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Trevor Noah's hot take on abortion and gun control from 2015​ (sadly) still holds up

Noah was still a new host for "The Daily Show," and knocked it out of the park with his signature wit we would all come to love.

Daily Show/Youtube

Trevor Noah as a host on 'The Daily Show'

A previous episode of "The Daily Show" addressed two hot-button issues at the same time: abortion and gun control.

It was one of the earliest tests for new host Trevor Noah, and he pretty much knocked this one out of the park. The segment began with a discussion about the pro-life movement's laser focus on making completely legal abortions really, really hard to get.

Noah started with the movement's push to defund Planned Parenthood on what turned out to be deceptive, altered, and debunked videos. And even he had to admit, pro-lifers are pretty great at what they do, given that they were able to get Congress to hold hearings based on ... nothing, really.

Of course, not all people in the pro-life movement are against gun control, and not all people who are against gun control are pro-life, but there is a certain significant — and confusing — overlap on those two issues that is worth investigating.

So Noah turned his attention to the mass shooting in Oregon — the 294th of the year — and how we as a country are once again discussing gun control.

If pro-lifers are so concerned about the preservation of all lives, Noah wonders, then why don't they support common-sense gun control measures?

There's no need for doctored videos. Gun violence statistics exist (and they're terrifying). Imagine if the pro-life movement rallied behind that?

Noah then brilliantly compared reactions from two "pro-life" presidential candidates on the Oregon shooting and on abortion.

First up was Jeb Bush on what happened in Oregon. He urged against reactionary gun legislation. "Stuff happens," he said.

But compare that to his recent comments on abortion — which is, again, totally legal:

Now that's a response fitting for a mass shooting.

Noah looked over to candidate Carly Fiorina for her thoughts on the Oregon shooting. Similar to Bush, Fiorina cautioned against taking any action on gun control until we know more about what happened.

Now compare that to her comments on abortion:

It's not clear whether pro-lifers are waiting for an even 300 mass shootings in 2015 — which, at the pace we're going, should be sometime in the next month or so — before taking action. But in the meantime, it's really hard to see the "pro-life" rhetoric as anything more than hypocrisy.

In closing, Noah posed this to pro-lifers: If you actually care about lives, do something about guns.

Redirect the energy, lobbying, and rhetoric spent on fighting a more than 40-year-old Supreme Court decision toward sensible steps to curb gun violence.

"They just need to have a superhero's dedication to life," Noah says. "Because right now, they're more like comic book collectors: Human life only matters until you take it out of the package, and then there's nothing left."

Watch the complete segment in the video below.

This article originally appeared on 10.06.15


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He built a clock and brought it to school. His teachers had him arrested. WTF?

This boy should have been celebrated, not arrested.

This is Ahmed. He's a really smart 14-year-old kid from Texas who likes to invent things.

In his free time, he's done things like build radios and fix go-karts. He wanted to show his teachers his passion for engineering, so he decided to make a digital clock. Here he is in a video for the Dallas Morning News, chatting about that.

Images from Dallas Morning News.

Made from some wires, a display, and a $10 pencil case, his clock was a DIY success!

Seriously, how cool is that?! Do you know how to build your own clock? I sure don't!


He brought the clock to school to show his teachers, and that's when things went very, very wrong.

He brought his clock to school to show his engineering teacher. "[My teacher] was like, 'That's really nice,'" Ahmed said in an interview with the Dallas Morning News, "'I would advise you not to show any other teachers.'"

Wait, what? Why couldn't he show his other teachers? Ahmed was about to find out.

It was during his English class that the clock's alarm accidentally went off. When he showed the clock to his teacher, he says she told him, "It looks like a bomb," and confiscated it. Later that day, police officers showed up at the school and put the 14-year-old inventor in handcuffs. Yes, you read that right — in handcuffs.

"They were like, 'So you tried to make a bomb?'"

Ahmed told the police that no, he didn't try to make a bomb. He tried, and succeeded, in making a clock.

"[The cop] said, 'It looks like a movie bomb to me.'"

People on social media quickly came to Ahmed's defense, rallying behind the #IStandWithAhmed hashtag.

Some pointed out the obvious double standard that applies to people of color in comparison to white children.

Others marveled at Ahmed's intelligence and skill.


Writer Heidi Heilig made a few edits to the school's official statement to parents.


And he even got a personal note of encouragement from, you know, the president. No biggie.


