The Chaser Report - China's Paper Planes

Episode Date: November 10, 2021

Charles decides to do a little fear-mongering and spreads panic about a looming international conflict, and Dom has a story that'll send shivers down any parent's spine. Meanwhile Aleksa takes a nostalgic look back at everyone's favourite Christmas classic 'Home Alone'. All that, plus another round of Fiction or Furphy! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today's episode of The Chaser Report is brought to you by singing lessons with me. Gabby. All right, guys, match my note. La. La. Okay, try. La. La.

La. Oh. That was something. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is the Chaser Report. Hello and welcome to The Chaser Report. It is Thursday the 11th of November, 2021. I'm Dom Knight. Hello, Charles Firth once again.

And Dom, I don't want to alarm anyone, but I think you should be extremely scared. Really? I mean, that's generally how I approach life, as you know, but is there actually a reason for my massive paranoia? Yes, so China has been building these enormous shapes in the desert. Oh, is it like a beautiful artwork or something? No, they are aircraft carrier shapes,

and aircraft destroyer carrier shapes. and railway rack shapes. And they're in a desert in Chinchang. And the whole thing is they are shaped identically to all the different types of US aircraft carriers that are out there. I mean, I can see how that's chilling on the one hand, but I can also see how that might be quite comedic. Because if the troops are trained to defeat flat cardboard aircraft carriers,

they're going to get a terrible shock when they say the real ones that are armed with, like, guns and stuff. No, but this is the thing, right? So they are, they're being used for target practices. That is explicitly what they're being used for. They actually, they've mocked them up quite realistically. So all the places where there's a funnel or something like that where, you know, you need to drop the bomb, they've put in a funnel. Like they're sort of like 3D models. So from the air it would actually.

Yeah. They look really chillingly good. And they're the exact same size. It's just amazing. Anyway, so I'm pretty sure that China is planning to go to war. against America at any point in the next, you know, five seconds. I mean, that does sound quite concerning. Are you sure it's not some sort of reality TV show?

You might think that. China has said that it's legitimate and in our national interest to be carrying out these exercises. And the type of missile that they've been using to practice on these aircraft carriers are known colloquially in China as the carrier killer missiles, also known as the DF-21D ballistic missiles. I don't know I mean it does sound a little bit reality TV

but it sounds also more Dom like just reality I was just hoping it was like I'm a celebrity get me off this giant replica of an American aircraft carrier but I mean I think they should do what we do Charles which is that we have all these military exercises with our allies and the Pacific and Darwin and we pretend that they're not about China we don't actually have an exact model of Chinese planes and warships

we just say oh it's just about global security and so on Can't they just sort of pretend? Yes, although I have a feeling their posture is sort of the opposite of that at the moment because that's the other thing they've announced, which is just, I mean, like, I know this is worrying, but there's actually an even more worrying detail buried in these reports. A new Pentagon report, meanwhile, says China is rapidly expanding its nuclear arsenal and could have 1,000 warheads by 2030.

A thousand nuclear warheads, Dom, by 2030. I mean, I don't even know what a hypersonic weapon is. It sounds very fast. That's very, very fast, Dom. And they can wipe us out. A thousand nuclear warheads, we're going to be worried about China. Do you know how many warheads China has? I've always said that Taiwan belongs to China.

I'm a fan of the one China policy. I mean, Hong Kong, I'm glad that they crushed those annoying dissidents in Hong Kong with their bloody umbrellas. Yes. I mean, a thousand nuclear warheads. But 2030, there's almost a quarter as many nuclear warheads as U.S. has. Currently. Oh.

So is all that's happening that they're catching up to a tiny little bit of parity of the ridiculously overwhelming amount of stuff that the US has been stockpiling for years? Well, put it this way, even in 2030, everything goes according to plan, the US military will still spend more than the rest of the world's militaries, including China, combined. So their military expenditure is still predicted to be more than 50% of total military expenditure across the world. So, I mean, that would reassure me if I wasn't also quite scared of someone nuts in charge of the US and bringing us all to war. That's why we should be worried. In today's show, Charles is going to spin another one of those yarns of his for fiction or furphy. And then it is Home Alone's 31st anniversary. And of course, that's a real reason to celebrate, isn't it?

