While America is still in the grips of swine flu mania, let me use this opportunity to clear up a few things about my beliefs concerning the flu shot, vaccines, and health in general. I do this because there is obviously a lot of curiosity about this subject of vaccines -- it comes up in every interview I do these days, and I've been finding that people, including doctors, are privately expressing a skepticism that is still not very prevalent in public. I feel like I've become a confessor for people who want someone to be raising questions about vaccines.

But I don't want the job. I agree with my critics who say there are far more qualified people than me -- its just that mainstream media rarely interviews doctors and scientists who present an alternative point of view. There is a movement to stop people from asking any questions about vaccines -- they're a miracle, that's it, debate over. I don't think its that simple, and neither do millions of other people. The British Medical Journal from August 25 says half the doctors and medical workers in the U.K. are not taking the flu shot -- are they all crazy too? Sixty-five percent of French people don't want it. Maybe its not as simple as the medical establishment wants to paint it.

Vaccination is a nuanced subject, and I've never said all vaccines in all situations are bad. The point I am representing is: Is getting frequent vaccinations for any and all viruses consequence-free? I feel its unnecessary and counterproductive to try and silence people with condescension. Michael Shermer wrote me an open letter and felt I needed to be told that "vaccinations work by tricking the body's immune system into thinking that it has already had the disease for which the vaccination was given." Thanks, Doc, I thought there might be a little man inside the needle. Yes, I read Microbe Hunters when I was eight, I have a basic idea how vaccines work.

That's not -- or shouldn't be -- where the debate is. I admit, its hard to get as clear a picture of my beliefs, as you could, say, if I had written a book on vaccines, versus someone in the setting of a talk show. So I understand why its easy to take bits of things I have said and extrapolate into something I actually have never said. I understand it, but its not exactly "scientific."

But rather than responding to every absurd thing said, let me just tell you want I do think -- because I will admit, I have gone off half cocked on this issue sometimes, and often only had time on my show to explain a fraction of what needed to be explained, and for that I am sorry. Some of it can't be helped, some of that is the nature of the show we do: live, off the cuff, lots of interruptions. Some of it was just from me being overexcited about finally finding a health regimen that actually made me healthier and feel better. And many a time I have wanted to stop the show and clarify a point or provide the nuance I think it deserves, but I am serving many masters, and you have to get out of the way as much as you can so the guests can say their piece.

But some of it I would do differently. For example, I recently joined Twitter Nation -- what can I say, Demi Moore is a very convincing salesperson -- and what everybody told me about Twitter was that it was supposed to be whatever stray thought or thing just happened to you -- you know, for people who find blogging too formal and stuffy.

But apparently it's taken very seriously, because there was Scott Pelley on 60 Minutes asking the Secretary of Health and Human Services what she thought about the fact that "Bill Maher told his viewers anyone who gets a flu shot is an idiot."

Well, not quite. It was twittered, which I guess doesn't make a huge difference, but as 60 Minutes is the last bastion of TV journalism, accuracy is appreciated. And I see that counts for Twitter, too -- my bad -- so yes, some people are not idiotic to get a flu shot. They're idiotic if they don't investigate the pros and cons of getting a flu shot. But, come on -- it was a twitter from a comedian, not a treatise in the New England Journal of Medicine, that's not what I do.

I'm just trying to represent an under-reported medical point of view in this country, I'm not telling a specific pregnant lady what to do. With unlimited air time, I would have, for example, added to my discussion with Dr. Bill Frist on October 2 that, yes, any flu or health challenge can be dangerous when you're pregnant, and if your immune system is already compromised by, for example, eating a typical American diet, then a flu shot can make sense. But someone needs to be representing the point of view that says the preferred way to handle flus is to have a strong immune system to begin with, and getting lots of vaccines might not be the best way to accomplish that over the long haul.

Now, sometimes its OK to fuck with nature -- I believe "intelligent design" is often anything but intelligent; that "God's perfect universe" is actually full of fuck ups and design flaws, like cleft lips and Down Syndrome -- so correcting nature is sometimes the right thing to do. And then, sometimes its not. For me, the flu shot is in the "not" category.

