Screw Loose Change

Permanent Top Post--Scroll Down for Newer Posts

2013-12-31T12:39:00.000-08:00

(Note: The date on this post is intentional; it keeps this post pinned to the top. Thanks for asking!).

11/11/07 Update: Loose Change Final Cut has just been released and so we have not prepared a full debunking. Both James and I have many comments about the movie below and I started a thread over at JREF with some examples of mistakes in the film. Much of the rest of the information in this particular post concerns the earlier versions of Loose Change.

Because this blog is getting so much traffic from Google searches and referrals from various forums and Wikipedia, we decided to put one post up top to link to information our newest visitors are apparently looking for.

First, if you have not seen the film and want to watch it, be sure to watch the annotated version, which was named after this blog, Screw Loose Change. The creator did a terrific job on this, and we strongly recommend watching this version rather than Dylan Avery's cut.

James has put together a list of major lies in Loose Change. Here's Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Part 4.

I compiled three very easily refuted lies in the movie. I also showed three tricks and distortions that are used throughout the film.

A friend of the blog named Mark Roberts (aka Gravy at the JREF forums) compiled this amazing Viewer's Guide to Loose Change, (now HTML) which includes a complete transcript of the movie, pictures and links that refute many of the claims, and which highlights the changes between Version 1 and Version 2.

The hot new film in 9-11 Denial is called 9-11 Mysteries. One of our JREF buddies, The Doc, has put together a rebuttal video called (you guessed it!) Screw 9-11 Mysteries, and assembled a viewers' guide to 9-11 Mysteries.

Many 9-11 Deniers focus on the collapse of World Trade Center 7, which fell at 5:20 PM on September 11, almost seven hours after the North Tower. If you want a really detailed analysis of WTC 7, I recommend Mark Robert's WTC 7 and the Lies of the 9/11 Truth Movement. I also recommend the BBC's terrific video on The Third Tower.

If you'd like to discuss the ideas about 9-11 you've encountered here or elsewhere, another friend of the blog started a Screw Loose Change Forum. It's a very lively place with lots of opinion back and forth between both sides. There's also a Screw Loose Change MySpace page, with some animated commentary. Of course, we also welcome comments on our posts.

If you're looking for detailed rebuttals of other aspects of 9-11 Denial, I heartily recommend 9-11 Myths, Debunking 9-11 and Internet Detectives.

Markyx has also put together a video (note: graphic images and strong language) called 9-11 Deniers Speak. If you think Dylan Avery and Jim Fetzer have any respect for the victims of 9-11, just watch this film. There are five parts. Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V.
There's also a Google Video which is all in one part.

This should be enough to get you started debunking Loose Change to your friends. We have a lot more content below this post.

Notes on unusual terms/abbreviations: Looser (not a misspelling of Loser)=Believer in Loose Change. CT=Conspiracy Theory, Conspiracy Theorist. Truther=9-11 Conspiracy Theorist (all Loosers are Truthers, not all Truthers are Loosers). OS=Official Story. CD= Controlled Demoliton. LIHOP: Let It Happen On Purpose; theory that the government knew the 9-11 attacks were coming but allowed them to happen to further other goals of theirs. MIHOP: Made It Happen On Purpose; theory that the government planned and orchestrated the attacks. Most Truthers are MIHOP.

Update: Comments closed on this post, which is intended solely as a pointer. Because Haloscan will not let us close comments on a particular post, be forewarned: Don't leave a comment in this post or it will be deleted.

Update II: Note on comments: Because some of our commenters have chosen to act like children, we are no longer allowing comments.

Obama on Mars

2013-05-11T09:43:00.004-07:00

No, not figuratively. Literally:

In a statement made Sept 20, 2011, Mr. Basiago confirmed Mr. Obama’s co-participation in the 1980 Mars training class, stating: “Barry Soetoro, a student at Occidental College, was in my Mars training class under Major Ed Dames at The College of the Siskiyous in Weed, California in 1980. That fact has been corroborated by one of my other classmates, Brett Stillings. Two years later, when he was taller, thinner, more mature, a better listener, using the name ‘Barack Obama,’ and attending a different college, Columbia University, we crossed paths again in Los Angeles and I didn't recognize him as the person that I had been trained with in the Mars program and encountered on the surface of Mars. In fact, doing so would have been virtually impossible in any case, because measures had been taken to block our later memories of Mars shortly after we completed our training in 1980.”

