Charles Johnson: Timestamped

Our little green friend has been spreading conspiracy theories once again, this time amounting to the loony lizard fantasy that the Israeli attack on Qana in which more than 50 people - including 30 children _ died was staged by Muslim propagandists (http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=21860).

What evidence does he have for this? A Wang typwriter? No, this time it's The Timestamp That Cannot Lie(tm). Well, not that Charlie-boy actually has the timestamps for all the pictures taken at Qana himself, you see...BUT he does know someone who does, and because it's an anti-Muslim conspiracy theory, he trusts the swivel-eyed loons at EU Referendum to be telling the truth.

Someone should tell Charles that the theory put forward by EUR doesn't stand up to even the slightest scrutiny: the pictures, as we know from numerous reports, were all taken during the morning, as rescue workers sifted through the rubble after the building had collapsed during the night. Not during the early afternoon, as EUR claims.

The fact that the image files have later, and quite different timestamps, simply means that (a) not all photographers have their camera clocks synchronized. Considering many will have flown in from their usual timezone to cover Lebanon, this doesn't seem implausible. It's also likely that (b) photographers will have uploaded their files to servers and laptops at different times, and those images may well then have been recropped and resaved, again giving the file a different 'timestamp'.

As for the other 'coincidences', perhaps Mr Lizard King should use his own eyes, rather than rely on other people's, and he might see that they aren't so coincidental after all. Just a suggestion...