title: Judas Priest

text: In a June 2006 interview with MTV.com, Halford said of the group's concept album about the 16th-century French writer Nostradamus, "Nostradamus is all about metal, isn't he? He was an alchemist as well as a seer – a person of extraordinary talent. He had an amazing life that was full of trial and tribulation and joy and sorrow. He's a very human character and a world-famous individual. You can take his name and translate it into any language and everybody knows about him, and that's important because we're dealing with a worldwide audience." In addition to digging new lyrical ground for the band, the album would contain musical elements which might surprise fans. "It's going to have a lot of depth", Halford said. "There'll be a lot of symphonic elements. We might orchestrate it, without it being overblown. There may be a massive choir at parts and keyboards will be featured more prominently, whereas they've always been in the background before." The album "Nostradamus" was released in June 2008; the band began a support tour in that same month.


title: Judas Priest

text: In early February 2009, the band joined the ranks of bands speaking out against ticket-touting ("scalping"), issuing a statement condemning the practice of selling tickets at well above face value, and urging fans to buy tickets only from official sources. In the same month, Judas Priest continued their tour, bringing their "Priest Feast" (with guests Megadeth and Testament) to multiple arenas in England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland in February and March 2009. From there the tour progressed to multiple venues in Sweden. Later in March, Judas Priest performed in Portugal (at Lisbon on the Atlantic Pavilion), which they had not visited since 2005. The tour then continued to Milan, Italy, and then Paris, France; Halford had last performed with Judas Priest in Paris in 1991.


title: Judas Priest

text: From June through August 2009, Judas Priest completed a North American tour to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the release of "British Steel" (1980); the album was performed in its entirety on each tour date, with some other songs thrown in. This tour was to be a joint effort with fellow Englishman David Coverdale and Whitesnake. Unfortunately, Whitesnake would have to leave the tour after the show in Denver, Colorado on 11 August 2009 due to Coverdale falling ill with a serious throat infection; he was advised to stop singing immediately to avoid permanently damaging his vocal cords.


title: Judas Priest

text: On 14 July 2009, Judas Priest released a new live album, featuring 11 previously unreleased live tracks from the 2005 and 2008 world tours, "". The performance of "Dissident Aggressor" won the 2010 Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance.


title: Judas Priest

text: In May 2010, Halford said the band had been offered a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, but "we've just never been there when they wanted to do the ceremony." He also revealed that a "Nostradamus" tour was still being contemplated: "We were in Hollywood recently and met with some producers and agents, so there are a lot of things going on behind the scenes."


title: Judas Priest

text: Judas Priest announced on 7 December 2010, that their Epitaph World Tour would be the band's farewell tour and would run up until 2012. In a January 2011 interview, Halford said about the band's impending retirement: "I think it's time, you know. We're not the first band to say farewell, it's just the way everyone comes to at some point and we're gonna say a few more things early next year, so I think the main thing that we just want to ask everybody to consider is don't be sad about this, start celebrating and rejoicing over all the great things we've done in Judas Priest."


title: Judas Priest

text: On 27 January 2011, it was announced that Judas Priest was in the process of writing new material; the band also clarified their plans for the future, saying, "this is by no means the end of the band. In fact, we are presently writing new material, but we do intend this to be the last major world tour." Speaking at a press conference in Los Angeles on 26 May of the new material Glenn Tipton said: "It's quite a mixed bag. Really, there's more sentiment on this album. In a way, I suppose, it's also our farewell album, although it might not be our last one. There are some anthems on there, which pay tribute to our fans".


title: Judas Priest

text: On 20 April 2011, it was announced that K. K. Downing had retired from the band and would not complete the Epitaph World Tour. Downing cited differences with the band and the management, and a breakdown in their relationship. Richie Faulkner, guitarist for Lauren Harris' band, was announced as his replacement for the Epitaph World Tour. Downing's retirement left bassist Ian Hill as the only remaining founder member of the band.


title: Judas Priest

text: On 25 May 2011, Judas Priest played during the finale of "American Idol" season 10 with James Durbin, making it their first live performance without K.K. Downing. The band played a mixture of two songs: "Living After Midnight" and "Breaking the Law".


title: Judas Priest

text: On 7 June 2011, the band announced that it planned to release the box set "Single Cuts", a collection of singles, the following August.


title: Judas Priest

text: In an August 2011 interview with Billboard, Halford explained that he and Tipton had "about 12 or 14 tracks completely mapped out" for a new studio album, with four of those tracks already recorded and mixed. The band made a point to take its time with the album, with Halford explaining "I'm of the attitude it'll be ready when it's ready ... I don't think we're going to slack off. We're determined to do a lot of work and be just as dedicated as we've always been and take a lot of care and attention with all the songs. We're not going to just bang this one out, so to speak."


title: Judas Priest

text: On 13 September 2011, Priest announced its plans to release a new compilation album, "The Chosen Few", a set of Priest songs chosen by other iconic heavy metal musicians.


title: Judas Priest

text: On 5 June 2013, Halford confirmed that the Epitaph World Tour would not be the band's final tour. On 22 December, Judas Priest released a short Christmas message on their official website, which confirmed that they would be releasing their next album in 2014.


title: Judas Priest

text: On 17 March 2014 at the Ronnie James Dio Awards in Los Angeles, Halford announced that the band's 17th studio album was finished. On 28 April, the band released the album's title track "Redeemer of Souls" for streaming on their official website. On 14 May 2014, the band's original guitarist Ernie Chataway died at the age of 62 from cancer, as reported by vocalist Al Atkins. "Redeemer of Souls" was released on 8 July 2014. It sold around 32,000 copies in the United States in its first week of release to land at position No. 6 on The Billboard 200 chart, the band's highest charting position in the US after the double-disc concept album, "Nostradamus", debuted at No. 11. This was the band's first top 10 album in the US. The band went on tour in support of the album which ran from 1 October 2014 until 17 December 2015. The Redeemer of Souls Tour led to the sixth live album "Battle Cry", which was released on 25 March 2016 after being recorded at the Wacken Open Air festival in Germany on 1 August 2015.


title: Judas Priest

text: In a November 2015 interview with Reverb.com, Richie Faulkner said that the band would start work on their eighteenth studio album in 2016. In April 2016, Loudwire posted a photo showing Rob Halford, Glenn Tipton and Faulkner himself in the studio beginning the process of the album, with Halford confirming in a radio interview that it would be ready by early 2017. During an interview at the 2016 edition of the Rock 'n' Roll Fantasy Camp, Halford expressed dissatisfaction on making an album similar to "Redeemer of Souls". Faulkner then stated that the band would begin recording in January 2017 and also said that they would not go on tour until 2018.


title: Judas Priest

text: In March 2017, the band entered the studio to begin the recording process, with support from long time producer Tom Allom, along with former Sabbat guitarist and producer Andy Sneap and engineer Mike Exeter, who worked with the band on the previous album. This marked the first time since 1988's "Ram It Down" that they had worked with Allom. In an April 2017 interview with Planet Rock, Halford said that the band was "coming to some of the final moments" of completion of the new album. He also promised "a very exciting 2018 period" with a world tour taking place in 2018. In an Instagram post in June 2017, Sneap said that the band completed tracking.


title: Judas Priest

text: The eighteenth album, "Firepower", was released on 9 March 2018, with a world tour taking place thereafter, beginning in North America with Saxon and Black Star Riders as their support acts.


title: Judas Priest

text: On 12 February 2018, Glenn Tipton revealed that he had Parkinson's disease and would step down from touring. According to the band, the disease's progression left him unable to play the more challenging material. Tipton stated that he was still a member of the band despite his diagnosis and did not rule out future on-stage appearances. Andy Sneap was then announced as his replacement for the tour. Richie Faulkner later assured fans that Tipton would perform with the band "at some point in the tour." At the 20 March 2018 show in Newark, New Jersey, Tipton joined the band on stage to perform "Metal Gods", "Breaking the Law" and "Living After Midnight", then "Victim of Changes" and "No Surrender" on later dates. He continued to appear for encores throughout the remainder of the Firepower World Tour.


title: Judas Priest

text: On 29 January 2019, Judas Priest's European tour with Ozzy Osbourne was cancelled after Osbourne experienced a severe upper-respiratory infection. The band later confirmed that the tour was rescheduled to 2020.


title: Judas Priest

text: In a March 2019 interview with Australia's "May the Rock Be With You", Rob Halford stated that Judas Priest would "definitely" release a new studio album in the future, and that Tipton had already started composing riffs. Bassist Ian Hill said that the band had "some very strong ideas that were left out of "Firepower" which we never got around to completing. So it's very much on the cards. When that will happen, I don't know." Halford expressed uncertainty as well on when a new album would be made, but assured it would happen. Despite Tipton's condition, Faulkner said that he would "very much be involved in the creation of the next record." Halford later confirmed that the band began compiling ideas for the next album, but said that "Firepower" would be difficult to top. He then said that the writing sessions would begin in early 2020, and that there would not be new material that year.


title: Judas Priest

text: On 15 January 2020, Faulkner revealed via Twitter that he, Tipton and Halford would meet up in February 2020 to begin work on the next album. The songwriting process commenced on 3 February 2020. Halford confirmed that Andy Sneap and Tom Allom would return to contribute to its production. Prior to the COVID-19 lockdowns, Faulkner said that a month's worth of songs were written, but incomplete, and that the band would eventually begin composing material. Halford said that Tipton contributed material during the writing process, describing the songs as "monsters. Even in a very, very rough, primitive stage, they're great — they're really, really good." He explained that the album would capture "the emotion of what we're going through together." In regards to recording the songs, he dismissed the idea of doing so via Zoom, citing his old school lifestyle of being in the studio with the band members to write and record music in normal fashion.


title: Judas Priest

text: Judas Priest were originally scheduled to embark on the 50 Heavy Metal Years Tour in 2020 in Europe and North America, but was pushed back to 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic; however, due to its continued presence, the European leg was pushed back to 2022. They returned to the stage on 15 August 2021 as they headlined the Bloodstock Open Air festival, once again rejoined by Tipton for the encore songs. The tour commenced on 8 September; however, the remainder of the US Tour was postponed as Faulkner was hospitalized for major medical heart condition issues. It was rescheduled for the spring of 2022 with Queensrÿche as their support band, while the European leg with Ozzy Osbourne was rescheduled for 2023.


