Geesh! ... They could have used Wooly Willy ...

By J. Thomas Duffy

Oh man, this is a good one.

I suppose, since The Commander Guy -- after his woody with the bullhorn, and all his "Bring it on!" and "Dead or Alive!" -- effectively punted and gave up the hunt, the FBI had to start somewhere when looking for the most notorious terrorist, this side of the Cheney-Rumsfeld Smash-and-Grab Syndicate, Osama bin Laden.

But did they have to start in the Spanish Parliament?



Spanish MP's photo used for Osama Bin Laden poster

Gaspar Llamazares said he would no longer feel safe travelling to the US after his hair and parts of his face appeared on a most-wanted poster.

He said the use of a real person for the mocked-up image was "shameless".

The FBI admitted a forensic artist had obtained certain facial features "from a photograph he found on the internet".

[snip]

The FBI claimed to have used "cutting edge" technology, but Mr Llamazares said it showed the "low level" of US intelligence services and could cause problems if he was wrongly identified as the Saudi.

"Bin Laden's safety is not threatened by this but mine certainly is," he said, adding that he was considering taking legal action.

Later, an FBI spokesman told the BBC that it was "aware of the similarities in hairline features of the age-progressed photograph of Osama Bin Laden, posted on the web yesterday, and that of an existing photograph of a Spanish public official".

"When producing age-progressed photographs, forensic artists typically select features from a database of stock reference photographs to create the new image."

Holy Cow!

With their army of lab monkeys, and bloated budgets, some FBI schmuck does what I, and thousands of other bloggers do on a daily basis - head out to Google Images!

We could slash that budget by about 90% and just job out the work to some 7th grade somewhere in the country.

Or, they expense-account it, for about two-bucks ...

They could just have used Wooly Willy.





Bonus FBI Boners

Chris in Paris: FBI uses photo of Spanish MP to make updated bin Laden poster

Steve Hynd: FBI Alters Spanish MP's Picture, Calls Him Bin Laden

Paul Carr: NSFW: Nobody suspects the Spanish politician


Bonus Bonus

Retro Garlic: J. Edgars Gay Dating Service?

D.B. Cooper Is Barbarosa ... Or Is It Barbarosa Is D.B. Cooper?

Top Ten Cloves: Difficulties DC Comics' Batman May Have Fighting Osama bin Laden

(Cross-posted at The Garlic.)