Slashdot Mirror
Reuters Admits, Pulls Doctored Photos
fragmentate points to a post on PopPhoto which says "Reuters pulled a photograph of burning buildings in Beirut yesterday after a post on the Little Green Footballs blog outed it as digitally manipulated. The photo, filed on Saturday by freelance photographer Adnan Hajj, ran with the caption "Smoke billows from burning buildings destroyed during an overnight Israeli air raid on Beirut's suburbs."
Fragmentate adds "Another image from the same photographer was found to have been doctored.
Whether you're a CNN fan, or a FoxNEWS fan, you have to wonder how much of what we see is fake, or exaggerated."
Virtually EVERY news report from ANY source is either exaggerated (to reflect the reporters bias) or softened (to likewise reflect the reporters bias). Add to this equation the pressure for ratings and simple stories can quickly and easily become "sensational".
True 'unbiased' reporting is a myth.
If you want an idea of whats going on, read/view as much as you can -- from as many sources as you can. From Fox to CNN, from the far left Pacifica to convervative talk radio. From The Standard to the NY Times. From LGF to DailyKos. My limited experience has suggested to me that the 'real story' is usually somewhere in the middle.
That said, I'd like to address this statement from TFA:(sneeze)BULLSHIT(/sneeze)
Bad lighting conditions? Remove dust? Come on. Last I checked CRT and LCDs glow... unless he was working from memory alone without the aid of a monitor, he's a flipping liar.
Beruit is not being bombed!
Wasn't there a program to find digitally-manipulated images? Or is it that all of their images are at least somehow digitally manipulated that make them indistinguishable from the real ones? Every time I read about a topic I know extremely well I am amazed/amuzed at the number of flaws that are in the story. This makes me wonder about the stories on topics that I don't know much about.
-Palal
Sure, this photographer is at fault, and you can make assumptions about his political motives for photoshopping this image. But what's worse is how did Reuters let such a piece of crap into the system? The guys on SomethingAwful or Worth 1000 all do a much better job, and that's just for the glory of the contest. They're not trying to pass their stuff off as "news." Even the guys at Fark aren't this bad (not even Heamer :-) No, this photoshop was of "The Daily Show" quality -- comically bad.
The only conclusion I can come up with is that Reuters isn't actually looking at the images that come in the door. Even if someone at Reuters had the same political agenda as the photographer, he should have had the good sense to deny that picture because the photoshopping was so obvious. Actually, neither conclusion is good news for Reuters at all.
John
If it's posted on Slashdot, then it must be true. :P
Holy crap! If those are the only options, I'd be better off not having any news service at all. CNN is plain shit and Fox are liars.
Of course the government and the newspapers lie. But in a democracy, they're not the same lies. - Steve Jackson Of course, nowdays you need to substitute "democracy with a free press".
Both of those photos were so clearly fake. Even with the small size of the smoke photo, you could clearly see the cloning in the smoke. And as for the jet photo, the trails coming from each of the missiles are exactly the same, which would be impossible in reality, but quite easy in Photoshop.
Geeks have always known this was the inevitable. I cant count how many movies I have seen that have shown image or video manipulation as the wave of the future with advertisements and big brother messages being blurted on big screens everywhere.
It was just a matter of having technology cheap enough or accessible enough to be done cost effectively.
Now it appears any 13 year old with a below average PC can manipulate images to make them look authentic.
So according the same movies soon there will be an underground group of rebels that wishes to break the masses from the chains of manipulation or make information free than filtered. While constantly battling government forces or agencies that wish to stop them.
TP TP TP.
I am thirdpostio. I need TP for my bunghole.
Does CNN has fans?
"Smoke billows from burning buildings destroyed during an overnight Israeli air raid on Beirut's suburbs."
Not unlike the smoke that now billows from the LGF webserver...
From the synopsis to Max Headroom, Episode 15, "War", ca. 1987.
... welcome our new al-Reuters image manipulating overlords!
You use reporters with a political agenda, shared by the editors, it should come as no surprise that this is what you get. The international press does not like Israel. They especially seem offended that the country hasn't just given up and died yet.
This is no way confined to Reuters. Here is an excerpt from yesterdays reliable sources between howard kurtz and Thomas ricks of the washington post.
Reliable sources
THOMAS RICKS, REPORTER, "THE WASHINGTON POST": I think it will be. But I think civilian casualties are also part of the battlefield play for both sides here. One of the things that is going on, according to some military analysts, is that Israel purposely has left pockets of Hezbollah rockets in Lebanon, because as long as they're being rocketed, they can continue to have a sort of moral equivalency in their operations in Lebanon. KURTZ: Hold on, you're suggesting that Israel has deliberately allowed Hezbollah to retain some of it's fire power, essentially for PR purposes, because having Israeli civilians killed helps them in the public relations war here? RICKS: Yes, that's what military analysts have told me. KURTZ: That's an extraordinary testament to the notion that having people on your own side killed actually works to your benefit in that nobody wants to see your own citizens killed but it works to your benefit in terms of the battle of perceptions here. RICKS: Exactly. It helps you with the moral high ground problem, because you know your operations in Lebanon are going to be killing civilians as well.
This fellow Ricks is willing to spout crap like the above on national television. The Khmer Rougue could make a convincing case for the moral high ground against Hezbollah. Israel a country that goes to the trouble of trying to get civilians away from targets before they are hit does not.
As peple have been pouring through recent Reuters photographs, a number of other discrepencies have arisen: Here's one http://drinkingfromhome.blogspot.com/2006/08/extre me-makeover-beirut-edition.html from Drinking From Home.
2 separate photographers sent in captioned photographs of a woman who's house "had just been destroyed". The only problem is, it the same woman and same house but the claimed airstrikes were 2 weeks apart.
These pretzels are making me thirsty.
Here's the trick. Don't trust any single news source, read a few that report the same thing, Some will say one thing, others, something slightly or even radically different. The truth is probably somewhere inbetween. You only have to compare and contrast what's going on over in Lebanon right now to see this in action. If you compare Fox or the BBCs coverage of the same event, you'd think they were two different stories.
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
These days pros shoot digital. I am a pro, I shoot digital. Somehow people have this impression that only what comes "out of the camera" is "real," but a digital photo is just an A-D conversion with a given set of parameters. I can significantly change the look of a scene just by changing the settings of the camera.
More to the point, I often shoot RAW, which REQUIRES "development" in order to be shown online or printed, since as a file it's just an uncalibrated sensor dump, meaningless data, not an image at all. But the look of a RAW image can change DRASTICALLY when converted to JPG based on the choices I make when selecting things like white balance, exposure, sharpness, contrast, etc. (and these have to be manually selected--i.e. the choices must be made by me in order to get an image file out the other end, there is no "real" initial image).
The point is that the camera is only, and has always only been, a tool for realizing the vision of the photographer. It is not "objective" in any sense (and wasn't in the film days either, even film had to be "developed" and this process could vary an image quite a bit). Photoshop/GIMP/Silkypix/any other image processor is no different, and represents just an extension of the photography/development process.
If a JPEG image comes out of the camera with very low contrast, why is that the "real" scene and not an incorrect camera setting (contrast turned too low)? And if I then take a low contrast image in GIMP and adjust the contrast for better clarity, why is that a "fake" scene and not the "real" scene that I saw?
The logical extreme of such arguments is that the only "real" images in the digital age are taken with black-box cameras with all settings on "auto" and nothing adjusted afterward. Only people forget that digital cameras are just glorified A-D converters and that all of the "auto" settings are calibrated and coded by programmers who are also making decisions about how images will look (high contrast vs. low contrast, expose for shadows vs. expose for highlights, compensate for differences between human lens and camera lens or don't, etc.)
Every step of the photo process, from selecting the camera + lens in the first place all the way to selecting the compression level of the file after all else is said and done, is "editing." All photography is propaganda by the photographer and anyone that doesn't realize this is both naive and missing a great deal of the appreciable "art" involved in the process.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
In addition to the photos, there are many fake news stories out there. Like the one the photo was supposed to accompany said the photo was of a jet firing three missiles was actually the jet firing one flare. The report that a particular Israeli strike in Lebanon killed 40 civilians. There was only one casualty in that strike.
The fact that Reuters didn't even look at the photos before publishing is just laughable. Anyone with an ounce of experience in photography could tell they were fake. Either Reuters is so inept you can't trust them to know the truth from lies or they don't care to tell the difference. Heck, a death threat to "Zionist pigs" was traced to a Reuters IP. Sure, I'll believe anything they say.
Either way, as a previous poster said, read from a wide variety of news sources and figure it out for yourself.
But why is the rum gone?
"unless you watch BBC, which is an extra-national third party,"
Why do you think the BBC is unbiased? Do you really think that none of the bias of the editors and reporters ever creep in?
I watch the BBC, CNN, and NPR. I don't tend to watch Fox because I think I am politically slightly right of center. I tend to want my news to be from slightly left or more than slightly left of center. I figure that tends to balance my world view.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Speaking of liars, actually, Al Franken didn't write that book. It was ghost written and the rights were sold to Franken. You see, a book sells alot faster if it has a celebrity's name on the cover.
Are you telling me that a this Reuters professional photographer has "Photoshop" skills so poor as to try and pawn off this VERY poor photo edit as the real thing? My God, he took the same puff of smoke and simply stamped it an extra 25 times on the photo. Absolutely unbelievable that anyone is that stupid, much less a professional.
"It's what you learn after you know it all that counts", Earl Weaver - Legendary Coach of the Baltimore Orioles
Who do you get to be an expert to tell you something's not obvious? The least insightful person you can find? -J Roberts
This isn't the first time LGF has busted news sources for phony documents. They were very influential in revealing that the Killian documents were doctored (it was written in the default MS WORD typeface! They didn't have that in the 70's!). That incident ended up getting Dan Rather ousted.
People should remember that the liberal media (reuters) can be just as sleezy as the more right-wing media companies (news corporation).
GoatPigSheep, the 3 most important food groups
uhm bbc cnn msnbc foxnews they all have their own bias.
LGF's extreme anti-Muslim stance is often disturbing, but this is the second time that they've made a major contribution by outing negligent reporting by the mainstream media--they were also the first to identify the fraudulent "Bush memos" as crude forgeries.
Dark Reflection
These photos are the latest chapter in a long-running problem of the press... and I think it's time for the American press to finally come out and say what it is - biased. ALL press is biased, period. But only here in the U.S. do we all happily assume that, somehow, our press holds itself to its lofty goals.
Almost all of the European press is up front about its bias - left, right, or otherwise. It's liberating, it's informing, it's better for consumers. If I want to read the French press and see what's going on in the right, I read Liberation, the far-left (communist), L'Humanite, the right, Le Figaro, a center-left, Le Monde. By reading articles from each newspaper on a subject, you can hear what all sides are saying quickly and get much more information.
But here in the U.S., such a bias is reviled. Fox News, for example, is looked down on for its conservative bias. I look down on them as well - not because they have a bias, at least they're more open about it - but because they try to conform to the American press ideal of supposedly unbiased reporting by claiming they're "fair and balanced". Just come out and say it!
I don't care if the NY Times is left-leaning, either. That's fine. But they should at least ADMIT it.
Americans, journalists in particular, need to embrace their biases. Let us know where you're coming from so we CAN get the message from both sides, not some filtered down, biased report passing itself off as "both" sides of the story.
After browsing through a number of blogs, the two photos mentioned are just the tip of the iceberg. Reuters has distributed many other photographs from Adnan Hajj that are fake or questionable. With his talents, maybe Hajj can get a job with the Weekly World News.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
I am not exactly sure what the "political agenda" you are suggesting Reuters has is. In what way is a "political agenda" served by leading people to believe they are looking at a photo of a building in Beirut burning? Are you suggesting that buildings in Beirut are not burning, and some sort of agenda is being served by leading people to believe buildings are burning in Beirut?
Perhaps a simpler explanation is that these doctored photos are simple fraud by a photographer trying to make the photos he is taking look exciting because he is being paid to take exciting-looking photos.
I'm a Playboy fan, because nothing in that magazine is fake or exaggerated.
BBC is usually pretty even handed. But not, for some reason, when it comes to Israel related news. http://home.comcast.net/~jat.action/BBC_bias.htm It's surprisingly blatant, especially coming from commentators and reporters on BBC International.
Two of history's worst atrocities - not because anything happened, but because of what the Islamic terror brigades tried to say had happened, going so far as to fake it.
But this is what the Palestinians do every day. You can check out the raw footage for yourself.
They lie and lie, and get away with it. Following the famous line of Joseph Goebbels that the people will believe any lie if it is repeated often enough.