title: Judas Priest

text: On 29 April 2021, former drummer John Hinch died at the age of 73, as confirmed by Halford on Instagram. When speaking about the upcoming album, Halford said that the band had "a bunch of great new ideas for tracks, lots of really strong demos", describing it as being "a potent record". In regards to the material they had written, bassist Ian Hill said that there was enough for at least an album or two, expressing doubt that it would be released before 2023 due to the band's tour schedule. Halford confirmed Tipton's appearance on the album.


title: Judas Priest

text: In January 2022, Judas Priest announced the departure of Andy Sneap as he would shift his focus on his production work while the band continued as a quartet; however, the decision was retracted and he was reinstated. In regards to the album's musical direction, Faulkner and Halford said that it would take a more progressive approach than "Firepower". Tipton assured that it would be "what every Priest fan will want", while explaining that the tracks may or may not fancy the fans taste, but expressed satisfaction in its sound. Faulkner confirmed that the drum parts were recorded, and that the album was completely written, "but we need to record it properly and everything like that. So it's not really anywhere near done. But when it's done, it's done." In June 2022, Halford indicated that the album will not be released until 2023 or 2024.


title: Judas Priest

text: On 5 November 2022, Judas Priest were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, playing a 3 song set alongside former members K.K. Downing and Les Binks.


title: Judas Priest

text: Judas Priest's style has always been rooted in heavy metal, and many of their albums reflect diverse aspects of the genre. For example, their first album, "Rocka Rolla" (1974), is primarily rooted in heavy blues rock. From "Sad Wings of Destiny" (1976) through "Stained Class" (1978), their style was somewhat progressive, with complex guitar passages and poetic lyrics. Songs would often shift in dynamics and tempo, and the music was some of the heaviest of its day. This would later have a major influence on progressive metal and stoner rock bands. 1977's "Sin After Sin" used a combination of double bass drum (or "double kick") and rapid 16th-note bass rhythms combined with rapid 16th-note guitar rhythms used by Black Sabbath, Venom, and Motörhead that came to define the genre. While the double-bass rhythms of Judas Priest are generally measured and technical, the song "Dissident Aggressor" (1977) pushed an increase in "tempo and aggression" which was later adopted by other bands with a much harder-edged approach.


title: Judas Priest

text: Starting with their fifth album, "Killing Machine" (1978), the band began to incorporate a more commercial, radio-friendly style to their music. "British Steel" has been referred to as the "record that, more than any other, codified what we mean by heavy metal". The lyrics and music were simplified, and this style prevailed up to their seventh album, "Point of Entry" (1981). With their eighth album, "Screaming for Vengeance" (1982), the band incorporated a balance of these two styles. This continued on "Defenders of the Faith" (1984). With the follow-up album, "Turbo" (1986), the band incorporated guitar synthesizers into its signature heavy metal sound. On 1988's "Ram It Down" the band retained some of the more commercial qualities of "Turbo" but also returned to some of the fast tempo heavy metal found on their earlier works. This fast-tempo style continued with 1990's "Painkiller". "Jugulator" (1997) tried to incorporate some of the 1990s contemporary groove metal styles. "Demolition" (2001) has a more traditional heavy metal sound with nu metal elements. Following the return of Halford for "Angel of Retribution" and "Nostradamus", the band returned to the style of its early albums.


title: Judas Priest

text: The band's popularity and status as one of the exemplary and influential heavy metal bands has earned them the nickname "Metal Gods" from their song of the same name.


title: Judas Priest

text: Halford listened to and was influenced by Little Richard, Elvis Presley, Janis Joplin and Robert Plant as a vocalist. He learned to push to the limits of his vocal abilities by their vocal demonstrations on record. He developed a powerful, operatic vocal style with an impressive range from lower throaty growls to ear-piercing high screams with strong vibrato. He was also a fan of Freddie Mercury, referring to him as his ultimate hero.


title: Judas Priest

text: Judas Priest have influenced a great deal of metal music since the late 1970s. They were ranked by MTV as the second "Greatest Metal Band" of all time (after Black Sabbath), and VH1 named them the 78th greatest artist of all time in 2010. They were nominated for induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2018, but were passed over despite placing among the top 5 fan-voted nominees.


title: Judas Priest

text: Many metal bands have named themselves after classic era Judas Priest songs and albums, including Sinner, Exciter, Rage, Running Wild, Steeler and Tyrant.


title: Judas Priest

text: In addition to the sound, Judas Priest is also known for being revolutionary in heavy metal fashion. In the band's early years, they dressed in hippie-style 1970s outfits, but as the decade drew to a close, the rise of punk rock made this look outdated, so the band began wearing simplified wardrobes on their 1978 tour. For the 1979 tour, Halford adopted his now-trademark leather-and-studs look, inspired by punk fashion and leather culture. The rest of the band adopted a similar style which became prominent at the time of their 1978 release, "Killing Machine". This style would go on to be adopted by many heavy metal bands in the early 1980s, especially those of the NWOBHM and early black metal movements. To this day, it is not uncommon to find metal artists and fans sporting such a look at concerts.


title: Judas Priest

text: In a published quote on the back cover of K. K. Downing's autobiography "Heavy Duty: Days and Nights in Judas Priest", Downing said that Judas Priest "had a bit of an identity crisis from the beginning. There was always a bit of a question mark about the band's look. To me, it never seemed to say anything—and in the earliest days of our career, I suppose I actually saw that as a good thing."


title: Judas Priest

text: Downing claims that he was the one who came up with the band's black-leather look back when he first started in the music business. He explains, "I had this Heavy Metal attitude inside of me. I had it all of my life. When I got into Judas Priest I knew I had a band that had a great name. I knew we were a great band ... but something was not quite complete. The leather and studs image came along and it all started to complete itself. We had the album cover with the razor blade ... and Heavy Metal was born, mate. I was a youngster and it came to me. Around 1976 is when it happened. The band took to it and got on with it, really."


title: Judas Priest

text: The American director Rob Reiner went to see Judas Priest in concert as part of his preparation for making the film "This Is Spinal Tap" (1984), which spoofs British heavy metal bands.


title: Judas Priest

text: The drama-comedy film "Rock Star" (2001), starring Mark Wahlberg, is loosely based on the story of how Tim "Ripper" Owens replaced Rob Halford as the vocalist in Judas Priest.


title: Judas Priest

text: The Judas Priest song "Electric Eye" was used in the temp score for "Toy Story 3" (2010), but was ultimately replaced by another piece of music.


title: Judas Priest

text: The song "Electric Eye" was also used as placeholder music in "Galaxy Rangers", an early promo reel for "Mighty Morphin Power Rangers" (1993). The series was notable for its hard-rock soundtrack.


title: Judas Priest

text: On 5 January 2014, the band appeared in the episode "Steal This Episode" of comedy cartoon show "The Simpsons" playing a parody of their song "Breaking the Law". Their music was referred to as "death metal", for which the producers subsequently apologised by having Bart Simpson write "Judas Priest is not 'Death Metal in the opening sequence chalkboard gag.


title: Judas Priest

text: Despite their huge, loyal fanbase, Judas Priest have never been well received by much of the music press, partially because their late 1970s rise coincided with the punk rock and new wave movements, which occupied much of the music press's attention at the time. The first edition of "The Rolling Stone Album Guide" gave their first three albums one star each and described the band as "for lovers of stolen Led Zeppelin riffs only". The second edition of the guide a few years later also panned their entire discography. "Village Voice" critic Robert Christgau was notably disdainful of the band, refusing to outright review any of their albums and relegating them to his "Meltdown" list (referring to artists he did not consider to have any material worth listening to). In 2018, they were nominated for entrance into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but failed to get in, a move the band was critical of. They were however inducted into the Hall of Heavy Metal History at the Wacken festival in August 2018. Founder/CEO Pat Gesualdo thanked them "for the decades of hard work and dedication to heavy metal, an art form they helped establish." The band then stated that their induction "also sends a great message of inclusion for the metal community around the world, and keeps us defending the metal faith together." In May 2022, it was announced that the band were to be among the 2022 inductee class for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as the recipients of the committee selected "Award for Musical Excellence". Despite finally being inducted, many outlets, including Metal Sucks and "Loudwire", were critical of the band being inducted via "Award for Musical Excellence" rather than in the "Performer" category. Halford, after originally expressing excitement about the honor, shared this sentiment.


title: Bill Maher

text: William Maher (; born January 20, 1956) is an American comedian, writer, producer, political commentator, actor, and television host. He is known for the HBO political talk show "Real Time with Bill Maher" (2003–present) and the similar late-night show called "Politically Incorrect" (1993–2002), originally on Comedy Central and later on ABC. In 2022, Maher started the podcast "Club Random".


title: Bill Maher

text: Maher is known for his political satire and sociopolitical commentary. He targets many topics including religion, political correctness, and the mass media. His critical views of religion were the basis for his 2008 documentary film "Religulous". He is a supporter of animal rights, having served on the board of PETA since 1997, and is an advisory board member of Project Reason. Maher supports the legalization of cannabis, serving on the advisory board of NORML.


title: Bill Maher

text: In 2005, Maher ranked at number 38 on Comedy Central's 100 greatest stand-up comedians of all time. He received a Hollywood Walk of Fame star in 2010. In 2014, Maher won a Primetime Emmy Award for his work as executive producer for "Vice".


title: Bill Maher

text: Maher was born in New York City. His father, William Aloysius Maher Jr., was a network news editor and radio announcer, and his mother, Julie Maher (née Berman), was a nurse. He was raised in his Irish-American father's Roman Catholic religion. Until his early teens, he was unaware that his mother, whose family was from Hungary, was Jewish. Owing to his disagreement with the Catholic Church's doctrine about birth control, Maher's father stopped taking Maher and his sister to Catholic church services when Maher was thirteen.


title: Bill Maher

text: Maher was raised in River Vale, New Jersey and graduated from Pascack Hills High School in Montvale in 1974. He then attended Cornell University, where he double-majored in English and history, and graduated in 1978. Maher has said, "Selling pot allowed me to get through college and make enough money to start off in comedy."