Our afternoon edition will feature the wonderful Sammy Shah talking about approval ratings. And is there even a preferred prime minister in this country anymore anyway? In a moment, let's head to Rebecca Daynamuno in the Chaser Newsroom. Gearing toward an upcoming election, the leader of the opposition has announced his party is committed to getting Australians faster, more modernised, fast train announcements. Albanese claims this light rail announcement is different to previous years and that he has big plans to see the light rail announcement through until one day after the election.

Staying on transport, Morrison, unveiled a $250 million plan to get more electric cars on the roads after he learned the cars AI can be programmed to exclusively run over Labour voters. This answers the philosophical dilemma of Scott's Trolley Problem, which ponderes if it's more ethical to destroy your opposition or the future of the entire planet. In education news, as students complete their Year 12 exams, the rate of fires across the country have increased by not.

thousand percent due to students burning their notes. In response to the wild spread of ceremonial notebook bonfires, Morrison has already fled to Hawaii. That's the latest headlines from The Chaser Report. I'm Rebecca Deunamuno and anyone who ever said you aren't defined by your Atar was lying to your face. Did I mention mine was 99.95? Today's episode of The Chaser Report is brought to you by singing lessons with me. Gabby. Okay. Guys, Adele, hello from the chorus. One, two, three, and get it now. We could have had it.

No, wrong song. Wrong. Roll it is the day. No, Santa, Santa! Santa! Santa! Wrong song! So we're here with Gabby, Loughlin and Alexa, and I've always said that 31 years is the roundest number to celebrate

when it comes to anniversaries. Of course. And Alex, you've got some news about a 31st anniversary coming up. Yeah, it's the 30th first birthday of Home Alone. Woo! Yeah, very exciting. 31 years of child neglect. I've actually just never seen Home Alone because I was born in 2000, which means...

Oh, my God. What do you do around Christmas? Yeah, don't you watch it at Christmas time? I watch Elf. Look, Elf is a fine Christmas movie, but Elf... Elf is more problematic than Home Alone. What do you mean? fully grown men acting like a child.

It's just a fucking societal statement, isn't it, Elf? Let's wait till December before you tell us why Elf is a shit. Yeah, that's right. That's right. We got to wait for the 31st anniversary of Elf. But today it's Home Alone. Have any of you guys watched it recently? Not super recently.

Probably last Christmas. Yeah, last Christmas. Yeah, never. You didn't notice anything weird about the movie? I think it's a good movie. I think it's weird that the cops weren't there to arrest the mother when she came back. What I found out recently about the plot of Home Alone is that it's just monstrous, right-wing propaganda that you couldn't get away

with these guys. What? What a terrible terrible thing to watch during Christmas? It's this crazy movie where you've got like a family of like 40 kids who live together and the whole premise of every single movie is that they all always have the money to go on vacation and this

one of 40 kids gets left behind in the mansion and he spends the entire movie doing like lethal and humiliating attacks on the burglars. Yeah, on the burglars. How is that right wing. Well,

because they're the baddies. Charlotte, you guys watch this? Yeah. You're monsters. Why? I guess you're in the Christmas spirit. No,

no, no. They are villains. They're real baddies. It's Joe Pesci. They've got Italian accents. They are literally plotting to steal, like the whole plot is that, like, the whole plot is that they're robbers.

They're literally robbers. The craziest part is that none of this was necessary. Like, he overhears them plotting to rob his house. And he's, he lives in a mansion. and it's not just a mansion in a bougie neighborhood. It is the best mansion on the street, as the robbers say themselves. Look, that house is the only reason we started working this block in the first place. Ever since I laid eyes on that house, I wanted it.

So they want to rob the house, and Kevin knows, and he has no reason to be there. He goes to the church at one point where he's completely safe, but he's like, fuck this. I want to go back and set some traps. Some vigilante justice. Well, yeah, that's the thing. It's justice in that it's like completely legal in Illinois. where the movie's set. Because they have this castle doctor-in-law where essentially if you feel threatened,

regardless of what the legitimate threat is, you're allowed to exert any kind of force against intruders to your house. So he takes his opportunity to go back home and just do things that would kill a normal person if it wasn't a cartoonish movie. Okay. Now I understand why it's an American Christmas movie. Yeah, yeah, exactly. But hang on. But you admit that it's a cartoonish thing.

Are you saying that top... Tom and Jerry is right-wing propaganda because they hit each other? No, no. It's because there's no class imbalance between them. They're just two people in a house diametrically opposed to each other. It's wild because it's not just the burglars. Like it would be like, okay, maybe they deserve it because they're trying to... Rob a house.

