Republican “Science”

Posted on October 28, 2011 | 63 Comments

This kinda says it all:

http://media.mtvnservices.com/mgid:cms:video:thedailyshow.com:400760

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63 responses to “Republican “Science””

  1. Gavin's Pussycat | October 28, 2011 at 7:51 am |

    The amazing thing is how Noelle Nikpour doesn’t even ‘get’ how her leg is being pulled… you cannot make this up. Somebody should enlighten her… or not.

    Perhaps sick humour is the way to go… see also this

    [edit]

    [Response: Please no embedded video in comments.]

  2. Gavin's Pussycat | October 28, 2011 at 7:52 am |

    Oops… sorry. Didn’t intend the video to appear, just the link

  3. danolner | October 28, 2011 at 8:48 am |

    If you’re not in the US, it doesn’t say anything sadly. Lack of Daily Show over here (after channel 4 dropped back to the ‘global edition’) is almost enough to make me want to invade.

    • Observer | October 28, 2011 at 11:14 am |

      That’s not right. I’m in Germany and I can watch The Daily Show as well as Colbert Report without problems online via their CC websites.

      • bratisla | October 29, 2011 at 5:04 pm |

        agree, their website is complete (although sometimes it can be messy)
        Nothing beats Colbert Report in the ears at work, except when you roll on the floor laughing :]

      • bratisla | October 29, 2011 at 7:08 pm |

        Colbert Nation.
        And I lie in shame

  4. Leo Morgan | October 28, 2011 at 9:22 am |

    Can’t view that from my country.

  5. Bernard J. | October 28, 2011 at 9:42 am |

    Frustratingly, it doesn’t say anything at all in Australia…

  6. precip | October 28, 2011 at 10:07 am |

    Is it the same as this: http://bit.ly/vpfMzr

    This link works in Norway.

  7. pohjois | October 28, 2011 at 10:43 am |

    Is this Noelle Nikpour for real or is it just an actress playing a Republican activist?

    [Response: She’s “for real.” Which shows just how divorced from reality they are.]

  8. Richard C | October 28, 2011 at 10:46 am |

    Unavailable video – UK

  9. TC | October 28, 2011 at 10:57 am |

    There’s a Firefox add-on that I use to watch TDS in Europe called ‘Modify Headers’. Google that name and ‘The Daily Show’ and you’ll be watching the clip in no time.

  10. MartinM | October 28, 2011 at 10:57 am |

    Look up the ‘Modify Headers’ extension for FireFox. Should allow you access from outside the US.

  11. skythorn | October 28, 2011 at 11:24 am |

    even trying super clever web proxy servers failed to help us in Australia … or is this all part of the plan :/

  12. Robert | October 28, 2011 at 12:26 pm |

    In Canada you can use the comedy network online

    • anna haynes | October 28, 2011 at 4:05 pm |

      Thank you Blue Dog’s Eyes (and Kevin).
      Sampler of interview dialogue from the BDE post (as future linkrot amelioration)
      Noelle Nikpour “Scientist are the only ones qualified to comment on scientific theory!”
      Daily Show Interviewer Aasif Mandvi “That would be like surgeons being the only ones being allowed to perform surgery.”
      Noelle Nikpour, “That’s exactly right, it doesn’t make any sense.”

  14. Martin Smith | October 28, 2011 at 1:32 pm |

    You can watch the Daily Show in your browser at http://www.thedailyshow.com

  15. Jeffrey Davis | October 28, 2011 at 2:15 pm |

    What’s the endgame?

    Alaric comes and sacks the city.

  16. Scrooge | October 28, 2011 at 2:50 pm |

    Wasn’t it cheney who said that if people were somewhat educated they voted republican but if they got to educated they voted democrat. You would think that would be a wake up call. Instead the dumbing of America becomes plank in the GOP platform.

