Moonbat Media has pictures of the pro-Hizballah demonstration in London yesterday that really bring home the depth of Britain’s problem with radical Islam: Unconditional Ceasefire Now! protest, London, 5 August 2006.

Saturday’s ride: 58.45 miles, with an elevation gain of 3,225 feet, on one of the harder climbs in the South Bay area, a series of punishing rollers leading to a 3-mile mini-mountain with switchbacks and grades of over 10% in places. Elevation at the top was almost 1,000 feet. Haven’t done that one in a while and oh man, did it hurt. (But it feels so good when it stops.) Today’s ride: 40.42 miles, mostly flat, but with intervals of really hard sustained riding. Maximum speed on one flat sprint was 32 mph. Total mileage for the weekend: 98.87 miles. And yes, that’s my foot.

I’m scheduled to be on Matt Drudge’s radio show in about 10 minutes, talking about the Reuters brouhaha…

From Cox & Forkum Editorial Cartoons, of course.

Over at Fark.com, a lot of the kids think Dan Rather and Mary Mapes were telling the truth, LGF is a tool of the Worldwide Zionist Conspiracy, and there’s no problem with Adnan Hajj’s photographs: Reuters’ Lebanese photographer: ‘denied deliberately attempting to manipulate the image, saying that he was trying to remove dust marks’.

My favorite inarticulate rant, in response to a sarcastic post from an anti-idiotarian:

Quote: It reminds me of how LGF tried to smear the honorable Dan Rather by saying his Bush NG memo was a forgery.

I know, that was a shame, especially since how a thorough debunking of the points raised by CBS critics of just how the memoes were faked, including having tracked down typewriters from that era or earlier capable of producing the exact text typed, and given that the secretary who was supposed to have typed the memo said that the contents of the memo were accurate, and that the people who originally put forth the “fake” claim (such as Little Green Footballs and Free Republic) always consider the U.S., the Armed Forces, and the Fearless Leader God-Emperor George W. Bush framed by default (including FAKE Haditha and FAKE AWOL), I’m surprised the Jew-hating mainstream media hasn’t reported on that more thoroughly. It’s almost as if they were sensationalist instead of biased. Because as we all know, unverified is the same thing as fake. Look it up in your thesaurus if you don’t believe me.

The fact that these unverified documents subsequently but a stop to all questions of Bush’ service record is totally coincidental, even though the memos, fake or not, were repeatedly confirmed to contain accurate information, is merely a convenience. It is much in the same way that most people no longer believe in prehistoric “cavemen” (what a stupid notion!) because of the Piltdown Man.

(Unsurprisingly, and identically to the Killian Documents, all somebody has to do to make the fake image match the “real” image is manipulate it in photoshop — just as they took the image of the Killian documents and manipulated it in photoshop to make it look like it was written in Notepad. Wow, so even though it matches DEAD ON to ANOTHER photo, it must be from this panorama, and all we have to do is MANIPULATE IT IN PHOTOSHOP LIKE THE DAN RATHER CONTROVERSY TO MAKE IT WORK! OBVIOUS TRUTH! PHOTOSHOP NEVER LIES EXCEPT WHEN LEBANESE PHOTOGRAPHERS USE IT!)

Rusty Shackleford has done an analysis on another Adnan Hajj photograph, discovering more absolutely conclusive evidence of fraud in a picture that purports to be of an Israeli jet firing missiles into Lebanon: Another Fake Reuters Photo from Lebanon.

LGF readers have been tirelessly digging into this and other photos, and reader Middle-Earth provides this picture with the copied sections highlighted.

Walid Phares shines a spotlight on another nasty little coordination between Reuters and pro-Hizballah reporters: Reuters’ Hijacking Lebanon’s Answer to the UN?

A few hours after a Franco-American draft for a UN Security Council resolution was released, pro-Hezbollah lobbies and allies launched a campaign to hijack the response of Lebanon to the United Nations. As noted by seasoned observers the campaign started at the top with an alert release by News Agency Reuters written by Lin Noueihed. The article, put out early Sunday has reached the four corners of the Globe and its title has framed the position of the Lebanese people in a “no” to the UN expected resolution. Amazingly enough, Lin Noueihid titles her release “Lebanon rejects draft UN resolution.” But when you read the release you realize that the “representative” of all of Lebanon in the eyes of the Reuters reporter is no one other than pro-Syrian, Hezbollah ally, Nabih Berri, the leader of Shiite Movement Amal.

Noueihid wrote that “Lebanon rejects a draft U.N. Security Council resolution to end 26 days of fighting because it would allow Israeli forces to remain on Lebanese soil, Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri said on Sunday.” Basing her entire report on one of the most powerful supporters of the Syrian occupation and who heads a militia allied to Hezbollah, Noueihid gives Berri the full power of the credibility of Reuters. This title will find itself printed from Yahoo to the last local newsletter in the Fidji islands. Evidently, local editors around the world trust Reuters as they trust the Red Cross, and will conclude that indeed “Lebanon” has rejected a UN resolution, while in reality, it is Tehran-Damascus-Hezbollah axis that rejected it, and unfortunately a Reuters writer framed it otherwise. …

Commenting from Beirut, Human Rights activist and Cedars Revolution Human Rights officer Kamal Batal said the “Reuters framing of Lebanon’s answer to the UN is a hijacking of the opinions of millions of Lebanese. The popular majority in Lebanon wants to end the War now and the disbanding of all militias,” he said. Analyzing Reuters’ release closely George Chaya, Director for the Lebanese Information Office for Latin America in Buenos Aires said “it is not really a coincidence that Lin Nouaihid twisted realities and induced millions of readers around the world into error in perception. From a thorough review of Nouaihid’s previous campaigns through Reuters and other media, you can easily see her framings in the Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, Koran affairs in addition to her postings on radical web sites. Nouaihid has all the freedom to express her ideological positions but Reuters credibility as a fair and professional news agency are now damaged.”

