daily (nearly) daily show

this one's for dr_nic - Dave Gorman and John Oliver mixing it up, British-style. I guess TDS is keeping Dave Gorman around as well as Oliver, yay!

And if you haven't seen the series "Dave Gorman's Interesting Astrological Experiment", go hunt it down. Great great fun.



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Jason Jones went after a total douchebag of a "journalist" called Carl Monday. This tool put six segments to air about a young guy they caught jerking off while surfing porn on a public library computer with a hidden camera. Yeah, real award-winning journalism. The Daily Show sent out one of their guys to send him up.

It bears some resemblance to the old Safran/Ray Martin thing years ago in that "unreleased" ABC pilot "Media Tycoon", but it gets even more bizarre. The douche chased down the daily show crew and tried to counter-attack-interview him. It's bizarre to watch a borderline self-parody of an "investigative journalist" (he even wears a fucking trenchcoat, for chrissakes, and uses the stupid stick microphone) interviewing and being interviewed by someone who's deliberately sending him up.

Anyway, both videos behind a cut.

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it's Howard's ABC.

So let's get this clear. The PM appoints a bunch of conservative idealogues to the ABC board. One of these is appalling hack Janet Albrectson. JA has been thoroughly spanked by Media Watch for lifting academic research and totally twisting it to serve her own partisan needs. She responded with the usual fury of a hack caught out. Of course it wasn't her fault, it was that dastardly ABC Leftist Conspiracy at fault. Subsequently, Howard stuffed her (and of course everyone's favourite revisionist historian Keith Windschuttle) onto the ABC board.

Last night, Mark Scott, the head of the ABC (and a former Chief of Staff under Greiner's NSW Liberal government) rolled out a series of new "editorial guidelines" designed to further reduce the chance of the ABC ever saying anything that might upset the right wingers who love using the ABC as a pinata. One of the shows mentioned, by name, was... Media Watch. Colour me totally shocked. And to really rub it in, he presented this new policy at a speech at the Sydney Insitute, Gerard Henderson's comfy little home for himself and his wife.

Tim Dunlop also has harsh words here and here. Excerpt:

I think it must have been Mark Scott, the Managing Director of the ABC, talking with Fran Kelly and I just heard his view that if, for example, the ABC aired Al Gore’s doco about global warming, the ABC would be obliged to provide time for “alternative views” or some sort of discussion so that all views were canvassed.
Give me a friggin break. Presumably creationist will get equal time if they air a show on evolution.

He also points to this piece, which lays out what's going on in even more detail.

ow my brain

NYT login required (go for bugmenot):

Can You Tell a Sunni From a Shiite?
By JEFF STEIN

FOR the past several months, I’ve been wrapping up lengthy interviews with Washington counterterrorism officials with a fundamental question: “Do you know the difference between a Sunni and a Shiite?”
A “gotcha” question? Perhaps. But if knowing your enemy is the most basic rule of war, I don’t think it’s out of bounds. And as I quickly explain to my subjects, I’m not looking for theological explanations, just the basics: Who’s on what side today, and what does each want?
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But so far, most American officials I’ve interviewed don’t have a clue. That includes not just intelligence and law enforcement officials, but also members of Congress who have important roles overseeing our spy agencies. How can they do their jobs without knowing the basics?
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Take Representative Terry Everett, a seven-term Alabama Republican who is vice chairman of the House intelligence subcommittee on technical and tactical intelligence.
“Do you know the difference between a Sunni and a Shiite?” I asked him a few weeks ago.
Mr. Everett responded with a low chuckle. He thought for a moment: “One’s in one location, another’s in another location. No, to be honest with you, I don’t know. I thought it was differences in their religion, different families or something.”
To his credit, he asked me to explain the differences. I told him briefly about the schism that developed after the death of the Prophet Muhammad, and how Iraq and Iran are majority Shiite nations while the rest of the Muslim world is mostly Sunni. “Now that you’ve explained it to me,” he replied, “what occurs to me is that it makes what we’re doing over there extremely difficult, not only in Iraq but that whole area.”
Representative Jo Ann Davis, a Virginia Republican who heads a House intelligence subcommittee charged with overseeing the C.I.A.’s performance in recruiting Islamic spies and analyzing information, was similarly dumbfounded when I asked her if she knew the difference between Sunnis and Shiites.
“Do I?” she asked me. A look of concentration came over her face. “You know, I should.” She took a stab at it: “It’s a difference in their fundamental religious beliefs. The Sunni are more radical than the Shia. Or vice versa. But I think it’s the Sunnis who’re more radical than the Shia.”
Did she know which branch Al Qaeda’s leaders follow?
“Al Qaeda is the one that’s most radical, so I think they’re Sunni,” she replied. “I may be wrong, but I think that’s right.”
Did she think that it was important, I asked, for members of Congress charged with oversight of the intelligence agencies, to know the answer to such questions, so they can cut through officials’ puffery when they came up to the Hill?
“Oh, I think it’s very important,” said Ms. Davis, “because Al Qaeda’s whole reason for being is based on their beliefs. And you’ve got to understand, and to know your enemy.”
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