title: Bill Maher

text: Maher began his career as a comedian and actor. He was host of the New York City comedy club Catch a Rising Star in 1979. Maher began appearing on Johnny Carson's and David Letterman's shows in 1982. He made limited television appearances including on "Sara" (1985), "Max Headroom" (1987), "Murder, She Wrote" (1989, 1990), and "Charlie Hoover" (1991). His feature film debut was in "D.C. Cab" (1983). He later appeared in "Ratboy" (1986), "" (1987), "Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death" (1988), "Newhart" (1988), hosted the talk show "Midnight Hour" on CBS (1990) and "Pizza Man" (1991).


title: Bill Maher

text: Maher assumed the host role on "Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher", a late-night political talk show that ran on Comedy Central from 1993 to 1997 and on ABC from 1997 to 2002. The show regularly began with a topical monologue by Maher preceding the introduction of four guests, usually a diverse group of individuals, such as show business, popular culture, political pundits, political consultants, authors, and occasionally news figures. The group would discuss topical issues selected by Maher, who also participated in the discussions. Jerry Seinfeld, a regular guest on the show, stated that "Politically Incorrect" reminded him of talk shows from the 1950s and '60s "when guests interacted with each other as much as with the host".


title: Bill Maher

text: "Politically Incorrect" won an array of awards, including an Emmy Award for Outstanding Technical Direction, two CableACE awards for Best Talk Show Series, and a Genesis Award for Best Television Talk Show. Maher earned numerous award nominations for his producing, writing, and hosting of "Politically Incorrect", including ten Emmy nominations, two TV Guide nominations, and two Writers Guild nominations. ABC decided against renewing Maher's contract for "Politically Incorrect" in 2002, after he made a controversial on-air remark six days after the September 11 attacks. He agreed with his guest, conservative pundit Dinesh D'Souza, that the 9/11 terrorists did not act in a cowardly manner (in rebuttal to President Bush's statement calling them cowards). Maher said, "We have been the cowards. Lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away. That's cowardly. Staying in the airplane when it hits the building. Say what you want about it. Not cowardly. You're right." Maher later clarified that his comment was not anti-military in any way whatsoever, referencing his well-documented longstanding support for the American military. After receiving complaints, FedEx and Sears pulled their advertisements from the show, costing the show significant revenue.


title: Bill Maher

text: Maher's remarks after 9/11 were not the first time he had sparked controversy on "Politically Incorrect". In the same year, he expressed his deep regrets and apologized after being widely criticized for comparing his dogs to retarded children. The show was canceled on June 16, 2002, and the Sinclair Broadcast Group had dropped the show from its ABC-affiliated stations months prior. On June 22, 2002, just six days after the cancellation of "Politically Incorrect", Maher received the Los Angeles Press Club president's award (for "championing free speech"). Maher was on the board of judges for the 2002 PEN/Newman's Own First Amendment Award, which included writer Vanessa Leggett, imprisoned for 168 days for protecting sources and research notes.


title: Bill Maher

text: In 2003, Maher became the host, co-producer, and co-writer of "Real Time with Bill Maher", a weekly hour-long political comedy talk show on the cable television network HBO. In 2016, HBO renewed "Real Time" through 2018, for its 15th and 16th seasons. During an interview, Maher told Terry Gross (on NPR's "Fresh Air") that he much prefers having serious and well-informed guests on his program, as opposed to the random celebrities that fleshed out his roundtable discussions on "Politically Incorrect".


title: Bill Maher

text: As with his previous show, "Politically Incorrect", Maher begins "Real Time" with a comic opening monologue based upon current events and other topical issues. He proceeds to a one-on-one interview with a guest, either in-studio or via satellite. Following the interview, Maher sits with two or three panelists, usually consisting of pundits, authors, activists, actors, politicians, and journalists, for a discussion of the week's events.


title: Bill Maher

text: "Real Time" has earned widespread praise. It has been nominated for more than ten Primetime Emmy Awards and six Writer's Guild awards. In 2007, Maher and his co-producers were awarded the Television Producer of the Year Award in Variety Television by the Producers Guild of America. Maher holds the record for the most Emmy nominations without a win, having been nominated on 22 occasions and not winning once. Eleven of the nominations were for "Politically Incorrect", while nine were for "Real Time". The other two were nominations for two of his HBO comedy specials: "I'm Swiss" and "".


title: Bill Maher

text: In late May 2005, Alabama Congressman Spencer Bachus sent a letter to Time Warner's board of directors requesting "Real Time" be canceled after remarks Maher made after noting the military had missed its recruiting goals by 42 percent. Bachus said he felt the comments were demeaning to the military and treasonous. Maher stated his highest regard and support for the troops and asked why the congressman criticized him instead of doing something about the recruitment problem.


title: Bill Maher

text: On September 17, 2010, Maher aired a clip of Delaware Republican Senatorial candidate Christine O'Donnell from the October 29, 1999, episode of his old show "Politically Incorrect" on his current show "Real Time with Bill Maher", where she mentioned that she had "dabbled in witchcraft". This was one of the most notable of numerous controversial statements by O'Donnell that made her the most covered candidate in the 2010 mid-term election cycle.


title: Bill Maher

text: In February 2017, Maher invited Milo Yiannopoulos to be interviewed on "Real Time." Yiannopoulos accepted, despite protests from some commentators and fans. The appearance on Maher's show harmed Yiannopoulos's career due to comments in the interview in which he seemed to express sympathy toward perpetrators of child sexual abuse. In the days following the interview, Yiannopoulos had his invitation to speak before the 2017 Conservative Political Action Conference, as well as a book deal with Simon & Schuster, cancelled. Yiannopoulos subsequently resigned as an editor at Breitbart News. When asked whether Yiannopoulos's interview on his show was among the causes of his resignation, Maher concurred, saying, "As I say, sunlight is the best disinfectant. You're welcome."


title: Bill Maher

text: In 2019, during a "New Rules" segment of "Real Time with Bill Maher", Maher stated that he questioned Stan Lee's legacy, that comic books are not literature, and that adult fans of comic books "need to grow up".


title: Bill Maher

text: Maher is a frequent commentator on various cable news networks, including CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, and HLN. Maher has regularly appeared on CNN's "The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer" and has also been a frequent guest on MSNBC's "Hardball with Chris Matthews", "The Rachel Maddow Show", and "Countdown with Keith Olbermann". Maher has also appeared as a guest on HLN's "The Joy Behar Show". He wrote the foreword for the 2002 book, "Spin This!: All the Ways We Don't Tell the Truth" by show host Bill Press.


title: Bill Maher

text: Maher hosted the January 13, 2006, edition of "Larry King Live", on which he was a frequent guest. Maher appeared as a special guest on the June 29, 2010, edition of the show, on which CNN anchor Larry King announced his retirement. Maher co-emceed the final show of "Larry King Live" on December 16, 2010, with Ryan Seacrest.


title: Bill Maher

text: In 2004, Maher appeared on stage as Satan in The Steve Allen Theater production of "Hollywood Hell House", a spoof of the Christian-run hell houses. The show was a faithful reproduction of an evangelistic scare-experience written by Reverend Keenan Roberts to terrify teenagers into declaring themselves Christians. "Our faith is that putting this up as itself, it will hoist itself on its own petard, that it's comical just as it is," explained producer Maggie Rowe. The show featured a rotating cast of over 160 celebrities, including Andy Richter (Jesus), Richard Belzer, Dave Thomas, Traci Lords, Craig Bierko, Sarah Silverman, and Julia Sweeney.


title: Bill Maher

text: Maher and director Larry Charles teamed up to make the movie "Religulous", described by trade publication "Variety" as a documentary "that spoofs religious extremism across the world". It was released on October 3, 2008.


title: Bill Maher

text: In 2013, Maher became one of the executive producers for the HBO newsmagazine series "Vice". Also in 2013, Maher appeared on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" and offered to pay $5 million to a charity if Donald Trump would produce his birth certificate to prove that Trump's mother had not mated with an orangutan. Maher said this reportedly in response to Trump having previously challenged President Barack Obama to produce his birth certificate, and having offered $5 million payable to a charity of Obama's choice if Obama would produce his college applications, transcripts, and passport records.


title: Bill Maher

text: In response to Maher's offer, Trump produced his birth certificate, and then Trump launched a lawsuit after Maher was not forthcoming, claiming that Maher's $5 million offer was legally binding. "I don't think he was joking", Trump said. "He said it with venom." Trump withdrew his lawsuit against the comedian after eight weeks.


title: Bill Maher

text: On May 13, 2016, Maher and his friend Michael Moore announced on YouTube that they are going to make a movie called "The Kings of Atheism".


title: Bill Maher

text: On March 21, 2022, Maher launched a podcast titled "Club Random", a series hosting one-on-one interviews with guests, recorded in his bar at home, where he discusses everything except politics. Guest have included Quentin Tarantino, Jimmy Kimmel, Bella Thorne, Judd Apatow, Mike Tyson, Killer Mike, and William Shatner.


title: Bill Maher

text: Maher often eschews political labels, referring to himself as "practical". He identifies as liberal and stands against political correctness. In his words, "The difference is that liberals protect people, and P.C. people protect feelings." In the past, he has also described himself as a libertarian, and has also referred to himself "as a progressive, as a sane person". In a 2012 panel discussion with Salman Rushdie, Maher counted himself, Rushdie, and others such as Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris as "9/11 liberals", noting that they differentiate themselves from many mainstream liberals in saying that not all religions are alike and that they are not bigoted in criticizing a particular religion. He said in a later interview: "It's ridiculous to label criticism of a religion as a phobia of a religion. I'm going to criticize any person or group that violates liberal principles..."


title: Bill Maher

text: Maher favors the ending of corporate welfare and federal funding of non-profits; he also favors the legalization of gambling, prostitution, and cannabis.


title: Bill Maher

text: Maher describes himself as an environmentalist, and he has spoken in favor of the Kyoto treaty on global warming on his show "Real Time". He often criticizes industry figures involved in environmental pollution. He is a board member of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. The comedian has noted the paradox of people claiming they distrusted "elite" politicians while at the same time wanting elite doctors to treat them and elite lawyers to represent them in court.


