CPT's Coverage of Loose Change

A little more fair and balanced than the last time around; the debunkers get in some pretty good points. Note that Screw Loose Change (the movie) is mentioned at the very end. They do let the Waterboy get away with his claim to be a whistle-blower, and the materials given away to donors are skewed strongly to the crackpot version with only the Popular Mechanics book representing the rational side.

Deadbeat Dylan?

I spent an interesting hour on the phone last night with Matthew Brown. Matt was the executive producer of Loose Change 9-11 An American Coup; his name appears in the opening credits in between Korey Rowe and Dylan Avery. Matt shared quite a bit of behind-the-scenes information with me which I will cover in several subsequent posts. But I thought I would start with a discussion of the Avery Foundation. As some of you may recall, this was supposed to be a charitable organization that Dylan claimed would end up donating more to the first responders on 9-11 than Greenglass did with United 93 and Oliver Stone did with World Trade Center.

Well, you know where you can take that pledge; to the bank of broken promises, where Dylan's already overdrawn. But it gets worse. Matt mentioned that he had located a few high net worth individuals who were prepared to donate around $230,000 to Dylan's charity to get it started. That's right, almost a quarter of a million dollars, which could have been helping first responders as we speak. But, as you can probably guess, Dylan and Korey didn't get the paperwork completed to set up the charity, and the proposed donors found other places to give their money.

Up until recently, the Avery Foundation's website had a little note saying that they were in the process of filing the necessary paperwork; hilariously, it doesn't say that any longer. Instead, there's this:


Yep, Dylan and Korey are refusing to pay their executive producer the money he's owed from the sales of the DVDs. Incidentally, Matt mentioned that LC911AC has sold about 15,000 copies, about half of those to the Netflix DVD rental company.

I will have much more information to share over the next few days, but this was too delicious not to post on immediately.

Update: Microcinema Interational writes in the comments:

Please note that neither Microcinema nor writer-director Dylan Avery or producer Korey Rowe are associated in any way to www.theaveryfoundation.org. If you would like to visit the official website for The Avery Foundation, go to: www.theaveryfoundation.com.

Should you be interested in speaking directly to the President of The Avery Foundation, please write to: info@microcinema.com, Attention - Patrick Kwiatkowski.

But of course, if you go to www.theaveryfoundation.com, it redirects to the same page as www.theaveryfoundation.org.

Update II: Well, they fixed that. Of course there going to have some work to do to fix Google, which will show the Avery Foundation here for awhile.

Film "Critic" Compares Loose Change An America Coup to Plan 9 From Outer Space

And the funniest thing is he thinks that's a compliment:



Later he speculates on Loose Change Part VI versus Leonard Part VI. Hilarious.

The Sounds of Silence

Uhh, anyone remember that new Loose Change movie? Loose Change: Yet Another Rehash, or whatever its name was? Well if you haven't been paying much attention to it, you are not alone. Despite its $100 million budget, or whatever Dylan is claiming this week, it has caused less of a stir than the average cat playing a piano video on YouTube.

Just check out the most recent post on their website:

By admin
Monday September 7, 2009
Answer 7 of the 11 Questions in 11 Days Series with Dylan Avery is now up. Go to: http://www.facebook.com/loosechange

I guess the next 4 questions just weren't that exciting. They should replace their twin towers logo with some tumbleweeds and blowing dust.

Et Tu, Adolf?

Some definite laugh-out-loud moments in this one. Quite a bit of profanity in the sub-titles, but absolutely perfect for the subject. Hat Tip: dwlan in the comments.

LCAC Script

Has been uploaded by JFK (PDF file), one of the mods at the LC Forum.

Nothing really much going on with the Troofers right now; I think everybody's waiting for the pie-in-the-face finale of NYC-CAN.

LCAC Uploaded to YouTube

Don't know how long this will last on YT; this was obviously not uploaded by the Loosers. Hat tip to dwlan in the comments.

Rob Breakenridge MP3 Up

Scroll down a bit for The World Tonight Redux and you'll see the episode there; right click and save link (or target) as to download the MP3 file.

One thing that hit me as I hit the sack last night was that Dylan is full of crap on his response to my first issue, which was the bit about the Defense Department and defense industry people on the plane. If he is not indicating that it's suspicious that those folks were on the plane, that he's just showing that the planes were light on passengers, then why does he highlight those particular passengers?