  17. DSL | October 28, 2011 at 5:25 pm |

    As if to confirm the idiocy of certain segments of the U.S. population, Noelle’s supporters in the blogosphere are claiming that she was in on the joke–that she intended to represent the Republican party in such a way to the tens of millions of young people, libs, lefties, brave righties, score card bloggers, et al. who watch The Daily Show.

  18. Jay Pettitt | October 28, 2011 at 6:36 pm |

    Damn you, location based content restrictions >:(

  19. WhiteBeard | October 28, 2011 at 7:13 pm |

    Not defending the woman, except to say the clip at the link is satire. It was a recorded performance. Way to seamless, slick and pointed a dialogue to be unscripted. I fear some have a self parody detector needing calibration. Most People know what the Daily Show’s nature is. It’s performance commentary, not literal documentation.

    [Response: I think you need to update your “nothing says parody like reality” meter. Regular viewers of the Daily Show know that they don’t need to script or prompt the guests in their clips — let idiots speak for themselves and they’ll make themselves look idiotic far better than comedians could ever do.]

  20. Lou Grinzo | October 28, 2011 at 7:23 pm |

    Assuming this is on the level, that consultant in the video seems to be a type we’ve all run into at least a few times. She’s not the sharpest tack in the box, but she’s willing to say basically anything to get ahead in her “career”, without even trying to overcome her preconceptions and personal goals to look objectively at the ramifications of her actions.

    Or, as I so often point out online, there’s a certain portion of society that thinks “I’ve got mine, f*** everyone else” is a perfectly acceptable approach to almost every situation in life.

  21. spottedquoll | October 28, 2011 at 8:06 pm |

    Occasional reader, first time poster, the vid should be viewable to Australian readers on: http://vimeo.com/31199049 (at least it works for me)

  22. Pangolin | October 28, 2011 at 9:00 pm |

    In Noelle’s defense it’s pretty much apparent that she is willing to sell, well, pretty much everything, body, mind, soul, and intellect (or facsimiles thereof) in order to get hers.

  23. Ray Ladbury | October 28, 2011 at 9:54 pm |

    OK, I would point out that Noelle did know she was being interviewed by Comedy Central… I mean, I know they are the most serious journalistic enterprise left in the country, but, interviewees are briefed and know the questions verge toward absurdity. Colbert tells his interviewees, “You realize that I am a professional idiot, don’t you?” Methinks she may not have been fully aware how absurd she sounded, but I don’t think she was expecting to be taken seriously either.

    OTOH, you can find plenty of idjits who actually do have such anti-science and anti-reality views. There is plenty of evidence to hang the anti-science label on the Republicans right now, but this isn’t part of it.

    [Response: I disagree. I think she said what she meant and she meant what she said. The Daily Show just gave her the rope with which to hang herself. The fact she was so ridiculous that you wonder whether she was being serious, is another example of “truth is stranger than fiction.”]

    • anna haynes | October 29, 2011 at 12:24 am |

      Hmmm…upon watching ithe 2009 performance, strike my question above please.

    • Rattus Norvegicus | October 29, 2011 at 1:02 am |

      Maybe she’s, in the immortal words of Willis E., a media whore. A demonstrably stupid media whore, but a media whore nonetheless.

      • Ray Ladbury | October 29, 2011 at 10:52 am |

        Rattus,
        I would respectfully ask that you refrain from using the word “whore” in connection with a woman. It demeans women and creates an atmosphere where misogynic sentiments find a home. I know this was not your intent, but atmospherics are important when it comes to making minorities feel “safe”.

      • Louise | October 30, 2011 at 2:24 pm |

        Ray – since when did us women become a ‘minority’?

      • Gavin's Pussycat | October 30, 2011 at 2:25 pm |

        Ray, you’re the one connecting the word ‘whore’ with women… do you really want to restrict the use of a well established metaphor to males only, for political-correctness reasons? Wow.

