Venomous Kate is performing some analysis on the apparent inconsistencies involved in Nick Berg’s execution video:

As I noted in the comments on that entry [here], my lawyer mind has a tendency to obsess over inconsistencies. In this case, I am extremely puzzled by al-Qaeda’s apparent efforts to appear as if they were murdering Berg on film when clearly they were not. According to the video’s time stamp 11 hours passed between the time the terrorists read their statement – at the conclusion of which Berg is heard screaming – and the time the video shows Berg’s beheading. Additionally, the fact that Berg did not scream again while they brutally cut his throat, and the absence of significant additional blood, is proof enough that he was already dead.

— Venomous Kate: But WHY

I’ve gone through the video on Windows Movie Maker just looking for the “creatively edited” slice where the timestamp jumps twelve hours. I am not an analyst for videos like this; I do know that audio-video desyncs happen during encoding, and for a lot of reasons. The screaming in fact happened before the frame showing Al Zarqawi stabbed Berg in the neck.

Kate proceeds to conclude that Berg was dead long before the beheading. I am prone to concur at this point. I am also prone to concur with her analysis about Zarqawi’s and Bin Laden’s tussle over power:

Thus, the point was not so much to portray the death of an American but, rather, the desecration of a body. In other words, the video intentionally showed the desecration of Nick Berg’s body, the defiling of his corpse serving as an expression of contempt for him as a proxy for all Americans, and contempt for the way bin Laden tries to portray himself as aligned with ancient authorities on Islam.

— Venomous Kate: But WHY

However, there is one question about Zarqawi’s castration of Islam’s “human rights” in order to spite Osama Bin Laden: would he actually dare spite the religion that serves as the very excuse for his terrorism, in order to make a power grab? It seems so risky: it resembles a huge, uncalculated lie that no one could believe was such on its sheer audacity.

UPDATE: There was an error on the title previously. It said 16:45:47 instead of 13:45:47 although I did not change the URI on the post. I am further confused that the timestamp on the video returns 13:47:52 back to 2:46:17. Two minutes and five seconds have elapsed regardless of the timestamps. What the HELL is going on?

UPDATE 2: I have checked the video out over at my friend’s place where he has Windows Media Player 9. At the very moment that the timestamp changes from 13:47:52 back to 2:46:17, WMP9 stops playing, telling us that the file is invalid or corrupt. Coincidence? I have no idea what to make of this right now. Confused I am, I am; confused I am.