The Bugle - The Guantanamo Graduates

Episode Date: February 18, 2008

The 17th ever Bugle podcast, from 2008. Written and presented by Andy Zaltzman and John Oliver. This is a classic episode from The Bugle, to support us, and to keep the Bugle alive and free of ads, please visit http://thebuglepodcast.com/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dancelaguard fans, you will be thrilled to know a book is coming out if you fund it via Unbound. We are publishing the Dancelaguard Reader by Alice Fraser and Dancelaguard, a glorious insight into the world of Dancelaguard, self-published romance maven, and online bestseller. If you would like to find out how to support it, go to thebugelpodcast.com. If we get enough support, we will publish the book. That's a real thing that's going to happen. Thebugelpodcast.com to support the Danciler Guard Reader. The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world. Hello world, welcome to edition 17 of The Bugle, the world's only audio newspaper for a visual world for the week beginning the 18th of February, or for our American listeners

February the 18th, 2008, with me and his ultimate in New York City. That's right, and me also in New York City. That's right and me also in New York City John Oliver let's quickly prove that Andy and I are actually in the same room for the first time and he How many fingers about holding up three John correct? We have no independent verification of that But you're just gonna have to trust us on this how are you finding America so far Andy? Absolutely sensational John How does the democracy feel to you? Well, you know, it is the land of the free Yeah, you know, I've just been wondering and wanting to vote on stuff. Yeah, of course election fever Have you were have you voted on anything? Well held the caucus in your flat while you were out yet

You know what about what's the bad weather? I should take ownership of the flat What's the result? I lost all right. That's good on the subject the American election Andy I saw Bill Clinton this morning claimed that Hillary's campaign has been operating on a shoestring budget. Sounds ridiculous until you really should see his shoestring's first. They have Faberier eggs hanging off the bandy. Each shoestring costs $140 million. You can only afford one. Some sections always go straight in the bin. This week, the history of the triangle and in-depth look at music's most versatile instrument.

Next week, we have Jack Nicholas' piccolo mayhem. And also in the bin, the shouted version of the bugle for the old, or for listening to whilst working in a quarry. Top Story this week. Guantanamo Bay. Six and a half years after September 11th, 2001, not the law, anyway, the point is made. The Pentagon is finally ready to charge six prisoners at Guantanamo Bay for direct involvement in the attacks. The charges are expected to be heard by controversial military tribunal. Now, military tribunals get a bad press, Andy, but personally I use them

for everything. And I think you'd find if you'd used a military tribunal for your lost bin incident, which we've talked so much about, with your neighbour, then you'd be using that bin today. Yes, your street might be in flames, houses raised to the floor, and those neighbours of yours who hadn't been killed will be absolutely furious with you. But let me reiterate, you'd be using that bin today. Right. And do you think that you know, because they are now charging these six guilty people, let's basically, if it's a military tribunal, they're guilty. True. Otherwise, why would they be in a tribunal? That's right. Exactly. Then does that mean that Guantanamo has been

right all along and that those of us who were opposed to it have to write a strongly worded apology? Because they have released hundreds of former Guantanamo graduates, I like to think of them. What do they graduate with? An orange suit. An orange suit, a blindfold and their self-esteem in tatters. And a violent grudge against the West. Is that what they get?

A certificate, just saying, violent grudge, certified. We thought you hated the West when we brought you in. We're now pretty sure that you hate the West. Well, they've released hundreds of these graduates without charge, but now they've got six now. So I think that's all right. I think that's a reasonable return. Because when I want to eat a grape,

I often throw out hundreds of grapes before I find the right grape for me. So you know I can't be too judgmental and if you're still not convinced by the Pentagon then they released a statement last week with a series of reassuring statements on it such as the trial will be as completely open as possible and relatively little amounts of evidence will be classified. If you're not reassured then the problem is with you, not with them. The phrase as completely open as possible makes absolutely no grammatical sense whatsoever. It seems that they're branching out their abuses into the linguistics area and doing to words what they've been

doing to men in jumpsuits. I'm not sure though that we really know the full story from Guantanamo, because it's been so heavily censored. I think of all those famous photos of these inmates hunched over kneeling down by the hands tied behind their backs and blindfolds on. What was edited out of those photographs that we weren't allowed to see were the buckets of water with apples in. There was a bouncy castle there as well, which is actually quite clever planning.

