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Among a few interesting items uncovered in trying to examine the facts behind the shooting of Florida teenager Trayvon Martin without drawing any conclusions, was that a widely viewed photograph of Martin appears to have been altered, somewhat.

Here is what appears to be the original via the Miami Herald.


The one below has been observed in the media and at forums such as Democracy Now. Clearly, it has been lightened, or softened, somehow. Along with other possible alterations, he looks far more, perhaps innocent is the right word, in the altered image. For the record, that has nothing to do with the guilt, or innocence, of anyone involved, but more to do with the reporting of the story, which is why I’m bringing it up.

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But in fact, this BOMBSHELL is yet another foot shot for the intellectually challenged Dan Riehl, because if you actually follow his own link to the article at the Miami Herald ( http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/03/22/2708960/trayvon-martin-a-typical
-teen.html), and read the caption underneath the photo he claims is “the original,” you discover that it’s a photograph of a low resolution copy of the picture on a sign at a protest — not “the original” at all: "A photo of Trayvon Martin wearing a hoodie was used on banners and signs carried by protesters in New York City on March 21, 2012. Mario Tama / Getty Images" http://angryblacklady.com/2012/03/24/trayvonmartin-breitbrat-dan-riehl
s-racism-is-hanging-out-all-over-the-place/ to those tweets that are running around all over the place which supposedly come from Martin's Twitter account, even the Blaze admits:

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It should be noted that neither Twitter nor the Martin family has confirmed that these tweets belong to Trayvon Martin. It is also possible that the Tweets have been photoshopped or otherwise tampered with, seeing as there are some obvious stylistic differences that exist, even among some of the Tweets on the Caller’s site (for instance, some are spelled more accurately than others). http://www.theblaze.com/stories/is-this-trayvon-martins-twitter-accoun
t/ of what is circulating regarding the photo of the OTHER Trayvon Martin:

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The racist smear campaign against Trayvon Martin, the unarmed black teen shot to death last month in Florida, has reached a new level of ghoulishness. A white supremacist hacker says he's broken into Martin's email and social networking accounts, and leaked his private Facebook messages. We've been able to confirm that at least one email account that belonged to Martin was cracked.

The hacker, who goes by the name Klanklannon, posted what he said were Martin's private Facebook messages to the politics section (NSFW) of the anarchic message board 4chan—called "/pol/"—Tuesday afternoon at around noon. The messages were posted on four slides, strategically arranged to back up the insane racist argument that Trayvon was a Scary Black Teenager and so somehow deserved to be killed by neighborhood watch captain George Zimmerman that night.

A slide titled "Trayvon Martin Used Marijuana Habitually," (since deleted)features an exchange between Trayvon and a friend about getting high. Another slide, "Trayvon Martin was a Drug Dealer" features Facebook messages and photos that supposedly prove Martin dealt drugs, including a picture of Martin posing "aggressively with a large amount of cash in his hand."



It's impossible to verify the hacked messages' authenticity—like other anti-Trayvon Martin propaganda, they're probably a mix of real and fake content— but they are now being passed around as gospel among the racist underbelly of the internet, including message boards like the neo-Nazi hive Stormfront, which Klanklannon apparently frequents.

In addition to the Facebook messages, Klanklannon posted a list of usernames and passwords for Martin's social media and email accounts as proof of his exploits. All of the passwords had been changed to racist slurs. (Gmail: "niggerniggernigger" Twitter: "coontrayvonnigger")

"I realize that some of this information might be to (sic) extreme to believe," Klanklannon writes in a copy of the original 4chan thread we've obtained. "That's why I offer you evidence. Here are my sources."

The list included login details for Martin's Gmail, Yahoo, MySpace, and Twitter accounts. A source who came across the 4chan post when it was live was able to use the information to log onto Martin's Gmail account Tuesday night. Our source panicked upon seeing that trolls had started using the account to send emails under Martin's name, and deleted the account. (An email sent to Martin's Gmail address bounced back today; Martin's Twitter account has also been deactivated. His MySpace page is still up, showing that the last login was Tuesday.)

On 4chan, Klanklannon made clear their intention to smear Trayvon. Klanklannon introduces the post with, "Today /pol/, tomorrow CNN." One 4chan user told us Klanklannon had been attempting to break into Martin's accounts for days, posting periodic updates to the board.

"Where did all the liberals go?," Klanklannon taunted after posting his slides. "Did they run off because they can't handle the facts?"

But Klanklannon included none of Martin's emails in his leak, because the picture they paint is of a normal high school junior preparing for college. A screenshot of Trayvon's Gmail inbox our source provided us is heartbreaking. Martin apparently used his Gmail account for his college search, and it's filled with emails about upcoming SAT tests and scholarship applications. ("Trayvon, now is the best time to take the SATs!") One email included the results of a career aptitude test, our source said. It "talked about his interest in aeronautics and stuff."

Klanklannon has proven nothing more than the depths to which the racist amateur detectives who have spent days obsessing over every aspect of Trayvon Martin's short life will sink in their horrible quest to vet a dead teenager. http://gawker.com/5897485/white-supremacist-hacks-trayvon-martins-emai
l-account-leaks-messages-online racist sub-sector of America's right wing is so upset by the national outrage caused by a self-appointed "neighborhood watch captain's" shooting of an unarmed teenager, they have resorted to circulating false photos of the 17-year old. Each successive report promulgated by the right wing seems to make the dead youngster a little taller, a little tougher, and a lot more dangerous.

