Bill Maher's column in today's Los Angeles Times

[discopants]

Somebody find a link and post it! It's a thing of beauty.

[gWbush is Mabus]

1. cut and paste it already

[discopants]

3. it's not online yet

someone may have a link from another source.

[gWbush is Mabus]

4. ok

[bballny]

2. can't find it at LA Times n/t

[sendero]

5. I gave it my best google..

... and I don't think it is online yet. Read the paper and type in 4 paragraphs :)

[ArkDem]

6. He is an intellectual of the first class.

[MissMarple]

7. Bill Maher? An intellectual?

And I thought he was just a moderately well read iconoclast. :shrug:

[Laura PourMeADrink]

8. No -- He is brilliant and unusually well-read

[Mr Rabble]

9. Yup. A comedian. A decent one, nothing more.

[NYCGirl]

10. So comedians can't be intellectuals? NT

[MissMarple]

13. He said that Bill Maher is a comedian and not an intellectual.

That is a far different than saying comedians can't be intellectuals.

[Mr Rabble]

32. That is what I meant. nt

[MissMarple]

38. Correctomundo.

;)

[NVMojo]

35. he's an intellectual ...

[devilgrrl]

33. Yeah, a comedian who graduated from Cornell...

Keith Oberman's alumni. They don't take morons... then again Ann Coulter went there too. :puke:

[MissMarple]

37. Cornell College or Cornell University?

But, that is a moot point. Neither one of them takes the educationally inadequate. And, no one said Maher is a moron. He's a smart guy. For the most part, we like him. And, if he was reading this thread, I think he would .....appreciate it.

[xyboymil]

11. Bill Maher is VERY smart. Have you even seen his show? off the cuff

Conversations are excellent and obviously not written for him. Most of his show is HIM freely speaking. He does alot of the writing as well.

BTW: To be a successful comedian, you have to be smart. That is why he is soo good off the cuff.

[MissMarple]

12. Maybe I have a different idea of what an intellectual is.

Or, perhaps I don't watch enough Bill Maher, I certainly have never met him. I think he is smart, articulate, and he seems to think logically and sequentially. I'm just not seeing the "intellectual" part.

[personman]

16. My understanding is...

The definition of intellectual is one who relies on logic and reason.

[MissMarple]

17. Well, I think that is part of it. But all good thinkers rely on logic and

reason. But not all good thinkers are intellectuals.

[personman]

20. Isn't intellectual just a better word for thinker?

Feel free to disagree of course, but I don't think someone has to be mind blowingly brilliant to be an intellectual.

I would consider Jon Stewart and probably most of the people here to be intellectuals, as well as myself. I was just looking up intellectual on wikipedia the other day, so I was already thinking about this.

Here is an excerpt:

Intellectualism:
Strictly a doctrine about the possibility of deriving knowledge from reason alone, intellectualism can stand for a general approach emphasising the importance of learning and logical thinking.

So basicly, you don't have to be brilliant to be an intellectual, but it helps :)

I'm not trying to argue or anything, just thought some of this might be of interest.

[MissMarple]

27. I checked that out, too. That would make most of DU intellectual.

I have always associated it with the clear and logical thinking, but underlaid with a great deal of knowledge. In my experience, most intellectuals are not expert in all fields, like they could be in Leonardo Da Vinci's day, so they don't have to be mega smart. Although there are people more like that. But, they do have quite extensive knowledge of at least one area, and can reach beyond the heat of the moment to see the underlying logic of an issue. And that is the hard part, to think like that in a consistently evenhanded way and not allowing passion and opinion to cloud the result.

So maybe it is the level of strength of the ability to reason logically and clearly and to have the currently available knowledge to be able to do so that defines an intellectual for me.

But, I really don't know about Bill Maher. Arkdem got me on that one. :)

[ArkDem]

21. I was being sarcastic, MissMarple.

[MissMarple]

24. Oh, well, OK then.

But, you certainly got a discussion going. :)

[Wordie]

19. He is a curmudgeon in the style of Mencken...and VERY smart.

I often disagree vehemently with him, but am so glad to have someone actually saying things on tv, that I love to watch him.

[MissMarple]

22. "I'm Swiss"....that just cracks me up.

I'm, in part, of Swiss heritage. He reasons a lot like some of my uncles. We are all iconoclasts and some are a bit curmudgeonly.

But, I don't consider myself or my uncles to be intellectuals. :)

[Serial Mom]

31. Slight correction ... it isn't all off the cuff ...

His show last week, the teleprompter went out at the last of his New Rules and he pulled a paper out of his suit coat and read from there. But he writes most of his own stuff and I thinks reads it just to stay on track.

[NVMojo]

36. well, he can't be too stupid if he can read from a teleprompter and

not look like it while Bush has to have an audio prompter and looks like it.

[Serial Mom]

39. Please don't think I was implying he was even close to being stupid

I like Maher and watch him every week!

And even you and I wouldn't look as stupid as dubya standing in front of an audience reading a prompter!

[mitchum]

15. Well, compared to Gallagher...

:)

[MissMarple]

18. I have to agree with that.

:)

[personman]

25. You just wish you thought of sledge hammer + watermelon. nt

[mitchum]

26. Caught me!

:)

[EVDebs]

14. Tried this link but nothing's there yet

www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-maher26aug26,0,4805978.story

You may have to use bugmenot.com to get into it later also.

That's the best I could do so far.

[Wordie]

23. Would the OP please edit the subject line when there really is a link?

I'm getting tired of clicking back and forth to look for it. I can't believe there are over 20 responses to this thread without a link! I really want to read that article!

[discopants]

30. hey, I'm sorry. I was asking for a link

..."You've performed so poorly you should give yourself a medal. You're a catastrophe that walks like a man. On your watch we've lost almost all of our allies, the budget surplus, four airliners, two trade centers, a piece of the Pentagon and the city of New Orleans. Maybe you're just not lucky.
"I'm not saying you don't love this country. I'm just wondering how much worse it could be if you were on the other side. Yes, God does speak to you. And he's saying: "Take a hint.""

[flying_wahini]

28. while you are waiting for the link try this

go to google

type in failure

hit I'm feeling lucky

enjoy

[Wordie]

29. I got a "document has moved..." page. What's the point?

[blondeatlast]

40. Life's small yet sweet rewards keep me going. Thanks!

:rofl::rofl::rofl:

[Yoda Yada]

34. It Will Probably Be On Real Time

Usually the Bill Maher article in Friday's LA Times is the ENDING COMMENTARY on Friday's Real Time with Bill Maher. That is probably why you can't get the link (yet). Listen to his show tonight and you can HEAR the article. There will probably be a link tomorrow.

RealTime with Bill Maher is on HBO at 8:00pm (in Los Angeles). It might repeat again at 10:00...and then you can also find it repeated occasionally on the weekend.