First Blood

This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. It is just the end of the beginning. And other pomposities.

riverSbend says "Bush is a liar. Stop the war".

Note that's not the genuine Iraqi Riversbend blogger I'm talking about. But the fake proWar riverSbend site. This is what the fake proWar riverSbend blogger is announcing on his site this morning.

Why is the riverSbend faker sending out this message apparently contradicting the gist of what he's been saying so far? Who knows why his attitude seems to taken a 180 degree turn recently? Maybe he's found himself an Iraqi girlfriend!*

(*Sorry that's an in joke for now.)

No. The real reason that the fake proWar riverSbend blog has a graphic which says "Bush is a liar. Stop the war now" has nothing to do with riverSbend's change of heart. It has a little to do with me, but a lot more to do with Mark Vallen of art-for-a-change.

Mark as I predicted yesterday was not altogether happy with the use to which the faker riverSbend was putting his artwork. But rather than get angry about it, or threaten legal action, he did something which I personally thought was both clever, and more than a little amusing.

Since the riverSbend faker was, without any permission, perverting Mark's artwork by linking to his site and showing this photo of an anti-protestor on a deceitful pro-War propaganda site, Mark changed his graphic. The Iraq5a.jpg on the art-for-a-change site, no longer shows this protestor. Instead it shows a graphic saying "Bush is a liar. Stop the war now".

I'm going to reemphasise, no one hacked the riverSbend site, no one did anything morally questionable (well apart from riverSbend obviously). Mark Vallen altered his own site and since riverSbend was illegally linking to it, his site was changed by proxy.

As a final note, I'd also like to say that Bending Truth is not an anti-Bush site. The sentiments "Bush is a liar. Stop the war now" are Mark Vallen's. That is not to insult the intelligence of my readers and pretend I utterly disagree with those sentiments. But this site is not anti-Bush, it is pro-Truth. Its mission is to allow the voice of an Iraqi citizen to hit the web unalloyed by underhand, deceitful tactics as used by riverSbend.

That's first blood to the pro-Truth, anti-riverSbend contingent. Or more precisely to Mark Vallen. And if anyone wanted to check out his work at his site at http://www.art-for-a-change.com, then what can I say - he's obviously a fine artist with a decent to great sense of humour.