And as it happens this is not one of those things you need to watch Loose Change 9-11 American Coup to see. You can watch Final Cut here and start it at 38:16, and see how Dylan shows us where the hijackers were located. Then he shows us where Barbara Olsen was seated, as well as employees from Boeing, Raytheon, the Department of Defense, Lockheed Martin, American Airlines, the Navy, Army and "other government agencies". Is there any doubt what he's doing there? And, aside from Daniel Sunjata's narration, there's no difference as far as I can see between FC and AC on this point.

Thanks Again to Rob Breakenridge!

Definitely the one talk show host who I feel knows as much about 9-11 Debunking as I do. I loved the way he would not let Dylan evade his questions. Dylan caught me by surprise by telling me to interview the people who provided the dust samples; fortunately he overreached by citing the guy who swept some dust into a ziplock bag, giving me the opportunity to insist that was not a chain of custody.

I will find out if an MP3 is available.

Loose Change and My Lai

I watched Loose Change: an American Coup recently, and although the production values are improved, I found it rather boring. Much of the problem is the first 15 or so minutes are nothing but a montage of bad historical events without anything tying them together. One example is a short clip on the My Lai massacre where a platoon of troops under Lieutenant William Calley shot up a village of Vietnamese.

The film never explains its relevance, although I am guessing it is there to repeat the conspiracy theorist belief that US troops are just mindless drones who will commit any amoral act simply because they are told to. This fails on several levels though, first of all because this was not a planned act, but rather a case where a poorly led unit got caught up in the "bloodlust" as it were. Secondly, this horrible incident also shows how hard it is for a massive conspiracy to succeed.

Yes, in any group of people you will find those who will commit heinous actions, whether for money, power, or no particular reason at all. You will, however, also find people who will do anything they can to prevent this from happening, even at the risk of their own lives. The problem with a large conspiracy is you really have no way of knowing who is who ahead of time. There is no SAT score for loyal corrupted minions.

To make my point in regards to My Lai, there is the case of Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson Jr. As a CW3 myself, I have known about his story for quite a while now, and he is regarded as a hero among the army community.

Mr Thompson and his crew came upon US troops killing civilians at the village of My Lai on 16 March 1968.

He put his helicopter down between the soldiers and villagers, ordering his men to shoot their fellow Americans if they attacked the civilians.

"There was no way I could turn my back on them," he later said of the victims.

Mr Thompson, a warrant officer at the time, called in support from other US helicopters, and together they airlifted at least nine Vietnamese civilians - including a wounded boy - to safety.

He returned to headquarters, angrily telling his commanders what he had seen. They ordered soldiers in the area to stop shooting.

These are the stories you will never hear about in a Loose Change movie.

Loose Change 9-11 An America Coup: Barry Jennings Interview

Barry Jennings and Mr Hess, two of the men who were stranded in WTC-7 for several hours on 9-11, come in for a bunch of attention in Loose Change 9-11 An American Coup. Here are transcripts of what they have to say in the movie. The first two quotes are from interviews that they gave on 9-11; the final one is an interview Jason Bermas did with Jennings.

Hess: Yes I was, I was, I was up in the Emergency Management Center on the 23rd floor and when all the power went out in the building, another gentleman and I walked down to the 8th floor, where there was an explosion and we were trapped on the 8th floor with smoke—thick smoke—all around us for about an hour and a half. But the NY Fire Department, as terrific as they are, just came and got us out.

Jennings: Well, me and Mr Hess, the corporation counsel, were on the 23rd floor, I told him we gotta get out of here. We started walking down the stairs we made it to the 8th floor, big explosion, blew us back into the 8th floor, and I turned to Hess I said, “This is it. We’re dead, not going to make it out of here. I took a fire extinguisher and I bust a window out. That’s when this gentleman this gentleman here heard my cries for help.

Barry Jennings: Hi. My name is Barry Jennings. Um. I'm 52 years old. Um, I've worked for for 32 years in one location. Basically, that's it. I'm married. Father of 4.