Mr. Basiago states that during one of his trips to Mars via “jump room” that took place from 1981 to 1983, he was sitting on a wall beneath an arching roof that covered one of the “jump room” facilities as he watched Mr. Obama walk back to the jump room from across the Martian terrain. When Mr. Obama walked past him and Mr. Basiago acknowledged him, Mr. Obama stated, with some sense of fatalism: “Now we’re here!”

Mr. Stillings states that during one of his visits to Mars, he walked out of the “jump room” facility and encountered Mr. Obama standing beside the facility by himself staring vacantly into a ravine located adjacent to the facility.

Not a good idea; apparently you want to stay quite alert on your visits to Mars:

When they then first teleported to Mars in Summer 1981, the young Mars visitors confronted the situation that Major Dames had covered at length during the class the previous summer – that one of their principal concerns on Mars would be to avoid being devoured by one of the predator species on the Martian surface, some of which they would be able to evade, and some of which were impossible to evade if encountered.

The Mars program was launched, Basiago and Stillings were told, to establish a defense regime protecting the Earth from threats from space and, by sending civilians, to establish a legal basis for the U.S. to assert a claim of territorial sovereignty over Mars. In furtherance of these goals and the expectation that human beings from Earth would begin visiting Mars in greater numbers, their mission was to acclimate Martian humanoids and animals to their presence or, as Major Dames stated during their training near Mt. Shasta in 1980: “Simply put, your task is to be seen and not eaten.”

What does this have to do with the Truthers? Well, one of the people pushing this incredible story is Alfred Webre. Webre was a featured speaker at the NYC Truther 9-11 Anniversary Celebrations in 2007:

Alfred Webre, who was given 45 minutes to talk on the topics "9/11 as a war crime" and the "development of [an] international tribunal" for the Bush administration. After touching on those subjects (to great applause), he veered off course, arguing that an "artificial intelligence matrix" controlled by the Rothschild family might have caused 9/11, that the cancer rate in Iraq now stands at 30 percent, that AIDS is a biological weapon created to control the population, that global warming is being caused by a black hole 23 light years from Earth, and that the NYPD was employing a supersonic crowd disruption device that was depressing turnout.

As I never tire of pointing out, the 2007 Truther Confab was billed as "Ready for the Mainstream."

Webre also collaborated with David Ray Griffin:

This Legislative Memorandum was co-authored by expert researcher David Ray Griffin, independent scientist Leuren Moret and attorney Alfred Webre.

He was also chosen for the Vancouver hearings that Uncle Fetzer, Barbara Honegger and some other fruitcakes had a year or so ago.

I strongly advised Jim and Joshua to dump Webre. Being fair-minded to a fault, Jim contacted Webre and was assured that no, Webre would certainly never contaminate the Vancouver 9/11 Hearings by linking them in any way with his "exotic" teleportation, time travel, and UFO material. On that condition, Jim (ill-advisedly, in my view) allowed Webre to serve as a judge in Vancouver.

After the final day of the Vancouver 9/11 Hearings, Webre had dinner with author-journalist Barbara Honegger and retired psychologist Ernst Rodin. At this dinner, in the presence of both witnesses, Webre announced that he intended to find a way around (i.e., break) the promise he had made to Jim Fetzer, and include Andrew Basiago's ludicrous claims in the "indictments" issued by the Vancouver 9/11 Hearings!

How crazy do you have to be when fruitcakes like Fetzer, Honegger, Blakeney, and Kevin Barrett realize you're not playing with a full deck?

Bits & Pieces

2013-05-04T14:30:00.001-07:00

How's Operation Tip the Planet Going? Gage has gotten $15 in the last week. The good news is that with the matching funds, that's really $30. Woot! Expect the Earth to start wobbling on its axis any moment now.

Alex Jones and the Truthers have gotten quite a bit of bad press the last couple of weeks. They both got a smackdown from Rachel Maddow the other day:

I'm not as big a fan of the comic book version of the 9-11 Commission Report as Rachel is; I found it a little dumbed down and melodramatic. But the Commission Report itself is terrific, as is the Popular Mechanics Debunking book. Still, kudos to her for delivering a well-deserved spanking to the Truthers, leatherlungs Jones, and all those who support them, including Matt Drudge, who apparently tweeted that 2013 would be the year of Alex Jones.