Here's what you do:
Start by reading the Koran. There's nothing better than the words of the great proph^H^H^H^Hpedophile Mohammed saying to kill the jews, the jews and christians are apes and pigs, and on down the line. Oh, and that whole "yellow stars of david" thing? Sorry Adolf, Mohammed beat you to that by about 1200 years or so.
Then take a look at the rest of the Muslim religion. There's not a reformist imam, not even a moderate imam, out there. All these photos, the new Qana hoax with the bodies dug from graveyards and paraded in front of the media that Hezbullshit forces were holding at gunpoint, follow the Islamic doctrines of Taqiyya and Kitman: that it is a Muslim's duty to lie in order to make Islam look better or to help attacks upon infidels succeed.
Islam is the Arab version of the National Socialist Party. The only question remaining for the civilized world is whether we Chamberlain ourselves yet fucking again.
unless you watch BBC, which is an extra-national third party
Would this be the same BBC whose reporters denied any American presence in Baghdad, even as CNN ran live footage of tanks rolling through the streets?
If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
The bad photoshop work isn't really the story here. It's just what got him fired from Reuters. In one example and yet another, this photographer is acting more as a Hezbollah propaganda operative than a news photographer. He was responsible for one of the most used photos from Qana with the dead child being held up, and as recently as yesterday had a picture on Page 1 of the NYT of an injured Lebonese civilian. He's basically the Peter Parker of Lebanon. It's wouldn't be hard to get the best photos if you were working with the terrorists who control the region!
Would it surprise you to learn that these doctored photos were placed by someone on the far Right trying to discredit the centrist media? Sort of like the way the fake 60 Minutes article on Bush's little vacation from the Air National Guard was placed by a GOP operative trying to smear CBS and Dan Rather. The goons on the Right in this country are playing a very deep game. Their sophisticated enough to data mine, and they're morally deformed enough to try to smear the patriotism of a triple amputee war hero. It's just fascinating that the paste-eaters at LGF are always the ones who find these doctored photos, but never say a word about the ones on GOP web sites that show too much smoke on the destroyed World Trade Center. With a news media that's run by press agents, and a government run by lobbyists, you should just be prepared to only believe your own experience, and the media that you absolutely trust. Other than that, expect it to be lies. Then, get ready for the struggle to save our freedom that is inevitable.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Those are REALLY badly doctored photos - easy to spot. I think quite a few amateur GIMP/Photoshop users could have done a much better job (I know I can).
If such obviously doctored photos are making it past the editors - who knows what more subtly done stuff has escaped detection.
www.sjbaker.org
I wonder if it was Reuters who doctored the images in Running Man when they sent Arnold Schwarzenegger to fight for his life for a crime he didn't commit.
That's the worst doctoring of a photograph I've seen this side of perezhilton.com.
"al franken provides details on ..."
Sorry, but I get my political reading in the Politics section, not the humor section....which is where that Al Franken book is kept.
There's a good reason for that. Next thing you'll be saying is that you get your hard hitting news from The Daily Show.
I haven't looked at a lot of the photos from this conflict (I have less depressing things to do with my time) but from what I have seen, news photography is generally not to be trusted. I have seen examples of images manipulated by both sides. Not necessarily digitally, but often in framing and captioning. Both sides are spinning the media hard, and both sides are pretty good at it.
Be skeptical. A picture may be worth a thousand words, but all thousand could be lies.
With reasonable men I will reason; with humane men I will plead; but to tyrants I will give no quarter. -- William Lloyd
That site assumes that anti-Israeli sentiment is inherently bias. That's like saying that a broadcast from 1936 Germany would be biased if it showed a reporter's concern about the way things were going.
It's actually very hard to get a BBC reporter to admit that things are as bad as they actually are out there; they see far more than they can tell because they know that the truth would be spun as SO anti-Israel that there would be no point, in fact it would be counter productive, to say it. So they hint broadly. But at the end of the day they know first hand that the Israeli security forces are barbaric and will happily shot to kill reporters, ambulance drivers, UN observers, children, old people etc.
And that's not bias, it's just what many people don't want to hear.
Actually, Hezbollah and Israel have been engaged in a low-level conflict for a long time. Hezbollah was formed in 1982, as an answer to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. Hezbollah didn't start firing rockets a few weeks ago. They've been launching rockets into Israel for years. Until this most recent set of events, Israel would respond with an occasional air raid. But, nothing like what they launched a few weeks ago.
I understand the difference... but bias is a driving factor for much of the deception going on.
I am thankful for all the blogs and people who look at these things with a critical eye. I thought the doctored photo looked funny, but I didn't know why.
The internet has made such bullshit very difficult to get away with. And as someone said, use many sources to hone in on the truth.
ALL press is biased, period.
Perhaps it is possible that there are both biased sources and unbiased sources.
Perhaps it is possible that a source could be unbiased, but be surrounded by accusations of bias because it is being attacked by biased people.
For example, I see people claiming that the New York Times has a "left wing bias" and others claiming that the New York Times has a "right wing bias". I see people claiming that the press in general has a pro-Israeli bias and others claiming that the press in general has an anti-Israeli bias. Surely not all of these people can be simultaneously correct. What if we're just not very good at measuring bias?
For example: Let's say that a news source, like Reuters, has no intrinsic bias, but sometimes make mistakes. Meanwhile let's say Reuters is read by readers who have a pro- or anti- Israel bias. The people who are biased toward Israel will ignore mistakes Reuters makes that work in Israel's favor, but view mistakes that make Israel look bad as "bias". The people who are biased against Israel will ignore mistakes Reuters makes that hurt Israel, but view mistakes Reuters makes that help Israel as "bias". Perhaps overall Reuters makes more-- maybe significantly more-- mistakes that help one of these specific two sides, and this is a sign of overall bias. But how do we tell? Well, there are two alternatives, as I see it. The good alternative is to simply demand responsible, objective reporting which avoids mistakes and corrects them as quickly as possible when they are discovered, so that there are fewer chances for bias to creep in. The bad alternative is to simply throw up one's hands and conclude objectivity should be given up on.
It often seems to me that people who play the "EVERYONE IS BIASED" game are simply trying to excuse their own indifference to objective truth by claiming "everyone does it". I see problems in the media at many levels, of many kinds. But I do not think failure by some sources to fail to reach 100% perfect objectivity excuses the many other "media" sources which do not even try for objectivity.
You want, for some odd reason since this Slashdot article isn't about them, the New York Times to admit they have a left-wing bias. I know some people who would like the New York Times to admit they have a right-wing bias. How do we decide which of you two gets what you want?
Keep not your silence. Hold not your peace, and be not still. Thine enemies make a tumult; and they that hate thee have raised their heads. They have taken crafty counsel against thy people. They have said, Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation; that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance.
King David - Circa 3000 thousand years ago...
What's changed?
Has anybody thought about the possibility that this photographer did this on purpose? As in according to a plan?
Think like a Mossad operative for a moment. "[L]et's sacrifice our in-place asset...he is a throw-away agent anyway...yes, burn him to help destroy reuters credibility (daily media op codename credenza57)..."
Later...
"Wait what the F...! He doubled crossed us using a stupid clone tool. Much too obvious! Now you suicide him, you moron, you run him..."
They're like a unique watermark for my camera :-)
I'm sure they get their photos from Fark's various photochops. Incendiary indeed.
[VODAK - Apply Directly to the Mouth!] [VODAK - Apply Directly to the Mouth!] [VODAK - Apply Directly to the Mouth!]
[100% ISO 646 Compliant]
SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.
This is Slashdot. They don't let anything get in the way of their leftist agenda, especially not little things like facts or reality. Heck, even when an obvious doctoring job on an image to make things look worse than they are comes out, they still try to pin it on the GOP (see the nutjob a few posts earlier that claimed this was really a right-wing effort to discredit the media, as if the media needed any help).
I know when I want to make a point, I tend to exagerate...Like saying "Damn, That sandwich was the best one I ever had", or WOW! That was the best looking penis, er, I mean...Never mind.
----- I have bad karma for a reason! -----
It was done so badly that I could tell it was clone tooled by looking at the thumbnail of the picture.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
I have a friend who's a sound engineer and he says he always hears library sounds on news reports. e.g. A report from Iraq may have some standard AK47 shots dubbed on to make it sound more interesting.
Outted it as badly digitally manipulated.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
So how many rockets did Hezbollah launch at Israeli civilians on an average day prior to the opening of the BTC pipeline?
This might have something to do with the extremely strict two-source policy they run. Nothing is confirmed unless witnessed by the journlist or has two confirmed sources. CNN is only one source.
All of it. Whether it's an editorializing news anchor, liberal producer, conservative overweight drug taking hugely popular radio host or a tube speaking senator, there really isn't an unbiased honest media outlet. Well.... except /. err... unless it's a SCO or MS post.
load "$",8,1
Cue the pro-Israel/anti-Hezbollah and anti-Israel/pro-Hezbollah trolls in 5... 4... 3... 2... 1...
"All you have to do is be fragile and grateful. So stay the underdog." Chuck Palahniuk, Choke
You use reporters with a political agenda, shared by the editors, it should come as no surprise that this is what you get. The international press does not like Israel. They especially seem offended that the country hasn't just given up and died yet.
Oh, really? I mean, does someone from USA or Israel listen to the international opinion? I mean, the War on Oil^H^H^H^HTerror and this yet another international military conflict american style?
This is no way confined to Reuters. Here is an excerpt from yesterdays reliable sources between howard kurtz and Thomas ricks of the washington post.
Reliable sources [cnn.com]
THOMAS RICKS, REPORTER, "THE WASHINGTON POST": I think it will be. But I think civilian casualties are also part of the battlefield play for both sides here. One of the things that is going on, according to some military analysts, is that Israel purposely has left pockets of Hezbollah rockets in Lebanon, because as long as they're being rocketed, they can continue to have a sort of moral equivalency in their operations in Lebanon. KURTZ: Hold on, you're suggesting that Israel has deliberately allowed Hezbollah to retain some of it's fire power, essentially for PR purposes, because having Israeli civilians killed helps them in the public relations war here? RICKS: Yes, that's what military analysts have told me. KURTZ: That's an extraordinary testament to the notion that having people on your own side killed actually works to your benefit in that nobody wants to see your own citizens killed but it works to your benefit in terms of the battle of perceptions here. RICKS: Exactly. It helps you with the moral high ground problem, because you know your operations in Lebanon are going to be killing civilians as well.
*cough* Luisitania *cough* PearlHarbour *cough* WTC *cough*cough*, man, I have a very baad flu.
This fellow Ricks is willing to spout crap like the above on national television. The Khmer Rougue could make a convincing case for the moral high ground against Hezbollah. Israel a country that goes to the trouble of trying to get civilians away from targets before they are hit does not.
Maybe because without the approval of USA this kind of sh*t would not happen, and the rest of the americans should get involved into it.
Are you going to be happy if Cuba launches missiles at USA because they *know* there are suspected anti-communist elements in USA? Well, if not why are you in support of such butchery of innocent civilians? You know, if the Israel army is so great-and-humane, maybe they should go for every house, and not try to destroy the whole country *including* the infrastructure. Yes, the Home-Of-The-Even-Braver indeed!!! The poor israeli are going to get in so much trouble for this war... like, you know, the thousands americans veterans of the Vietnam war. People NEVER learn anything.
hey, i hate libtards just as much as any other God-fearin' 'publican, but i do trust CSM... check out its web site and mebbe 'scribe for a few months...
God, the LGF people that are posting here today do not understand this. Because reuters was posting pictures from someone that was unethical, dishonest or just stupid does not make the every story coming out of Lebenon false. The ongoing conflict in the middle east is so polarizing people can't think straight. Could it be that both sides are wrong? Could it be that Israel's response has been excessive and strategically foolish?
You can't catch terrorists or gorillas with missiles at their neigborhoods. Israel has made hezbollah look good with this war. And although Hezbollah is a bunch of extremist nuts their position in this conflict has made their stock rise on the arab street. Where was the celebrated Israeli special forces? How is this not collective punishment? How is this smart policy? I feel like the Israeli response to terrorism is the definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Responding to terrorists with air strikes has not reduced terrorism. This is not working, its time for a new respone.
Sig removed because it was obnoxious
These images were modified in a completely incompetent manner. Many people out there are actually skilled in manipulating photos. You might light to bear this in mind as you read the news.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
In my youth, I naively believed in the BBC. Now I'm older, wiser and sadder, after seeing this blog. It's scary to realize that few people have the time, skills and access to see just how badly they're being duped.
