Tim Blair Rips Branson, Loose Change

This is a very fun article.

Historical accuracy was of no concern to Rebecca Smith, Virgin Atlantic's manager of acquisitions and publishing, who seems more interested in the buzz generated by paranoid morons. The film, she told British media, was an "internet phenomenon". So were forbidden images of the prophet Mohammad after Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published cartoons of old Mo in 2005.

Will Virgin Atlantic be running those images in its in-flight magazine? No? Why not? After all, the cartoons qualify for publication, at least according to Smith's criteria for screening Loose Change 2: "It continues to provoke debate and for that reason we feel it's something our passengers will want to watch, so that they can draw their own conclusions."

They'll more likely be drawing their own conclusions about Virgin Atlantic and withdrawing their bookings on that airline. Or maybe not, following developments mentioned below.

Hat Tip to the Doc from the JREF forums.

And Then They Made the Decision to Pull....

(Click to see full-size)

Terrific job by our JREF Forum buddy, John Blonn!

Virgin No More!

Looks like Virgin Atlantic has caved on its proposal to carry Loose Change:

We will not be showing Loose Change 2 on our aircraft. We don’t show movies or documentaries that cause mass offence and there is a danger with this movie that viewers, although they have the choice over what to watch and when on our flights, may be offended. Virgin Atlantic is known for showing the latest movies and media trends on its multi award-winning inflight entertainment system and we believe travellers have the right to choose from as wide a choice as possible.

Kudos to all who objected to Loose Change, especially blogs like Hot Air and The Jawa Report who blasted this story into talk radio, and Nick Rizzuto and Andrew Wilcow, whose phone call to Virgin Atlantic may have resulted in them dropping the film.

Yeah!

Update: Blogger reactions:

Damian Penny:

Even if it wasn't a dishonest and defamatory propaganda movie, I'd have to ask what on earth they were thinking in making Loose Change available as in-flight entertainment. The airline version of Rain Man doesn't include scenes in which Dustin Hoffman talks about air disasters, but Virgin Atlantic had no problem with a "documentary" in which plane crashes (alleged plane crashes, in truther-ese) figure heavily.

Newsbusters:

Andersen reminds her readers that "one simple phone call" can make all the difference, as was the case with Wilkow's producer complaining to Virgin. I suspect, however, that a large, irate blog readership also had a role to play. Over 15,000 hits came up for my "loose change" search on Technorati, while over 600 hits came up when I looked for "Virgin Airlines" on the blog search site.

Ed Driscoll:

If Virgin is smart (well, smarter than doing this in the first place), they'll blame it on some low level employee in Sector 7-G who rents in-flight entertainment who truly screwed up. But shouldn't one his higher ups have thought, "Hey, this doesn't sound like enjoyable transatlantic in-flight entertainment to me"?

Update II: Dylan's reaction:

Well, Virgin signed a contract, so essentially, they paid us for the rights to NOT screen Loose Change 2.

Us: 1.
Haters: 0.

:lol:

:lol: indeed.

Update III: Boloboffin over at JREF comes up with a suggestion. Why doesn't Dylan do the right thing and donate the money from the Virgin deal to The FealGood Foundation, a charity that is helping out many of the first responders who are feeling ill effects from the air they breathed in while working on the pile?

Virgin Atlantic to Carry Loose Change?

I've kind of ignored this story, but apparently Virgin Atlantic is going to start carrying DVDs of Loose Change for their inflight movies. Not sure if it's going to be shown to entire flights, or if the idea is that passengers can order their own film. I'd be stunned if it's the former; does an airline really think that showing 9-11 crackpottery is not going to get their customers angry?

Ghost of a Flea says he's done flying Virgin or buying any of their products.

The Jawa Report wonders what's next for Virgin Atlantic; Holocaust Denier films?

Little Green Footballs suggests a Leni Riefenstahl retrospective.

Update: Newsbusters sees this as an example of corporate liberalism. I hate to keep splitting this hair, but while it is probably true that more Truthers are left of center than right of center, a majority of liberals find this nonsense just as kooky as the rest of us. This is a lunatic fringe conspiracy theory and it is arguable that the congressman who supports it most (and is supported by the "Truthers" most) is libertarian Republican Ron Paul.