| I can't stop laughing |
[6 September 2007|11:58 pm] |
OK, The Chaser officially wins at life. I am so amused.
For those of you (i.e. anybody outside Australia) unaware, The Chaser is a group of satirical comedians who are incredibly hilarious and push the limits of just what you can get away with, and their current show is The Chaser's War On Everything ("George Bush declared a war on terror, but only The Chaser is willing to declare a war on everything!"). They have established enough of a reputation that they were even included on an official list of terrorists, anarchists, and protesters deemed to pose a risk when Dick Cheney visited Australia earlier this year.
So, this week, the APEC conference is beginning in Sydney. The heads of 21 countries, including the US and China, are here and untold disruption is being caused in Sydney - to be perfectly frank, I'd be livid if this were happening in Melbourne, especially at Bush, whose excess becomes quickly apparent when compared with the Chinese leader. Central Sydney is effectively in lockdown, with a serious police presence and a rigid security cordon and whatnot. The police even warned The Chaser not to pull any stunts.
Except they did. Disguised as the Canadian motorcade, two members of The Chaser, Chas Licciardello and Julian Morrow, along with nine crew and drivers, got through the heavy security and made it all the way to George Bush's hotel! The police only realised what was going on when Chas stepped out of a car dressed as Osama bin Laden. So all eleven were arrested (and subsequently released on bail, with trial in October) and this has caused a huge furore. Millions upon millions of dollars has been wasted spent on security, only for comedians to breach it. This is easily the biggest success The Chaser has ever had in demonstrating the absurdity of something and humiliating the people behind it. This was headline news on EVERY SINGLE NETWORK. Lead story on some. Even SBS, the bastion of serious-as-opposed-to-sensationalist reporting, mentioned The Chaser in one of their top stories. You can't buy publicity like this.
The funniest part, though, has to go to the official response. Ladies and gentlemen, the ability of Chas and Julian to get within metres of Bush's hotel actually proves the success of the security! Apparently the fact that The Chaser so easily got so close to Bush's hotel that, if they were terrorists, they could have detonated a bomb and killed him, demonstrates SUCCESS. I quote: An angry [NSW Police Minister] David Campbell denied he was embarrassed by the comedians' ability to penetrate APEC's restricted zone - rather, he was pleased the "multi-layered" security had worked. Because, you know, the cops only realised this wasn't the Canadian motorcade when Chas stepped out, and real terrorists aiming to blow up Bush would have definitely stopped, got out, and waved their bombs around before detonating them and destroying the hotel. Yep, the security totally worked. Come on, how stupid do you think we are?
In other words, Sydney is being thrown into chaos by multi-million dollar security that can be breached by a comedy team with relatively little planning in comparison to that of a terrorist organisation. The Chaser has just made this whole fuss look completely stupid. I can't stop laughing, though I have a funny sense of "my tax dollars paid for that failure ..." |
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highly amused
infuriated