Man, we are never going to get Gulf War III: Bomb, Bomb Iran off the ground if those assholes in the graphic design department don’t get their acts together. Sheesh!

As the above illustration shows, the second missile from the right appears to be the sum of two other missiles in the image. The contours of the billowing smoke match perfectly near the ground, as well in the immediate wake of the missile. Only a small black dot in the reddish area of exhaust seems to differ from the missile to its left, though there are also some slight variations in the color of the smoke and the sky.

Oh, really? But surely major news outfits vet their images to prevent these kinds of embarrassments, right? They wouldn’t just eagerly present any old…wait, what:

In a sentiment no doubt echoed by news organizations everywhere, an MSNBC editor acknowledged that the four-missile picture was initially welcomed with open arms. “As the media editor working the msnbc.com home page yesterday, I was frustrated with the quality of a fuzzy video image we published of the Iranian missile launch,” said Rich Shulman, the network’s associate multimedia editor. “So I was thrilled when the top image crossed the news wires.”

Maybe you’re thinking, man, that Bush guy will stop at nothing! Sure, he would do something like this, but what pisses me off is that he doesn’t have to.  The news media is more than happy to ratchet up tension with Iran because, frankly, Iraq just isn’t selling ads any more.

At times like this I like to remind everybody about a little thing called the Spanish-American War.  When they tried to tell Bill Hearst he couldn’t have his war because shit in Cuba just wasn’t that bad, he famously replied, “You just get me the pictures, I’ll furnish the war.”  Now there was a true patriot. And a rich one, to boot.