No surprise, Box Boy and a couple other Troofers were offended that Rachel hasn't looked at their pathetic evidence:

Happy Birthday To Us

2013-05-01T16:37:00.001-07:00

It was 7 years ago today when Pat made the first post here on our humble blog. I never thought it would go on this far, but it has been interesting. Who knows how long we will keep it up, as the Truthers have been pretty uneventful lately, and barring some sudden change in their fortunes will most likely continue to be. Who knows? Maybe Larry Silverstein will peel off his mask and reveal himself to be Dick Cheney or something? You never know...

Landing Gear from 9/11 Attacks Found in NYC

2013-04-26T20:02:00.005-07:00

Let the illogical and incoherent conspiracy theories begin. Here is the story.

NEW YORK — A rusted 5-foot-tall piece of landing gear believed to be from one of the hijacked planes destroyed in the Sept. 11 attacks has been discovered near the World Trade Center wedged between a luxury apartment building and a mosque site that once prompted virulent national debate about Islam and free speech.
The twisted metal part, jammed in an 18-inch-wide sliver of open space between the buildings, has cables and levers on it and is about 17 inches wide and 4 feet long, New York Police Department Commissioner Raymond Kelly said Friday.

Update: Turns out the part was from the wing, not the landing gear. OMG! Coverup!

Airline technicians have determined that wreckage believed to be from one of the planes that crashed in to the World Trade Center is not part of the landing gear, but a piece that is critical to supporting a wing on the aircraft, the New York City Police department said on Monday.
A technician for Boeing con firmed to NYPD detectives that the wreckage is a “trailing edge flap actuation support structure from a Boeing 767,” NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said in a release.
The wreckage, believed to be from one of two Boeing 767 airliners destroyed on Sept. 11, 2001, was found last week wedged behind a lower Manhattan building.
Surveyors inspecting the back of 51 Park Place, several blocks from Ground Zero, found the rusted plane part with a Boeing identification number and other debris wedged between the buildings, police said.
Police believe the flap is from one of the two planes that struck the World Trade Center, but have not been able to determine which plane, Browne said.

This 'N' That

2013-04-25T09:27:00.003-07:00

A very funny conspiracy theory flowchart here. The only problem with it is that most of the CT'ists we run into believe in five or more of these conspiracy theories.

How's Operation Tip Richard Gage's Wallet going? Not so hot:

Despite the failure of the "teams" they've raised about $7,500 from the rubes so far. Assuming the matching funds don't have a minimum requirement that gives them $15,000 to spend so far; that would buy them about one 15-second ad on the Daily Show.

Bombing Suspect #1: Alex Jones Fan

2013-04-24T10:57:00.000-07:00

Another non-surprise:

The AP reported on Tuesday that Tsarnaev "took an interest" in Infowars and was also interested in getting a copy of "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion," the anti-Semitic fraud that purports to show a Jewish conspiracy to take over the world.

The Next Governor of Nevada....

2013-04-21T15:00:00.000-07:00

Will not be David Vanderbeek, despite Richard Gage's ringing endorsement:

Gubernatorial candidate and “next governor of Nevada,” David Vanderbeek, was contacted and agreed to interview Gage on his TV show, “Occupy Freedom,” on Channel 30, which reaches into Las Vegas on DirecTV.

During the interview, Vanderbeek made a bold declaration:
“Let me be 100% crystal clear with all of you. I will not apologize for pursuing the truth of the 9/11 attacks. I will not apologize for pursuing the truth in any endeavor. THE TRUTH WILL GO WHEREVER I GO. 9/11 TRUTH WILL GO WHEREVER I GO.”
That’s the kind of Governor we need – in every state of the Union!

Vanderbeek is a classic conspiracy nutbar; check out his page for when he was running for the Senate. He's the classic "Lay's Potato Chips" kook; he can't just eat one, he's gotta have the whole bag: Federal Reserve, NDAA, 9-11 Troof, Anti-Vaccines, Anti-Fluoride, Chemtrails, Obama Birther, Bilderbergs (sic), you name it
he believes it. On the positive side, he does promise to ban child trafficking, devil worship and human sacrifice. Courageous stands indeed!

Although he appears reasonably normal in the picture on that site, you can see from this video that he's got the creative facial hair thing going:

In that senate election, he did manage to get almost 5% of the vote, ranking him third, just slightly ahead of "None of the Above" which garnered 4.5% of the vote. It's pretty obvious that the voters of Nevada were a little cranky about the choices they got in that election, but not cranky enough to elect a buffoon like Vanderbeek.

