S07.E02: India PM Narendra Modi

[PrincessPurrsALot]

Main story: India Prime Minister Narendra Mod.

Also:  Mike Bloomberg and stop and frisk; Larry King's questions for guests and hatred of eggs

Bonus clip: Bear Grylls drinking fluid squeezed from elephant poop (Sure, it was within the main segment.  Just want to make sure we don't forget that bit of horror.)

Original air date 2020.02.23

[Annber03]

Man, Trump's "father" comments were painful. His praise for Modi is not surprising, but the protests from the people of India are indeed very encouraging to see. Keep on fighting the good fight-here's hoping their efforts lead to all kinds of positive change. 

As for Bloomberg, his comments about profiling white people in comparison to minorities were...wow. Also, can we talk about the way he kept mispronouncing "disproportionate"?

"Take Your Poo to the Loo." I have no words... XD.

I also loved Oliver's explanation of how white people were created. Seriously, WTF was with that bread story? 

[scarynikki12]

10 minutes ago, Annber03 said:

Also, can we talk about the way he kept mispronouncing "disproportionate"?

Drove. Me. Crazy.

[ahisma]

Way to go, Hitler! (Do not take that out of context.) 😂

[PrincessPurrsALot]

 Enjoy the full song!

[Jediknight]

John, Dean Winchester also killed Hitler.  So he killed Hitler better than anybody else killed Hitler.

Sorry, figured we could all use a chuckle, I hope.

Edited February 24, 2020 by Jediknight

[swanpride]

One of the worst episodes of Supernatural, and one of the reasons I dropped the show altogether…

It's encouraging that all over the world people are still fighting against politicians like Modi, but let's be honest, those politicians shouldn't be in power in the first place.

[Annber03]

5 minutes ago, swanpride said:

It's encouraging that all over the world people are still fighting against politicians like Modi, but let's be honest, those politicians shouldn't be in power in the first place.

Agreed. Any leaders anywhere who support putting people in camps, or enacting citizenship laws like this, or things of that sort, should be automatically removed from office and held accountable by their own nation and/or the international community at large. But yes, it'd be even better to stop them before they got into power at all. I know there's human rights groups and laws and whatnot out there that try to stop these kinds of leaders and sound the alarm on abuses and all that, and all that, but I dunno, sometimes it doesn't feel like enough. It's just absolutely insane how commonplace this rhetoric continues to be, even after all the many, many examples throughout history that show where those awful policies lead. But "Those who do not learn from history...", and all that, sadly :/. 

The populist theme is an interesting similarity among all these leaders as well. 

[scottiB]

20 hours ago, PrincessPurrsALot said:

Bear Grylls drinking fluid squeezed from elephant poop (Sure, it was within the main segment.  Just want to make sure we don't forget that bit of horror.

I can't ever. I rarely turn my head and close my eyes to something on TV (even last week's Roger Stone sartorial montage), but I just..couldn't...watch it. 

Edited February 24, 2020 by scottiB
too many verbs

[peeayebee]

Very interesting and informative story about Modi. I learned a lot. And it's encouraging to see Indians protesting as well as emphasizing that India was and is a secular and inclusive country.

I was in Vegas this weekend on a mini-vacation. It was NOT planned with the Democratic caucus or Trump's visit in mind. But I got a chuckle out of several electronic billboards that Bloomberg had bought that said things like "Donald Trump lost the popular vote" and "Donald Trump went broke running a casino."

[ALenore]

14 hours ago, Annber03 said:

Seriously, WTF was with that bread story? 

I think this is a very old legend. I remember many years ago reading a story which has a mother telling a very similar story to her child, but in this case the "just right" race was Chinese.

[Coffeewinewater]

Bear Grylis wtf? Did that really happen? I just have no words. Why?

I love John Oliver, I think I'm just burned out on politics, even political comedy.

[swanpride]

Well, if it splits away from all the other democrats who are half republicans, I am all for it. But him winning the nomination would be a catastrophe, for all the reasons pointed out in the show. That might be like jumping from the frying pan into the fire. The only thing which I consider more dangerous than a millionaire who lacks any empathy is one who is also somewhat smart on top of it.

[scarynikki12]

Ollie's producers need to hand out masks of his face to the audience for next week's episode.

