The Chaser Report - A Load Of Kabul | Craig Reucassel

Episode Date: August 17, 2021

Today we're talking less about lockdown, as promised! And talking more about a much longer-running, even more interminable problem – Afghanistan. Aleksa has compiled some truly terrible takes on the fall of Kabul, while Craig attempts to adapt insights from Australian politics to improving health care and the situation in Afghanistan. Also, Charles' son wants to buy a gun. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today's episode, The Chase Report, is brought to you by your dad's latest DIY project, because nothing says essential like heading to Bunnings at 7am on a Wednesday to pick up a brand-new chicken coop flat pack. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chase of Report. Hello, welcome to The Chaser Report for Wednesday, the 18th of August, 2021. Quick team meeting, Charles. Yes. First thing to say is Gabby's gone off for a week to be glamorous and work in television, so she'll be back very soon.

Missing her already, but we press on, don't we, Charles? Yeah, that's right. We've never felt this experience before where one of our colleagues has gone off to have a writer career in TV. It's a very, very new experience for us. Yeah, I mean, she'll realize, I'm sure, through that processing, podcasting is where the glamour is and the opportunity and the money, but that's okay. Let her.

That's right. We're not bitter. No, let her just go and... Camp out. Work with Will Anderson and Jan Fran. Slum it. Slum it. She'll work with them and she'll go, oh my God, I wish I was working with Dom and Charles.

Yeah, I had it so good when I'm going to see her again. Anyway, so that's point one. Point two, Charles. Yesterday, I think we acknowledged that all of the lockdown discussion about the endless boringness and how every day was the same. It got it with Milbo, with Dave Milne, it got a little bit too dark and repetitive. even, we've just, we've got to stop having episodes like that, all right? We've got to stop being so negative about everything.

Yeah, I just, we're going to inject some hope and humour into, into the world. That's what we're for. We're here for, for a bit of light, a bit of fun. Even when everything else seems dark, you can trust this podcast to shine a light and cheer you up. That's the promise from here on. That's what we're going to do, Charles.

That's our value proposition. That's why you download it each day. That's why you download it every day and more and more people do every day. We had our best numbers ever yesterday, so thank you for that. Yeah. But Charles, what are we going to talk about today? Well, actually, some really good news out of New South Wales, Dom. At last.

Yes, which is, I mean, listen to her. It's very upbeat. In September and October, which will be our most difficult months, there's no doubt that September and October until we get to that 70% double dose and as free as possible during those difficult months, doesn't mean we'll be living completely freely, no. And we envisage that case numbers in the next two or three weeks will bounce around and are likely to go up substantially.

See, worst is yet to come, but you did say it in a very upbeat manner, didn't she? I don't think you're quite getting the feedback that I was giving, Charles. I guess it means that every day's not the same. See, you're just seeing things as glass half empty, aren't you, don't you? Yeah. You and your negativity going, well, just because the worst is in front of us means that, you know, that's a bad thing. But what I'm saying is, if you think about it, we haven't experienced the really bad bit yet,

which means it's really good. If nothing else, it will be different. Yes, it's different. Yes. Worse different, but yeah, that's okay. Yeah, they've started, the police have started shutting down children's playgrounds around the city. Blacktown children's playgrounds have all been shut down yesterday afternoon. I mean, that's a thin slither of what might sort of unfold over the coming months.

But, you know, like, who knows? Every day will be a surprise. So, A, one was optimism, but the second thing we want to do differently is talk about more different things. So it's not just lockdown every day. Oh, Melbourne sucks. I'm on that. What we've commissioned for this episode is something we haven't talked about before at all this entire year. Yes.

Afghanistan. Afghanistan, yes. That's going to be a positive upbeat chat. We've got Craig coming in and trying to solve the crisis in Afghanistan. It would be frank, I haven't kept across the Afghani news, but I assume it's all going completely fine. And I think that'll be good. That's a good news story to look forward to later in the episode.

