Tag: John Oliver
Here’s the Clip from the John Oliver Show That Crashed the FCC’s Public Comment Site
O.K., so Sen. Al Franken’s call to action to stop cable and internet providers from creating two tiers of internet access (premium and crappy) might have been the poster child for dull and boring explanations.
But Last Week Tonight host John Oliver explained the issue in such gripping terms that viewer response crashed the Federal Communications Commission’s public comment site.
Watch it yourself and then make your own contribution to slowing down internet access to the FCC…kind of like what will happen on all but the highest-dollar sites if the FCC lets the cable companies have their way.
Zaltzman: Phelps’ Death Was “Tragically Late”
There’ve been two main stories that have been absolutely bombarding our inbox this week. One, I’ll come to in due course. And the other is the tragically late death of the Westboro Baptist Church leader, Fred Phelps, the massively anti-gay, hate-fueled preacher who died at the undeserved age of 84.
— Andy Zaltzman, asking co-host of the Bugle Podcast John Oliver (most recently of the Daily Show) if he was preparing one of the show’s “fuckeulogies” for Phelps. Oliver responded that Phelps was unworthy of a fuckeulogy, heretofore reserved for the likes of Osama bin Laden and Moammar Gadhafi, calling him a “sniveling little prick” who doesn’t deserve the oxygen it would take to create one. Oliver continued that the sooner Phelps is forgotten, the better. Which kind of sounded like a fuckeulogy.
John Oliver: 10% Approval But 90% Re-Election Rate? Yes.
John Oliver, of Daily Show fame, is also half of a funny, intelligent podcast called The Bugle. Comedian Andy Zaltzman, who lives in England, is the other half, and John recently explained our government shutdown to his countryman.
He particularly pointed out the depressing legacy of legislative redistricting, and how it’s left even the worst representatives invulnerable to losing office. Oliver:
It’s a pretty bold move for Congress to do something that pisses almost everyone off on this kind of scale for no kind of rational reason, but again, that’s hardly surprising. There is no incentive for them to be anything other than awful. Just look at the numbers.
Congress currently has a ten percent approval rating. Apparently that is lower than the approval rating for colonoscopies, which actually makes sense because the more you think about it, both Congress and colonoscopies deal with assholes, but the American public can at least acknowledge that colonoscopies serve a practical function.
Also, colonoscopies exist to make assholes better; Congress just seems to make them worse. And yet, Andy, and yet, even with this mere ten percent approval rating, members of Congress also have a ninety percent re-election rate. How is that fucking possible? Andy, they’re somehow batting 900 while striking out every time they’re at bat. That doesn’t obey the basic laws of mathematics.