title: Bill Maher

text: Maher endorsed a 2014 Maine referendum to ban the use of bait, traps and dogs to hunt bears in Maine. He specifically criticized the use of bait, referring to its use as "nothing but an execution". Maher also supports the death penalty.


title: Bill Maher

text: Maher has been critical of the #MeToo movement, describing it in February 2018 as McCarthyism. He has supported Chris Matthews against allegations of sexual harassment in 2020.


title: Bill Maher

text: Despite being Democrat, Maher has voted for Bob Dole and Ralph Nader. Maher also considers himself to be at odds with both the Republican Party and the Democratic Party.


title: Bill Maher

text: In the 2008 U.S. presidential election, Maher announced his support for U.S. Senator Barack Obama (D-IL). Although Maher welcomed Obama's electoral victory, he subjected him to criticism after he took office for not acting more boldly on health care reform and other progressive issues. On February 23, 2012, after his "Crazy Stupid Politics" special streamed on Yahoo! Screen, Maher announced that he was contributing $1 million to Priorities USA, the Obama SuperPAC.


title: Bill Maher

text: In the leadup to the 2014 midterm elections, Maher conducted a "Flip a District" contest on his HBO show. His audience was asked to select one "terrible, entrenched" member of Congress in a close election race—"the loserest loser of all"—to remove from office. Maher aimed to help oust that representative by shining a "national spotlight" on the politician during segments of his show and stand-up comedy appearances in that member's district during the Fall election. Maher ultimately selected Republican Representative John Kline from Minnesota's 2nd congressional district, but he failed to prevent him from winning against his Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party opponent Mike Obermueller.


title: Bill Maher

text: In the 2016 U.S. presidential election, Maher initially endorsed Senator Bernie Sanders on February 5, 2016. Maher later announced his support for Hillary Clinton after Clinton won the nomination from the Democratic Party primary elections in June 2016. In October 2016, Maher criticized WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for publishing leaks from the DNC's emails, saying: "I really feel like he's lost his way a little, and he hates Hillary." On March 31, 2017, following her defeat, Maher responded on air to suggestions Clinton was ready to end her low profile and speak out: "Hillary, stay in the woods. Okay. You had your shot. You f*cked it up. You're Bill Buckner. We had the World Series, and you let the grounder go through your legs. Let someone else have the chance." In August 2019, Maher said an economic recession would be "worth it" if Donald Trump does not get re-elected in 2020. He said: "We have survived many recessions. We can't survive another Donald Trump term."


title: Bill Maher

text: Maher highlighted Trump's own public references to Maher's assertions that Trump was "not going to leave", and quoted Trump's March 14, 2019, assertion that "I have the support of the police, the military, the bikers [for Trump]" and "the tough people", citing this as evidence that Trump would seek to remain in office by force. Maher predicted there would be violence by armed Trump supporters attempting to keep Trump in power and criticized Democratic Party politicians for not taking the threat seriously:"So my question to all Democratic candidates is: what's the plan? If you win, and the next day he claims he's voiding the election because of irregularities he's hearing about, what do you do? What do you do when the crowd that was in Virginia this week, 22,000 strong, marches on Washington? This is a scary moment. And when I've asked Democrats, 'What do we do if he doesn't go?', their answer is always some variation of 'We have to win big!'... First of all, NO! No, we don't have to win by a landslide! Jesus, fucking Democrats! I am so sick of Democrats volunteering to play by two different sets of rules. That's the new paradigm? Republicans can win by one vote, but we're not legitimate unless it's a landslide? Fuck. And two, do you really think it would matter if it was? That they would suddenly get rational about math and facts? They believe Hillary ran a pedophile ring out of a pizza parlor!"Maher later said in an August 15, 2020, interview with "Vanity Fair" that "we've baked it into the cake that he's not going to leave." In the September 25, 2020, edition of "Real Time", Maher criticized the framing of a "New York Times" story by Michael Crowley headlined "Trump Won't Commit to Peaceful Transfer of Power", which ran on page 15 of the print edition of the paper. Maher asserted that, "I got no help from the "New York Times", "Washington Post", [or] CNN", adding that the media "should have amplified" the severity of Trump's threats that he would refuse to concede or commit to a peaceful transition of power.


title: Bill Maher

text: Over the course of 20 different editions of "Real Time with Bill Maher" broadcast between April 13, 2018, and August 7, 2020 and in several press interviews, Maher predicted that Donald Trump would refuse to concede any loss in the 2020 United States presidential election, dedicating a 'New Rules' end segment to the subject on January 25, 2020.


title: Bill Maher

text: In January 2022, Maher declined to run in the 2024 United States presidential election following speculation by Dana Perino that he may be called on to do so.


title: Bill Maher

text: Maher is highly critical of all religion and views it as highly destructive. He has been described, or self-identified, variously as an agnostic, atheist, and apatheist, while objecting to having his views defined by a single label. In his 2008 feature film "Religulous", he refers to himself as agnostic. He has rejected being grouped with explicit atheists, saying in 2002, "I'm not an atheist. There's a really big difference between an atheist and someone who just doesn't believe in religion. Religion to me is a bureaucracy between man and God that I don't need, but I'm not an atheist, no."


title: Bill Maher

text: Maher has occasionally referred to himself as an apatheist, saying in 2011 "I don't know what happens when you die, and I don't care." When discussing his apatheism and his views on the existence of God, he said on a scale from 1 to 7 (7 being "absolutely certain there is no god"), he was only at 6.9, like Richard Dawkins, "because we just don't know ... but we just don't think about it." He added, "There's atheist and there's agnostic, and I'm okay with us not splitting the difference on those; if you are just not a super-religious person, you are on my team." Several months later on a 2012 episode of his HBO show, Maher declared that "idiots must stop claiming that atheism is a religion ... believe it or not, I don't really enjoy talking about religion all the time. In fact, not only is atheism not a religion, it's not even my hobby, and that's the best thing about being an atheist. It requires so little of your time." He has reiterated his stance during other interviews, rejecting both the certitude of the existence, as well as the certitude of nonexistence of deities, concluding, "I'm saying that doubt is the only appropriate response for human beings."


title: Bill Maher

text: While critical of all organized religions, saying "they're all stupid and dangerous", Maher says all religions are not alike, and has drawn comparisons and contrasts between them. He has said, "By any standard, Mormonism is more ridiculous than any other religion." He has referred to tenets of Judaism as "insane" and "funny", and has said Buddhism "includes crazy whack shit that doesn't exist, that somebody made up, like reincarnation". He has described Christianity and Islam as more "warlike", and has asserted that, like historic Christianity, present-day Islam needs to undergo its own reformation and enlightenment.


title: Bill Maher

text: In defense of his criticism of Islam, Sharia law and Muslim culture, Maher says he "believes in the values that Western people believe in that a lot of the Muslim world does not. Like separation of church and state. Like equality of the sexes. Like respect for minorities, free elections, free speech, freedom to gather. These things are not just different from cultures that don't have them... It's better ... I would like to keep those values here."


title: Bill Maher

text: Citing studies and poll results by Pew Research Center, the World Economic Forum and others, Maher says the human rights violations and "illiberal ideas" found in Islam are not extremist views held by a small minority but are supported by a majority of citizens in Muslim countries. Maher has criticized liberals as hypocritical for defending these core liberal values and ideals only at home, while not condemning the oppression of these values and groups in Muslim culture. Regarding the more recent publicity generated by his stance in the ongoing debate, Maher says he thinks people are finally paying closer attention to a conversation that they need to have. "I'm just shining a light on the reality of the situation. I don't even understand why this is so controversial."


title: Bill Maher

text: Maher received the 2009 Richard Dawkins Award from Atheist Alliance International. He was an advisory board member of author Sam Harris's Project Reason, a foundation that promotes scientific knowledge and secular values within society.


title: Bill Maher

text: On June 7, 2013, Maher expressed on his show limited support for the NSA's PRISM intelligence data collection from private phone calls and the Internet, saying that the threat of terrorists obtaining and using nuclear weapons was the tipping point for him. While he stated that he trusted the Obama administration to employ the program responsibly, he described the NSA's access to private data as a "slippery slope", and worried about whether other politicians would be as responsible.


title: Bill Maher

text: Since the 9/11 attacks, he has endorsed certain uses of profiling at airports, saying that "Places like Israel, where they have faced terrorism for a long time, of course understand that profiling is part of all detective work. It's part of all police work. If they stop calling it profiling and start calling it high-intelligence screening or something, people would go, it's about time."


title: Bill Maher

text: Maher opposed Trump's Executive Order 13769, an order which banned entry into the US of citizens from five majority-Muslim countries and has hosted multiple guests, including Sam Harris and Jim Jefferies, on his show who have also opposed the order.


title: Bill Maher

text: In 2015, Maher criticized Barack Obama's visit to Saudi Arabia, a close U.S. ally, saying: "Stop respecting their medieval bullshit under the guise of, 'It's their culture.'" Maher opposed the Iraq War from the beginning and has summarized his opinion by saying that the United States and the world have had to pay too high a price for the war. He is skeptical of Iraq surviving without civil war.


title: Bill Maher

text: On the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, Maher says he is "more on the side of the Israelis" and does not consider both sides equally guilty. He acknowledges that "Palestinians do have gripes", and he has been critical of U.S. financial aid to Israel, saying "they don't need our money, they can handle it themselves." Maher also notes that most Israelis would prefer a two-state solution and oppose the hard-line stance of their Israeli government, which he describes as having been taken over by their version of the Tea Party. However, Maher has defended Israel's military actions against Palestinian militants amid criticism over civilian deaths and disproportionate casualty count between Israelis and Palestinians during the 2014 Gaza war. He argues that Israel is still showing restraint, and he finds it ironic that the same people who were incredulous over how the Jews in World War II were led "to their slaughter", can't understand why they are defending themselves now. In August 2019, Maher denounced the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, saying: "It's predicated on this notion ... I think it's very shallow thinking that the Jews in Israel are mostly white and Palestinians are mostly brown, so they must be innocent and correct and the Jews must be wrong." He responded to Rep. Rashida Tlaib's call to boycott his talk show: "Some people have one move only: boycott. Cancel. Make-go-away. But here's the thing, the house voted 318 to 17 to condemn the #BDS movement, including 93% of Dems. Does Tlaib want to boycott 93% of her own party?".


