Transterrestrial Musings

Comments

I'm trying hard to be surprised, really I am.

Posted by Mac at August 6, 2006 11:00 AM

You know the mantra of the moonbat extreme leftist fringe Rand: "The ends justify the means."

Posted by Mike Puckett at August 6, 2006 11:04 AM

If you're going to TWIST the FACTS, don't you need DOCTORED PHOTOS too? Where's the verification of a lie, without a fake picture? Who'd believe in your journallistic integrity without lies and fakes published together?

Why would anyone be surprised at this? Reuters is not exactly pro-U.S. or eve pro-E.U. as far as the war is concerned. Their anti-Israel feelings aren't hidden either.

The real terror of this is in how many people will get taken in, who won't know the difference, and who will tell friends and co-workers how horrible the "facts" are, "I saw the picture(s)!!"

I'm like you Rand, their crime, in their eyes, was in getting caught.

Posted by Steve at August 6, 2006 11:18 AM

Evidently it's a lot more palatable in certain quarters to condemn a few doctored photos than to accept thousands of photos that aren't doctored.

Posted by Mike Johnson at August 6, 2006 02:12 PM

You mean all of the Qana photos?

Where they were still taking pictures of the same dead child being pulled out of the rubble hours apart?

Real nice people that you are defending there Mikey.

Dennis

Posted by Dennis Wingo at August 6, 2006 03:11 PM

Mike,
I don't listen to people who say crap like,

Evidently it's a lot more palatable in certain quarters to condemn a few doctored photos than to accept thousands of photos that aren't doctored.

This was longer, but I killed most of it, I could do this all day, but I'm wasting pixels, typing to you, MIKE!!

Posted by Steve at August 6, 2006 03:38 PM

I found the link to the dead girls, "The Director's Cut"

http://eureferendum.blog$spot.com/2006/08/qana-$directors-cut.html

(Hint: you have to replace the $ signs in the link. For some reason that particular set of letters are questionable content.)

Very interesting

Dennis

Posted by Dennis Wingo at August 6, 2006 04:52 PM

If you haven't seen the doctored version of the Reuters doctored version of this photo at Little Green Footballs, it's worth the click

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/

I love the smell of BOC in the morning.

Posted by Steve at August 6, 2006 05:15 PM

"Reuters has been caught doctoring photos to make Israel look bad?"

No, but you've been caught doctoring a news story to make Reuters look bad. Here's the real one:

"Reuters, the global news and information agency, told a freelance Lebanese photographer on Sunday it would not use any more of his pictures after he doctored an image of the aftermath of an Israeli air strike on Beirut."

Apparently the alterations involved making smoke in the image a few shades darker. Yes, Rand, clearly this is a global liberal conspiracy against Israel, so you better put on your tinfoil helmet before they read your mind with their secret satellites.

Posted by Brian Swiderski at August 6, 2006 05:22 PM

...clearly this is a global liberal conspiracy against Israel, so you better put on your tinfoil helmet before they read your mind with their secret satellites.

What an amusingly stupid straw man.

Posted by Rand Simberg at August 6, 2006 05:25 PM

Brian,

Bullshit.

Oh, it's true that the picture itself isn't a big deal. It's just that it's the culmination of a long series of outrages.

The undoctored photo shows a single building out of thousands damaged, and a smoke cloud that says to any reasonable analyst that there was something in that building other than drywall and computers. It's a picture of an accurate precision strike by a careful warmaker.

The doctored photo shows a huge generalized smoke cloud coming from who-knows-where, conjuring up a picture of thousands of poor people weeping as their shanties go up in Jewish flames. It's a picture of a spasm of violent, uncaring revenge. This is the narrative the Islamists want to sell, and you and the rest of the moonbats want to buy, hence your outrage. For the rest of us it's a smoking gun we want to trace back.

Regards,
Ric

Posted by Ric Locke at August 6, 2006 05:42 PM

"It's just that it's the culmination of a long series of outrages."

Ric,
On whose part? Rand "forgot" to mention that the photographer was a Lebanese freelancer, apparently because that wouldn't have served his agenda to note, and falsely accused Reuters of doing the doctoring.

"This is the narrative the Islamists want to sell, and you and the rest of the moonbats want to buy, hence your outrage."

Reuters acted quickly to remove the photo and express regret, but how long will it take Rand to act and apologize for misrepresenting the incident? I'm not holding my breath that right-wing hypocrisy will take a vacation any time soon.

Posted by Brian Swiderski at August 6, 2006 07:27 PM

If a Reuters stringer doctors photos, then Reuters has doctored photos--they represent photos that they run as their own. That's why they had to apologize.

And the notion that I'm "right_wing" remains hilarious. As is the notion that you have a clue.

Posted by Rand Simberg at August 6, 2006 07:35 PM

"If a Reuters stringer doctors photos, then Reuters has doctored photos"

Sorry, Rand, reality doesn't work that way. Reuters did not pay the photographer to doctor photos, did not request or imply that they wanted doctored photos, and did not tolerate it when they learned he had given them such. They explicitly require that photos not be altered, and the photographer is not an employee of Reuters, so they were defrauded by him--but I guess "Lebanese freelancer doctors photos" isn't as useful a headline for your agenda. Don't you find it ironic that you engage in such dubious reporting in order to play "gotcha" with the media's journalistic standards?