In addition, my audience is bright, they wouldn't refuse a flu shot because they heard me talk about it, but if they looked into the subject a little more, how is that a bad thing? If they went to the CDC Web site and saw what's in the vaccine -- the formaldehyde, the insect repellent, the mercury -- shouldn't they at least get to have the information for themselves?

But just to reassure all those people who have such a romantic attachment to vaccines: I know, there are vaccines that have had their battles with the bad guys and won -- great! And if you have a compromised immune system and can't boost it naturally, as in poor countries where the children are eating dirt, then a vaccine can be a white knight -- bravo! Does the polio vaccine have the power to prevent children from getting polio, and did it indeed do just that in the 1950s? I believe it does, and it did. But polio had diminished by over 50 percent in the thirty years before the vaccine -- that's a pretty big fact in the polio story that you don't often hear and which merits debate. It may be the case that the vaccine should have been used anyway to finish polio off, but there are some interesting facts on the other side.

So yes, I get it, we learned how to trick our immune systems. And maybe sometimes, you gotta do it. But maybe the immune system doesn't like being tricked so many times. Maybe we should be studying that instead of shouting down debate.

Someone who speaks eloquently about this is Barbara Loe Fisher, founder of the National Vaccine Information Center. I find her extremely credible, as I do Dr. Russell Blaylock, Dr. Jay Gordon and many others, but I shouldn't have even mentioned them because I don't want to be "the Vaccine Guy"!! Look it up yourself, and stop asking me about it -- I'm already the Religion Guy, and that's enough work!

Anyway, Ms. Fisher is someone who says she is not "anti-vaccine," but just has a lot of questions about the long term effect of using a lot of vaccines. After devoting her life to studying this, she says that the influenza vaccine studies that have been done "are not persuasive in proving that a seasonal flu shot provides immunity." She also points out "that what we need, but do not yet have, are studies of vaccinated vs unvaccinated children."

Is it worth it to get vaccines for every bug that goes around? Injecting something into my bloodstream? I'd like to reserve that for emergencies. This is the flu, and there's always a flu. I've said it before, America is a panicky country. It's like we look for things to panic about.The reports from Australia, where they're over their flu season, is that its not a terribly virulent flu. The worldwide numbers support that. But you'd never get that impression from the media in this country.

60 Minutes has done two pieces on swine flu within a month. The first one introduced us to a high school football player named Luke Duvall who, we were told, was the picture of health, and then got hit by the flu so bad he was in the hospital at death's door. But later in the segment we learn that Luke had staphylococcus pneumonia along with the flu. Was that staph bug in him when he got hit by the flu? Its not clear from the reporting, but since every other kid on both football teams got the flu, as well as the cheerleaders ... ahem ... and all of them got over it just fine, then it seems quite possible that Luke had a co-existing infection, and that's why his experience with H1N1 was so different.

On the follow up visit a couple of weeks later on 60 Minutes, we were told Luke had "beaten H1N1." No, he beat H1N1 and staph together: that's very different! If 99 percent of people have relatively mild symptoms, shouldn't science's first job be finding out why the one percent get felled? Having an underlying health issue is the point I was raising with Dr. Frist: maybe Luke wasn't the picture of perfect health they described in the opening.

By the way, when Scott Pelley asked the government spokesman about the fact that only one percent of people who get the flu find it to be anything other than a typical, mild flu, the answer was an analogy to seatbelts, that "only 1 percent of people riding in a car will be in an accident, but you don't want to take a chance on being that 1 percent."

That went unchallenged, which is sad, because what a horrible analogy! I would think vaccines containing many different dicey substances shot directly into the bloodstream have a slightly greater chance of secondary effects than a piece of fabric lying across your waist. Maybe if you had to swallow the seatbelt this would be a good analogy.

