, apparently, by a producer on a website for Venezuelan TV. Here’s the actual ABC statement in question: “En una nota de prensa publicada en la cadena estatal de televisiÃ³n Vive, el Ejecutivo que dirige Hugo ChÃ¡vez afirma que ‘un reporte preparado por la Flota Rusa del Norte estarÃa indicando que el sismo que ha devastado HaitÃ fue el claro resultado de una prueba de la Marina Estadounidense por medio de una de sus armas de terremotos’.” I’m pretty sure “Hugo Chavez” is being used rhetorically here; “el Ejecutivo que dirige Hugo Chavez” seems to mean “the executive who leads Hugo Chavez,” in the sense of, “the executive who runs the Hugo Chavez channel.” In any case, here’s a link to an article which shows images of both the ABC article and the original website text:

http://www.rebelion.org/noticia.php?id=99054&titular=%22ch%E1vez-se-suma-a-la-teor%EDa-conspiranoica-del-haarp%22-

I don’t claim that this article lays the question to rest by any stretch, but at least I did some searching. I know it’s fun to look at Chavez through the “he’s crazy” lens, but a little more fact-checking on the part of a supposedly media-savvy site like Boing Boing would be welcome.
- MITTZNZ
  
  “El Ejecutivo” in this case is the Executive branch, which would does not utter things that the president does not approve.
- PaulR
  
  Thanks, lorq. You beat me to the punch.
  
  Armed with a little intelligence and a lot of skepticism, I lit a votive candle on my little altar devoted to Noam Chomsky. Then I clicked on the link and read the story.
  
  I wonder if all those people who shot off their mouths half-cocked, know what presstv.ir is. The ‘ir’ TLD isn’t Ireland, it’s Iran. PressTV is owned by the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting.
  
  “Interesting,” I thinks to meself…
  
  Then I googled “chavez earthquake”. A cursory check of the links that repeated/reported this ‘story’ revealed NO RELIABLE SOURCES! G’head, do this yourselves. Please check it yourselves. Go on, I’ll wait.
  
  The first reputable link that might be like the presstv claim was to a story was from the NY Daily News: “Hugo Chavez says U.S. is using earthquake as pretext for occupying Haiti”. This is a reasonable suspicion, if you ask me. Go back and reread Naomi Klein.
  
  Even aljazeera.net didn’t report this claim. Don’t get fooled by that report from aljazeera.com. aljazeera.com has nothing to do with AlJazeera, the international news reporting network headquartered in Qatar.
  
  C’mon, people, you’ve all got a brain, use it!
  - David Pescovitz
    
    PressTV wasn’t the original source of this but rather just reporting on an article in the Spanish newspaper ABC. Now, my Spanish isn’t nearly good enough to say whether they lost something in the translation of the ABC article, as suggested above. If Chavez definitely did not say what PressTV says ABC says he said, I’m happy to make the correction.
    
    And thanks, Arthur, for your update.
GuidoDavid

In the past it has been spread fake (duh!) Nostradamus prophecies about ChÃ¡vez
EH

You know, I was wondering how long it was going to be until the “intentional earthquake” theories started coming out. Props to Haiti for snagging Chavez instead of 1/2 an Internet full of nerds. Credibility is a toss up between the two, but visibility easily goes to Huey.
LynX

BTW, (I think) HAARP is something people should actually be concerned about. There’s a documentary about HAARP called “Holes in Heaven” (1998) that’s worth seeing (and people can draw their own conclusions): http://www.holesinheaven.com/vidsum.html is the official film website, and it can also be viewed in full for free on YouTube (and probably elsewhere in better quality).

In it, HAARP staff (Rich Garcia, PR & John Heckscher, Project Manager) do admit, amongst other troubling ‘possibilities’, that one of it’s ‘functions’ is to possibly control weather (so it’s not all whack-job conspiracy theory). IMHO, anything that intentionally blasts a billion watts into the ionosphere is worth paying a bit more attention to. The positive aspect of the bunk Chavez story is that more people might actually learn about (and question) HAARP now.
help i cant comfirm my username themelonbread

Hugo Chavez is a jackass. He just nationalized a major wildlife preserve, which will now be used for farmland. Among other things, this was a home for capybaras. Hugo Chavez therefore hates capybaras, and hates all wonderfullness in the world.

http://gianthamster.com/2010/01/venezuela-hates-capybaras/