A great piece by Ed Driscoll looks back at the history of mainstream media’s treatment of the battle against radical Islam: Picture Kill: How We Got Here.

Thomas Lifson at The American Thinker says that although Reuters has distanced themselves from photographer (propagandist(s)?) Adnan Hajj, the scandal demands an outside investigation. Agreed; there needs to be an examination of all the photos attributed to Adnan Hajj, and an explanation of the Reuters editorial workflow that allowed such an obvious fraud to hit the newswire.

My own sources tell me that Reuters has released a statement saying they have no plans to investigate any other photographs by Mr. Hajj.

(And by the way, can we all just agree not to call this “Reutersgate?”)

LGF reader humblegunner emailed what seems to be Reuters photographer Adnan Hajj’s first attempt to remove the dust from his Beirut photograph.

UPDATE at 8/6/06 10:10:59 pm:

Reader David Lunde has discovered what may be another attempt by Hajj to embed a subliminal message in his Photoshopped smoke:

And reader THX-42 has found a corrected version of the photo from the Lizardoid Multiverse:

He gets around, from town to town.

Here’s the Qana “rescue worker” in the green helmet, photographed extensively in Qana by Adnan Hajj for Reuters, now in Tyre, doing what he does best: making sure wire service photographers get close-up pictures of dead bodies. (Warning! Gruesome images linked below.)

Photo 1:

Emergency workers rush to remove the lifeless body of a victim of an Israeli missile strike in Tyre, southern Lebanon, Sunday, Aug. 6, 2006. Israel continued its bombardment of Tyre and surrounding areas Sunday and its assault on southern Lebanon. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)

Photo 2:

Emergency workers rush to remove the body of a victim of an Israeli missile strike in Tyre, southern Lebanon, Sunday, Aug. 6, 2006. Israel continued its bombardment of Tyre and surrounding areas Sunday and its assault on southern Lebanon. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)

Make sure you aren’t consuming any liquid substances when you read Reuters’ explanation of why Adnan Hajj concocted an entirely faked photograph of a nonexistent Beirut: Reuters drops freelance Lebanese photographer over image.

LONDON, Aug 6 (Reuters) - 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. …

Reuters withdrew the doctored image on Sunday and replaced it with the unaltered photograph after several news blogs said it had been manipulated using Photoshop software to show more smoke. Reuters has strict standards of accuracy that bar the manipulation of images in ways that mislead the viewer.

“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.

“This represents a serious breach of Reuters’ standards and we shall not be accepting or using pictures taken by him,” Whittle said in a statement issued in London. Hajj worked for Reuters as a non-staff freelance, or contributing photographer, from 1993 until 2003 and again since April 2005.

Notice they don’t accept any of the blame themselves, even though any competent editor should have noticed the fraudulent nature of this photograph long before it reached the newswires.

Demonstrators hold photos of Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah during a demonstration against Israel, in Brussels, Sunday Aug. 6, 2006. More than 5,000 demonstrators came out into the streets of Brussels to demonstrate against the current hostilities between Lebanon and Israel. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)

Dan Riehl has been taking a trip down memory lane, through the Reuters photos of Adnan Hajj—and there are quite a few that may not be digitally manipulated, but are definitely staged for propaganda effect like his infamous Qana photographs.

And Ace of Spades has still more highly questionable work by Mr. Hajj.

As of this writing, the doctored photo by Adnan Hajj is still available on Yahoo News: Mideast Conflict on Yahoo! News Photos.

So many people are trying to get in to Little Green Footballs this morning that our doors are starting to get jammed with HTTP requests. In English, this means it’s going to be a little slow around here for a bit. One web server can only do so much, even on a dedicated box.

In the meantime, I’ve disabled a lot of the bandwidth/resource gobbling features on the main page (title logo and a bunch of other things) to try to open the doors a bit wider.

Reuters admits altering Beirut photo. (Hat tip: LGF readers.)

A Reuters photograph of smoke rising from buildings in Beirut has been withdrawn after coming under attack by American web logs. The blogs accused Reuters of distorting the photograph to include more smoke and damage.

The photograph showed two very heavy plumes of black smoke billowing from buildings in Beirut after an Air Force attack on the Lebanese capital. Reuters has since withdrawn the photograph from its website, along a message admitting that the image was distorted, and an apology to editors.

In the message, Reuters said that “photo editing software was improperly used on this image. A corrected version will immediately follow this advisory. We are sorry for any inconvience.”

Reuters’ head of PR Moira Whittle said in response: “Reuters has suspended a photographer until investigations are completed into changes made to a photograph showing smoke billowing from buildings following an air strike on Beirut. Reuters takes such matters extremely seriously as it is strictly against company editorial policy to alter pictures.”

“As soon as the allegation came to light, the photograph, filed on Saturday 5 August, was removed from the file and a replacement, showing the same scene, was sent. The explanation for the removal was the improper use of photo-editing software,” she added.

Earlier, Charles Johnson, of the Little Green Footballs blog , which has exposed a previous attempt at fraud by a major American news corporation, wrote : “This Reuters photograph shows blatant evidence of manipulation. Notice the repeating patterns in the smoke; this is almost certainly caused by using the Photoshop “clone” tool to add more smoke to the image.”