Charles, I think you may have just qualified for the other thing we're doing today, which is Alex is joining us to run through some of the worst takes on the situation in Afghanistan. So it's not going to be talking about the lockdown. It's going to be talking about another internal disaster that has no sign of being resolved. Anyway, let's go to Rebecca Dane and we know in the Chase the Newsroom. The same media that called Dan Andrews a dictator last year has now demanded New South Wales become a police state. The Murdoch media have rallied behind moves

to give the New South Wales police uncapped power because apparently calling in the military wasn't bad enough. The New South Wales Police Commissioner told everyone changes will be made soon and has advised the public to keep their eyes on John Barilaro's Twitter for announcements. A new land speed record has been achieved by Scott Morris in this time.

week after he was caught running away from dealing with his mistakes. Morrison was clocked breaking the sound barrier this week when he was asked to give an apology to Australians on the vaccine rollout, to which Scott responded by bolting in the opposite direction. The PM is expected to compete in the Brisbane Olympics with the proviso he is not held responsible for making sure the games run smoothly. Staff and students of average public high school are in high spirits as they celebrate the 20th anniversary of their temporary demountable classrooms being installed. The day also marks 19 years since the school started promising

they would soon be torn down. When asked if anyone at average public knew the definition of the word temporary, students pointed out the word is for some reason included in the Google search block list by the state government. That's the latest headlines from the Chaser Newsroom. I'm Rebecca Deunamuno. Today's episode, The Chase Report, is brought to by third-degree sunburn in winter

because dad's way too keen about making this DIY project fun for the whole fence. Ouch, that's my head! Craig's Flawless Solutions Caution might contain flaws. So look, the Institute of Flawless Solutions, the multi-million dollar organisation that it is, has been charged with a very interesting challenge this week. I am.

It's to try and save a lot of money in the health area. Oh, I am. You know that lots of money we waste in the healthier area on prevention. It's a waste. I mean, who knows? It might not end up being a problem at all. That's true. That's exactly like my mechanic always says,

Oh, do you want to change the tires? They're getting a bit bald. Something like that. And you're going, but hang on, we don't know. Like, they could last one month. They could last 12 months. We just don't know. Wait until they burst.

Why bother eating healthfully when you could be hit by a bus? It's this ridiculous waste of your time. I mean, prevention is so much worse than the cure in many cases. That's what Plath Palmer's been telling me. Exactly. And this is it. So what we're doing is a fascinating study, actually. We're looking at the way in which Australian politics operates and seeing if we can take lessons from that

and take them into the medical field, right? So, for instance, if you look at currently speaking, you know, the Delta variant, Lots of people are like, oh, act now, act now. You know, and you go, no, no, let's just see if this is going to be a problem, right? Let's just settle back. Let's see if DELD is going to become a problem. In fairness, that was, that was the Gladys approach. He left it like 11 days.

That's what I'm saying. Yes, I think that was, that's very, approach. We didn't waste, we didn't lock down any businesses unnecessarily. No, yes. Oh, no, definitely, there's definitely the Delta variant, right? Yeah, people talk about the eight weeks that we've been in lockdown. But they don't count the 11 days. But we weren't in lockdown.

Exactly. Exactly. Also, I mean, there's been a lot of talk right now. Like, like, I've seen, been watching these news stories for like years now, absolute years, literally years, talking about should we bring back the translators that worked with the Aussie troops in Afghanistan and bring them in as, you know, we need to protect them and bring them here. Yes. And correctly, like, the government was like, whoa, let's just hold it. I mean, maybe Afghanistan will become a utopian place that everyone will sustain. Let's just hold back.

Let's not act too early. But hang on, Craig. I don't want to try and, you know, find floors in this beautiful glass that you're constructing. But I'm not even to the, this is not even the floor a bit yet. Hasn't this approach ended us up in an unprecedentedly shit situation for which there's no escape? I'm both in Afghanistan and in South Wales. No, it's like climate change as well. You're just got to wait.

Like, don't bother spending a lot of money and time right now solving. the problem. Just, Wayne, do you really, really, really know it's a problem, okay? Yeah. And that makes sense on climate change as well, because, you know, like, say you invent a machine that fixes climate change, right? Now, people will probably pay you, I don't know, a hundred bucks for that now. But when the whole world is going to shit, they'll probably pay you a thousand bucks for

exactly the same machine, right? Exactly. Exactly. So, genius. So anyway, so what I've been doing. is taking these brilliant lessons from our, from our leadership and trying to apply them to the health thing. So, you know, I'll go into hospitals and say, okay, let's use the lessons we've learned

from politics here and see how it can solve problems here. So, for instance, like, ask me, you know, throw a disease at me, and I'll tell you how we now solve it. Cancer. Cancer, okay. Well, you wait till the person's dead, and then you look into solving that problem, you see. And look, think of all the money we've solved. in that process because you look at all these cancer institutes everywhere.

