Feisty!

Bidet face? Full of win. "Ass face" has always been one of my favorites, but I'll upgrade now.

Saw that on the Inrernet News this morning. Watched it several times and it is obvious that she deliberately knocked the glass toward him and his reaction were swift and warranted. Balkan justice for tempered "ass face"?

Ah--see, that's one of the reasons the moderator should always sit in between the two candidates...

Since bidets aren't well known in the U.S., perhaps we could use "toilet head" as a readily comprehended substitute.

Holbach,

Absolutely! The warranted response to someone deliberately spilling some water on your pants is to throw something in their face and pray for a corneal scratch.

I've always thought that Romanian is one of the coolest-sounding languages around. I looked into studying it in university, but sadly, Latin was as close as I could get.

So... Ceauşescu. He must've been some dictator. Very bad. Very, very bad.

A highly emotional Romanian debate, not too bad. You know who is really feisty in debates? South Korean lawmakers are. They just don't throw water at each other, but throw a few punches which then turns into a brawl. I think both debates have been watching too many outdoor soccer events...lol

The Ukrainian parliament has been known to debate somewhat passionately, too.

Hooray for video of jerkass politicians and snark aimed at Matt Nisbet.

I just love how epically Nisbet fails by his own standards. He tells everyone they have to frame public statements with an eye to not upsetting the audience and then makes his whole audience hate him. It's genius.

Framing "framing" to scientists would have been doable if he didn't fail so hard. At least to the point where people were willing to think seriously about the idea. It just needs talking about in terms of pedagogy. Neil Tyson did it well in that video where Richard Dawkins says "fuck". Paraphrasing - "Just telling people things that are true isn't all you need to do to be an educator".

Instead he does exactly what he say scientists do at their worse in communications which was put everything it terms his audience found obnoxious: political spin and PR. Scientists pride themselves on a commitment to unbiased objectivity. Obviously they will hate talk of PR techniques.

The fact that he then went on to tell EVERYONE to STFU didn't help, either.

Yeah, it's been a hundred and fifty years since anyone in Congress has hit another congressman with a cane. Sad, really.

I wish our congress would fight like some of the parlaments in other country's. Might get the entreanched old f*%#'s out faster if they knew they might have to go a few rounds with someone. Plus it would draw more people to watch CSPAN.

It certainly is an evocative turn of phrase. But my commenters have settled on the epithet "Joe Lieberman" to describe Nisbet.

Careful there PZ, Nisbet has decreed that the conversation is over, the topic has been covered and that it's "Time to move on!" Since (as he keeps telling us) he is the communications expert around here I guess that means we, rhetorically thumb-fingered boobs that we are, must stop pointing out what a sheer barking narcissist he is and talk about something else now.

Can we vote him off the island or something?

Um, people, being that Romanian is a Latin-based language, "bidet-face" means more than you think it does. What does a bidet do? It washes the genitals and the anus. So a "bidet-face" more accurately translates to "cocksucker/asslicker" than simply to a remark about the ugliness of someone's face.

That explains the reaction.

ema @ 5
A corneal scratch from water? How am I to interpret your respnse to my comment? Thrown water is a lot easier and not as destructive as a thrown punch. Care to elaborate, or is any reaction unnecessary to your thinking?

I wish our congress would fight like some of the parlaments in other country's

My money is on Henry Waxman to be in a corner crying like a baby and Harry Reid to shrivel into a fetal position.

Now, Pelosi, she's pretty scrappy, she could be the last man standing.

All governments should have an "official" ass kicker, or two... one female and one male. Maybe pick them from American Gladiators. If you can't be civil, you get a good shit kickin'.

Corneal from water? Try frozen water.

Somebody stole my scratch,
My sentence failed to hatch,
Where did it go, I miss it a lot,
It must have been a bot.

Corn eels is tasty.

When I was in about 5th grade I could write Egyptian hieroglyphics. It was the usual stuff that was based more on political praise of the Pharaohs than anything in depth. Hieratic was more often used in more complex daily communications. Despite this, I was able to put on a display at my school showing the basics as a history project.

My teachers wanted to know if I could speak "Egyptian" as well. I did not quite know how to explain to them how hard that was relative to writing hieroglyphics, but I was also trying to study Coptic at the time to learn how the old languages might have been spoken there.

When asked if I could say anything, I referred to my teacher as, "Mer Mish Met" (if I remember right) which meant, "To have a great crocodile likeness." From that day on I found it rather fun to insult people I did not like using dead languages...

Holbach,

Interpretation: Throwing something (anything!) into people's faces is not appropriate.

At the risk of beating a dead horse (hey, I'm Canadian: what do we have to do up here once the hockey game is over?), I'd like to ask why, in light of the fact that he knows more about effective communication than the god he doesn't believe in but kowtows to anyway, nobody but the nutless Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum (to be fair, Sheril's got an excuse for being nutless) can stand Nisbet.

I've never much liked the little turd, but my dislike morphed into open hostility and disgust when I read his favourite introduction is the Uncle Remus-like "Yes, I'm an atheist; but I'm a friendly atheist."

Just typing that shaved sixty-two days off my lifespan.

In case you don't see it, let me snowclone it:

"Yes, I'm black; but I'm a peaceable black."

"Yes, I'm a Jew; but I'm a magnanimous Jew."

"Yes, I'm a woman; but I'm a calm and collected woman."

"Yes, I'm a homosexual; but I'm a non-child corrupting homosexual."

Hey, I guess you gotta do whatever it takes to make you favourite in Massa's eyes, Matt.

