In NEW RULES, Bill Maher's standup-comedy roots show as he delivers pithy rants on selected topics from today's culture: cell phones, fast food, Martha Stewart, pretentious Chinese-pictogram tattoos on your lower back (he wonders if they translate as "beef with broccoli")--oh, and George W. Bush. Many of these power-point length riffs are drawn from the "New Rules" segment of his popular cable-television show "Real Time with Bill Maher"; others are new for this book, and he includes a few editorial-length pieces. More hip than Andy Rooney, with a bit of a Dr. Phil McGraw "get real" grump to his patter, Maher makes sure to include political and politically incorrect references, as he advises us that Abu Ghraib's famous couple Lynndie England and Charles Garner "should not be sentenced to jail. They should be photographed performing sex acts, stacked in a pile of naked people, and stripped of their dignity." Sardonic, satiric, somewhat cynical, but not snarky, that's Bill Maher in NEW RULES.