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Gleaming the cube: a rebuke to the idea of a “progressive” cultural singularity of cool

I’m getting a bit fed up with the insistence by statists that because they populate the arts and the academy, they have some kind of death grip on “hip.” For instance, here’s Nishi, whose only hope of ever really touching cool would be to pay somebody to fuck her once with an ice dong:

Doughy Pantsload aka Jonah Goldberg is the antithesis of cool …. .he doesnt even get that there is NO CULTURE WAR …. there is only an evolution of culture event like glaciation or the extinction event at the K-T boundary.

And the “classic liberals” are trying to build a snowfence out of pitchforks and torches to hold off a cultural glacier of liberal memes.
Where are the conservative professors, filmmakers, comics, scientists, actors, artists?
they don’t exist.
:)

So. Let me give this “argument” a go.

Where are the conservative professors, filmmakers, comics, scientists, actors, artists? They’ve been out learning to shoot, honey.

But you’re right: Those punk rock “liberal memes” we buttoned-up dorks are trying desperately to hold back are the epitome of hepness and popularity — the “glaciating” endpoint of cultural evolution as it pertains to maintaining a permanent hold on (the oxymoronic notion of) mainstream hipster culture. I mean, what teen in his rebellious stage isn’t going to embrace the edgy cries of, “all our shower heads are uniform in pressure!”, or “hell no, we won’t go (to restaurants that cook with table salt)!”. Why, it’s just like following the Dead around the country!

Face it, Nishi. The statist scolds — offering soulless progressivism repackaged in the language of freedom — will only hold power so long as they can maintain the euphemisms.

And that won’t last. Jon Stewart’s ears are starting to sprout hair. Matt Damon is a punch line.

You are disco, is what you are. And any day now, Asia or Journey or Joan Jett will be coming around to fuck you back into a handful of cheesy dance clubs catering to Long Island hairdressers.

Be sure to take Urkel with you.

324 Replies to “Gleaming the cube: a rebuke to the idea of a “progressive” cultural singularity of cool”

  1. Lazarus Long says:

    “Doughy Pantsload aka Jonah Goldberg”

    The funny thing is that Jonah has more smarts in his thumb than that spittle-slathered polyp nishit has in her entire family of mouth breathing morons.

    She’s about a chromosome short of a Biden.

  2. kdash says:

    “But you’re right, Nishi: Those punk rock “liberal memes” we fogies are trying to hold back are really hip and popular — the glaciating endpoint of cultural evolution as it pertains to maintaining a permanent hold mainstream hipster culture.”

    You know what’s cool? Listing conservative movies and the top 50 conservative rock songs of all time.

    Or maybe it’s kind of unhip to try to assign varied creative pursuits to your narrow ideological frame.

  3. Jeff G. says:

    You know what’s cool? Listing conservative movies and the top 50 conservative rock songs of all time.

    But not as cool as trolling “right wing blogs” under fake names, posting little ineffectual barbs until you cum in a sock.

  4. happyfeet says:

    you can get that waxed, Jon

  5. Lazarus Long says:

    Is nishit really that stupid?

    Jonah’s point is not all that di9fficult to understand:

    http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MzkzOTdjNDNkYTYzNjMyZWMyM2VlYjQ3NWEzYjFhNDk=

  6. Darleen says:

    kdash, here’s some classic movies … you know ones that have stood the test of time, not a pop movie du jour like The Strawberry Statement or Harrod Experiment …

    1. Casablanca
    2. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
    3. Ben Hur
    4. Wizard of Oz
    5. Sound of Music

    Go ahead, tell of the politics of these movies.

    What’ liberal or conservative about “Stairway to Heaven” or “Hotel California”?

    go on, you little squint, maybe you should examine why you want to claim the talents of others to rub off on your sorry little ass by pretending you share a “creative soul” with them because you claim ’em as fellow collectivist.

  7. Jeff G. says:

    I like The Strawberry Statement and Zabriskie Point and Getting Straight.

    The counter culture was all about fighting the Man. Freedom.

    The opposite of today’s progressive rank and file, who are Uncle Toms doing dishes for the state in return for a place in the big white house…

  8. Alec Leamas says:

    Steve McQueen was a Republican.

    QED

  9. bh says:

    Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo was a thoughtful indictment of supply side economics, right?

  10. Darleen says:

    JeffG

    It’s just a matter of taste. SS came out in 1970 and even as a 10th grader at the time I found the movie “meh”.

    But then I grew up utter in love with movies from the 30’s and 40’s.

  11. sdferr says:

    Joan Jett. Bitch. The Blade spits on you from his grave.

  12. Rougman says:

    Saith Nishi of Borg. What an obtuse twat.

  13. dicentra says:

    Nishi is still young enough to believe that the present moment will never EVAR change, that she’ll be interested in being hip for the rest of her life, and that there’s no way reality could possibly deliver her a 2×4 to the head because she’s too astute to be taken surprise like that.

  14. Lazarus Long says:

    “But if you want to write about “Hollyweird” I’ll read because I think it’s amusing.”

    Your ennui is boring.

  15. Jeff G. says:

    Is there anybody whose drum circle a hip university student would rather sit cross-legged in than Ric Caric’s, or maybe SEK’s?

  16. Darleen says:

    kdash

    Nishi is the one saying conservative filmakers, artists, et al. don’t exist. If you disagree with her you have a weird way of showing it.

  17. happyfeet says:

    Mr. SEK wasn’t really happy with this bill cause of it didn’t do enough.

    here I share with you… is from one of louchette’s favorite blogger peoples

    As the kvetching progressivisti came predictably into line, lending their unconvincingly grudging support to “health care reform,” a new … how would a progressive put it? … a new narrative coalesced, in which the current vast boondoggle is really no more than a ribbon-cutting ceremony, a symbolic first shovelful of earth at the groundbreaking. Oh, when pressed, they will defend its supposed real merits with their by-now selfsame platitudes: “30 million uninsured … pre-existing conditions … tra la la.” But within their own whisper galleries, they flop like fish who disbelieve the hook because they still taste the bait. There is no public plan, you fools, you morons. This is it!

    I won’t spend a lot of time reiterating old arguments, but it does bear repeating that the US House of Representatives just based a bill universally mandating that individuals purchase a private commodity–a commodity, let’s be clear, that the same bill goes to great lengths to keep private. A so-called “public plan” is exactly the opposite of what this bill is, and the idea that public insurance will somehow flow naturally from its own nemesis is either crazy, a lie, or a crazy lie.

    I don’t know what to think about that really it’s just delightfully expressed.

  18. JD says:

    Let’s save the eugenecist nishi the effort …
    Old racist white men
    Kultural evolution
    ESCR
    Wedge theory
    Lulz

  19. happyfeet says:

    dicentra nishi’s one of the stutest ones I think

  20. Joe says:

    You want lists: Jonah Goldberg, Mark Steyn, John Derbyshire, Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin, Charles Krauthammmer, George Will, Robert Stacy McCain, Little Miss Attila, Dan Riehl, the Anchoress, Professor Bainbridge, Jennifer Rubin, Ace, Allahpundit, Glenn Reynolds, Victor Davis Hanson, Stephen Green, Dan Collins, Capt. Ed., Michelle Malkin, Medved, Darleen Click, Althouse, and last but definitely not least, Jeff Goldstein. There is no order to that list. If I left someone out, sorry. None of them are perfect. None of them are pure. I often agree and disagree with them all. But they are basically honest.

    It is too fucking complicated to get hung up on things beyond that. And I would rather see Jonah list top ten conservative movies, then get a lecture about Oakenshot and how Obama is the savior of the nation.

  21. Swen says:

    Where are the conservative professors, filmmakers, comics, scientists, actors, artists? They’ve been out learning to shoot, honey.

    Now yer talkin’. All that arm-twistin’ and ear-bitin’ is great fun, but when the rubber meets the road Kpistol beats Karate..

  22. happyfeet says:

    Charles Krauthammmer is pretty damn perfect I think.

  23. Jeff G. says:

    That person doesn’t much like me, happy.

  24. happyfeet says:

    Mr. Krauthammer?

    I missed that. oops I gave him an extra m…

    then I piss on his head.

  25. kdash says:

    “If you disagree with her you have a weird way of showing it.”

    I just said it was kind of unhip. And I ended up with:

    “go on, you little squint, maybe you should examine why you want to claim the talents of others to rub off on your sorry little ass by pretending you share a “creative soul” with them because you claim ‘em as fellow collectivist.”

    Which has a bit of soul. At least I didn’t get a lecture from sinecured statist.

  26. Jeff G. says:

    dicentra nishi’s one of the stutest ones I think

    You’d be wrong.

  27. Jeff G. says:

    Mr. Krauthammer?

    No. The blogger you linked.

  28. Hadlowe says:

    Personally, I’d trade 1,000 Pablo Nerudas for a single Czeslaw Milosz.

    In any case, why the hell should we look to right-brain artistic types for answers on left-brain questions? ‘Cause you know who really has their shit together solid? Charlie Sheen, that’s who.

  29. Darleen says:

    a bill universally mandating that individuals purchase a private commodity–a commodity, let’s be clear, that the same bill goes to great lengths to keep private. A so-called “public plan” is exactly the opposite of what this bill is, and the idea that public insurance will somehow flow naturally from its own nemesis is either crazy, a lie, or a crazy lie.

    how STOOOOPID is that person, or how stupid does s/he think everyone else is? If a bill MANDATES the purchase of a product and the same entity that mandates that purchase on one end also mandates WHAT the product will be on the other end – fully designing it, authorizing it, controlling it and dictating its price, it cannot be called a “private” except by the someone either dense or duplicitious.

  30. happyfeet says:

    oh. I didn’t know that at all.

    Charlie hang tight I’ll get you a towel.

  31. happyfeet says:

    he’s sort of a sniffy one isn’t he?

  32. sdferr says:

    I read a bit of this one before you popped the link… and damned if it isn’t interesting how topical it is what’s going on there Jeff.

  33. Hadlowe says:

    And apologies to the host for my brainist comment, what with the literary background and all.

  34. JD says:

    Sdferr – that Aphrasia person does not read very well, no?

  35. sdferr says:

    Yes, not well.

  36. happyfeet says:

    you know who’s cool is Mr. buttons

  37. baxtrice says:

    I don’t really buy into this “cool” thing that nishi is talking about because being “cool” is a moving goalpost that never stops. No one can be “cool” forever, since our pop culture likes to continually evolve lawl . *sarcasm*

    Anyways, what is cool today will be lame in a week. And for the “where are conservative professors, filmmakers, comics, scientists, actors, artists?” BS..um we’re here dumbass, it’s just that we got tired of being labeled racist, homophobic, nazi, xtianist tebaggers because we have a differing opinion. Capiche?

  38. dicentra says:

    A so-called “public plan” is exactly the opposite of what this bill is, and the idea that public insurance will somehow flow naturally from its own nemesis is either crazy, a lie, or a crazy lie.

    To add to what Darleen said, this guy hasn’t thought it out very well. The gubmint tells the insurance companies that they must take all comers at price $X, regardless of risk. Then the gubmint tells them they must pay out $X + ? regardless.

    It’s not long before they’re paying out WAY more than they bring in, but unlike the federal gubmint, they can’t print money or borrow obscene sums from China, so they’ll go out of business, and the fed will be there to pick up the pieces.

  39. dicentra says:

    Wow. Look at the devastating thought processes at work here:

    But basically, this is the first time The Man has issued a directive to every adult to go out and purchase something directly from the private company of our choosing.

    I don’t know….I have to pay rent to a private company, I have to buy food from a private company. I guess it’s not the government forcing me to consumer so much as the economic system the government is tirelessly working to perpetuate, but it’s not like I was spending my days picking daffodils and doing rainbow dances with the wind before the Man came along and told me I needed to open my wallet.

