Hanging around here might be making me too skeptical.
The BBC, Yahoo News/Reuters and Snopes are all saying that these images are for real, but despite all this reputable backup, I still can’t believe it; has anyone seen the video footage? (I’m assuming that video would be much harder to fake than stills).
Is this for real?
I heard a report yesterday on NPR that said this was real.
Some years ago some guy in the Phillipines created a ‘Bert is Evil’ website that had Bert in all sorts of unsavory situations. It was a really clever website and it won a Webby (Webbie?) award.
The new stuff with Bert was not created by the same guy however and he has apologized publically for having started the whole thing.
That said I haven’t seen it either.
What BBC, Yahoo and Snopes are saying is that there is a poster with OBL and Bert. Not that Bert posed in some kind of photo-op. Somebody found the pic on the web, and wanted to use it as a way of scaring American children (“Bert? With the Bad Guy? waaaahhhhhh!!!” I could see that happening all over the country. Kinda funny, in a sick way)
As you can see here, there is a very funny comic website about him. (BTW: You don’t also believe the pic on the first page of the site is real, do you?)
Blessedwolf, your link gave me a series of weird clickthroughs before it finally settled on this URL, which says it’s an “official mirror site”.
http://plaza.powersurfr.com/bert/
The BBC article says that the official Bert is Evil website has been taken down.
blessedwolf: No, I’m not under any illusions that Bert really posed with ObL for a photo. (I’m an occasional visito to http://www.fark.com, so I know what Photoshop can do.
It’s the presence of Bert on the placard in Bangladesh that I’m talking about, I still can’t convince myself that isn’t photoshopped.
The presence of Bert on the placard in Bangladesh is either real or the biggest media hoax in years.
We already discussed this down in MPSIMS (do a search :)). Snopes says it’s real:
http://www.snopes2.com/rumors/bert.htm
[sub]Of course, Snopes appears to be down right now[/sub]
poor Bert.
How did he get mixed up in all this. I love Bert. He loves pigeons like I do
Bert is Evil!
If Bert is Evil, is Ernie Good?
D*mn! I wasted post #300 on a discussion of Bert bin Laden. He really is evil!
I’ll close this thread since it has been discussed so recently. I direct any remaining comments to the earlier thread, http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=92524
bibliophage
moderator GQ