Shark Week falls in mid-August for a reason: Most of the world's politicians, millionaires, entertainers, and other news-drivers are on vacation. So are lots of news consumers. It's generally a slow news period, leaving plenty of room for eye-catching human interest stories about sharks attacking innocent people trying to enjoy their beach holidays.
John Oliver at The Daily Show weighed in last night on a stain marring this otherwise pristine Shark Week (see below), but first he took a moment to catch up with what some world leaders are up to. Oliver was horrified to see that in his native Britain — the "land that I left" — Prime Minister David Cameron is cracking down on internet pornography. "Where's my passport?" Oliver said. "I'm setting fire to it."
Cameron's worthy goal is to combat child pornography, Oliver conceded, but the end result is a ban on all porn. The problem is that Britons will be able to access porn only if they specifically request it from their internet service provider — an idea so hilarious to Oliver that he tested out his new one-person show, "A British Person Ordering Online Pornography."
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Oliver also tackled Wednesday's big news: President Obama's canceling his planned visit to Moscow, where he was to meet one-on-one with Russian President Vladimir Putin. There are several reasons Obama might have hit Putin with this diplomatic slap in the face, like Russia's undermining of democracy or criminalization of homosexuality, but everyone knows this is about Russia granting asylum to NSA leaker Edward Snowden, Oliver said.
If the U.S. really wants Snowden back so badly, Oliver suggested, "all we really need to do is convince Vladimir Putin that Snowden is gay."
Oliver also checked in on Italy, where former Prime Minister and current Senator Silvio Berlusconi has finally been convicted of a crime — and still probably won't serve time in jail:
But after Oliver's brief world tour of political malpractice, he hit on the real news of the week: The Discovery Channel's blatant attempt to pass off as real a fictional drama about a defunct giant shark species terrorizing the ocean. MEGALODON documents "actual events, as they unfolded," the narrators intone at the beginning of the two-hour program.
The Discovery Channel only informed MEGALODON viewers the events are made up at the end, by flashing a 3-second disclaimer on the bottom of the screen. The misnamed cable channel then mocked viewers for falling for the ruse, Oliver said. But the 73 percent of viewers who believed the movie was real aren't stupid, "it makes them trusting, good people." What do you expect of the channel behind shows like Amish Mafia, "soft-core marijuana porn" Weed Country, and Naked and Afraid, where women catch fish with their vagina, Oliver sighed.