title: Bill Maher

text: In April 2020, Maher criticized those who equated using the term "Wuhan virus" with racism, stating, "Scientists...have been naming diseases after the places they came from for a very long time. Zika is from the Zika Forest, Ebola from the Ebola River, hantavirus the Hantan River. There's the West Nile virus and Guinea worm and Rocky Mountain spotted fever and, of course, the Spanish flu." He added: "This has nothing to do with Asian Americans, and it has everything to do with China."


title: Bill Maher

text: In March 2021, Maher criticized China's treatment of Uyghur minority in Xinjiang. He said the United States has "lost" to China in the "battle for the 21st century." According to Maher, China is dominating the world while United States is wasting time in a "never-ending woke competition".


title: Bill Maher

text: In 2022, Maher criticized the Democratic Party for "checking boxes" in regards to candidates of different identity groups, including race. He stated that Democrats prioritize "diversity" over "merit." Maher has also spoken out against Critical race theory but supports teaching the history of racism.


title: Bill Maher

text: In June 2017, Maher came under criticism for saying "I'm a house nigger" on "Real Time" with calls being made by people to HBO to fire him. Following the episode, HBO sent a statement to media outlets, calling Maher's remarks "inexcusable and tasteless" and said the cable network will remove that segment from future airings of the show. Maher also issued a statement apologizing for the remarks. Maher apologized on his show and had a discussion with Michael Eric Dyson, Ice Cube, and Symone Sanders about the controversy.


title: Bill Maher

text: In November 2015, Maher expressed opposition to the United States accepting Syrian refugees. Maher argued that they have different values which are at odds with American values due to some refugees may be coming from places which are governed by Sharia law or want to be. Maher cited cases in the UK where Muslim immigrants had carried out female genital mutilation and honor killings. In 2021, after the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, Maher urged America to take in Afghan refugees. Maher has criticized Donald Trump’s opposition to immigration, including his proposed border wall on the southern border and accused Trump of hypocrisy, having himself married two immigrants. Maher has also accused Republicans of hypocrisy for opposing immigration and praising their immigrant parents, saying "You can't spend the first half of a debate bitching about how immigrants are ruining the country and the second half on the uplifting stories of your immigrant parents."


title: Bill Maher

text: Maher has criticized Democrats' approach to immigration and has praised Canada's system, saying "Canada is much more to the right on immigration. You have to have a skill. That's mostly what it's based on. Ours is mostly based on family".


title: Bill Maher

text: Maher is a gun owner, and explained in his February 12, 2013, appearance on the late-night TV talk show "Conan" that he owns guns for personal home protection. However, he does not identify himself as a "proud" gun owner, commenting that being a proud gun owner is akin to "saying I'm a 'proud remote control owner'". Maher has stated that statistics showing that gun owners are more likely to harm a member of their household are caused by irresponsible gun owners, and believes that tragedies such as school shootings will not lead to a fundamental change in gun laws because both Democrats and Republicans favor guns. Maher has also questioned the need to own large arsenals of guns. He believes the Second Amendment is "bullshit" and said that bipartisan background check legislation proposed by Pat Toomey and Joe Manchin was “so marginal". In 2022, Maher blamed mass shooting in part due to Hollywood Romanticization of gun violence in movies.


title: Bill Maher

text: Maher supports the establishment of a Medicare-for-All universal single-payer health care system, and has consistently agreed with the proposal since 2011. Maher has stated that the American Medical Association is a powerful lobbying group and one of the primary reasons why the United States had failed to enact health care reform in the decades prior to the passage of the Affordable Care Act. On the topic of getting the Affordable Care Act passed, in 2009 Maher stated that Obama should forget about trying to get 60 votes for it because "he only needs 51": "Forget getting the sixty votes or sixty percent—sixty percent of people don't believe in evolution in this country—he just needs to drag them to it, like I said, they're stupid; get health care done, with or without them." On Fox News in a televised debate with Bill O'Reilly, Maher said that "if Jesus was in charge of the country we'd probably have health care for everybody."


title: Bill Maher

text: Maher has expressed the view that a lot of illness is the result of poor diet and lack of exercise, and that medicine is often not the most appropriate way of addressing illness. In an episode of his show about the 2008 presidential candidates' health plans, Maher stated that poor nutrition is a primary cause of illness, and that "the answer isn't another pill." He also has said: "If you believe you need to take all the pills the pharmaceutical industry says you do, then you're already on drugs!" He has expressed his distaste for the pharmaceutical and health care industries in general, on the grounds that they make their money out of treating people who are made sick by consuming unhealthy food that corporations push on the public. He maintains that mass consumption of high-fructose corn syrup is a contributor to the rise in frequency of obesity in the United States.


title: Bill Maher

text: In a discussion with Michael Moore about the film "Sicko", Maher said, "The human body is pretty amazing; it doesn't get sick, usually, for no reason. I mean, there's some genetic stuff that can get to you, but, basically, people are sick in this country because they're poisoned. The environment is a poisoning factor, but also, we gotta say, they poison themselves. They eat shit. People eat shit, and that's, to my way of thinking, about 90 percent of why people are sick, is because they eat shit."


title: Bill Maher

text: Tara Parker-Pope and former Senator (R-TN) Bill Frist, a physician, have called his criticism of the H1N1 flu vaccinations unscientific. Infectious diseases expert Paul Offit has written that misinformation about vaccines from celebrities like Maher has put children at unnecessary risk. Offit says that celebrities like Maher are seen as "less credible" and would still be considered just "great entertainment" if they weren't joined by the former Director of the National Institutes of Health, Bernadine Healy and influential pediatrician, Robert Sears.


title: Bill Maher

text: Surgical Oncologist David Gorski criticized Maher's claims about vaccines several times on ScienceBlogs, and when Maher received the Richard Dawkins Award in 2009, Gorski wrote it was inappropriate. Skeptics, including magician and popular science writer Martin Gardner, neurologist Steven Novella, and magician Jamy Ian Swiss have also strongly rebuked Maher, characterizing him as anti-science, uninformed and potentially endangering the health of fans who take his "non-medical" advice. Maher responded to the criticism, saying, "What I've read about what they think I'm saying is not what I've said. I'm not a germ theory denier. I believe vaccinations can work. Polio is a good example. Do I think in certain situations that inoculating Third World children against malaria or diphtheria, or whatever, is right? Of course. In a situation like that, the benefits outweigh costs. But to me living in Los Angeles? To get a flu shot? No."


title: Bill Maher

text: Maher, who has a California medical marijuana card, openly and publicly uses cannabis and has been a visible supporter of cannabis law reform. Maher is a member of the advisory boards for both the NORML and Marijuana Policy Project, organizations that support regulated legalization of cannabis. He sold cannabis while in college at Cornell and credits it for making his college and the beginning of his career as a comic possible. In 2015, Maher called on then President Barack Obama to pardon people incarcerated for marijuana offences and later praised President Joe Biden for pardoning citizens convicted of marijuana offences. He has been called "one of the brightest torches for sensible marijuana policy" and "a contemporary cannabis statesman".


title: Bill Maher

text: Maher has been a critic of 9/11 conspiracy theories. On October 19, 2007, Maher confronted several 9/11 truthers and had them ejected from his show audience after they interrupted the live show numerous times by calling out from the audience. The incident drew significant media attention and praise from Fox News talk show host and frequent critic John Gibson.


title: Bill Maher

text: Maher has spoken out against QAnon and the conspiracy theories they have promoted. Maher has criticized the decision to ban conspiracy theorist Alex Jones from Twitter saying "I don’t like Alex Jones, but Alex Jones gets to speak. Everybody gets to speak".""


title: Bill Maher

text: In 2019, Gorski again criticized Maher's HBO interview with the doctor Jay Gordon and Maher's claims about vaccines (in particular, the influenza vaccine), spreading out vaccinations and the possibility of a link between vaccines and autism, which is debunked according to consensus science.


title: Bill Maher

text: In January 2021, Maher promoted the COVID-19 lab leak theory, which states that COVID-19 was made in a lab. The theory was described as a conspiracy theory that was originally pushed by Steve Bannon.


title: Bill Maher

text: On April 16, 2021, Maher called media coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic "panic porn" and added that "When all of our sources for medical information have an agenda to spin us, yeah, you wind up with a badly misinformed population, including on the left".


title: Bill Maher

text: In May 2022, Maher suggested that more people are identifying as LGBT because "it's trendy." Maher also referred to puberty blockers and other transgender health care for trans youth as "literally experimenting on children".


title: Bill Maher

text: Maher has said his influences include Lenny Bruce, Woody Allen, Steve Allen, Johnny Carson, Robert Klein, and George Carlin.


title: Bill Maher

text: Maher has received 41 Primetime Emmy Award nominations winning for Outstanding Informational Series or Special for "Vice" in 2015. He also received two Grammy Award nominations and various Producers Guild of America Award and Writers Guild of America Award nominations.


title: Bill Maher

text: Maher was honored by "High Times" as "Top Pot Comic in 2006" and "Real Time" won a Stony Award in 2006 for "Best Cable News Show". "High Times" later designated him as "Stoner of the Year".


title: Bill Maher

text: Maher has never married. Regarding marriage, Maher is quoted on his website as saying, "I'm the last of my guy friends to have never gotten married, and their wives—they don't want them playing with me. I'm like the escaped slave—I bring news of freedom."


title: Bill Maher

text: In 2003, he began dating former Playboy Cyber Girl Coco Johnsen. In November 2004, at the end of their 17-month relationship, Johnsen sued Maher for US$9 million for "pain and suffering" for alleged "insulting, humiliating and degrading racial comments". Her suit stated that Maher promised to marry her and father her children, support her financially and buy a house in Beverly Hills. Johnsen's suit also alleged that she quit her job as a flight attendant and occasional model to be with him. Maher's lawyers in their response, filed on November 23, 2004, in Los Angeles County Superior Court said Maher is a "confirmed bachelor, and a very public one at that" who "never promised to marry [Johnsen] or to have children with her". Maher's filing stated that, after the relationship had ended, Johnsen "launched a campaign to embarrass, humiliate, and extort ridiculous sums of money from Bill Maher". Johnsen had previously accused another former boyfriend of rape and kidnapping in 1997, and the charges were later dismissed for lack of evidence. The lawsuit was dismissed on May 2, 2005.


