Wednesday, September 05, 2007

Deception and lies are the norm in the robolution The ability of this Government to lie, manipulate, deceive and cheat is simply incredible, as witnessed by oil production figures. Not only do PDVSA's figures disagree with OPEC and the IEA, but when PDVSA bickers with the IEA and says that IEA has declined invitations to straighten out the differences, the IEA not only denies that there are errors in its numbers, but says it is not even aware of any such an invitation. But lying has become a way of life for Chavismo in its accomplishments, its numbers and its announcements. I was thus intrigued when the Agencia Bolivariana de Noticias bombastically announced that Chavez' variety show "Alo Presidente" had reached an audience "turn on" of 50%, according to the news Agency run by Minister of Disinformation William Lara. According to the report, half of the TV's that were on during Chavez' marathonic program on Sunday were watching the President. I was intrigued, because when I looked last at such statistics in the past, Chavez' TV program had a rating of less than 5% and his audience turned on never was above 15%. (Rating is the % of all possible TV's that can be turned on, while the number given by the ABN referred only to the percentage of TV's on at the time which were tuned to the program) Thus, I got in touch with one of the companies that performs such measurements for advertising agencies and broadcast stations, which shall remain unnamed, but you all have heard the name. I am not sure what the error in the measure is, but the numbers are so far from the official announcement that these guys are truly big liars. The program last Sunday, which lasted close to seven hours, in reality had an average "turn on" of 10.7%, almost a factor of seven below what ABN claims. If the program is split into fifteen minute periods, the highest number achieved last Sunday was 14.2%, during the second fifteen minutes of the program, while the lowest came at the very end and was 8.6% for the last fifteen minute period. Even worse, the total number of TV's turned on during the seven hours never was much above 10% of all TV's being polled (all TV's in the Nation) since that is one of the worst rating periods of the week. Combining these, the "rating", the total number of TV"s in the country watching the autocrats antics came out to be on the average 1.3% of all TV's polled, which is supposed to be a reflection of all TV's in the country. Thus, the levels of popularity of Chavez' variety show is as bad as the level of honesty by the Government. But we knew that, the robolution has no scruples and deceives and lies at every step. 8:41:04 PM    comment []

Fear by Teodoro Petkoff Fear by Teodoro Petkoff in Tal Cual A while back, while I was getting my breakfast at a buffet in a hotel in Caracas, a voice behind me murmured something like this: "Don't turn around. Don't think I abandoned you, but I am closely watched". When I returned to my table I recognized an old friend, a PDVSA executive, pro-Chavez, who up to 2003 used to talk with me once in a while. After the strike I never saw him again. He was explaining the reason for his disappearance. Fear. At Motel Los Guasimitos, at the entrance of Barinas, an acquaintance of mine stayed in one of the rooms, he asked why he could not get Globovision (on cable of course). The person in charge answered him that it was prohibited to watch that TV station at that establishment. Lowering the tone, he added that it was not that the owner was Chavista, but...you understand. Fear. In one of the bookstores at the National terminal of Maiqueia airport I asked for a copy of Tal Cual. A young lady who took care of the store informed me that they did not sell that newspaper. I asked why. She told me that what she denominated as "A Bolivarian Circle" of the airport had "forbidden" the selling of Tal Cual. Fear. But, not everyone is scared. The other day one of the workers in immigration, this time at the international airport of Maiquetia told me sarcastically, in a loud voice and close to many of his co workers: "Well, and when do we get ri of this nut?". He had no fear. As long as we have people like this, we have a chance. 7:55:07 PM    comment []

Two articles on Venezuela While Chris Kraul tells the world from Los Angeles that not even the dead are safe from crime in Caracas, Simon Romero in the NYT revisits the topic of naming kids in Venezuela in view of the proposed legislation which will make naming your kid Tutankamen del Sol or Juan Jundred a thing of the past. 7:32:07 PM    comment []