It is our sad duty to announce that two images from the July-August 2000 round
have been disqualified due to their being pre-existing images, not originals
created for the round in which they were submitted.  We are making this
announcement because one of the images placed, winning honorable mention for
artistic merit.  We have selected the next ranking image for that recognition.
The disqualified images will remain on our site, and are eligible to be
included in future IRTC compilations.

We do this only to be fair to all the other entrants who did follow the rules.
This disqualification is in no way a reflection on the artist, who is clearly
very talented and most likely violated the rules out of ignorance rather than
malice.  We encourage him, and everyone, to submit (legal!) images in the
current and all future rounds.

And to all those people who were taking up a collection to hire thugs to give
the artist a thorough beating, it was all a scam and we're keeping the money.
"Ha, ha!" -- Nelson Muntz.

-- 
The IRTC admin team