It's a very health plan and carry out acts of mass terror whilst bouncing up and down. Fat most terrorists through history have adopted a strict no bouncing policy, apart from Carlos the jackal of course who did most of his work on a trampoline, but he was a maverick and a jackal. The charges against them included conspiracy, murder, invilation of the laws of war, attacking civilians, destruction of property and terrorism. I'm glad they're still getting them on the damage of property charge, Andy. Too many courts overlook that with the death on a massive scale. They don't acknowledge

the petty vandalism and that's just as valid a charge as any other. A colleague, Sheikh Mahamid, said he planned every part of the 9-11 attacks, but his confession may now be a touch problematic, as the CIA have admitted using waterboarding on him. And during his interrogation or questioning, he also confessed to inventing slavery in the 17th century. Good news for Britain, that one. Faking the moon landings and the invasion of Iraq himself. And to add to what has been a very disappointing week for all Al-Qaeda fans, an Al-Qaeda leader

in Iraq has admitted that the franchise is in crisis there after a lot of former Al-Qaeda team members have apparently jumped ship and joined the other team. The Al-Qaeda leader apparently wrote, these people were nothing but hypocrites, lies and traitors, and were waiting for the right moment to switch sides with whoever pays them the most. Now things have really come to a bad state in the world when a terrorist leader is complaining about society's declining morals. But I guess what it does show is that the terrorists are learning from football and really there's probably their agents, you know, trying to get them to move to a more

lucrative contract and also it shows how well capitalism works. If you've got a problem, just buy it out. It's been a massive week for human rights on both sides of the Atlantic. There's been a rumpus in Britain over the use of mosquitoes, devices which emit a high-pitched sound, which apparently only teenagers can hear to stir stroppy teenage behaviour in public areas. The scheme supporters say it doesn't do physical harm

so it's all right. They've tried other schemes including shooting near but not actually ats these troublemakers forcing teenage rebels to play Russian roulette with an unloaded gun and fake executions of anyone under the age of 25 who's seen in a public street. It doesn't do physical damage so it is okay. How can only teenagers hear it? Well, I think actually Mike got as far as 25, but it's apparently something to do with the way that you're hearing deteriorates as you get older. Really? What's she telling me that I can't hear certain things now? You can't. No.

Why, I dispute that. Well, you just didn't hear that, did you? What? Point proof. We apologise to any of our young listeners who are currently clutching there is, in pain, screaming for mercy. Well that's nothing to do with the sound. That's the bugle in general. Other news and Australia has apologized to the aborigines for various incidents, shall we call them, including stealing all of their children.

Kevin Rudd, the new Prime Minister who swept a victory in last year's election on a platform primarily of not being John Howard, which people voted for in droves, and also promising to apologise to the indigenous people of Australia, has said that the stolen generations were a blemished chapter in Australian history, a blemish. Now let's bear in mind what happened there, Aboriginal children were stolen from their families, given to white families in an effort to assimilate the white and Aboriginal populations. This policy lost at several decades, more than 100,000 children are reported to have been removed, but it's a

blemish, a just a little blemish. Innocent mistake, we've all done it, we've all removed hundreds of thousands of children from their parents. And maybe Australia were trying to invent a new sport. That's why they did it so enthusiastically. Now, John Howard had refused to apologize for over a decade, a stance supposedly supported by 30% of Australians.

And that was a democratic majority, as far as he was concerned. Isn't this form of government fantastic Andy? No wonder we're so anxious to ram it down the throats of the rest of the world. As soon as we can get Iraq to understand what a super delegate is, they'll realize how lucky they now are. I think the mistake Australia made was changing from the old British policy towards the aborigines of shoot first steel natural resources later. Which is much more clear cut. Everyone knew where they stood and well above board. The Australian government has now apologized, but there will be no compensation

for the stolen generation, which some people are slightly angry about. Bear in mind that in America, a female basketball court, God, I really can't talk. If you listen to this and you're thinking, Andy sounds tired, that's because Andy is tired.