If one side can say anything and its not challenged, then of course dissent becomes heresy in the minds of many. I don't trust the mainstream media to be thorough or exacting enough to inform me as much as I need on this subject. Sorry, they're just not up to it. At the very least, they should have pointed out, as we watched Luke fighting for life on a ventilator, that, of course, flu vaccines don't have any therapeutic effect on bacterial infection.

While we're on the subject of bacteria, let me say clearly I understand germ theory also -- I believe they also covered that in Microbe Hunters -- nor have I ever said I was a "germ theory denier." What I've been saying is that Western medicine ignores too much the fact that the terrain in which bacteria can thrive is crucial and often controllable, which shouldn't even be controversial. I don't care what Louis Pasteur said on his death bed -- it was probably, "Either the curtains go or I do" -- that's not the point!

And it's precisely because I am a Darwinist that I fear the overuse of antibiotics, since that is what has allowed nasty killer bugs like MRE to adapt so effectively that they are often resistant to any antibiotic we can throw at it. There are consequences to vaccines and antibiotics. Some people want to study that, and some, it seems, want to call off the debate.

Instead of setting up this straw man of me not understanding germs or viruses, let's have a real debate about how much we should use vaccines and antibiotics. Of course it's good that we have them in our arsenal, but isn't the real skeptic the one who asks if these powerful but toxic methods do harm to what actually is a a very good defensive system, the one you were born with?

Also, I have never said there was a medical conspiracy. In fact, when Howard Dean asked me that, my response was "I wouldn't call it a conspiracy." Any more than there's a conspiracy for the Pentagon budget to be obscenely bloated and operated largely for the corporate welfare of defense contractors. If these are conspiracies, they're mostly legal ones that happen in plain sight. (Good time here to plug the hostess' book, Pigs At the Trough, it's all in there!) I have, in fact, used the phrase "medical-pharmaceutical-food industry" complex in comparing it to Eisenhower's famous depiction of a "military-industrial complex."

But no, I don't think the A.M.A. and Big Pharma and Aetna and Dr. Frist's hospital chain all meet in a board room and cackle about keeping us sick. They meet on the golf course. (Just kidding.)

Do pharmaceutical companies want to cure diabetes or do they want to sell diabetes drugs and equipment? Well, they sure do sell a lot these days, and the food companies are what make that possible. Read David Kessler's book about the deliberate way food companies use salt, fat and sugar as foodcrack to get people literally addicted to eating bad food and too much of it. Is that a conspiracy? Only if you define corporations putting profit ahead of human health as conspiracy. The fact that Americans will do anything to each other for money is not a conspiracy, it's a scandal.

I believe in science and I believe in studies to determine the truth. I also believe Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon was correct when he said recently on MSNBC: "If you've got a checkbook in this town, you can get just about any set of facts you want." So if I remind you of a conspiracy theorist, you sometimes remind me of Britney Spears when she said "we should just do whatever the president says to do, and not ask questions and just support him." The medical community can be brutal on dissent, which would hold more weight if I thought this was a terribly healthy country, which it isn't. Health care is one sixth of our economy, and we spend way more on it than any other nation. The elephant in the room of the health care debate is that we are going to have a high health care bill every year no matter what law they pass because we're sick -- we need a lot of drugs and services.

Am I a conspiracy theorist if I suggest that since the network's nightly news broadcasts are sponsored almost entirely by prescription drug ads, that you might have to hold your breath a long time before you hear the alternative point of view to using pharmaceuticals to cure all our ailments?

Is it conspiracy theory to believe that American medicine too much treats symptoms and not root causes of disease? I always ask my friends when they go to the doctor for something, "Did your doctor ask you what you eat?" The answer is almost always 'no,' and a lot can be cured with diet and a healthier lifestyle. (And a lot can't. I also understand the role of genetics and generations of artificial selection). But Americans don't want to hear that, so doctors don't push it. It's easier and more profitable to write a prescription for Lipitor. They're not bad people, and at the end of the day, you can't make someone eat right. I like and respect all the M.D.s I've had over the years, and for the record, I have a naturopath doctor and I have a Western doctor. I would make an analogy to Republicans and Democrats: in both politics and health, I don't commit to either party because I'm on the side of the truth, whoever has it. In both cases, I'm an Independent.

