Brazil: 60-day Seal on Voting Machines

Urnas eletrônicas ficarão lacradas por 60 dias para preservar dados: I am not sure whether this is a new procedure or not. Maybe I can find an answer here (PDF) or, most importantly, here (DOC).

As urnas eletrônicas utilizadas durante as eleições do último domingo vão permanecer lacradas por 60 dias, contados a partir da proclamação formal dos resultados, que ainda não foi realizada.

The electronic voting machines used during last Sunday’s elections will remain sealed for 60 days, starting from the formal declaration of the results, which has not yet taken place.

O ministro Marco Aurélio Mello, presidente do TSE (Tribunal Superior eleitoral), deve proclamar em breve o resultado das eleições. Pelo calendário eleitoral deste ano, a divulgação oficial dos resultados deve ocorrer até o dia 14 de novembro.

Minister Marco Aurélio Mello, president of the TSE, is expected to announce the results shortly. According to this year’s electoral calendar, the official publication of the results must occur by November 14.

John Dickie: Death In Mexico

More4 News Blog: Death In Mexico: Here is an on-the-spot observer who can be contacted, vetted and held accountable for his reporting — unlike Global Voice Online‘s constant go-to guy on the Oaxaca story — and whose story jibes with the bulk of the professional and amateur reporting out of the embattled southern Mexican city.

What you will not be told by most media, especially in Mexico, is that the three hitmen that attacked the barricade where Brad and other journalists were, have been identified as local policemen. They wielded AR-15 rifles and various pistols and fired indiscriminately into the crowd. Brad was probably not targeted (even though state radio (Radio Ciudadania: 99.1 FM – pirate government radio broadcasting from unknown location) is saying Brad “was an armed terrorist, and there is more to this than meets the eye” and “Indymedia is a branch of the APPO”), but he was the unlucky one, hit full in the chest, right in the solar plexus, by a 9-mm wide pellet of steel travelling at around 1000 meters per second.

NMM-TV: Brazil Election Governance Post-Mortem, Part I

Just posted to Google Video:

Why Lula?

From Conversa Afiada (IG)

1. Because Alckmin was weak
2. Because Cardoso tripped Alckmin up
3. Thanks to his social programs
4. Thanks to his economic policies
5. Because Lula has charisma

I don’t disagree completely with that rough weighting of the different factors, although the question of the former PSDB president’s role is a bit more complex than that. I would assign those 12 points to Lula’s social and economic programs and lump the first two questions together as “because the PSDB is totally dsyfunctional right now.”

Pentagon To Increase Use of PR ‘Surrogates’

Pentagon memo reveals launch of new PR war (SF Chron):

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon is buttressing its public relations staff and starting an operation akin to a political campaign war room as Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld faces intensifying criticism over the Iraq war.

It is to be sold to the public as a “fact-checking” operation:

In a memo obtained by the Associated Press, Dorrance Smith, assistant secretary of defense for public affairs, said new teams of people will “develop messages” for the 24-hour news cycle and “correct the record.”

It is a marriage of information warfare and political marketing:

The memo describes an operation modeled after a political campaign — such as that made famous by Bill Clinton’s successful 1992 presidential race — calling for a “Rapid Response” section for quickly answering opponents’ assertions.

It will involve a more intensive use of surrogates.

Another branch would coordinate “surrogates.” In political campaigns, surrogates are usually high-level politicians or key interest groups who speak or travel on behalf of a candidate or an issue.

It will leverage the “new journalism” of the “new media.”

The plan would focus more resources on so-called new media, such as the Internet and Weblogs. It would also include new workers to book civilian and military guests on television and radio shows.

“Fair & Balanced”: Harvard Law Bloggers Give Equal Weight to Disinformation

Camera vs. firearm: “Equal violence on all sides.”

Attribution to another publication … cannot serve as license to print rumors that would not meet the test of The Times’s own reporting standards. Rumors must satisfy The Times’s standard of newsworthiness, taste and plausibility before publication, even when attributed. And when the need arises to attribute, that is a good cue to consult with the department head about whether publication is warranted at all. –The New York Times, Guidelines on Integrity

Bill Keller obviously just doesn’t “get” the Internet.