I don't know what he's doing. I don't know what he's covering it up beautifully. No, no, you sound tired. I mean, we might as well draw a turn to it now. Andy doesn't really know what time it is. He's confused. But I can look at a clock and it tells me that it's 720 in the morning. Although in real terms, I mean, that's 20 past 12. I should be having my lunchtime snooze now. The Australian government has now apologized, but there will be no compensation for the stolen generation. Let's, by comparison, look at the case of the female basketball coach in America who was initially awarded $19 million in a gender discrimination sexual harassment case, now

reduced to $6.6 million. Now, I'm not saying she didn't deserve it. All I'm saying is, if you were forcibly removed from from your parents you probably deserve at least a tenor in the post. That's right, I mean some Aboriginalese have argued that it should include compensation in this apology and they've called this a cut price sorry, but of course in actuality it's a no price sorry. Apologising is a very interesting area, Tony Blair stopped short of a full apology for the slave trade last year, expressing

only sorrow at it, whilst cooking his head at that slight sorrowful angle that he mastered over the years, having patented it after the death of Diana. And when the Queen visited Virginia last year, campaign groups lobbied for her to apologize not only for slavery, but also for the slaughter of the Native American Indians. Some argued that this was harsh, but what you have to understand is they weren't asking her to apologise for history, they're asking her to apologise for her actions now. She reportedly demands that each birthday a Native American is released into the corridors of Buckingham Palace. Now she stalks and hunts him through the corridors before using his pelters a winter coat. Maybe it would help if all the nations of the world just apologized for everything they've done. Now obviously Britain is looking at apologising to

essentially the entire planet. You can look at it this way. If we don't have to apologize directly to you then you weren't a country in the 18th century. Kevin Rudd also pledged to narrow the 17 year life expectancy gap between Aboriginal and other Australians. Now and in a developed country, a statistic like that just doesn't look good. But is he planning to do this by making the non-aboriginal population die earlier? That's right. What's the only way of doing it? He says, there are other apologies in the pipeline. The Catholic Church is going to apologize for misunderstanding. Jesus' message of love and generosity to everyone, as a call to sexually abuse young

boys and big business is going to apologize for selling its own soul the souls of everyone else in the world and the souls of all people in the future. If you have any apologies you would like to hear from the world do email them to the bugle at timesonline.co.uk or indeed if you feel you should apologize to any of the world's industrialised or non-industrialised countries, then we will issue that apology for you. Billionaire News now and the billionaire investor Warren Buffett plans to rescue the bond insurance market, which, as we all know, is in more trouble than a Neuronburg Nazi. Buffett is looking to make billions by re-insuring their something about subprime mortgages, 800 billion dollars.

If Buffett can stay awake long enough to understand how all that bullshit works, good luck to the kid. But he's admitted this is no act of commercial altruism. He said, when I go to St Peter, I will not present this as some act that will entitle me to get in. We're doing this to make money Which slightly raises questions about what St Peter is doing at the pearly gates given that his supervisor Jesus Christ the former Palestine based celebrity did say It is easier for a camel to pass through the Iver needle and for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God Now you might think they're having the word billionaire nailed onto the start of your name might be the first query St Peter raises that Warren Buffett's entrance interview. I guess Buffett might well reply, well I've got so much money that

I can actually afford to design, commission and manufacture the world's most advanced camel mincer and play highly trained flesh minimizing technicians to mincer camel to a diameter of less than 0.2mm, then make an industrial machine that passes the Fibre's camel meat through the eye of any regulation-sized embroidery needle, so let me in, I'm loaded, tell you what I'll pay for this place to have a lick of paint and some new urinals. And some P2 would probably then say, but could you not simply have spent a fraction of that money making a needle with a slightly above-camel-sized eye, and Buffett would then reply, I love a challenge. No offense to all bugal listeners who happen to be billionaires. BASING ELIMPICS PULOUT SPECIAL

