April 8, 2014 – Jane Goodall

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The Colbert Report episode guide EPISODE NUMBER: 10087 (April 8, 2014)
GUESTS: Jane Goodall
SEGMENTS: Intro - 4/8/14 | America’s Uninformed Opinion on Ukraine | CIA Interrogation Report | Common Core Confusion | Jane Goodall | Sign Off - Cheers
SUIT REPORT: Dark Pin Stripped Suit | White Shirt | Grey Stripped Tie
VIDEOS: Tuesday, April 8, 2014

Intro - 4/8/14

Tonight, did the CIA go to far to fight terrorism? If you answered, “yes,” the drones are on the way. Then, standardized tests get an update. Reading comprehension will now be limited to 140 characters. And my guest, Dame Jane Goodall, has a new book ‘Seeds of Hope: Wisdom and Wonder from the World of Plants.’ Jokes on her. It’s printed on dead plants. Newly released FBI documents allege that Al Sharpton was a mob informant. He must have joined MSNBC as part of the witness protection program.

America’s Uninformed Opinion on Ukraine

  • According to a new Washington Post poll, only “… one out of six Americans can find Ukraine on a map …”

Although, two did find Waldo.

  • But the exact poll found, “The less Americans know Ukraine’s location, the more they want the US to intervene.”
  • Damn straight! This is America and we don’t need to know where a country is to send troops there.
  • The Ukraine is wherever the American people say it is.

And according to this poll, Americans say it is everywhere.

  • All those dots are guesses where it is. Evidently, there’s some Ukraine in Greenland; there’s a bit of Ukraine in Africa. There’s even some Ukraine in The Indian Ocean, which is the only Ukraine that CNN is willing to cover right now.
  • So, bravo, American people. It is great to see that the less you know about the Ukraine crisis, the more you’re willing to use military force. And I will now do my part and go back to not covering it.

CIA Interrogation Report

Newt Gingrich: “Anybody who’s seen ‘O Dark Thirty’ knows that there pretty good arguments that those interrogations gave us a lot of intelligence information.”

  • That under-inflated Macy’s balloon is right.
  • Anyone who has seen ‘O Dark Thirty’ - as no one calls it - knows that torture gave us a lot of intelligence information that led directly to Bin Laden.
  • The same way anyone who’s seen ‘Forrest Gump’ knows the Vietnam War led directly to Bubba Gump’s Shrimp Shack Mac ‘N Cheese!

Mmmm! Damnation!

  • Last week, news leaked of a Senate Intelligence Committee Report that is highly critical of the interrogation program.
  • One official summarized the report saying …

“The CIA described [its program] … as getting unique, otherwise unobtainable intelligence that helped disrupt terrorist plots and save thousands of lives … Was that actually true? The answer is no.”

  • How many sh*ts do I give? The answer is none.

Chris Wallace: “The report says that information about Bin Laden’s courier came from a detainee while he was being questioned by Kurds in Northern Iraq, long before he was taken to a CIA prison and given enhanced interrogation.” Michael Hayden: “Chris, I am aware that simply learning a fact is not the same thing as learning the importance of that fact.”

  • Exactly. The CIA may have already known the name of Bin Laden’s courier, but that information did not sound important until it was being screamed through a wet rag.
  • Besides, in this complex world, who knows what leads to something else happening? It’s just like if a butterfly flaps it’s wings in the Amazon. That might also have led to Bin Laden.

And we’ll never know until the CIA captures that butterfly and pulls his wings off.

  • At this point the whole torture debate is just water under the bridge and up the nostril.
  • Why is it that I and other people who supported enhanced interrogation are the only ones willing to get passed it?
  • This has got to be a two-way street. Some people thought it was right; others thought it was wrong. Let’s meet in the middle and never discuss it again.

Common Core Confusion

  • Folks, as much as I didn’t expect it, I might be coming around to the Common Core. Because, it turns out Common Core testing prepares our students for what they’ll face as adults: Pointless stress and confusion.
  • There is hard proof that the Common Core is already opening our children’s minds to new ways of thinking. Just look at this actual answer to that question given by a California second grader:

  • Folks, this child has a bright future. He is only in second grade and can already clearly explain what it feels like to think. Now we just need him to explain what that feels like to whoever wrote the Common Core questions.

Interview - Jane Goodall

Stephen: Everyone knows you as the chimpanzee expert.
Jane: That’s right.
Stephen: If I were a chimp that you were meeting for the first time, would there be something different about your body language right now, if you were meeting me for the first time? If you were treating me like a chimp?
Jane: Absolutely.
Stephen: What would be different?
Jane: Do you want to demonstrate?

Stephen: Are were going steady now?
Jane: We’re going steady.

Jane: I had to leave the forest that I love, because the forests across Africa are disappearing, as they are around the world. Chimpanzee numbers are dropping and so I had to leave and start talking about all of these terrible things we are doing to the planet.
Stephen: What are we doing to the plants, though? How are we hurting them?
Jane: Every way you could imagine. We are destroying. We are cutting down forest, which releases CO2, which adds to climate change. We are taking over more and more ecosystems for our developments, for our buildings, for our supermarkets. We’re mining deep in the forest. We’re making roads, which enables the hunters to come and kill the animals.

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