Popular Mechanics vs. Loose Change

[Hawkeye]

Forgive me if this has been posted already.
It seems unlikely that I’m the first one to come across this, but I tried searching the forums and couldn’t find elsewhere.
Anyway, here it is: A 5 part video series of a debate between Loose Changers Dylan Avery/Jason Bermas and Popular Mechanics editors James Meigs/David Dunbar:http://lippard.blogspot.com/2006/11/loose-change-vs-popular-mechanics.html
A written transcript can also be found here: http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/09/11/1345203

My first impression was a little bit of disappointment with how much airtime they gave to show clips from Loose Change. Democracy Now is usually a pretty decent independent media outlet, but there just wasn’t enough time for Jim/David to debunk all the misinformation in the LC segments properly. In the interest of fairness, why not show the corresponding segments from Screw Loose Change?

It was also amusing to see Jason get so flustered during the interview. Even Dylan had to tell him to chill out. If only those two and their tinfoil hat brigade could channel their passion into something useful.

Finally, notice how in the presence of an argument they don’t like; Bermas and Avery just laugh and shake their heads, as if something is ridiculous. What a brilliant debate technique! At another point, when it’s clear that they are wrong about Underwriters Labs, Dylan says “I would disagree with that” and then leaps over onto a completely different topic. Damn, I admire the patience of the popular mechanics editors. Debating LCers must be like … trying to herd schizophrenic cats in a laser pointer factory.


Some of my favorite moments:

“In the world of paranoid conspiracy theories, there are no coincidences”
-David Dunbar

“I’m not calling anybody a liar, sir. I’m calling you a liar, because you are a liar”
-Jason Bermas

 

[uk_dave]

I think that is one of the (many) reasons the woowoos have had to go and 'court' hollywood themselves, rather than hollywood comin' a' knockin' on their door to get a piece of this 20million internet views masterpiece.

Hollywood scriptwriters just don't have the imagination to write the sort of dialogue the woowoos spew

 

[The Doc]

In this Debate the issue of the Pentagon is raised.

Now we know that Loose Change deals with this issue by saying that no 757 hit the Pentagon and that a Tomohawk cruise missile is what struck the building.

"So what could blow a 16 foot hole in the outer ring of the Pentagon, smash through 9 feet of steel reinforced concrete and leave another 16 foot hole? A cruise missile."

So there you go. Straight from the horses mouth. Cruise missile.

As we continue to watch the debate Mr Bermas says the following:

"Ms. Goodman, I'd just like to address the fact that they have claimed that they have 84 videos through a FOIA request pertaining to what did strike the Pentagon. But the bottom line is, nothing should have struck the Pentagon. We know through the 9/11 Commission testimony that Norman Mineta, the head of the Transportation Department, was in a bunker with Cheney prior to the Pentagon strike. Now, this is the only three-and-a-half minutes out of the hundreds of hours that’s been censored by C-SPAN. Why? Because he says he's in a bunker with Cheney, and an aide walks in and says, “Sir, the plane is 50 miles out. Sir, the plane is 30 miles out. Do the orders still stand?” Cheney snaps his head around and says, “Of course, the orders still stand.” By the time it was ten miles out, it was too late, and the Pentagon was struck."

​

I'm sorry Bermas... did you just say a plane struck the Pentagon?


So not even the Loose Change kids can't even agree on their own theories? This is the kind of stuff that causes you to lose debates.

 

[PerryLogan]

It also hoses that jive about "liberal gatekeepers." Thank you, Democracy Now, for allowing the Truthers to destroy themselves.

 

[Brainster]

It was also amusing to see Jason get so flustered during the interview. Even Dylan had to tell him to chill out. If only those two and their tinfoil hat brigade could channel their passion into something useful.

I suspect they were doing the good cop/bad cop routine. Bermas is the attack dog and this allows Avery to come off as reasonable. Presidential tickets do much the same thing, with the Veep candidate expected to do the dirty work while the Prez nominee floats above the fray.

 

[uk_dave]

I suspect they were doing the good cop/bad cop routine. Bermas is the attack dog and this allows Avery to come off as reasonable. Presidential tickets do much the same thing, with the Veep candidate expected to do the dirty work while the Prez nominee floats above the fray.

