Showing posts with label Democracy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Democracy. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Knee strike to Martirosyan, Assault it is...


I have my differences with Raffi’s policies and positions, strategies and approaches, behaviors and actions, and well, much of what he says and does.  Not just differences, but significant concerns.  But, as I’ve said and written before, perhaps if he can pull off something, it’ll be a step…

But that’s not what this is about.  In general, from what Ive seen and heard, my impression is that the police have undergone significant training in staying calm, cool and collected, since 2008/2009.  And for the mostpart, they seem to do quite well.   Situations in which, 4 or so years ago, the police would have had no clear hesitation in beating the crap out of a citizen, now are handled more gingerly.   For the mostpart.

But watch from 20-35 seconds in this video.


But this is a red beret, and this is not acting gingerly. In fact, what this red beret is doing is called, in martial arts, a ‘knee strike.’  Not surprising that a red beret has had training in martial arts. But you’d think then he’d know how to do a non-aggressive restraint maneuver.  It really seems... that he chose to knee Martirosyan multiple times in the face and head. Just an impression.

That’s right. The red beret here grabs MP Armen Martirosyan by the head and neck, brings his head down, and repeatedly thrusts his knee in Maritrosyan’s face.  He even gets one in while Martirosyan is bouncing  off of a metal post he was thrown up against.

Before the knee strike, Martirosyan had no blood on his face and nose. After the knee strike, he does.  The pictures show the culprit….  My guess is the guys who runs up to Martirosyan as he is being taken away afterwards is the same guy (0:55 to 1:04) … whoever it is, that red beret, he just goes after Martirosyan with a vengeance, trying to throw him around, with no provocation whatsoever….

…I wanted to make a smartass quip about the red berets needing some training, too.  But it goes so far beyond that…

This, my friends, is a straight up assault
And that’s the least of the problems here.









I realize this is a scattered post. My thoughts on this, while (I believe) rational, are so hard to put into linear writing... in fact, that's what stops me time and again from posting.




Monday, February 25, 2013

Some data and links on February 2013 election

The elections.am website has the official results of the presidential elections, in English and Armenian.  The results for each Constituency (Ընտրատարածք) and Precinct (Տեղամաս) are there, but then you have to go to another document to figure out what each of those is.  So I went through and put it together, for myself - below is a list of each constituency and precinct in which Raffi officially beat Serge. If there's an error - pelase let me know so I can correct it:


Number
Name
Raffi numbers
Raffi %
Serge numbers
Serge %
1
Yerevan: Avan, part of Nor-Nork
15752/35632
 44.21%
15383/35632
 43.17%
4
Yerevan:Arabkir
14051/32566
 43.15%
13827/32566
 42.46%
6
Yerevan: Ajapnyak
14566/31895
 45.67%
13392/31895
 41.99%
30
Lori: Gugark, Shahumyan, part of Vanadzor
18688/32235
 57.97%
10588/32235
 32.85%
33
Shirak: all parts, plus part of  Gyumri
14471/30171
 47.96%
13995/30171
 46.39%
34
Shirak: rest of Gyumri
22120/34661
 63.82%
9693/34661
 27.97%
35
Shirak: Azatan, Akhurik, Akhuryan
18443/29731
 62.03%
9517/29731
 32.01%


Some cities in which Serge supposedly beat Raffi by about 20,000 votes or more - just visually scanned - by constituency: 16 (Ararat), 17(Ararat), 18 (Ararat), 23 (Gegharkunik), 24 (Gegharkunik)

Friday, February 22, 2013

Feb 22, 2013 - in Pictures

Here is a series of panaromics taken from Azatutyan Hraparak today in order of time taken - its about 180 degrees view flattened - the farthest left is almost pointing at the Tumanyan and Teryan intersection, and far R is the stage in front of Opera - times are on top:

4:47 pm

4:47 pm

4:58 pm

5:06pm

5:13pm

5:36 pm

5:52pm

6:04pm

6:18pm

6:56

6:59pm

Also note that you cant tell just how dense things are way in the middle there.  Here are some more pics:

The Ambulance

My beloved Yerevan cops


Kapan










A Barely Visible Nikol Pashinyan (HAK) Speaking

A Barely Visible Zaruhi Postanjyan (Zh) Speaking

A Barely Visible Raffi Hovannisian Speaking, next to him are Armen Rustamyan (ARF) and Armen Martirosyan (Zh)



Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Pics, Videos and How Many People Fit in Azatutyan Hraparak

I've uploaded some new vides onto my Youtube account - youtube.com/tzitzernak from recent days in Yerevan. I'll upload more photos soon, some are up via my twitter account, predictably twitter.com/tzitzernak.

The question of how many people were there came up, as usual. Here is a calculation I did in the past for a friend.  Liberty Square/Azatutyan Hraparak (AH) was not full by any means, and it was probably on average a medium packed audience.  Here it is:



 I used http://www.mapdevelopers.com/area_finder.php to estimate (by outlining) the square meters of AH. I did it three times to get the best estimate. I went horizontally out from the flat part of the cement stage, and through to the benches and walkways. These obviously will make a difference. I felt this was among the most accurate ways of doing the calculation.
The three meters square I got were: 6927, 6929, and 6994.
A professor in Berkley did the calculations on numbers of people in a protest based on how tightly packed they were, during the Vietnam War protests in the US (I used it in a post several years ago: http://tzitzernak2.blogspot.com/2009/03/how-many-people-came-and-does-it-matter.html)

Loosely packed individuals: 1person/.93 meters squared
   based on that, with the three calculations for square meters/surface area above, the number of peopel who would fit in AH, loose packed are: 7448, 7450, 7520

Tightly Packed individuals: 1 person/.42 meters squared
    based on that, the number of people who fit are: 16492, 16497, 16652

Very Tightly Packed individuals = 1 person/.23 square meters
    based on that: 30117, 30126, 30408 people fit


So, with loosely to medium, we'd be calculating somewhere between 7,500 to 16,500 - IF the whole thing were packed, which it wasn't.  Maybe 60% full? So 4,500-9,900 - which I think is likely an overestimate from pictures and videos.  But at least its a more consistent approach.