the smartest man alive?

bill maher is, without a doubt, the most intelligent, reasonable, down-to-earth visionary I have ever heard speak. he appeared last night on larry king live. during his talk he made some extremely well articulated points. here are some of them, entirely out of context:

‘You hear about gas prices over two dollars a gallon and it makes you nearly choke on your four dollar latte’

‘Human beings are very ill-equipped for certitude. Doubt is very fitting for the human mind, because we don't know. We're not that good.’

‘It should be enough to want to be a good person for the sake of being a good person. I don't think you're good if you're doing it to get to heaven, first of all. That's not a -- that's not a reason. That's not a good reason to be a decent person.’

‘I'm a board member of PETA. And this man is exactly right, and I'm glad he raised the issue. It's despicable the way we treat animals in this country. And it's part and parcel to our general lack of compassion for things that don't affect us directly. But no, I'm not a vegetarian, because I'm not in lockstep with everything PETA says. I mean, animals kill each other. They just don’t do it cruelly.’

‘He (Senator Coburn) literally calls homosexuality the -- and gay marriage the greatest threat our country faces. Seriously. I mean, they call me a traitor? That's treason. If you think that that's what we should be guarding this country from, at a time when I read today in the paper that we're going to start selling nuclear material overseas, then you are not doing your job.’

you go, bill.

everyone should read the transcript of this interview.

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0508/11/lkl.01.html


/pk