Global Voices Online : The last moments of Bradley Roland Will:

But as one of the blogs David Sasaki quotes had it, there’s a balance to be struck between outrage at the killing of Brad Will, and at the mounting number of local deaths and injuries.

The blog, apparently, is Mark in Mexico, cited heavily in David Sasaki’s post titled Fear and Misinformation Abound — presumably for reasons of “balance.”

Fear, uncertainty and doubt abound. Global Voices Online in a nutshell.

The mysterious Mark’s confirmation bias is attributed by Sasaki to his “sardonic, anti-left attitudes.”

What I would like to know is who signs the guy’s paychecks.

Whoever this Mark in Mexico is — I tried fairly hard to track the guy down, and he appears to have no real life prior to popping up as the proprietor of this school, about which I can also find no information — I have to say that his main role has been to amplify disinformation.

Mark — whom I have tried repeatedly to reach by e-mail to ask him questions about his work — has worked especially hard to amplify the disinformation, for example, that there is equal violence on both sides of the Oaxaca conflict, that the strike was fomented by armed communist agitators for national political reasons, and that the federal police are independent third parties that are now intervening to calm a local conflict.

The Mexican federal police, I submit to you are a narcosyndicate-infiltrated nightmare beyond what you can imagine. Study the San Salvador de Atenco incident. Leave the questions of legality out of it and simply focus on the what happened to woman protestors after they were arrested, and the male prisoners forced to walk a gantlet of riot police armed with clubs.

Not the “stick ’em in a cell and let the system have ’em” professionalism you are used to at home, where an Abner Louima case, for example, is huge news because that kind of thing is, thank goodness, a shocking anomaly.

Anyway, Mark in Mexico consistently reports incidents that never happened, are reported nowhere else, and for which he offers no supporting evidence. His frequent sightings of “armed thugs” intimidating little old ladies in the Zócalo is a typical example.

In other words, Mark looks an awful lot like a shadowy, systematic liar.

Given that nothing that he says checks out, and no information is available to confirm his cover story, I, unlike Olavo de Carvalho, would not repeat a single word he says as fact, or recommend, as GVO does, that readers merely discount his apparent ideological bias, as though he were merely an overenthusiastic Red State blogger.

The real bias here appears to be against the outmoded values of the “reality-based community.”

See also Oaxaca Blog Wars.

Civita is Civil with the Casa Civil

Mino Carta, gadfly of the Brazilian mass media, advises:

Engana-se quem aponta a edição de livros didáticos como o centro das pendências da Abril com o governo federal. Roberto Civita, boss da editora, mira em negócio muito mais fabuloso, a internet sem fio. Especialistas falam em centenas de milhões de reais. Outros, em bilhão.

If you think that textbooks are the focus of the Editora Abril’s pending business with the federal government, you’re wrong. Roberto Civita, the boss of the place, has in eye on a much more fabulous business: Wireless Internet. Some specialists talk about hundreds of millions. Others of billions.

Ao enredo: Civita tem tido conflitos recorrentes com os capatazes da revista Veja. Há alguns meses pede moderação em relação ao governo Lula. Reportagens contra o PT e a administração federal teriam sido engavetadas. Nos corredores da empresa, o boss arriscou-se a afirmar que contrataria Dilma Rousseff, ministra da Casa Civil, para administrar a Abril.

To our story: Civita has repeatedly clashed with his henchman at Veja magazine. Several months ago he asked for moderation in relation to the Lula government. Reports harmful to the PT and the federal administration were to be set aside. In the hallways of Abril, he even ventured to say that he would hire Dilma Rousseff, minister of the Casa Civil, to run Abril.

Rohter’s One-Note Samba

The reporter in 2001: Eerie likeness to Capt. Beefheart

Marcel Sá, who writes the excellent Toda Mídia blog for the Folha de S. Paulo, notes the latest from the very first journalist to be inducted into NMM’s adopt-a-reporter program for the factually and ethically challenged: Larry Rohter of the New York Times.

