From the Intern Sweatshop: Missle Fail.

Say cheese, missile! Recently, Iran claimed to have test fired seven missiles as part of its “Operation: Big Scary Weapons” program, releasing a photo of four of the missiles blasting off into the deep blue Persian sky.

But wait! Apparently that’s one missile too many. Agence France-Presse got their paws on the picture from Sepah News, a website belonging to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, showing four missiles, while the Associated Press had one with only three. Something’s not kosher here, Iran.

The photos had been digitally altered. Two of the missiles appear to have identical smoke trails. It seems Iran has been developing their Photoshop skills alongside beefing up their weapons.

Immediately, as it tends to do on the "Internets," more experienced photoshoppers flooded cyberspace with their own remixes of the photo, featuring everything from various Star Wars characters, looney tunes, the infamous LOLcats, and my personal favorite, Slim Pickens riding the bomb from Dr. Strangelove.

Iran has not yet made any official word on the photo. The photo on Sepah was inexplicably replaced with the three missile version. There are noticeable differences. That truck, for example. How did that turn into a missile? Maybe it’s a Transformer.

It leads one to think, is Iran so desperate to make world headlines that they resort to the same tactics as the supermarket tabloids? Is Batboy their doomsday device? Has President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad been airbrushed in any pics?

The media is not unfamiliar with spotting altered photos. There’s some changes made in almost everything nowadays, from alien sightings, to movie posters, to my personal collection of Victoria’s Secret catalogs (I’m shopping for my girlfriend’s birthday, I swear).

It is only more salt on some humiliating wounds. While a nuclear threat is something to be wary of, it’s hard to take serious when Iran’s President claims the Holocaust didn’t happen and that nuclear weapons are a “peaceful” policy for a country whose main religion is against it.

Tsk, tsk. Changing photos to make your babies look better? Don’t worry, Mr. Ahmadinejad, I’m sure Hugh Hefner can identify.

--Aditya Desai, Intern

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