And in Olympics news, Steven Spielberg has pulled out as artistic director of the BASING ELIMPIC games. Exactly, Andy, settle down. It's all right. Sorry, I was... I was forgetting it's the first time you're hearing it out loud. He's pulled out as artistic director this summer over China's policy towards Darfur. It's going to happen to the triple jump. I know, what it's worse than that Andy, when he was going to do the opening and closing

ceremonies, that was his job when rumours were that all the athletes were to be eaten by a giant animatronic shark. I also had actually the entire Olympics was going to be in black and white, but from one female gymnast wearing red. This problem was stemmed from the fact that Sudan, with its vast oil reserves, sells some two-thirds of its oil to Beijing. And in turn, Beijing sells weapons to the Sudanese government. Oh, oil. Is there no global problem you can't exacerbate? Maybe Spielberg's gesture though and he will help that vastly troubled region. Maybe all it needed was for the Jangerweed and the Rebel militias to drop their guns and say,

hold on, this has gone too far, Ladd's. Spielberg was a great choice to oversee the Olympic ceremony. I may have thousands of logs on my conscience, but this is too much. But it's good to see someone putting some pressure on the Chinese government. It does remain a mystery while the world's leading powers haven't put more pressure on the rulers of colossally lucrative investment opportunity China. At Spielberg said that the cause of Darfur was more important than his role in the Olympic Games. Which, I mean, it's a Lord of all sense of it, but it's not really going out on that much of a limb. Darfur is, and I don't want to overstate this.

The biggest human calamity in the world at the moment. Now, I also don't want to understate Spielberg's role in the Olympics, but I'm guessing it less than the biggest human calamity in the world. Though, as I say, that is only a guess. One option might have been to keep his job, Andy, but to make the entire opening ceremony about Darfur. Ha ha ha. That probably wouldn't have gone down as make the entire opening ceremony about Darfur. That probably wouldn't have gone down as the most popular opening ceremony Olympic history,

but it would have got the world's attention more than this resignation, having 20 foot high inflatable jangelheed, symbolically hacking their way through a village, would stick in your head a lot more even than that time the archershotter flaming arrow into the Olympic torch in Barcelona. A spokesman for the Sudan Liberation Organization said, he will certainly go down in history as someone who gave human lives precedence over fame and money. Oh he won't. He'll go down in history as the man who made ET. Also in Olympics news there is to be no ban on British Olympians commenting on political issues in Beijing.

The British Olympic Association will not ban them. It does raise the exciting prospect of some satirical athletics. British archery champion, Murgatroyd Hoop, is apparently planning to literally shoot himself in the foot in a barbed commentary on the Iraq War. Well, a British champion, Javelin, throw a particular lunge will attempt to catch her own Javlin in a withered swipe at mankind's selfish attitude towards the environment. Apparently all the world's 10,000 metre runners have carved together to comment on the situation in Iraq by saying that they're going to run round and round in circles without really getting anywhere. The IOC has recently warned athletes not to make political or religious statements, presumably for fear that they might contradict the massive political or religious statement. The IOC themselves are making that money is the one true God. Presumably, athletes will be allowed to encourage the watching public to drink beer or catapult

themselves into intractable debt, but not to save the panda. Isn't the sport great? A quick update on the London Olympics. London is on target to meet the IOC's target of going over budget 10 fold and there's some good news for those worried about the uh quality of British athletes going to be taking part at the London Olympics. British sport course not counting the fastest highest or strongest of fettles. But the recent spate of youth gun crime in London suggests that the Olympics have inspired our kids at least to want to start the races. So perhaps the British love of

of administration knows no bounds. That's putting a positive spin on the emerges of gumcom in Britain and the Andy. They're just Olympic starters. We've even hear two shots in quick succession. That's probably because the Hickvictim started running away too. Your emails now and Brett Sonnenstein from Brooklyn, New York asks us, is there going to be a live audience for next week's bugle taping?

Oh, which I assume he means this week's bugle taping. I've never seen a podcast taping before, right Brett? And I think it might be fun or at least curious if so, we provide babysitting. I'll have to come in all the way from Brooklyn. I don't think it's fair that you make me pay for a sit-off or something that you're giving away. If you bring Jenny, you can come over and record the podcast at my apartment. Oh, interesting. But don't think ordering fish and chips or Indian food counts as dinner.

Oh, come on. I'll give you fish and chips, but we have the greatest Indian food in the world. There's a great email here from John Wellings, who's subject-heading. Barack Obama must be stopped. Grab your attention. Once again, I'm a lone voice in the wilderness. It seems only I can see the obvious truth as Barack Obama trounces Clinton in the primaries.