Do correspondente do “New York Times” que estava para deixar o cargo quando escreveu que Lula bebia e foi ameaçado de expulsão, Larry Rohter, no despacho intitulado “Presidente do Brasil é reeleito com vitória esmagadora” (landslide), já traduzido no portal UOL:

From the Times correspondent who nearly his job in Brazil when he was threatened with expulsion after writing that Lula drank to excess, Larry Rohter, in a dispatch entitled “President of Brazil is reelected in a landslide,” which has been translated on the UOL news portal:

— Superando uma série de escândalos de corrupção e políticos que mancharam a sua imagem e minaram a sua credibilidade, o presidente do Brasil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, obteve a reeleição em uma esmagadora vitória.

“Overcoming a series of corruption scandals involving politicians who stained his image and undermined his credibility, the president of Brazil was reelected in a landslide.”

O despacho praticamente se estende sobre um só assunto, escândalos.

The rest of the article deals almost exclusively with one subject: scandals.

Next in NYSENext

We now return to our regularly scheduled preoccupations.  DealBook today:

The New York Stock Exchange may be trying to sew up its $11.3 billion merger deal with Paris-based Euronext, but no one is making it easy for the American exchange.

The Los Angeles Times weighs in with its roundup of all things NYSE Group and Euronext, and it concludes that, with European politicians turning up the heat, the New York market may have no choice but to raise its offer.

Carvalho x Zero Hora

From the Ex-Petista blog: “Police find fingerprints of PT members on the money!” Source not stated. Photos are demonstrably Photoshopped. Sophomoric hokum on the face of it.

Mídia Sem Máscara cries “censorship” as the Zero Hora daily of Porto Alegre fires Olavo Carvalho as a freelance contributor. Their note, reproduced on the MSM site:

Caro Olavo de Carvalho, Em razão de sua manifestada incomprensão dos valores éticos que norteiam este jornal, solicito que considere desnecessário o envio de novos artigos para publicação. Os pagamentos pelos artigos anteriores serão efetuados até este domingo.

Dear Carvalho, Because of your demonstrated incomprehension of the ethical values that guide this newspaper, I request that you not consider it necessary to send us any more articles. Payment for previous articles will be made by this Sunday.

Signed by Marcelo Rech, editor of Zero Hora.
Carvalho’s reply:

Ilustre senhor, Já mandei seu jornal à merda ontem. Sua cartinha é desnecessária, assim como o seu dinheiro. Quanto aos seus “valores éticos” o senhor tem toda a razão: não os compreendo. Quanto mais os conheço, menos os compreendo. Eles são um verdadeiro mysterium iniquitatis.

Illustrious sir, I have already written off your piece of shit newspaper. Your note is unecessary, as is your money. As for your “ethical values,” you are entirely correct: The more I learn about them, the less I understand them. They are a veritable mysterium iniquitatis.

Signed, Olavo de Carvalho.

No More Windows CE for Ceará Elections?

Will Windows CE be exiled to Ô do Borogodô? Will it go to live in the Casa da Mãe Joana?

OLinux (Brazil), Oct. 13, 2006: Brazil’s election authorities ponder switching from Windows CE to Linux for voting machines.

It suprises me that open-source e-government was not more of a political issue here, as it was in the Spanish elections that sent Aznar home, as I remember reading.

It remains to be seen if the Science & IT and Culture ministries will use this apparent Lula mandate to recover lost ground in that area.

O diretor geral do TSE, Athayde Fontoura, admitiu a possibilidade em entrevista publicada pelo jornal Washington Post.

The director of the TSE, Athayde Fountoura, admitted the possibility in an interview published inthe Washington Post.

The Strange Saga of Rosy Pantaleão, “Journalist,” Campaign Flack and Civic-Minded Dedo-Duro

The “director of journalism” for the TV UAI NETWORK in Pouso Alegre, MG, who is also a PSDB campaign official there, tries to stem a flood of Internet commentary that paints her as a sort of Brazilian Jeff Gannon — or the outfitter and operator of one, at least.

Tomei conhecimento hoje pela manhã, que a Polícia Federal teria concluído que eu teria levado um rapaz para gravar um vídeo – ou que o valha – em que denunciava saques e transporte de dinheiro para a compra do dossiê contra políticos do PSDB, por integrantes do PT.

I found out yesterday morning (10/26) that the federal police have supposedly concluded that I might have had some kid record a video — or the equivalent — in which he denounced withdrawals and transportation of money for the purchase of the dossier against PSDB politicians by members of the PT.

