DNC Salute to Vets Featured Backdrop Of Russian Warships 218
An anonymous reader writes "Our politicians, and their henchmen, at their finest! In an apparent error, the Democratic National Convention's primary backdrop for its salute to veterans, by a 4-star admiral, featured a composite warship backdrop, in parade review, as a sign of U.S. strength and force projection; unfortunately, all of the naval ships in the image were Russian warships."
This happened a long time ago (Score:3, Informative)
The rest of the media already picked this apart weeks ago, and has since processed the DNC's effusive apologies for somebody's error in Photoshop.
Seriously?
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That because you don't watch Fox news.
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What media? (Score:3, Insightful)
The real media ever touched this story. Wouldn't want to make any Democrat appear to ever have flaws.
If there's no other reason to vote non-Democrat, it's simply so that the media will pay attention when mistakes are made. Just look at how the media refused to ask questions of Obama when they were still claiming the embassy hit was random instead of a terrorist attack.
Voting for Obama is voting for four more years of media/government coverups. Only now with nothing to lose.
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If there's no other reason to vote non-Democrat, it's simply so that the media will pay attention when mistakes are made. Just look at how the media refused to ask questions of Obama when they were still claiming the embassy hit was random instead of a terrorist attack.
You make a good point. Bush made a lot of mistakes too, but at least they made the news quickly.
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The real media ever touched this story. Wouldn't want to make any Democrat appear to ever have flaws.
Quite the opppsite [investors.com].
Re:What media? (Score:4, Insightful)
voting with the R's will simply be worst.
I'm not any cheerleader for the D's but I can certainly tell the diff between 'not getting enough done' (due to R's blockage, basically) and the true evil that the R's (these days) stand for.
I refuse to have religion enter the stage of poltics any more than it has. R's are all about religion. I find this as distasteful as racism. I won't stand for it.
the 'part of the rich' is not really what america needs right now. we can't afford more wealth transfer to the superpowerful. in fact, we need course reversal. the D's are closer to this than the R's are.
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Do you ever think about what you write?
I'm serious here, I'm not trolling or trying to bait you or anything. But it appears that you are against someone being in government because of their religion and think that punishing the rich will somehow fix what you see wrong with the country. I'm not even going to get into the fact that the Senate is controlled by democrats and they have refused to even take up legislation that came from the house meaning your R obstructionism is little more then a campaign lie yo
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I'm not even going to get into the fact that the Senate is controlled by democrats and they have refused to even take up legislation that came from the house...
At least the house Republicans hasn't been wasting their time voting down Obama's new healthcare law...
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Sigh,
what different does it make? One is the same as the other. It's like starting an argument over who is the worst liar and somehow thinking it means the least is magically honest and worthy now.
If that was all the house republicans have done in the last 4 years, you might have something of a point. However, we both know that isn't true so bring it up is just like saying that because the guy you do not like is a bigger ass hat, the other guy acting like an ass hat you do like is now magically not one too
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the D's are closer to this than the R's are.
Kinda like comparing turds with corn instead of peanuts embedded in it.
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The rest of the media already picked this apart weeks ago, and has since processed the DNC's effusive apologies for somebody's error in Photoshop.
Seriously?
Just another photoshop disaster, blame it on the (most likely fired) person who was surfing around looking for ship pictures and was too lazy or stupid to see what they snagged.
Could be worse .. could take an engagement photo of two men, photoshop it and distribute it campaign literature to deny them their civil rights. Lawsuit is off and running.
Re:This happened a long time ago (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh...what a crock of shit. This error was caused by a staffer who prepared the presentation and didnt know better or someone either playing a practical joke or trying to embarass Obama.
Those ships were Soviet era warships. Someone in the navy, as i was during that era, would know that. Most civilians wouldn't know the difference.
And, why is this being posted weeks AFTER it occurred and has already hit the mainstream?
By the way, who is going to help Romney add roll-down windows to the airliners? You?
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I
Re:This happened a long time ago (Score:5, Informative)
I used to be a staffer who prepared graphics for high level government presentations. I was hired because I knew what I was doing, and I'd have been fired if I made a mistake like this. Let me correct that -- I'd have been fired, my boss would have been fired, and the company for which I worked would have lost a multi-million dollar contract which would in turn place scores of other peoples continued employment in jeopardy.