Lemon curry?
Nope, Playboy airbrushes the hell (well Photoshop nowadays I assume) out their models. Been doing it for decades. If you want the 'real deal' you have to move on down to the sleezier mags.
Democrat delenda est
Would you be happy if Cuba launches missiles at the USA because confirmed anti-communist elements in the USA kidnap three Cuban soldiers, kill 7 other Cuban soldiers and escape into the American borders not to even be glimpsed at by the American government?
Now imagine I tell you these anti-communist elements have attacked Cuba for a few decades now, and have kidnapped and killed other Cuban soldiers and civilians - all of this after Cuba retreated from the conquered American soil to prevent such attrocities. What do you think now?
You lack an appropriate level of cynicism. Do you believe Ricks is making up what "military analysts" have told him?
I looked at the two photographs and they are near identical, the modified one has a little big of extra smoke (which is so obviously the product of manipulation I can't believe they published it). I don't understand what political agenda is served by adding in extra smoke? There is not a significant difference between the two photos, the one with extra smoke doesn't look "worse" (i.e. it doesn't make those responsible for the bombings appear any differently as far as I can tell). How does a little more smoke in a picture reflect a political agenda? To me the photographers excuse is plausible, I've tried using photoshop displayed on an LCD in a bad lighting situation and can understand how someone could quickly make a complete mess of things and not be able to really tell. Reuters has no excuse though, the fact that they didn't catch this is amazing.
Everyone living in Lebenon != Hizbollah.
...In my books is a worse crime than bombing buildings and/or killing families. priorities people.
God was my co-pilot, but then we crashed and I was forced to eat him.
That may be, but representing photoshop-retouched pictures as images of actual reality is more along the lines of fraud, although it might perhaps be motivated by bias.
How about this for bias: He's doing it because he has an arab-sounding name, therefore he's a hezbollah or lebanese sympathiser, which is what I see between the lines in some of the posts.
What, me prejudiced?
Some may feel uncomfortable being confronted with this thought, but that doesn't mean they weren't thinking it. More likely the photographer has no agenda, but doctored the photos simply to make a buck. He's freelance, after all and the better his pics the more he sells. Take it from a former freelance photographer.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Can we just drop the lame "cue the so-and-so" posts? You are attempting to place yourself above the supposed sheeple who would post so-and-so, by copying a lame slashdot cliche. You aren't adding anything to the conversation. You are essentially saying "look at me! I'm so superior to the kind of people who would post so-and-so!" Well you aren't. You're just like them.
And you have managed to cover the whole damn spectrum, so anyone who posts anything "pro-isreal" or "pro-hezbollah" is now painted as a troll by your brush. Nice.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Yeah, Americans in Baghdad was so hard to believe that Saddam didn't believe it either.
Surely there was more than CNN in Baghdad as well, they could've used other news organizations or journalists? But this is the BBC, silly me to think they've never had anti-American bias.
You are in the same crowd that argue one is the good guy and the other is the bad guy. There is no "good guy" in this war. Hezbollah instigated it, but then Israel still hasn't released the Lebanese war prisoners captured when Israel invaded Lebanon the previous time decades ago. True, Israel wanted to get rid of PLO sitting in southern Lebanon, but then Israel facilitated massacre of Palestinian refugees by the thousands. These were not the guerrilas, these were civilian refugees that Israel kicked out of the land that these people lived in before Israel state was created. This shit stretches back on and on.
What's truly pathetic is that both Israel and Hezbolla are playing bullshit PR game targeted at international press, all the while butchering civilians on both sides by dozens and hundreds. And the US isn't helping herself by supporting Israel - expediting bomb deliveries to Israel while expressing sorrow for the civilian loss - a fucking farce. The US should, if anything, tell both of them to cut the crap or kick the shit of both of them.
The blog is slowing down...here's the mirror.
Be gentle; it has pictures.
Anonymous to avoid karma whoring.
Don't let your delusions get in the way of your posting. Slashdot ran this story. What does that say about their "lefist" agenda? (Not that you understand what lefist means, but please do go on.)
Is this part of the "lefist" agenda?
Btw, an alternate interpretation of the doctoring of a photograph to increase the smoke and apparent destruction in the aftermath of Israel attacking Lebanon: perhaps Hajj is trying to convince the Lebanese people that Israel is inflicting major damage so they might be more apt to consider acceding to Israel's demands. On the other hand, probably not.
Still, from the end of that article, one might get the impression that GOP-linked blogs are in fact trying to discredit the media reporting on death and destruction from the war in Lebanon:
[Hajj] was among several photographers from the main international news agencies whose images of a dead child being held up by a rescuer in the village of Qana, south Lebanon, after an Israeli air strike on July 30 have been challenged by blogs critical of the mainstream media's coverage of the Middle East conflict.
Reuters and other news organizations reviewed those images and have all rejected allegations that the photographs were staged.
I wish I had mod points. So true.
"The past is but the beginning of a beginning, and all that is and has been is but the twilight of the dawn."
There are plenty of photographers embedded in Beirut. One doesn't need to be in bed with Hezbollah to get pictures of death and destruction.
I mean, really. "OMG! He took a photo! Of a dead child! In a warzone! The child was killed as a result of war! PROPAGANDA FOR TERRORISTSTS!!!1!!1!1!!" - can I have what you're smoking?
Slashdot is for nerds, nerds are smart, smart people are leftist, you're dumb. QED.
But at the end of the day they know first hand that the Israeli security forces are barbaric and will happily shot to kill reporters, ambulance drivers, UN observers, children, old people etc.
And that's not bias, it's just what many people don't want to hear.
Replace "Israeli secruity forces" with "Hezbollah" and add rockets firing into civilian population and it's all the same, although Israeli army "happily" shooting non-combatants is offhand. Ironic how you talk about bias but only present from one side. What's different is Hezbollah uses civilians as human shields and they hide among them as well. IDF targets Hezbollah(many civilians killed as a result of this since Hezbollah hides among civilians), Hezbollah targets Israeli civilians and uses Lebanese civilians as cover.
Even the ones that haven't been touched digitally are manipulated:9 97.htm i t.html
http://web.israelinsider.com/Articles/Diplomacy/8
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2006/07/milking-
This happens nearly every day, with a great many photos.
a tube speaking senator,
I guess he's more informed than we thought.. the tubes come from his mouth! I guess that means if youre closer to his central office, you get higher bandwidth?
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
Before you start implying that someone is paranoid, you may want to do a little fact checking. Going over the grandparent post line by line:
- Would it surprise you to learn that these doctored photos were placed by someone on the far Right trying to discredit the centrist media?
- Sort of like the way the fake 60 Minutes article on Bush's little vacation from the Air National Guard was placed by a GOP operative trying to smear CBS and Dan Rather.
- The goons on the Right in this country are playing a very deep game.
- They're sophisticated enough to data mine,
- and they're morally deformed enough to try to smear the patriotism of a triple amputee war hero.
- It's just fascinating that the paste-eaters at LGF are always the ones who find these doctored photos,
- but never say a word about the ones on GOP web sites that show too much smoke on the destroyed World Trade Center.
- With a news media that's run by press agents,
- and a government run by lobbyists,
- you should just be prepared to only believe your own experience, and the media that you absolutely trust.
- Other than that, expect it to be lies.
- Then, get ready for the struggle to save our freedom that is inevitable.
-- MarkusQNote that he's not saying that it's true, just suggesting that it might be. And, given that this is a well known technique in spin control / psyops, it isn't an unreasonable questions.
Well, he's certainly not alone in this theory, and it is consistent with what Rove is known to have done to Alan Dixon, John McCain, and many others.
Goons is subjective, and pejorative, but the rest of this point is darned hard to argue with. When a party rises from the mat to take control of all three branches of the federal Government, is a coordinated effort lasting decades, you'd be hard pressed to call it luck.
Widely known
His name was Max Clealand, and they did just what he said.
"Always" is an exaduration, and "paste-eaters" is (probably) unjustified, but other than that it is an interesting point. They certainly have found a number of them, and always leaning to the right.
This did happen, and so far as I know none of them raised a stink, so he's spot on.
Also well known.
Well, they write the laws, and
If you want to, go ahead and argue that you should believe sources you don't trust.
Thing that aren't true, are...lies. Again, pretty hard to argue with.
Everyone from Ben "A Republic, if you can keep it" Franklin has agreed with this.
40 Israel Civilians Dead
500-800 Lebanese Civilians Dead
8/5/06 Little Green Footballs' Post
8/7/06 ESTIMATED CASUALTIES:
40 Israel Civilians Dead
500-800 Lebanese Civilians Dead
That sure helped a lot...
Believe me, I'm all about being critical of the media , but it just doesn't seem to be a major concern for me right now...
Right. This is the BBC that refuses to call terrorists "terrorists". This is the BBC that calls Pakistani muslims implicated in criminal activities "Asians", effectively lumping Chinese, Japanese, Philipinos, etc. into the "honor killing" cultures, anti-Semitic actions and what not.
[100% ISO 646 Compliant]
SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.
Instead, now we're seeing GOVERNMENTS being oppressed. Israel gets attacked by Hizballah, whos the bad guy? Israel! The U.S. invades Afghanistan after 9/11, does the U.N. go along with it? NO! France, Germany and other E.U. members bitch and complain about sending their forces abroad. Iraq is a country with centuries of hate and violence, when the dictatorship is brought down and violence finally spills out, what happens? The Iraqi government has to deal with a possibly civil war and is BLAMED FOR IT.
And most historians will come to the obvious outcome of such actions. The government(s) is brought down, civil war(s) break out and in the end military rule is enforced upon the masses in reaction to the original 'revolutionaries'. (Don't believe me? Go read up on all the violence, military vs the people and extremely oppressive governments which were instituted after the U.S. Revolutionary War and the French Revolution.)
Interestingly, none of the smart people I know are leftist, but all of the people who think they're smart are. I wonder what implications that might have?
it implies you run with a pretty shit crowd.
Because in the U.S., at least, 'Jap' is a racial slur, and not often used. It's on the same level as 'raghead' or 'wop'.
Is it different in the other English-speaking countries?
haha 0wned!
Listen p*ssy. I'm sure your the same homo that posted earlier about alf's boner and you just want to remain anonymous fo
Damn Corky Thatcher, you got owned by an AC
Listen p*ssy. I'm sure your the same homo that posted earlier about alf's boner and you just want to remain anonymous fo
http://drinkingfromhome.blogspot.com/2006/08/extr
Third house...
Fourth house...
Fifthhouse...
This fakery is getting a little ridiculous.
Just google "green helmet guy".
Is any information coming out of Hezbollah-controlled areas trustworthy? We've seen death tolls drop from 60 to 23 at Qana and from 40 to 1 at Houla:
Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora said Monday that one person was killed in an Israeli airstrike on the southern village of Houla, not 40 as he had earlier reported.
He apparently knows how to get the most impactful photos. It might involve having friends who will post for him.
I'm sure this is very common, not just from the Hezbullah point of view.
It's one of the fallouts of a freelance system. He wants to earn the most money, which means selling the most photos, which means getting the most striking photos possible.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
The more I look at the 2 manipulated photos compared to Hajj's other 900+ photos, I'm starting to think there is something not adding up.
Why would this journalist, who has worked for Reuters for over 10 years, submit such an obviously hacked photo?
Perhaps, and I'm speculating, someone did not want any more pictures of what Lebanon looks like right now and needed some reason to fire the photographer who was supplying such provocative images.
Think about it and think about it hard. If a regular joe on the internet can tell that the photo was obviously manipulated, don't you think the photographer himself would have realized, even if he wanted to submit an altered photo, that he would have to do a better job?
Also, the pre-manipulated photo of Beruit looks pretty damn war-torn and horrible without any need for enhancement to make that point.
Hajj has taken some incredibly moving (and real) pictures of what Lebanon is being subjected to.
It does look like the same woman though.
Perhaps Beirut has people who just show up at bombsites hoping to get their picture in the paper. It wouldn't surprise me. We have the same kind of media whoring in the US.
This doesn't necessarily mean the photos were faked or taken on the same day.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
"Here's the trick. Don't trust any single news source, read a few that report the same thing, Some will say one thing, others, something slightly or even radically different. The truth is probably somewhere inbetween."
So in other words, when slashdotters present their arguments against the MPAA/RIAA\"property" (whatever those arguments may be). I shouldn't trust what they're saying and research the issue thoroughly?
Those darn film photos are too easy to tweak. We need to make reporters go to digital only. As Dr. Marcus Von Vickersburg of The International Institute for Photographic Analysis has stated, digital photographs cannot be faked.