    Where do you start with something like that? There are so many conceptual pieces missing that it’s just not worth it.

    Congratulations, Charles, I’ve just found someone stupider than you.

  40. Darleen says:

    so they’ll go out of business, and the fed will be there to pick up the pieces

    feature, not bug. It’s been the target since the beginning.

  41. Jeff G. says:

    I read a bit of this one before you popped the link… and damned if it isn’t interesting how topical it is what’s going on there Jeff.

    What did I say was coming? A non-violent ideological civil war?

    Plus I called liberal-Dems tinpot Machiavellians interested in power, who foreground rhetoric over truth.

    Yeah. What a fucking dunce I turned out to be.

  42. Jeff G. says:

    I don’t know….I have to pay rent to a private company, I have to buy food from a private company. I guess it’s not the government forcing me to consumer so much as the economic system the government is tirelessly working to perpetuate, but it’s not like I was spending my days picking daffodils and doing rainbow dances with the wind before the Man came along and told me I needed to open my wallet.

    Sunstein and the realists. Privileging FDR’s second bill of rights.

    Horseshit.

  43. Keid A says:

    Chuck Norris.
    I rest my case.

  44. Jeff G. says:

    he’s sort of a sniffy one isn’t he?

    And backs it up with a dilettante’s shallow understanding, however artfully embroidered.

  45. SBP says:

    Where are the conservative professors…

    Preparing to give a talk at MIT, in this case.

    Already know how to shoot.

    Meanwhile Nishbot does clerical work, if I remember correctly.

  46. SBP says:

    Not that there’s anything wrong with clerical work, I hasten to add — done my share of that over the years, too.

  47. thor's mom says:

    SBP,

    Nishi’s not in academia, though . . . is she?

  48. sdferr says:

    With “migration patterns and a strong move to re-affirm federalist principles…” entailed. Funny how just today we hear of States filing or preparing to file suit against our unsigned statist health care compact. And rumors of people leaving California to return to Oklahoma in the wind.

  49. happyfeet says:

    Maybe the question is more how do we get a substantial percentage of our little country’s peoples to take a step back from our little country’s idolatry of all things medical and fetishism of all things health?

  50. SBP says:

    She likes to pretend that she is, tm.

    Fortunately it’s possible to do most of my work without politics ever coming up. I fully understand why Jeff and dicentra left the academy. Literature (and the humanities in general) have effectively been destroyed.

  51. yes we can't says:

    Where are the conservative professors, filmmakers, comics, scientists, actors, artists?

    I don’t know. Where were the anti-Soviet professors, filmmakers, comics, scientists, actors, artists in Russia from 1917 to 1989? They didn’t exist, either. Lefties deliberately like to purge “their” institutions of dissenting voices by making life a living hell for anyone who doesn’t toe the line, and then they use the success of such purges as an argument for their moral superiority! Talk about chutzpah!

    Larry Summers was the youngest PhD ever to graduate from Harvard. Larry Summers was liberal icon Bill Clinton’s Treasury Secretary. I disagreed with Larry Summers on a lot of stuff, but it was apparent that he was a decent man, and a genius, to boot. And he gets up at Harvard and gives a speech about how his little girl plays with dolls and his boy plays and it’s funny cause it just happened that way without any parental intervention, so maybe there’s some nature at work along with nurture … and what did Harvard do? They drummed him out. Lesson: no amount of liberal bona fides can save you when the witch hunt starts. Think about it. If Larry Summers super genius and friend of Bill can’t fit in at Harvard, then who the fuck in his right mind who isn’t part of the gleichschaltung would want to be part of that environment? I’ve been in academia. I’ve been in the arts. Once those people discover that your not on board with their politics, they make it their mission in life to make you miserable. Again, who wants to work in that environment? Why would any normal man work in a place where he can lose his job for saying, “I’ve noticed my son is different from my daughter”?

    Also, look at your list: professors, filmmakers, comics, scientists, actors, artists. These are all people who are 1) Often on the take from the government, and with the exception of scientists are 2) insulated from any real experience of cause and effect and 3) live in an imaginary world and 4) don’t require the systematic accumulation of capital in order to ply their trade. Actors? They draw a huge paycheck for being pretty. They don’t have to save up money to buy a new oven for the restaurant, or a new packaging machine for the assembly line, so why would they care how high taxes are? As long as they have enough money for blow, who cares? As far as scientists go, notice that the harder the science the more libertarian they lean, generally. Engineers with a lot of experience tend to be very practical about politics because they have learned through hard experience that the intended effect of something is different from the actual effect and that there is a real world out there.

  52. Mike LaRoche says:

    Where are the conservative professors…

    Right here, Nishdolt. Really, just what were you thinking when you posted that question at a blog populated by current and former academicians? It is yet more proof that you aren’t half as smart as you think you are.

    Also, yes we cant’s comment is absolutely spot-on.

  53. sdferr says:

    In re the anti-Soviet writers et al, sometimes they might be right there in plain sight but unseen anyhow.

  54. Merovign says:

    For instance, here’s Nishi, whose only hope of ever really touching cool would be to pay somebody to fuck her once with an ice dong:

    That sentence alone earned you a double sawback, Jeff. Hit her again.

    As to liberal domination of academia and entertainment, you’d think they’d be less cavalier about destroying the economy with massive spending and tax increases during a recession – after all, which would you choose; food, a movie, or a potential but shrinking long-term benefit from spending four years having leftists spit on you?

    Economy crashes, useless eaters hit hardest.

  55. Abe Froman says:

    Where are the conservative professors, filmmakers, comics, scientists, actors, artists?

    What kind of imbecile lumps these vocations together? The overwhelming majority of “filmmakers, comics, actors and artists” are self-indulgent poverty monkeys working shitty jobs and rolling the dice with their futures. Nobody in the real world is particularly impressed when these ass clowns finally give up and look for mainstream careers in their thirties. It requires a perpetual state of adolescence which is characteristic of lefties. Academia is the polar opposite. Safe, passive, gutless and insular once in the door, but at least these lefties are career-oriented.

  56. happyfeet says:

    it’s not healthy to put health before freedom I don’t think

  57. bh says:

    Conflation and category errors. That’s all we get out of her.

    Twelve divided by muskrat equals yearning. Science!

  58. bh says:

    Science!*

  59. happyfeet says:

    There would be no housing market today without the government.*

    – the little president man’s dirty socialist Associated Press

  60. sdferr says:

    AP decided not to hide its light under a bushel, eh? heh

  61. Merovign says:

    The press corps has officially merged with the Democrat party. Or hadn’t you noticed? I mean, it was unofficially so for decades, but the knot has now been tied.

  62. bh says:

    And those who want to eliminate Fannie and Freddie face another hurdle — investors are still nervous. They don’t want to buy mortgage securities that don’t carry a government guarantee — whether explicitly in the case of FHA or implicitly in the case of Fannie and Freddie.

    Hmmm. It’s almost like the market has a mechanism to handle this.

    Buyer: I demand a guarantee.

    Seller: How about I knock $100 off it?

    Buyer: How about $150 and you…

    Government: What’s all this now? Stop this crazy business. I’ll guarantee it.

  63. JD says:

    The moon is less than 4, and long division is purple make more sense than nishit’s drivel.

    I owe someone a h/t for that, but cannot remember who.

  64. Republican on Acid says:

    Ah Nishi, I will show you mine if you show me yours. I sometimes daydream of a day where folk that admire what the engineer in me likes to call, “the star trek dream”, get to see what a total load of shit it really is. And now my daydream has become reality.

    People like Nishi are like Dawkins, they can devote a whole day to one subject and not ever really cover the matter at hand. Example: Dawkins managed to write an entire book about the “fact” there is no God while vaguely even brushing up against the human condition of spirituality.

    All give way as Nishi levels her weak metaphorical joust at the conservative windmill.

  65. geoffb says:

    The end game goes something like this…

    “Government: What’s all this now? Stop this crazy business. I’ll guarantee it.”

    Ah hell, I just own it. You guys are going to just love the mandatory rental agreement. Trust me.

  66. guinsPen says:

    Dig, man! There goes Sek the Knife!

  67. Mike LaRoche says:

    The moon is less than 4, and long division is purple make more sense than nishit’s drivel.

    I owe someone a h/t for that, but cannot remember who.

    Roger Miller?

  68. Mike LaRoche says:

    “Roses are red, violets are purple. Sugar is sweet, so is maple surple.”

  69. guinsPen says:

    Plus I called liberal-Dems tinpot Machiavellians interested in power, who foreground rhetoric over truth.

    Yeah. What a fucking dunce I turned out to be.

    Chintz, Jeff.

    It’s a gonna’ be the next big thing.

    Hell, it already ends with a zee.

  70. J."Trashman" Peden says:

    a cultural glacier of liberal memes

    So next stop for Progressives, Snowball Brain?

  71. geoffb says:

    The glaciers are melting, melting.

  72. Mark A. Flacy says:

    hold off a cultural glacier of liberal memes

    I guess Nishi doesn’t believe in global warming after all.

  73. Mark A. Flacy says:

    Damn! 8 minutes late.

  74. J."Trashman" Peden says:

    Fwiw, this just in: on Turner Classic Movies, Kareem Abdul Jabbar co-hosted and presented some of his favorite movies, which included The Big Sleep, The Maltese Falcon, the Shootist, and Stagecoach. -I’m not positive about Stagecoach because I didn’t see the intro discussion.

    But I guess they’ve already done been froze out by that cultural glaciation thing progressively taking over Nishi’s so called mind. Apparently, it just wipes out all past traces, if any.

    Kareem’s, not so much.

  75. J."Trashman" Peden says:

    Where are the conservative professors, filmmakers, comics, scientists, actors, artists?

    Glacially erased, I’d guess. Or perhaps do-it-yourself mind scrubbed? Having a Blank Slate for brain does allow for oso many “choices”, dontcha know.

  76. B Moe says:

    You are disco, is what you are. And any day now, Asia or Journey or Joan Jett will be coming around to fuck you back into a handful of cheesy dance clubs catering to Long Island hairdressers.

    Fuck that, I am holding out for the Ramones.

  77. B Moe says:

    From Jeff’s link at 29:

    I’ve always found it a charming characteristic of conservative thought, that they view judges as a class of priestly explicators leading a national course of bible study, only using our secular, civic texts in place of holy writ.

    That goes a long way in describing one of the major left/right disconnects.  The misunderstanding of both religion and rule of law.  Little wonder they don’t get putting the Ten Commandments on a Court House wall.

  78. No One You Know says:

    You know, it’s OK to like Journey again, but only if you do so ironically. I think you have to be drinking PBR whilst listening to signify the irony.

  79. Carin says:

    Oh, I just loved this post/comment thread. I’m late, but I just wanted to mention that.

    Just … EXACTLY.

  80. Carin says:

    I only turn up Journey when I’m alone in the car. Even having it on my iPod is enough to indict me.

  81. No One You Know says:

    Plus, someone needs to tell me how going to the post office to get on a government scale (if I’m paying for your health care, I’m going to be very interested in your eating habits, drinking habits, etc) is cool.

  82. Carin says:

    Asia, though, will never even be even ironically cool I don’t think. Not if I have anything to say about it.

  83. B Moe says:

    You know, it’s OK to like Journey again…

    I can’t like them again, I hated them the first time.

  84. No One You Know says:

    B Moe, yeah, I didn’t glom to their pedigree until later. All I knew was that I was 12 years old and the girls were swooning over the dude with the big schnoz. Plus, you had to hate whatever was popular at the time (how’s that for some irony)

  85. Carin says:

    oooh oooh anytime that you want me … ooh ooh anytime that you need me, baby ….

    what’s not to like BMoe?