They're poor people trying to rob a house. You know, you probably shouldn't rob a house. But he does it to just any working class person. So before the burglars come, he doesn't just fuck with burglars. He fucks with the pizza delivery boy who's like maybe like five years old of him, but just poor. So as the pizza delivery boy is coming, Kevin kind of plays this, like,

20s gangster movie to, like, make the Please Delivery Boy think he's getting shot at. You're telling me that the pizza delivery guy deserved that. Well, hang on, hang on. He pays the pizza delivery guy. He doesn't tip him, and that's why he shoots him. Ah, right. I do admit that there are some problematic things

with your class-based analysis. I find so funny about this is that this kid's what, like 11 in the first movie, right? 10, 11. And instead of just doing what any, like if I, you know what, if I were 25 and this happened to me, but if I were 10 or 11 and I was left home alone, my parents completely forgot about me on an overseas trip, I'm not going to spend time thinking I could kick some burglar, but I'd be right into the neighbours going, well, I guess I'm your child for the next 10 days.

Like, I'd be like, I've been left home alone and then docs would be on the case. Or you could call the police, which he does do it. the end of the movie, meaning that it was completely nonsense. Like, everything he was doing before that was completely unnecessary. Yeah, I think he just saw, I think a world-class sociopath in the making saw an opportunity to train up his serial killer skills as a young age and he went, no one's going to suspect this. I still think that it's legitimate for you to not want to, like, for him to try and take out

the bad, like the robbers. But I mean, even if they are poor, they're still robbers. No, I think you can make this argument for the first one, but then the second one is even wilder because he's like in New York he defraud some like um he defraught some hotel to go I know the second one that's the the one with Donald Trump yeah yeah yeah Donald Trump shows up and he's a good guy and he tried the second one so wild as well because there's not even robbing his house anymore he's in a different city and they want to rob a toy store so he lures them from the toy store to an abandoned house and does the same crazy shit doing these

are these movies the saw franchise he does he just does such insane stuff like it's either lethal or stuff that should kill you, but it doesn't because it's a kid's movie. Slapstick. Or it's just really humiliating. Like, he does stuff where he like burns them alive and he like electrocutes them until they become see through and you can see their skeleton. Actually, I'm starting to understand Abu Ghraib. Do you remember Abu Ghraib?

Because if this film was made in 1990, then the kids who went over and committed all those torture war crimes against prisoners in Iraq would have grown up with Home Alone as their Christmas movie, wouldn't they? Super innovative ways to torture people. Yes. Well, thank you very much, Alex. It's very enlightening.

I've decided after this that I'm not going to show my kids home alone anymore. Good choice. But I am going to join them up to the Australian Communist Party. You obviously know how to get them in. That's the one of only two communists in Australia. Yes, welcome to another installment of Fiction or Furti.

This is the game. name where Charles Firth, with a similar name, to be confusing, he tells a story and our panel of Gabby and Alexa have to work out whether it is fiction, that means totally made up or Firthi, which is fundamentally true, but a bit exaggerated. Are we ready to go, Alexa? Oh, I'm so ready. I've been practicing lying all morning. Gabby, you weren't right last time. Do you think you can get this one? No. This game has no stakes. I really don't care how it goes. You can have a beer afterwards. All right, Charles. Crack one, tell one.

Okay, so I don't know whether this one ever made it to air, but when I was the US correspondent for the war and everything, the Iraq war was on, and there was this huge scandal for a while, do you remember Abu Ghraib, the sort of scandal where they... Beautiful place. The US forces tortured all these prisoners of war, completely illegally. Like, it was just an abomination of human rights. But they did things like make the prisoners dress up in gimp suits and things like that. It was really weird sadomasochistic stuff. And so we thought it would be funny if I dressed up in a gimp suit and then went to Times Square where there was,

because it was the Iraq War, there was a sort of army recruitment centre right in the middle of Times Square and knock on the door and sort of go, well, look, I've heard you're into this stuff. You know, maybe we could get something going. So if I go along, I'm dressed up as a gimp, I'm in Times Square. And the thing that we didn't really, we didn't really wrecky it properly, I thought I'd just be able to walk in, but the door was locked.