Boston Marathon Bombing Suspect #2: 9-11 Truther

2013-04-19T18:08:00.000-07:00

Well, I wish I could say this was a surprise, but we've seen it so often now that it's become somewhat routine:

A cached profile photo that matches his picture, and tweets from other users he's interacted with suggest that this is the twitter account of 19-year-old Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, the fugitive suspect #2 in the Boston Marathon bombings: @J_tsar. The account is listed under the name "Jahar," which is what classmates called him because his full name was hard to pronounce.

Here's his 9-11 Truth Tweet:

Idk why it's hard for many of you to accept that 9/11 was an inside job, I mean I guess f*ck the facts y'all are some real #patriots #gethip

Kind of makes the previously revealed fact that he obtained his US citizenship ten days later, on September 11, 2012 a little more ironic.

Update: And the Willie Nelson theory checks out as well:

The younger Boston Marathon bombing suspect seemed more interested in blunts than bombs while in college in Massachusetts, his classmate told POLITICO on Friday.
“He didn’t seem like a dangerous person at all,” said Chris Barry, a sophomore at UMass-Dartmouth, who became friends with Dzhokhar Tsarnaev — now a bombing suspect — on their first day of school. “He was a pothead, a normal pothead. I couldn’t even imagine him being mad at someone, let alone hurting someone.”

Update II: Like mother, like son:

Kilzer also claims that the mother's beliefs increasingly made her uncomfortable, which partially led to her ceasing to visit Tsarnaeva in 2012:

"She started quoting conspiracy theories, telling me that she thought 9-11 was purposefully created by the American government to make America hate muslims. “It’s real,” she said, “My son knows all about it. You can read on the internet.” I have to say I felt kind of scared and vulnerable when she said this, as I am distinctly American, and was lying practically naked in her living room."

And the aunt:

An aunt of the men suspected of carrying out Monday’s bombing of the Boston Marathon on Friday said that she had a hunch that the FBI may have staged a photo of her nephews at the scene of the crime, and she also had doubts about the official story behind the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.
Speaking to reporters at her home in Toronto, Maret Tsarnaeva told reporters that she had contacted the FBI after seeing photos and video that the agency released of 19-year-old Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev and 26-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev because she strongly believed that they could not have committed the crime.

Hat Tip: Puppycow at JREF.

Infowars Idiot Interrupts FBI Press Conference

2013-04-18T18:50:00.003-07:00

You would think their security would be good enough to limit press conferences to actual members of the press.

One Way to Handle the Nutters

2013-04-16T18:43:00.002-07:00

With the recent bombings in Boston, it doesn't take a genius to predict that the conspiracy nutters are going to be all over it, with Alex Jones leading the pack. This guy decided to preempt them by registering http://bostonmarathonconspiracy.com/ before they could. Unfortunately, they can still come up with millions of other ways to spread their inanity.

And The Winner Is....

2013-04-10T13:03:00.000-07:00

Actually I am not sure that's the winner; it's just one of the top ten vote-getters, and the first posted with the announcement. I'm always amused at the exhortation to do the math; what is the solution? Is it 1.5? And anyway, their numbers are off to begin with; there were more than three buildings destroyed on 9-11, including St. Nick's and the Marriott hotel. WTC 4, 5 and 6 were also destroyed; what's the math on them?

Update: Ian points out in the comments that the building identified with a "3" on that photo is not even WTC-7; that's actually One Liberty Plaza. In fact, as best as I can determine, WTC-7 is the building just to the left of WTC-1 (in shadow).

How typical of the Troofer idiots; they can't even identify the right building.

Oh, and here's an update on the money situation:

We’re excited to announce…
We’ve already raised over $100,000 in matching money!

Um, wasn't that the amount they had raised before this campaign?

When Will They Make Up Their Alleged Minds?

2013-04-06T23:49:00.001-07:00

Box Boy Gage publishes another article supposedly debunking the latest version of the Popular Mechanics book. Get this part:

PM refers to Barry Jennings as the sole witness to explosions in connection with the destruction of Building 7, when in fact that is completely untrue. There are several other individuals who claimed to have heard explosions right before and during the time Building 7 collapsed, including first responders Kevin McPadden⁷ and Craig Bartmer⁸.