A lot of money goes into an enormous amount. Wait till we're absolutely certain it's going to be a problem. And, yeah, that's the place to do it. To throw another one at me. What about something like hepatitis E, which sort of affects your liver and can be quite debilitating over a number of years? Can it kill you? Yeah, yeah, eventually. Well, then you wait until they did.

Oh, I see. What about something like you smash your elbow? Smash your elbow? You did that, yeah. Yeah, well, I guess it's not life-threatening, but... It's not life-threaty, but see, the moment what you people would do is they'd go, oh, let's put that in a cast and re-end, that kind of thing. Now, you don't know that that's not going to just heal itself if you leave it out.

Right. Save that money up front. Just don't do anything now. Just save it. Well, hang on. What about Ebola? Like, what about something that's absolutely disgusting and very, very, very... fatal and just awful.

No one would want to get Ebola. Surely you're not going to wait until after they die. Well, of course, why waste? Why do something early, Tom? Have you learnt nothing from our last several years here? This is a brilliant approach. I can't help feeling, especially with something like Ebola, that if you let it just fester that it might spread a bit.

Yeah, see, I think you might, I think you may have missed the Delta variant lesson we learned earlier. So you're basically saying don't have a medical system at all. Craig, you just simply don't do a thing. I mean, I don't know. Look, whatever you can do after people are dead, you should really be good at that. But just stop wasting all this money and prevention. Like, stop solving problems before they become absolute gut-wrenchingly terrible problems.

Because I think the health industry is about, what, a $300 billion a year industry globally? I think that's about right, isn't it? I haven't looked into it that much. Look, I'm a very top. top-level analyst. But you're saying that the funeral industry, which would only be, I don't know, a $10 billion a year industry, that could be our next $300 billion a year industry. No, I see, no, I guess the funeral industry has asked me to apply the lessons we've

learned from our political leadership to their thing. So I'm talking to them now, and the whole thing is like going, should we bury this body like, well, I don't know, like we don't know it's going to rot yet. Let's just really, why don't you leave it in your backyard and just see what happens? That's going to save a lot of money and time, too. Craig, do you need to rebrand your institute? Because I'm not sure that you're... They used to come up with solutions that were highly flawed.

As the federal Liberal Party, is that what you're saying, Doc? Yeah. I just think, maybe flawless in action is the vision now. Is that right? You can imagine how much time you have. Like, I have put this to play in my own life. I make curry all the time. It just gives you so much time back.

But what happens, Craig, when after your months and months and years of in action on bushfires and vaccines and COVID and the Delta variant leads to you going down in the polls and then losing the next election, do you then do nothing still and let it happen? Do your political career dies or is that the point where you spring into action? Oh no, you just throw lots of money at solving that problem. You just buy the whole lot of car packs, don't know? It's the last three months.

You just throw shit loads of money at that. That's the one thing that can be solved with large amounts of money and acting at the right time. That's it. Now, as we mentioned with Craig, of course, things are not good in Afghanistan right now, not just in terms of, you know, the Taliban running over everything,

but also in terms of some of the commentary. Alex has been taking a look at some of the worst takes on Afghanistan. Hey, Alex. Hey, there. Yeah, there are a lot of, a lot of bad takes. I mean, I guess Taliban's just working faster than we expected, so everyone else has to pull out their shit takes as quickly as possible.

It makes them a lot more entertaining. The first one I found is from Australia. It's a tweet from Matt Kanavan. Now, in case listeners don't know, National Party politician, big friend of the coal lobby, also holds a world record for eating the most coal in one sitting.

It's three kilograms. Yeah, the day the Taliban took Kabul, he tweeted, does anyone know whether the Taliban will sign up to net zero? I see what he did there. Wait a minute. So what was going through his mind there?

Was he trying to say that even the Taliban make the Liberal Party look like And there's all some, Cole? Is that the... He did try to defend himself. He said, in Australia, we focus too much on first world problems. And this was his cheeky way to attack. Ah, yes.

Because that's right, because the club of change is only going to affect first world. Exactly. Is that like when Scott Morrison came up and said, well, look, at least no one's shooting at you. Exactly. See, look, I am grateful that we're overrun by Matt Kavana instead of the Taliban, not. Just barely.

And actually, but more importantly, Are they going to sign up for net zero? This is important. It's a big question. I can guarantee they'll do it before we do. Canavan's not alone, though. There are lots of people echoing his sentiment. You've got Mike Pompeo, Trump's Secretary of State.