To write this off as just some staffer's oversight displays a certain ignorance about how important presentations come together, how they're vetted, and the competency of people involved in creating those presentations.
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Oh the stories I could tell... Shit like this slips through all the time. And we don't know how many people were fired--I would imagine many. But to say that this doesn't happen is silly, the democratic convention is something like 48 hours of A/V material. The fact that a couple seconds were in error isn't surprising in the least. I bet there were a few typos as well.
Re:This happened a long time ago (Score:4, Insightful)
Christ this is fucking pitiful. You get a +5 insightful for an impossibly stupid argument that the mistake is indicative of how a political party will govern.
Really?
Slashdot actually runs the article here.... and has a fucking icon to represent Democrats. I know there are a ton of people here frothing at the mouth about Democrats, and Republicans (only to be drowned out by people who hate government period), but how more more ridiculous can this get?
This was on Slashdot? Some staffer who could not identify Russian warships in a presentation he was putting together becomes news worthy? Really?
This was simply some poor fool who did a Google image search and did not get "lucky" . People do stupid shit like this every 60 seconds in Corporate America.
Not News for Nerds. Not Stuff That Matters.
Re:This happened a long time ago (Score:5, Funny)
True story about bad Google image search results:
My best friend started working for a Catholic hospital and during the orientation the person giving the talk put up a series of what she felt wee inspirational slides.
One of them, she said, was God's hands parting a cloud so that the sun could shine through. It was a picture that had been made by Something Awful forum members that were putting goatse imagery into random scenes.
My friend just bout died trying to contain her laughter.
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Yes, Obama was personally in charge of putting together a presentation slideshow backdrop. He also handled all the travel arrangements, prepared all of the food at the convention, and swept up afterward. No wonder he looks so tired all the time!
Hilarious! I'm pretty sure Obama personally shot the pictures, composed and arraigned the music, and changes the light bulbs in the hall, too.
But seriously, Romney wasn't joking about the jetliner windows. He really couldn't figure out why they don't let you open them in flight. This is the guy we want setting our space policy? Our national science policy? And (worst) our national educational policy? A guy who thinks God lives on planet Kolob?
Actual quote:
“When you have a fire in an aircraft, there’s no place to go, exactly, there’s no; and you can’t find any oxygen from outside the aircraft to get in the aircraft, because the windows don’t open. I don’t know why they don’t do that. It’s a real problem. So it’s very dangerous.”
...so for Romney supporters, you have a choice. You
Old news (Score:5, Insightful)
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But if the Republicans did it, the talking heads here on /. would be bringing it up for the next 6 months.
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None of us have our own TV shows, so none of are "talking heads". On the other hand, you can be sure that right-wing talking heads will be reminding of this one until the end of time.
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But if the Republicans did it, the talking heads here on /. would be bringing it up for the next 6 months.
In politics everybody beats dead horses.
Mitt Romney personally brought up the "47% don't pay income taxes" canard two years after it was widely debunked. [nytimes.com]
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Mitt Romney personally brought up the "47% don't pay income taxes" canard two years after it was widely debunked. [nytimes.com]
Um... hate to bust your bubble here, but the article you use for reference, clearly states that 47% of the population of the USA doesn't pay federal income tax. It goes on to say is that there are other taxes that people pay that equate to a smaller number. For instance, when you include payroll taxes, then only 10% of the population pay no taxes.
Now if you had said that Romny was missleading, I might agree with you, but he was factually true. Nice try though.
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Now if you had said that Romny was missleading, I might agree with you, but he was factually true. Nice try though.
It is a "true lie" - it is a literal truth meant to mislead about a larger issue. People who say "true lies" fall into two camps - either they are deliberately intending to mislead, or they are so credulous that they believed the larger implication. Nobody cites a "true lie" because they really care about the true part as the true part is invariably of little interest just by itself.
So yes, it was debunked. Especially when you consider the context of his delivery - stuff like, "I'll never convince them t
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It's never too late to say nasty things about those socialist fascist democrat partiers!
In Soviet Russia... (Score:5, Funny)
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... the Democratic National Convention ... um ... Wait, what?
In Soviet Russia warships back YOU!