Não é verdade, como não é verdade que eu seja servidora pública.

Not true, just as it is not true that I am a public employee.

Tomei conhecimento do vídeo nesta quarta-feira, dia 25 de outubro, por intermédio de jornalistas do `Jornal do Estado` de Pouso Alegre. Imediatamente, ao verificar o teor do vídeo, entrei em contato com a Polícia Federal que enviou dois agentes ao meu escritório para pegar uma cópia, sendo que, inclusive, abri um `FTP` exclusivo para a Polícia Federal.

I learned about this video on Wed., Oct. 25, from a journalist from the Jornal do Estado (MG) here in Pouso Alegre. As soon as I learned of the contents of the video, I contacted the federal police, who sent two officers to my office to pick up a copy. I even opened an FTP session just for the PF.

I assume she means she uploaded the file to the PF via secure FTP.

Can we see the logs, please?

Devo salientar que no momento em que fui ouvida pelo delegado Daniel Daher, fiz questão absoluta de ressaltar que era da executiva municipal do PSDB e que não gostaria de levar tal fato para o lado político, uma vez que agi como cidadã.

I want to underscore that when I was deposed by Daniel Daher, I made a point of saying that I has part of the PSDB executive committee for the city but that I would not want the matter to end up as a political question, given that I acted as a citizen, not as a partisan.

Pistolero PRIzewinner: How Much Does This Man Earn Per Journalist Shot to Death?

CMI Brasil:  Fotos dos paramilitares que atiraram

From Oaxaca, photos of the man who, eyewitnesses say, killed a New York photojournalist.

Reports say eyewitnesses have identified the man as a local PRIsta. Same with his pals there:

Notes on the Great Caixa Dois Conspiracy Theory: Spidering The NED-IRI Ecosystem

Click to zoom.

If you have followed the 305 lawsuits filed under the brand new rules for elections in Brazil this year, you may recall a complaint filed by the PT coalition requesting that Alckmin’s candidacy be revoked for laundering money through international NGOs, among them an organization called JULAD, or “Latin American Youth for Democracy.”

Dismissed for insufficient evidence, but the facts that went on the record are worth tracking down. Hence the latest in what the Riddler calls my “conspiracy theories,” but which I call, in all seriousness, my pro-am attempts at “organizational network analysis.”

Orkut Outs the O Globo Everyman?

An undecided voter from Fortaleza belongs to an anti-Lula community on Orkut called “President Mullah,” say pro-Lula Netroots Baker St. Irregulars.

Amigos de Lula has an interesting bit of partisan fact-checking today: Who were the “undecided” voters selected by IBOPE for the final debate on the Globo network?

In fairness, it should be said said that the Lulabloggers only “out” one alleged ringer here, which could well be explained as an infiltration by the Alckmin campaign, or as a sophomoric prank on the guy’s own initiative.

Sort of a Jeff Gannon-style “astroturf” strategy, which is why the case interests me.

A Rede Globo montou uma farsa no debate eleitoral. Com o intuito de ajudar o candidato Geraldo Alckmin, a Globo levou ao debate várias pessoas que segundo o Ibope eram indecisos. Só que agora, o site de relacionamento Orkut mostra a verdade. Tudo não passou de uma armação da Globo.No debate de ontem, a regra era que os eleitores indecisos formulassem uma pergunta para os candidatos.

The Globo network mounted a farce in the final debate of the election season. To help Geraldo Alckmin, Globo brought in a number of people who according to IBOPE were “undecided.” But now, social networking site Orkut reveals the truth. It was all a frame-up on Globo’s part.

CFIUS Investigates Venezuela E-Vote

Voting machine cos.: No ties to Chavez: God forbid that the technology for rigging electronic voting should fall into the wrong hands.

Only the fortress of democracy that is Bush’s America and Calderón’s Mexico should be able to rig elections through data-mining in the service of voter nullification and the assistance of major campaign contributors who also supply voting equipment to the government.

WASHINGTON — A U.S. company that makes touch-screen voting machines said it requested a federal investigation to dispel what it called baseless rumors of ties to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

Lula De Novo

“Machiavellian Lula.” Source: Le Monde.

Lula Lá: O Globo’s new media subsidiary calls the Brazilian elections for the incumbent — who appeared on the ballot simply as “Squid”– before 8 p.m., São Paulo time.

