Men arrested for breaching high security areas with fake Canadian Motorcade.

[dean]

Thought I'd post this great video from one of Australia's highest rating TV shows, The Chaser's War On Everything, and get an American perspective.

To give you a bit of history on the people involved with the show, they are basically eternal pranksters with a political bent, famous for ambushing people with various stunts.  They have primarily a left wing bent to them, but are pretty much good at pointing out anyone who has stepped out of line or done something stupid, it just makes sense that the government will put themselves out there for more 'p**s-take.'  They also do lay a bit of crap on Americans, but that's mainly George W Bush, so hopefully I'm not putting too many noses out of joint for posting this here.  I doubt I am though, since I'm sure even the most hard line Bush fans can take a joke... They'd have to have gotten used to it by now...



Basically this clip here is from an episode that aired a week or so ago to 2.2 million viewers or so [a massive haul for our country.]

Not sure if any of you know, but recently Sydney, Australia, was host to APEC, a big conference which addressed many issues involving economics and security, with a large number of world leaders attending.

Hundreds of millions was spent on security for this summit, with many parts of Sydney's CBD sealed off with fences.  Security checks abounded, and the city was practically left a ghost town due to the hassle of making your way through the city and it's 'exclusion zones'.

What follows is a clip on what the Chaser boys did to test security for APEC, and the results are somewhat worrying... [there is one single F-bomb thrown in there.  I just thought I'd warn those watching in sensitive places!]

[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvH3YQGQwLM


The irony of this is that the channel this show airs on is a government funded tv station.  It is quite comforting to know that we can speak out and not get too punished for it [though they were arrested and the police are considering charging them for this].  Also worth mentioning is that this show has a huge following here.

What are your thoughts?

[Ash]

They initially got through because they were caucasian.
If they had brown skin and looked to be Middle Eastern, the jig would've been up before it even started.

Still, it's disconcerting to see just how easy it was for them to pass through like that at first.

[dean]

Funny you should mention that Ash.  They had tried this kind of thing before...

They did do a test of that type when last year the government banned people taking photos of some locations for 'security purposes'.

[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McB9tsabPn0

It really tells you about the state of society when you say that 'if they looked middle eastern they'd be questioned'.

Sure it's the truth of the matter, but it makes you think about why people are yelling and making a fuss about rights and discrimination [in this country at least, can't speak for others] when things like this happen...

[Ash]

What you say is true Dean.

It's sad that things have to be this way but the terrorists of Middle Eastern descent did start it.
(no flame wars or conspiracy theories on that statement please!)

I have to empathize with people of Middle Eastern descent that live in our countries.
It can't be easy for them.
It'd be like you or I going to Iran or Baghdad and trying to make a living.
How do you think they would treat us?

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I've known and worked side by side with guys from Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and Pakistan and they were some of the nicest guys you could ever meet.
They weren't out to hurt anyone.
They just wanted to live the "American Dream".
That's what they came here for.
They wanted to be happy and to be successful.  They wanted to live a good life and grow old.  Just like we do.

It's a sad state of affairs that we're in when I could walk up to a "secure zone" and get in, but they would be stopped before they even got within 100 meters of the place.

Blame it on the terrorists...