He agrees with Cannavan. He said, this is in the context of the Biden administration that has basically abandoned the global stage in favor of climate change. Because they care about climate change so much, they don't want to be in a country that, Halfway around the world. So they've, hang on, so they've abandoned the world, like, they've abandoned dealing with the issues of the world

to deal with the biggest issue of the world. That makes perfect tense. I mean, surely it's not a trade-off. He also blamed critical race theory, so it's half climate change, half. He did not. That is not true. That is not true. We did the, we literally, that was in a Chaser article yesterday.

So that's real. We're not fast enough. We've got to keep up with the shit takes. They come every second. Wait till Pompeii is about the telebands, Green New Deal. But I mean, it goes to show Canavan isn't crazy. He's just as sane as any other Trump supporter. Oh, he goes on Steve Banner's podcast, and now we know why.

Exactly. But yeah, everyone was weighing in. You had the Bitcoin community drew some important lessons from Afghanistan as well. They say, Taliban's takeover major cities in Afghanistan caused that country's citizens to scramble for cash, which bankers of cryptocurrencies claim is an indicator for the need for more decentralized money. Oh, what a surprise. It's very clear. It's very clear. You know, the country gets taken over by a rural warlord kind of theocracy, but you don't have to wait in line for a bank. I don't think they shouldn't be called hot takes or shit takes or whatever. They should be called

confirmation bias takes. These are just people ramming whatever they're most into, into whatever, into Afghanistan. Yeah, no exactly. You know what my take on Afghanistan is, now having heard all this, I think that they should make better coffee in, you know, and train their baristas better. Yeah, I mean, I've got to say that for me, the Taliban's takeover has really made me want to buy a house in Sydney someday. Yeah. No, one of the most amazing ones we had was from Tucker Carlson on Fox News.

Now, he's got one of the most watched cable news shows in America. Yeah, the new Bill O'Reilly. Exactly, but better, much better. Since Kabul has just fallen, it might be worth asking the most obvious question of all. Why did the Taliban win? How did the 6th century triumph over the 21st century? It turns out that the people of Afghanistan don't actually want gender studies symposia. They didn't actually buy the idea that men can become pregnant.

They thought that was ridiculous. They don't hate their own masculinity. They don't think it's toxicity. They like the patriarchy. Some of their women like it too. So now they're getting it all back. Wait a minute. So he's pro-Telabat. Yeah, yeah. He loves them.

Wow. I mean, this is a theocracy that literally when women turn up to university a day or two ago, though, just told to go home and put on a burqa. Like, what a... You can't even be comedic about this. Is it so weird and gymnastic that he actually thinks that America should have pulled out of Afghanistan

so that the Taliban could take over. Is that part of his thinking? Like, is he on Osama bin Laden's side in this? Well, to be fair, I always found it a little bit odd when, like, you know, far-right Americans pretended that they were at odds with far right in the Middle East.

I think all it takes is for the US to pull out and suddenly they can embrace each other again. Yeah, okay, yeah. Well, that is true. I mean, because Taliban's anti-vaxor as well. Yeah, it's a lot of shared values there. Anti-abortion, sort of purpose. Tucker Carlson is a fundamentalist weirdo.

So I really hope he doesn't take over America. What's shocked me is that I always assume when these things come out, we've reached like the peak of the culture war, but then there's just more and more things. And it's gone to the point where I guess their brains rotted so much that everything is subsumed by the logic of the culture war. Like they care more about someone's gender than about an actual war that exists.

Yeah, it's more important for him to discredit the notion of gender studies than a religious theocracy taking over Afghanistan after 20 years of the US trying to keep them out. that is quite extraordinary but I mean at the same time it's not that it's not that they Taliban were our friends you know 30 years ago

like it's just it's just things going back to normal but it's one thing to you know have a shit take and have an audience react to it but they can't hold a candle to the kind of OG Afghan shit takes of the 80s these were shit takes by people who actually had power you know the shit takes by Western leaders who are you know funding and training what is essentially the Taliban

I want to say that The hearts of the free world are with you. And with those of your countrymen... So there was Margaret Thatcher, is this? Welcoming the Taliban. Of the Taliban? Yeah, the freedom fighters. Oh, wow.

Oh, the Mujahideen. Yeah. Yeah, wow. You got Ronald Reagan as well saying these gentlemen are the moral equivalent of America's founding fathers. I mean, I don't think Margaret Thatcher would have fared well under Taliban rule. I mean, that would have been a lot of hair to fit into a burker.