If the current trend holds — and remember that Lula’s first-round victory slipped away in the final hour of the first round as 10,000,000 São Paulo votes were counted ostentatiously last –the margin will be around 61%-39%.

About the same as Nixon-McGovern.

The fireworks are going off in the neighborhood now. I guess they must have broadband and news notification, too.

Alckmin’s Futures

Below: Intrade’s political futures market on today’s elections.

If the contract is vague on whether victory at the polls equates to electoral victory — there are scenarios in which a candidate can win the vote but be prevented from taking office because of “electoral crimes” — you might want to buy a few cheap Alckmins as a speculative investment, and get yourself a good lawyer.

At this point $1 could get you $100. An interesting longshot.

Click to zoom.

Sweating the Small Stuff

PF prende eleitor com adesivo da mão do presidente Lula: a voter had a bumper sticker on his car showing Lula’s emblematic four-fingered hand — one finger was lost in an industrial accident — with the universal sign for “no” through it, may serve 8 months for an assault upon the dignity of the physically challenged.

Yikes.

Even weirder than the time an Argentine player used a racial epithet about a Brazilian player during a “friendly” and was promptly arrested for racism by a police official who came running out of the stands.

A Polícia Federal prendeu hoje uma pessoa em Rondônia que tinha no seu carro um adesivo que faz referência à deficiência física do presidente Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. O adesivo mostra uma mão com apenas quatro dedos inserida em um símbolo de trânsito que indica proibição –com uma faixa diagonal vermelha sobre a mão sem o dedo mínimo.

Lulabloggers Highlighting Possible Identity Theft in Sampa Vote

<$BlogItemTitle$> – <$BlogTitle$>: I guess this blog is so new they have not set it up properly yet — it’s called “Amigos de Lula.”

The following is not sourced, but I am going to see if I can find any confirming news reports. It involves incredibly stupid statements by elections officials, I think.

Os eleitores Wladimir Ferreira Barbosa e Joaquim José de Oliveira saíram frustrados neste domingo (29) após tentarem votar na Escola Estadual Cidade de Hiroshima, em Itaquera, na Zona Leste de São Paulo. Ao se encaminharem para a urna eletrônica, ambos descobriram que alguém já havia votado com seus nomes.

Two voters who showed up at the City of Hiroshima State School in Itaquera, in the Eastern Zone of São Paulo, discovered that someone else had already voted in their names.

Os dois acabaram impedidos de participar do segundo turno das eleições para Presidência da República. “Recebi um comprovante de que eu estive lá e vão ver uma solução depois. Eu não votei”, reclamou Wladimir Barbosa, que é funcionário público.

In the end, they were unable to vote in the runoff election. “I got a document proving I was there and they said they would find a solution later. I did not get to vote,” complained Wladimir Barbosa, a public employee.

Remeber, this is unconfirmed as yet, but theft of votes by meseiros, the registrars who check IDs and log voters onto the machines, has been cited as a major weakness of the system.

The Other TV From Oaxaca

Commentator Julio Hernandes of La Jornada reports from two blocks away from the Zócalo. Nice work. Unlike Ray Suarez of PBS, he parachutes in more than once every 6 years.

Possible Paraíba Patiferias

G1.com.br > Eleições 2006 > Paraíba – PF apreende dinheiro que seria usado para compra de votos:

Em nota divulgada neste domingo (29) de eleições, a Polícia Federal informou que apreendeu na Paraíba mais R$ 102.870 reais no mesmo local onde, na sexta-feira (27), foram encontrados R$ 304 mil distribuídos em pacotes. O dinheiro, segundo suspeitam os policiais, seria usado para compra de votos.

In a statement issued today, Sunday, the federal police in Paraíba said they had apprehended, in Paraíba, R$102,870 in the same location where on Friday (27) they found $R340,000 divided up into packets. The money, the police suspect, was to be used for vote-buying.

O Sol nas Bancas de Revistas

Election-day newsstand fare: This edition of IstoÉ, at least, actually made it to the newsstands. The issues with Abel Pereira and Barja Negri on the covers often did not, as we witnessed ourselves. We were happy to see Veja selling poorly.