Well, this confirms it... (Score:4, Funny)
Democrats are commies
(I kid)
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Of course you kid. Nowadays not even the commies are commies [factsanddetails.com].
Slashdot... news for ... WHO GIVES A SHIT? (Score:3, Insightful)
Story is -1 offtopic
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This really isn't unusual, idle usually is off topic. You can set your preferences to ignore idle if you want.
Asleep At The Wheel (Score:4, Funny)
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This problem would have been avoided if a Slashdotter were in charge of the image selection.
Frikkin' ignorant normies, I tell ya... :)
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This problem would have been avoided if a Slashdotter were in charge of the image selection.
Possibly, but who knows how the convention delegates would have reacted to slides showing Mobile Force Gundam?
Could be worse (Score:2)
Old news (Score:4, Insightful)
And it's merely a symptom anyways. Big woop.
This is what happens when you don't have much ex-military in leadership. If they had, one of the old barnacles would have said 'let's put up a picture of BB 61, that'l scare the hell out of 'em!'. Unmistakeable US naval power, surpassed only by the CVNs. Hey, how about a picture of CVN 77?
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This is what happens when you don't have much ex-military in leadership.
You say that like it's definitely a bad thing...
Re:Old news (Score:5, Interesting)
It's not just a case of no 'ex-military'. Some years ago, I had to correct a USAF Lt (computer dude, not a flyboy) who was preparing a Powerpoint slide deck. About 1/3 of the way through, there was an image of some fighter jets. Navy F-18 fighter jets.
Dude...you need to change that picture.
Why? It's jets. I'm trying to conjure up the concept of speed
When your *Air Force* audience sees that picture of Navy jets, they will discount everything else you have said. Cluelessness does not work. Do your homework. It's not like we have a shortage of jets around here. Go 1/2 mile down the street, and you can see about 75 of our jets. Use some of those.
Bottom line, just grabbing an dramatic pic does not work. Do your homework and grab a relevant dramatic pic. Hell...that is a line item in the "Action Officers Handbook", under 'How not to fuck up'.
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There's another side to your story. Ask yourself, why do we have all these separate military services that were designed for roles that were standard 200 years ago? Armies fought on land, Navies fought on water, and Marines fought on ships. All of these roles have blended into each other, and all the traditional services compete with the Air Force for a role in air power. So why not just get rid of all these different services, and have a unified service, like Israel? Save a ton of money on duplication.
I'm
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So why not just get rid of all these different services, and have a unified service, like Israel?
Ok, let's see. Israel has an air force [wikipedia.org]. It has a navy. It has an army [wikipedia.org]. The thing here is that those divisions, which supposedly aren't in the Israeli military, are there.
Basically, every military groups its forces by role, region, and mission/purpose, the US just as much as the rest. Relative weight of the groupings can vary as indicated in the post above, but I don't see a lot of significance in that.
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Wikipedia calls these the "Israeli Air Force", etc. (Wikipedians live to shove things into familiar categories, however poorly they apply). Israelis call the the whole thing the Israel Defense Forces. There are ground, air, and naval organizations within the IDF, but all report to the same general staff and draw on the same pool of personnel. There are no branch-specific uniforms or ranks.
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I think this must have happened because those ships and planes look more like the ideal image one has of a battleship or fighter planes.
Because modern warfare does not look like that: drones look like they are out of science-fiction movies. Ships don't have those big easily-recognisable guns -- launchers are way more effective, but just look like unexciting trapdoors. They could have gone with a big carrier: that really says US projection power.
But in the end, who cares? it's a fake image designed to elicit
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Your use of the word "battleship" reveals your lack of military background. Only civilians call all warships battleships. To a military person a battleship is a big armored seagoing gun platform that lines up with other battleships (originally "line of battle ships") and dukes it out with enemy battleships. Obsolete ever since naval warfare became about airplanes and missiles rather than guns.
Who cares? Probably the very vets they were trying to honor. Recognizing military hardware (especially the hardware
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I used the word battleship advisedly. This is exactly what I meant, because this is exactly how people imagine naval warfare to happen. I well know that all-big-guns battles have not taken place in the last 60 years.
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Actually, big gun battles did take place in Korea and Vietnam. They were kind of one-sided...