The Uncoveror: It's the real news.
It's like a Jap complaining about the Pacific War.
Yeah, or a like neo-con whining about Iraq being a terrorist training ground...
They lasted for three weeks... Here and here are a stories about IDF hacking into Hezbollah's broadcasts and web-sites, that were rejected by the editors.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Actually, whenever one says "fear mongering", the first thing, that comes to my mind is the "Vote or Die. Its THAT Serious" campaign of 2004, which replaced the "Choose or Lose" slogan of the earlier "get out the vote" efforts.
"Right wing"? Rrrright....
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Jap is okay. Nip (short for Nippon) maybe not. But then everyone is a little sensitive about this. Let the bombs fall !
It's like a Jap complaining about the Pacific War. Hey, buddy! if you don't want a war, DON'T START ONE !!
How is the parent modded "insightful"?
The racial slur is a nice touch. I love that it's posted anonymously. I'm sure that he or she hears complaints about the Pacific War all the time. Pfft. The AC probably wasn't even born before 1945.
The Khmer Rougue could make a convincing case for the moral high ground against Hezbollah.
Anyone who thinks they could place the Khmer Rouge on higher moral ground than Hezbollah has no business criticising others for having agendas.
You'd have to be a grandmaster of spin to credibly equate a terrorist group that has killed fewer than a thousand people in its 20+ year existence with a regime that executed hundreds of thousands of its own people (and caused the deaths hundreds of thousands more) in the space of a few years, and not have any regard for the disservice such an odious comparison does to the memory of those who died in the Cambodian genocide.
(This is an elaboration of points in the parent post directed mainly at the grandparent post.)
Hezbollah was formed in 1982, as an answer to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon.
Hezbolla is considered a terrorist organization by Israel, the US, and Canada. But the Islamic countries consider it a resistance movement, as do a number of other countries worldwide. It is not just a military organization (though it has a military wing) but also a poltical party.
When Israel withdrew from Lebanon, they didn't withdraw from all of it. They still occupy the Shebba Farms, and continue to hold civilians there hostage after decades of occupation. Further, they diverted some of its water to other Israeli sites.
So as far as Hezbolla is concerned, Israel is still occupying part of Lebanon.
Israel also captured a number of Hezbolla officials and continuee to hold them prisoner, rather than releasing them as part of their withdrawal from the bulk of the occupied part of Lebanon.
Hezbollah didn't start firing rockets a few weeks ago. They've been launching rockets into Israel for years. Until this most recent set of events, Israel would respond with an occasional air
Further, the Hezbolla attack that precipitated this incident was not a "terrorist" rocket launch, nor was it a "terrorist kidnapping". It was a military raid on an Israeli military unit, attempting (successfully) to capture Israeli military personnel to use for a prisoner exchange. (As sometimes happens in a battle, other Israeli solders were killed attempting to defend their unit.)
Hezbolla offered the exchnage. Israel, continuing to characterize Hezbolla's actions as terrorism, responded by a massive attack on Lebanon.
The attack began by cuting off the transportation routes across its borders, then continued by destroying much of its infrastructure (including an attack on a power station's fuel dump that cut off most of the power for the country - including that needed to pump water for drinking and fire fighting.) Additionally they attacked regions they considered to be Hezbolla hideouts, demolishing apartment buildings and killing their occupants. They also attacked the vehicles of people evacuating their homes (as demanded by Israel's military).
Hezbolla responded to these attacks - as the military (official or otherwise) of any country under attack might - by launching rockets against Israel. Unfortunately, the missiles they have available have limited guidance capability (unlike those of Israel.)
Israel claims the civilian casualties (in apartment buildings, vehicles, a hospital, and at least one well-known UN site) are the result of Hezbolla using the general population as "human shields". Hezbolla (and a number of governments in the region and elsewhere) claim they are a deliberate attempt by Israel to punish the civilian population of Lebanon for the actions of the Hezbolla fighters (in violation of the generally accepted "rules of war", which consider such actions, if deliberate policy, to be a war crime - and "terrorism").
At this point the claimed casualty counts on both sides show about a 10:1 ratio of Lebanese to Israeli dead.
Some opposed to Israel claim their actual agenda is to expand their borders by siezing and settling more of the land between their current borders and their pre-diaspora historic borders - as advocated by a faction in Israel. Those historic borders, at their greatest reach, include much of southern Lebanon. (The faction's stated claim for the border is the Litani River - which, you'll notice, is the river beyond which the Israeli army intends to push Hezbolla to create their "security zone".)
So with Israel and a few of its allies claiming that Hezbolla started it all with an act of terrorism and kidnapping, and Hezbolla and a number of its allies claiming that Israel started it decades ago, never stopped, and they're a resistance movement trying to oust an occupying force in accordance with international law, don't expect it to end soon.
And don't expect the rest of the world to view Hezbolla's attempt to grab some soldiers to trade for their own imprisoned politicians and officers as the moral equivalent of the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
I tend to agree (90%+?) with your reaction to the parent comment, but I think you go too far in defining bias. "Water is wet" is not biased. But it's about something trivial enough that no sane person would disagree, unless it's a class on epistemological deconstruction or some bullshit like that.
... anything? OK, maybe that's too strong, but this definitely hurts its credibility in general, and not just on this narrow "conflict".
However, when something becomes important enough, we have to choose between terms like "terrorist" and "freedom fighter" to describe the same people, depending on our biases. I agree that good journalism, or good discussion in general, needs to recognize bias and identify it wherever possible. For example, in discussing the current conflict (is that a biased word?) in Lebanon and Israel, it seems unbiased to report something like "Hezbollah launched 160 missiles aimed at Israel yesterday" or "the Israeli army attacked several Hezbollah bases in villages in southern Lebanon yesterday". It does get difficult after that (like "bases in villages", for example). For myself, I try to delineate where my personal biases lie, and I find that I can have reasonable discussions with others who do the same, regardless of whether or not I agree with them. BTW, identifying all those biases is difficult, and I value discussions with others of opposing viewpoints for calling me out on them from time to time.
That said, I guess I wouldn't bother to have a discussion with Reuters about
First, let's get this out of the way: taking a picture always entails a reduction. Any picture is a two dimensional projection of one brief moment in four-dimensional space-time. So there is, necessarily, no objective reproduction of the observed reality. Whis is fine, as long as the image does not convey a grossly inaccurate view of reality, whether on purpose or not. That said, there's plenty of room for creating misleading depictions without resorting to post-processing (nowadays done mostly digitally, but the fine art of analog retouching has been practiced for more than a century by glamor photographers).
Now suppose there's one burning building in a city. There are many different ways to depict the situation. An aerial shot will show an isolated fire, without showing any details of the damage to the burning building. A photo taken at street level will show one or two sides of the building, probably focusing on the more heavily damaged sides. People may or may not be included in the picture. If they are, does it show terrified residents running away from the building? (Shock and awe.) Onlookers standing around? (Entertainment.) Firefighters doing their job? (Situation under control.) Did the photographer go directly for the jugular (weeping mother holding her infant)? Depending on what is shown, the composition, the exact moment, etc. one can convey vastly different messages, not all of which accurately reflect the situation.
If you look at award-winning photojournalism, it's the drama-queens that win: the typical scenes are usually boring, and the unusual photos take on an iconic status. The Vietnamese girl running crying down the street, the raising of the flag over the Berlin Reichstag or on Iwojima all range from unusual to unique. They are powerful symbols, but not necessarily an accurate depiction of what goes on most of the time during a war, crisis, natural disaster, etc. (namely, not a whole lot).
Out of the mouths of sarcastic babes, that's just what we need to do! From now on, Reuters should only accept photographs from certified DRM-enabled cameras that have been digitally altered on DRM-enabled computers: problem solved.
"I love his boyish charm, but I hate his childishness" - Leela
Thats easy, most of it. And what isnt an outright fake is twisted around to fit the agenda of who is pushing the 'information'.
Personally i stopped trusting 'news sources' about 20 years ago when i witnessed a event * in person *, and not one 'news service' reported it properly. They *all* had their slant to it, none of it even close to factual. ( even the pictures were taken in a manner to support the lies )
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Rove: Reporters slam politicians to save selves
a lists.ap/index.html
http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/07/29/rove.journ
>Whether you're a CNN fan, or a FoxNEWS fan, you have to wonder how much of what we see is fake, or exaggerated."
The videos of Flight 175 hitting WTC2 were fake. If they were real, you would have independent witnesses and/or independent photos of the event. Instead, people reported a small plane, or missed it entirely. You can also watch them, and you will see that they are all different. In one case, broadcast with Dan Rather, the plane misses the point of impact, flying about 10 floors too low before being obscured by the building. In another, used for a PBS documentary, the plane appears in mid-air, while the voiceover says, "And then, a mysterious shape appears on the horizon."
To switch back on topic, the fact that these photos are on the Lebanese point of view is not an accident. It's meant to discredit the Lebanese side of the argument. Consider how Dan Rather's career was wrecked, by reporting fake documents about a real event, Bush's no-show in the national guard.
unless you watch BBC, which is an extra-national third party, it's intentionally biased to hell.
Ok, then what about The Daily Show? Because I know lots of people that feel more informed the news because they get their news from there....
Let's see, would you hire a KKK photographer to cover a white power rally?
Would you want pictures from a German photographer covering Auschwitz in 1944?
How about pictures of 9/11 from a Bush family friend?
So what is suprising about "a little bias" from a Lebanese photographer?
There might be some value to this person's access, but that seems to be a red flag that means everything would have to be checked and rechecked. And probably every photo noted that it might be staged or otherwise manipulated. Just like I would assume you could get really good information from a mob informer, but check and recheck everything there is because of the person's affiliation.
Dont forget to tell the people in the USA that complained about this wars!
Vietnam war: if you like the war, dont start one.
Iraq War: If you like the war, dont start one.
Hezbollah doesn't have as many members as the khmer rougue. So in relative intensity it equals out. Then there is the matter of deliberate vs communist level incompetent. Hezbollah kills innocents because thats what they do. You might say their purpose is to create terror in civillian populations. Hmmm thats why they are terrorists ?? Maybe ?? The Khmer Rougue killed alot of people because it had a redicoulous idea about achieving the ideal communist state and nobody could tell pol pot that it was a really bad idea. So yes I chose the Khmer Rougue for just this reason. The khmer rougue also executed people that it collectively felt were threats to its regime. While I consider them to be some of the worst scum ever to walk the earth what they did is not the same as tossing a grenade into a cafe because people were enjoying themselves. Its one thing to kill people within your own state that are considered enemies of the state (I do not in any way endorse this) Its another thing to kill people in a completely random manner for no other purpose than venting spleen. I left out Stalin and Hitler because both had no reasonable moral component to their madness. Stalin killed people to maintain terror in his own society. This should serve as a cautionary note for those that think giving terrorists power mellows them. Adolf hitler had the purpose of eliminating groups that he didn't like. Btw using him as an ends don't justify the means example is bad form because his ends and means were the same.
If you need another example of moral high ground Mao Tse Deng, and the revolutionary cadres come to mind. A very deadly bunch that inadvertently killed alot of people. Their goal was to reshape their society, its a pity no one asked how things would work when they were done.
Fidel would not be on the high ground because it is impossible for him not to have known what the net effect of his policies would have been. Hence, he meerly demonstrated a personal stubborness and lack of concern for the well being of the cuban people.
BBC is very biased but not as much as the US news sources (reuters, (American) ABC, CNN, Fox) compared to these "news sources" BBC is relatively unbiased.
The closest thing to unbiased reporting I've seen, comes from the (Australian) ABC (non-comercial) and SBS channels (non-mainstream). I can only trust a news source that practically no one else watches.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
http://ehowa.com/youtubemovie.shtml?movie=t_B1H-1o pys
My posts are definitive. Reality is frequently inaccurate.
then I'll know there's too much smoke!-)
I guess that explains why Israel has been blowing up buildings. If there aren't any tall buildings to swing from, he becomes a much lesser threat!
Watch the "Wag the Dog" movie to understand more about the fake photos. This movie was released in 1997, yet it seems like it was written based off current events.
Nobody would disagree with you that you can make a shot look different by using different cameras or techniques, but the point to this story is that the guy was outright adding shit to his images with Photoshop.
While a Digital Rebel might take different looking shots than a film camera or a little point and shoot disposable camera, the differences will be in the contrast, sharpness, grain, etc of the picture. None of those cameras are going to add nonexistant buildings to photos, or superimpose extra smoke over a city, or increase the number of flares an F-16 drops from 1 to 3. This guy did just that.
