Smelling salts! Stat!

OH NOES!! The Chaser boys have offended some people again with a song that appears to take the piss out of dead celebrities, including Steve Irwin, Princess Di, Kerry Packer and Stan Zemanek (but is really just commenting on the hypocrisy of eulogizing those whom we found cause to dislike when they were still breathing).



Cue the hyperventilating . . .

"CHASERS WAR ON GOOD TASTE" wails Ninemsn. "To disrespect people have passed [sic] is cruel!" moans Deb of Adelaide, in the Ninemsn forum on the topic. On the ABC's own message board (and according to News.com, "Irate viewers rang the ABC switchboard to complain about the song after it aired and talkback radio hosts were inundated with comments about its content"), habbo1 whines: "A long time fan of Chaser, great dissapointment in the cringe factor that was last night 'dead celebrity bashing.' Juvenile, pathetic humour that we are to expect from Commercial TV's attempt to be 'controversial.'" I'm certain there's more to come. (UPDATE: And I was right.)

What a bunch of tightarse, whinging fuckpigs (as Billy Connolly would say).

This reminds me of when Sean Hannity was sooking about what a big meanie Christopher Hitchens was for the latter's criticisms of the late Jerry Falwell:



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Australian idiocracy: Ninemsn polls

One of the more obvious signs that the idiots are taking over the asylum is the increasing tendency to confuse fact with opinion, as the current NineMSN poll shown above demonstrates. If you can't make it out, it reads: "Are young Australian Muslims vulnerable to being radicalised?" As the focus of a research paper or conference it makes perfect sense: there's a problem to be investigated, data to be collected, arguments to be advanced and results to be subjected to the scrutiny of one's peers. But what light can be shed on this topic by the kneejerk response of your average punter signing out of Hotmail? If the answer is "none," then what purpose is served by such a poll in the first place? They might as well have a poll on whether Europa features a liquid ocean beneath its icy crust.

This reminds me of former Education Minister Brendan Nelson's flirtation with the teaching of intelligent design in schools, on the grounds that "it should be taught in schools alongside evolution if that is the wish of parents." In other words, in 2005 the Federal Government believed that the religious opinions of parents should determine what gets taught as fact in a science classroom. Welcome to idiocracy. Read more!