New Rules for the New Year NYTimes / BILL MAHER / December 30, 2011 NEW YEAR'S resolutions are the original New Rules. Except that resolutions are usually self-oriented: I am going to lose weight this year. My New Year's resolution, by the way, is to do the ones from '75; I made a lot of good ones that year. I was 19, and thought I could polish them off by age 20. Alas, I'm a little behind. Also, New Rules are bigger, broader and grander. I don't tell you what I'm going to eat; I tell you how the world should work. Here's what 2011 prompts me to decree for 2012: New Rule Now that we have no money, and all our soldiers have come home from Iraq and they've all got experience building infrastructure, and no jobs ... we must immediately solve all of our problems by declaring war on the United States. New Rule If you were a Republican in 2011, and you liked Donald Trump, and then you liked Michele Bachmann, and then you liked Rick Perry, and then you liked Herman Cain, and then you liked Newt Gingrich ... you can still hate Mitt Romney, but you can't say it's because he's always changing his mind. New Rule Starting next year, any politician caught in a scandal can't go before the press, offer a lame excuse and then say, “Period. End of Story.†Here's how you indicate a “period†and the end of a story: shut up. New Rule The press must stop saying that each debate is “make or break†for Rick Perry and call them what they really are: “break.†New Rule You can't be against same-sex marriage and for Newt Gingrich. No man has ever loved another man as much as Newt Gingrich loves Newt Gingrich. New Rule Internet headlines have to be more like newspaper headlines. That means they have to tell me something instead of just tricking me into clicking on them. If you write the headline, “She Wore That?†you have to go to your journalism school and give your degree back. New Rule Let's stop scheduling the presidential election in the same year as the Summer Olympics. I get so exhausted watching those robotic, emotionally stunted, artificial-looking creatures with no real lives striving to do the one thing they're trained to do that I barely have energy left to watch the Olympics. New Rule No more holiday-themed movies with a cast of thousands unless at least half of them get killed by a natural disaster. Fair's fair - if I have to watch Katherine Heigl and Zac Efron as singles who can't find love, I also get to see them swallowed up by the earth. New Rule Jon Huntsman must get a sex change. The only way he's going to get any press coverage is by turning into a white woman and disappearing. New Rule Starting this year, every appliance doesn't need a clock on it. My stove, my dishwasher, my microwave, my VCR - all have clocks on them. If I really cared that much about what time it was (or what year it was), would I still have a VCR?