The Tape Is Fake But The Threat Is Real? Yeah, Sure!

George Maschke, blogging at Booman Tribune, drives another spike through the bin Laden Video Myth, noting that the picture in this "al Qaeda" video freezes at 1:58 and remains frozen until 12:30, when the motion resumes for another minute and a half, after which the picture remains frozen until the end.

In other words, there is only three and a half minutes of video here; the remaining 19 minutes consists of an audio track and a still photograph.

So what? Maschke explains why this is significant:

All references to current events, such as the 62nd anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombing of Japan, and Sarkozy and Brown being the leaders of France and the UK, respectively, occur when the video is frozen! The words spoken when the video is in motion contain no references to contemporary events and could have been (and likely were) made before the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

Here's the video: see for yourself.

Thanks to Larisa Alexandrovna for mentioning this amazing coincidence on her blog.

Despite the video's questionable provenance, despite the apparent fakery, despite the fact that bin Laden's speech appears to have been written by someone whose primary interest lies in discrediting the administration's political opposition, and despite the fact that the man in the video bears only a passing physical resemblance to bin Laden, American "intelligence" officials -- and self-appointed experts -- insist the video is legitimate.

This tells you all you need to know about the "experts".