The place before occupied by journalists in shaping the public opinion in the US of A has been superseded by comedian activists such as Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Bill Maher and even, to a lesser extend, by those talk show hosts of another era, David Letterman and Jay Leno.

They were the ones responsible for bringing W's rate of approval down — even considering his own stupidity helped a little. The recent elections in the North America have brought a little more equilibrium to a completely and unabashedly unlawful State¹, ruled by a religious fanatic who also happens to be a corporation puppet. What Unistat represented of good in the eyes of the world, it has lost.

Particularly brave and of significance was Stephen Colbert's "bomb" at the White House Correspondents Dinner. Stephen Colbert's shtick consists of a super-american conservative persona, sort of Bill O'Reilly with just a pinch more of non sequiturs than the original. He was able to say to Bush what no journalist has been able to ask. And his effectiveness, his truthiness, is beyond reproach.

The amazing thing is what we can read between the lines of this situation: the only way corporation censorship can be somewhat breached is through not being serious. The corporations behind this comedians have such a good product, and until now, so seemingly inoffensive, that such gap could be found and explored. And the thing is that these guys are selling intelligence, such a rare product nowadays. It makes sense: seriousness is the normal animal level of consciousness, humor requires a different spark.

Chomsky paranoia convinces me, and he seems to be on pace with the Dalai Lama on several issues. People get distanced from each other through consumerism — with this he hits the spot on criticizing Unistad's way.

In the documentary we have sometimes, from his fans, too much of a personality cult, but when he speaks its ok. Nothing about his work besides politics, though.

Bill Maher made Unistat politics interesting and also proves that HBO is the less worse programming in television these days².

He is extremely politically incorrect — hates children, smokes pot (and says so outloud and clear), pro-abortion, anti-gay-marriage (but only because he's against marriage in general!), atheist and anti-(organized)religion³. And I know, in some circles the last two wouldn't be considered PI, and in others, none. But for Unistat TV standards, is very PI, and that's the HBO niche so it seems.

What scares me is that he is so damn entretaining, and the left in Unistat is so dull and fragmented nowadays that the more centrist views will be soon forgotten⁴.

That is, I'm of course pro-(organized)religion, anti-abortion, anti-pot, but not in the same sense the ones Maher criticizes are. Maher's religion is Science, and he makes a compelling argument against the conservative jesus-freaks. But how would he stand in the more agnostic views of Dharma? We can't kill fetuses (or any tissue blob, may that be) without knowing, for sure, there is no consciousness there. Scientists cannot measure or find any consciousness. So, while they can't, we cannot kill, since we don't know scientifically when a human being becames a human being and has at least the same rights as is mother. Is it 24.4 seconds after conception? Is it at 8 years old? No device for measuring consciousness yet.

Evolution, of course, is the leading theory today (and the jesus-freaks theory is of course bullshit, I know). But what do we make of it? In some views that account evolution as an intrinsic value, someone like the Dalai Lama or Mother Theresa are failures, and a rapist that impregnates the woman he rapes is a complete success! We need more than a simple biological theory, we need the values that the genes themselves cannot have, but we already do — so they don't come out of genes alone, but of that other elusive thing called consciousness.

Anyway, he is funny as hell, although now I'm getting slightly tired of some of the repetition (I have watched every one of the more than 50 episodes in the last two months). The New Rules segment is a riot by itself, and you can read it at HBO's site.

New Rule: Stop saying that teenage boys who have sex with their hot, blonde teachers are permanently damaged. I have a better description for these kids: lucky bastards.