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I stand corrected.
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But Viet Nam was very nearly 60 years ago...
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Hey, I'm not even 60, and I came close (though not very close), to fighting in that thing. Last U.S. troops left about 40 years ago. Most of the nastiest U.S. involvement, including including the deployment of the New Jersey [wikipedia.org] occurred about 5 years earlier.
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The Saddest Day: 30 April 1975.
Then congress ensured we would not intervene in the Killing fields.
It is estimated that at least 1.7 million people perished at the hands of the Khmer Rouge.
The UN did what it always does, held their balls and special meetings.
Eventually ejaculated some words saying it all might be a bad thing.
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Oh please. We killed a million Vietnamese trying to win the Vietnam war, so don't talk to me about the killing fields. And BTW, the Khmer Rouge came to power with U.S. help.
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So your point is that a million 'foreigners' killed is fine by you if it's fine by the UN...
Well, aren't you a sweet boy.
Is this some kind of equal justice thing?
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FTFY
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"graphic designers who pick the coolest looking stock photos"
FAIL
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Yes, because military leadership is demostrated in Photoshop compositions.
Do you think the photo was chosen/doctored by a navy assessor? Most likely, it is the job of some assistant who thought "Well, the thing under looks like the sea, so the big things on it must be ships. And they are grey and have guns, so they probably are from the military (they lack *so much* imagination when it comes to colour!). And since we won the Cold War, only we have ships, don't we".
If you want to worry about military leaders
BUT WHY?!?!?!1111 (Score:3)
Grand Conspiracy, my ass.
Why is this here? (Score:4, Interesting)
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Because... (Score:2)
Because... oh sweet Jesus.
I suppose the elections are "stuff that matters" - but covering every candidate's (team's) many, many gaffes is practically a day task best left to other sites indeed.
Can you say partisan post? (Score:3)
Nuff said!
The ironing was more delicious for the BNP (Score:2)
Typical PR folks (Score:5, Informative)
PR folks usually have a pretty tenuous grasp on the subject matter. Hence, to appeal to those concerned about defence they probably just used Google Image to find "warships", look for some cool looking ones (with lots of sticky-out bits) and slapped 'em in their Powerpoint presentation. Note: US warships look less menacing these days, their radars are the slab sided SPY-1 for the Aegis and the missile launches are build into the deck as the rapid-fire Mk 41 Vertical Launch System and similar. So they look less mean, but they are actually more effective that way.
If only this basic incompetence and lack of fact checking was limited to PR people. The bulk of journalists these days are also woeful in their fact checking. For example, in Syria they keep talking about "MiG fighters bombing the rebels" all the while showing videos of the L-39 Albatross trainer (nb: not a MiG). A small detail, but lets get the facts we know straight, yeah? What really worries me about modern reporters is that they get the facts I know about so wrong, so I figure that they are probably getting a lot of the other stuff wrong too.
The City News Bureau of Chicago was famous for their high standards of making the journalists check their facts. They had classic watchwords, like, "If your mother tells you she loves you, check it out with two independent sources.". It is a shame that proper journalism isn't practiced, is probably not that profitable, and doesn't really interest the general public (who'd rather follow a nude prince's private romp in Vegas, and the Duchess of Windor's poolside habits than any of the other things happening on the planet, both good and ill).
However, these people are not alone in their bad habits. For example, both climate change advocates and climate change deniers seem to cling to dogma rather than continuously checking their assumptions against old and new data. It's always ok to be wrong, you just have to be prepared to change your mind in the face of better information.
ps. I won't even start a rant on how badly informed most politicians appear to be. Clearly the skills required to enter office are not the same as those required to make informed and sensible decisions once you are there.
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Not typical PR folks, poor quality PR folks. Good PR folks would have you believing that the two parties are somehow different. Don't be so down on the general public, they need leadership, this miasma of legal webbing sprouting everywhere produces only lawyer-leaders, who know best how to argue and stack the jury. Politicians are perfectly well informed, but only on those things that ensure they get re-elected.
Power as an end unto itself is an end indeed.