Most importantly, there were the tweets from those whose love of science and engineering led to lifetime success.

Rather than being celebrated as a brilliant young mind, Ahmed was treated like a criminal. Instead of fostering his passion into a lifelong career, his teachers and local law enforcement appeared to do everything in their power to discourage him.



ThinkUp CEO and co-founder Anil Dash wants to give Ahmed the encouragement his school hasn't.

Dash set up a Google form where people can list how they'd like to help Ahmed create, learn, and just generally thrive.


So far, people have offered tours of Google, some quality time with the people behind the Mars rover, and building materials.

While what the school and local police did was horrific, the way the Internet has responded is heartwarming.

Check out Ahmed's interview with the Dallas Morning News below.

Heroes

In just 4 words, Harry Styles undid SeaWorld's expensive, dishonest PR campaign.

At a concert in July, One Direction's Harry Styles hit fans with some real talk.

Photo by Mat Hayward/Getty Images.

"Don't. Go. To. SeaWorld."

You heard him ladies and gents. Don't go to sea world! 🚨🚨🚨 Please follow @Dolphin_Project + for more info please check out www.dolphinproject.com
A video posted by @maisie_williams on


Although it's not every day you see a world-famous teen heartthrob taking on a massive theme park corporation, Styles' comments didn't just come out of nowhere.

In 2013, the controversial documentary "Blackfish" made some shocking claims about SeaWorld.

Photo by Valery Hache/Getty Images.

Namely, that SeaWorld lies to its guests about the health of its sea mammals, that orcas at SeaWorld have shorter lifespans than wild orcas, and that captivity can create conditions for mental illness — and incite violent behavior — in killer whales.

It was a huge disaster for SeaWorld, whose profits dipped 84% between the second quarter of 2014 and the second quarter of 2015.

After the movie came out, SeaWorld spent a lot of money on an ad campaign to convince people that things are actually all hunky-dory with their killer whales.

A spot posted to YouTube in April claims that SeaWorld hasn't trapped orcas in the wild for over three decades, and that, contra "Blackfish," their captive orcas live "just as long" as their free brethren.

But Styles wasn't buying it, and for the most part, he's right not to.

Photo by Valery Hache/Getty Images.


Although it's true that SeaWorld hasn't captured any wild orcas for over 35 years, their claim that their captive orcas live just as long as wild orcas doesn't really hold up under scrutiny. The median life expectancy for killer whales at SeaWorld is indeed about on par with the median life expectancy for non-captive orcas — 30-50 years — by some estimates. But that doesn't give us the whole story.

According to a joint report by the Tampa Bay Times and Miami Herald, the biologist SeaWorld relies on for its statistics — Douglas DeMaster — admits that the company is only looking at one specific chunk of time, rather than all the available data. In the same report, Dutch biologist Jaap van der Toom clarifies that "longevity is basically an incremental finding" and it all depends on how the statistics are phrased. So, taken another way, the same numbers show that nearly 33% of SeaWorld's orcas die within eight years of their arrival.

And that's not the only regrettable message SeaWorld has sent to try to wiggle out of the bad publicity. In response to "Blackfish's" allegation that the orca who killed SeaWorld trainer Dawn Brancheau was driven psychotic by years in captivity, a top executive at SeaWorld countered by blaming Brancheau for her own death.

Even for a company in free fall, July 2015 was an especially bad month for SeaWorld, and Styles' comments were a big reason why.

According to The Guardian, Styles' boycott call, along with accusations that a SeaWorld employee tried to infiltrate the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), "led to a 400% increase in online comments about SeaWorld in July, more than 2.5m, the vast majority of which were negative."

That's, um. Pretty bad.

SeaWorld is learning a hard lesson.

"...story of my life." — Sea World, probably. GIF from "Kiss You" by One Direction.

When you've lost One Direction, you've lost the hearts and minds of a generation.

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Jon Stewart's best moment wasn't on 'The Daily Show.' It was the day he eviscerated CNN.

"See, the thing is, we need your help. Right now, you're helping the politicians..."

Jon Stewart changed the way I think about TV news.

He's always been a hero of mine. As he finishes his last week at Comedy Central, I wanted to reflect on the moment he opened my eyes to the way the world really works.

The most important thing he ever taught me wasn't on "The Daily Show."

It was on another show entirely. A horrible show. A show that represented everything wrong with our country's political discourse. The show that was the precursor to all the worst things on cable news today.

