[Vision2020] New Rules from "Real Time with Bill Maher" (August 25, 2006)

[Tom Hansen]

It is time, as always, for New Rules! We will never forget New Rules. 

All right. New Rule: For the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, President
Bush must order the Air Force to drop leaflets on New Orleans warning them
that it's hurricane season again and he's still president. You know, here's
how you can tell when a city isn't ready for the casinos to come back: when
the floating craps game involves actual floating crap. It's okay if you're
not sure. 

New Rule: Confessed child murderers have to fly coach. Of all the people who
ever deserved to spend 14 hours listening to a crying baby and having his
seat kicked- -number one has got to be that guy. [slide of John Mark Karr] 

New Rule: Don't force your delusions on your children. A company in our very
own Third World Country - Florida- -is producing Armor of God pajamas. Yes,
what better way to spread the message of Christ than to put your kids to
sleep in a Klan robe. "Sleep tight, kids, the Rapture is coming." I guess we
should have put a hood on that picture. 

New Rule: If Homeland Security and the FAA five years after 9/11 still don't
have a unified passenger watch list, haven't completed installation of
explosive detecting machines and have absolutely no system to find liquid
explosives, could you at least tell us where we can hide our weed? Because
I'm stumped. Up until now, I've been putting it in my hair gel. 

New Rule: The outside world is not your house. Is it me, or will people wear
just about anything to the supermarket? When you hear that announcement over
the P.A., "Clean up in Aisle 7," they're talking to you! I mean, it's
heartwarming that you held onto those comfy gym shorts from high school.
Which reminds me, I'm out of kiwi. [slide of kiwis shown] Polar bears love
that joke, by the way. 

And finally, New Rule: Now that an international panel of "scientists" has
decided to "cut-and-run" on the planet Pluto, I say it's time for the United
States to sever its ties with science altogether and withdraw from the solar
system! Hey, it worked for Kyoto and the Geneva Convention! Sorry,
Poindexters, but this is God's country, and as long as George Bush is
president, the science is still out on science. 

Now, I know many of my Republican friends got very excited when all this
talk started recently about adding three new planets to our solar system
because what could be better in all of life than having three new things to
name after Reagan? But then they realized what was really going on. Activist
scientists were trying to get away with a little election year redistricting
of the universe. Adding new planets when we should be enforcing the planets
we already have. 

Goddamn it, why hasn't someone introduced the Defense of Planet Act? To
protect the sanctity of planet-hood by defining it solely as the
relationship between the Sun and Uranus. Good to give a laugh to a vet, even
a cheap laugh like that. 

I mean, Pluto is out, Pluto is in. You let planets swing both ways like
that, next thing you know, people are marrying their pets. Not to mention
that adding more planets would drastically reduce our chances of winning
Miss Universe. 

Now, we have tried to get along with the rest of the stars and the planets
and the scientific principals of observation. But, you know, there comes a
time when you have to say, "Enough is enough! I want faith. I want
certainty. I want Santa Claus." "And the Star Wars Missile Shield, and tax
cuts and wars that pay for themselves." "I want our kids to learn that the
stars in the sky are really bedazzle beads on the Virgin Mary's sweatshirt."
"I want Terri Schiavo to wake up back in Kansas with her little dog, Toto,
and a bedroom full of overly familiar farmhands." 

I guess what I'm saying is, "You're either with us or with the scientists."
The most important American rite is the freedom to never have to learn
anything. "Too Much Information" isn't just a clichéd way to say, "Shut up,"
it was actually Bush's campaign slogan. 

So whenever someone tells you we evolved from apes, or the earth is getting
warmer, or they've used something called a "telescope" to learn more about
Heaven, just tell them, "TMI, Brainiac!" "Go back to France, or even worse,
the Democrat Party." Because this is America, and there's only one question
that needs to be answered here: "Are you ready for some football?!"

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Seeya round town, Moscow.

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

"If I wanted to overhear every tedious scrap of brain static rattling around
in your head, I'd read your blog."

- Bill Maher