Free Republic

The Passion of the Toys In Platoon, Oliver Stone said the first casualty of war is innocence. He was wrong. As the photos here show, the first casualties of war are...the symbols of innocence. And photographers from Reuters and the AP just happened upon many of these perfectly placed symbols of war's horrors. Ben Curtis, AP Sharif Karim, Reuters Sharif Karim, Reuters Sharif Karim, Reuters Issam Kobeisi, Reuters Mohamed Azakir, Reuters This last one is the only one that seems...untouched. Feel the pathos. Mourn for these oh-so-photogenic and suspiciously dust-free trinkets of childhood. Just don't ask any questions about their...

Reuters reported that 40 people were killed in a Lebanese village by Israeli air strikes. Less than three hours later, the Associated Press reported that the number of casualties had been dropped to one.

Michelle recaps the Hajj/Reuters affair along with great examples of the doctored and staged photos. A must see. Click here to watch the videoA must watch

The interesting thing about the scandal surrounding the use of fake photoshopped pictures from the fighting in Lebanon is that it is BIG NEWS everywhere EXCEPT in the Lamestream Media where there is barely a mention of it. On the Web, TECHNORATI shows "Reuters" as the #1 search item, "Lebanon" as #2, and Reuters fake photo photographer, "Adnan Hajj" at #3. So why the disconnect? One might as well ask why newspaper circulation is plummeting or why Network News viewership is steadily declining. In fact, this fake photo story probably wouldn't have even become big news had it not...

LONDON, Aug 7 (Reuters) - Reuters withdrew all 920 photographs by a freelance Lebanese photographer from its database on Monday after an urgent review of his work showed he had altered two images from the conflict between Israel and the armed group Hizbollah. Global Picture Editor Tom Szlukovenyi called the measure precautionary but said the fact that two of the images by photographer Adnan Hajj had been manipulated undermined trust in his entire body of work. "There is no graver breach of Reuters standards for our photographers than the deliberate manipulation of an image," Szlukovenyi said in a statement. "Reuters...

Fox News just reported that Reuters admits second photo was doctored. Here's the image:

Another photo by Reuters photographer Adnan Hajj has been shown to be doctored. The photo, which proports to be of an Israeli F-16 firing missiles on Lebanon has been doctored to make the photo seem more sensational. Here is the original Reuters photo along with its caption.

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. The photograph by Adnan Hajj, which was published on news Web sites on Saturday, showed thick black smoke rising above buildings in the Lebanese capital after an Israeli air raid in the war with the Shi'ite Islamic group Hizbollah, now in its fourth week. Reuters withdrew the doctored image on Sunday and replaced it with the unaltered...

Drinkers Still Pay Flood Relief Tax Enacted In 1936 POSTED: 1:49 am EDT July 12, 2005 UPDATED: 10:43 am EDT July 12, 2005 LANCASTER, Pa. -- A natural disaster that happened 70 years ago is still taxing Pennsylvania alcohol sales. That tax is not going anywhere anytime soon. In March 1936, three days of rain and runoff from melting snow led to the second of three great floods that has hit Johnstown, Pa. Two dozen people died and the state immediately set out to help the city recover. That recovery plan involved a 10 percent temporary tax that was placed...

EAGLE, Colo. - A courtroom apology from the judge in the Kobe Bryant rape case for mistakes that included revealing the accuser's name was described by the woman's lawyer as "self-serving" and "insulting." At a hearing Friday, District Judge Terry Ruckriegle told the woman's parents that he is treating the gaffes — among them putting her name on the Internet twice — as a learning experience. The accuser's lawyer, John Clune, wasn't at the hearing but later said the judge's "self-serving generic apology was insulting to the victim and her parents." Clune said Ruckriegle should have personally contacted his client...

NEW YORK — Sophisticated cyber-scammers are ripping off hundreds of online auction buyers and sellers through bogus escrow services in the latest variation of Internet fraud. Buyers of expensive cameras, computers and cars, including one man who paid $50,000 for what he thought was a new BMW sport-utility vehicle, have been taken in the auction hustle, which emerged on the Internet last fall. Similarly, sellers of expensive jewelry and other items, including a man who sold a used Rolex Presidential watch for $14,000, also have been victimized. The polish on the scam includes elaborate Web sites with names like Premier-escrow.com,...

When ART Becomes InhumanKarl ZinsmeisterReprinted from the ART Renewal Center Origionally published in TAEmag. Many of today’s avant-garde artists, I’ve decided, have modeled themselves on that well-known societal fixture, the snot-nosed teenager. Since the 1960s, the hippest modern art has aspired to exactly what every garden-variety 13-year-old brat aims for: maximum opportunities to shock, flout, insult, and otherwise chuck rocks at polite society. And so “artists” spread American flags on the floor and invited gallery and museum patrons to walk on them. “Sculptors” stacked bricks in low heaps and convinced collectors to pay bags of money for something they...