So now we're back to explosions? Remember two years ago, Gage debated Chris Mohr at the University of Colorado (Boulder) where there was this exchange:

Further along in the debate, after Gage showed the WTC 7 collapse video adjacent to a known controlled demolition Chris Mohr, ignored the visual similarity and noted that “they sound completely different”.

Gage: Well, of course they do. One is using high-energy explosives, and the other thermate, an incendiary. This is, after all, a deceptive, controlled demolition.

Vote Now!

2013-04-06T06:09:00.000-07:00

The advertising choices for Operation Tilting at Windmills are available now. How democratic that they let the common man decide what type of idiocy they are going to spend their money on. I won't say which one I am voting for, but let's say there are some real doozies.

While AE911Truth may use the content from one or more ads in the final campaign ad, the acceptance or voting rank of any ad idea should not be viewed as an endorsement by AE911Truth. Some (but not all) images with objectionable language or with content outside of the AE911Truth mission statement were removed. Regardless, we thank you all for your time and effort. We were overwhelmed with the response, which included over 3
70 entries. We also thank you for taking the time to vote for your favorite entry, and highlighting the images, themes, and language which are the best for this important project.

Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth is looking for a provocative, compelling, tasteful ad that will be seen in subways, outdoor kiosks and billboards across the U.S. and a handful of international cities. We are seeking your creative input, in the form or an ad or slogan, to come up with the most powerful ad possible.

Latest Poll: LIHOP At 11%

2013-04-02T23:30:00.000-07:00

Public Policy Polling did a survey of various conspiracy theories; 9-11 Trutherism fell way down the list:

5% believe exhaust seen in the sky behind airplanes is actually chemicals sprayed by the government for sinister reasons

15% of voters think the medical industry and the pharmaceutical industry “invent” new diseases to make money

Just 5% of voters believe that Paul McCartney actually died in 1966

11% of voters believe the US government allowed 9/11 to happen, 78% do not agree

Some may get annoyed at a few of the questions designated as conspiracy theories; for example:

Voters are split 44%-45% on whether Bush intentionally misled about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. 72% of Democrats think Bush lied about WMDs, Independents agree 48-45, just 13% of Republicans think so

While conservatives will probably not be happy with this one being included:

37% of voters believe global warming is a hoax, 51% do not. Republicans say global warming is a hoax by a 58-25 margin, Democrats disagree 11-77, and Independents are more split at 41-51. 61% of Romney voters believe global warming is a hoax

Personally I don't think it's a hoax, but I do think that the media has overstated the negative consequences at times and completely failed to set the proper example on many occasions. My personal favorite was when NBC sent Meredith Viera and a camera crew (and I'm sure a makeup specialist and other support personnel) to Australia to do a special live report about how serious global warming is. Hello!

The one question that I think they completely blew is this one:

Do you believe aliens exist, or not?

I certainly believe alien life forms exist somewhere in the universe; I do not believe they have visited Earth.

BTW, there are some interesting results on the 9-11 question in the crosstabs. The young (18-29) are much more likely to believe in the LIHOP theories than the old (over 65) by 18%-7%. There's not a huge difference between very liberal (14%) and very conservative (11%) on the question; moderates were the least likely to say yes at 8%. More Obama voters (13%) than Romney voters (8%) said yes to LIHOP; that may be more due to the age differences than anything else.

Guilty, Until Proven Innocent

2013-03-28T19:29:00.001-07:00

Anyone who has followed my politics will know that about the only thing I agree with Noam Chomsky on is the idiocy of 9/11 Truthers. This recent post on 911 Flogger by Jon Gold once again demonstrates how out of touch the Truthers are, and Jon, relatively speaking, is actually one of the more rational Truthers. Admittedly that is kind of like being the shortest giant or the most chaste woman in the bordello. In any case, Jon actually tries to argue that Noam should be be for the Truthers because if they succeed it will alter our traditional standards of justice, a goal I am not sure even Chomsky would be for, even if it benefited him politically.

Chomsky seems to miss an important point when dismissing 9/11 queries as a waste of energy. If 9/11 can be blown open, then absolutely everything can be challenged, because evidence will exist of the huge scope of the supporting conspiracy.
In fact, if 9/11 truth were to be universally accepted and its implications digested, then a paradigm may emerge where the burden of proof shifts. It may become the norm that parties whose behavior suggests complicity; have to prove they were NOT implicated in various conspiracies. All of Chomsky’s pet projects would benefit from this.

As I have always said, scratch a Truther, find a Fascist.