  86. donald says:

    I loved Joan Jetts first solo album. I did want to touch her there…at the time.

  87. B Moe says:

    Journey came into my view about the same time as AC/DC. The pretty boys never had a fucking chance.

  88. JHo says:

    Dawkins managed to write an entire book about the “fact” there is no God while vaguely even brushing up against the human condition of spirituality.

    Great example. The missing ingredient in both cases, if it needed saying, is a full perspective.

    Which is to say, honesty of intent.

    Which is to say that progressivism is denial.

    I admire Jeff tons for taking this bullshit on directly but in the end I think it’s the flat evil that cannot be reasoned with – denial is the lie – and not want of more exposition. The fuckers think like thieves and liars. Those are not symptoms; those are choices. See: Dawkins, nuggie, and half the country going freeloader.

  89. SBP says:

    Fuck that, I am holding out for the Ramones.

    Word.

  90. william says:

    “…the evolution of culture”…like from Punk (and all its excess) to Straight Edge?

  91. Nishi the Kingslayer says:

    Pretty dishonest to not post the research that spawned this discussion Jeff.
    Let’s try again.
    From Murray’s upcoming book.

    all data rom the GSS, the general social survey…..
    “The General Social Survey, a mother lode of information for social scientists that has been collected annually or biannually since 1972, has asked people in every survey to say whether they are extremely conservative, conservative, slightly conservative, moderate, slightly liberal, liberal, or extremely liberal. A really simple question.

    The graph represents the percentage of people who answered “extremely liberal” or “liberal” minus the percentage of people who answered “extremely conservative” or “conservative” in any given survey. I won’t go into the statistical details (for that, buy the book in a couple of years), but think of the classes this way:

    Traditional Upper: Someone at the 95th percentile of income, with a graduate degree, who is a business executive, physician, engineer, etc.

    Intellectual Upper: Also at the 95th percentile of income and with a graduate degree, but a lawyer, academic, scientist (hard or soft) outside academia, writer, in the news media, or a creator of entertainment programming (film and television).

    Traditional Middle: Same occupations as the Traditional Uppers, but with just a bachelor’s degree and at the 75th percentile of income.

    Technical Middle: Someone working in the many technical specialties that have proliferated in health, information technology, and industrial technology, with an associate’s degree and at the 50th percentile of income.

    Working: Someone working in a skilled blue-collar job, with just a high school diploma and at the 25th percentile of income.

    Lower: Someone working at a low-skill job who didn’t finish high school, at the 5th percentile of income.”

    I merely point out that “intellectual uppers”, who Murray characterizes as extreme liberal, are culture creators.
    Everyone else?
    Culture consumers.

  92. Carin says:

    I merely point out that “intellectual uppers”, who Murray characterizes as extreme liberal, are culture creators.
    Everyone else?
    Culture consumers.

    Intellectual uppers do NOT create culture. As much as I hate it, where did Rap come from? I’m sure there are a zillion of examples, but I’m at work.

  93. JD says:

    Wait … Did the lying eugencist griefer just call Jeff dishonest? Ironymeters worldwide just exploded.

  94. Pablo says:

    Where’s Bill Gates on that scale?

  95. SBP says:

    Pretty dishonest

    Yes, you are.

    Shouldn’t you be filing something, ‘leet grrrrl?

  96. SBP says:

    Also, I just love the way that “creators of entertainment programming” are thrown into the category of “intellectual uppers”.

    I’ve seen television, nishidiot.

  97. guinsPen says:

    T: Cap’n, you got a minute? Jonesy’s got something I think you ought to see.

    M: Martinez, get yourself a cup of coffee and have ’em send me up some tea.

    m: Aye, Captain. Messenger, get the Captain a cup of tea.

    J: Cap’n. Sir, the moment that sub went silent and I thought I heard some singing? I heard something in the background real faint.

    And then after all those subs took off, I caught it again and I managed to get it on tape. I washed it through the computer a few times and was able to isolate this sound.

    *tape recorder click… seemingly innocent sound*

    When I asked the computer to identify it, what I got was, “turtle displacement.”

    You see, sir, the SAPS software was originally written to look for reptile events, and I think when it gets confused, it kind of runs home to mama, lulz.

    C: I’m not following you, Jonesy.

    J: Sir, I’m sorry, li-listen to it… at ten times speed.

    *tape recorder click… […]*

  98. SBP says:

    It’s cute the way that Nishbot thinks that its mayfly pop culture fetishism matters one bit in the long run. I felt that way when I was sixteen, too.

    What’s that? She’s, like, 30? Oh.

    Screw Shakespeare and Sophocles. IMO, the apotheosis of western cultural evolution was My Mother the Car, although some make a plausible case for MTV’s The Brothers Grunt.

  99. Nishi the Kingslayer says:

    umm….i dont know what asia or joan jett are…some antique cultural totems?
    kinda misses the mark.

    Crazy old Breitbart on taking culture back.

    Until conservatives, libertarians and Republicans – who will be the lion’s share of Big Hollywood’s contributors – recognize that (pop) culture is the big prize and that politics is secondary, there will be no victory in this important battle.

    White christian conservatism is a zombie culture animated by rage, bent on “preserving the unpreservable”.
    All the movies you cite were made in the 50s, right?
    the heyday of teh White Patriarchy and beavercleaver families.
    dig this commenter at first things….

    “There is no “Culture War”.
    There is only cultural and demographic evolution.
    No religio/demographic group can fight cultural evolution.”

    I’m with Matoko Chan. The anything-goes folks vs. the honor the ancestors-folks have been fighting a war that has little relevance to culture or to the future of culture. Culture happens. And cultures die or at least experience winter seasons, which perhaps will give way after a while to a springtime. The winter season of the 14th century gave way to the springtime of the fifteenth.

    I’m with Barzun. The West is decadent. Decadence happens, and like winter it’s not necessarily a bad thing. It just doesn’t have much spiritual energy anymore–the spirit has gone underground, so to speak, into the soul’s interiority. And since the whole movement of salvation history has been a movement from outer to inner, from given to chosen, from the law given on Sinai to the law written in the heart, it’s understandable that the outer trappings of Christian Civilization should become emptied and less relevant for the living of the faith.

    I’m with Nietzsche. He was just observing what had become inarguable. Not that God was dead, but that He wasn’t to be found in cultural/civilizational forms out there. Sure the forms exist, but with a few exceptions these forms have as much relevancy to the spirit that once animated them as the New York St. Patrick’s Day parade has to the spirit St. Patrick. They are dead forms animated by the undead energies of nostalgia, jingoism, and other vulgar passions. Conservatives simply don’t want to face up to this truth, and keep fighting this battle for a zombie culture, and in doing so are looking for love in all the wrong places–out there in the mainstream culture. They are fighting for the preservation of cultural forms that were shaped by spiritual cultural energies that simply no longer exist.

    Look. I’m a trinitarian Christian. I go to mass and I believe in the real presence. I see the mass as the central event, the time when we reenact Christ’s living into our death so that we may in turn die into his Life. I look forward to the retrieval of a kind of sensibility that naturally understands the world sacramentally, numinously, and I believe that’s in our future, but it’s not how we commonly experience the world now. And that retrieval, if it happens, will not depend on the preservation of medieval forms or some dream of Christendom’s return. All that matters is that the mass be celebrated, that men and women of conscience respond to the ubiquity of grace that they, we all, swim in, and culture will take care of itself.

    Focus your energies where they might actually bear fruit. This culture war business is futile nonsense. Let Christians live deeply their Christianity and let them find ways to renew the face of the earth, and if they do it, not through some head trip bent on preserving the unpreservable, but in radical trust that God has a future for us, all shall be well.

  100. Jeff G. says:

    Two words, Nishi: ice dong.

  101. SBP says:

    Look. I’m a trinitarian Christian.

    Bwahahahaha! I remember when it was Sufism.

    What will it be next week, busuko-chan? Voodoo?

  102. Nishi the Kingslayer says:

    Like the Barzun quote…..cultures become decadent….moving in the direction of increasing entropy, increasing disorder.
    Why homosapiens age, why your room gets messy.
    Culture doesnt shape society as much as society shapes culture according to its needs….the needs of citizens of the republic.
    When the republic was mostly anglo-saxon protestants, the culture adapted to their needs.
    Those days are gone.
    In 2008 there were more minority children of color than non-hispanic white children under the age of five.
    That was the first year this happened, and coincidentally, the year the electorate choose a black president.
    Culture evolves.

  103. Nishi the Kingslayer says:

    im sry, that was unclear…..the quote is from Jack Wheeler, a commenter at First Things.
    I’m still a Sufi.

    Ya Haqq!

  104. happyfeet says:

    that is a lovely comment what Mr. Wheeler made

  105. SBP says:

    Hint: everyone is laughing at you, Nishbot — especially the racial determinism.

    By the way, “quotes” are generally set out in some fashion — indentation, italics, something.

    No doubt that’s just another tool of White Male Patriarchal Oppression. Let your freak flag fly, busuko!

    When “my room” gets messy, I clean it up. What do you do?

  106. Alec Leamas says:

    Nietzsche is dead.

    – God

  107. Nishi the Kingslayer says:

    “When “my room” gets messy, I clean it up.”

    then you are imposing a local low-entropy system which is transient.
    i just don’t think that works with something as large and complex as culture…..or say……the metaverse.

    btw, when i used blockquotes on Jack Wheeler’s quote, my comment failed, so i struck them.
    you could always click the link.
    ;)

  108. happyfeet says:

    They are fighting for the preservation of cultural forms that were shaped by spiritual cultural energies that simply no longer exist.

    an entitlement mentality vs. a freedom mentality… it’s clear the spiritual energies of freedom are dying in America I think… what’s the death toll since Sunday up to?

  109. SBP says:

    then you are imposing a local low-entropy system which is transient.

    So? There’s plenty of hydrogen left in the sun, you fucking idiot.

    i just don’t think that works with something as large and complex as culture

    And we should give a shit what you “think” why, exactly?

    btw, when i used blockquotes on Jack Wheeler’s quote, my comment failed

    That’s not the only factor in your comments failing, busuko.

  110. SBP says:

    Nishbot’s knowledge of science appears to be gleaned from an endless succession of pop-sci drivel.

    Love the lecture about entropy, which could’ve been lifted bodily from Jeremy “Ignoramus” Rifkin.

  111. SBP says:

    Black folk can’t possibly dig Plato or John Locke, according to Nishbot. It’s the melanin!

    This is going to be a heavy blow to Thomas Sowell, I think.

  112. Alec Leamas says:

    When the republic was mostly anglo-saxon protestants, the culture adapted to their needs.
    Those days are gone.
    In 2008 there were more minority children of color than non-hispanic white children under the age of five.
    That was the first year this happened, and coincidentally, the year the electorate choose a black president.
    Culture evolves.

    This is not self-directed evolution, it was the veiled purpose of the 1965 Immigration “reforms” championed by the likes of Ted Kennedy. These demographic changes were initiated, without much overt discussion, for the purpose of changing the politics of the United States. This is, of course, the unstated purpose of the coming round of “Immigration Reform.”

    One of the consequences – perhaps unintended by the Left – will be a more Catholic country in a way that may not well suit the cultural insurgent vanguard of the Democratic Left.

  113. Joe says:

    BTW, people are not born “conservative”. Some are raised that way, but even most of them have a rebellion period. Despite relentless education brain washing, the MSM, and class divisions, a lot of us just get smarter and wiser as we get older and one day it dawns on us that liberals and their ilk are completely full of shit.

  114. guinsPen says:

    And cultures die or at least experience winter seasons, which perhaps will give way after a while to a springtime.

    Hey, wait a minute.