It was the CNN show "Crossfire."

All GIFs via CNN's "Crossfire."

"Crossfire," a debate show where partisan hacks yelled past each other, was and is the epitome of everything wrong with cable news shows. But it was basically every other cable news show, just on steroids.

Prior to Stewart's appearance on "Crossfire," I had a pretty simplistic view of politics. My guys were good, their guys were bad, and there was nothing in between. Everything was their fault. Their side was lying to hurt America.

Jon Stewart helped me realize how wrong I was.

On Oct. 19, 2004, Jon Stewart broke "Crossfire." For good.

Stewart had a history of making fun of "Crossfire," as he did with all irresponsible television masquerading as journalism on every single TV network.

So when the guys at "Crossfire," Tucker Carlson and Paul Begala, invited him to be on their show, Stewart seized the opportunity. And I grabbed my bowl of popcorn, sat back on my couch, and watched, transfixed.

What followed was 14 glorious minutes of television that eloquently expressed everything that had been in my head about the TV media (see "Crossfire," above) that I hadn't yet been able to express coherently.

For 14 minutes, Stewart held the media accountable for not holding politicians and corporations accountable.

You know how the pundits on these shows yell shrill talking points at each other, respond to questions people didn't ask, and ignore each other, and then the host goes to commercial without fact-checking anyone?

Otherwise known as "every cable news show ever." Politicians count on that.

Stewart pulled back the curtain for the viewers while pulling the rug out from under the hosts of the show.

Stewart shone a big 'ol spotlight on a problem with the media that hadn't been addressed so directly before: TV media works under the concept of "fairness," he argued, meaning these networks give both sides of an issue equal time regardless of the validity of those positions or their level of expertise or authority on a subject.

And Stewart, like myself and millions of other Americans, was just plain sick of it.

In short...

It.

Was.

Glorious.

And throughout the segment, he reiterated a phrase that sticks in my brain even to this day:

Then a miracle happened. The best part of this whole story?

It happened a few months later. On Jan. 5, 2005, a couple months after Stewart's "Crossfire" appearance aired, the show was cancelled.

And there was much rejoicing — specifically in my living room, where I probably did some sort of awkward victory dance.

The NY Times reported that then-CNN President Jonathan Klein said its cancellation was in part due to Stewart's appearance.

"Mr. Klein specifically cited the criticism that the comedian Jon Stewart leveled at 'Crossfire' when he was a guest on the program during the presidential campaign. Mr. Stewart said that ranting partisan political shows on cable were 'hurting America.'

Mr. Klein said last night, 'I agree wholeheartedly with Jon Stewart's overall premise.'"

Disappointingly, CNN's president didn't agree as much as he originally implied. CNN brought back "Crossfire" again. And then cancelled it, thankfully, again. But its spirit lives on in every mediocre, divisive 24-hour news cycle.

Here's the thing. Cable news shouldn't be dividing us.

Jon Stewart's appearance on "Crossfire" clearly explained that the media should be informing us and holding the people in power accountable.

All this time, I had been blaming the other side for our problems. But the reality is they wouldn't be getting away with it if our media were functional.

I can't blame the foxes for eating the chickens they guard in the henhouse when the media has a responsibility to make sure they don't work there in the first place.

Every news network does it. CNN isn't the only guilty party. Fox News does it. MSNBC does it.

Even today, every network lets their panelists say what they want without consequences. In the name of "balance."

So how should cable news hosts do their jobs?

If the Democrat says the sky is green and the Republican says the sky is plaid, do you want the host to say, "We'll have to leave it there"?

Or do you want the host to say: "Actually, that is factually incorrect. You both are either lying or misinformed. I won't be bringing you back on my show if you mislead people again."

Jon Stewart opened my eyes. We don't need to get rid of the media. We need the media to their job.

Jon Stewart made me realize that the divide between most Americans is a false one.

Letting these pundits speak for us, allowing them to pigeonhole all of us as "left" or "right," should not be allowed to happen. All of us have shades of gray.

It's a media-created cartoon, meant to keep us fighting among ourselves while the folks upstairs get away with whatever they want.

We're better than that. And until we hold the media accountable, the media won't hold anyone else accountable.

Thank you for 15 great years, Jon. I know you don't think you eviscerated anything and that you didn't make a difference, but you did. Thank you for forcing the media to occasionally do something right. Thank you for being the voice of reason and sanity that we all needed.

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