Ms. Fisher said "If we want to create a society that is dependent on shots for immunity -- the same way we are getting dependent on prescription drugs, antibiotics, and surgery -- this is the path we should keep going down."

I don't think its "anti-science" to pause and consider that point of view.

Yeah, I'm disappointed, too. I thought we were sweeping into power; I thought change meant Change. I believed all that talk about another First 100 Days, a la Roosevelt. Well, that didn't happen. The question is, is this as good as it gets from Obama, or is he pacing himself? He may have a four and eight-year plan and they included a first year of just gettin' to know you and not gonna rock the boat too much. Well, Mission Accomplished on that.

It's still to early to lose hope in a guy as smart and talented as Barack Obama. But I would counsel him to remember: If you're going undercover to infiltrate how Washington works, so you become one of them for a while, to gain their confidence, well, it can be just like all those movies where a cop goes deep, deep, DEEP undercover with drug people and -- fuck, he's a drug addict, too!

Logic tells me that really smart guys like Obama and Rahm Emanuel know better what they're doing than I do. They certainly know things I don't know. I think we have the same general goals and beliefs. And this is what they do for a living -- I wouldn't even try it. But I will never stop having this doubt: that maybe if they had really charged in there riding the forceful energy of the historic election, and acted like it was an emergency moment -- which it was -- they could have gotten some big victories right up front, and there really could have been an historic "first hundred days" for this administration and the country. Instead of what happened, which is the Obamas got a dog. It could have worked -- the country had given its endorsement to "...and now for something completely different." There might have been a way to knock the Republicans back on their heels right away, with the argument that "The American people demanded we make these changes, and you are unpatriotic to stand in their way."

We'll never know. Because that moment passed, and now it could follow the pattern of World War I and devolve into boring, static trench warfare where nothing really game changing happens while both sides slowly bleed to death.

That said, I do not forget that if the election had gone the other way, we'd right now have a barter economy and be at war with Honduras.

Friday, October 16, 2009

 

QUOTES FROM “REAL TIME WITH BILL MAHER”

 

Following are quotables from “Real Time with Bill Maher” for Friday, October 16^th, 2009.  “Real Time with Bill Maher” airs Fridays at 10:00PM ET (10:00PM PT, tape delayed) on HBO, with additional replays throughout the week on HBO and HBO 2.

 

Yesterday I turned on the television.  Every news channel had pictures of this silver UFO flying through the air.  I though aliens had arrived on Earth.  No doubt to give a medal to President Obama.

-          Bill Maher, in his opening monologue

 

I knew white trash were powerful.  But I didn’t know they had an Air Force.

-          Bill Maher, in his opening monologue, regarding the “Balloon Boy” incident

 

I don’t want to say we have a special needs media, but they were literally mesmerized by a shiny object.

-          Bill Maher, in his opening monologue

 

Did you see what happened to Rush Limbaugh this week?  He wanted to buy the St. Louis Rams and they wouldn’t let him.  He was very upset.  He said this was a dream he’s had his whole life: to someday, own black people.

-          Bill Maher, in his opening monologue

 

The DOW hit 10,000 this week for the first time since the market collapse. People were so excited they took to the streets to celebrate. Which was easy, because so many of them live there.

-          Bill Maher in his opening monologue

 

We are fighting a 14^th century enemy with an 18^th century strategy.

-          Congressman Alan Greyson regarding the US in Afghanistan

 

We need to get the oil.  We need to withdraw from Iraq.  We need every troop to bring five quarts of oil back.

-          Garry Shandling

 

Two women can have a child as far as I’m concerned.  As long as they’re not both Jewish.  The idea of two Jewish mothers…

-          Garry Shandling

 

New Rule:  People from Southern California have to learn how to drive in the rain. You can go faster than five miles an hour, people. It’s water, not KY jelly.

