Richard Gage in Boston

JREF forum member Mr Herbert went and shares his (painful) experience:

Gage and company asked for a minimum 10 dollar donation at the door. About 1/2 way through the presentation, he summoned his "ushers" to pass around donation buckets for everyone to put in more money. He pimped his DVD's, Steven Jones DVD's, and was even selling copies of 911 Mysteries. The truthers were unaware that Sophia had doctored the audio and in the middle of getting sued.

To which I would add that they're unaware (or ignoring) that she also markets Holocaust Denial videos at her website.

Also see here for a breakdown of the almost $3,000 cost of the event:

$500 – Venue Fee (First Parish)
$500 – Speaker Fee
$166 – Airfare
$500 – Audio Video
$400 – 14′ Screen + Skirt
$800 – Flyers and Posters in Boston

Rick Siegel Files Suit Against Sofia Shafquat

Well, well, this one's been a long time coming, but it is a welcome development nonetheless that requires some explanation.

Rick Siegel filmed video of the collapses of the Twin Towers on 9-11 from across the Hudson in Hoboken, New Jersey. His footage is compelling and he had on his radio tuned to 1010 WINS (NY news radio station) at the same time to provide a soundtrack. The effect, quite plainly is a historical document of some significance.

Siegel's footage was used in the crackpot film 9-11 Eyewitness, apparently with permission and a rights' fee, although Siegel reportedly was not pleased with the final product. In late 2006, Sofia Shafquat released 9-11 Mysteries: Demolitions, which borrowed chunks of Siegel's footage apparently without permission or a rights' fee. Worse, Siegel discovered that Shaquat had edited his footage, erasing sounds and adding her own background noises (explosions, most egregiously) in places. And of course there was the ridiculous mistake that Sofia made where she shows the "South Tower record" (times of supposed explosions just before the collapse), and then says "Then the building fell," and she shows the North Tower collapse.

There was a flurry of activity in 2007, and Siegel bumped 9-11 Mysteries off Google Video and YouTube for awhile for copyright infringement, while John Albanese managed to push Siegel's website offline for awhile. The dustup even reached the MSM, with the NY Post covering some of the antics on both sides.

Siegel himself is something of an enigma; IIRC he claims not to be a Truther himself but at the same time, he provided websites for the no-planer contingent, at least one of which is still standing (although it's basically a ghost town, with the last post in May of 2008).

I hadn't heard anything about this story in a long time, and given that 9-11 Mysteries and Sofia have pretty much vanished into the mists, I didn't expect any new developments. But apparently Siegel has gone ahead with his lawsuit.

Siegel Sends C&D to Sofia

I realize that Sofia's considered one of the great filmmakers of 9-11 Denial and Siegel's considered one of the disinfo no-planers, but he's right here:

I see you still do not understand there is no license in this world for the corruption of evidence you have made. The complete wanton editing of sound, inserting explosions that you have done not only dilutes real evidence but also has caused confusion in the ranks of people researching truth. Your fictions have fooled too many people.

9-11 Mysteries--Who Dubbed in the Extra Sounds?

Rick Siegel demonstrates that Sofia made some rather dramatic changes to the sounds he recorded on 9-11 as the North Tower collapsed. I'll confess, I had no idea Sofia was this devious.

Copyright Infringement is a Bee-Yatch!

As Sofia, director of 9-11 Mysteries, can attest.

On or about May 25, 2007, Google Video and YouTube removed links to the video (and to segments from the video) entitled “911 Mysteries,” produced by Avatar, LLC, as a result of a DMCA Takedown Demand filed by Richard A. Siegel, an individual associated with a work entitled “9/11 Eyewitness,” for reasons of copyright infringement.

Mr. Siegel’s claim of infringement is false. First, well before the release of “911 Mysteries,” Avatar obtained express permission from both Blue Star Media Group (co-owner of the copyright in the “Eyewitness” work) through its managing partner Jim Brewster, and from Mr. Siegel’s partner David Shaw, to incorporate limited segments of “Eyewitness” in “911 Mysteries.” Mr. Siegel’s two partners were fully cooperative with Avatar in licensing this material. Second, even if Avatar had not obtained express permission from the creators of “9/11 Eyewitness” to use their material in “911 Mysteries,” the 38 seconds of incorporated footage that Mr. Siegel has taken issue with is fully protected by the copyright Doctrine of Fair Use.

My attitude on this is simple; I hope both sides end up spending a lot of money on lawyers!

9-11 Mysteries Guide Completed!

Our buddy the Doc has completed his viewers' guide to 9-11 Mysteries. Terrific job by the Doc and those who helped him!

The Word from the Bird

Our buddy Stephen Lemons is back with an amusing wrap-up of the events at the 9-11 Accountability Conference since we dropped the Zyklon-B on them about Eric Williams' Holocaust Denial. Kevin Barrett and Sofia come in for special delousing:

Though Barrett proclaimed to this heron that he's not a Holocaust-denier, his off-color commentary on the Final Solution was cited by Dylan Avery as one reason he wasn't attending. In an e-mail published on the Web site www.oilempire.us, Barrett said he could not dismiss the propaganda of Holocaust deniers like David Irving and Ernst Zundel, the latter of whom's currently doing five years in a German clink for anti-Semitic agitating.

And:

Half-baked Hufschmid additionally asserts such drivel as "The Jews created anti-Semitism in Germany to drive Jews out of Europe and into Palestine, and to unify Jews, and to bring pity to Jews." Such repulsive opinions aside, Hufschmid's a major source for 9/11 deniers, specifically for the video 9/11 Mysteries, whose director, known only as Sofia, will be present at the conspiracy confab.

Odd Bits

There's a new video over at 9-11 Blogger. The guy uses a lot of the posters from the antiwar book created by the "fake Ranger" himself, Micah Wright, along with some "hook 'em horns" photos of the Bushes and Clintons. But the best part is near the end, when the video's maker presents his heroes. First we get the Loose Change guys, and then comes this:



Hah! Lizard-boy, Son of God himself, David Icke! How nutty do you have to be to take him seriously? Alex Ansary is a new one on me, but it appears that he's a typical internet flake broadcaster; his website has gotten 55,000 hits since July 2005 which definitely marks him as small potatoes.

Meanwhile, I caught a bit of Jason Bermas' show today. He had a filmmaker on the show who had done a movie on the assassination of JFK (claiming, surprise, surprise that George H.W. Bush had done it), but the program ran off onto lots of lunacy. The guy claimed that a Rockefeller was cutting checks to the guards at Auschwitz, that there are no documents ordering the holocaust with Hitler's signature on them, and that's the saner stuff. He brings up the chemtrails issue (Jason interjects the Looser's claim that the government was spraying them over their house in Oneonta).

And in a third bit of quackery, Rick Siegel and Sofia of 9-11 Mysteries are engaged in a dust-up over her use of 9-11 Eyewitness footage in her flick. He seems especially bitter that it ended up as a piece of disinformation:

On this weekend I will show where Sophia cut my work up into disinfo segments. Where she has taken the sound of the North tower pre-collapse explosions and narrates over them over them saying they are the Sorth Tower pre collapse explosions and demolitions.

This of course is the ridiculous mistake in 9-11 Mysteries that I pointed out after watching the movie the first time; it still cracks me up that so many 9-11 Deniers think this is the best 9-11 CT flick with an absolute floater like that in it.