Update: I accidentally attributed this post to Jon Gold, read the wrong byline, it was actually posted by some guy at 911 Blogger named Speakingup. My apologies to Jon for the mistake. It has got to be embarrassing for him to be associated with the morons on there.

Another Bit of Debunking

2013-03-26T11:59:00.000-07:00

By some Truthers, of a nutty conspiracy they don't agree with. This time it's Barbara Honegger's idiotic fascination with the Pentagon clocks.

No kidding, the writer actually dropped a bunch of clocks on the ground at about 9:38 AM to see if they would move backwards due to the fall. And yes, it happened:

Could the fall have caused the minute hand to move closer to a 9:31:30 am time for two of the clocks, as suggested by Russell Pickering? See the section “Wall Clock Experiments” for an experimental test of this suggestion for a clock virtually identical to the Heliport clock. The result of the experiment is that the minute hand can move back readily, even for a drop of 4 feet, as much as 8 minutes or more (to around the 9:30 am position), depending upon the clock’s orientation when it strikes the floor. This experimental evidence proves Honegger’s claim that the wall clocks’ provide the “ultimate evidence,” to be without foundation.

You know how it is; there's a part of me that feels they did a good job, and a part of me that realizes if we ever debunked stuff like this we'd get slammed by Truthers because "nobody gives credence to Honegger".

Tell Me They're Kidding

2013-03-17T21:39:00.000-07:00

Box Boy Gage and his crew of idiots are convinced that this is the year:

Now we’re at a turning point, thanks to years of grassroots outreach, and with your help, are finally ready to “Tip the Planet.”
Fast forward to September:
For the entire month… a single message appears all around the world – on billboards, subways, and highway overpasses… On lawns, office windows, storefronts, bulletin boards, tee shirts, bumper stickers, and even televised sporting events… On Facebook, Twitter, YouTube… In places like New York City, Washington, D.C., Woburn Massachusetts, La Mesa California, Tokyo, Madrid, Montreal, Buenos Aires, London – and countless other cities…
This is the concept behind Operation Tip the Planet, the first-ever global 9/11 Truth anniversary event. Be sure your city is included!

And so, for the next couple of weeks, they are having a contest to come up with the slogan that will galvanize people to send more money to Richard Gage. But, and here's the best part, even if you cannot come up with a slogan, or donate, money:

Not a creative type? No worries. Help out by voting on April 1st!

Yep, the voting takes place on April Fools' Day. How appropriate is that? Oh, and lest you think that he's really going to have a huge war chest to spend on advertising, get this bit:

With your support, we’ve already raised close to $100,000 in matching funds, almost half of the $200,000 we need for our billboard, subway, and grassroots-to-global multi-city campaign!

Read that carefully. They have $100,000 in matching funds, which means they only get that money if they can raise $100,000 in other funds. Somehow I think they're going to fall a little short. Looking at Box Boy's upcoming events, be sure to see him in Las Vegas at the prestigious Las Vegas Hookah Lounge, next Friday.

Truthers Blow Lid Off Of New World Order

2013-03-16T09:43:00.001-07:00

A pair of prominent Truthers have finally accomplished their dream, uncovering some of those secret operatives behind the American Empire. After years of spinning their wheels and making vague accusations against people like Dick Cheney (like that one was hard to call) they have now exposed the secret life of... Ben Affleck.

Argo, Ben Affleck's blockbuster film and this year's Academy Award-winner for Best Picture, is nothing more than a propaganda piece developed to incite hatred of Iran.
At least that's what some conspiracy theorists have posited. And as BuzzFeed first reported, they believe that Affleck, in addition to his day job in Hollywood, may also be a secret government operative.
Writing for Iranian state news agency PressTV on Wednesday, Kevin Barrett presented a dubious case to support that claim. Citing a "leading [expert] on ultra-secretive covert operations," but offering no hard evidence, Barrett ripped the film and wondered if Affleck should be "brought to justice" for his role in producing it.
"If the makers of Argo are deposed under oath, they may be forced to reveal that their film — like the fictitious film-within-the-film — is a covert operation disguised as a movie," he wrote. Barrett's expert is Barbara Honegger, a former Bush and Reagan staffer with a reputation for promoting conspiracies based on scant evidence.
In her book October Surprise, she claims that officials close to Reagan colluded with Iran to prolong the infamous hostage crisis until after the 1980 election, in a deliberate attempt to weaken incumbent Jimmy Carter.