It’s very funny, I was on my way to work, traffic was excellent, I received a call, a small Cessna had hit the World Trade Center. I was asked to go and man the Office of Emergency Management at the World Trade Center 7 on the 23rd floor. As I arrived there, there were police all in the lobby. They showed me the way to the elevator, we got up to the 23rd floor. Me and Mr. Hess who I didn't know was Mr. Hess at the time. We got to the 23rd floor, we couldn't get in. We had to go back down. Then, security and police took us to the freight elevators. When they took us back up, and we did get in.

Upon arriving into the OEM EOC, we noticed that everybody was gone. I saw coffee that was on the desk. Still smoke was still coming up the coffee. I saw half-eaten sandwiches. And only me and Mr. Hess was up there. After I called several individuals, one individual told me that um, to leave and to leave right away.

Mr Hess came running back in. He said: "We’re the only ones up here. We gotta get outta of here!"

He found a stairwell. When we reached the eighth, uh, the sixth floor, the landing that we were standing on, gave way. There was an explosion. And the landing gave way.
And when, I was left there hanging. I had to climb back up. And now I had to walk back up the eighth floor. After getting to the eighth floor, everything was dark. It was dark and it was very, very hot. Very hot. I asked Mr Hess to test the phones as I took a fire extinguisher and broke out the windows. Once I broke out the windows I could see outside below me, I saw, um, police cars on fire, buses on fire, I looked one way, the building was there, I look the other way it was gone.

I was trapped in there for several hours. I was trapped in there when both buildings came down. The firefighters came, they came to the window cause I was going to come out on the fire hose, I didn’t want to stay there it was too hot, I was going to come out on the fire hose, they came to the window, they started yelling, do not do that, it won’t hold you. And then they ran away. See I didn’t know what was going on. That’s when the first tower fell. When they started running, the first tower was coming down. I had no way of knowing that. Then I saw them come back. Now I saw them come back with more concern on their faces. And they ran away again. The second tower fell. So as they turned and ran the second time, the guy said “Don’t worry, we’ll be back for you.” And they did come back, this time they came back with ten firefighters. And they kept asking, “Where are you? We don’t know where you are.” I said I was on the north side of the building because when I was on the stairs I saw, north side.

All this time, I’m hearing all types of explosions. All this time I’m hearing explosions. And I’m thinking maybe it’s the buses that were on fire, the cars on fire, I don’t see no, you know. But I’m still hearing these explosions. When they finally got to us, and they took us down to what, what they, they, uh, called the lobby. 'cause I asked them, when we got down there, I said: "Where are we?" He said: "This was the lobby." And I said: "You gotta be kidding me!" Total ruins. Total ruins. Now keep in mind, when I came in here, lobby had nice escalators, it was a huge lobby. And for me to see what I saw, unbelievable.

And the firefighter that took us down, kept saying, do not look down. And I kept saying “Why?” “Do not look down.” And you’re stepping over people, and you know you can feel when you’re stepping over people. Took us out through a hole, that the, I don’t know who made this hole, in this wall, that’s how they got us out. They took us out through a hole in the wall, to safety. As they were taking me out, one firefighter had fallen, I believe he was having a heart attack, but before that, this big giant police officer came to me. And he says, "You have to run!" I said, "I can't run. My knees are swollen." He said, "You'll have to get on your knees and crawl then.” He said, “Because we have reports of more explosions." And that's when I started crawling. And I saw this guy fall behind me. His comrade came to his aid, and dragged him to safety. Um, I was looking for an ambulance, for my knees and at that time they told me you gotta walk 20 blocks, to a refuge. Before I got there, Eyewitness News grabbed me and started interviewing me. And that’s basically it. (End)

Now there are some obvious problems reconciling the accounts. Hess quite clearly states that he and Jennings were in the OEM when the power went out in the building; this indicates that the time was right around 9:59, as the power went out in WTC-7 (and much of lower Manhattan) when the South Tower collapsed. Jennings claims to have already poked out the windows and attracted the attention of the firemen at that time. It seems clear to me that Jennings has the times confused, that it was when the South Tower collapsed that they tried to evacuate, but in the darkness it took them about a half-hour to get down 17 flights of stairs, when the North Tower collapsed, providing the big explosion Jennings describes.

There are other problems. It never made much sense for me for the fireman to say "Don't look down," if they're stepping over bodies, surely you'd be more likely to trip and fall. Rather it would seem logical to say something like "Be careful where you step." And does it make any sense to tell someone who can't run because of swollen knees to crawl? Or for him to obey that suggestion? If the objective is to get out of there as quickly as possible, walking is surely faster than crawling?

