People tend to either love or hate Bill Maher - likewise I’m sure people will either love his new film, a sarcastic examination of religion:

What do you think?

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The Fire Bill Maher campaign, which Gina blogged about, is claiming that host of HBO’s Real Time With Bill Maher must be called to account for mocking the Pope. The people behind the campaign are also saying Maher got away with anti-Catholic jokes but would not have been able to get away with jokes making fun of Jews or Muslims. As Maher himself points out, he is an equal opportunity offender and makes fun of all religions without discriminating. It is also important to remember this is not the first time people have attempted to silence Maher. Bill Maher really was fired and his show Politically Incorrect really was canceled after Maher said that the 9/11 hijackers were not, in fact, cowards as Bush had claimed. Maher was not defending the people behind 9/11, but merely analyzing how and why they were able to do what they did. Then and now, Maher is a reminder of why we need to defend free speech, especially when it calls for a critical thinking and goes against conventional wisdom.

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Bill Maher has always been outspoken but when he decided to speak out about his feelings concerning the Catholic Church, many people were not pleased. Maher made comments in reference to the latest child abuse scandels connected with the church:

Maher said: “If you have a few hundred followers and you let some of them molest children, they call you a cult leader. If you have a billion, they call you ‘pope.’ “

After the backlash, Maher offered an apology on his April 18 show:

“So, on that score, you know what, my Catholic friends, I will never make the “pope is a Nazi” joke again. Because, you’re technically right, OK, and also because it distracts from the main point. And the main point I was making was that if the pope, instead of a religious figure, was the CEO of a chain of nationwide day care centers who had thousands of employees who had been caught molesting children and then covering it up, he would have been in jail. ” [Newsday]

I’ve always been a fan of Maher and in watching the clip (click to see it below the fold) I feel that folks might be overreacting

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Not to be outdone by Aqua Colbert, Bill Maher’s got his own hot concept for the bottled beverage business. From last Friday’s “New Rules”:

“As far as I’m concerned, Cherry Chocolate Diet Dr. Pepper still doesn’t have enough shit going on. I need Caffeine-Free Cherry Chocolate Diet Dr. Pepper”no, no, no, I need Cool Ranch Extreme Caffeine-Free Cherry Chocolate Diet Dr. Pepper. And baked. And, I want a sticker on it telling kids that drugs are bad.”

Maher’s mockery of marketing run amok raises a sticky issue: the fact that excess soda consumption’s doing more harm to our kids than drugs are, objectively speaking. And soda–even diet soda–is taking a toll on grown-ups, too.

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