-       Bill Maher in his “New Rules” segment 

 

New Rule:  “This” is obviously not “It.” “This” is just the beginning—of the post-mortem songs, albums, films and merchandising. Michael’s dead and has never been more popular, bringing a whole new meaning to the phrase “underground music scene.” The world has never seen such blatant exploitation of a single, tragic death..

-       Bill Maher in his “New Rules” segment 

 

This week's guests were Chris Matthews, Alec Baldwin, Governor Martin O’Malley, Garry Shandling and Congressman Alan Grayson.

Friday, October 2, 2009

 

QUOTES FROM “REAL TIME WITH BILL MAHER”

 

Following are quotables from “Real Time with Bill Maher” for Friday, October 2^nd, 2009.  “Real Time with Bill Maher” airs Fridays at 10:00PM ET (10:00PM PT, tape delayed) on HBO, with additional replays throughout the week on HBO and HBO 2.

 

I know why you’re happy tonight.  Because, you know what, after all these months of seeing these tea-baggers hold up signs of Obama with the Hitler moustache painted on, we have proof now that Obama isn’t Hitler.  Cause when Hitler tried to get the Olympics, he got it.

-          Bill Maher, in his opening monologue

 

Let’s be big about it.  Congratulations to the citizens of Rio de Janeiro.  They spent all day today partying, doing the samba in the streets with the breasts hanging out.  And then they heard about the Olympics and they were even more thrilled.

-          Bill Maher, in his opening monologue

 

You can’t blame the progressives for being mad at the Democrats.  I mean, they seem to always start with the compromise.  If they were writing the Hippocratic Oath, they would start with, “First, OK, do a little harm.”

-          Bill Maher

 

There are, at least half of America, who thinks the world was created by a man in a cloud in six days, who then needed to rest.  I love that.  He’s so powerful he can create the universe, but then he’s pooped.

-          Bill Maher

 

One of the main principals of Darwinian Theory is plenty of variations for natural selection to work on.  And there’s sure enough, there are plenty of variations in brain power.  All the way from Einstein on the one hand, to Sarah Palin on the other.

-          Richard Dawkins

 

Eighteen percent of the British people think it takes one month for the earth to orbit the sun … And twenty-eight percent of the British people think humans walked with the dinosaurs.  Twenty-eight percent of the British people get their science from “The Flintstones.”

-          Richard Dawkins

 

New Rule:  Froot Loops are not a health food. Some of the big food companies have started giving their products “Smart Choice” check marks so shoppers will know they’re “healthful.” You know, like a creep in the park will carry a puppy, so kids will know he’s “friendly.” Healthful? Froot Loops? When I saw this, I threw a tantrum in the cereal aisle.

-       Bill Maher in his “New Rules” segment 

 

New Rule:  Shut up, grandpa. This week ancient pop singer Andy Williams announced that he thinks Obama is a “Marxist” who “wants the country to fail.” And then he made Moon River in his diapers. Actually, it’s not shocking that Andy Williams says Obama is a communist. It’s shocking Andy Williams is alive. He doesn’t do shows, he has viewings.

-       Bill Maher in his “New Rules” segment 

 

This week's guests were Janeane Garofalo, Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur, Thomas Friedman, Richard Dawkins, and Lisa Jackson

QUOTES FROM “REAL TIME WITH BILL MAHER”

 

Following are quotables from “Real Time with Bill Maher” for Friday, September 25^th, 2009.  “Real Time with Bill Maher” airs Fridays at 10:00PM ET (10:00PM PT, tape delayed) on HBO, with additional replays throughout the week on HBO and HBO 2.

 

Qaddafi, did you see him?  I think the Arab world has finally found their Glenn Beck.

-          Bill Maher in his opening monologue

 

Obama, he was very impressive at the UN.  He said his plan is to rid the world of all nuclear weapons. Which really impressed the delegates. Not the plan. The fact that we have an American President who can pronounce “nuclear”.

-          Bill Maher in his opening monologue

 

Sarah Palin, still not the brightest woman in the world. A reporter asked what she liked most about Hong Kong and she said, “The part at the end when he climbs the Empire State Building.”

