Take a hike, Bill Maher.

I just rejected an advertisement that had been submitted to me for Bill Maher's offensive "Religulous" movie. It wasn't a small add buy, either. $68 would always be welcome around here. But clearly Bill Maher's promotion agency doesn't read my blog, or know what it stands for, or realize that it can't be bought.

Here's a taste of what the advertisement would have looked like:

Clearly it was a no-brainer to reject this offensive image, for an offensive movie. I want no part in promoting it.

I've seen the trailer for Religulous, in which Maher extends his bloated solipsism and egoism (if that's possible) by tracking down inept representatives of various faiths, editing their comments out of context (clearly) and then claiming to have somehow "disproved religion" in the process.

I wonder if he's ever appeared in a forum that he doesn't directly control.

This is a fools quest, undertaken by a man I pray never has to fully realize how much of a fool he is making himself out to be, and who is sadly countenanced and enabled by his producers and viewers. Don't get me wrong, I hope and pray that he comes around, but it will be painful considering the path he has chosen. Well so be it.

This is the same Bill Maher, of course, who is the host of HBO's "real time" and has said "I have hated the Church way before anyone else" and claimed the pope "used to be a Nazi" and has also 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.'" (source)

Now, I know why AmP was solicited to promote this movie: to make such a film a commercial success (which is their bottom line, of course), they need to get religious people angry enough to begin talking about it, condemning it, organizing a boycott, etc ... but each of these actions just play into their game.

This would all be free advertising for them , and makes us appear that we are threatened by its (truly laughable and elementary) arguments. But we are not scared - we are just going to be smart about how we beat this pathetic "mockumentary" and quickly relegate it to the dustbin of its predecessors.

So I'm not talking any more about it. It's garbage and not worth any thinking person's time.

And it's certainly not worth 68 bucks.

update: I sent the link for these remarks to the publicist who tried to make the blog ad buy. I'd be happy to explain the situation to Bill Maher directly if he/they want, but I somehow doubt they want that kind of press.