I'm a graphic artist that once worked for a newspaper as a production artist for editorial content. There were strict rules for what I was and wasn't allowed to do to photographs.
I was permitted to use levels, curves and other brightness and contrast controls. I was also permitted to selectively dodge and burn if it helped make the photo more clear. I could use the cloning tool only to correct dust and scratches introduced by the scanning process. If there was a light switch on the wall next to the governor's head, I couldn't "remove" it. If someone in a group photo had their eyes closed, I couldn't drop in their head from another photo. Our editor was a brick wall of journalistic ethics, and sounded just like SpiderMan's boss.
Of course, the camera can be used to cast a person in an unflattering way, and a small change to the image's brightness can be used to make a person look sinister if it better fits the story... Time Magazine was accused of doing just that to a cover photo of O.J. if I recall correctly.
Now I work in advertising where every photo undergoes countless hours of retouching and compositing. Reality is bent and twisted into the lie that will sell product.
Say what you will about should/would/could, but in this case there is a bit too much staged photography by the Reuters team in Lebanon. There are too many shots that seem to be true, as well as plenty photographs from Qana that make you wonder when you see all of them, since they tell a story that doesn't add up to the individual description associated to each photo by the photographer (look for White Shirt and Qana).
Furthermore, arab resistance forces (aka terrorists) have used deception in order to shape opinion in the west. Check this out.
As far as right-wing conspiracies go, well, it is apparently a fact that only right-wing blogs touch this issue, while left-wingers either don't touch it, or simply wail about the poor children.
If Adnan Hajj is a CIA operative, then I have to say that the whole scheme isn't working, since most of the world is convinced there was a massacre in Qana, when in fact the evidence is very bogus.
Hate to point out to you your poor geography skills but technically Pakistan is part of Asia (I live in Japan, which is also part of Asia) Back to the real point though most of our current "terrorist" in Iraq/Lebanon are of the same cloth as the American founding fathers (I may live in Japan but am an American, born and raised-even served, in the Gulf, in the Navy). George Washington was not born in the US in fact he was militarily trained and fought side by side with his enemy (sound familiar-looks just like most the Middle East). What does the Middle East want? Freedom, which it will never have with the US or a US puppet government installed. Also please note they do not hate Americans, they hate America and the opressions it imposses on them for it own self serving interest. I am appaled at the actions of Isreal (all out war on a country based on the actions of a religeous group) and find myself embarassed to be called an American.
Hezbollah didn't start firing rockets a few weeks ago. They've been launching rockets into Israel for years. Until this most recent set of events, Israel would respond with an occasional air
So, how long does Israel just sit there and let rockets fall on civilians before they can respond in such a manner that will stop it once and for all?
Hezbolla is considered a terrorist organization by Israel, the US, and Canada. But the Islamic countries consider it a resistance movement, as do a number of other countries worldwide. It is not just a military organization (though it has a military wing) but also a poltical party.
Military organizations and resistance movements target the enemy's military organization and protect civilians. Terrorists target civilians and hide among them as cover. Which one is Hezbolla doing?
Political parties are not armed. Governments, and terrorists organizations are. If Hezbolla is not a terrorist organization, tell me where I can find the country of Hezbol.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
And the rest of the point-by-point fact-finding disappears, just like that. Bravo, good man, well played.
He's put forth a theory; it's on him to prove it.
Of course its a theory, and a fairly well grounded one at that, based on past GOP performance. To prove it though, we'll just have to wait for the Bush administration to finally get around to the criminal investigation of those leaks, which should turn up all sorts of goodies.
That aside, whats your theory on the forged letter? Is it "Dan Rathers gets a forged letter from some still-unnamed Democrat (isn't forging government documents a serious crime? I guess the government's been too distracted from harassing Judith Miller to deal with people pretending to be dead Colonels) who wanted to slander Bush and some guy who runs a blog and has for some reason memorized the typographical capabilities of every typewriter used in the National Guard and is capable of recognizing "errors" in the letter based on a low-def TV shot"?
"Anyone who thinks they could place the Khmer Rouge on higher moral ground than Hezbollah has no business criticising others for having agendas.
"You'd have to be a grandmaster of spin to credibly equate a terrorist group that has killed fewer than a thousand people in its 20+ year existence with a regime that executed hundreds of thousands of its own people (and caused the deaths hundreds of thousands more) in the space of a few years, and not have any regard for the disservice such an odious comparison does to the memory of those who died in the Cambodian genocide."
All that does is show the KR was more successful. If Hebollah got its way, they'd make KR's killing fields look like a picnic. That's not a disservice to those slaughtered by the KR, it should serve to remind everyone what godless hate can do.
The Nazis, Soviets, Chicoms, KR and other atheist groups are guilty for the murder of tens of millions combined.
What those who want activist courts fear is rule by the people.
The parent post suggests..."the only solution is to avoid allowing muslim/arab reporters from submitting GWOT stories"...and then has a sig that says "Stop censorship, blah, blah, blah".
The entire post is little more than propoganda and should have been rated "-1 incitefull" or at best "-1 hypocritical".
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
You see, you can't trust... oh, wait.
Cheers.
How about them, how long would they last if they didn't 99% report the official slant? How about the admitted-to deliberate planting of completely bogus stories the pentagon does? How do you seperate those out? How about this admin paying off newsies to shill for new policies or legislation that want passed, and they don't disclose it? And industry doing that as well? That phenomenon is called "fake news" and you can google for it, it's a big and an ongoing reality with the stuff people in the US are spoon fed in order to influence opinion. If you watch any of the major broadcasts, you are fed FAKE news almost daily. It's not to transmit data, it is DESIGNED to influence opinion and damn if all the big networks and dead tree rags aren't in on it, big time.
And my fav, makes me want to chunk a brick through the Tv at the smiling talking heads, is this -> every human being that isn't in the "coalition of the willing" in the mideast or isn't a zionist is automatically a "terrorist" if they get wasted by one of "our guys". Why is that again? Where do you draw the line, random soldier A drops a 500 lb bomb from an airplane, takes out two enemy soldiers and 15 civvies, and is caught on tape laughing and giggling about it to boot. Press release says "unfortunate collateral damage" for the 897th time. Random soldier B explodes himself in a suicide vest, takes out 2 enemy invaders and 15 civvies. His org issues a press release that says to stay away from the enemy and don't be a collaborator, closeness implies collaboration, so too bad if you are helping the invaders, shoulda been someplace else. Who's a "brave soldier" and a "terrorist" again? Looks like the same crap to me! Whatever technoplogy you use is *irrelevant* once you start killing people and accept the fact that you will go ahead and do it no matter how many "innocents" you waste in the process. BOTH examples are terrorism. You have ZERO moral high ground in this situation picking soldier A or B as being "good or bad", they both just *suck*.
Word useage, demonization is common, all down through history to inflame the populations (filthy Indian! Sneaky jap! Damn commie gook! muslim terrorist!, etc) it goes a lot further than just "them durn lebuhneez gots to be hizbollahs so we can'tz trust 'em!" You are going to have to take several long steps back and drop back into analytical neutrality before you can make blanket statement like that, and then you wouldn't do it, because you would see it's ludicrous.
For sure the photos were altered..just like the DOD is still lying about a lot of the "facts" about 9-11, just like the "coalition of the righteous" lied about iraqi WMD, just like they ignore that israel has never signed onto the non proliferation treaty and by our own laws we shouldn't be trading with them or transferring any military equipment. And last I knew, we don't have a formal mutual defense pact with them(they aren't in NATO for instance). And last I knew, going to war under false pretenses by lying qualified as an act of treason by those who told the lies to get us there.
When I start hearing the words "and in todays news, the treasonus but still unmimpeached administration now says"..then I might believe that "our" media is truly unbiased or at least willing to call it like it is. Until then, one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter is another man's "I sure wish both them drunk with power fundy idiots would off themselves and leave the rest of us alone".
And if you want some more A-bombs, we got 'em and will be happy to drop a few your way! That goes to Iran, Syria, N. Korea, and you to Saudi Arabia. Better watch it Egypt, or we'll take that canal back.
In case anyone is still interested, Reuters has pulled all 920 photos by this photographer. Only two have been proven faked but they are not taking any chances. The question remains though, how did they get through Reuters' editorial process? Here are a few links to the story:
- 07T162044Z_01_L06301298_RTRIDST_0_NEWS-MIDEAST-REU TERS-DC.html
. photog.reut/index.html
l
http://reuters.myway.com/article/20060807/2006-08
http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/08/07/reuters
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,207352,00.htm
But why is the rum gone?
"The photographer has denied deliberately attempting to manipulate the image, saying that he was trying to remove dust marks and that he made mistakes due to the bad lighting conditions he was working under," said Moira Whittle, the head of public relations for Reuters.
Terrorists kill without the laws of war- blowing up random people, sometimes their own (like in Bali) and sometimes no one. The intent is to bring about political change, from the eyes of the terrorists.
Problem is, after 50+ years, the tactic is getting nowhere.
And exactly why is is that, every time Israel kills a kid, it's news. Evertime a terrorist kills 30 kids, it's not just as big a deal? The only time terrorists DON'T kill civilians is by accident. Why is Israel held to a different standard?
(kill 50 people a year in Israel on busses, it's no big story; when they retaliate for it, a single dead child makes the phones ring at the UN.)
It's my suspicion that Greater Arabia has serious money problems; their per-capita income over the last 25 years or so has plummeted from $20K to $7K. It's my hunch that the last 30 years has been more about keeping the "Arab Street" distracted from rebellion, more than protecting their "bretheren"...their "bretheren" are still sitting in refugee camps for the last 50 years...tents and other miserable surroundings. Bretheren? Doesn't seem like it.
But back to the media; why is it we never hear *anything* in America about the day-to-day Arab activities- marriages between important people, when certain "celebs" go see a movie, etc? Surely things of importance happen in a place that throttles our world's most precious resource. We never hear a peep.
Say what you will about the doctored photos; the whole wahabi movement seems only intended to maintain the thrones, for the mere price of endless Palestinian AND Israeli suffering.
Can anyone source me confirmation on these hunches?
--- For a good time mail uce@ftc.gov
Hajj, who has freelanced for Reuters since 1993 and has been suspended pending an internal inquiry, "denied deliberately attempting to manipulate the image, saying he was trying to remove dust marks and that he made mistakes due to the bad lighting conditions he was working under," according to the Reuters statement.
The other day I was walking down the street and tripped over a pile of wood, which caused me to accidentally build a house. Whoops.
War crimes, torture, lies, illegal spying... Would someone give Bush a blowjob, already, so he can be impeached?
Would it surprise you to learn that these doctored photos were placed by someone on the far Right trying to discredit the centrist media? Note that he's not saying that it's true, just suggesting that it might be. And, given that this is a well known technique in spin control / psyops, it isn't an unreasonable questions.
So, you have managed to insulate yourself into a small little world where you believe everything the news tells you, believe every other view is some "giant evil conspiracy", and if your sources are proven wrong that merely proves them right because "it must have been a psyops plant". Nice vaccuum you got there.
Assume you are completely correct, and CBS news and Rutgers and all the other news agencies are so easily manipulated by the "Evil Republicans". Doesn't this also mean they are easily manipulated by EVERYONE ELSE? And that anyone with money and an agenda can turn the media into their personal sounding board without being considered bias??? Doesn't the fact that the news agencies CANNOT DISTIGUISH FACT FROM FICTION scare you the most?!?!?!?!
It is nearly impossible to say things like this without someone jumping down your throat, but the plain fact is that muslims in that part of the world have very different morals from what westerners expect. Lying is not the unthinkable sin over there that it is in the west. For many people, the koran justifies lying in the right circumstances, and those right circumstances can be very loosely applied - basically, if the truth will cause you to "lose face", then lying is justified.
This is the kind of topic which cannot be broached in the minds of those who believe that everyone wants peace and everyone can live together in harmony. I used to be like that myself. But until you live and work in that region you cannot even begin to understand how differently people there think. And I am not talking about any sort of military work - that's not really "being there".
I'm talking about being a regular western civilian and holding a regular job and working with the locals on a daily basis for a number of years... you quickly learn that the morals, values and basic foundations of human decency which westerners take for granted are completely different to those people... so a guy named Adnan Hajj poorly doctored some photos, and then gave a pathetic excuse for doing it... it should not be surprising, and doesn't need a lengthy investigation.