I don't think the Taliban would have survived under. Thatcher's rule. But I mean, yeah, it's just coming full circle, you know, we're finally free to love the Taliban again, which I think is a great time. And I think we, as a chaser, we should take the queue, you know, jump on board. You know, just like in the 80s, Hollywood loved them. You had the end of Rambo 3. They had a big screen at the end of the movie saying this film is dedicated to the brave

Mujahideen fighters of Afghanistan. So what I would suggest is that we take a page from Rambo and we just end this segment, you know, just by acknowledging this podcast is dedicated. to the brave Mujardine fighters of Afghanistan. That's a terrible take. Yeah, I thank you for finishing it with the worst take of all, like Alex. Yeah, that's right. You've had done them all.

But it's certainly true that there is no more gender studies in Afghanistan's university because there's no more women in Afghanistan's university. Well done, Tucker, well done. Today's episode of The Chase Report is brought to you by the unintended side effects of doing DIY with the whole family Quick he's losing blood Before we go Craig Dom I've got a bit of a complaint about one of my sons

I love your parenting On the weekend It was his birthday right And we gave him quite a bit of money But I'm talking, you know, a couple of hundred bucks. Wow. And just before, I just started recording these, I just got a phone call from him.

And, like, he's only about 20 metres away. He's literally upstairs. He couldn't be bothered to come downstairs and ask me. He calls me up. And on his phone, which we gave him for his birthday just two days ago, right? Like, you know, pretty fucking spoiled, if you ask me. Anyway, and he asks to borrow some money, right? Really?

We gave you 200 bucks like three days ago. What have you done with this money? What's he done with it? Where's it gone? Well, this is the thing. So he wanted to borrow the money for some sort of in-app purchase for a gun. But guess what he'd spent all his birthday money on? So just before you go to where he spent, did you say in-out purchase for a gun? So yeah, letting the kids have guns, but virtually, is that good?

A gun, a genuine. Yeah, so you can shoot people in the face. What do you do, Matt? It's normal. He's 13. Come on. Give it with the program. I apologize.

For a second, I was going to criticize your parenting approach. Thank God, that's a gun. Charles does regularly say, I feel like shooting you in the face to me. So it's a violent family. What can I say? No, no. So guess what he spent all his birthday money on? Well, if he's 13, it's probably porn.

No. No. No, that's disgusting. No. I thought he'd spend it on, like, beer or something like, you know, like drugs or something, heroin maybe. He spent it on a mechanical keyboard. To play music and become like a really great penis. No, no, no, no, like just a quirky keyboard. For typing. Literally a keyboard for his computer, so, which has a nice...

But does it have flashing lights, which will make him seem cooler when he's playing computer games, He doesn't even have flashing lights. It's just like a fucking clicky keyboard. Charles, are you saying that your son became a teenager and the coolest thing he could think of to do for his birthday was a keyboard for his computer? I think he's a nerd. I think I think I'm...

Charles, didn't you run a literally, when you were like 13, 14, you ran a computer company? I know. I wanted him to rebel. I wanted him to be different. I wanted him to have heroin or... Don't give him. wrong, Charles. We wanted your children to be different

to you as well. I think if he's going to choose parts of your life to copy I think the dubious comedy career and the wild partying, drug-taking lifestyle, I think best to pick the computer nerd part out of that portfolio. Computer part, exactly, yeah, yeah. Not so much on the gun front, but you know,

I presume that's fine. Anyway, so do you think I should give him the $17 he wanted to this gun? Because I sort of think, at least then it's a little bit wild and reckless. Maybe I should make him earn it by like smoking a joint or something. No, it's probably some nerdy gun for a computer game that can't even kill

anybody. Like, make sure he spends it on a real weapon. Yeah, that's right. Wait until he asks for a machete. Yeah, make sure you continue your really bad parenting. Like, don't settle for only bad parenting. Yeah, no, exactly. Oh, yeah. Thanks, Craig. By the way, Charles, it's funny that you, it's funny the things you get used to because you're like, I can't believe he's just called me from in this actual house. Like, get used to that, man.

Like, like, there's no way my kids would ever walk the five meters to my room to say something to me. That's ridiculous, Charles. So in that case, Craig, they're taking after me out of that work. That's true. Oh, no. Oh, my God. This is what it is. This is what Apple is leading to, forget all the secrecy and privacy stuff.

Apple is leading to a world of doms. No! You can leave us a five-star review on Apple Podcasts. Our Goose from Road Microphones, and we're part of the ACAST, Creator Network. Catch you tomorrow.