Carta Capital continues to beat the Folha and Globo mercilessly about the head with their own stupid, easily fact-checked lies. Época announces that it is taking a vacation, but there is still plenty of disinformation inside for the unwary voter who thinks she’s going to get a break from politics.

Boca de Urna

Click to zoom.

Distributing campaign materials within one kilometer of a voting site is a crime in Brazil.

Don’t ask me how they enforce that law, but it is.

I snapped the above on the steps of PUC-SP, where Neuza’s polling station is — and have it on film to boot.

It seems someone “accidentally dropped” a bunch of Alckmin “santinhos” — so called because they resemble the small cards displaying the image of a saint, with a prayer printed on the back — there.

Swap-Out Count Appears to Settle Down

Número de urnas substituídas já chega a 1.557 em todo o País: at about 3:00, when we got back from voting and lunching, that number was 1,720.

O Tribunal Superior Eleitoral (TSE) já substituiu 1.557 urnas em todo o p aís até as 13h45 deste domingo, o que corresponde a 0,43% do total de 361.431 urnas em uso no segundo turno.

The TSE had swapped out 1,557 voting machines throughout Brazil by 1:45 p.m. Sunday, or 0.43% of the 361,431 machines in use.

Segundo Athayde Fontoura, diretor do TSE, o tribunal implementou melhorias no sistema de notificação das urnas substituídas, o que aumentou, nas primeiras horas de votação, o volume de comunicados em relação ao primeiro turno.

Said Athade Fontoura, director of the TSE, the federal elections authority implemented improvements in the notification system for the substitution of machines, which explains why the number of incidents reported was higher in the first two hours of voting this morning.

Brazil: Viral Video of the Day

I’m off to accompany my wife to the polling place and that nice Japanese place near Astor.

Voting Machine Swap-out Rate Flash

Urnas substituídas quase quadruplicam nas primeiras horas (G1, Brasília): 423 voting machines were swapped out in the first two hours of voting here in Brazil today, compared with 109 in the same period during the first turn.

The state with the most substitutions was São Paulo.

O número de urnas substituídas neste domingo (29) quase quadruplicou em relação ao volume registrado nas primeiras horas do primeiro turno, informou o Tribunal Superior Eleitoral (TSE), por meio de boletim distribuído à imprensa.

The number of e-voting machines swapped out this Sunday nearly quadrupled in relation to the volume recorded in the early hours of the first round, according to a press release from Brazil’s federal elections authority.

Indymedia’s Brooklyn-Oaxaca Deathwatch

New Yorker Brad Will dies on the street in Oaxaca. Comments my wife: “Good, when gringos die, people start to pay attention.” Pois é.

El Sendero del Peje al 2006 reproduces an article from El Universal (Mexico, D.F) today on the death of Bradley Roland Will, New Yorker, along with a backgrounder on Indymedia — a multilingual, global independent journalism project that was successfully removed from the collection of Google News by a right-wing lobbying campaign a couple of years ago, as you may recall.

Kind of an anti-GVO before its time, Indymedia is: live from the Red Zone rather than rewriting the press release from the comfort of the Green Zone, transcribing FOX NEWS from one’s plasma TV.

Innovations in journalism, my ass.

The Brazilian chapter does excellent work, for example.

Me, I don’t forget this kind of shit.

Those are the Brooklyn motherfucking rules when terrorists kill New Yorkers.

Anytime you get around to bringing me the head of Osama freaking bin Laden, for example, head straight to Brooklyn for your ticker-tape parade. The fire station right down the block here — free pressurized air for bicycle tires — lost guys that day, after all.

But until then, you and the horse you rode in on.

Entre los temas de mayor cobertura que ha tenido este sitio web están “La otra campaña” del EZLN, el conflicto en San Salvador Atenco del pasado mes de mayo, el conflicto entre Estados Unidos e Irán por el tema nuclear, la migración en Europa y algunos motines en Budapest.

Among the topics that receive the most coverage on this Web site are the EZLN’s “other campaign,” the confict in San Salvador Atenco last May, the conflict between the U.S. and Iran over nuclear proliferation, immigration in Europe, and riots in Budapest.