And so I was there sort of ringing the doorbell, knocking on the door. This went on for like five minutes until, yeah, through the intercom, somebody went, go away, like that. But I just persisted until this other guy, this sort of completely clean-cut guy with a backpack on, came from behind me, grabbed me, and put me in the most painful arm lock I have ever felt, And I'm still in character going, oh yeah, that's great, yeah, yeah, treat me rough, man. Because that was the whole point in the sketch, but it was like, so painful. And he keeps on going, I'm serious, man, I'm serious.

And so, yeah, like, yeah, so am I. I'm into this role play. And then, and then he just pulls the shirt up and reveals that he's got a fucking gun on him, a handgun. And it's like, oh, okay, I'm out of character now. Okay, sorry, I'll go away. Yeah, I don't think that never made it to air, but it was. It was far more that lasted.

What do we think? Gabby, is it fiction or furfie? This is hard because I seem to remember watching an episode when I was young where Chaz was in a gimp suit. Like, I know you definitely had a gimp suit on set. I feel like this is fiction, only because Charles says he was in an arm lock again and he didn't say the words, I'll go peacefully. So I feel like it can't be a furphy. Well, I don't know, I went to a big old arms dealer convention

and I'm pretty sure I saw a lot of gimp outfits. I just don't believe that they wouldn't have taken him on immediately. Like, it's sleek, it's robust, it's dynamic. How could they resist? Exactly. Well, no, you're both wrong. It's a furphy, it's true. They're both wrong.

They both thought it was fictitious. Yeah, you're both wrong again. In fact, the only embellishment at all was that he didn't actually show me a gun. What he showed me was his US Army badge, like really official-looking Army badge. And that's what made you stop? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it was like... Oh, now that the badgers out, boys, I can't keep it going.

He was deadly serious. Yeah. Yeah, I've been to that recruiting station when visiting New York, and you definitely feel the weight of 9-11, shall you say. This has been fictional, furfy, furphy, unbelievable. This episode of The Chaser Report is brought to you by singing lessons with me, Gabby. Okay, guys, my mama makes me mash my mini-enams. Let's go.

One, two, three, four. My mama makes me make me. mash my mini and ends on a Monday morning Next, my mother makes me mash my mini and my names on a Monday morning My mama makes me match my bed And leave my house and go to work And then I have to pay rent And she says, Gabby, you're doing nothing with your fucking life

And like, my mama makes me fucking go and do you Gabby, we... Do I hit that in a falsetto or... Fuck you guys! This is all for free! Charles, just before we go, my worst nightmare, as a dad of a kid in childcare happened yesterday in the news, two-year-olds broke out of a childcare centre. What?

And was seen running towards a busy freeway. Unfortunately, someone pulled over in time and managed to kind of scoop them up and take to the safety. But can you imagine how upsetting that would be for the parents? That is incredible. So it's like the Great Escape, but the toddler version of the Great Escape. Yeah, and the Child Care Centre has been fined $15,000 as a result of... Was this your child care centre?

No, no, no, my child. But, like, it's in Queensland. Yeah, right, okay, good. Oh, well, that's all right. But it made me think, should we really be punishing the childcare centre or rewarding the kids for their ingenuity? Because, I mean, that is pretty impressive. If they can figure that out, they'll be able to, like, hack into Australia's enemies

and who knows what they'll be able to do. Yes, they could be super kids spies. Actually, you know what we should do? We should recruit them to the tracer. And we could... For stunts. For stunts. and also bank heists.

Yeah, that's right. Stop those two kids. Oh, imagine a remake of Ocean's 11, but it was all like two-year-olds and three-year-olds. That would be the cutest thing ever! That would be so huge. And I just imagine the pranks you can play, like when the Prime Minister comes up and goes,

oh, hello, and the kid just, I don't know, just punches him in the face. Great. And also, no harm, no foul. You can't really be charged as a child, so... That's true. It's the perfect cover. So I think I should see if my daughter is interested in becoming a kind of criminal mastermind.

Yep, okay. Yep, that's done. So, I mean, thank you, negligent Queensland Child Care Center for encouraging me to exploit my child. That's a great idea. Our gear is from road microphones, and we are part of the ACAST creator network. And the best way to complain about what we just said is to go to Apple Podcasts and write us a review. I mean, you've got to do five stars. That's just the rules of the site is that you've got to put five stars.

Yeah. But write anything you want. And maybe write something about the new. you know morning and afternoon format do you think that's the way to go or should we just go back to one a day please just say go back to one a day and this afternoon's guest is sammy shah that's going to drop in your feet at about 3 p.m see you then see yeah