title: Bill Maher

text: When commentators suggested there was a pattern to his dating because both his girlfriend and former girlfriend were black, Maher said, "People say I'm into black women. Robert De Niro is into black women. I'm just into women who are real, and they happen to be black." From 2009 to 2011, Maher dated former adjunct professor, science educator, and current "Skeptics' Guide to the Universe" co-host Cara Santa Maria. Since 2014, Maher has dated Ontario born singer Anjulie Persaud.


title: Hippopotamus

text: The hippopotamus ( ; : hippopotamuses or hippopotami; Hippopotamus amphibius), also called the hippo, common hippopotamus, or river hippopotamus, is a large semiaquatic mammal native to sub-Saharan Africa. It is one of only two extant species in the family Hippopotamidae, the other being the pygmy hippopotamus ("Choeropsis liberiensis" or "Hexaprotodon liberiensis"). Its name comes from the ancient Greek for "river horse" ().


title: Hippopotamus

text: Aside from elephants and rhinos, the hippopotamus is the largest land mammal. It is also the largest extant land artiodactyl. Despite their physical resemblance to pigs and other terrestrial even-toed ungulates, the closest living relatives of the hippopotamids are cetaceans (whales, dolphins, porpoises, etc.), from which they diverged about 55 million years ago. Hippos are recognisable for their barrel-shaped torsos, wide-opening mouths with large canine tusks, nearly hairless bodies, pillar-like legs, and large size: adults average for bulls (males) and for cows (females). Despite its stocky shape and short legs, it is capable of running over short distances.


title: Hippopotamus

text: Hippos inhabit rivers, lakes, and mangrove swamps. Territorial bulls each preside over a stretch of water and a group of five to thirty cows and calves. Mating and birth both occur in the water. During the day, hippos remain cool by staying in water or mud, emerging at dusk to graze on grasses. While hippos rest near each other in the water, grazing is a solitary activity and hippos typically do not display territorial behaviour on land. Hippos are among the most dangerous animals in the world due to their aggressive and unpredictable nature. They are threatened by habitat loss and poaching for their meat and ivory (canine teeth).


title: Hippopotamus

text: The Latin word is derived from the ancient Greek (), from () and () , together meaning . In English, the plural is "hippopotamuses", but "hippopotami" is also used.


title: Hippopotamus

text: The modern hippopotamus and the pygmy hippopotamus are the only living members of the family Hippopotamidae. Some taxonomists place hippos and anthracotheres in the superfamily Anthracotheroidea. Hippopotamidae are classified along with other even-toed ungulates in the order Artiodactyla.


title: Hippopotamus

text: Five subspecies of hippos have been described based on morphological differences in their skulls as well as differences in geographical range:


title: Hippopotamus

text: The suggested subspecies above were never widely used or validated by field biologists; the described morphological differences were small enough that they could have resulted from simple variation in nonrepresentative samples. A study examining mitochondrial DNA from skin biopsies taken from 13 sampling locations found "low, but significant, genetic differentiation" among "H. a. amphibius", "H. a. capensis", and "H. a. kiboko". Neither "H. a. tschadensis" nor "H. a. constrictus" have been tested.


title: Hippopotamus

text: Until 1909, naturalists classified hippos together with pigs based on molar patterns. Several lines of evidence, first from blood proteins, then from molecular systematics and DNA and the fossil record, show their closest living relatives are cetaceans (whales, dolphins, and porpoises). The common ancestor of hippos and whales branched off from Ruminantia and the rest of the even-toed ungulates; the cetacean and hippo lineages split soon afterwards.


title: Hippopotamus

text: The most recent theory of the origins of Hippopotamidae suggests hippos and whales shared a common semiaquatic ancestor that branched off from other artiodactyls around . This hypothesised ancestral group likely split into two branches again around .


title: Hippopotamus

text: One branch would evolve into cetaceans, possibly beginning about , with the protowhale "Pakicetus" and other early whale ancestors collectively known as Archaeoceti. This group eventually underwent aquatic adaptation into the completely aquatic cetaceans. The other branch became the anthracotheres, a large family of four-legged beasts, the earliest of which in the late Eocene would have resembled skinny hippos with comparatively smaller, narrower heads. All branches of the anthracotheres, except that which evolved into Hippopotamidae, became extinct during the Pliocene, leaving no descendants.


title: Hippopotamus

text: A rough evolutionary lineage of the hippo can thus be traced from Eocene and Oligocene species: from "Anthracotherium" and "Elomeryx" to the Miocene species "Merycopotamus" and "Libycosaurus" and finally the very latest anthracotheres in the Pliocene. These groups lived across Eurasia and Africa. The discovery of "Epirigenys" in East Africa, which was likely a descent of Asian anthracotheres and a sister taxon to Hippopotamidae suggests that hippo ancestors likely entered Africa from Asia around . An early hippopotamid is the genus "Kenyapotamus", which lived in Africa from 15 to . Hippopotamid species would spread across Africa and Eurasia, including the modern pygmy hippo. From 7.5 to , a possible ancestor to the modern hippo, "Archaeopotamus", lived in Africa and the Middle East.


title: Hippopotamus

text: Three species of Malagasy hippopotamus became extinct during the Holocene on Madagascar, the last of them within the past 1,000 years. The Malagasy hippos were smaller than the modern hippo, a likely result of the process of insular dwarfism. Fossil evidence indicates many Malagasy hippos were hunted by humans, a factor in their eventual extinction. Isolated individual Malagasy hippos may have survived in remote pockets; in 1976, villagers described a living animal called the "kilopilopitsofy", which may have been a Malagasy hippo.


title: Hippopotamus

text: An extinct species, "Hippopotamus antiquus," ranged throughout Europe, extending as far north as Britain during the Early and Middle Pleistocene epochs, before being replaced by the modern "H. amphibius" during the latter part of the Middle Pleistocene. The Pleistocene also saw a number of dwarf species evolve on several Mediterranean islands, including Crete ("Hippopotamus creutzburgi"), Cyprus (the Cyprus dwarf hippopotamus, "Hippopotamus minor"), Malta ("Hippopotamus melitensis"), and Sicily ("Hippopotamus pentlandi"). Of these, the Cyprus dwarf hippo survived until the end of the Pleistocene or early Holocene. Evidence from the archaeological site Aetokremnos continues to cause debate on whether or not the species was driven to extinction, or even encountered, by man. Across Eurasia, the hippopotamus became extinct between 50,000 and 16,000 years ago.


title: Hippopotamus

text: The hippopotamus is a megaherbivore and is exceeded in size among land animals only by elephants and some rhinoceros species. The mean adult weight is around for bulls and for cows. Exceptionally large males have been recorded reaching . Male hippos appear to continue growing throughout their lives, while females reach maximum weight at around age 25. Hippos measure long, including a tail of about in length and tall at the shoulder, with males and females ranging and tall at the shoulder respectively. The species has a typical head-body length of and an average standing height of at the shoulder.


title: Hippopotamus

text: Hippos have barrel-shaped bodies with short tails and legs, and an hourglass-shaped skull with a long snout. Their skeletal structures are graviportal, adapted to carrying their enormous weight, and their dense bones and low centre of gravity allows them to sink and move along the bottom of the water. Hippopotamuses have small legs (relative to other megafauna) because the water in which they live reduces the weight burden. The pelvis rests at an angle of 45 degrees. Hippos usually trot to move quickly on land and can gallop at when needed. They are incapable of jumping but can walk up steep banks. Despite their rounded appearance, hippos have little fat.


title: Hippopotamus

text: The eyes, ears, and nostrils of hippos are placed high on the roof of their skulls. This allows these organs to remain above the surface while the rest of the body is submerged. The nostrils and ears can close when underwater while nictitating membranes cover the eyes. Despite being semiaquatic and having webbed feet, an adult hippo is not a particularly good swimmer, nor can it float. It rarely enters deep water; when does, the animal moves by bouncing off the bottom. An adult hippo surfaces every four to six minutes, while young need to breathe every two to three minutes. The hippopotamus sleeps with both hemispheres of the brain resting, as in all land mammals, and usually sleeps in land or in water with the nostrils exposed. Despite this, it may be capable of sleeping while submerged, intermittently surfacing to breathe without waking. They appear to transition between different phases of sleep more quickly than other mammals.


title: Hippopotamus

text: The hippo's jaw is powered by huge masseter and digastric muscles which give them large, droopy cheeks. The jaw hinge allows the animal to open its mouth at almost 180°. A folded orbicularis oris muscle allows the hippo to attain an extreme gape without tearing any tissue. On the lower jaw, the incisors and canines grow continuously, the former reaching , while the latter can grow to up to . The lower canines are sharpened through contact with the smaller upper canines. The canines and incisors are used mainly for combat instead of feeding. Hippos rely on their flattened, horny lips to grasp and pull grasses which are then ground by the molars. The hippo is considered to be a pseudoruminant; it has a complex three-chambered stomach, but does not "chew cud".


title: Hippopotamus

text: Hippo skin is thick across much of its body with little hair. The animal is mostly purplish-grey or blue-black, but brownish-pink on the underside and around the eyes and ears. Their skin secretes a natural, red-coloured sunscreen substance that is sometimes referred to as "blood sweat" but is neither blood nor sweat. This secretion is initially colourless and turns red-orange within minutes, eventually becoming brown. Two highly acidic pigments have been identified in the secretions; one red (hipposudoric acid) and one orange (norhipposudoric acid), which inhibit the growth of disease-causing bacteria and their light-absorption profile peaks in the ultraviolet range, creating a sunscreen effect. Regardless of diet, all hippos secrete these pigments so food does not appear to be their source; rather, they may be synthesised from precursors such as the amino acid tyrosine. This natural sunscreen cannot prevent the animal's skin from cracking if it stays out of water too long.


title: Hippopotamus

text: The testes of the males do not fully descend and a scrotum is not present. In addition, the penis retracts into the body when not erect. The genitals of the female hippos are unusual in that the vagina is ridged and the vulval vestibule has two large, protruding diverticula. Both of these have an unknown function.