El periodista asesinado este viernes en Oaxaca, Bradley Roland Will , trabajó asuntos como la salvación de bosques de Los Ángeles, cubrió la campaña electoral en Brasil y la toma de posesión del presidente Luis Inácio Lula da Silva, y movimientos activistas en la reunión de la Organización Mundial de Comercio en Seattle.

The journalist killed Thursday in Oaxaca, Bradley Will, covered such subjects as saving the forests of Los Angeles, the [2002] election campaign in Brazil inauguration of Lula, and activist movements at the WTO meetings in Seattle.

NMM-TV Newsreel No. 13: Notes from the Brazilian YouTube Underground

[Video tktktktktk. Google takes forever to “process” it, but YouTube has a 10-minute limit. Listen to some on-hold music in the meantime.]

I am putting together my final Brazilian Netroots Zeitgeist reel for the presidential elections that take place today in Brazil.

Ah, here it is. Finally!

As in the Mexican elections, I have tried to keep a fairly sharp, though obviously not rigorously systematic, eye on the importance, or lack thereof, in theory, of “citizen multimedia” in these elections — in a country where 13.5 million citizens out of some 185 million have their own Internet connection, but where, as one columnist points out, a “LAN House” and “telecentro” generation is on the rise.

In this edition, I have not taken the trouble to subtitle everything — I have gotten much better at it as I have developed my NMM-TV, but it’s still a lot of freaking work. These are video notes I keep for myself, and post up for others who might be interested.

So don’t complain. It’s free, but you get what you pay for. Morou?

But I will type out some program notes for myself and for the interested viewer, below.

Of special interest, I think, are Segments No. 7 and No. 8, featuring Olavo Carvalho on “the terrorist criminal running Brazil” and the demonization of his alleged evil mastermind archnemesis — his Moriarty, if you will — Zê Dirceu.

Democracy Export Watch: Bahraini Demographic Engineering?

Interesting random discovery of the day: Political naturalization in Bahrain (Google Video)

The government of Bahrain has been naturalizing tens of thousands of non-Bahrainis in the past few years to change the demographic make-up of the country, to prevent opposition groups from succeeding in parliamentary elections.

Sort of a Tom DeLay plan for the Middle East.

Puts a new spin on the notion of “exporting democracy.”

Mexico: Citizen Recount Not Counted Out

Statisticians continue to study the July 2 PREP results. Here, the actual inflow of votes at left, with the results of a computerized model of the same data showing the statistically most likely scenario for the distribution of votes, in the order counted.

Proceso magazine:

Mèxico, D.F., 27 de octubre apro.-La Comisión para la Transparencia y Acceso a la Información del Instituto Federal Electoral IFE notificó a la revista Proceso que demorarán 30 días hábiles más para resolver si permitirán o rechazarán en definitiva el acceso a las boletas utilizadas para elegir presidente de la República.

The Commission for Transparency and Access to Information of the Federal Electoral Institute has notified Proceso that it will take 30 more working days to resolve the issue of whether it will permit or deny access to the ballots used to elect the president of Mexico.

En un oficio de tres páginas firmado por el director jurídico y secretario técnico de ese organismo, Rolando de Lassé Cañas, anunció que requerirán de un “análisis minucioso de este caso” que, por una parte respete el derecho a la información plasmado en la Constitución y, por la otra, incluyan argumentos sólidos.

In a memorandum signed by the general counsel and technical secretary of the body, Rolando de Lassé Cañas, it announced that it would require “a detailed analysis of this case” which would respect the constitutional right to information and be founded on solid arguments.

Protecting the Public from Unpleasantries in Paraná

The Brazilian Association for Investigative Journalism (Associação Brasileira de Jornalismo Investigativo) alerts us this week: “The regional elections tribunal of Paraná (TRE-PR),” here to the south of us, “bans news reporting on Federal Police operation.”

O juiz auxiliar Renato Lopes de Paiva, do Tribunal Regional Eleitoral do Paraná (TRE-PR), proibiu no dia 24 de outubro a veiculação de qualquer notícia relacionada à operação da Polícia Federal de busca e apreensão de uma mala de dinheiro em um hotel de Curitiba. A notícia de que um homem teria sido preso no local com o dinheiro chegou a ser veiculada por algumas rádios locais, mas em seguida foi decretado segredo de justiça. O magistrado atendeu ao pedido de liminar da coligação “Paraná da Verdade”, liderada pelo candidato do PDT ao governo estadual, Osmar Dias.

