February 19, 2004
IMMORAL EQUIVALENCE
Tex catches ABC regular and Fairfax favourite Richard Neville in a shocking blunder:
The increasingly creepy Richard Neville has posted this picture - supposedly of the bombing of the Baghdad suburb of Shua’le - with the caption "9,500 Iraqi civilians killed; John Howard has 'no regrets'".
I remembered seeing this picture before: the child on the left is an Israeli, who was badly injured when some Palestinian scumbag blew up a bus in Jerusalem. One of a long line of similar atrocities Richard has little interest in, except where the pics of Jewish victims of Islamic terror can be used as fake pictures of American terror.
Neville has since replaced that image. No explanation offered. No shame.
UPDATE. Scroll down far enough on Neville’s site and you’ll find this:
APOLOGY & EXPLANATION. When the above journal entry was first posted, it included an image which I mistakenly took to that of a scene from Baghdad. In fact, it depicted an Israeli girl who was injured in the bombing of a bus carrying Jewish families home from prayer at the the Western Wall in August of 2003. More than 20 people were killed, and dozens more injured. I apologise for this stupid mistake and the distress it may have cause. The image was replaced as soon as the error was drawn to my attention.
And apologies from me for not noting this earlier -- although I’ve got no idea exactly when it was posted.
Posted by Tim Blair at February 19, 2004 01:49 AMRichard helps people create tools and techniques for decoding the future and to read its footprints in the sand.
Well isn't he special?
Posted by: Wallace at February 19, 2004 at 02:41 AMWhat an ass-hat!
He's probably going to claim that it was an honest mistake.
In the interest if equal time, think Richard will show a pic of Saddam's mass graves with the caption, "1,000,000 Iraqi civilians killed. The political Left have no regrets."
I doubt it.
Posted by: jay at February 19, 2004 at 04:09 AMWhat a maroon! He's been hanging out at CommieCon2003 too long, I think.
Posted by: mojo at February 19, 2004 at 04:25 AMWill you stop cutting and pasting my lines? Do I have to supply your content now as well as your moral compass?
Posted by: Miranda Divide at February 19, 2004 at 05:25 AMMy question is, why is that little zionist girl screaming at Palestinians?
Posted by: Bill at February 19, 2004 at 05:36 AMActually, he replaced it after I read Tex's post and emailed him expressing my disgust with his use of this photo. Here's the correspondence, his reply first, and my original second:
Dear Garry Stockton, It was a stupid mistake of mine, having found the image on Google under the heading Baghdad Explosions. There was no malice intended and the image was changed the minute the mistake was discovered. I apologise for any distress causedR and appreciate the trouble you took to bring it to my attention, RN
On 16/2/04 3:09 PM, "Swingmando@aol.com" wrote:
I take great exception to your use of photos from a Palestinian suicide bombing, and its young Israeli victim, and presenting it-falsely and misleadingly-as that of an alleged bombing incident in Iraq.
Given your apparent political persuasion, and given that you frequently accuse the elected executives of both your and my governments of lying and deception, precisely how do you justify your own apparent exercise in mendacity and prevarication? Do you somehow claim either innocence, or perhaps ignorance? Frankly, I find no basis upon which to even begin to believe the first explanation; sadly, given the lack of any accuracy or even any attempt at evidencing a familiarity with reality that is apparent in my perusal of other screeds on your site, the second seems far more likely to be the case.
I take no exception with your right to disagree with the powers that be; frankly, I often do, and encourage skepticism toward all who represent the state; however, I suggest that it might be quite beneficial for you, personally, to seek professional help and possible medication in order to come to grips with your obvious delusional state; perhaps that might even give you a leg up on becoming somewhat less of a liar.
One can always hope.
Sincerely, and with very low regard,
Garry Stockton
I'm afraid he should be accorded some credit for having the ability to express shame; however, his ability to use a simple tool such as Google seems a little wanting, and his sincerity should be subject to some doubt; and his ability to understand scorn and disdain certainly seem lacking.
Kudos to Tex, indeed; and thank you, Tim, for pointing me in Tex's direction in the first place-regular reading of the two of you has given me much more confidence in the sanity of those from Oz-certainly Neville provides nothing to support such a supposition.
Posted by: Garry Stockton at February 19, 2004 at 05:49 AMIf Richard was a little more observant, he would have noticed that the attire of the man was not common among the rescue personnel in Baghdad at the time. He has no facial hair (in Iraq, a mustache is the social feature indicating strength and other things) and he's wearing gloves (doubtful iraqi's rescue crew would have had the money for gloves). Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but it looks like the area in the picture is lit up by artifical lights suggesting it was night time. I caught those features at first glance.
If Richard did indeed pull this off of google and mistook it for Iraq, then I don't think I would trust his analysis.
Posted by: Alexander at February 19, 2004 at 06:48 AMI just thought the Israeli rescue worker looked too clean to be an Iraqi . . . .
Posted by: steve at February 19, 2004 at 07:04 AMTypical filty commie tosser if ever I saw one!How dare he show the scummy muzzie (Palestine does not exist, except for in the state of Texas)looking as though they were "the victims". No other race in the world is as filthy or warped as islam.
Posted by: koranistoiletpaper at February 19, 2004 at 07:11 AMI agree Neville is a tool but koranistoiletpaper, please be advised that Islam is a religion not a race.