title: Hippopotamus

text: A hippo's lifespan is typically 40 to 50 years. Donna the Hippo was one of the oldest living hippos in captivity. She lived at the Mesker Park Zoo in Evansville, Indiana, in the US until her death in 2012 at the age of 61. The oldest hippo ever recorded was called Bertha; she had lived in the Manila Zoo in the Philippines since it first opened in 1959. When she died in 2017, her age was estimated to be 65.


title: Hippopotamus

text: "Hippopotamus amphibius" was widespread in North Africa and Europe during the Eemian (130–115,000 years ago), with remains found as far north as England. Archaeological evidence exists of its presence in the Levant, dating to less than 3,000 years ago. The species was common in Egypt's Nile region during antiquity, but it has since been driven out. According to Pliny the Elder, in his time, the best location in Egypt for capturing this animal was in the Saite nome; the animal could still be found along the Damietta branch of the Nile after the Arab Conquest in 639. Reports of the slaughter of the last hippo in Natal Province were made at the end of the 19th century. Hippos are still found in the rivers and lakes of the northern Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, Tanzania, and Kenya, north through to Ethiopia, Somalia, and Sudan, west to The Gambia, and south to South Africa.


title: Hippopotamus

text: Genetic evidence suggests common hippos in Africa experienced a marked population expansion during or after the Pleistocene, attributed to an increase in water bodies at the end of the era. These findings have important conservation implications, as hippo populations across the continent are currently threatened by loss of access to fresh water. Hippos are also subject to unregulated hunting and poaching. The species is included in Appendix II of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) meaning international export/import (including in parts and derivatives) requires CITES documentation to be obtained and presented to border authorities.


title: Hippopotamus

text: As of 2017, the IUCN Red List drawn up by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) lists the species as vulnerable, with a stable population estimated between 115,000 and 130,000 animals. The hippo population has declined most dramatically in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. By 2005, the population in Virunga National Park had dropped to 800 or 900 from around 29,000 in the mid-1970s. This decline is attributed to the disruptions caused by the Second Congo War. The poachers are believed to be Mai-Mai rebels, underpaid Congolese soldiers, and local militia groups. Reasons for poaching include the belief hippos are harmful to society, as well as financial gain. As of 2016, the Virunga hippo population appears to have increased again, possibly due to better protection from park rangers, who have worked with local fishermen. The sale of hippo meat is illegal, but black-market sales are difficult for Virunga National Park officers to track. Hippo meat is highly valued in some areas of central Africa and the teeth may be used as a replacement for elephant ivory.


title: Hippopotamus

text: A population of hippos exists in Colombia, descended from captive individuals that escaped from Pablo Escobar's estate after this death in 1993. Their numbers grew to 100 by the 2020s and ecologists believe the population should be eradicated, as they are breeding rapidly and are an increasing menace to humans and the environment. Attempts to control them include sterilisation and culling.


title: Hippopotamus

text: Hippos are semiaquatic and require enough water to immerse in, while being close to grass. They prefer relatively still waters with gently sloping shores though, male hippos may also be found in very small numbers in more rapid waters with rocky slopes. Hippos mostly live in freshwater habitat, but can be found in estuaries.


title: Hippopotamus

text: Hippos spend most the day in water to stay cool and hydrated. Just before night begins, they leave the water to foraging on land. Like most herbivores, hippos will consume a variety of plants if presented with them in captivity, but their diet in nature consists almost entirely of grass, with only minimal consumption of aquatic plants. A hippo will travel per night, eating around of grass. By dawn, they are back in the water. On occasion, hippos have been filmed eating carrion, usually near the water. There are other reports of meat-eating and even cannibalism and predation. The stomach anatomy of lacks adaptions to carnivory, and meat-eating is likely caused by not having enough nutrients or just an abnormal behaviour.


title: Hippopotamus

text: Because of their size and their habit of taking the same paths to feed, hippos can have a significant impact on the land across which they walk, keeping the land clear of vegetation and depressing the ground. Over prolonged periods, hippos can divert the paths of swamps and channels. By defecating in the water, the animals also appear to pass on microbes from their gut, affecting the biogeochemical cycle.


title: Hippopotamus

text: It is challenging to study the interaction of bulls and cows because hippos are not sexually dimorphic, so cows and young bulls are almost indistinguishable in the field. Hippo pods fluctuate but can contain over 100 hippos. Although they lie close together, adults develop almost no social bonds. Males establish territories in water but not land, and these may range in lakes and in rivers. Territories are abandoned when the water dries up. The bull has breeding access to all the cows in his territory. Younger bachelors are allowed to stay as long as they defer to him. A younger male may challenge the old bull for control of the territory. Within the pods, the hippos tend to segregate by sex and status. Bachelor males lounge near other bachelors, females with other females, and the territorial male is on his own. When hippos emerge from the water to graze, they do so individually.


title: Hippopotamus

text: Hippos engage in "muck-spreading" which involves defecating while spinning their tails to distribute the faeces over a greater area. Muck-spreading occurs both on land and in water and its function is not well understood. It is unlikely to server to territorial, as the animals only establish territories in the water. They may be used as trails between the water and grazing areas. "Yawning" serves as a threat display. When fighting, bulls use their incisors to block each other's attacks and their large canines as offensive weapons. When hippos become over-populated or a habitat shrinks, bulls sometimes attempt infanticide, but this behaviour is not common under normal conditions.


title: Hippopotamus

text: The most common hippo vocalisation is the "wheeze honk", which can travel over long distances in air. This call starts as a high-pitched squeal followed by a deeper, resonant call. The animals can recognise the calls of other individuals. Hippos are more likely to react to the wheeze honks of strangers than those they are more familiar with. When threatened or alarmed, they produce exhalations, and fighting bulls will bellow loudly. Hippos are recorded to produce clicks underwater which may have echolocative properties. They have the unique ability to hold their heads partially above the water and send out a cry that travels through both water and air; individuals respond both above and below water.


title: Hippopotamus

text: Cows reach sexual maturity at five to six years of age and have a gestation period of eight months. A study of endocrine systems revealed cows may begin puberty at as early as three or four years. Males reach maturity at around 7.5 years. Both conceptions and births are highest during the wet season. Male hippo always have mobile spermatozoa and can breed year-round. After becoming pregnant, a female hippo will typically not begin ovulation again for 17 months.


title: Hippopotamus

text: Hippos mate in the water, with the cow remaining under the surface, her head emerging periodically to draw breath. Cows give birth in seclusion and return within 10 to 14 days. Calves are born on land or shallow water weighing on average and at an average length of around . The female lays on her side when nursing, which can occur underwater or on land. The young are carried on their mothers' backs in deep water.


title: Hippopotamus

text: Mother hippos are very protective of their young, not allowing others to get too close. One cow was recorded protecting a calf's carcass after it had died. Calves may be temporarily kept in nurseries, guarded by one or more adults, and will play amongst themselves. Like many other large mammals, hippos are described as K-strategists, in this case typically producing just one large, well-developed infant every couple of years (rather than many small, poorly developed young several times per year, as is common among small mammals such as rodents). Calves no longer need to suckle when they are a year old.


title: Hippopotamus

text: Hippos coexist alongside a variety of large predators in their habitats. Nile crocodiles, lions, and spotted hyenas are known to prey on young hippos. Beyond these, adult hippos are not usually preyed upon by other animals due to their aggression and size. Cases where large lion prides have successfully preyed on adult hippos have been reported, but it is generally rare. Lions occasionally prey on adults at Gorongosa National Park and calves are sometimes taken at Virunga. Crocodiles are frequent targets of hippo aggression, probably because they often inhabit the same riparian habitats; crocodiles may be either aggressively displaced or killed by hippos. In turn, very large Nile crocodiles have been observed preying occasionally on calves, "half-grown" hippos, and possibly also adult female hippos. Groups of crocodiles have also been observed finishing off still-living male hippos that were previously injured in mating battles with other males.


title: Hippopotamus

text: Hippos occasionally visit cleaning stations in order to be cleaned of parasites by certain species of fishes. They signal their readiness for this service by opening their mouths wide. This is an example of mutualism, in which the hippo benefits from the cleaning while the fish receive food. Hippo defecation creates allochthonous deposits of organic matter along the river beds. These deposits have an unclear ecological function. A 2015 study concluded hippo dung provides nutrients from terrestrial material for fish and aquatic invertebrates, while a 2018 study found that their dung can be toxic to aquatic life in large quantities, due to absorption of dissolved oxygen in water bodies.


title: Hippopotamus

text: The parasitic monogenean flatworm" Oculotrema hippopotami" infests hippopotamus eyes, mainly the nictitating membrane. It is the only monogenean species (which normally live on fish) documented to live on a mammal.


title: Hippopotamus

text: The earliest evidence of human interaction with hippos comes from butchery cut marks on hippo bones found at the Bouri Formation and dated to around 160,000 years ago. 4,000–5,000 year art showing hippos being hunted have been found in the Tassili n'Ajjer Mountains of the central Sahara near Djanet. The ancient Egyptians recognised the hippo as a ferocious denizen of the Nile and representations on the tombs of nobles show the animals were hunted by humans.


title: Hippopotamus

text: The hippo was also known to the Greeks and Romans. The Greek historian Herodotus described the hippo in "The Histories" (written "" 440 BC) and the Roman naturalist Pliny the Elder wrote about the hippo in his encyclopedia "Naturalis Historia" (written "circa" 77 AD). The Yoruba people called the hippo "erinmi", which means "elephant of the water". Some individual hippos have achieved international fame. Huberta became a celebrity during the Great Depression for trekking a great distance across South Africa.


title: Hippopotamus

text: The hippo is considered to be extremely aggressive and has frequently been reported charging and attacking boats. Small boats can easily be capsized by hippos and passengers can be injured or killed by the animals, or drown in the water. In one 2014 case in Niger, a boat was capsized by a hippo and 13 people were killed. Hippos will often raid farm crops if the opportunity arises, and humans may come into conflict with them on these occasions. These encounters can be fatal to either humans or hippos.


title: Hippopotamus

text: Hippos have long been popular zoo animals. The first record of hippos taken into captivity for display is dated to 3500 BC in Hierakonpolis, Egypt. The first zoo hippo in modern history was Obaysch, who arrived at the London Zoo on 25 May 1850, where he attracted up to 10,000 visitors a day and inspired a popular song, the "Hippopotamus Polka".