-          Bill Maher in his opening monologue

 

About the healthcare situation, the problem here is that he [Obama] started out with a compromise position of the public option.  You don’t start by compromising.  You start with everything you want: single payer healthcare, every American covered.  And then the debate ensues and sometimes you have to compromise from your position.  But you don’t start out that way.

-          Michael Moore

 

We created fake wealth in the financial services sector.  There was trading paper back and forth without creating anything of real value.

-          Eliot Spitzer

 

No one is suggesting spending more on healthcare, on universal coverage, over the next decade, than we’ve already pissed away on this war in Iraq.

-          Paul Krugman

 

I’m probably the only person, one of the few, that voted for Obama because he was friends with ex-Weatherman Bill Ayers.  I expect a hint of socialism.  You know, that’s a ugly word for a beautiful thought.

-          John Waters

-           

New Rule:  Now that Muammar Qaddafi is back, he needs to go away again. Face it, Mo, in your decades away from the international stage, you haven’t become a revered elder statesman. You’ve become Mel Brooks.

-       Bill Maher in his “New Rules” segment 

 

And finally New Rule: If America can’t get off its back and get something done, it must lose the bald eagle as our symbol and replace it with YouTube video of the puppy that can’t get up. As long as we’re pathetic, we might as well act like it’s cute.

-       Bill Maher in his “New Rules” segment 

 

This week's guests were Paul Krugman, Eliot Spitzer, John Waters, and Michael Moore.

New Rule: If America can't get its act together, it must lose the bald eagle as our symbol and replace it with the YouTube video of the puppy that can't get up. As long as we're pathetic, we might as well act like it's cute. I don't care about the president's birth certificate, I do want to know what happened to "Yes we can." Can we get out of Iraq? No. Afghanistan? No. Fix health care? No. Close Gitmo? No. Cap-and-trade carbon emissions? No. The Obamas have been in Washington for ten months and it seems like the only thing they've gotten is a dog.

Well, I hate to be a nudge, but why has America become a nation that can't make anything bad end, like wars, farm subsidies, our oil addiction, the drug war, useless weapons programs - oh, and there's still 60,000 troops in Germany - and can't make anything good start, like health care reform, immigration reform, rebuilding infrastructure. Even when we address something, the plan can never start until years down the road. Congress's climate change bill mandates a 17% cut in greenhouse gas emissions... by 2020! Fellas, slow down, where's the fire? Oh yeah, it's where I live, engulfing the entire western part of the United States!

We might pass new mileage standards, but even if we do, they wouldn't start until 2016. In that year, our cars of the future will glide along at a breathtaking 35 miles-per-gallon. My goodness, is that even humanly possible? Cars that get 35 miles-per-gallon in just six years? Get your head out of the clouds, you socialist dreamer! "What do we want!? A small improvement! When do we want it!? 2016!"

When it's something for us personally, like a laxative, it has to start working now. My TV remote has a button on it now called "On Demand". You get your ass on my TV screen right now, Jon Cryer, and make me laugh. Now! But when it's something for the survival of the species as a whole, we phase that in slowly.

Folks, we don't need more efficient cars. We need something to replace cars. That's what's wrong with these piddly, too-little-too-late half-measures that pass for "reform" these days. They're not reform, they're just putting off actually solving anything to a later day, when we might by some miracle have, a) leaders with balls, and b) a general populace who can think again. Barack Obama has said, "If we were starting from scratch, then a single-payer system would probably make sense." So let's start from scratch.

Even if they pass the shitty Max Baucus health care bill, it doesn't kick in for 4 years, during which time 175,000 people will die because they're not covered, and about three million will go bankrupt from hospital bills. We have a pretty good idea of the Republican plan for the next three years: Don't let Obama do anything. What kills me is that that's the Democrats' plan, too.

We weren't always like this. Inert. In 1965, Lyndon Johnson signed Medicare into law and 11 months later seniors were receiving benefits. During World War II, virtually overnight FDR had auto companies making tanks and planes only. In one eight year period, America went from JFK's ridiculous dream of landing a man on the moon, to actually landing a man on the moon.

