How the fuck would you know what anyone wrote about it, you sad little LGF troll? Go back to getting Iron Fisted, Powderfinger.

Never heard a word out of you about the Syrian occupation of Lebanon either, now that you mention it. Still not hearing anything about the Iranian control of Hezbollah and their responsibility for the ongoing violence.

But those fucking Jooooos? Let me tell you what! THEY’RE JUST LIKE THE NAZIS!

Racist dirtbags, the lot of you.

The people and government of Lebanon have to start accepting the blame for their part in this, which is the largest part of all. They let the radicals in, they fed them, they housed them, they let them get stronger and turned the other way when they got too big to even think about stopping. They allowed the thugocracy of Iran to hijack their country and use it for an Islamist fascist training camp. The UN stood by and watched, and even helped on some occasions. Time for the Lebanese to step up to the plate and hold themselves accountable for being asleep at the wheel.

I feel like throwing up everytime I see one of you “progressive” assholes posting pictures of bombed Lebanese kids or even mentioning them, all the while ignoring or really just having nothing to say, ever, about all the Israeli kids blown to pieces over the last 3 decades while they slept, rode the bus, or sat in a cafe eating.

I barf in your general direction.

But I don’t think it makes any sense to see a conspiracy in their decision to buy the photo. More likely, they do these deals too quickly and are not looking for evidence of PhotoShop.

From what I understand, the photo was submitted by a freelance photographer, who doctored the photo. Why did he do that? We don’t know, but the most likely answer is that he was trying to sell the photo — that’s how he makes a living — and he thought it would be more dramatic this way. New services like dramatic photos.

Reuters apparently relied on the photographer’s word. How would they know whether the photo was doctored or not? They weren’t there — otherwise they wouldn’t have needed to buy a freelanced photo. Wire services used to employ more photographers, but they found it was cheaper to buy freelance. Yes, that is a compromise of journalistic integrity, to some extent, but money is what drives the news business these days.

Is this error significant? Maybe, if it’s part of a larger trend. I don’t want to have to worry about whether photos are accurate or not. I don’t look to photojournalism for creative takes on the world. Of course, when you’re talking about photography, it is often hard to sort out what “real” means. Using a particular kind of filter, or changing the exposure time can totally alter how a scene appears. Cropping can be used to manipulate the audience, too. So this is a complicated issue. But no, I don’t think anyone wants photojournalists using PhotoShop to punch up the drama.

Is it part of a political scandal, bias in the press? I seriously doubt it. We are talking about manufactured smoke here, in more ways than one. People who oppose Israel’s punishment of Lebanon look at the news and see a pro-Israeli bias. People who support Israel’s “right to self-defense” (by blowing the crap out of Lebanon) see an anti-Israeli bias in the press. I am not saying the press is doing a great job here, but I certainly see no reason to believe that there is some kind of pro-Hezbollah conspiracy afoot at Reuters.

More smoke, less smoke, pictures, no pictures…who cares. What Israel is doing is wrong: as wrong as Iran invading Kuwait, and as wrong as Germany invading Poland in 1939. Live with it.

You might want to mix in agenda, bias and mental retardation as things to wonder about in those who can’t see the glaringly obvious.

Some people simply refuse to see. Many of them hang out here. I wonder how many of them are photo desk editors at Reuters.

mikey sez:
Yeah, well, I was never gonna convince you asshats anyway.

Try using something other than bullshit next time, mikey.

People who think they see any editing are being confused by the difference in resolution, size and cropping in the two images as has already been pointed out.

Tht’s just not true. I’ve done professional digital image editing and color retouching for graphic design studios, catalogs, magazines and multimedia for aover 15 years now, and it’s incredibly obvious that the photo was poorly retouched.

A repeated circular pattern of the (as others have mentioned) cloning tool from any digital image editor is so clear as to make me wonder about the eyesight (or perhaps the monitor gamma setting) of anyone who can’t see it.

But just for those people whose screens lack the contrast to view the difference, you should still be able to see the little puff with ears sticking out of the leftmost cloud of smoke right about where the horizon is in the undoctored photo. In the doctored image, that same puff appears directly above the position of the original, but copied a bit lighter. Then it appears again even lighter just above that. The original image has a notch between that puff and the next piece of cloud that sticks out from the main body. The doctored image doesn’t.

It’s sad, because I’m sure this is going to be one of those things the right-wing nuts are going to be screaming about for years. This guy will become the Ward Churchill of the Lebanon war.

Are you kidding me? Over this, they’re outraged?

I find that extremely amusing for some reason. Am I the only one?

mikey

To my colleagues on the left, as you leave the auditorium be sure to pick up your complimentary copies of the home version of “Sadly, No!” the game where leftist-progressives discover that their rage, fussiness and fantasies don’t necessarily have anything to do with the real world.

And thanks for playing!