This is not crazy stories made up by some right wing racist loony. Imagine noticing a lot of lying going on in the workplace, obvious stuff from low-level staff and top-end management, stuff that's just stupidly obvious. Imagine eventually catching an employee in a simple lie about being late for work, and asking "why did you lie, when you could have told the truth and we'd sort it out?", and that employee giving a calm, rational explanation of how the koran says it's okay to lie to save face, so of course he lied. Imagine the example he uses to explain is about lying to your wife, to save face. This is a real-world experience.
Don't apply your morals to them - you will be disappointed. They are applying their morals to us, and they are very disappointed.
LOL, you got pwned man! I was just enjoying the thread, reading all the sides, but if I had to award points, your's would be negative 17. They got backups with decent links, you got "but...but...yo momma!".
funniest crap for several days here
BTW, that dan blather story is right on, that's how it went down, it's called a "reverse sting".
Troll? I post links to a story on three different news sites updating the status of the story with no editorial comment other than to ask how the photographs got by Reuters' editorial process and it gets modded Troll? I see at least one moderator is using their mod points to further their own agenda. Don't want facts to get in the way of your views? Isn't this against mod guidelines? I think someone needs to be meta-modded.
But why is the rum gone?
In Britain the majority of people with roots from Asia are Pakistani or Indian.
So instead of calling people Pakistani or Indian they call them Asian.
BBC isn't the one calling pakistani muslims asians, most people in Britain do too.
Yes, the two hours I spent at Toul Sleng Museum in Phnom Penh was one of the few times I've ever felt ashamed to be human. I'm not Cambodian, and in no way can appreciate the Khmer Rouge's violent ideology, but just the sheer thought that someone could come up with such a human depravity gives me the shivers even now.
This isn't a see-my-baddies-are-worse-than-yours pissing contest. Hezbollah could be evil incarnate for as far as I care, I really have no insight into their methods or aims, but let's not bring in comparisons with the Khmer Rouge here. Let's just say that those two years of Khmer Rouge rule should count as the lowest point in the history of our species and leave it at that.
More than mere navel gazing.
Look at it this way. Every day, thousands of pictures get published by Reuters. Sure, every single one of them should be checked for people who manipulate them improperly, and this one was really laughably bad, but mistakes do happen.
The point is that this is one company that truely prides itself on its impartiality and freedom from bias. It makes the effort, which is a lot more that can be said for other news agencies. Sure, mistakes happen, and sometimes a reporter with a bias can put put an unfair spin on a story that gets through the editors. Doesn't make the editor a co-conspirator in the evil axis of biased reporting. This is a company that refused to use the word "terrorist" in the reporting of the 9/11 attacks because the word is emotive and its use implies an opinion of a side that has been picked. "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter" is a phrase that was bandied around at the time. Instead, they'll use (and did use) the word "gunman" or "hijacker", because that's the fact that should be reported. The US media had an outcry, Reuters stuck by their guns, and they were right. "Terrorist" is an emotive word and shouldn't be used in fact-only reporting. Whether someone is a terrorist or not is for editorials and politicians to opinionate themselves over. A news agency should just report the facts, and Reuters try damn hard. Don't knock them completely just because they made a mistake which they corrected as soon as they could.
There is nothing interesting going on at my blog
I'm assuming that (since you only objected to one point), that you agree with the rest and will focus on the one you singled out:
It certainly is possible to fact check a bald assertion. Of all the things you might want to fact check, a bald assertion is perhaps the easiest. If I say something like "The bulk of Portugal lies to the west of Spain" you will find it much easier to fact check than if I say something like "How like a flower my true love blooms."
Of course, this doesn't always mean that we have the resources to do it. Claims like "The far side of Jupiter is about -170 degrees Celsius" or "Arnold Schwarzenegger wears pink thong underwear" can be hard (expensive, risky, time consuming) to verify. So instead you can do the next best thing, and sanity check the assertion, from multiple directions.
Yes. Everyone agrees that the documents exist, and no one has proven them to be authentic.
Yes.
No, not really. The other proposed explanations (e.g. Terry McCallef(sp) did it) are even weaker.
No, not at all. In fact, the two prime reasons for suspecting Rove are 1) that it's very similar to things he's been known to do in the past (e.g. spreading negative information against his own candidate, such as he did for Harold See, forging documents as he did against Alan Dixon), and 2) it accomplished exactly what he would have wanted
Not really. Nothing in the memos was contested, and all of it had been previously reported (e.g. by the BBC). Bush never even attempted to deny any of it. The people who would know even stated that the information in the memos was essentially correct. So it wouldn't have helped Kerry's team much at all to have the documents, even if they had been legitimate.
You can go on and on like this, but I don't see how you can make it a "tin foil hat" theory, even if it can't be proved. And bear in mind here that the burden of proof at this point is on you; the original poster asked a (possibly rhetorical) question and you attacked without (so far as I can see) much ground to stand on.
--MarkusQ
Yes, the forty years of Democratic rule in the House of Representatives was very well coordinated... oh wait! You were talking about the Republicans in congress over the last 13 years. Yes, I suppose since it has been over 10 years that the Republicans have held congress it can technically be considered decades. However, for six of those years, there was a Democrat in the White House (you do remember Clinton don't you?). Hmm, decades is starting to sound like an exaggeration, and so far, I am only talking about two branches of the federal government. "Control" over the three branches did not occur until the past year.
There is enough division in the United States without adding bald-faced lies and distortions to make the divisions even stronger. You want a conspiracy? Then tell me why there seems to be a concerted effort to alienate and divide practically every segment of the American society. You know, one of the best ways to defeat someone is to divide and conquer....
I believe in de-evolution. God made the world perfect, man fell, and its been going downhill ever since!
I wanted to put in my two cents here and say that I agree.
Part of the problem seems to be that we've taken to using the word "terrorist" so broadly, and with such a stigma attached to it, that we've forgotten what it actually means. A terrorist is a person who intentionally attacks a civilian population, usually with the immediate goal of causing mass casualties, with the ultimate goal of accomplishing a political end by causing terror and fear in said civilian population.
To say "one man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist" is a lie; at the very least, it assumes that one man is either deluded, or misunderstanding the nature of terrorism. (At the very least it is simplistic: a person could be both a freedom fighter and a terrorist, or neither, or either one singly.)
To be a "terrorist" doesn't imply any particular political ideology. You could be a "Zionist" terrorist as easily as you could be an "Islamo-facist" one. Being a terrorist also doesn't require that someone be disconnected from a government, either; I think you could make a fairly convincing argument that a lot of warfare and accepted strategy in World War Two falls squarely into the realm of terrorism: bombing a city for its "morale effect" is simply terrorism by another name. (It's worth pointing out that most countries have rejected these tactics, and at the same time the word 'terrorist' has become more stigmatized as it becomes a less tolerated practice.)
Just because a word is used politically doesn't immediately strip it of all factual meaning; if that were the case, we wouldn't have any language left.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
http://inessential.com/images/martian.jpg
Table-ized A.I.
Who knew they monitored Slashdot?
Thus all of Adnan Hajj's Lebanon coverage, which has emphasized human suffering, might now be discredited as possibly fabricated. The question becomes, did he doctor or did someone else, that is, with the aim of making all of Hajj's coverage appear biased? I myself now question whether Hajj's other pictures are authentic or not and it is changing my perception of the conflict...
Anybody with eyes that can see would have noticed the Photoshoppery in question! The guy didn't even bother to randomize the clone tool, or do any smear effects to create any continuity in the smoke!
Seriously, all it takes for even the most inexperienced eye is to look at the thumbnail. It has a very obvious pattern.
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
"Hezbolla responded to these attacks - as the military (official or otherwise) of any country under attack might - by launching rockets against Israel. Unfortunately, the missiles they have available have limited guidance capability (unlike those of Israel.)"
Official or otherwise? The Israelis have been asking Lebanon to put its military into the south of Lebanon for a long time. Hezbollah was to be disarmed long ago.
So are you suggesting that the Republican party can build its own military and attack Mexico in order to stop illegal immigrants?
How about if the Liberal Democrats in the UK had its own army and launched attacks on Northern Ireland in response to IRA bombings in London?
These are perfectly acceptable by your logic. Who do you suggest is to be trusted with their own military force, and who is not to be trusted? How about corporations? Can they have a military, or is it only "political parties" which have the priviledge of defending their interests?
Hezbollah entered Israel and attacked a convoy, taking hostages, in the name of Lebanon without informing or gaining approval from the Lebanese government. You'll notice that the Lebanese military is not involved in this fight, and in fact Israel would like the Lebanese military to take control of this part of Lebanon. They have been making that very clear for a long time.
"they're a resistance movement trying to oust an occupying force in accordance with international law,"
Really? Perhaps you might like to consider how (with their days numbered no matter what) Hezbollah's recent actions tie in with the string of car bomb attacks through 2005? Isn't it somewhat peculiar that a nation which was largely united in its desire to have Syria and its influence forcibly expelled from Lebanon is now rallying around a Syrian-backed "political party".
You're right about not being short-sighted about these events, but if you want to look at the big picture, then let's look at everything in it.
RTFM; please, I beg you.
I'll assume that you were trying to be sarcastic at several points in your first paragraph, if only because your post makes slightly more sense under that assumption. However, that means that you completely misunderstood my point, so I will spell it out.
Thirty years ago, the Democrats controlled congress, held the presidency, and (if memory serves) had appointed the majority of sitting federal judges. This was what I referred to as the Republicans "being on the mat".
Thirty years is three decades.
Rather than laying down and dying, the Republicans decided to fight back, and today the situation is completely reversed.
They did not do it by accident, nor by luck. It was intentional, and a great deal of time, money and effort was invested in the process.
As for your final paragraph, in the first place I'm not sure what bald-faced lies you are referring to, and in the second your conspiracy of divisiveness is easily explained as a natural consequence of the two party system. In such a system, both parties will look for ways to build a coalition of roughly 51% -- the minimum needed to win, yet leave the fewest number of supporters to be rewarded. You can get the same result in a classroom setting by handing out red and blue jackets. For that matter, the math behind it is rough;y the same as that for the evolutionary forces behind the nearly equal split between the sexes.
--MarkusQ
No, Republican governance just sucks so much it seems that long.
That is all.
Hello? Where did all that come from?
Specifically:
- I never said I believe everything the news tells me.
- I never said that I believe anything is a "giant evil conspiracy"
- I'm not at all sure how being one of the only ones on this sub-thread to provide links to back up my points mean I've "insulated myself into a small little world"
- The proven wrong / proven right / psyops plant micro-rant makes no sense
- The fact that something (say, the media) can be controlled by someone does not mean it can be controlled by everyone. In fact, it generally means exactly the opposite--if I have total control of something, you perforce have none.
- I don't think sounding board means what you think it means.
- I agree the inability of the MSM to distinguish fact from fiction is disturbing. However, that is neither here nor there.
--MarkusQBut there are people who are using this to try and prove that using these photos.
Take a look at giyus.org. They basically have software which they are using to astro-turf/spam thier agenda as they find it. The Israeli foriegn office have hired over 5,000 trainee diplomats as well to run the software.
This is one such story that appeared a few hours back and I am seeing it spammed elsewhere. Even money said that a giyus user spammed slashdot with this story.
The fake photos doesn't detract from the fact that there are over 900 civilians dead, over 30% are children and over 800,000 people displaced from thier homes.
The general public in Lebanon is to blame.
Lots of them actually support taking shots at Israel. The people who don't support that have still allowed it to occur.
I know, it's easy for me to say that the people in Lebanon should have put Hezbolla in jail or executed the whole lot of them. There isn't a one politician over there who dares to take a strong stand against the bastards.
But yet... a nation is responsible for keeping such things in check. Each and every person has a duty to keep the gangs under control. When this is not done, somebody else will come in and do the job.
If you let the criminals operate out of your house, don't complain when you get raided.
This is second one from Lebanon admitted to be faked. Ynet reports. Interesting times.
Plan 9 from Bell Labs.
Hmm. Is "Party of God" supposed to be ironic?
Nice theory, but doesn't apply to Reuters: Their CEO Tom Glocer is Jewish. If anything, Reuters should be out that photoshopping the attacks on Haifa.
Is that CBC is a waste of our taxdollars.
However
I consider it a right-leaning, pro-Israel, pro-American(having a publicly funded firm spread anti-Canadian US propaganda is almost treason in my view), pro-theocracy, pro-CRIA/RIAA, pro-corpolitical, anti-technoprogressive, anti-free software station.
But like you, my views may be dated, since I don't think I've seen/heard CBC since, god, 1998? 2000? and although I've been to their website during election season, they always annoyed me with their smug right-wing, ignorant and outdated worldview.