This generation has had eight years to build something at Ground Zero. An office building, a museum, an outlet mall, I don't care anymore. I'm tempted to say that, symbolically, all America can do lately is keep digging a hole, but Ground Zero doesn't represent a hole. It is a hole. America: Home of the Freedom Pit. Ironically, it's spitting distance from Wall Street, where they knock down buildings a different way - through foreclosure.

That's the ultimate sign of our lethargy: millions thrown out of their homes, tossed out of work, lost their life savings, retirements postponed - and they just take it. 30% interest on credit cards? It's a good thing the Supreme Court legalized sodomy a few years ago.

Why can't we get off our back? Is it something in the food? Actually, yes. I found out something interesting researching last week's editorial on how we should be taxing the unhealthy things Americans put into their bodies, like sodas and junk foods and gerbils. Did you know that we eat the same high-fat, high-carb, sugar-laden shit that's served in prisons and in religious cults to keep the subjects in a zombie-like state of lethargic compliance? Why haven't Americans arisen en masse to demand a strong public option? Because "The Bachelor" is on. We're tired and our brain stems hurt from washing down French fries with McDonald's orange drink.

The research is in: high-fat diets makes you lazy and stupid. Rats on an American diet weren't motivated to navigate their maze and once in the maze they made more mistakes. And, instead of exercising on their wheel, they just used it to hang clothes on. Of course we can't ban assault rifles - we're the first generation too lazy to make its own coffee. We're the generation that invented the soft chocolate chip cookie: like a cookie, only not so exhausting to chew. I ask you, if the food we're eating in America isn't making us stupid, how come the people in Carl's Jr. ads never think to put a napkin over their pants?

Friday, September 11, 2009

 

QUOTES FROM “REAL TIME WITH BILL MAHER”

 

Following are quotables from “Real Time with Bill Maher” for Friday, September 11^th, 2009.  “Real Time with Bill Maher” airs Fridays at 10:00PM ET (10:00PM PT, tape delayed) on HBO, with additional replays throughout the week on HBO and HBO 2.

 

It is of course the eighth anniversary of 9/11 and Americans today stopped, as they should, and reflected, whatever they were doing, just to sit there, reflect, do nothing, say nothing, just like Bush did eight years ago when he got the news.

-          Bill Maher in his opening monologue

 

This was very encouraging for our country.  At the World Trade Center site, Joe Biden observed a moment of silence, showing Americans really can do anything.

-          Bill Maher in his opening monologue

 

This was the week when the President made his big healthcare speech to Congress, making it the second time in the week that he addressed a bunch of children.

-       Bill Maher in his opening monologue

 

I know the President is black, but this is not "Showtime at the Apollo."

-       Bill Maher in his opening monologue, regarding Rep. Joe Wilson’s conduct at the President’s address to Congress

 

Nancy Pelosi was so shocked, she took out her compact and drew in her eyebrows all furrowed.

-       Bill Maher in his opening monologue, regarding Rep. Joe Wilson’s conduct at the President’s address to Congress

 

Joe Wilson, to be fair, the next day, he did apologize. He said he didn’t mean to say, “You lie,” he meant to say, "Go back to Africa!"

-       Bill Maher in his opening monologue

 

Of course, what's so ironic is that the healthcare plan that Mr. Wilson so angrily opposes would get him the Prozac he so desperately needs.

-       Bill Maher in his opening monologue

 

 

The next day, Sarah Palin on her Facebook page said you know what, she still believes in death panels. You know what, Sarah, honey, if we were going to get rid of useless people, you would be the first to know.

-       Bill Maher in his opening monologue

 

The people who took their kids out of school to avoid the President, they need to go back to school.

-       Paul Rieckhoff

 

It was fun to say it to Kathie Lee Gifford’s face and watch her head explode when I said I wanted to outsell the Bible … There’s not one Brooke Shields story in there, which my book has Brooke Shields stories.  There’s no plastic surgery photos in the Bible.  It sucks.