The fact of the matter is, there is more than one teenager in America named Trayvon Martin. The racists have lifted pictures from one of the other Trayvon Martin Facebook pages to show a tough-looking smart-assed kid flipping the bird who likely deserved to be killed by the poor, 250-lb adult who felt his life was in danger.

Initial reports from the police had Trayvon listed as 6'0". Since then, according to the racists, Trayvon has grown three inches in death. And now he's a lumbering, towering, tough-guy football player who probably would have stuffed that bag of Skittles down poor George Zimmerman's throat, washed it down with the ice tea he was carrying as a second weapon, and then pulled the bag, Skittles and all out of the poor Hispanic man's anus.

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On one obviously anti-Martin website are more pictures of the "other" Trayvon Martin:

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The media has portrayed Martin as some 14 year old kid. Actually, Martin was a 17 year-old, 6 foot 3 inch high school senior and football player. The outdated pictures of Martin the media are throwing around are completely deceiving.




{Further down, under the heading "Modern Miracle: Boy Goes Through Puberty After Death"--I have no idea what that means--are two supposed photos of Trayvon}

http://trayvon.co.cc/

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Same guy? You decide.

What a mess! And how clearly it shows that people can be fooled and manipulated, with the effects lasting long after the fraud is discovered. The internet is both a blessing and a curse.

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I think this can be solved by both Niki and Wulf giving an extensive report on their methods of authenticating all the photos, which ones are real and which ones aren't

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Why, that *almost* sounds as if you think Wulfie is incapable of learning!

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About how debunking something actually reinforces one's belief in that thing

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Among the voluminous evidence released Thursday in the shooting death of 17-year-old Florida high school student Trayvon Martin is a toxicology report showing that the teen had trace levels of THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, in his blood and urine.

The evidence includes abundant new information: conflicting witness statements, an autopsy report showing that Martin, who was black, died from a single gunshot wound to the chest and medical records documenting that Hispanic neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman, who will stand trial for second-degree murder, had a broken nose the day after Martin’s death. Yet the media is focusing on the marijuana findings.

That’s a mistake that only serves to muddy an already contentious case. The levels of THC detected don’t reflect Martin’s character or even his state of mind the night he was shot. For one, they are so low as to almost certainly not be connected to recent intoxication: 1.5 nanograms of THC were found as well as 7.3 nanograms of THC-COOH, a metabolite of THC that can stay in the system for weeks after cannabis has been smoked. Immediately after inhaling, THC levels typically rise to 100 to 200 nanograms per milliter of blood, although there can be a great deal of variation.

“THC in blood or urine tells us nothing about the level of intoxication,” says Carl Hart, associate professor of psychology at Columbia University and author of the leading college textbook on drug use and behavior. “That would be like someone going to have a beer some evening, and when he goes to work the next day, you can find alcohol metabolites in his bodily fluids. That says nothing about his functioning.” (Full disclosure: Hart and I are working on a book project together).

Moreover, even if Martin had been stoned out of his mind, it wouldn’t predispose him to violence. “I have given hundreds of doses of marijuana to people in the lab, and no one has gotten violent ever and everyone has been able to respond to the situation in an appropriate manner, when given low or large doses and single or repeated doses,” Hart says. http://healthland.time.com/2012/05/18/traces-of-marijuana-found-in-tra
yvon-martins-body-does-it-matter-2/ only thing mention of THC is good for is public opinion; it can't be used at tial anyway from what I've heard.

A fight of some sort obviously did take place. I agree about the leaking of info, Oonj; again I feel the authorities are the ones at fault from beginning to now. This dribbling out of info isn't responsible, and some of it can't even be used at trial, so there's no other reason to leak it except to make Zimmerman look good and make the police "right" in their original actions. From what I heard, the fact of THC can't be used at trial, but damn, the media is sure all over it, as is the blogosphere! The evidence of a fight is much more important, obviously, and the THC actually means nothing. The evidence of physical harm is much more important, but, as I said before, we can never know how it came about, and none of this answers the questions I have about Zimmerman's statements and the other inconsistencies. So we'll have to see what emerges at trial; if the justice system works the way it's supposed to; and what the result will be from the public.

By the way, just as an aside, despite what our rabid righties here think,

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Black youth are arrested for drug crimes at a rate ten times higher than that of whites. But new research shows that young African Americans are actually less likely to use drugs and less likely to develop substance use disorders, compared to whites, Native Americans, Hispanics and people of mixed race.

“Our goal is to alert people to the burden of drug problems and also to how some of our concern about who has these problems may not be true,” says Dr. Dan Blazer, senior author of the study , which was published Monday in the Archives of General Psychiatry, and a professor of psychiatry at Duke University. “There’s a perception among many individuals that African Americans as a group — regardless of socioeconomic status — tend to abuse or use drugs at higher rate and this [does not support] that." http://healthland.time.com/2011/11/07/study-whites-more-likely-to-abus
e-drugs-than-blacks/ course, Blacks are ARRESTED for drug use at a much higher rate. African Americans comprise 14% of regular drug users, but are 37% of those arrested for drug offenses. African Americans serve almost as much time in federal prison for a drug offense as whites do for a violent offense.

Just sayin'. All this fuss about the THC is just media hype; there are far more important things in all the stuff "leaked" which deserve attention.