New Rules

The new season of Bill Maher's Real Time on HBO started Friday, Feb 19. Sometimes Bill is a little strident about a few things, but I find myself in agreement 95% of the time. It's nice to know I'm not alone...



The HBO site is here.

EDIT: As I expected, HBO took down the video, so I have the transcript...

New Rule: Restaurants have to finish making the salad. When I order a salad, don't bring me this (picture mixings of a salad). This isn't a salad, it's the ingredients for a salad. But it doesn't become one until it's mixed together into something we call... 'a salad'. Who do I have to pay around here to get someone to 'toss my salad'?

New Rule: Just because you 'can' get pregnant doesn't mean you 'must' get pregnant. The pregnant man is pregnant for a 3rd time. You know, if you have a beard and a mustache and you have a baby every 10 months, you're not a pregnant man, you're an Italian woman.

New Rule: Catholics can't make fun of mormons or snake handlers or any other religion until they admit Ash Wednesday is really creepy. On the other hand, it's nice when a Catholic priest smears something on your kid's face... and it's just ash.

New Rule: Just because the Scottish eat it - it doesn't make it 'food'.


The Obama Administration has finally lifted the ban on imported haggis - a Scottish dish made from sheep heart, liver & lungs, and simmered in the sheep's intestines. mmmm... but we already have that here - it's called a hot dog. PLUS, their version looks disgusting while OURS is neatly pressed into the shape of a dog's hard on.

What I'm trying to say is 'buy American'.

(Picture)



'NO !!!!!'

Nope, the only person who ever missed you was the Iraqi guy who threw the shoe!

And finally -

New Rule: Stop calling the Tea Party phenomenon a 'movement'. To be a real political 'movement' you have to.., well, 'move' -- towards some specific legislative goal. The Suffrage Movement, for example, gained voting rights for women. The Civil Rights Movement outlawed discrimination against Blacks. And the Gay Rights Movement brought us the Winter Olympics.

But the Tea Baggers, they're not a 'movement'. They're a cult. And I'm going to prove it . . .

- - -

Now, uh, during the break, I took my usual cross-country roadtrip with Nadya and the octuplets - and everywhere we stopped along the way - diners, truck-stops, medical marijuana dispensaries. People wanted to talk about the Tea Baggers and know some basic things about them, like - Who's their dentist? and Why do they wear flannel in the summer?

But if you look at any cult, whether it be the Hale-bop Comet People, the Scientologists, or Oprah's Book Club - you'll find several common elements, the primary one being - cult members are taught to quickly withdraw into the group and distrust the outside world. Tea Baggers distrust everything. They think everyone's coming for their guns and they shouldn't pay taxes. They're like Wesley Snipes crossed with a fat old white guy who runs a landfill.

Folks. No one is coming for your guns, your Bibles or your fishing poles. And that's not a monster under your bed, it's the Ab Lounger you bought last year and never used.

Cults are also always driven by some ridiculous, unobtainable goal. Like a fiery apocalypse ringing-in 'Paradise' .... or deficit-reduction by way of giant tax cuts.

- - -

Now, you know someone has fallen into a cult if you see these signs:

1. Cults have their own vocabulary. Now, I don't speak Shit-Kicker... but I know in their world that 'freedom' means 'guns'... 'diplomacy' means 'weakness'.... 'elitist' means 'reader'... and 'socialist' means 'black'.

2. Cults tend to populate from within, encouraging members to have huge broods of children and to give them strange names like 'Moonbeam' and 'Trig'.

and...

3. Cult members attribute all of their problems to one simple explanation. (picture of Obama - with Hitler mustache)


Now, here's an amazing statistic. In a recent poll almost ninety percent of Tea Baggers said that they thought taxes had either gone up or stayed the same under Obama. Only two percent thought they went down. But the reality is taxes have gone down... for ninety five percent of working families, taxes went down.

Think about that. Only two percent of the people in a "movement" about taxes, named after a tax revolt, have the slightest idea what's going on... with taxes!

So, it would be easy to just mock, except that those who fall under the control of cults aren't necessarily weirdoes, they're victims. And we shouldn't forget that these people are our relatives, our neighbors and the folks at the next table in the restaurant.

Especially if that restaurant is Hooters... and it's Dollar Wing Wednesday.