    I thought we were supposed to be all about not changing the course of mighty rivers for to save the snail darters, and now this?

    Nobody tells me nothin’.

  115. Nishi the Kingslayer says:

    oh feets….the side that seeks to deny control of their own bodies to the XX is not the side of freedom.
    the side that seeks to impose antique religious doctrine on unwilling citizens is not the side of freedom.
    the side of the morality police and the censors is not the side of freedom.

    the only freedom conservatives believe in is the freedom of the unrestrained invisible hand of the market to punch working families in the face.

  116. Jeff G. says:

    mapping culture onto a metaphor of your choosing is just a convenient way to try to understand it. Your metaphor is silly.

    Re: the “study data”. Nearly no one in academia or the arts will admit to their political leanings. Even moreso use antiquated ideas of what they think those labels mean.

    Many of yesterday’s hippies continue to self-identify with the left, largely out of habit, but also out of a shallow recollection of political hipness.

    You can’t stick it to the man when you have his dick in your mouth.

    Oh, and that disco / Joan Jett thing? That was an extended metaphor. The cool kids can piece those together, including recognizing the references.

    ice dong, you Uncle Tom.

    Alright. I’m off to urgent care. If adults can get tonsillitis, I may have it. Wish me luck.

  117. Pablo says:

    oh feets….the side that seeks to deny control of their own bodies to the XX is not the side of freedom.

    Yeah, we know. XX and XY alike. And you’re cheering it on why?

  118. happyfeet says:

    it’s more complicated than that… Team R mostly wants to shame women into having babies instead of forcing them… though they’re quite happy to celebrate the forcey ones… but I know what you mean… First Things is a very ironic name for a hatey website what can’t keep its eye on the ball I think.

  119. JD says:

    Nishi the swordswallower is a genocidal racist bint. That is all.

  120. Alec Leamas says:

    it’s more complicated than that… Team R mostly wants to shame women into having babies instead of forcing them… though they’re quite happy to celebrate the forcey ones… but I know what you mean… First Things is a very ironic name for a hatey website what can’t keep its eye on the ball I think.

    Here we go again.

  121. happyfeet says:

    good luck Mr. G… I realized the other day I have no idea if I have tonsils or not and there’s nobody to ask… my medical records were lost in the 90s…

    I imagine a doctor could just take a peep…

  122. SBP says:

    Hope you feel better soon, Jeff.

    I’m off to a busy day of Patriarchal Oppression. Later, folks.

  123. happyfeet says:

    It’s in the Team R platform Alec. But putting things in your platform you have no intention of doing is a form of corruption no?

    Yes, yes it is.

  124. Pablo says:

    Team R mostly wants to shame women into having babies instead of forcing them…

    Yeah, like Senator Tebow! And Bart Stupak!

  125. JD says:

    Good luck, Jeff. My little one recently underwent said procedure. I hope yours goes well.

  126. Keid A says:

    Oh no Nishi. You have it terribly wrong. I am an econo-conservative. I don’t believe in the “freedom of the unrestrained invisible hand of the market to punch working families in the face”.

    But I do believe that market forces will do that if the realities of the market are ignored long enough.

    In other words, distort the market for long enough in the pursuit of some political agenda, say, and at some point market forces will snap back and wipe out every false value you have tried to instill. It’s what happens when you push the system away from its natural equilibrium for long enough.

    The delusion is to think that politics can forever ignore inexorable market forces.

  127. Pablo says:

    There’s more to people that uteri.

  128. Alec Leamas says:

    It’s in the Team R platform Alec. But putting things in your platform you have no intention of doing is a form of corruption no?

    Yes, yes it is.

    Your ‘perception’ is a false dichotomy. Team R needn’t maneuver have abortion declared illegal everywhere on day X to be consistent – there is no real way to do that anyway.

  129. Joe says:

    You know how I know you are gay? You always talk about public radio.

  130. Bob Reed says:

    the side of the morality police and the censors is not the side of freedom.

    Nishi,
    Now which side is it that embraces the politically correct speech fetish?

    Which side is it that seeks to completely silence their critics; that is completely intolerant of ideas that are not grounded in po-mo philosophy?

    Why is it that the side professing moral relativism is intolerant of those who adhere to the concrete morality of religion?

    Which side is it that makes a practice of “shouting-down” guest lecturers and speakers that they disagree with?

    I could go on, but I get the feeling you won’t be answering these anyway; at least not honestly…

  131. Joe says:

    Look on the bright side Jeff, you might get some ice cream.

  132. SBP says:

    One last observation: Rifkin’s Entropy came out in 1980. Odd that such an up-to-the-minute hipstress is still stuck on “memes” that first emerged 30 years ago, were promoted by an old white guy (he was born in 1945

  133. Pablo says:

    Look on the bright side Jeff, you might get some ice cream.

    And there might be lasers involved. Tres kewl.

  134. happyfeet says:

    I just think it’s fair to say that neither side has freedom bona fides anymore Mr. Reed. The spiritual energies of freedom are dying in America.

    You don’t believe me ask Princess Lindsey.

  135. happyfeet says:

    The Tea Party is not the Republican Party for a reason. Mostly cause the Republican Party is gay. You know how I know The Republican Party is gay?

    Cause Princess Lindsey’s in it.

  136. Gaff says:

    Nishi’s deep thoughts are always someone else’s work.

    Also, I call bull on you killing the Lich King. Somebody with your mental handicaps probably stands in the defile and wipes your raid.

  137. Bob Reed says:

    I disagree happyfeet,
    On the port side of the spectrum, there is complete intolerance for any ideas that don’t conform to their thinking; dissent is no longer the highest form of Patriotism. They squelch debate, and pervert the system entirely through acts such as ramming Obamacare down the nations throat regardless of the public sentiments; that the House of Representatives, “the peoples chamber”, was used as an instrument to do so is a complete subversion of their Constitutional imperitive. The will of the people was thwarted, and the consent of the governed ignored-by only one of the political parties.

    You can dislike any particular politician you choose, and point to their elitist outlook or mistaken ideas, that’s your right and prerogative. But to say that neither side has freedom bona fides, especially in the wake of what just went down, is too relativistic in my opinion.

  138. Nishi the Kingslayer says:

    Oh JeffieG…..we are so icecold.
    Rickrolling Abbarolling Demint.
    lawl.
    lissen troglodytes…..behold teh futah.
    ambers–

    Democrats assume that the immigration debate will open the curtain on the Tea Party movement; health care will be child’s play compared to the tantrums over the prospect of earned legalization and other measures. The overlap between the Tea Partiers and ethnocentric immigration restrictionists is huge, and even many Republicans worry that the embedded nativism in the movement, whether or not it is also racialized (as a proxy for being against Obama and his ilk) will come to the fore in a way that once again diminishes the fervor of right-leaning independents and energizes Hispanics.
    But forget immigration even: the next two big presidential initiatives, domestically, at least, will be — or should be — easy political victories: reauthorizing but reforming the education law, and financial services reform.

  139. Obstreperous Infidel says:

    I’m still a Sufi.

    Yep, still a Muslim complaining about Christian oppression! A fucking idiot, is what you are nishi. Daddy would start loving you again, if you just stopped being such an idiot. Yes, I know that love should be unconditional, I’m just letting you know the ground rules.

  140. Nishi the Kingslayer says:

    well….lately my thoughts on entropy have been informed by this book, which i highly recommend, SBP.
    <3

  141. Obstreperous Infidel says:

    Well, we know a few things about nishi. First, she’s a hypocrite. The whole Muslim/Christian thing. Secondly, she believes that minorities and women don’t value individual freedom and that those are old white men values. And lastly, she really wants to abort something. Anything.

  142. Nishi the Kingslayer says:

    gee OI, i thought we had freedom of religion in American.
    I dont want to see ANY religion prancing and braying in the public square actually.
    that is one reason im a Sufi….Sufis, like Jews, dont proselytize.

    Ya Haqq!

  143. SBP says:

    That’s nice, Nishbot. Third-hand pop-sci drivel, just as I suspected. My “thoughts on entropy” were “informed” by Ludwig Boltzmann.

  144. A fine scotch says:

    Since LTC John isn’t around, I’ll reissue the proclamation:

    Ignore the typing telephone pole!

    Engaging it only makes it say more…

  145. happyfeet says:

    Team R had a chance to sell America on freedom and boy did they fuck that up and then they nominated the most craven cocksucker nanny they could find.

    Not impressed with Team R’s freedom bona fides.

  146. Nishi the Kingslayer says:

    My “thoughts on entropy” were “informed” by Ludwig Boltzmann.

    So were Dr. Carroll’s.
    that is why conservatives don’t “get” science. Science is always heresy overcoming orthodoxy.
    conservatives cling to orthodoxy.

  147. SBP says:

    that is why conservatives don’t “get” science.

    And yet I get paid for doing science, while you’re a file clerk.

    No justice in this world, is there?

  148. Entropy says:

    Science is always heresy overcoming orthodoxy.

    The science is settled.

    Do not question the science.

  149. Mikey NTH says:

    nishi is not hip or cool.

    This, on the other hand, is cool. It defines cool.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kf17nKtllWM

    I have posted this link before, but some things need to be reiterated.

  150. Entropy says:

    I dont want to see ANY religion prancing and braying in the public square actually.
    that is one reason im a Sufi….Sufis, like Jews, dont proselytize.

    So basically you want to force your religious practices and preferences on all of us?

  151. Nishi the Kingslayer says:

    nah….yours is better for you, mine is better for me.
    knock yourself out with that evangelical proselytizing.
    just dont get all pissy when a lot of citizens hate you for it….and they do.
    its free speech, right?
    like calling congressmen niggers and faggots and spitting on them.
    ;)

  152. Alec Leamas says:

    its free speech, right?
    like calling congressmen niggers and faggots and spitting on them.
    ;)

    But for the spitting, would you support deprivation of life, liberty, or property of the speakers in question?

  153. Gaff says:

    Like I said Nishi, you don’t have a single original thought. You think what you’re told. You copy/paste what you’re told by your ‘betters’.

    Also you claim not to proselytize? You’re pushing hard your real religion, progressivism. All hail the state!

  154. Bob Reed says:

    Dr. Carroll, while a renowned physicist with admirable contributions, is also a militant atheist who eschews any effort of reconciling religious belief with science. Ironically, his theory of cyclical cosmic inflation events, that he formed with Dr. Jennifer Chen, is one that conforms with some eastern religious traditions.

    The book Nishi sights lays out Caroll’s cosmology, which while fascinating is not necessarily widely accepted.

    And we all know that she firmly believes in the need for consensus in science…

    So, fascinating physics, but perhaps as an agenda driven theory as creationists; he’s just better at the math!

  155. Entropy says:

    knock yourself out with that evangelical proselytizing.
    just dont get all pissy when a lot of citizens hate you for it

    Oh come on now Nishi! How disingenuous.

    Like “Go ahead a be openly gay. Just don’t get all pissy when a lot of citizens hate you for it”.

    “Go ahead and practice your cultural heritage rather then accept white achievment ideology. Just don’t get all pissy when a lot of citizens think you’re stupid, lazy and incompitent.”

    That’s cultural hegemony.

    It’s because of the hypocrisy, Nishi.

  156. Entropy says:

    Where’s the tolerance?!

  157. Nishi the Kingslayer says:

    “But for the spitting, would you support deprivation of life, liberty, or property of the speakers in question?”

    Nope. its free speech…..but…
    the teabaggers are digging their own demographic grave with this.
    The media luffs this shit and they put it on endless loop….we see old fat white rageravers that look quite a lot like a lynch mob.
    Kinda drives away youth and minorities.
    Sic semper conservatives.