[swanpride]

Oh, btw, the elephant dung thing? Most likely fake. There isn't actually drinkable water in elephant dung.

[PrincessPurrsALot]

Folks,

Let's watch the personal politics please.  Talk about the show, not your personal opinion of the various politicians mentioned.  Thanks!

[Lantern7]

Anyone want to set a pool as to when we'd get an ending with John Oliver doing John Oliver-type stuff? I'm thinking fourth episode.

Man, Modi sounds like a nightmare . . . and I thought as much when I saw the president gush over him. Funny that he's been running India for years, and yet John looks to have aged faster. And that guy gets sporadic breaks throughout the year. But yeah, Modi sees to like lighting matches several feet from the fireworks factory.

Damn, I suppressed the elephant dung/water bit. I'm really hoping this isn't LWT upping the ante with every episode, since "elephant shit" is more disgusting than "shaved poodle butthole." As for Michael Bloomberg . . . what is it about running New York that makes these idiots think they can handle the White House?

[Jediknight]

6 hours ago, swanpride said:

Oh, btw, the elephant dung thing? Most likely fake. There isn't actually drinkable water in elephant dung.

And how do you know that?

Edited February 25, 2020 by Jediknight

[swanpride]

I looked it up and discovered an article about the show in which this happened - and how fake it was. An actual survival expert was commenting on how many tips given in it were actually nonsense or outright dangerous (like risking getting wet in the wilderness, or running and climbing around, risking an injury, when the smartest thing to do for survival is actually to avoid both and rather take a longer way than risking injury or hypothermia). There was a side note regarding the elephant dung thing, which boiled down to "the only way to get drinkable water from it is if you camera man emptied a bottle over it beforehand"

[Danny Franks]

John's brief critique of idiotic social media memes was fantastic. It's all such vacuous shit.

The Bloomberg stuff is depressing, because men like him are simply never told no by anyone, about anything, until it's too late. But whatever, he's a billionaire who wants to sooth his ego and his tax returns by trying to become president. Fine.

I heard about the citizenship law on The Bugle podcast a while ago. Modi and his government are laying the pathway for nationalists around the world to engineer their superiority by disqualifying swathes of people likely to oppose them. Narendra Modi reflects many other nationalist movements around the world. I would predict that India will cease to be a functional democracy at some point in the next few years.

Charismatic populists are definitely something to be seriously worried about. It's not that the concerns of their voters are invalid, it's that their approach is always about putting up walls and turning inwards. We can't do that any more. Our problems are global and aren't going to go away - climate change, food and water resources and economic collapse. How can we expect a nationalist governments to work together to help combat global problems?

And, by the way, when John mentioned that Modi simply doesn't talk much about controversial things, I was painfully reminded of the way Trump's administration deals with the press, and the way Boris Johnson's does. I fear that they've have figured out that if you just starve the press of information they want, instead of digging harder they'll just give up and accept whatever you give them.

Bear Grylls is a fucking arsehole, by the way.

Edited February 25, 2020 by Danny Franks

[sab85]

23 hours ago, ALenore said:

I think this is a very old legend. I remember many years ago reading a story which has a mother telling a very similar story to her child, but in this case the "just right" race was Chinese.

Yeah, I've definitely heard the bread story before. Maybe in school?

[link417]

11 hours ago, swanpride said:

I looked it up and discovered an article about the show in which this happened - and how fake it was. An actual survival expert was commenting on how many tips given in it were actually nonsense or outright dangerous (like risking getting wet in the wilderness, or running and climbing around, risking an injury, when the smartest thing to do for survival is actually to avoid both and rather take a longer way than risking injury or hypothermia). There was a side note regarding the elephant dung thing, which boiled down to "the only way to get drinkable water from it is if you camera man emptied a bottle over it beforehand"

Exactly! I heard a survival expert on a podcast explain that the stunt Bear Grylls pulled where he drank his own urine was also something one would avoid in an actual survival/dehydration scenario.

Bear Grylls is on the level of Dr. Oz and other TV “shock MDs” for me.

The people with the Modi masks on were super creepy, it looked like something out of a nightmare.

[xaxat]

Disney blocks John Oliver’s new episode critical of India’s PM Modi

Quote

Disney-owned Hotstar,  India’s largest on-demand video streaming service with more than 300 million users, has blocked the newest episode of HBO’s “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver” that was critical of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.