I just want to know how Gigli fits into all of this. Explain Gigli!

Entertaining Coverage of Rooke Trial

2013-03-13T17:52:00.001-07:00

Over at Dangerous Minds:

A couple of Mondays ago, on a cold, colorless morning at 9am sharp, I found myself in the singular predicament of joining the back of a queue of around fifteen 9/11 “Truthers” in a dismal magistrates’ court in Horsham, a small English town about an hour from London. These Truthers were mostly male, middle aged, and—I’m sorry to say—a little stinky.

Hilariously, the Troofers are now claiming that it was a great triumph for their cause:

In short, it was a huge victory for the 9/11 Truth community because a court finally had to face the facts and couldn't do it. Rather than having a 3 hour hearing full of evidence including testimony by Prof. Niels Harrit the judge took the easy way out as described in the letter.

That's funny because before the trial, the victory was supposed to be that the judge would have to listen to their "evidence". Now the fact that he didn't listen to them is a win.

Gage 2011: $85,000

2013-02-26T23:55:00.000-08:00

As I'm sure I'll be reminded by the kooks, it's not that big a salary in the Bay Area. But it does represent better than a 5% increase over 2010. How many people got that kind of a pay increase that year?

One thing that I find rather interesting is that AE911 Troof reported contributions and grants of $288,893, precisely the same amount as in 2010 to the dollar. Either their donors are remarkably stable, or they're getting all of that income from one source; my guess is the latter.

Box Boy reports putting in an 80-hour workweek again this year; that works out to 11.5 hours a day every day, or 16 hours if he works a normal five-days on, two days off. All I can say is that it's not evident from his output.

The Pony Remains....

2013-02-26T00:02:00.002-08:00

According to the Troofers, not the magistrate:

Charged with not paying his TV licence, Tony Rooke had claimed at Horsham Magistrates’ Court that the BBC’s treatment of the 9/11 attacks made it complicit in acts of terrorism.
He asked to submit evidence which he said would show that the BBC had consistently failed to report the true story.
District Judge Stephen Nicholls said that, even if he accepted and agreed with the evidence, that would not give him grounds to rule that Rooke was not guilty.
He imposed a six month conditional discharge, with £200 legal costs.
Outside court, Rooke said the case had been a ‘score draw’ since the judge had looked at the evidence - albeit in private - and had decided not to fine him.

It will be interesting to see if Rooke continues to not pay his license fee; by his own logic he would be guilty of supporting a terrorist-supporting organization. Of course there is always the third option: don't watch television. I mean, there are so many terrific videos on YouTube exposing the Troofy Troof; why tune into anything else?

The Latest "Breakthrough" Fiasco

2013-02-25T10:36:00.003-08:00

The Truthers are still digging for the pony. It's kind of sad, really, just as that joke is a little sad. Can you imagine that poor little boy, shoveling out the manure with his hands, only to have his hopes dashed?

The latest breakthrough is a court case. Finally, the Truthers get to present their evidence to somebody in authority!

On February 25, in the small town of Horsham in the United Kingdom, there will be a rare and potentially groundbreaking opportunity for the 9/11 truth movement. Three hours of detailed 9/11 evidence is to be presented and considered in a court of law where the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) will be challenged over the inaccurate and biased manner in which it has portrayed the events and evidence of 9/11.

There you go! How could they possibly fail? Well, basically because there is no pony under the dungheap. But what makes it so pathetic is when you realize exactly why the Truthers are getting to present their sack of fecal material to the magistrate.

In England, the BBC is actually funded by individual licenses that TV owners pay in order to watch. The price is pretty expensive: about 145 English pounds or about $220 at current exchange rates. Mind you, that's just for over the air programming; it's not like our cable TV basic package. Anyway, as you might expect, a lot of people try to get away without paying the license fee, so they have ways of checking to see if you're watching the telly without paying the fee.

Well, a particularly stupid Troofer named Tony Rooke decided not to pay his license fee and is now going to court over it. And his defense is that there's a law that provides that you cannot provide funds to an organization that supports terrorism and because the BBC has broadcast shows debunking 9-11 Troofy Troof, it is supporting the terrorism of the real culprits. No word yet on whom Tony Rooke has fingered as the culprits; whether it's the neocons, Israelis, or Bilderbergers.

And that's how some poor judge in Horsham is going to end up listening to the likes of conspiraloons like Niels Harrit and Ian Henshall. Or not, as I personally doubt the magistrate will put up with more than about 15 minutes of this horsecrap before telling the Rookester to pay the fine or go to gaol.