Posted by: Jake D at February 19, 2004 at 07:26 AMAnd besides, unless you hang out with Niall, claiming that any race is the most filthy and warped in the world doesn't exactly reflect favorably on you, koranblahblahblah.
Posted by: Sortelli at February 19, 2004 at 07:37 AMFYI:
I Googled "Baghdad Explosions" (in images) and found nothing. Googling Baghdad +Explosions yielded 121 results.
The picture is on page 1 of the results.
The picture had the following as a caption on the Google page:
1992454.jpg
375 x 241 pixels - 22k
www.msnbc.com/news/ 956615.asp
Unfortunately, MSNBC no longer has the page available.
I plugged "www.msnbc.com/news/ 956615.asp"
into Google and got a Sept. 1 article from Newsweek that MSNBC probably had up at the time.
The story is:
"What We Should Do Now"
by Fareed Zakaria
It is about Baghdad. If that picture was used with that story than Newsweek seems to have been duped as well.
The credit for the picture (if I read it correctly) is Sharon Perry/Flash90-Reuters.
I assume Sharon Perry took the picture. Am familiar with Reuters. Don't have a clue what Flash90 is.
It seems this picture was correctly identified at some point. Wonder exactly when it came to be used as a picture of a bombing in Baghdad?
I was only able to obtain the text of the Newsweek article. No pictures. If this picture was used by Newsweek, I'd like to know how they originally captioned it.
I'm curious as to when this error started. It's distressing to think a publication like Newsweek would use this picture as a picture of a Baghdad bombing. Wonder if anyone pointed it out to them?
If anyone can look at the original article Google says this is from, would be interesting to see how it was captioned in the article.
>>What a maroon! He's been hanging out at CommieCon2003 too long, I think.
Hey, Mojo, leave Queensland out of this!
Why is Commie Richie using a capitalist tool like Google anyways? Doesn't he know it's just a product of the dialectical hegemonic discourse of the ruling classes over the cybertronically impaired working classes? Did he expect that a notorious machination of the military-industrial-prison-media complex would produce ACCURATE results?
Commie Richie needs to be sent to re-education camp as soon as possible.
Posted by: Susan at February 19, 2004 at 08:42 AMI can't believe I'm defending Richard Neville, but I do think that Chris Josephson's research exonerates him to at least a certain degree, moreso than Tex gives him credit. Of course, if he was more informed or a more careful observer, he wouldn't have made the mistake, but seeing as how it was attached to an article about Baghdad, it's quite a bit more understandable.
Wow. I still can't believe I'm defending him. But integrity is integrity, and I gotta preserve mine by calling it like I see it. I think one thing he should be zinged for is not offering any sort of note or correction on his blog. I'm always uncomfortable with the Orwellian style of blog editing.
Posted by: Jeff B. at February 19, 2004 at 09:03 AMReading further, Richard tries to use Google again. A search for "World Social Forum" returns 183,000 results (not "about 5 and a half million" as he claims). I imagine that he forgot to use the quotes - a search on the words without quotes returns 5,040,000 (closer to 5 million than 5 1/2 ...).
Posted by: Brian at February 19, 2004 at 11:18 AM"The increasingly creepy Richard Neville ..."
Judging by the photos he is starting to look strange, isn't he. Something about the eyes - kind of starey and weird. Has he been shooting up with Pantene, I wonder.
Posted by: Willmott Fribbish at February 19, 2004 at 12:20 PMLennon,Moonbat, Pilger, Neville, Wilkie, ABC,heck that little wonder world is filling up.
Posted by: d at February 19, 2004 at 12:29 PMAkerman calls you 'respected' and now you're apologising about something.
Take the weekend off.
Posted by: ilibcc at February 19, 2004 at 02:51 PMA few years ago the esteemed NY Times ran a picture of an angry Israeli police officer standing over a bloody Palestinian. I do not recall the caption exactly, but it ran something like, "Palestinian man hurt by Israeli police action."
A few weeks later a letter to the editor was published from the father of the man writing from Brooklyn. That's right the bloody man, identified as a Palestinian, was an American of Jewish descent studying in Israel.
The charged-up policeman had just driven off a crowd of Palestinians that had captured the wayward American and were beating him mercilessly. I suspect, as with nearly all letters that put leftist publishers/editors to shame that the letter was sent off the day the 'mistake' appeared, but didn't appear until weeks later after 99.99% of readers had disposed of the edition containing the 'error.'
Posted by: Jericho at February 19, 2004 at 03:59 PMThat, Jericho, takes the breath away. The next time, for example, a small plane crash with only white anglo-saxons and/or jews aboard crashes in U.S.,or O.z, the headlines will read: IDF shoot down palestininan diplomats. Seems plausible.
Posted by: d at February 19, 2004 at 04:49 PMNeville is quite right when he says its on a google image site as
Baghdad explosions. (bottom row)
Could well be an innocent error.
Neville is quite right when he says its on a google image site as
Baghdad explosions. (bottom row)
Could well be an innocent error.
Well, it is good he apologises, imagine the distress he has caused to supporters of the men of semtex by inadvertently drawing his readers' attention to the atrocities they commit.
Posted by: Dave F at February 20, 2004 at 08:50 PMBloghead has a lot to apologise for. This is a good start.
Posted by: Miranda Divide at February 21, 2004 at 11:40 AM