"And the notion that I'm "right_wing" remains hilarious."

Do you expect anyone to believe you're a centrist? I've rarely seen such eye-bulging, forehead-vein-popping militaristic propaganda in English, let alone written by a contemporary. Reading your writings, one expects any moment you'll start talking about fluoridation and "precious bodily fluids." I come for the space news, but stay for the political clown show.

Posted by Brian Swiderski at August 7, 2006 03:21 AM

Is it just me, or is there something wrong with the word wrap on this one page? (I'm using Firefox.)

Posted by Frank Glover at August 7, 2006 03:28 AM

Do you expect anyone to believe you're a centrist?

No. If I expected that, I'd at least claim that I'm a "centrist." I expect people (unreasonably, apparently) to break out of their idiotic one-dimensional notions of political views, on which people can be easily pegged on a left-right scale, based on their own pet litmus tests.

Posted by Rand Simberg at August 7, 2006 05:04 AM

"I expect people (unreasonably, apparently) to break out of their idiotic one-dimensional notions of political views, on which people can be easily pegged on a left-right scale, based on their own pet litmus tests."

The scale correlates pretty strongly for most people, and the only way they could all "break out" of it would be to change the underlying neurological patterns. Vapidly pro-war, jingoistic people generally have authoritarian personalities, which means they're more likely than average to have a narcissistic, dogmatic viewpoint on other issues as well: race, gender, religion, nationalism, etc.

That may not represent you, but it appears to be quite representative of others who agree with you, and there's nothing you can do about that except look deeply at how you reach your conclusions and *consider* that it may not be rational. What absurdities do your attitudes and assumptions about foreign policy lead to when applied generally? How many of your opinions are intrinsic as opposed to being products of personal circumstance and convenience?

There may be Lebanese who agree with you, but I don't think you yourself would hold these opinions if you were Lebanese; more likely you'd view Israel with the same jaundiced eye you now view Iran, use the same rationale to claim they couldn't be reasoned with, and be generally derisive of those who thought otherwise as naive and indecisive.

If you truly want to escape "idiotic one-dimensional scales," you should be more careful not to let your thoughts fall into these kinds of formulaic pathologies, judging things based on their relationship to YOU rather than general principles.

Posted by Brian Swiderski at August 7, 2006 09:01 AM

Vapidly pro-war, jingoistic people generally have authoritarian personalities, which means they're more likely than average to have a narcissistic, dogmatic viewpoint on other issues as well: race, gender, religion, nationalism, etc.

Yes, this is an excellent example of the kind of stupid one-dimensional thinking that I was describing.

Posted by Rand Simberg at August 7, 2006 09:07 AM

Squidward says: What absurdities do your attitudes and assumptions about foreign policy lead to when applied generally? How many of your opinions are intrinsic as opposed to being products of personal circumstance and convenience?

Do tell...

Posted by Mac at August 7, 2006 11:33 AM

Right you are, Brian, that is a means for escaping. Rand managed it. It seems pretty jingoistic to call people rightwing neocons, but those are not Rand's words.

By the way, Reuters does allow for photographers to enhance their photos. That's not my opinion, that is their own statement in their apology.

Posted by Leland at August 7, 2006 12:07 PM

"Yes, this is an excellent example of the kind of stupid one-dimensional thinking that I was describing."

Presumably because there's some vast undiscovered colony of deeply compassionate and intellectual warmongers somewhere? The fact that people who think like you are generally rigid, dogmatic, one-dimensional people is not going to change because you say "I know you are, but what am I" every time someone makes the observation. Even as you desperately insist you're not like that, you display all the same pathologies; it is "one-dimensional" to talk about the one-dimensionality of jingoistic personalities, just like Republicans always call it racist to talk about their racism, and "class warfare" to accuse them of waging class warfare. It's like accusing a parrot.

Posted by Brian Swiderski at August 7, 2006 12:35 PM

"It seems pretty jingoistic to call people rightwing neocons, but those are not Rand's words."

How are those words "jingoistic"? You seem to be operating on the common right-wing assumption that negative adjectives are interchangeable. Sorry, but they're not; crudely demonizing everyone who gets in the way of the Fatherland's interests is jingoism. Calling people who do that right-wing neocons is just descriptive terminology.

"By the way, Reuters does allow for photographers to enhance their photos."

My guess is that applies only to formatting qualities like contrast, resolution, color palette, etc, not the substance of the image.

Posted by Brian Swiderski at August 7, 2006 12:45 PM

Brian says: The fact that people who think like you are generally rigid, dogmatic, one-dimensional people is not going to change because you say "I know you are, but what am I" every time someone makes the observation. Even as you desperately insist you're not like that, you display all the same pathologies.

That could be applied on both sides of the argument you know.

Posted by Mac at August 7, 2006 01:10 PM

Okay, this page is normal in Internet Explorer, but under Netscape 8.0 and Firefox 1.5.06, text extends all the way to a right that's about 20% wider than my 1280x1024 screen, and the list of recent posts is absent.

Again, just this one page.

Just so you know...

Posted by Frank Glover at August 8, 2006 04:05 PM

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