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"Reporting Science: Journalistic Deficit Disorder" http://www.economist.com/node/21563275 [economist.com]
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The real problem (IMHO) is not in identifying bad data, it is weighting it down so that other people don't see it first. There is a danger of censorship here, of course. But sensationalist posts/news spread and a duplicated widely and the factual information is lost in the debate. For example, look up "moon landing hoax" or "9/11 conspiracy" and you'll see a vast spread of bullshit articles overgrowing the best information that is known today. Now it is true that Google does put ok information first with
Shocking! (Score:2)
Does anyone have an empty chair so I can sit down?
Turkey! (Score:3)
All your warships... (Score:2)
are belong to us
BREAKING NEWS (Score:2)
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NEWS JUST IN... Antediluvian Heights man Noah Finklestein fresh off a citation for public drunkenness and indecent exposure was seen this evening construct
Seriously? (Score:2)
obviously they hired someone from the std press (Score:2)
I am surprised someone with a military background didn't catch that unless it was first seen only during the event, ie not during any rehearsals or proofed.
LoB
Perhaps they're hinting at future budget cuts. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Perhaps they're hinting at future budget cuts. (Score:5, Funny)
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Sure they will - but the upside is that they won't have had to pay licensing for that privilege
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LoB
Libs are just showing pics of their heroes ;-) (Score:3)
Perhaps they're hinting at future budget cuts
Nope, the libs just put up photos of the people they actually consider their heroes, the soviets. ;-)
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This reminded me of the "Evil Bert & Osama" photo 'scandal.'
http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/blosamabert.htm [about.com]
http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/images/blosamabert2.htm [about.com]
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I first noticed this on the Drudge Report.
Was it ever reported on CNN, NBC, CBS, ABC, PBS, Huffington Post, or the New York Times? Not that any of those lean to the left and would have spiked the story, or anything...
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LOL the Onion did NOT pick it up so of course none of the reputeable national news services got it either.
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Mainly because whose mistake was it, who can we blame, who can we run through the wringer, who can we get fired and, who can we make claims of political power about. Basically a background staffer who made a really goof ball mistake, who likely will be demoted anyhow and who has zero repercussions on the election. So good fun storey but zero impact on the election. Likely did a good search for images of warship and picked the one they liked the best with complete lack of knowledge, something Americans are
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I thought you must be full of shit, so I tried the search myself. Somehow in "DNC russian ship" ABCnews sorting relevance returns .... Puckish Russian Offers Romney a Plane Whose Windows Open ... and then ... Ohio Slipping Out Of Reach For Romney .
Anyone who wants to deny media supporting a candidate please step up. this is absurd.
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Amazing, stuff that is over 2 weeks old doesn't end up in the first few pages of political news during a presidential election campaign. I'm shocked! Of course if you use the term "warships" in your search it'll be in the top 5 results.
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/09/dnc-apologizes-for-showing-russian-warships-in-tribute-to-us-veterans/ [go.com]
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It's mostly that there's been a lot of bad press for Romney lately as his campaign goes down the shitter, so, well, quick guys, have something to distract from his failings!
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But I do think this gaffe is good to point out in the wake of the Romney airplane windows gaffe, which has gotten so much attention. People on both sides make a big deal about nothing just to have the satisfaction of one-upping the other guys on trivial matters. Now that these stupid "aha look how dumb they are" moments have happened to both sides, I really hope everyone who has joined in on the mockery can step back and take a look at themselves.
Re:Republican Shills (Score:5, Insightful)
...(looks in way-back machine to "election 2008")...
"You're just saying Obama isn't a good candidate because he's black, and you are a racist!"
"No, I think he's a bad candidate because his official policy statements cannot possibly be met, and because his plans to get us out of this recession slump resemble FDR's new deal, which historicallu tripled unemployment!"
"RACIST!" ......(steps out of the wayback mchine)....
"And the only reason you hate Obama is because he's black. If Obama was a white man you'd be praising the Democratic party for the work that's been accomplished under this administration. Instead you'll stand by and let the Republican wreck the country further because you're a racist."
"No, the reason I don't like Obama is because he bailed out the people who flushed the economy down the toilet, continues to support printing money as economic stimulous which drives up inflation, enacted policies which tripled deficit spending, FAILED to close GITMO, EXPANDED govt wiretapping programs, and did exactly what I said he would do concerning unemployment."
