I love Bill Maher. So much.

>I don't know who this Bill Maher is

Out of touch much?

@2 Yes, really.

IMHO, way too much gun control talk and way too little lack-of-mental-health-resources talk

Not all right wingers are domestic terrorists,
but all domestic terrorists have been right wingers
for at least the last 25 years.

Maher nailed it 13:00-13:45!

Pretty damn good, loved the line about maybe there's more moderate Muslims than Republicans now, but we liberals need to stop throwing out the "You don't need assault weapons to hunt" canard. Of course you don't. Everyone knows they're for killing people, & that's why peple want them. Their argument is if the government collapses and there's a rampaging horde pf Mad-Maxians come to murder their family, they don't want to be solely armed with weapons that are good for killing deer. If they decide to declare armed rebellion against the government, they want weapons that are good for killing people.

Second Canuck. Can't wait for the new season of Real Time. It is time to hold some people accountable for emotionally toying with an already emotionally charged county in alarmingly aggressive ways (especially a country with shitty health care and even worse mental health care).

This entire scenario is heartbreaking beyond words to me. I applaud The Strangers upcoming cover.

I keep parsing AC360 as AC130. Gonna go play CoD4 nao.

Republicans appeal to exremists. Thet court them. Then, when there's murder, they are not responsible. Bullshit. And floating canards about not judging Nidal, bullshit. I'm as left as anyone can be and I think he's a terrorist and I've never heard anyone on the left say "don't judge".

OuterCow: "we liberals need to stop throwing out the "You don't need assault weapons to hunt" canard."

Of course you don't, you just need a shotgun.

(heh)

If you didn't see Jon Stewart's heartfelt comments last night - also worth a look.

Good stuff. Glenn Beck is also a registered "independent"

Whenever gun control issues are raised I ponder upon Canada. If guns are the problem how can a country with such high per-capita ownership rates experience significantly less per-capita homicide?

Whenever health care reform issues are raised I ponder upon Canada. If government mandated health coverage is the problem how can a country with universal health coverage enjoy significant benefits such as lowered infant mortality, longer life expectancy and lower financial drain?

Perhaps massive social inequity is the cause of strife in the United States.

Alright - just me, or does is Anderson Cooper always goddamn squinting? It's so pained, that thoughtful squint - as if you couldn't otherwise tell he's deeply considering. Oh sure, he'll throw in a questioning or doubtful squint for a change, but good lord: it's an interview, stop trying to sell it.

@15 One big difference is that most of those firearms in Canada are long guns (rifles, shotguns), not handguns. I just asked my husband, and he said it's really difficult to get a handgun in Canada, you'd have to prove that you needed one for your job or hobby (only two people we know have handguns, one is a biologist with fish and wildlife, one is in the back country a lot, both have them for protection against things like bears or cougars), you'd have to go in for interviews, have a medical/psych check up, then they'd interview your family, they'd make sure your spouse knew you were considering buying a handgun. For instance, someone we know who's had some mental health issues tried to acquire a firearm, we were called as a reference, they didn't get the gun. In Canada, self defense is not seen as an adequate reason to carry a firearm. And if you do manage to get a permit to carry one, you have to inform the RCMP whenever you transport it anywhere.

Bill, I love you!!

As a Canadian, I am always struck by the level of debate. Really, crosshairs on political maps shouldn't be used? Guns are too readily available? Glenn Beck is scary? In all other civilized countries, these things would be the lowest common denominator--precisely why they don't have these issues. Education or lack thereof is why all this baseness is tolerated.

@16 Very similar to the situation in Germany, where you have to belong to a gun or hunting club to purchase a firearm. In addition, if a minor commits a crime with a parent's gun, the parents themselves can be tried as equally culpable for not adequately securing the weapon.

@12 *Ba dum tish* Canuck. *tips hat*

er, that is @17. I'm not quite lonely enough to carry on forum discussions with myself...yet.

@Canuck

Thats how it should be.

Using the term "girl" as an insult? I like Bill Maher but that was really disappointing.

@24, but he used "summum bonum" so nicely!

I was a land surveyor for a few years.

We didn't use symbols like that.

Ever.

l am a big Anderson Cooper fan, but he seemed totally out of his depth in this interview. Never seen him so unprepared before.

I can't tell if Maher was serious or if it was satire. Whether he's in on the joke, or if he is the joke, trying it tie this crisis to Palin and Beck is equally ridiculous. I personally detest Palin and Beck, but they had absolutely nothing to do with this shooting. Maher simply underscores the hatred and insecurity of the left.

Maher states that "nutty people on the left...we don't make threats". I suppose he's never heard of Joe Stack, Amy Bishop, Ted Kaczynski, Lee Harvey Oswald, or Bill Ayers.

I'm guessing the reason Anderson Cooper seemed off his game here is that he's not used to holding his tongue, listening to blatant libel.

#29

Man I just looked into all of those people and they were just crazy. No political leaning, just lots of crazy.

I'm sorry. No politic leanings with actual ties to american politics.

