ZOOM ZOOM ZOOM UPDATE

Props to Wizbang for being a voice of sanity on the right, regarding the AP Haifa Street photo.

Happy Birthday, Russell Crowe and Bill Bellamy! (41 and 40, respectively)

Thanks, CNN, I really needed to know!

POWERLINE/MALKIN/SIMON/HEWITT-APPROVED IRAQ WAR PHOTOS

...can be found here, here, and here.

Somehow they weren't considered for any awards.

MORE POWER LINE HILARITY

The choice was laid at Howie Kurtz's feet, regarding the GOP Schiavo memo.

Believe fellow WaPo journalist Mike Allen. Or believe one of the Power Line guys.

Guess which way he went, and guess the result. More info here.

UPDATE: Jesse on the, uh, dead fucking wrong premature conclusions of the righties on the Schiavo memo.

UPDATE II: Media Matters is on the case.

ZOOM ZOOM ZOOM

Ryan of the Dead Parrot Society is all over the 101st Fighting Keyboarders and their hissyfit over the Associated Press winning the Pulitzer for their war photogarphy in Iraq. The post includes an uncropped version of the Haifa Street photo that sheds more light on where the photographer was (i.e. FURTHER AWAY, YOU NITWITS!), and that maybe -- just maybe -- professional photographers in a war zone might have telephoto lenses on their cameras.

Ryan's first paragraph is an important one to remember whenever you hear the wingnuts criticizing this sort of war coverage:

If we don't run graphic images, it's because we're afraid they'd show people the barbaric nature of the terrorists we face, thereby causing the public to support the war [See: beheading videos]. If we do run graphic images, it's because we want to spread the terrorists' message, and we hope they'll sicken people, thereby causing them to be against the war [See: Fallujah, Haifa Street]

Heh. Indeed.

And lest I just point and not provide anything new, here's a Power Line flashback!

The beheading of Nick Berg should have the sobering effect of reintroducing us to the vile face of the enemy who is at war with us.

And now, after a little more investigation, TFM presents Power Line flashback #2! In this case, just as with this week, The Big Trunk is fooled by a case of photo-cropping. Go to this post, and then to this one.

Dead Parrot link via Atrios. Oh, and Digby has a more blunt take on the matter as well. For even more, there's Clark Stoosbury.

UPDATE: Athenae too.

Freedom isn't free, you miserable chickenshits. You cheer the war, you love the war, you love the troops, you support the troops. But to recognize their sacrifices would diminish your pleasure so you send the images away. You jackholes are the ones who are always bitching that the left "blames America first." You're the first to blame "the media," to blame "bias" when things don't look the way you saw them on the outside of the box. Why do you now blame the photographers who bring you images of the dead and wounded, of protest, conflict? Why don't you blame the terrorists? Why don't you go wave a little flag in the face all this carnage because certainly it's exactly the item you put your finger next to on the menu. THIS IS WHAT YOU WANTED. LOOK AT IT. Print out every single one of those photos and paper mama's basement with them, chickenhawks. Here's your war, in all its glory. Max your credit card out, because freedom isn't free.

Ouch!

AWESOME

Google Maps has a new feature that uses satellite photographs in the place of good ol' maps. Man, I'm gonna waste soooooo much time on this! (the link is in the upper-right hand corner of the page)

Via Drum.

THAT ANTI-AMERICAN BASTARD

I was very distressed to hear that Russ Feingold said the following on the floor of the Senate:

I don't know if there is a cause-and-effect connection but we have seen some recent episodes of radical Islamic terrorism in this country. Certainly nothing new, but we seem to have run through a spate of terrorism recently that's been on the news and I wonder whether there may be some connection between the perception in some quarters on some occasions where American leaders have made foreign policy decisions for which foreign Muslims have no recourse, and it builds up and builds up and builds up to the point where some people engage in - engage in violent acts.

This is blatantly anti-American, and it is gruesomely apologetic to acts of terrorism inflicted upon the United States.

Or at least it would have been, if Feingold had actually said it.

Turns out that on the Senate Floor today, somebody did say something interesting, but it wasn't ol' Russ. It was GOP Senator John Cornyn rationalizing the murder of American judges:

I don't know if there is a cause-and-effect connection but we have seen some recent episodes of courthouse violence in this country. Certainly nothing new, but we seem to have run through a spate of courthouse violence recently that's been on the news and I wonder whether there may be some connection between the perception in some quarters on some occasions where judges are making political decisions yet are unaccountable to the public, that it builds up and builds up and builds up to the point where some people engage in - engage in violence.

Not cool, Zeus, not cool. Rationalizing the murder of members of your own damn government, not to mention American citizens. Note the weaselly language "some quaters", "some occasions", "some people". What a jerk.

UPDATE: Brad Plumer has some suggestions for Cornyn.