In the end, Bill Maher is irrelevant. Read a damn book, will you?

Don't you even start on me. I've had this poster since I was in high school. It is intended as metaphor, suggesting thoughtful repose. 

I watch almost no television of any sort. To me, life is short -- and television is a vaster wasteland than ever. Meanwhile there is writing to do, books to read and plenty of music for inspiration.

It happens that I used to pay sporadic attention to Bill Maher, though his name has appeared at NA Confidential only a handful of times since 2012 or 2013. I'm not certain why I stopped viewing clips of Maher's on social media; perhaps because my social media feeds lean left, and fellow "liberals" decided Maher was kryptonite.

Either way, there's nothing conscious about it, at least on my part. Maher remains entertaining and instructive in my estimation, and at some point, he drifted off my radar. I've probably been busy reading.

Lately I've seen several instances of disavowal on the part of left-leaning friends, and this has provoked a mild curiosity. I do recall charges of Islamophobia; duly noted.

I can't help observing that given our vacuous, late-night, sound-bite culture of skin-deep irrelevance, it's hard to grasp why it matters much. We're getting our news from late night comedians and talk show hosts.

This is the part that should be bothering you.

Why Liberals Need Bill Maher’s Tough Love, by Matt Wilstein (Daily Beast)

Many progressives have written off the ‘Real Time’ host, but his importance to the late-night landscape should not be dismissed.

With the constant barrage of bad news coming out of the White House these days, sometimes it seems like the late-night shows can barely keep up. Night after night, hosts like Stephen Colbert, Seth Meyers, and Trevor Noah struggle to find what they hope is a unique comedic point of view on the latest Donald Trump outrage.

But in the year and a half since Trump was elected president, Bill Maher has taken a different approach. Yes, there is still plenty of anti-Trump material in his weekly Real Time monologues, but unlike pretty much every other late-night host on TV, he spends almost equal time holding liberals to account.

One of the biggest criticisms of these types of political comedy shows, even before the Trump era, was that they are simply preaching to their like-minded choir. Just as our Facebook pages reinforce the positions we hold dear, our late-night shows do the same. This is part of what has aided The Late Show’s sprint to the top of the ratings race over the past 18 months. Yes, the news is terrifying, but if we can laugh about it with Colbert at the end of the day, maybe things will be OK.

Real Time with Bill Maher has a different effect, and in turn has been alienating liberals more and more in recent months. But perhaps Maher is performing a more important service for Democrats than they realize. Even if his critiques often come off as “This is why Trump won” moralizing, there is value in acknowledging that Republican incompetence does not negate Democratic mistakes ...

"It's not about immigrants, it's about ideas."

A bit of thought provocation on Super Bore Sunday.

Three climate change thoughts while you drive 35 feet to fetch your mail.

Above: "John Oliver hosts a mathematically representative climate change debate, with the help of special guest Bill Nye the Science Guy, of course."

Then there is this: online/bill-maher-mocks-idiot-pat-sajak-for-global-warming-tweets/">Bill Maher Mocks ‘Idiot’ Pat Sajak for Global Warming Tweets, by Josh Feldman (Mediaite)

Finally, a more sobering commentary.

Global warming: it's a point of no return in West Antarctica. What happens next?, by Eric Rignot (The Observer)

Last week saw a 'holy shit' moment in climate change science. A landmark report revealed that the collapse of a large part of Antarctica is now unstoppable.

Video: "Bill Maher Contrasts 'Sex Machine' John F. Kennedy with 'Amiable Square' Ronald Reagan."

Bill Maher: Is the US the world's policeman, or a schoolyard bully?

Bill Maher quite simply rocks.

The US: world's policeman or schoolyard bully? Ever since 9/11, it seems America's just been itching for a fight – and any Muslim country will do. Really, who acts like this?, by Bill Maher (The Guardian)

New rule: 12 years after 9/11, and amidst yet another debate on whether to bomb yet another Muslim country, America must stop asking the question, "Why do they hate us?" Forget the debate on Syria, we need a debate on why we're always debating whether to bomb someone. Because we're starting to look not so much like the world's policeman, but more like George Zimmerman: itching to use force and then pretending it's because we had no choice.

Now, I'm against chemical weapons, and I don't care who knows it. And there's no doubt a guy like Bashar al-Assad deserves to get blown up: using toxic chemicals on unsuspecting civilians is purely and profoundly evil.

But enough about Monsanto ...

"Mitt Romney doesn't drink beer, because his God forbids it."

Thanks to MN for the link.

Maher: "They’re not the counterculture. They’re the culture."

I wonder what Councilman CeeSaw thinks. The audio is out of sync, but it doesn't matter, so just listen and enjoy.

Beware of graphic, hilarious and deadly accurate content.

Geography as the study of yokel mouths agaping.

My wife is a social worker.

For the uninitiated, here is a random web definition of her job: “A social worker is a professional trained to talk with people and their families about emotional or physical needs, and to find them support services.”

Upon returning to the office after our recently concluded holiday, D. noted that we’d just come back from a trip to Europe.

Came the immediate reply: “Did you fly or drive?”

No, not from a client ... from a co-worker.

I’m trying to imagine a European with an elementary school education working in a similar position and making a similar comment, but I can’t. It’s simply inconceivable. All of which reminds me of Bill Maher’s comments in his most recent contribution to Rolling Stone magazine, cleverly entitled “Dickheads of the Year”:

#7: The Solid Quarter

That twenty-five percent of America who would not desert George Bush if he ran over Dakota Fanning with his pickup truck on the White House lawn. Is it a coincidence that twenty-five percent is also the number of people who, in an AP poll of predictions for 2007, said they expect Jesus Christ to return this year!? I don't think it is.

Has anyone ever figured out why it is the case that we Americans so often accept insufficient education as a birthright? My guess has always been that we need an inadequately educated populace to be susceptible to sales pitches so that the consumer economy can continue to hum, but maybe there's more to it than that. After all, we elected Dubya -- not twice, but once.

Here's what Maher has to say about the lame duck in chief:

Who will tell this president what everyone but him already knows? The theory of evolution. And the times tables. And where the sun goes at night. And that Iraq is going to be three different countries. And that everyone hates us and we've run our military into the ground and the Taliban is back and we still haven't caught bin Laden and the economy is tanking and we wasted eight years blowing the oil companies while the Earth is melting. We had a pretty nice house when this Cat in the Hat of presidents came in and made the mess of all time. And who's going to clean it all up — Rudy Giuliani?

Readers, just remember that nothing's so bad that it can't be cured with a few Progressive Pints, and have a wonderful holiday ... even those of you who are cursing me at this very moment.