The coming of a black president was clearly foretold by the television series 24. I didn't realize that. That was a series of prophecies. Thought it was a documentary. It's basically Nostradamus' TV program. If he was a Hollywood producer with reaction reviews on the world, as soon as David Palmer, virtually an anagram of Barack Obama,

if like me, you refused about the tyranny of the so-called alphabet. Only assume that John Wellings is struggling with the audio critically crosswise, if that's if you have anagrams. As soon as he gets into office, America is under attack from terrorists, culminating in a nuclear bomb going off in LA. Only the heroic deeds of Jack Bauer have hurt total catastrophe. Obviously the new-can LA is chalked up as a mixed blessing as it really is a shit hole. It's shit hole high for an 80's he asks.

You can never find a dictionary with the balls to tell you things like this. The point is we must stop a bomber slash parmer from getting into power. He's only going to be assassinated in season five anyway, so we'd be saving his life. Well done, John. Now, my favorite email of this week, and possibly of any week, is a hot in history,

nomination from Nicole Doherty, the hot in history. I mean, think if the Beagle does one thing, it is going to be giving this to the planet's history. Hurry, well, is this? There's only one woman, in my opinion, hot enough to be my nominee for Hotty in History February 2008, Joan of Arc. This bucolic, philly next door, blazed new trails for women's rights in attire that evoked both power and androgyny like a 15th

century Hillary Clinton. And a quaff that touted the sophisticated and victoria Beckham with the madness of Britney Spears. At the tender age of 17, she took control of France's army, which in those days wasn't the joke that it subsequently became. There, she issued the tried and true French military traditions of capitulation and collaboration in favour of winning good point. All dain by God, and really, how come one argue with a reference like that? She devoted her life to doing the Lord's work which during the Middle Ages primarily consisted of ridding the world of heresy and killing people who disagreed with your political objectives. So hot they had to burn her more than once to keep her zealous fans from pilfering her ashes and selling them as relics. Joan of

Og is the ghost pepper of historical hoties. Andy I've put it to you that that is an incredible email. So congratulations Nick Oldoity. The old email was so good that we are going to give you personally a signed five seconds of the bugle with our audio signatures. His mind and his eyes. Do you enjoy that Mickey? And't sell it on e-bay. Also suggested this week by the Reverend Dr Randolph W.B. Becker, he nominates Hildegard of Bingan. Great name. Who he says was affirmed by no less a source than wiki pedier as the most distinguished

migraine sufferer in history. Do keep your emails coming in, the bugle at timesonline.co.uk and don't forget to read the blog and you can get the printable version of the audio crossword and the print edition of the bugle, all at timesonline.co.uk slash the bugle. Sport now, drugs. That's what sports all about these days. On both sides of the Atlantic, drugs have been injecting themselves deep into the veins of our sport and consciousness. Dwayne Chambers, the sprinter and former unsuccessful American footballer. Due to not liking. See, as a sprinter, what you don't have is men in hell much slamming into you. And it was that bit that I don't think he could really come to terms with. Chambers has caused controversy by being selected for the British team, for the world indoor athletics championships after winning the 60 metres dash at the British

Championships. It's served a two-year drug ban and then came back to athletics. I know a lot of people saying he shouldn't be in the team. I would say well what all chambers really did was systematically cheat over a prolonged period of time, bring discrease upon British athletics and cost his teammates relay medals. Is that so bad? Well no it isn't, I mean he's just trying to be faster. Yeah, I mean if anything he's just guilty of ambition. He's guilty of making the sport more entertaining. Yeah, that's right. On this subject, also this week, Roger Clemens has been in front of the House Committee

defending himself quite impressively. He is accused in a report of being on steroids and his trainer, McLean, was in there to say, yeah, I injected you in the back side. And Roger says, well, you might have done that, but it was only with vitamins. And McLean, he says, no, it was with steroids and Roger says, no, it wasn't, it was with vitamins

and this becomes a kind of myrtle squabble that really shouldn't be solved by the House Committee, but Judge Judy. That is the place for this argument, not a political hearing, but a TV Tordry special. It does seem that come out of it that both men look like they're lying, which basically means there is no truth. Literally no one, including Congress, come out of this

at all well. Major League Baseball certainly doesn't come out of it well because they've only recently introduced punishments for steroid abuse. They now have such witheringly harsh bands as 50 games for your first instance of steroids use. Now for those who don't follow baseball closely, 50 games is about six weeks of baseball. So I'm sure that is a massive deterrent. And now a special report from our marginal sports correspondent, Wol, who has been at the World Doubt Harbouring Championships.