You give them wayyyy too much credit!

lol

 

[chipmunk stew]

I suspect they were doing the good cop/bad cop routine. Bermas is the attack dog and this allows Avery to come off as reasonable. Presidential tickets do much the same thing, with the Veep candidate expected to do the dirty work while the Prez nominee floats above the fray.

Dylan's the most humble person you'll ever meet...he said so himself.

 

[maccy]

I suspect they were doing the good cop/bad cop routine. Bermas is the attack dog and this allows Avery to come off as reasonable. Presidential tickets do much the same thing, with the Veep candidate expected to do the dirty work while the Prez nominee floats above the fray.

I think Bermas is genuinely into all this stuff and Dylan is just using him to get ahead. Therefore Dylan is much more aware of the impact of raving on the marketability of his product and his bottom line.

I'm sure that Bermas apologising for saying the firemen were paid off was Dylan's idea and not his.

 

[Brainster]

Dylan's the most humble person you'll ever meet...he said so himself.

He has a lot to be humble about.

 

[StoneWT]

Where's the Iron Sheik when you need him?

Originally Posted by chipmunk stew

Dylan's the most humble person you'll ever meet...he said so himself.

He has a lot to be humble about.

He is humble in the manner of the old country...

 

[T.A.M.]

I think Dylan is just smart enough to realize that the fewer things he says in public now, the less damage control when he "makes it big". I am not saying he will make it big, but I think he thinks he will, and this is why he tries to stay clear of "the fray".

TAM

 

[Porkpie Hat]

I think Bermas is genuinely into all this stuff and Dylan is just using him to get ahead. Therefore Dylan is much more aware of the impact of raving on the marketability of his product and his bottom line.

I'm sure that Bermas apologising for saying the firemen were paid off was Dylan's idea and not his.

In other words truth is a marketable commodity.

How sad.

 

[Hawkeye]

I think Dylan is just smart enough to realize that the fewer things he says in public now, the less damage control when he "makes it big". I am not saying he will make it big, but I think he thinks he will, and this is why he tries to stay clear of "the fray".
TAM

I would hope that being a conspiracy theorist nutcase would pretty much ruin his chances of ever having any kind of mainstream success.
Although, who knows. With something like 10 million views of Loose Change on the internet, I can see how some people might be interested in his "talent" for attracting disaffected college students and malcontents.

 

[LashL]

With something like 10 million views of Loose Change on the internet...

Given that every time someone clicks on a link to that piece of crap video, it counts as a "view" even though the person clicking on it may not have watched even a second of it, and given that the loosers over at the lc forum have even discussed embedding it into web pages so that people don't even know that it's running in the background but do so to artificially inflate the numbers, the figure doesn't mean nearly as much as it might otherwise have meant.

I sincerely doubt that anywhere even remotely near 10 million people have actually watched the video. Heck, even I as a skeptic have clicked on a link to that piece of crap more times than I can count, often by virtue of some looser posting a vague post on a forum and linking to it without saying that it was the loose change crap the post was linking to (although I don't do that any more because it's become obvious that they are simply trying to inflate their "view" numbers).

But, as a skeptic, I've actually watched it several times on purpose as well, so between my inadvertent and advertent clicks on links to that garbage, I probably count for at least 100 "people" in their view, all by myself.

Just imagine how many times troofers have clicked on those links and watched that piece of crap, inflating the numbers artificially, and it should become quickly apparent that there are orders of magnitude fewer "believers" than the troofers would like to believe. I would not be at all surprised if some of the hardcore troofers click on those links to add to the "view" count several hundred times per day, every day.

 

[IronSnot]

You're lucky that you wrote that as it was extremely painful to have to read.

Has your computer been taken over by rogue swiss agents of islam lately?

 

[jhunter1163]

The laughing-dog smiley pretty well sums it up...

 

[Bell]

You're lucky that you wrote that as it was extremely painful to have to read.

Has your computer been taken over by rogue swiss agents of islam lately?

SnotBrain, what the hell are you trying to say?