YMMV
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
http://powerlineblog.com/archives/014929.php
This "Bridge too far" just shows that people don't understand lenses. I can't spot anything manipulated in the images but they seem convinced it's a fake...
jh
>So, how long does Israel just sit there and let rockets fall on civilians before they can respond in such a manner that will stop it once and for all?
Rofl, yes let's mod this up. The only way to stop violence is, you know, just frag every single person in the whole country. Yes, that will definately stop it. Because if you don't well, I guess you have just created some more people that are going to hate you a lot. And more problems for the future.
Also, anybody know where is the NRA country?
This is a false argument.
In case you have not noticed yet, civilians have been targets in any war since (at least) World War II. Germany bombed English cities and England bombed German cities where civilian casualties were an explicit wanted effect. The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed more civilians than military. Either WWI or WWII was the first war to have more civilians than soldiers killed (I do not remember which). The ratio of civilians killed per solider is typically something like 10 to 1 in "modern" wars.
So if Hezbolla is killing civilians it does not make them special at all. Israel is also killing civilians. Your "argument" proves nothing except that it sounds like a confirmation bias on your part.
When you are sure of something, you probably are wrong (search for "Unskilled and Unaware of It").
So they destroyed her house, just not the number of houses destroyed? Are there houses destroyed but not photographed, so you accept that the number of photographs is not a measure of the destruction?
You fucking murdering IDF turfers make me sick, playing dirty political tricks while the your army bombs civilians. It's a war crime and you are covering for them.
so, the current situation is the normal continuiation of hostilities between the two nations and the hezbollah cry foul because they are outgunned?
I'm against Hesbollah too, but wow you don't know much.
Hundreds of political parties in the world, both right now and historically, have had armed factions. Even the pre-Israel Zionists had Haggadah.
Terrorism is terrorising civilians for political manipulation, not whether you are a state or not. Haggadah were therefore not terrorists, but Irgun and Lehi were. Hesbollah is currently committing war-crimes and terrorist acts against the Israelis, but it is not overall a terrorist organisation. Compare it with real terrorist organisations (such as the Provisional IRA).
When I saw the original pictures (found it eventually), I said to myself "That's not so bad."
But, we can't know what it's really like unless we are physically there - but my guess is that it's pretty horrific. (To a relative extent the same applies in Israel - a dead child is a dead child to every mother/father - the scale only affects the population, not the individual.)
Do we require the media to 'photoshop' our images, just so we care? We've all seen the post-apocalyptic Earths, front-line surgery and the effects of 'smart' (LOL) missiles so many times, so that real human horror must be scaled up to make us care.
Can't say that there is much wrong that - but it does say a lot about the rest of us.
Genesis 1:32 And God typed
Not about the image that the original post is about, but about what happens after something like this gets out. Read this blog post:
http://powerlineblog.com/archives/014929.php
A fine example of a blogger making a fool of themself, doing the exact same thing they are accusing Reuters of doing. Read my response to it:
----
The only photograph that strikes me as somewhat odd is the bottom image http://powerlineblog.com/archives/Hajj4567.jpg.
The other 4 images are clearly photographs of the same scene. Let me give you my view on the positioning of the photographers in each.
#1 : http://powerlineblog.com/archives/Hajj1234.jpg
This picture was taken with a regular angle lens, say somthing like 35mm, towards a building, across the bridge that is out. The photographer was standing close to the right side of the road (when viewed in this direction). The car in the next picture is out of the frame, to the left of the photographer. The photographer is too far from the actual damage to get a good shot of it. The actual damage is close to the right shoulder of the man in the center of the image, off to the left.
#2 : http://powerlineblog.com/archives/Hajj1245.jpg
This picture has been taken from the opposite side of the road from #1, i.e. the left, shooting in the same direction. The photographer will have used a telelens, say 200mm. This pulls in the distant background and seems to place the pilons in the center of the road closer together. Note the tree white and red pilons, with the overturned fourth. Now look at #1 again, you will notice the same three pilons with the overturned one pointing towards the photographer. Also not that the two palms and the car on the right side of the road are visible in #1 as well, off in the distance.
Again, this picture has been shot across the destroyed bridge, which is now partly obscured by the car and the man. But you can make out the concrete mesh fragments sticking off the right shoulder of the man, to the right.
#3 : http://powerlineblog.com/archives/Hajj2345.jpg
In #3, the photopgrapher has arrived at the collapsed bridge. From this angle, the photographer, shooting with something like the 35mm again, can shoot into the gap, clearly showing the damage. The photographer is now well past the car in #2, but the other car is still visible across the gap. The car in #3 is actually visible in all of the images, as is the building in the background, though very poorly in #1.
#4 : http://powerlineblog.com/archives/Hajj3456.jpg
In #4, the photographer has moved back beyond the overturned car. Or, about as likely, #4 was actually taken before #1. The photographer is now so far back and to the left, that the small watchtower is also in the frame.
The allegations in the piece are sensationalist and don't stand up to scrutiny. The author (and powerlineblog) are doing exactly what they are accusing Reuters of doing: posting material without a critical and sceptical review. If the bottom photo (#5, http://powerlineblog.com/archives/Hajj4567.jpg) was published as a photo of the same incident, that's not right But some of the comments on the other 4 are simply wrong.
I've included a schematic drawing of the scene as I think it was, for your reference. Note that I was there no more than the author was and that errors in my reasoning or schematics should in no way impact what Reuters and Hajj have to say for themselves.
----
The schematic I'm talking about: http://i86.photobucket.com/albums/k88/Grismar75/i
For centuries of human history, accurate wartime "body counts" were not available, at least until the 20th century. Don't forget that during the Peloponnesian War, it was not unusual for one faction to literally kill every resident (men & women of all ages, plus children) of an opposing faction's city. When they weren't killing them all, they would enslave them. The same for Genghis Khan, The Roman Army, European Medieval States, and on throughout history. So, civilian deaths have not been unknown in war. It is just that in the past 100 years or so, civilian deaths have become propoganda.
What does the Middle East want? Freedom
Of course - the freedom to impose Sharia law, the freedom to oppress non-Muslims, the freedom to oppress their own people, and the freedom to exterminate the Jews. Basically your four fundamental freedoms.
If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
Posting anonymously since I've already moderated in this thread.
You're having a reading comprehension problem that has been exacerbated by a typo in the OP. OP is NOT saying that the R's have held control for decades. He's saying the process of achieving control took decades. The typo is the use of "is a coordinated effort" when he meant "in a coordinated effort". So calm the fuck down, learn how to read, and, if you are a rethuglican, choke yourself to death with a dead Iraqi baby.
Fix your fucking sig you subliterate paste-eater.
So virtually all of my limited number of positings in /. run along the lines of "show me the money - who has the money interest in this situation?" - I guess I need to add to that "show me the political agenda"
That was a (weak) reference to something I have heard/read sometime, but you are of course correct in that this has probably been the state of affairs (or close) for many wars during history. Thank you for correcting/adjusting me.
When you are sure of something, you probably are wrong (search for "Unskilled and Unaware of It").
So we are seeing a shift. If you cannot stand up to the enemy you must find another way to fight back. The geneva convention has rules about were you are supposed to fight. You are not allowed to use for instance civilians as a human shield, neither are civilians allowed to provide a shield or even assistence.
Terrorists do not obey the geneva rules. So they "can" use civilians as a shield, that is their great power. They can mingle between them, attack from within them, get support from them, and then just become them when they want to flee/hide. In fact, they are civilians. They do not wear a proper uniform for one or carry papers to identify them as soldiers of an army.
But the entire idea of innocent civilians who shouldn't be a target in war is a myth. A candyfloss coating we hope can reduce the horror of war. In reality pretty much every war has always targetted the civilian population. Even in the medieval wars were armies would do their fighting in the countryside properly lined up the winning army would usually go on a rampage through the opponents cities.
It is just the way things were/are. You are at war with the enemy and that means its leaders, its armies and its citizens.
Only recently have some of use become unable to accept this and it ain't working. Look at the recent Hiroshima remebrance. Did these same people mourn the countless deaths of japanese bombings? Offcourse not. Hiroshima was not a simple tit for tat, an way of ending a brutal war started by the japanese, supported by the japanese and carried out by the japanese. When you see a war victim of the atom bomb that is not a child, ask yourselve if they cheered when they read about their brave country men bombing undefended cities.
Offcourse they did.
The real problem with the innocent civilian attitude is that it tries to make war less horrible. I think the bombing on gana (or however you spell it) is too little. Go for an allout middle eastern war. Fullscale bombing with casualties in their millions. Perhaps then just like we had to learn in europe these people will have to learn that war is to costly an option.
But by keeping the casualties as low as they are now (just compare them to traffic accident victims) war keeps being an option. Syria still is spouting war because they never truly felt the horror off full out open war with Israel, just limited military casualties, the lebanese haven't done shit to respect the Israeli withdrawal and curb Hezbollah still thinking that they can exist in peace when its neighbour cannot and the Israeli's think they can just go to war and win easily anytime it is needed rather then make sure peace exist for all.
If you walk across one of the western european war grave sites and you see nothing more white markers across the horizon you can feel nothing but the need to stop war forever.
If you see a single kid dead on the street you want revenge. To make the enemy hurt. In this conflict both sides are seeing single deaths asking for revenge. Let it escalate so both sides, all sides must accept that revenge just leads to more revenge and that in the end both sides need to make up.
The only other option is for a solution like that wich happened in south africa. There all sides agreed that there were just two options, a peacefull, non-revengefull end to apartheid or civil war. That this was achieved is a true miracle and speak very highly of south africas people. Sadly this doesn't look likely in the middle east.
I see no end to the conflict unless they either go the south african way OR all sides accept that war just no longer is an option. And it takes all sides. So far none of the sides are willing to wage peace. Not the Israeli, not hezbollah/syria and not the l
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Why don't you 'assume' something about the photographer...... after all, he did said that he manipulated the images. It wasn't the evil republicans. LOL
e mNo=747018&contrassID=1&subContrassID=1
pwnage below:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?it
# Sort of like the way the fake 60 Minutes article on Bush's little vacation from the Air National Guard was placed by a GOP operative trying to smear CBS and Dan Rather.
Well, he's certainly not alone in this theory, and it is consistent with what Rove is known to have done to Alan Dixon, John McCain, and many others.
Well, I can't say with 100% certainty that this didn't happen, but the problem I have with this is that it relies totally on CBS to "do the right thing". Suppose CBS decided they didn't like President Bush and facts be damned, he had to go. Next they steadfastly insist that the documents are authentic and trump out some paid off "experts" to validate them, leaving the Republicans to argue that the docs are made up. It then gets into a "he said/she said" thing where Bush and his staffers can't totally disprove that the docs aren't made up without admitting that they placed them to begin with, so they have to waste precious time and resources defending against a lie they started secretly. I'm just not sure I can go down this path with you on this one.
# and they're morally deformed enough to try to smear the patriotism of a triple amputee war hero.
His name was Max Clealand, and they did just what he said.
I actually live in the state of Georgia, so I can comment on this one. The Washington Post is known for it's left leaning views, so I'm not sure I would bring this out as an "unbiased" source. Cleland was his own worst enemy. Actually this vote, stupid as it was, was not what did him in. Cleland was beaten because of his slavish devotion to the Democratic Party. The Dems opposed a bill creating the Department of Homeland Security because it contained provisions that weakened job protections (think "unions") in the new department. Since the Dems are the party that backs labor unions, opposing such language in the bill was consistent with their viewpoint. Fellow Georgia Democratic Senator Zell Miller has stated that he told Cleland repeatedly that if he voted against the bill, it would cost him the election in the fall. Cleland, always a true soldier of the Democratic Party and never one to differ from the party line, told Miller that he didn't know what he was talking about. So Cleland voted against the bill, just as the Democratic Party told him to do. Much ado was made about this in the fall campaign and it basically became impossible for Cleland to justify why he was "against America's security", so he lost. Cleland was not a particularly good senator and he paid the price for putting the party first above all. Like it or not, Miller was right and this was simply not a bill you could justify voting against and Cleland paid the price. The article link in the Washington Post refers to another incident that while it did not help Cleland, was not directly responsible for his loss.
Are you telling me that they are only letting me see what they want me to see? No way! It can't be.
Not only that, but it's just bad Photoshop work - the changes are painfully obvious and he's a MORON for even attempting it.
I agree with the sentiment regarding objective reporting - our media is very sensationalist. To the point where we become "desensitized" to otherwise horrific events like soldiers being blown up or beheaded. We hear about it every morning with our coffee, and it's just "another day".
