The New New Rules: A Funny Look at How Everybody but Me Has Their Head Up Their Ass by Bill Maher

Secret Christmas catalog features a $6.5 million diamond-studded bra. And guys, it’s the perfect bra for mistresses, because she’s almost guaranteed not to leave it in your truck.

IDIOM SAVANT
     
    New Rule: Instead of using the expression “It is what it is,” just shut up.

IMMACULATE REJECTION
     

     
    New Rule: For the sake of human existence, K-Fed must not be allowed to mate with Paris Hilton. Or, as I like to call her, “K-Y.” When the Pope saw this picture, he changed his opinion on abortion from “It’s murder” to “Okay, but just this once.”

IMMODEST PROPOSAL
     
    New Rule: No more public marriage proposals. When you hire a skywriting plane, or propose to your girlfriend at the ball game, every unmarried woman is looking at her man like, “Well . . . ?” And you’re not helping the married men, either, whose wives are remembering how they proposed to them in flip-flops, cargo shorts, and a “Who Farted?” T-shirt by saying, “What the hell, I’m going bald anyway.”
    POTUS ENVY
     
    New Rule: The rest of the world can go back to being completely jealous of America. Our majority-white country just freely elected a black president, something no other democracy has ever done. Take that, Canada. Where’s your Nubian warrior president? Your head of state is a boring white dude named Stephen Harper, and mine is a kick-ass black ninja named Barack Hussein Obama.
    That’s right, everybody, I take back every bad thing I ever said about the good old USA. I’ve gone from “God damn America” to “Goddamn, America!” I feel like a hockey mom at the state fair getting felt up by Hank Williams Jr. while fireworks go off and Jesus appears in my cotton candy. It would be stupid not to be stupid about it. So I’d like to take this moment,  when we finally got one right, to bask in a little unwarranted, unapologetic, irrational faux patriotism. Or, as Fox News calls it, “regular programming.”
    I might regret this. It’s kinda like grocery shopping when you’re high. But here goes, world: We’re Americans. We built the Golden Gate Bridge, the Hoover Dam, and Joan Rivers. We’re the only country that can look at a sandwich made of ice cream and chocolate cookies covered in fudge and think, “Hmm, you think we could fry that?” And you know what? Yes, we can! They may have seventy-two virgins, but we have thirty-one flavors. You know what our favorite burger topping is? Another burger. We invented rock ’n’ roll, jazz, funk, R&B, and hip-hop. Without our music, your iPods would be filled with ABBA, Menudo, and Men at Work. And you wouldn’t have iPods.
    Not only did we create the Internet, we’re the ones who filled it up with porn. Jefferson lived here. And Miles Davis. And Gloria Steinem and Frank Lloyd Wright. And a lot of other people Sarah Palin never heard of. In America, strippers and Disney stars have an equal right to be named Hannah Montana, and I was freely able to make a movie saying there’s no afterlife, and you could watch it while eating crap that’ll kill you. But that’s okay, because our corn-fed high school sophomores are bigger than your soldiers. And they’re better armed.
    I ask you, in what other nation would they tax young people to make sure old people can afford erections? What you call “football,” we call “soccer.” And what you call “war crimes,” we call “football.” And let me just say it again: We elected a black guy, and it was because he was the best candidate, not because it was some cheap gimmick. And we should know, because we are also the country that invented cheap gimmicks! Yes, America is like Jessica Simpson—sometimes it’s so stupid it embarrasses you, but on the other hand, how about them titties?
     
     
    —November 14, 2008
     

INCENSED
     
    New Rule: You’re not allowed to be shocked that breathing smoke might be bad for you. A new study shows that frequently burning incense might cause cancer. What—did you