On Oct. 24, auxiliary judge de Paiva of the TRE-PR banned all news reporting on a federal police operation to recover a suitcase full of money in a hotel in Curitiba. The news that a man was reportedly arrested with the money was reported by local radio, but was immediately declared to be under seal for reasons of justice. The magistrate upheld a petition for injunction by the “The Real Paraná” coalition headed by PDT candidate for state governor, Osmar Dias.

Mad, Mad Mina Undermines Google in Minas Court

Item, from the FSP: Justiça de MG determina retirada de perfil de usuária do Orkut

A 10ª Câmara Cível do Tribunal de Justiça de Minas Gerais reiterou uma liminar condenando a Google a retirar em 48 horas a página de uma usuária do Orkut, de Belo Horizonte, que teve seu perfil clonado no site de relacionamento, segundo nota publicada ontem pelo TJ de Minas Gerais.

A civil court in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil, affirmed yesterday an injunction that requires Google to take down the page of a user who had her profile cloned, and to do so within 48 hours.

Os desembargadores confirmaram nesta sexta-feira a liminar do juiz de 1ª Instância determinando que a empresa forneça os dados que identificariam de quem partiu a criação do perfil falso. Em caso de descumprimento, a Google teria de pagar uma multa diária de R$ 1 mil.

The public prosecutors succeeded in reaffirming the order requiring the firm to provide data that would help to identify the person who created the false profile. The penalty for noncompliance is a fine of R$1,000 daily. 

Reuters Roots Through the Garbage

Conventional campaign wisdom the world over: The candidate with hair almost always wins.

Brazil’s Lula sails through last election debate: Reuters calls last night’s debate for the incumbent — as the feral Brazucobloggerati howl in outrage — and aside from that bit of editorializing uses some unusually loaded words, such as “smear campaign,” with respect to alleged facts yet to be clarified.

[Lula] fell short of an outright victory in the first round of voting on October 1 against a wider field as voters reacted to a smear campaign that his election team tried to orchestrate against Alckmin and other opposition politicians.

The PT version, of course, is that the fault lies with some aloprados (roughly, “bozos,” “head cases”) from the São Paulo state gubernatorial campaign — including a Banco do Brasil risk manager who has since fled the country, it seems — and not the senior national campaign team who organized the purchase of the “dossier.”

The watchword on this side of the dispute: “Coisa de paulista.” “Typical São Paulo political sleaze.” Which plays pretty well in the rest of the country, like that taco sauce ad in which a cowboy points out that the competing brand is “made in New York City.”

Another Spin Alley argument they are making the rounds with: The plot can only be termed a “smear campaign” if it proved to have been false and the Paulistas still planned to use it, regardless of its falsity.

Photojournalist, Teacher Killed in Hail of Oaxaca Gunfire

proceso.com.mx has the awful news: One more journalist — an Indymedia gringo this time — and one more striking teacher dead.

Oaxaca, Oax., 27 de octubre (apro).- Viernes negro para Oaxaca. La ciudad quedó literalmente sitiada, en medio de barricadas y bloqueos carreteros en la entidad, lo que desencadenó balaceras en 15 puntos estratégicos de esta capital, que dejaron hasta el momento dos muertos, entre ellos el camarógrafo estadunidense Bradley Will y el maestro Emilio Alonso Fabián, además de 10 heridos, un desaparecido y, al parecer, tres profesores secuestrados.

Black Friday for Oaxaca: The city was literally besieged, in the midst of roadblocks and barricades from which gunfire was directed at 15 strategic points, leaving at least two dead up to this point, including American photographer Bradley Will and teacher Emilio Alonso Fabián, along with 10 wounded, one missing, and, it seems, three teachers kidnapped.

Colin, why don’t you leave this kind of thing to the KPFA radical fringe?

I submit this has everything to do with governance, however: a major NMM topic.

And I suppose that living in a city members of whose police force have been known to moonlight as death-squadders has something to do with it.

What the hell ever happened to those vanished autopsy reports that allgedly showed that PMs from the São Paulo force got people into submissive positions in the street and then shot them in the back of the head? During last summer’s PCC Summer of Love?