Of course, there are deeper problems with the story; in his BBC interview last summer, Jennings specifically denied mentioning stepping over bodies; unless Dylan is a master at voice-morphing that seems to be untrue.

My conclusion? Jennings probably elaborated on his story over the years, making it more dramatic. Given a chance to tell his tale to the Loose Change boys, he pulls out all the stops. When the BBC comes calling and he realizes that there are real problems with the anecdote as he told it to LC, he denies it. That seems to me to be the most parsimonious explanation.

Of course to the "Troofers" Occam's razor would say that the NWO got to Jennings before the BBC interview, but afterwards they realized that Dylan had the tape of him talking about walking over bodies and they decided he had to be snuffed.

Loose Change 9-11 An American Coup Review: Part I

I obtained a "screener" copy of the new film from a media source who will go unnamed. In general, the film is something of a retreat to LCII, in that it goes back to pushing conspiratorial interpretations of Flight 77 and Flight 93, two aspects of 9-11 nuttery that were downplayed in LCFC. It's a lot to go through in one sitting, although fortunately most of the conspiracy theory stuff we've covered in the past.

Daniel Sunjata's narration is generally an improvement over Dylan's nasal twang, but it does not improve the "skeptical" comments that are sprinkled throughout the film; for those you really do need the snarky, kid-voice.

Here's my basic outline of the film:

Reichstag Fire
Pearl Harbor
Operation Paper Clip
Manhattan Project—Compartmentalization
Nuremberg Trials
JFK Assassination
Gulf of Tonkin
My Lai
WTC Construction
PNAC
9-11 Commission
Bin Laden denies responsibility
Fatty Bin Laden tape
Pre-2004 election video of Bin Laden
2006 Bin Laden tape
Hijackers not devout Muslims—drinking, lap dances, and hookers
Collins information about Hanjour
Able Danger
Atta attempt to get a loan for crop-dusting
Al-Ghamdi had flights scheduled for after 9-11
67 previous intercepts within 10 minutes
No prediction of airplanes into the buildings
Plane into Pentagon Drill too unrealistic
Amalgam Virgo
Haitian AIDS patient to fly airplane into Tindall AFB
OBL on cover of Amalgam Virgo plan
FBI has no records of this game
Wargames on 9-11
Booker Elementary—Bush saw first strike. Stayed at Booker despite being a target
Vigilant Guardian, Inputs into the screens.
Global Guardian?
Northern Vigilance
Pentagon
All Flight 77 hijackers set off metal detectors.
Flight 77 unusually light
Suspicious people on the plane, defense, and other government
Squawk hijack code not given
Hanjour should have dived into the top of the Pentagon.
Flight controllers thought it was a military plane.
Section hit was lightly occupied, recently reinforced. Important budget information lost.
No visible damage from the wings
Titanium engines.
No serial numbers.
No impact damage to the lawn
No videos show 757
The exit hole in C Ring is not explained
Mineta—50,30,10
Collapse of South Tower, 10 Seconds
North Tower collapse 10 seconds
WTC-7 collapse
Other fires
One Meridian Plaza
Lots of stuff in here recycled from earlier versions
Path of greatest resistance
NIST report
Not modelled after initiation
No tests for explosive residue
Jeanette McKinlay—weird music
Jones—red and gray chips
Red=aluminum and iron oxide
Carbon, Oxygen, Silicon, Aluminum and Iron. Carbon is in superthermite. Carbon gives explosive force to thermite.
Says a lot of energy released and explodes.
Nano thermite? Iron microspheres? Wait a minute!
Suddenly they find the iron microspheres.
Freefall speed—10 seconds
Concrete dustified
Molten metal exceeding 2000 F
Fires did not get put out until December
Need to sever core columns
Smoke at base of South Tower
Squibs (similar to earlier versions)
Turner Construction—ties to NIST and Bush
Fireproofing work on the North and South Tower.
Marvin Bush—Securacom
Jones: How did they use nanothermite; I can’t explain everything.
Debris shipped overseas and sold.
Bill Manning Fire Engineering mag complained.
Flight 93 "allegedly" crashes
Debris 6 miles away
Cockpit separated?
No jet fuel found in wells in area
Mint condition bandanna, Driver’s licenses.
WTC-7
OEM
Test status of fire alarm system that morning.
Freefall speed
Steel shipped off
Sulfidation
NIST-WTC-7
105-foot freefall
Barry Jennings and Michael Hess
Death of Barry Jennings
WTC-7 barely damages surrounding buildings
Smedley Butler reveals plot of a coup against FDR. FDR later makes deal with plotters to stay in power.
Appeal for new investigation.