title: Hippopotamus

text: Hippos generally breed well in captivity; birth rates are lower than in the wild, but this can be attributed to zoos' desire to limit births, since hippos are relatively expensive to maintain. Starting in 2015, the Cincinnati Zoo built a US$73 million exhibit to house three adult hippos, featuring a tank. Modern hippo enclosures also have a complex filtration system for the animal's waste, an underwater viewing area for the visitors, and glass that may be up to thick and capable of holding water under pressures of . In 1987, the Toledo Zoo saw the first underwater birth by a captive hippo. The exhibit was so popular, the logo of the Toledo Zoo was updated to feature the hippos.


title: Hippopotamus

text: In Egyptian mythology, the god Set takes the form of a red hippopotamus and fights Horus for control of the land, but is defeated. The goddess Tawaret is depicted as a pregnant woman with a hippo head, representing fierce maternal love. The Ijaw people of the Niger Delta wore masks of aquatic animals like the hippo when practising their water spirit cults, and hippo ivory was used in the divination rituals of the Yoruba. Hippo masks were also used in Nyau funerary rituals of the Chewa of Southern Africa. According to Robert Baden-Powell, Zulu warriors referred to hippos in war chants. The Behemoth from the Book of Job, 40:15–24 is thought to be based on the hippo.


title: Hippopotamus

text: Hippos have been the subjects of various African folktales. According to a San story, when the Creator assigned each animal its place in nature, the hippos wanted to live in the water, but were refused out of fear they might eat all the fish. After begging and pleading, the hippos were finally allowed to live in the water on the condition they would eat grass instead of fish, and fling their dung so it can be inspected for fish bones. In a Ndebele tale, the hippo originally had long, beautiful hair, but it was set on fire by a jealous hare and the hippo had to jump into a nearby pool. The hippo lost most of his hair and was too embarrassed to leave the water.


title: Hippopotamus

text: Hippopotamuses were rarely depicted in European art during the Renaissance and Baroque periods, due to less access to specimens by Europeans. One notable exception is Peter Paul Rubens' "The Hippopotamus and Crocodile Hunt" (1615–1616). Ever since Obaysch inspired the "Hippopotamus Polka", hippos have been popular animals in Western culture for their rotund appearance, which many consider comical. The Disney film "Fantasia" featured a ballerina hippo dancing to the opera "La Gioconda". The film "Hugo the Hippo" is set in Tanzania and involves the title character trying to escape being slaughtered with the help of local children. The "Madagascar" films feature a hippo named Gloria. Hippos even inspired a popular board game, Hungry Hungry Hippos.


title: Hippopotamus

text: Among the most famous poems about the hippo is "The Hippopotamus" by T. S. Eliot, where he uses the animal to represent the Catholic Church. Hippos are mentioned in the novelty Christmas song "I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas" that became a hit for child star Gayla Peevey in 1953. They also featured in the popular "The Hippopotamous Song" by Flanders and Swann.


title: Hippopotamus

text: A popular internet myth reports that hippos have pink milk. Biologist David Wynick states, "I think this is an Internet legend that is oft repeated but without any evidence for it that I can find... Like all mammals, hippos produce white or off-white milk for their young."


title: Denial-of-service attack

text: In computing, a denial-of-service attack (DoS attack) is a cyber-attack in which the perpetrator seeks to make a machine or network resource unavailable to its intended users by temporarily or indefinitely disrupting services of a host connected to a network. Denial of service is typically accomplished by flooding the targeted machine or resource with superfluous requests in an attempt to overload systems and prevent some or all legitimate requests from being fulfilled.


title: Denial-of-service attack

text: In a distributed denial-of-service attack (DDoS attack), the incoming traffic flooding the victim originates from many different sources. More sophisticated strategies are required to mitigate this type of attack, as simply attempting to block a single source is insufficient because there are multiple sources.


title: Denial-of-service attack

text: A DoS or DDoS attack is analogous to a group of people crowding the entry door of a shop, making it hard for legitimate customers to enter, thus disrupting trade.


title: Denial-of-service attack

text: Criminal perpetrators of DoS attacks often target sites or services hosted on high-profile web servers such as banks or credit card payment gateways. Revenge, blackmail and hacktivism can motivate these attacks.


title: Denial-of-service attack

text: Panix, the third-oldest ISP in the world, was the target of what is thought to be the first DoS attack. On September 6, 1996, Panix was subject to a SYN flood attack, which brought down its services for several days while hardware vendors, notably Cisco, figured out a proper defense.


title: Denial-of-service attack

text: Another early demonstration of the DoS attack was made by Khan C. Smith in 1997 during a DEF CON event, disrupting Internet access to the Las Vegas Strip for over an hour. The release of sample code during the event led to the online attack of Sprint, EarthLink, E-Trade and other major corporations in the year to follow.


title: Denial-of-service attack

text: In September 2017, Google Cloud experienced an attack with a peak volume of . On March 5, 2018, an unnamed customer of the US-based service provider Arbor Networks fell victim to the largest DDoS to that date, reaching a peak of about . The previous record had been set a few days earlier, on March 1, 2018, when GitHub was hit by an attack of .


title: Denial-of-service attack

text: In February 2020, Amazon Web Services experienced an attack with a peak volume of . In July 2021, CDN Provider Cloudflare boasted of protecting its client from a DDoS attack from a global Mirai botnet that was up to 17.2 million requests per second. Russian DDoS Prevention provider Yandex said it blocked a HTTP pipelining DDoS attack on Sept. 5. 2021 that originated from unpatched Mikrotik networking gear.


title: Denial-of-service attack

text: Denial-of-service attacks are characterized by an explicit attempt by attackers to prevent legitimate use of a service. There are two general forms of DoS attacks: those that crash services and those that flood services. The most serious attacks are distributed.


title: Denial-of-service attack

text: A distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack occurs when multiple systems flood the bandwidth or resources of a targeted system, usually one or more web servers. A DDoS attack uses more than one unique IP address or machines, often from thousands of hosts infected with malware. A distributed denial of service attack typically involves more than around 3–5 nodes on different networks; fewer nodes may qualify as a DoS attack but is not a DDoS attack.


title: Denial-of-service attack

text: Multiple machines can generate more attack traffic than one machine, multiple attack machines are harder to turn off than one attack machine, and the behavior of each attack machine can be stealthier, making it harder to track and shut down. Since the incoming traffic flooding the victim originates from different sources, it may be impossible to stop the attack simply by using ingress filtering. It also makes it difficult to distinguish legitimate user traffic from attack traffic when spread across multiple points of origin. As an alternative or augmentation of a DDoS, attacks may involve forging of IP sender addresses (IP address spoofing) further complicating identifying and defeating the attack. These attacker advantages cause challenges for defense mechanisms. For example, merely purchasing more incoming bandwidth than the current volume of the attack might not help, because the attacker might be able to simply add more attack machines.


title: Denial-of-service attack

text: The scale of DDoS attacks has continued to rise over recent years, by 2016 exceeding a terabit per second. Some common examples of DDoS attacks are UDP flooding, SYN flooding and DNS amplification.


title: Denial-of-service attack

text: A yo-yo attack is a specific type of DoS/DDoS aimed at cloud-hosted applications which use autoscaling. The attacker generates a flood of traffic until a cloud-hosted service scales outwards to handle the increase of traffic, then halts the attack, leaving the victim with over-provisioned resources. When the victim scales back down, the attack resumes, causing resources to scale back up again. This can result in a reduced quality of service during the periods of scaling up and down and a financial drain on resources during periods of over-provisioning while operating with a lower cost for an attacker compared to a normal DDoS attack, as it only needs to be generating traffic for a portion of the attack period.


title: Denial-of-service attack

text: An application layer DDoS attack (sometimes referred to as layer 7 DDoS attack) is a form of DDoS attack where attackers target application-layer processes. The attack over-exercises specific functions or features of a website with the intention to disable those functions or features. This application-layer attack is different from an entire network attack, and is often used against financial institutions to distract IT and security personnel from security breaches. In 2013, application-layer DDoS attacks represented 20% of all DDoS attacks. According to research by Akamai Technologies, there have been "51 percent more application layer attacks" from Q4 2013 to Q4 2014 and "16 percent more" from Q3 2014 to Q4 2014. In November 2017; Junade Ali, an engineer at Cloudflare noted that whilst network-level attacks continue to be of high capacity, they were occurring less frequently. Ali further noted that although network-level attacks were becoming less frequent, data from Cloudflare demonstrated that application-layer attacks were still showing no sign of slowing down. In December 2021, following the Log4Shell security vulnerability, a second vulnerability in the open source Log4j library was discovered which could lead to application layer DDoS attacks.


title: Denial-of-service attack

text: The OSI model (ISO/IEC 7498-1) is a conceptual model that characterizes and standardizes the internal functions of a communication system by partitioning it into abstraction layers. The model is a product of the Open Systems Interconnection project at the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). The model groups similar communication functions into one of seven logical layers. A layer serves the layer above it and is served by the layer below it. For example, a layer that provides error-free communications across a network provides the communications path needed by applications above it, while it calls the next lower layer to send and receive packets that traverse that path.


title: Denial-of-service attack

text: In the OSI model, the definition of its application layer is narrower in scope than is often implemented. The OSI model defines the application layer as being the user interface. The OSI application layer is responsible for displaying data and images to the user in a human-recognizable format and to interface with the presentation layer below it. In an implementation, the application and presentation layers are frequently combined.


title: Denial-of-service attack

text: The simplest DoS attack relies primarily on brute force, flooding the target with an overwhelming flux of packets, oversaturating its connection bandwidth or depleting the target's system resources. Bandwidth-saturating floods rely on the attacker's ability to generate the overwhelming flux of packets. A common way of achieving this today is via distributed denial-of-service, employing a botnet.


title: Denial-of-service attack

text: An application layer DDoS attack is done mainly for specific targeted purposes, including disrupting transactions and access to databases. It requires fewer resources than network layer attacks but often accompanies them. An attack may be disguised to look like legitimate traffic, except it targets specific application packets or functions. The attack on the application layer can disrupt services such as the retrieval of information or search functions on a website.