Truth over delusion: Hugo Chavez did not accuse the U.S. of causing the Haitian earthquake

On January 19, Spanish newspaper ABC, a newspaper of record in Spain, published a story entitled Chavez accuses US of causing earthquake in Haiti.

The story was quickly picked up by websites around the globe - most quoting Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez as saying the U.S. used a new tectonic weapon to induce the Haitian earthquake. This was, according to Chavez - "only a drill, and the final target is destroying and taking over Iran".

Within the actual story, ABC noted that the information came from an obscure opinion post on the website of a Venezuelan state television channel, VIVE Television. The post referenced a supposed Russian military report on American seismic weapons.

All quotes subsequently attributed to Chavez regarding Haiti and earthquake weapons were in fact direct quotes from this web posting - none of which was ever uttered by Chavez.

Spurred on by the international attention being received by its first story, ABC posted a second article on January 20 under the banner The Secret Weapon to Cause Earthquakes in which it cites Chavez as having blamed the US for razing Haiti.

By the time the story had run its course, it had been covered with varying degrees of accuracy by corporate news channels, foreign outlets eager to accuse the U.S. of another evil deed, and conspiracy websites happy to have their ideas officially validated.

In the end, it serves as one more reminder to those who prefer truth over ideological delusion: there are some subjects for which the myths of journalistic standards will still be displayed - stories about the government of Venezuela are not one of those subjects.

Danny Glover did not say that the Haitian earthquake was caused by global warming.

It's quite likely that Danny Glover is currently having one of those moments that has you wishing life had a reset button.

For those that aren't aware, on January 13, Glover was being interviewed by an online news program when he attempted to make a connection between the earthquake and climate change, apparently attempting to point out that if we continue to do nothing about climate change, as was pretty much the case at Copenhagen - then we'll have to deal with natural disasters on a more frequent basis.

Unfortunately for Glover, he flubbed his lines - and even more unfortunately for him, those "news" outlets that can never get enough of having a good guffaw about anything that ridicules the "global warming hoax" ran with it. They of course were helped along by the internetz fair and balanced purveyor of climate news, Matt Drudge. In the end, they've use his in-articulated words, the actual meaning of which can likely be placed into context by most eleven year-olds, to imply that Danny Glover believes that earthquakes are caused by global-warming.

So - for those of you who are inclined towards truth, as opposed to bending reality to fit your political blinders, I have included a transcript of the relevant statements as they were conveyed by Glover's fumbling tongue (after the video).

Danny Glover on GRITtv – January 13, 2009

... This is a great moment for another type of internationalism – y'know? And I, and I hope we seize this particular moment, because the threat of what happened to Haiti is a threat that can happen anywhere in the Caribbean to these island nations, y'know? They're all in peril because of global warming. They're all in peril because of climate change, and all this – we need to (inaudible), this, this, when we back, when we did what we did at the climate summit, in Copenhagen – this is the respon..., this is what happens, y'know what I'm saying? We have to act now... (bumper music begins – end of time slot)