Those are, of course just broad-brush impressions. Under the Reichstag Fire incident, which leads off the film, Dylan claims that historians now believe that the Nazis secretly entered the basement of the building and dowsed it with gasoline, and that Van Der Lubbe ignited the fire with his shirt. But other historians believe that the Nazis were caught by surprise by the Reichstag fire and actually worried that it was the anticipated revolt by the communists. Here's a terrific first-hand account of the blaze by a British reporter:

I am sure that he meant this seriously and was not just putting on an act. Both Hitler and Göring then still feared the possibility of a Communist coup. With six million votes at the last elections and a large number of adherents in the trade unions the Communists were still a formidable power. And they had in the past tried to capture power by coups - just as the Nazis had.

Dylan also claims that Hitler and Goring stopped by the Reichstag fire and executed some communists that same night. This is a new claim on me; Van Der Lubbe was indeed executed months later after a trial, but three other communists who were charged in the case were found not guilty, and I have found no other indication that anybody else was summarily executed.

There are a few claims that I'm going to have to bone up on. One is that there were reports that the cockpit detached from the rest of Flight 93. Steven Jones claims that after they researched the red and grey chips, a fellow scientist suggested that they search for iron microspheres; it's certainly my impression that the iron microspheres came up earlier than the red and grey chips in Jones' "work".

On the need to sever the core columns, I never tire of pointing out that if the core columns were severed at the bottom, then how did the "spire" (those same core columns) remain standing for a few seconds after the rest of the building collapsed.

In a lot of ways, Loose Change 9-11 An American Coup is really Loose Change II Recut Director's Cut. Final Cut seemed to back away from the "No-Big Boeing at the Pentagon" theories, while American Coup highlights them again. Ditto with Flight 93. The Barry Jennings' interview is as bad as John Schroeder's for confused timelines; I'll have to put together a transcript for that.

Loose Accounting

I was rather amused reading the new promo site for Loose Change V 5.0, or whatever version they are up to. Apparently Dylan Avery thinks he has a really, really big budget. He is just not quite sure what it is. One page says:

The initial film had a budget of $2,000; “Loose Change 9/11: An American Coup” has an estimated budget of $1,o00,000 [sic].

OK, nevermind that these geniuses can't even spell $1,000,000 correctly, on their press release fact sheet the budget suddenly gets blown up faster than a defense contract.

The initial film had a budget of $2,000;"Loose Change: An American Coup" has an estimated budget of $3,500,000.

What method are they using to estimate this budget? Apparently his accountant is the same guy who brought us that B-52 crashing into the Empire State Building.

Dylan's New Trailer

The usual "jet fuel can't destroy the towers" argument. And a match couldn't possibly burn down a mansion, either. I love that he's back to "no identified wreckage of Flight 77"; in Final Cut, he showed lots of pieces of the plane.

Oh, well, at least he isn't going LIHOP again.

Update: Listen to Dylan pull a hissy fit when a radio show host asks him why Alex is not part of American Coup:

Loose Change the 97th Cut

The latest trailer:



I like that Microcinema's logo is an empty chair; how appropriate is that? I'm not sure if the narrator in this particular segment is Sunjata; if it is, wow, they should go back to Dylan, because that is the least dramatic voice I've heard on any of these nutbar videos.

Note the accelerated video of the collapse of the North Tower; he does that twice so I assume it's intentional. There are some indications we'll get new stuff in the video; Steven Jones' red and gray chips look likely to get a workout. But so do squibs and the BS about how we need video of Atta getting on the plane.

And I still don't get the 9-22 release date; am I the only person baffled by that decision? Maybe the problem is that they know if it's released before 9-11 it will get extensively duped and so the Avery Foundation won't be able to pursue its charitable mission? So they're hoping to hook the suckers in after the 9-11-09 Festivities?