Sunday, April 02, 2006

Kaloogianism

I was fascinated about the brouhaha in the blogsphere over Representative Kaloogian posting a picture of Baghdad which was actually a picture taken in Turkey. You can go to Josh Marshall's TPM site to see the smoking gun evidence. Kaloogian, of course, claimed that it was evidence that Baghdad was really a peaceful city. Not!

Now Josh has questioned the appearance on Kaloogian's web site of a picture of him posing in front of Mount Ararat.

"Howard in Armenia, Mount Ararat in the background"
Mount Ararat (Turkish Ağrı Dağı; Armenian Արարատ; Kurdish Çîyayê Agirî; Persian آرارات Ararat; Hebrew אררט, Standard Hebrew Ararat, Tiberian Hebrew Ărārā), the tallest peak in modern Turkey, is a snow-capped dormant volcanic cone, located in the far northeast of Turkey, 16 km west of Iran and 32 km south of Armenia. The Book of Genesis identifies this mountain range as the resting place of Noah's Ark after the Great Flood described there. Ararat dominates the skyline of Armenia's capital Yerevan.
Well, here is a picture of mount Ararat which I can tell you is definitely in eastern Turkey since I took it in 1971.


They go on to say that:
...a close analysis of the outcropping's outline proves that Kaloogian is actually posing in the San Pasqual Valley with a snow-capped Mount Palomar in the background. When told of the error, Kaloogian said, "I can't believe it. Somehow photos from my tour of the Wild Animal Park got switched with those taken on the Iraq trip."
Then there was some baloney about it being April Fool! But its still up on Kaloogian's site and it is right in there with the rest of the, presumably, authentic pictures. So, here goes....

From Google Map.

From Google Map.

From Google Map.

Now Kaloogian said his picture was taken from Yerevan from the North. I took my picture from the South (on the way to Iran).

Kaloogian's Ararat (from the North)

The real Ararat (from the South)

I can't decide, but it looks suspicious.

(for a most interesting story about Mount Ararat, let me recommend Julian Barnes "A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters.")

2 comments:

Dr. C said...

There are two peaks in Kaloogian's photo; while there are two peaks in my photo, they are not in the right configuration. Still suspicious, particularly since he got caught faking a picture with Bush

Dr. C said...

Alright, Blogian, you are probably right. That was a good link.