New Rules: Polite Musings from a Timid Observer - Bill Maher

Bill Maher's popular new HBO television show, Real Time, has put Maher more
front and center than ever before. Particularly one regular segment on the
show, entitled "New Rules," has been a hit with his ever-growing legion of
fans. It is the part of the show during which Maher takes serious aim,
bringing all of his intelligence, incisiveness, wit, and his signature
exasperation to bear on topics ranging from cell phones ("I don't need my
cell phone to take pictures or access the Internet. I just need it to make
a phone call. From everywhere! Not just the places it likes!") to fast food
("No McDonald's in hospitals. I'm not kidding!) to the conservative agenda
("Stop claiming it's an agenda. It's not an agenda. It's a random collection
of laws that your corporate donors paid you to pass.") His new book, the first
since his bestselling When You Ride Alone You Ride with bin Laden, brings these
brilliantly conceived riffs and rants to the written page. Appropriately titled
New Rules, the book will collect some of the best of the rules derived from
previously written material and will also contain substantial new material,
including some longer form "editorials"--of course with a twist and bite that
only Bill Maher can deliver.

Rants . Dennis Miller

Comedian Dennis Miller's The Rants a collection of more than 40 monologues
from Miller's popular HBO television series, Dennis Miller Live is a one-two
punch to those of the Republican persuasion. Although Miller is not everyone's
cup of tea (some people get tired of his self-righteousness, his hair, and his
"dick" jokes), he is not afraid to name names and bloody a few noses. He is
a rarity in these days of safe comedians (e.g., Leno and Letterman): a comic
with a point of view; his biggest fans are those who share it. They get off on
his anger and his manic metaphors ("The First Amendment has been absorbing more
potshots than the west wing of the White House" ). Even without the benefit of
his delivery, his rants survive the transition to the printed page, reading
like hilarious editorials. No topic is off limits, and he skewers everyone from
humorless homosexuals to the PC police. Miller is a cross between Lenny Bruce
and social critic Robert Hughes, a marvelously funny, socially relevant, and
politically poignant pragmatist. "Of course," as Miller likes to end his rants,
"that's just my opinion. I could be wrong." [Note this book was when he was
more moderate . thus picks on crazies on the left and the right, as opposed to
after 9/11 when he went to the extreme right wing . kind of interesting to see
how much his thinking changed!]

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