  158. Alec Leamas says:

    The media luffs this shit and they put it on endless loop….we see old fat white rageravers that look quite a lot like a lynch mob.

    And when they don’t have the tape, they just make it up, like Dana “off with his head” Milbank, right?

    Is there tape of these most recent incidents? I’m not inclined to believe the media accounts.

  159. Mike LaRoche says:

    Ya Haqq!

    Gesundheit.

  160. JD says:

    This lying cunt is still babbling? RACISTS!!!

  161. Nishi the Kingslayer says:

    his theory of cyclical cosmic inflation events, that he formed with Dr. Jennifer Chen, is one that conforms with some eastern religious traditions.

    lawl. You see, Bob Reed…..science IS compatible with religion…..just not with YOUR religion, if that religion is xianity.
    I find the Sufi concepts of maarifa and wahdat al wujud highly compatible with q-physics and SBH (Social Brain Hypothesis).

  162. sdferr says:

    We see, actually, nothing but the verbal testimony of men who we know to be liars. We’re we to see someone in the crowd shouting nigger or spitting, we would know who to hold responsible, but as it happens there is no such person or persons. What the media puts on endless loop are empty claims. And then simple people repeat those empty claims as if they were true.

  163. JD says:

    I find nishit to be highly compatible with meglomania and abject insanity.

  164. Frontman says:

    Somewhere, a village is missing its idiot.

  165. happyfeet says:

    I know there were no shoutings or spittings.

    If there were shoutings or spittings, shoutings or spittings what weren’t caught on tape, there would be news crews out on their ass in a heartbeat. Such shoutings and spittings are the Holy Grail of the little president man’s media.

  166. Entropy says:

    Ya Haqq means ‘the truth’.

    I am very disappointed to learn my progressive hero Nishi is nothing more then a Sufist hegemon.

    It knows damn well we do not all suscribe to Sufism, and laments ‘braying about religion in the public square’ even as it ends every public comment with “Ya Haqq!”

    Not “My truth”, but “The truth”.

    An imposition of Sufism upon us all, and an assertion of it’s truth with no respect for other perspectives. The implicit understanding being that we are all wrong and in error, because Sufism is “the truth”, as if there were such a thing as a universal truth that Nishi would impose upon us all with no respect for what might be our own truths.

    How can you know it is so? Who are you to know?

    Oh, ya haqq and forsoothe, regicidist. Hypocrit heal thyself.

  167. JD says:

    That village is quite the better for it, frontman.

  168. Nishi the Kingslayer says:

    nothing but the verbal testimony of men who we know to be liars.

    so…..John Lewis, the Hero of Selma, is a liar? You know him to be a liar, sdferr?

  169. Alec Leamas says:

    so…..John Lewis, the Hero of Selma, is a liar? You know him to be a liar, sdferr?

    We’re not saying it’s bad lying, Nish, it’s the good kind of lying – you know, lying for justice.

  170. sdferr says:

    Yes, I do. He for one, tells me that his newly crafted HealthCare Law is going to reduce the cost of health care services; improve the condition of Medicare and Medicaid; be revenue neutral; and many more such laughable untruths. So yes, yes I do. John Lewis is no hero. He is another corrupt politician.

  171. JD says:

    We know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that nishit is a fucking liar.

  172. Bob Reed says:

    Oh you’re mistaken Nishi.

    I see no conflicts between science and religion. It may not conform to Dr. Carroll’s cosmology, and neither would yours, but his theory enjoys neither consensus nor widespread appeal.

    Science is comprised of the concepts that we use to wrap our minds around the wonders of the cosmos, as well as understand and pedict physical phenomena with a degree of surety that allows us to enhance our existence.

    We know little, nishi, there are transcendant realities that are beyond our observation in the classical sense. And suffice it to say that the creator of the universe had little need of calsulus, computers, or superconducting super-colliders.

  173. Alec Leamas says:

    Did Alcee Hastings hear it as well?

  174. Gaff says:

    Nishi is at the point where she’s throwing anything against the wall, desperate for it to stick and distract us from her vapid stupidity.

  175. Nishi the Kingslayer says:

    Entrophy, ya haqq does not mean “the truth.”
    it means….. “the Real”.
    In Sufism it is a reference to the Real Most High, to wahdat al wujud (the unity of existence), to Ibn Hallaj, a Sufi Saint that was crucified for his beliefs, and to faana, along with other infinitely subtle meanings.
    again, yours is better for you, mine is better for me.

  176. Bob Reed says:

    Sufism, to Islam, is like Kabbalah to Judaism, and any number of the mystic sects to Christianity…

    I hope you chose it based on faith, and not simply because you thought it was the most ourtrageous, in your face, affectation you could profess to baristas, at bars, and cocktail parties…

  177. Frontman says:

    “When the republic was mostly anglo-saxon protestants, the culture adapted to their needs.
    Those days are gone”

    So, we are to believe that religion is the be all to end all as a driver of culture? I’m not buying.

  178. Nishi the Kingslayer says:

    You dissemble Bob Reed.
    Christianity requires the existence of a crude mechanistic anthropomorphic skyfather that spawned a biological son from a human woman, and apparently has a predilection for mucking around with cell biology.
    Christianity is incompatible with science.
    ;)

  179. Entropy says:

    Entrophy, ya haqq does not mean “the truth.”
    it means….. “the Real”.

    1) There you go yet again braying about religion in public. In response to my complaint of such, no less. I am deeply offended.

    2) Yeah.. a LOT of people make that typo with my name.

    But you, here in this thread?

    Heh.

  180. sdferr says:

    Socialism mucks dangerously about with human lives, gleefully immiserating those lives wherever it goes, grasping national wealth and destroying it with the self-same sweep of its imperious arms. Embrace the suck.

  181. BJTex says:

    Debating the nishit is much like arguing with a genocidal Pokemon.

    Pee – Ka – Chu?

    OT: anybody else loose their HTML tag toolbar when Firefox upgraded to 3.6? Is there another toolbar available ‘cuz I’ve become lazy and feckless.

  182. Bob Reed says:

    Islam believes in a similar God nishi, who created the heavens and the earth and man in his image…

    They also believe in Jesus; they refer to him as a prophet.

    In light of this, and based on your pronouncement, I suppose Islam is also incompatible with science.

  183. Entropy says:

    It specifically uses the word in a obscure and utterly pedantic way just to show off.

    Subsequently, gets into an argument about whether or not it even understands what the word it used means.

    Then it cannot spell it correctly.

    I luwlz’ed.

  184. baxtrice says:

    that is why conservatives don’t “get” science

    blanket statements are full of FAIL. Stop perpetuating a false talking point.

  185. Entropy says:

    In light of this, and based on your pronouncement, I suppose Islam is also incompatible with science.

    Sufism is to Islam like magic crystals are to…

    Well …

    Sufism is like magic crystals.

    I’m all for it.

    People who get healed by crystal skulls don’t spontaneously asplode in heavily populated urban centers.

    Worst I’ve ever heard of mystic sorts doing is set themselves on fire.

    “Buddhist torch”.

    I’m all for it. I respect your beliefs, I shall not pee on you.

  186. Nishi the Kingslayer says:

    al-Islam rejects Jesus-the-godhead, but reveres Issa’s words as Allah’s Prophet.
    Sufism accepts both memetic and genetic evolution….indeed, the line of the Imam is both genetic and memetic inheritence.
    sura ikhlas–

    In the name of God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful

    Say: He is Allah, the One and Only!
    Allah, the Eternal, Absolute;
    He begetteth not nor is He begotten.
    And there is none like unto Him.

    and pardon Entropy, i did mispell your name :)
    i was distracted by the signing ceremony.

  187. Nishi the Kingslayer says:

    baxtrice, only 6% of scientists are Republicans.
    conservatives perpetuate magical thinking and myths wholly unsupported by data or fact.
    creationism, IDT, the eSCR/aSCR debate, vouchers in education, that diploid oocytes are somehow “human life”…..anti-scientific.

  188. Abe Froman says:

    baxtrice, only 6% of scientists are Republicans.
    conservatives perpetuate magical thinking and myths wholly unsupported by data or fact.
    creationism, IDT, the eSCR/aSCR debate, vouchers in education, that diploid oocytes are somehow “human life”…..anti-scientific.

    The nuance is strong with this gamer.

  189. Entropy says:

    Vouchers in education are unscientific.

    Other things that are perhaps unscientific:

    Heterosexual sex.
    Eating non-local produce.
    Failure to recycle.

    Science is decided upon concensus, and yet science is heresy overcoming orthodoxy.

    Evolution – of everything, philogenic evolution, behaviorial evolution, science, the evolution of ice cream cones – is teleological.

    The driving force behind the telos is the anthropomorphization of the fricken universe.

    I like this toy. It is fun.

  190. Nishi the Kingslayer says:

    and baxtrice, my hypothesis is that conservatives are ill-suited for scientific research and discovery, both by temperament and ideology….. because conservativism MEANS clinging to the orthodoxies of the past, and because christians are taught unquestioning faith and acceptance of doctrine.
    i was raised catholic.

  191. sdferr says:

    “…conservativism MEANS clinging to the orthodoxies of the past”

    No it does not.

  192. Nishi the Kingslayer says:

    Entropy, all research in educational performance validates the critical variable as parental involvement.
    there is NO research correlating vouchers with performance.
    The highest correlate is parental and neighborhood SES (socio-economic status).
    that vouchers can improve performance is a cruel conservative hoax completely unvalidated by data.

  193. No one you know says:

    “the side of the morality police and the censors is not the side of freedom.”

    Al and Tipper Gore were unavailable for comment. Yeah, I know that they kissed on MTV, and Rolling Stone endorsed back in 2000, but that does not take away the fact that they were in the middle of the PMRC. Too bad that got flushed down the memory hole. Anyone remember Hillary Clinton pushing the V-ship back in the ’90s? Yeah, they’re the hip crowd. Hell this goes all the way up to that LA “underground” Art Magazine admonishing the creator of the Obama-as-Joker-Socialism poster as not “understanding” what he had done. Funny stuff, and I’ve got a million of them……

  194. Entropy says:

    It’s kind of like mad libs.

    You pick a bunch of nouns and verbs at random, insert them in the appropriate places, read “The pickle unfolded the beaver and sang a Nissan Ultima” and then revel in the absurdity you’ve unintentionally created.

    Except instead of a little notebook you’ve got Nishi. You toss a few words at her and see what funny things result.

  195. Nishi the Kingslayer says:

    what does conservatism mean then?

  196. Entropy says:

    “the side of the morality police and the censors is not the side of freedom.”

    Freedom from salt.

    Who shall liberate me from the tasty oppressor Sodium?

  197. Squid says:

    Nishi, your survey doesn’t say that scientists are unlikely to be conservative; it says that conservatives are unlikely to join the AAAS. Which, given its positions on government funding, global warming, nuclear disarmament, engagement with North Korea, and its disproportionate representation among academic scientists as opposed to industrial scientists, should hardly come as a surprise. As anecdotal evidence, I submit myself: I refused to join the AAAS, even when I was actively engaged as a physicist.

    Much like the way your misapprehension of survey results to reflect your preferred narrative comes as no surprise.

  198. Nishi the Kingslayer says:

    NOYK that old stuff is simply not relevent to me.
    what i observe TODAY is conservatives prying into citizen’s bedrooms, forbidding sex education in the schools that need it most, and trying to rewrite American history and force religion into science classes.

  199. Entropy says:

    taught unquestioning faith and acceptance of doctrine.

    Al Gore just emailed me. He asked me to tell you to STOP QUESTIONING THE SCIENCE!

    It is settled, you primitivist denier!

  200. bh says:

    This is a great day for Operation Poor Advocate. We should really be paying nishi more if you ask me.