who has been at the World Dout harbouring Championships. Here in Liverpool Great Britain have rumped into the semi-final with a convincing quarter final win over surprise package Canada. Britain delighted the passionately non-committal home crowd by voicing their misgivings with impressively consistent skepticism and having decisively graver reservations on the Canadian doubters at crucial stages of the match. After some predictably cagey early exchanges, Britain roared into a four quam lead when the Manchester Cavaliers big money signing Jerome Duckhead voiced some superbly surmountable apprehensions about the safety of air travel. Scottish vector and horus McStrange then rammed home Britain's advantage with a quite brilliant piece of self-referential doubt harboring in which he queried rather the great Britain team should even exist.

I'm not sure it's right, he qualms spectacularly, I'd rather be playing for Scotland. Although he qualified, I can see logistical problems, why that might not be possible under the current WDHF regulations. Virgil Todgerstrin kept the maple leaf mistrust as in contention when he equivocated skillfully about opticians. I would hesitate to assert that they are all good, he said, although they can evidently be of assistance in matters of off-doubbing well-being, he vacillated. But I am wary of the way they sometimes look at you in the eye. It's almost as if they know a little too much about you and are willing to exploit that for personal financial gain. Canada's flimsy resistance was finally broken, where they're promising

but raw, rookie Lupin Kahoot was sent to the cinnamon for 10 minutes. Kahoot's in-sertitude about the benefits of a nuclear deterrent spilled over into outright antipathy when Duckhead showed him a photo of the Hiroshima accident of 1945. He tucked me up like a three-headed kipper, admitted Kahoot afterwards. British captain Calvin Sludge once again voted most valuable Thomas Afra consistently aporetic performance, paid tribute to the British fans. They were crucial, he said. We weren't really sure whether we had it in us to make it to the semis, but the crowd seemed equally unconvinced, and we really fed off that. If you're not sure of yourself, you're not going

to be sure about anything. I don't think we've got much of a chance of reaching the final though so it's all looking good and we could go all the way. And yesterday's other quarter final, the overconfident USA team, subsided to a disappointingly easy defeat against the Czech Republic. As new Jersey carp, a Alvin munisipus the third was sent off once again. Controversy is never far away from munisipus, and he was red-carded off the swearing at the referee when he was ruled to have expressed atheistic views. That comment was clearly agnostic,

he shouted, before explaining himself to a two-week suspension. And now, it is time for everyone's favourite section of the musical, the audio cryptic crossword. Now the beauty with today Andy, you know, we're sitting opposite a table, is that you can see the contempt on my face. Whereas usually you can only feel it in the silence. I do like to visualize it though and that just makes me even more convinced than ever, that the audio crossword is right. Off you go. And this audio crossword is a tribute to British golfers in major tournaments in recent years.

And the clue, it's six letters long, it's 26 across. And it goes like this. Wack of golf ball, it starts left. Oh, that's rubbish. You will forecast now. And this week's forecast is on how many bagels I'm going to eat in my week in New York between now and next Friday. John, what's your prediction? I'm going to predict five bagels.

Five, John's going with a very conservative five bagel estimate. I think I'm going to go well over that. I'm going to go with 34 bagels. 34 bagels. Now, are you going to do this honestly? All right. Are you petty enough as we both know to win this bet by forcing bagels down your throat? Whatever it takes to, the bagel bet will be mine. Because I will sit and watch you eat those bagels Andy And if you do eat 34 bagels before next week your performance is going to be impaired But I have got until the end of next week's recording Yeah, finish the 34th That's true. So if you only manage like 11 you can always try and eat 23 during next week's recording in which case that could be an

Unmissable vehicle So do join us for next week's bagel spectacular in the meantime. From America! Goodbye. And from America but only a foot away. Goodbye. you