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woman_Is_the_Nigger_of_the_World

      • Gavin's Pussycat | October 31, 2011 at 9:17 am |

        I would add that whores the world over have reason to find the metaphor insulting… I don’t know any of them personally, but from the job description they don’t sell their intellectual integrity for money ;-)

  25. W Scott Lincoln | October 28, 2011 at 11:33 pm |

    They did one of these segments on Dr Gene Takle at ISU after he released research on average wind speed reductions in the north central US. They made it seem like he was going to be interviewed on the Daily Show in a mostly serious way to present his science and its implications… instead he was on one of these sarcastic segments and it belittled the great work that he does. On a side note, he was one of the nobel prize winners for his work on the IPCC.

    • Rattus Norvegicus | October 29, 2011 at 1:56 am |

      Egads, she’s dumb as a stump in her column too!

    • Bernard J. | October 29, 2011 at 4:09 am |

      I’ve not seen the enponymous film, but I would understand what someone might mean if they where to inform me that Nikpour is ‘legally blonde’…

      The thing is, people buy it.

      • Kevin McKinney | October 31, 2011 at 2:05 pm |

        Bad comparison. In the film, Reese Witherspoon’s character is anything but dumb, handily solving personal and legal problems and outsmarting the abusive Victor Garber character. (Just because she likes toy dogs, the color pink and all things cute doesn’t mean she can’t eat your (or my) lunch.)

    • Philippe Chantreau | October 29, 2011 at 4:34 am |

      I liked this one on Noelle’s column: “A couple of states to the north of Florida is South Carolina.”
      I guess Georgia just became a couple of states. Oh well, who’s gonna know in her target audience anyway?

    • John Mashey | October 29, 2011 at 7:20 pm |

      This episode has added a new item to the list of fine understatements, perhaps worthy of British style, but from Arkansas Business was

      “Something about Nikpour’s image just didn’t scream policy wonk.”

      (The image was the one they had carefully saved before it got deleted.)

  27. Hank Roberts | October 29, 2011 at 6:29 am |

    > “A couple of states to the north of Florida is South Carolina.”

    One, Georgia.
    Two, South Carolina.
    Two is a couple, right?
    Second one going north, so there must be two.

    Just like a wagon “a couple of logs light of a load” lacks more than one log — as she illustrates quite well.

  28. David Griffiths | October 29, 2011 at 10:26 am |

    Crazy. She’s in the same league as Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann.

    On the other hand I was deeply impressed by the kids at the science fair. Perhaps all is not lost.

    PS the vimeo link above (spottedquoll) works in the UK.

  29. barry | October 29, 2011 at 2:24 pm |

    I’d say she was being sincere (she’s not that good an actress). There were a couple of false cutaways to the interviewer near the beginning. But some of the later, priceless stuff was unedited. Ye Gods!

  30. adelady | October 29, 2011 at 2:32 pm |

    I’m not sure just how pleased I should be about the vimeo link working in Oz. She’s pretty awful.

    I was sure the hardware chains of the world had enough bags of hammers to go round. We really don’t need any more.

  31. Jbar | October 29, 2011 at 4:23 pm |

    That woman is ancephalic.

    • Jbar | October 29, 2011 at 4:29 pm |

      I thought cephalic meant “brain”. Means “head”. I meant “no brain”, not “no head”. See, a scientist would have known that. That’s why we need them. They know stuff. ;-)

  33. Donald Oats | October 30, 2011 at 7:57 am |

    Streuth! Definitely driving with the handbrake on…

  34. Jim Bouldin | October 31, 2011 at 11:07 am |

    Oh man, that was, top to bottom, the most hilarious thing I’ve seen in a while.

    Nikpour: “Ah think, every American, if they *reeeeally* thought about it, would have a *gut* feeling, that some of these numbers that the scientists are putting out….are naht raht [waves index finger slowly back and forth]”
    Manvi: “I *knew* it, I knew it, I kn……I mean I didn’t *know* it………but I **KNEW** it!”
    Nikpour: Big smile of satisfaction of having enlightened the unaware with her brilliant analysis.

    Friggin’ priceless in all respects. And right on the money as social commentary.