  201. Nishi the Kingslayer says:

    No one can define conservatism?

    figgers.
    :)

  202. sdferr says:

    Marxism MEANS clinging to the orthodoxies of the past! What orthodoxies? Why, the now long dead orthodoxies of Karl Marx! Yay orthodoxies! Yay Unka Karl! Now get in line and shut up about it. The bread is coming.

  203. Abe Froman says:

    what does conservatism mean then?

    In a nutshell it means moving civilization forward by building off of the past. Not ignorantly turning a blind eye to the sum of human experience like impulsive children. It has nothing to do with science, properly understood.

  204. Squid says:

    what does conservatism mean then?

    It means that you defend the status quo as having intrinsic value, and that you are skeptical of “new and improved” methods and policies unless and until they can prove that they really are improvements.

    In science, we say “extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.” We don’t re-write physical theories on the basis of what’s cool; we demand evidence. We don’t give a shit about “what feels good;” instead, we demand that systems provide useful, predictive information that accurately describes the universe.

    In short, the scientific method is fundamentally conservative in character and design. Chew on that a while.

  205. Abe Froman says:

    Meant it has nothing to do with an aversion to science, properly understood.

  206. Mike LaRoche says:

    Socialism is an orthodoxy of the past, Nishi.

  207. happyfeet says:

    freedom I won’t let you down I will not give you up

  208. Jeff G says:

    The media luffs this shit and they put it on endless loop….we see old fat white rageravers that look quite a lot like a lynch mob.
    Kinda drives away youth and minorities.
    Sic semper conservatives.

    Not a care in the world about whether it is true or not.

    By the way, progressives don’t much care how you fuck, but they’re very big on regulating shower heads and toilets, telling you what you can and can’t eat, what kind of lightbulbs to use, etc. As entropy demands.

    FOR FREEDOM!

    Ice. Dong.

  209. Nishi the Kingslayer says:

    “the scientific method is fundamentally conservative in character and design.”

    Squid
    Then …..how does the scientific method support creationism and IDT?
    I think this is not true.
    “we” dont require extraordinary proof……we require valid, accurate data and scrupulous principled analysis of that data.
    Science is a succession of heresies overcoming orthodoxies.
    The orthodoxies are overthrown by DATA.

  210. Keid A says:

    Conservatism is preserving what is valuable from the past.

    Evolution is deeply conservative Nishi.
    There are parts of your genome over 3 Billion years old.
    E.g Parts of the ribosome and the transfer RNA’s.

    Information coded in DNA is the most highly conserved thing we know.
    Even continents don’t last that long.

  211. Entropy says:

    By the way, progressives don’t much care how you fuck, but they’re very big on regulating shower heads and toilets, telling you what you can and can’t eat, what kind of lightbulbs to use, etc. As entropy demands.

    Sir, that is libel and I shall sue.

    I demand only your fear.

    And respect.

    And daughters.

    And a chicken sandwich.

    And 10 million dollars in cash in unmarked $20’s by 5 PM.

    Also I’d like your vinyl copy of Guns n’ Roses Appetite for Destruction.

  212. geoffb says:

    From Nishi’s link.

    The graph is based exclusively on non-Latino whites (because that’s who the book is about). If you want to see a visual representation of the development of the bubble that Barack Obama has been living in since he left Hawaii, that graph is it. Judging from the GSS data, every white socioeconomic class in America has become more conservative in the last four decades, with the Traditional Middles moving the most decisively rightward. But the Intellectual Uppers have not just moved slightly in the other direction, they have careened in the other direction.

    They won the election with a candidate who sounded centrist running against an exceptionally weak Republican opponent. But they’ve been in the bubble too long. They really think that the rest of America thinks as they do. Nothing but the Pauline Kael syndrome can explain the political idiocy of letting Attorney General Eric Holder go after the interrogators.

  213. bh says:

    How far can you stretch your category errors, nishi?

    If I asked you to analyze the history of mercantilism using the text on the back of a bottle of mouthwash, would you be willing to give it a go?

  214. sdferr says:

    Keid A kills conservatively, simply by paying careful attention to the truth. Yay Keid A! and no kidding about it. Keid A is what a hero looks like, where John Lewis not so much.

  215. Jeff G says:

    Science is a succession of heresies overcoming orthodoxies.

    So you keep saying.

    And yet, you defend the orthodoxies — like the ridiculous notion that cultural evolution moves in only one direction.

    It’s kinda funny, actually.

    As for creationism, there are plenty of conservatives who don’t believe that science supports (or even can support) the explanation of first causes. Too, there are plenty of liberals who believe in creationism. That is, when they aren’t going on about The Secret, or Wicca, or crystals, or Ancient American Indian pantheism, etc.

    Like you, many people wear religion like a costume. And many don’t. Trying to divide the world up into your idea of cartoon conservatives and everyone else — in which everyone else is pushing heresies to overcome orthodoxies — is really no different from the kind of thinking that gave us The Turner Diaries, or the Protocols, or Mein Kampf.

  216. geoffb says:

    The graph is a visual representation, evidence, of the “long march through the institutions”. The Left built their own “honey trap” and jumped in.

  217. bh says:

    I’ve said it before but nishi reminds me of nothing more than Linus Pauling losing the plot over vitamin C.

  218. Jeff G says:

    Viral pharyngitis, by the way.

    I’m on Vicodin, hoping the Lord Jesus doesn’t slay me for my pleasures.

  219. Jeff G says:

    And now, sleep. Perchance to dream. Or watch “The Price is Right,” whatever comes first.

  220. sdferr says:

    Does that mean you have to communicate locally on a whiteboard for the time being?

  221. bh says:

    She also seems to think that evolution progresses. Which is one of those incredibly simple notions they circle in red ink in high school.

  222. sdferr says:

    As to the infection, that is?

  223. bh says:

    Feel better, Jeff.

  224. Mikey NTH says:

    The Lislamic and Sufi contributions to science in the last 500 years have been what again?

    Yeah, that’s what I thought – compatible. With ignorance, superstition, intolerance, hatred, and poverty, that is.

  225. Nishi the Kingslayer says:

    well, Jeff that doesnt relly deal with the current demographic problems for conservatives.
    I will leave you with two Happy Thoughts.
    Obamnesty and President Pelosi.
    <3

  226. sdferr says:

    But love Mikey, great great love of the beings! Except the conservative ones. And the other ones. Y’know, those.

  227. Nishi the Kingslayer says:

    Keid, that is wrong…..evolution is parsimonious…..not conservative.
    spamming random copies of guess and test all over the environment is not conservative.

    and Jeff, evolution goes one way…the direction of the arrow of time.
    Like Dr. Carroll says, you cant make a wrong turn and find yourself in the past.
    you are thinking of devolution.

    Ya Haqq!

  228. Abe Froman says:

    that doesnt relly deal with the current demographic problems for conservatives.

    You mean all those stupid Christian Hispanics?

  229. happyfeet says:

    here we go

    there can’t be a greater violation of trust for one ally to abuse the passports of another ally don’t you know

  230. geoffb says:

    “evolution goes one way…the direction of the arrow of time.”

    Precious, that.

  231. Mike LaRoche says:

    Jeremy Rifkin? What a crock. Next thing you know, Nishi the Failmemer will try resurrecting Pitirim Sorokin.

  232. cranky-d says:

    I guess while the fitness landscape remains relatively stagnant, one might believe that evolution will improve the fitness with respect to that landscape, and call that progress. However, the landscape does not remain stagnant for very long, and eventually you get critters like pandas that live on a certain species of bamboo that is disappearing and then those critters are, as they say, fucked. It actually makes the most sense from a long term outlook to maintain a wide diversity within a species rather than have that species end up entirely at the top of a local optimum, as a wider diversity will allow said species to adapt overall to a changing landscape. From an ignorant’s perspective, such a species would overall be “less evolved.”

    But what do I know, anyway? I’m just one of those xians clinging to my guns.

    The idiot in question uses the word “evolution” in a strictly pop-science manner, and does not have much understanding of what is actually going on. Big surprise.

  233. Alec Leamas says:

    By the way, progressives don’t much care how you fuck

    Jeff has not been to the femblogs lately.

  234. physics geek says:

    Where are the conservative scientists? Some of us actually work for a living instead of sucking at the public teat.

  235. cranky-d says:

    “evolution goes one way…the direction of the arrow of time.”

    Precious, that.

    She actually wrote that (I have her hammered)? Unbelievable, yet it supports my claim that she is a pop-scientist.

  236. geoffb says:

    My thoughts on “Culture”.

    Culture:
    Is evolutionary.
    Is faster than and less permanent than genetic/physical evolution.
    Is the transmission through the generations of emotional reactions to ideas, symbols, things.
    Is lived, experienced, assimilated from the environment especially during childhood years.

    Culture is changed by:
    Individual revelation which can be just for the individual or if expressed, as art, as an idea, can cause a change in the culture.
    Immersion in different culture, or just contact which results in cultural trade, blending.
    Forced immersion which should be called brainwashing.

    What is transmitted through the generations:
    Principles of a social organization of human society. What is “good”, and “bad”. What “human” is.

    What I am getting at is that a “culture” is a complex set of internalized emotional reactions that a cultural group have in common. At the base there are emotional responses that are genetically “hard wired” in. These form the basis of what we call “human nature”. “Culture” is layered on top. It is “learned” for the most part in childhood and adolescence by living in, experiencing the culture of the adults surrounding one.

    Cultural change, because of this, mostly proceeds, at the most, on a generational pace. Successful, funtional cultures build in concert with human nature’s hard wiring. Dysfuntional cultures build in conflict with human nature. The conflicts make for the dysfunction. They inflict costs on the culture that lower it’s utility to most of the humans living under it. Most, but not all, there will always be some that benefit and will try to keep the even the most dysfunctional culture from changing.

    Culture can be studied but a culture must be experienced to be understood. This is like “love” which can be studied to death but can’t be really understood by that means. Art and music can come closest to bringing on an understanding of ‘love” or a “culture”, but they are cultural entities themselves, not rational but emotional.

  237. Frontman says:

    “Science is a succession of heresies overcoming orthodoxies.
    The orthodoxies are overthrown by DATA”

    Al Gore, call your office.

  238. sdferr says:

    When we speak of evolution (biological), do we in any sense attribute to evolution intention? Put another way, is evolution intentional?

    I think not.

    How does it stand with culture?

  239. bh says:

    If I had to guess, nishi has a pretty strong grasp on evolution. What she doesn’t have a strong grasp on is where it can be logically applied.

    She hammers screws and screws nails and then doesn’t understand why others find it so easy to ignore her 101 level extrapolations.

  240. Alec Leamas says:

    If culture “evolves” in one direction all by itsownself, why the need for activism? Hey – it’s almost like a discrete group of people are arrogating to themselves the right to pick the direction of this “evolution.”

  241. Keid A says:

    evolution is parsimonious…..not conservative.

    These two categories are not incompatible. The shortest path to survival is usually to build on what already works. It’s because every intermediate step also has to be capable of survival. So you are always walking along the survival peaks and ridges in the probability landscape.

    Generally its because adaptive change is so long and difficult to acquire, that evolution hardly ever throws anything really useful away. All descendents of vertebrates are vertebrates, etc. This is why you have well-defined clades. They are defined by the conserved characteristics that they inherit from common ancestors.

  242. Obstreperous Infidel says:

    You’re a Muslim, you fucking moron. And yes, we still do have freedoms. I’m not suggesting you change. Your hypocrisy is noted is all.

  243. cranky-d says:

    I argue that conservative philosophy is more evolutionary (from the standpoint of the biological theory) than progressive philosophy. A conservative approach is to make small changes, and if they work, continue with those changes intact. If those changes don’t work, they should get thrown out. Progressives will make a change that feels good, and even when that change is a proven failure, will continue to insist that it will work if we try harder.