How pathetic.
You seem to imply that firebombing an entire city, leveling it overnight, is the same as a massive attack military and C&C targets to decapitate said military. Gee, since leveling a city is easier, maybe you think that's the way it should have been done. I disagree, but hey, you're entitled to your stupid opinion.
This should help everyone make their minds up! http://www.break.com/index/what_really_happens_pal lywood.html
The truth is that the news sources you think are the most unbiased just reinforce your bias. By nature every human has a bias. A world view that is shaped by what they believe.
I will give you an example, NPR did a story on 16-17 year old "boys" being tried as adults for violent crimes. That same news cast had a story on about the rights of 14-15 year old "women" to get abortions without parental consent.
The words chosen to describe the two groups clearly reflect the views of the news service.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
it's so far out in left field.. some "cabal" wrote franken's book and sold it to him to publish? whaever you smoke I really REALLY want some!
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
Good God! You're actually trying to defend the idea that Hezbollah is worse than the Khmer Rouge!
The khmer rougue also executed people that it collectively felt were threats to its regime. While I consider them to be some of the worst scum ever to walk the earth what they did is not the same as tossing a grenade into a cafe because people were enjoying themselves. Its one thing to kill people within your own state that are considered enemies of the state (I do not in any way endorse this) Its another thing to kill people in a completely random manner for no other purpose than venting spleen.
You really don't understand either group in your comparison at all, do you? The Khmer Rogue instigated an ideological purge of their country that rounded up and murdered 1/10 of their population and then were responsible for the deaths due to starvation and displacement of another 1/6 of the survivors. The purge was not just ideological but also had racist / xenophobic elements as most ethnic Vietnamese and ethnic Muslims, Christians, and Buddhists were all purged as well. It's one of the worst genocides ever to be comitted by man in modern history.
Hezbollah doesn't attack "randomly" in cafes. In fact, Hezbollah hasn't used suicide attacks since 1999 due the fact that many of their top clerics are uncomfortable with the tactic (despite having been the first to popularize it in the 80s). Hezbollah also doesn't just kill people "in a completely random manner for no other purpose than venting spleen." The organization started in 1982 to repel Israel from Lebanon during the invasion that year in response to an assassination attempt on the Israeli ambassador by the PLO which was still operating out of Lebanon at the time. Look up the 1982 Lebanon War sometime.
Hezbollah's goal is the eradication of Israel (which isn't a noble goal, in my mind), and the attacks on civilian targets are both an attempt to demoralize the enemy and sap their will to continue and basically just all that they can really get to. Hezbollah, unlike the Khmer Rouge but like Hamas, also runs numerous hopsitals, schools, etc. under its charity wing.
I don't like Hezbollah. I think they're a major problem in the world. However, they do some good works for the Lebanese people, and they do actually have a target and goal in mind in their attacks. They are up against an enemy with vastly superior firepower and logistics and cannot operate on the same level, but don't make exceptional effort to try. They've managed to have a better military : civillian kill ratio than the IDF in this conflict, but it's because they've had a much easier time of it with the IDF coming to them where they don't have to kill civillians to get to their enemy and because of the general lack of effectiveness of their rocket attacks.
Hezbollah's a blight on the world, but they're no Khmer Rouge. Not even by a long shot, and you're grossly ignorant if you think that they are.
I never said he didn't, and I never said anything about "evil republicans." You ratio of successful "pwnage" as you call it might improve if you actually read the comments you are responding too.
--MarkusQ
that's the motto used by Fox in their advertising.
Always good for a chuckle!
Just some points of thought and counterpoints. I don't really like either side in these battles, and yet I can understand where they're both coming from.
...But, well, you go to war with the army you've got.
So, how long does Israel just sit there and let rockets fall on civilians before they can respond in such a manner that will stop it once and for all?
So, how long does Hezbollah just sit there and let bombs fall on civilians before they can respond in such a manner that (they vainly and futilely hope) will stop it once and for all? I mean, if we're going tit for tat, keep in mind that Israel has been occupying Lebanese land since '82. It's the whole reason Hezbollah continues to exist as a popularly supported movement instead of just being an ignored astroturf movement from Iran and Syria.
Military organizations and resistance movements target the enemy's military organization and protect civilians.
Only in the wake of WW2, and even then, the great powers have not shirked from occassionally wiping out a village or two -- what we did in Vietnam and Cambodia, what the USSR did in Afghanistan, what the French did in Algeria, what Israel has done in Qafa and other places, etc. Standards of decency in warfare are the kind of high road that only great powers have signed off on throughout history. War is hell. I'll give the Israelis credit -- they could've done A LOT worse if they'd wanted to.
Terrorists target civilians and hide among them as cover. Which one is Hezbolla doing?
Point of thought. If Hezbollah decided to take the high road and build some military bases outside of civilian areas, how far do you think they'd get into the construction before Israel bombed them? No, really, think about it. Do you think Israel would allow Hezbollah to come out from the underground and fight them fair? Would you if you were Israel? Not only would that give them infrastructure to fight more effecitvely, but it would rob Israel of the argument that Hezbollah fights illegitimately.
Hezbollah has a humanitarian wing that provides medical and educational services and would mostly likely love to keep the civilians out of the way.
Still, that doesn't excuse the rocket attacks on Israeli cities. It offends our modern sensibilities about right and wrong, but it's not really all that morally different from (in terms of intent but not effect) from bombing the Japanese resort town of Hiroshima. It's an attempt to demoralize the enemy, but it's one that's nigh impossible to morally defend, especially given that it's having the opposite effect on Israeli resolve. (I mean, if you're going to do something evil, at least make sure it's effective.)
Political parties are not armed. Governments, and terrorists organizations are. If Hezbolla is not a terrorist organization, tell me where I can find the country of Hezbol.
Actually, political parties are frequently armed in countries that have a fragile peace. From the warring factions in Somalia, to the Sunni / Shia / Kurd militias in Iraq, to the Brownshirts in pre-Nazi Germany, to the Red Army in post-tsarist Russia, etc. It's never a good sign for the future of the nation that they're in, but armed political parties are not unknown. Lebanon had a civil war a few years ago, and most of the warring parties kept their weapons. In addition, Hezbollah grew into a political party in peace-time after initially forming as a resistance movement. In their case, weapons came first and politics came later, but the perceived need for weapons (as parts of Lebanon are still occupied by Israel) has not left.
Oh, what saints the Israelis are.
For someone who wishes to end the killings, they sure don't act on it. It's not that Hezbollah is right, it's that Israel is a democratic country that should be held to high standards. Or at least to stop pretending to be innocent.
"Help Israel: (somewhat) better then the alternative" seems a lousy defense.
Photoshopping is a no-no, whether it happens on the cover of TIME (OJ), or in an LA Times photo, or this. But darkening the clouds of a real bomb? How is that a political statement? Far too much is being made here. The guy did a no-no to make his picture more dramatic. Well, there's lots of tricks you can do with silver halide, too. Did they establish some kind of objective contrast ratio, a politically-prescribed development time and temperature? There's a famous few pictures taken on the beach at D-Day, where the grain is the size of footballs. It was pushed, because the wrong film was used, and the light hadn't fully come up when they hit the beach. A pro-American lie? It's ridiculous. The guy tried to make his photos more dramatic. His name is Arab, as many of the free-lancers would be in, you know, Lebanon. The case that this is some kind of political manipulation is, in fact, politically motivated. Whether the smoke from that bomb was black, gray or paisley, those kids still died in Qana.
I agree with you 100%. All the mainstream American media present administration propaganda as unquestionable fact and do everything in their power to avoid really delving into any of the administration's many scandals.
Some credulous, conformist pseudo-conservative abused his mod points to shoot down a post that introduced some real truth into this discussion.
"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?" - Patrick Henry
Not expected to be charged, but probably not clean either. FBI translator and whistle-blower Sibel Edmonds alleges that FBI counterintelligence wiretaps of Turkish operations in the US contain strong evidence that Hastert took large bribes to kill legislation that would have embarassed Turkey by condemning the Turkish genocide of Armenians.
Both Democrats and Republicans were implicated in the investigation. It's reasonable to suspect other such stories never got out. How much of the Democrats' spinelessness has been due to blackmail?
"An Inconvenient Patriot"
By David Rose
08/15/05 "Vanity Fair" - September 2005 Issue
"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?" - Patrick Henry
Though the article is long gone from the front page, you did not post anonymously. So I'll reply and perhaps you'll see it.
...
... if you want to look at the big picture, then let's look at everything in it.
So are you suggesting that the Republican party can build its own military and attack Mexico in order to stop illegal immigrants?
How about if the Liberal Democrats in the UK had its own army and launched attacks on Northern Ireland in response to IRA bombings in London?
These are perfectly acceptable by your logic.
If you'll read my post more carefully you'll find I did not in any way say such things are PROPER. I just said that they HAPPEN.
I imagine that if Mexico successfully invaded the Southwestern United States with tanks, planes, bombs, and artillery, captured Texas, New Mexico, Nevada, and parts of California and Utah, held them for decades, and the Federal Government was either unable or unwilling to fight them off, you'd see such a resistance form in and around the occupied portion. And that it would either be associated with some branch of the Republican party or have a number of former Republican officials among its ranks as it formed a new party. (No doubt some Democrats would participate as well.)
Meanwhile, such a party/paramilitary paring has happened at least twice in the US, once leading up to the Revolution, once just after the Civil War. In the latter case the party was called the Democrats and the paramilitary wing was called the Ku Klux Klan.
"they're a resistance movement trying to oust an occupying force in accordance with international law,"
Really? Perhaps you might like to consider
Again, please read my posting more carefully, in this case the portion of the sentence you deleted. That was not my claim, but the claim of "Hezbolla and a number of its allies".
Indeed, let's. (Perhaps this subject will come up again on the front page, and we can continue there.)
Meanwhile, in my posting I was merely elucidating the PART of the "big picture" that is necessary to support my disagreement with the grandparent poster's aparent misconceptions about the perception of Hezbolla by various factions worldwide.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
"they're a resistance movement trying to oust an occupying force in accordance with international law,"
Really? [link to wikipedia writeup of UN Security Council Resolution 1559]
The UN has no monopoly on the making of international law - much of which predates its foundation. In fact it is quite limited by its charter on what international law it can even claim to modify, and (like most governments including the US) it isn't even internally consistent.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Please site your source for this. Mine is easy; for example at the time, MSNBC reported:
and And with regards to this: Nuts. They aren't all dead. We aren't talking about a Clinton scandal here. The typist, for example, has said that the memos were forgeries but that the sentiments they expressed were accurate.--MarkusQ
P.S. As for all your Rove blather, I never said he was evil, or a "super genius", or any of the other stuff you're "rebutting." So save your defenses for someone who cares.
Where, exactly, do you see me making any baseless statements about what I think Karl Rove did or didn't do in this case? For that matter, where do you see me making statements about what I believe or don't believe about Rove's involvement (if any) in this story? I believe I've sourced all of the things I have claimed Rove has done (and you haven't disputed them), and I have never said that I think Rove was behind this, only that the original poster was not necessarily paranoid for thinking so.
Saying that its unfair to call someone paranoid just because they think there is cheese in their refrigerator is not all the same as claiming that they do have cheese in their refrigerator.
But on to your "sources" for the claim that Bush denied the essence of the forged memos (noting that you actually made the stronger--and obviously untrue--claim that Bush contested "everything" about them):
So? That wasn't the question and you know it. Saying "I haven't authenticated the documents" has absolutely nothing to do with admitting to or denying the statements made in them. You can clearly have both authentic and forged documents that contain both correct and incorrect claims.
Closer, but still no cigar. What Scotty says in the link you site isn't what you quote him as saying; he says "the commanding officer at the time has categorically stated that what had been asserted simply was not the case." He pointedly refuses to deny the contents, or say that Bush denied them, even when he is pressed. Instead, he offers the "fact" that an unnamed source (possibly one of your dead witnesses) has said that something unspecified was not true.
This link doesn't directly address to question I asked you to provide links on but it does indirectly support my position:
The rest of your historical background is largely irrelevant, uncontested material, though biased (for example, if you're going to drag in side issues, why leave out the fact that Harriet Miers was paid $19,000.00 to handle the issue of Bush's service records when he was running for governor, and specifically with the accusation that a $23,000,000.00 bribe had been paid to keep the issue of how he got into the guard secret--note that I'm not saying this is relevant, just pointing out that you were very selective in what you chose to include and what you chose to leave out).
--MarkusQ