Salon Yanks Goofy Truther Piece

2013-02-17T17:35:00.000-08:00

Missed this when it came out, but apparently a writer managed to get a Troofer article published at Salon, but it was quickly "pulled" after a number of caustic tweets. The article itself is posted here. He starts off with a weaselly explanation:

My point here was not to endorse the 9/11 Truthers, but to explain them. If there were more transparency in government, if so many questions did not go unanswered, such conspiracy theories would wither and die. I wrote that I was concerned that the 9/11 Truthers would be “tarred with the same ‘crackpot’ brush” as the Sandy Hook conspiracy theorists—the idea being that the latter were crazier than the former. I was right to be concerned, because I am writing this with tar-stained fingers, having been plastered with the stuff for the last 24 hours. And I am not even a Truther.

As we shall see, that last line is a bunch of horse puckey. He's a Truther, through and through. Here's the crucial passage from the article:

What concerns me about the repudiation of the Hookers is that the 9/11 Truthers are being tarred with the same “crackpot” brush. Yes, many of the September Eleventh conspiracy theories are implausible, and too often veer, as conspiracy theories unfortunately tend to do, toward the anti-Semitic. But unlike with Sandy Hook, 9/11 conspiracy theories flow from a scientific fact: whatever the 9/11 Commission Report might claim, fire generated by burning jet fuel is not hot enough to melt steel.

By Hookers, he's talking about the dolts who think that Sandy Hook was a conspiracy by the government to get our guns. As you can see, he makes the two most common errors in Trutherdom with the whole "jet fuel can't melt steel" claim. First, the jet fuel burned off rather quickly, so while it was the initiating cause of the fire, it was long gone by the time the buildings collapsed. Second, the fire does not have to melt the steel; it only has to weaken it, and the fires generated by jet fuel which then spread to office equipment was quite adequate to lessen the structural integrity of the building sufficiently to cause a global collapse.

When this latter point is mentioned in the comments, the writer, Greg Olear, responds:

We can all agree that the burning jet fuel in the towers was not hot enough to cause WTC 7 to collapse, though. ; )

So much for his claim that he's not a Truther. And I do have to chuckle a bit at his horror at the notion that the Sandy Hook nuts are going to discredit the 9-11 fruitcakes. In fact, as I pointed out last month, many people have called the former "Sandy Hook Truthers"--discrediting them by association with the 9-11 nutbars, not the other way around.

He goes into the usual cui bono bit as well; by this "logic" the French were clearly behind the attack on Pearl Harbor, as they benefited the most from it. He's a JFK Truther which fits the pattern; if you're stupid enough to fall for one conspiracy theory you'll probably fall for another.

Yet Another Troofer Murderer

2013-02-11T09:04:00.000-08:00

And sadly, this one killed his own children before ending his own worthless life:

A pilot who wrote a conspiracy theory book about 9/11 is dead after he shot his two teenage children and family dog before turning the gun on himself.
Relatives and friends of Phillip Marshall were stunned by the violent crime which took place in Calaveras County on Saturday.
Their bodies were discovered when friends of the teens went to the family home on Sandalwood Drive and looked through the windows, they could see 54-year-old Phillip Marshall lying on the floor in a pool of blood.

Predictably, the goofs at 9-11 Flogger don't believe "the official story":

There was a similar killing-made-to-look-like-a-suicide of an agent and family in Berkeley a couple of years ago...

Note that although Steven Jones claims:

Philip was just completing his book, “The Big Bamboozle: 9/11 and the War on Terror.”

Which makes it sound like, gee, maybe the powers that be killed him before he could reveal the Troof, in fact the book had been published in February 2012, and he had previously produced another snoozer called False Flag 9-11 in 2008.

BTW, looks like this kook was keeping at it, unlike Dylan Avery or Professor Jones himself:

The hijackers’ training records from several U.S. flight schools indicate that they were marginal pilots, at best, even in single-engine airplanes. In early 2000, three of the pilot/hijackers are heavily documented at a small flight school near Venice, Florida, while the fourth attended schools in Arizona and California. This would account for the basic flight training of the pilots but in no way can explain the expert level of airmanship required for the 911 hit.

Marshall wrote that on January 24, 2013, about a week before killing his kids.

Hat Tip: Flouride666 in the comments on the last post.