    A progressive can call her destructive policies and beliefs evolutionary, but it doesn’t make that claim true.

  244. Entropy says:

    “evolution goes one way…the direction of the arrow of time.”

    http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/genetic-drift.html

    http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn13617-evolution-myths-natural-selection-leads-to-ever-greater-complexity.html

    evolution.berkeley.edu/evosite/evo101/VIID1bTrendTowardComplexity.shtml

    evolution.berkeley.edu/evosite/evo101/VIIDTrends.shtml

    Also, I have this rock, his name his Hank, he is a crystal quantum computer given to the ancient Mayans by extra-terrestrial aliens, he cured my cancer.

    If only you conservatives understood science, you would understand.

  245. happyfeet says:

    the little president man’s command economy is not evolution it’s oppression and lots of American ones are going to lick it up and ask for more I think.

    Lots and lots.

  246. Entropy says:

    I mean, FFS… let’s not even consider that our concept of time is highly theoretical. That time is relative. Or a Many Worlds Interpretation which would mean that for every random or selected evolutionary mutation there is another equally valid parallel universe where the exact opposite happened.

  247. Entropy says:

    The very ideal of teleological progressive evolution is bad, inaccurate pseudo Pop-Sci on the level of right brain/left brain dichotomies, Freudian dream interpretation and ‘ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny’.

    Bad ideas never die. They just go to hell to regroup.

  248. Entropy says:

    If I had to guess, nishi has a pretty strong grasp on evolution.

    Oh hell no.

    You guess wrong.

  249. sdferr says:

    One source matter, Consequential Ideas, a review by Harvey Mansfield of Paul Rahe’s book, Soft Despotism, Democracy’s Drift: Montesquieu, Rousseau, Tocqueville and the Modern Prospect

    The question hangs. How does it stand with culture?

  250. BuddyPC says:

    Hey, you know who was a vanguard cultural warrior, of the practicing kind? Hitler.
    And John Wilkes Booth. And William Sickert. JW Gacy. Squeaky Fromme. Valerie Solanas. Jack Abbott.

    How’s that for crash-ending a webthread, Godwin?

  251. bh says:

    Entropy, I note nishi’s mistakes just as everyone else does.

    Fact is, nishi is a griefer. But, in real life, she’d be fired immediately if she babbled such non-scientific nonsense. Hence, I kinda figure she’s not as retarded as she acts online.

  252. sdferr says:

    Would she depilate her upper lip if the situation or need arose? One can only hope she has the correct sense of cool when the time is ripe. Is the judgment of the correct sense of cool up to her when that time comes? Is depilation at all interesting though? Not about nishi it isn’t.

  253. JD says:

    Prolly needs to depilate her pits too.

  254. baxtrice says:

    evolution goes one way…the direction of the arrow of time.

    Evolution is based on Natural Selection, in which an organism adapts to changes in his environment. there is no arrow, there is no direction. It’s about the organism’s habitat.

    also nishi, keep fucking that chicken.

  255. John Bradley says:

    also nishi, keep fucking that chicken.

    You never know what sort of exciting new species might result from the coupling. Evolution, baby!

  256. Squid says:

    I think we need to convince a few trendsetters that sticking a fork in a toaster is transgressive and cool.

    Go on, Nish — stick a fork in it.

  257. geoffb says:

    She is looking at the “Brownian Motion” of a culture and perceiving a pattern. But the pattern is one imposed on the random motion by her own internalized culture. Like seeing faces in clouds.

  258. Bob Reed says:

    we require valid, accurate data and scrupulous principled analysis of that data.

    See, you go do some work and miss the comedy gold…

    Pray tell nishi, if what you say is what science demands, then how can you explain the connivance that was perpetrated in the name of AGW?

  259. happyfeet says:

    don’t listen to Squid nishi it’s a trick

  260. bh says:

    Don’t listen to ‘feets, nishi, it’s a reverse trick.

  261. Alec Leamas says:

    don’t listen to Squid nishi it’s a trick

    Haha – reverse psychology – good one, happy.

  262. maggie katzen says:

    was reading an article about Pakistan last night and they mentioned that the majority of muslims there are Sufi. and I thought “that explains so much”. Thanks, nishi!

  263. Dread Cthulhu says:

    I have my own suspiciouns as to what the Tea Party movement really is — to use a physics metaphor, it is the rebounding wave of the hippie generation, coming back to bite them in the ass…

    You want “entropy,” Nishi? You may get that in spades.

  264. Squid says:

    Did anyone else read the survey Nish FartSmeller linked to? It shows that scientists under the age of 35 believe in a Higher Power (God or generic equivalent) at a much higher level than older scientists.

    How’s that demography thingie work, again?

  265. JHo says:

    Christianity requires the existence of a crude mechanistic anthropomorphic skyfather that spawned a biological son from a human woman, and apparently has a predilection for mucking around with cell biology.

    Even a rudimentary grasp of Christianity – not the cartoon, the essential spirituality – simply could not produce that rubbish. When you project a reality into existence, naturally you’ll flesh out the details.

    Congrats, child: being a “scientist” you’ve yet to asked

    why

    science. For you it’s turtles all the way down to your preconceptions.

  266. Squid says:

    Turtles! Now I know why happyfeet gets along with her.

  267. happyfeet says:

    nishi has a snapping turtle named gamera… me I have two sliders… they are brothers but both of them have an in the end there can be only one approach to the co-existencing. So if one of my turtles was name gamera I’d pretty much have to name the other one mothra. But instead I named the one turtle darwins after Charles Darwin, who I’m sure was fond of turtles, and I named the other one gapagus, after the islands where Mr. Darwin learned about evolutions.

    This is the story of the turtles.

  268. happyfeet says:

    *named* gamera I mean…

  269. bh says:

    What’s interesting (or was initially) about nishi is that I’d be willing to bet there is a spread of at least 30 points between her perceived and her actual IQ.

    So, why does she play so dumb? Well, maybe it’s because she really does consider herself a viral meme generator. Yet, the memes she wants to propagate are either purely illogical or just demonstrably false. If she presented them honestly as herself, she’d have to defend them and then admit defeat. So, instead, she presents them in the guise of a simple-minded leetspeaker and then she defends nothing and just moves onto the next set of memes.

    Of course, why doesn’t she recognize that her memes don’t spread after she introduces them? Why doesn’t she realize that she’s actually a vector of my Operation Poor Advocate meme? That, that I’m at a loss for.

    Nishi, why don’t you recognize the failure of your method? Or am I wrong and you’re not even of average intellect?

  270. Jeff G. says:

    I brought this up before, but to Nishi, it’s almost as if something like, say, nostalgia, or even memory, is actual time travel.

    Leaving aside the quantum implications of time’s “direction” being something other than a straight arrow, even were we to accept Nishi’s model of time, it makes no sense to suggest that just because something is happening in the physical now, it must refer to something new, or as something that is “progressing”– except in the rather generic sense that everything every new moment is something new.

    That is to say, were I to wake up tomorrow and convince a thousand people to move with me to a kibbutz — leaving behind all trappings of modernity (electricity, cell phones, etc.) — what I’ve done is followed Nishi’s arrow of time, inasmuch the decision and the relocation, etc., is “new”; but from the perspective of ideas or social arrangements, I’ve simply referred back to a past way of life as my structural guide.

    Is that not “cultural evolution”?

    Nishi conflates forward movement of culture through time with “newness.” And while it’s true every new moment is “new,” that’s not what she means by newness. Instead, she believes time moving forward results in some kind of inexorable “progress” that manifests itself in cultural indicators.

    Hogwash. Or else people wouldn’t be trying to bring back parachute pants.

  271. Nishi the Kingslayer says:

    shhhh…….Jeff they are on to you “conservatives.”
    26% does not an electoral quorum make…..and Gallup say 49% to 40% now approve of HCR.

    a taste……

    It was amusing to see the Republican party inveigh against health insurance reform as if they were a synod of Presbyterian necromancers girding the nation for a takeover by the spawn of hell. This was the same gang, by the way, who championed the Medicare Prescription Drug Improvement and Modernization Act of 2003, then regarded as the most reckless giveaway of public funds in human history. Along the way, they enlisted an army of nay-sayers representing everything dark, disgraceful, and ignorant in the American character. If the Republicans keep going this way, they’ll end up with something worse than Naziism: a party that hates everything but believes in absolutely nothing.
    The most striking elements of so-called health care in America these days is how cruel and unjust it is, and in taking a stand against reforming it the Republican party appeared to be firmly in support of cruelty and injustice. This would be well within the historical tradition of other religious crusades which turned political — such as the Spanish Inquisition and the seventeenth century war against witchcraft. Whatever else the Democratic party has stood for in recent history, it has tended to oppose institutional cruelty and injustice, and notice that it has also been the party for keeping religion out of government.
    Now a health care reform act has passed and there’s some reason to hope that insurance companies will be prevented from doing things like canceling the coverage of policy-holders who have the impertinence to actually get sick, which has been their main device for revenue enhancement, and we’ll see how they cope with the idea that being alive in a treacherous world is the fundamental pre-existing condition.

    nah nah hey hey
    HCR is here to stay
    it don’ matter what folks say
    as long they wont vote to take it away!

    And ‘feets……..blah blah blah wid bonus 3OH!3
    thass our area code, JeffieG
    local boiz made good.
    <3

  272. Nishi the Kingslayer says:

    blah blah blah

  273. newrouter says:

    it has also been the party for keeping religion out of government.

    except for gaia worship and islam

  274. Makewi says:

    Health Care will be far more just when the institution denying your hope to adequate service is the same institution that can lock you up for trying your own remedies. Thank God for big thinkers like you nishi, otherwise we wouldn’t know what the true meaning of cruelty is.

  275. Nishi the Kingslayer says:

    Is that not “cultural evolution”?

    Nope..that is cultural devolution….it is the artificial imposition of a transient low-entropy system.
    membah what happens to the Vickies in Diamond Age?

  276. Makewi says:

    The great part being that nishi has held herself up as the arbiter as to what shall count as evolution. Yer a petty wanna-be tyrant nishi, and the laughable part of all this is that those who were able to function and succeed in the horribly broken society will be the same ones who are able to function and succeed in this new grand “evolution”. You can’t fight entropy with a consensus definition of truth, as you will be finding out before long.

  277. bh says:

    nishi doesn’t believe any of this.

  278. Nishi the Kingslayer says:

    I wondered about that Makewi….like christian scientists that try to faith heal their Type I diabetic children who are dying in screaming agony.
    I expect there will be some insurance pool for those poor minors.
    But otherwise it will be just like uninsured adult drivers…don’t want automobile insurance? either dont drive or pay the fine when you get caught.
    Dont want health insurance Mr. White Evangelical Christian Scientist?
    pay the fine an go on wid joo faith healing.
    works for me.
    ;)

  279. SBP says:

    JeffG: Instead, she believes time moving forward results in some kind of inexorable “progress”

    The transition of the Roman state from Republic to Empire and the transition from Empire to Dark Age, must be utterly confusing to people like Nishbot.

    Nishbot:

    the teabaggers are digging their own demographic grave with this.

    Haven’t seen the Rasmussen poll lately, have you? Or, for that matter, the CNN poll. Or any other poll. November is going to be a fucking slaughter, nishtoon.

    membah what happens to the Vickies in Diamond Age?

    I “membah” that The Diamond Age is a work of fiction, yes.

    transient low-entropy system

    Stop using words you don’t understand, child.

  280. Rusty says:

    And while it’s true every new moment is “new,” that’s not what she means by newness. Instead, she believes time moving forward results in some kind of inexorable “progress” that manifests itself in cultural indicators.