-       Kathy Griffin

 

New Rule: Next time President Obama addresses America's school children, he has to tell them they're obese and that they should get off drugs. Or otherwise they'll grow up to be Rush Limbaugh.

-       Bill Maher in his “New Rules” segment 

 

New Rule:  Stop with Michelle Obama's arms.  Women are clamoring for the new issue of "Women's Health" magazine where Michelle's trainer tells how you can get her guns in just nine minutes a day. But I don't buy that because First Lady Laura Bush's arms never got that cut and she spent eight years holding onto a dumbbell.

-       Bill Maher in his “New Rules” segment 

 

This week's guests were Rep. Anthony Weiner, Richard Clarke, Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Paul Rieckhoff and Kathy Griffin.

New Rule: If Mitt Romney, Karl Rove and Sarah Palin all think America has never done anything wrong, we must be doing something wrong. Look at them: an empty suit, an empty heart and an empty head. It looks like the news team on Good Morning Hell. And what they've been competing about lately is who would not apologize the most. America is infallible, and apologies are horrible things that must never, ever be given. Except by me when I make a joke about the Pope. "We're perfect -- deal with it," is their new handshake. But I say, what's wrong with America occasionally saying, "I'm sorry"? Because these are the three sorriest white people I've ever seen.

If in your eyes America can do no wrong, you should really look into Lasik surgery. There's the rational, mature assessment of our country: that it's a great nation -- especially if you like fried foods -- but it also has its faults. And then there's the Republican view: that it's perfect and pure in every way and it's always right all the time, just like Leviticus and Ronald Reagan.

If the founders were alive today, Republicans would be giving them shit because the Declaration of Independence says, "In order to form a more perfect union? Hello, it's already perfect! Why are you suggesting American apologetics, Ben Franklin?"

One of the things that makes Republicans furious about our current president is their idea that Obama is always apologizing for America's biggest mistakes. Unlike President Bush. Who was one of America's biggest mistakes.

In his first week as president, Obama did an interview with Arab TV in which he said, "We sometimes make mistakes. We have not been perfect." Thought crime! And then he went to Cairo and violated one of those absolute eternal rules the Right Wing is always making up out of thin air: "The president must never apologize on foreign soil. Lest our allies begin to doubt that we're assholes. "

But what did Obama actually say to make Karl Rove's head explode and the popcorn fly out? Cover your children's ears: When he was asked if he believed in American exceptionalism, he said he did, the same way "the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks in Greek exceptionalism." Yes, our so-called president actually said people in other countries might like their countries better. I was so shocked I nearly dropped the Bible I was using to help me masturbate into my gun.

In her farewell speech -- if only -- Sarah Palin kept telling us "how she's wired." Now I'm not a doctor, or an electrician -- but this is faulty wiring, this worldview that, in her words, "we should never apologize for our country." Really? Never? Not for slavery? Or Japanese internment camps, or if we tortured the wrong guy at Guantanamo? The Indians? Nothing, Sarah? "The Real Housewives of Atlanta"? Shouldn't John McCain apologize for... you?

When did intractability become a virtue? Mitt Romney's new book is called No Apology: The Case For American Greatness. You can find it at Borders, in the "Suck-Up" section. It's such a perfect title, combining paranoia with arrogance: "No one has yet asked me to apologize but, if someone ever does, fuck them."

Conservatives think apologizing is a sign of weakness. It's what liberal pussies do, when they're not busy driving electric cars and feeling empathy. When in fact it's the weak and the scared who are too insecure to apologize. Apologies are actually a sign of strength. That's why six-year-olds hate them.

In Rwanda, after a genocide that killed a million people, they set up special courts where people stood up and said, "Hey, sorry I macheted your entire family. My bad." And believe it or not, in most cases, that was enough. That's the power of an apology. A recent study reveals that doctors who are willing to apologize to patients for their mistakes are sued for malpractice about half as much as doctors who aren't willing to apologize.

Apologies can do great things, and they can enable great things. And if you still don't believe me, I have three words for you: make-up sex.