Let me guess. "Racist!" Right?
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"You're just saying Obama isn't a good candidate because he's black, and you are a racist!"
No one ever said those words to you, you lying piece of shit. But lots of people (like you! [slashdot.org]) accused black voters of being racist for voting for him, and nevermind the fact that black people have supported the Democratic candidate by 90+% margins in each of the last several elections, ever since the Republicans openly announced that they were pursuing a "Southern Strategy" to take advantage of racial hatred following the passage of the Civil Rights Acts.
So you bitch about imaginary people accusing you of r
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Really now..
Stating it is more likely that some of the aftican american demographic would have voted for obama because he is black is no different than saying some of the white demographic voted for mccain because he was white. It does not imply that all african americans are racists. It implies the reality that some are. Just as there *are* racist white people who voted for mccain on racial terms.
I am not one of either of those types of people. I considered obama's campaign in this light: the democratic pa
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I dunno. That would require contemplating the idea that the republican party actually had sufficient intelligence to enact such a tactic. Given their track record, and inability to keep things secret, such a faux pas as that would have already exploded in their faces like a loaded cigar.
Occam's razor says to pick the least convoluted explanation.
It is more likely that some percentage of the population actually voted for obama _because_ he was black, while totally ignoring his political platform, and ascribe
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If it's a fiction, then why does a google search return hits from reputable news sources concerning racial mudslinging being used by democrats against percieved republicans?
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For instance, these two:
Abcnews.com [go.com]
wash.post [washingtonpost.com]
Granted, both are blogs, but if it were a fiction, how could both blog entries comment on official political rhetoric?
Delusion (Score:3)
And the only reason you hate Obama is because he's black.
You honestly believe that? You really think that everyone who opposes Obama would be just fine with him if he were Ted Kennedy, Chuck Schumer, or Al Franken? Or that, conversely, they'd vote for those guys rather than Condi Rice or Allen West?
It's not as if I agreed with Obama back when he was a white guy named Jimmy Carter.
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Corporations and businesses can be just as amoral and even immoral as the government, but unlike the government, corporations and businesses don't have guns backing them up. You don't like the Microsoft monopoly? You m
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That line of thinking goes both ways. If somebody working at the National Endowment for the Arts, or OSHA or NOAA, is amoral or immoral and has a personal grudge against you, they can screw with you, but they aren't carrying firearms in their line of duty, so there's really nothing they can do to you that you can't try to petition the courts to fix afterwards. If someone in the military, FBI, DEA or BATF is similarly corrupt, venial and abusive, you had better hope your widow lives to seek some kind of just
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If someone in the military, FBI, DEA or BATF is similarly corrupt, venial and abusive, you had better hope your widow lives to seek some kind of justice for your corpse, because that's about the best you'll get. How does keeping the government focused on your tight list of legitimate uses for force protect you from abuses by the agencys of force?
It protects by ballot. Voters only get one vote. We don't get to vote for one president who handles law enforcement, a different president who handles energy policy, a different president for NEA, and still a different president for health care. We only get to choose one. If that president does a crappy job handling law enforcement he can still get re-elected because people like his energy policy,or his position on health care, or his handling of mortgages, or his whether he spends more or less money
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If somebody working at the National Endowment for the Arts, or OSHA or NOAA, is amoral or immoral and has a personal grudge against you, they can screw with you, but they aren't carrying firearms in their line of duty
The entire government is weaponized. Some of them just take longer to get to the weapons than others. If Microsoft wants my money, they have to persuade me peacefully to give it to them (usually by giving me something in return). To use your example, if the NEA wants my money, they send the IRS after me. If I don't pay the IRS, they send the marshals. To use another of your examples, if OSHA wants me to do something because they are an agent of the government and the government has decided how I shoul
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The thing is, socialist slogans proclaiming they're for the people aren't too different from capitalist slogans proclaiming they're for freedom. It all winds up in a race for who can use whom to empower himself. My advice is: be skeptical of everything, particularly of ideals which you hold dear.
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Sadly, AC is speaking the truth.
Sad not that it was an AC pointing this out, sad that those jerks could have used any of millions of photos of US ships or planes but somehow they decided only foreign tools were appropriate for their purposes of impressing their constituents.