    Kinda funny really because on sunday we took a giant leap into the middle of the last century. It is”new” to nishi because she has never experienced it before and has no historical context to compare it to, because all of her knowledge of history is subjective.

  281. Nishi the Kingslayer says:

    inexorable “progress” that manifests itself in cultural indicators.

    no that is not true…..it is an inexorable DIFFERENCE where mainstream culture tunes itself to the environment…..ie demographic representation reflected in culture.
    i am not talking about “progress” at all.

    SBP, seen Gallup?
    lets see the Party of Cruelty try to repeal benefits for sick children and small business owners.
    go on.
    bring it.
    hahahahaha

  282. SBP says:

    SBP, seen Gallup?

    That’s it. Cling to the very last cooked poll standing.

    Your tears will be delicious, child.

  283. Pablo says:

    lets see the Party of Cruelty try to repeal benefits for sick children and small business owners.

    Like the kids we just covered with SCHIP, and the small business owners that are now firing people in order to keep this monkey off their backs?

    Do you know anything about math, nishi?

  284. newrouter says:

    like christian scientists that try to faith heal their Type I diabetic children who are dying in screaming agony.
    I expect there will be some insurance pool for those poor minors.

    christain scientist and amish are exempt from hcr

  285. B Moe says:

    lets see the Party of Cruelty try to repeal benefits for sick children and small business owners.

    I work for a small business. Just got the word at a quarterly meeting tonight that one of the minority owners got laid off.

    That’s right, a fucking owner. Also found out today that commercial concrete is down to $65/yd in Athens right now. In other words, they are giving it away.

    Let’s see the party of idiots try to pay for those benefits during a Goddamn depression, you fucking retard.

  286. Makewi says:

    Yep, the diabetics that will die in screaming agony will be those that the government has decided are too old or too young, or just don’t have the right quality of life. Although it won’t really be screaming, because there will be pills and other help to ease your suffering.

    But don’t worry nishi, humans don’t change. The powers that be will always have a spot on the exception list for those who please them. Just keep practicing your kowtowing and your begging and I’m sure you’ll be fine.

  287. Jeff G. says:

    Okay, I’m done trying to reason with something who takes pleasure in the power of lies to mold reality.

    This isn’t a game, nishi. And some day real soon you’re going to start seeing that not everyone is interested in the kind of pseudo-intellectual masturbation you traffic in.

    You’re about to be mugged by reality. Lots of you are.

    Don’t say I didn’t warn you. It’s crazy, I know. But some really cruel people are just so very protective of their freedoms.

  288. Jeff G. says:

    .ie demographic representation reflected in culture.

    Because all blacks, or all hispanics, etc,. will always think and act the same, forever.

    Get lost, clown. Seriously.

  289. happyfeet says:

    Ke$ha is the voice of the Obama generation I think.

  290. bh says:

    That means Auto-Tune is the voice of the Obama generation.

    Hmmm… yep, that sounds about right.

  291. B Moe says:

    Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away. ~Philip K. Dick

  292. JHo says:

    Assuming the child is referring to it in the usual sense, it’s ironic that nuggie the namedropper mentions the arrow of time construct — thus parroting the incomplete take on states it naturally infers — when nuggie has no evident for a perspective on origins. Multiplying orange by a ham sandwich to get Celsius, is nuggie.

  293. JHo says:

    You’re about to be mugged by reality. Lots of you are.

    Sad that not only do some not see that others do, but that they cannot respect the talent.

  294. Mikey NTH says:

    #270 haps:

    I recall seeing a large turtle in Lake 3 (Youth Camp Lake) at Camp Dearborn. I was down at the swim dock with another guy, Bill H.; and we were pounding all of the nails down again before the kids got to the camp, and Bill looked down in the water and said something like ‘Holy Grit!’

    There was one big turtle, the shell about a foot from front to back. We herded it out of the water, got it into the back of the pick-up (amazing what you can do with a co-ordinated shovel lift), and then herded the turtle out of the truck bed and into the Huron River. That turtle looked less than happy when we got it out of the lake, but it was for the best (have you ever seen a turtle bare its jaws, looking from side-to-side to find something slow enough that it can bite? File that turtle’s attitude under ‘I am not amused’.)

    BTW – are you still keeping up with the ‘turtle times’, the Anna Maria Islander newspaper I linked to you about a year and a half back?

  295. Mikey NTH says:

    #273 Jeff G.:

    She is conflating. confusing, moving on with moving to higher and better. That is not necessarilly the case, because, for example, Germany in 1940 moved on from Germany in 1890.

    Biological processes cannot be extrapolated to human constructs such as societies. Much as religion is seperate from the human institutions called ‘churches’.

    One way be based on the other, but the two are not the same.

  296. happyfeet says:

    oh… no… that bookmark was on the pc what came to a bad end … I will google… got it…

    snappers are not to be trifled they’re nature and nature is treacherous… the slider ones are very very peaceful and unhostile except top each other…

  297. happyfeet says:

    *to* each other i mean

  298. Mikey NTH says:

    Glad you got that again, haps. They are very protective of the sea turtles there. And I like them – the turtles and the paper.

    (BTW – I think that big one got away, I didn’t see it again.)

  299. happyfeet says:

    I would like to go there. I’m very over the west coast.

  300. Mikey NTH says:

    Haps – geoffb told me you were. I am very much ‘Great Lakes’ which is nowhere the same with either salt water coast.

    But – darn it – I love Michigan so much.

  301. happyfeet says:

    I want to live in America again. I just don’t have any skills America needs.

  302. Pablo says:

    I’m really eyeballing Detroit property, post-collapse. That and the Dominican Republic, but the DR doesn’t really have the appreciation potential Detroit does, once it finally fails. I’ve got that penciled in for Jan 2013.

  303. happyfeet says:

    Michigan one of my best friends is from there. Either that or Indiana.

  304. Merovign says:

    Just a follow-up – the only thing worse than a drooling idiot is a drooling idiot with a superiority complex.

    And the only thing worse than a a drooling idiot with a superiority complex is a a drooling idiot with a superiority complex and an internet connection.

    It occurred to me during the whole idiot Insurance Takeover and General Pissing in America’s Cheerios Bill debate that a lot of leftists are like an ordinary competent person who just can’t tell the difference between addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. So they seem fine until you ask them “what’s two plus two” and they say “One hundred forty seven!”

    Nish is like that with math, science, language, spirituality, history, sociology, etc. All that random noise REALLY makes sense to her, because she’s a nutbag.

  305. Nishi the Kingslayer says:

    I dont think so SBP.
    what’s my average at this point?
    i predicted that Obama would be elected, that HCR would pass, that Palin would split her party on the IQ fault lines.
    i predict some losses for the dems but nowhere close to taking back either the house or the senate.
    i predict the troglodyte WEC base will so alienate hispanics and latinos from the GOP during the Obamnesty debate that even Marco Rubio will run from the teabaggers like a scalded cat.
    I predict Obama will pass bankstah reform and education reform during his presidency.
    And i predict you will nevah, nevah, nevah-evahevah repeal HCR, even when u get back into power in 40 years.
    ;)

  306. JD says:

    I predict that an orderly has lost his/her job for continually letting the genocidal twatwaffle to escape unmedicated.

  307. Squid says:

    I’d bookmark this bit of drivel, but it hardly seems worth it. I mean, where’s the thrill in showing a shallow amoral eugenicist moron just how wrong she’s been?

  308. Jeff G. says:

    I predict Nishi will look very surprised the first time she’s knocked down by someone who doesn’t much like the glee she takes in the losses of freedom we’re undergoing.

    I predict Nishi won’t have as much fun playing the griefer game once it becomes obvious that while she’s playing a game, many of us are not.

    I predict Nishi’s only real ally here, happyfeet, will soon join her on the “left.”

    I predict that Nishi doesn’t know who she’s fucking with.

    I predict Nishi will soon find it best not to post here anymore.

    I predict that I don’t much care about “blogging” anymore; I care about my family and my family’s future, and I see barren narcissists like Nishi as threats to my family — all because they get their kicks seeing how much they can connive their way into control and power.

    I predict having such an attitude as Nishi’s will turn out badly.

  309. John Bradley says:

    “This song will fade out, yes this song will fade out, yes the song will fade out… I Predict!”

  310. happyfeet says:

    I’m not a left person jeez I’m more upset than anyone about the dissolution of the American character. I’m just not impressed with Sarah Palin’s at all and I think it’s depressing that she has such a following cause that’s not the future, dumb Alaskan attention-whore bimbos.

  311. happyfeet says:

    oh. *Sarah Palin* I mean.. back later I have to do a thing Outlook says so

  312. Keid A says:

    Nishi, you are my favorite pull-string doll.
    Everything you say would be true.
    If only it weren’t the economy stupid.

    Even the IMF sees it.

  313. bh says:

    It’s good to see that SEK remains just as dishonest as we’ve come to expect.

    Btw, what’s with the pedophile beard, Kaufman?

  314. Jeff G. says:

    Kaufman sees “threats of violence” everywhere because that’s what effete pussies see.

    Does he think he’s going to shame me? I haven’t laid hands on anyone in the nine years I’ve been doing this. Has that prevented this fiction about my “violence” from being cultivated by those who want to dictate what is and isn’t a legitimate way to defend what you believe in? No. And that’s because I’ll never take the possibility of protecting myself and my family off the table. I actually believe freedom is worth fighting for. This is no game to me. And the truth is, Kaufman would shit his pants if he found himself in the same room as me.

    That makes me smile.

    You want to control peoples lives and choices with your policies and social rule book, you sanctimonious progressive fuck? You want to treat adults like children? Then you’d best be prepared for those rebellious teenage years.

    I’m your ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch cherry bomb.

  315. Xenocrates says:

    WTF is your problem? Didn’t Mommy love you enough?? Um, Jeff, rape is not a subject for humor, you asshole. Mebbe it’s time for someone to “fuck YOU with an ice dong” you raging piece of shit. Go fuck yourself, schmuck.

  316. McGehee says:

    Xeno needs a hug.

  317. DarthRove says:

    Xeno needs to stop clutching her pearls and take some smelling salts. The cushions on her fainting couch (with skirted legs, no doubt) are wearing thin.

  318. […] that, Jeff over at Protein Wisdom says:  Nuts. Those punk rock “liberal memes” we buttoned-up dorks are trying desperately to hold back are […]

  319. Jeff G. says:

    Where’s the rape, exactly?

  320. […] inimitable Jeff G brings it, as only he can: I mean, what teen in his rebellious stage isn’t going to embrace the edgy cries […]

  321. TallDave says:

    We’re seeing this discontent manifest itself in the anti-statist Tea Party movement, which sprang up out of nowhere to become the most energetic political movement in a generation. The statists’ attempt to paint a widespread popular movement as violent radicals is as telling as it is hypocritical coming from those who seek use Leviathan’s monopoly on state violence to crush every perceived social ill from behind badges and guns in a manner that would have made old Dzhugashvili’s mustache bristle with envy.

  322. […] Jeff Goldstein at Protein Wisdom: I’m getting a bit fed up with the insistence by statists that because they populate the arts and the academy, they have some kind of death grip on “hip.” For instance, here’s Nishi, whose only hope of ever really touching cool would be to pay somebody to fuck her once with an ice dong: Doughy Pantsload aka Jonah Goldberg is the antithesis of cool …. .he doesnt even get that there is NO CULTURE WAR …. there is only an evolution of culture event like glaciation or the extinction event at the K-T boundary. And the “classic liberals” are trying to build a snowfence out of pitchforks and torches to hold off a cultural glacier of liberal memes. Where are the conservative professors, filmmakers, comics, scientists, actors, artists? they don’t exist. […]

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