@27 Ditto. Bill Maher is definitely a force to be reckoned with. No bluffing your way through a conversation with him, which I think AC does a lot. I always used to like Maher's show, because he can do that to even the most prepared and verbose of people with ease.

Unfortunately though, he treats his servers/bartenders/bell-hops/room service/flight attendants/etc. the same way -- absolutely horrendously. I've never seen anything like it, and he's certainly not the only celebrity I've served, and I've seen it more than once, so it wasn't just catching him on a bad day. He's so completely dehumanizing to "menials" that I've completely lost all respect for him. While I often appreciate what he has to say, I just can't watch the man anymore. Heaven only knows how he keeps a staff on his show. Heaven only knows how much "menial" spit he's had to drink or pubes he's eaten either.

*Another Canadian observation*

Our NDP (New Democrat Party) used this http://tinyurl.com/48qrxo7 is a campaign. So we do it too. Canadians do have "violent" images in our politics...the difference is our politicians don't call each other commies or fascists. While political ideals differ we are not enemies of each other. Though I will admit every now and again a politician does say something that is out of bounds and they get shamed publicly by the media and other politicians. We don't let that sort of behavior stand.

I'd also like to know how some who is deemed too unstable to be allowed in the military and too unstable to attend college was not immediately given over to mental care experts. Why was his family not contacted? How the hell did he pass the background test? Why is no one in the US willing to be responsible for getting mentally ill people the help they so desperately need?

@32 LeaningWestward: Wow, that puts an unpleasant spin on things. There is no excuse for that kind of rudeness to staff/servers ever, and I've always thought it mostly came from people who were massively insecure, and I wouldn't have put him into that group...so, he's just kind of an asshole in his personal life? Disappointing!

@33 Katt: Perhaps his parents were informed. Also, I've experienced that "falling through the cracks" here in Canada, too. A friend's kid, who had "issues," but not enough of them to be officially this or that, there really wasn't a place for him, and if they are over 18 and aren't interested in counseling/possible meds...what do you do? I agree, it's not a good situation, but I'd guess that he was someone who presented as "normal" but with behavioural issues, not as batshit crazy.

@33: The NDP picture was not this (which you linked to), but this (which was near the bottom of the page).

Bulls eyes have a different cultural understanding than rifle sights, particularly when the bulls eye ad had an arrow in it.

Lazy equivalencies are lazy.

@33 & @35: I think the "targets" there look a lot more like the "house" in curling. A ploy to get some more traction in western Canada??

I love that Bill used the phrase "summum bonum." Way to invoke Aristotle.

@7 you are very right. I would also add in his comments from 14:40 to 15:15 about the silencing of gun rights discussion and his words from ~8 to ~9 about the hysteria of the right's rhetoric.

Once again Bill Maher proves he's farther left than me, but he's very right about the state of our political discourse and about the failings of the right wing's ideology. I think it's ridiculous to call the NRA the "assassin's lobby" (I would agree that if the NRA gets everything they want, they've gone too far, but let's not forget that the vast, vast majority of gun owners are responsible citizens who use their weapons for recreational hunting or target shooting and, if it comes to it, home protection, which is entirely within their rights IMO).

The unfortunate thing about all this is that I only see it escalating the vitriol of the debate, and not making things better, mostly because the right-wing isn't about to cede an inch of ground due to this. It will only inflate their persecution complex and drive them to increasing heights of self-righteousness.

@34 I know, isn't it? And I used to have such a crush on the man too.... :'(

Dan, you're respectful to your servers/bartenders, right? I'd hate to be so disheartened again.

@34: I've been a fan (is fan the right word) of Maher for a while, and the impression that I get is that he's not an asshole specifically to underlings/service staff/etc., he's just an arrogant asshole. To everybody. Which often flies, because he's right a lot of the time, but he IS a jerk.

I don't think that means you should stop following or even generally-liking Maher; I don't think being an asshole necessarily undermines his points or humor. I know we often want a uniform, homogeneous view of a person (if I like thing X that a given person is good at, sie must be a Good person in all other ways too; this is the same phenomenon responsible for the common view that more-attractive people are smarter, better leaders, more physically capable, etc. irrespective of whether they actually are), but people are more complicated than that. People do and say both good and bad things, smart and stupid things, Good and Evil things. Dick Cheney loves his gay daughter; Dennis Miller was great on SNL and is a raving right-winger; Isaac Brock may be a rapist and Modest Mouse is a fantastic band; Joseph Goebbels was a genius orator/advertiser/dramatist; Christopher Hitchens is an advocate for reason and atheism and also a sexist prick and generally a huge asshole (even moreso than Maher); Fidel Castro was a champion of the people's right s to food and housing and health care and he also jailed and murdered political dissidents; Thomas Jefferson was a slave-owner who supported restricting full citizenship to white land-owning men; George Washington was a cannabis farmer (though this may not necessarily be a point of conflict for one); etc. Hell, my best friend in the whole world is a strong believer in the relatively-free Capitalist Market. I'm sure Abraham Lincoln had faults. People are messy, generally-good people do fucked-up things sometimes, and idealizing/canonizing/hero-worshiping them is not a wise practice, as it's always going to come into conflict with the actual person eventually.