(Note: there are others that qualify their self-applied atheist descriptor with 'friendly', as in the title of the blog by Hemant Mehta. I may or may not disagree with them on any number of issues, but I don't find them insulting. It's one thing for an atheist to criticise us militants or the nature of the science-religion discourse itself; it's quite another for an atheist to build onself up by furthering the negative stereotypes of other atheists.

Hmm. I think I now see why Nisbet's so conciliatory toward cdesign proponentsists: neither has anything to say besides criticism of others.)

I wish our congress would fight like some of the parlaments in other country's

I'd like to see 91 year old Robert Byrd fight 85 year old Ted Stevens. The Daily Show did a Coot Off, but I'd like see how a physical fight would go. This would have to be very soon on account of Ted Stevens being voted out/convicted of felonies and both of them being really close to death.

Stevens could beat Byrd with some internet tubes, and Byrd probably learned some good fighting skills while a member of the KKK.

At least other lawmakers in other countries have the balls to get physical. In America, these octogenarians simply send young men to do their fighting in other countries.

I just love how epically Nisbet fails by his own standards. He tells everyone they have to frame public statements with an eye to not upsetting the audience and then makes his whole audience hate him. It's genius.

LMAO!
I tried posting a comment on his blog once and it didn't get through. It wasn't even close to being harsh. From what I hear though Nisbet routinely does this. Looks like he just wants things "framed" his way.

"Yeah, it's been a hundred and fifty years since anyone in Congress has hit another congressman with a cane. Sad, really."

I really wish people wouldn't use this example of pro-slavery violence as how we should govern :(

I prefer ass-hat and dick-wit

Name-calling. Tsk-tsk.

Note: there are others that qualify their self-applied atheist descriptor with 'friendly', as in the title of the blog by Hemant Mehta.

I've actually seen people comment on some blogs saying, "I like it here because you don't do as much Christian-bashing as Hemant Mehta does", or words to that effect. It's one special case of the general theorem that on the Internet, there will always be somebody who is pissed off by what you do. (A corollary states that there also exists at least one person who is whacking off to what you do. . . but that's a different discussion. "I do have this secret fantasy. OK: Richard Dawkins is the sexiest man on Earth, and PZ Myers comes in barely second. . .")

Hmm. I think I now see why Nisbet's so conciliatory toward cdesign proponentsists: neither has anything to say besides criticism of others.

Zing!

Maybe Mike Behe and Bill Dembski can donate a couple laudatory quotes for the dust jacket of Nisbet's forthcoming book.

Incidentally, I was struck by this remark from Nisbet:

I personally don't have the motivation or the time to engage in an endless blog debate about these issues. I've linked my main post to a forthcoming 30 page book chapter that explains in detail my alternative strategy.

"It's all there in my book!" Sounds familiar. The Einstein-was-wrong crackpots should sue for copyright infringement. :-/

Real men throw orange juice with vodka.
And if that doesn't work, tell their bodyguard to shoot the guy!

I did not know that Bill O'Reilly spoke Romanian.

Of Bidet faces, the US top one (you guessed it!), wants to be remembered as 'liberator.'
Looks like he got it a bit confused, because the kind he'll be remembered as is the equivalent of a B-24 'Liberator', the ones that bombed enemies into submission and devastated everything in their way.
Article is here: http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=081128185323.mpq7bsa8&show_arti…

The portrait of 'the liberator' of Iraq most remembered could be this one: http://www.stagelite.com.au/US_Democracy_Bush-style.htm

At the risk of being provocative, I say that I think Scott Hatfield's recent framing in a Christian radio interview would've been approved of by Dr. Nisbet.

Nisbet is an asslicking scumbag.

Is that a bit too harsh? Too fucking bad.

He's an asslicking scumbag. If that hurts his pwecious widdle feewings, then he can stop being an asslicking scumbag.

The only frame Nisbet has formed successfully is the one around his pointy head. You know, the one squeezing what passes for his brain into jelly.

Sometimes, the truth hurts. That's just the way it goes.

There is some history here that you people are not aware of. The guy's nickname is "bidet", he supposedly stole a toilet seat from the party headquarter. He's a real cook! When the LHC was started, this guy gathered signatures to petition EU to stop the experiment ... he's afraid of little black holes. He's freaking STUPID!

These two were initially in the same party, but "Bidet" left (or was thrown out). But they are both obnoxious politicians. This is the same lady who shouted in the parliament to an opposition mp : "You shut up! Now we are in power!"

This is fun for entertainment, but it's actually sad for Romanians, because when voting we have to choose between various stupid people. There is a shortage of nice people running for office.

Ferrous Patella: Why is it that you need to insult the Romanian language?

PZ, no "bidet face" is not a common Romanian insult. It is only when taken in context with the history of this idiot.

Matt Heath #9

I just love how epically Nisbet fails by his own standards. He tells everyone they have to frame public statements with an eye to not upsetting the audience and then makes his whole audience hate him. It's genius.

For a professional communicator with a PhD in the subject, Nisbet is not particularly effective at communicating.

No -- bidet-face is not a common insult in Romanian (I am a Romanian and I should know :-). Those in this YouTube clip are supposed to debate politics (and sometimes they really discuss politics, that is, when they don't throw water in their faces.) That being said, politics in Romania is kind of weird anyway.

"So...is 'bidet-face' a common Romanian insult?"

I'm pretty sure Bajoran-face is a common Romulan insult. (rimshot)

That being said, politics in Romania is kind of weird anyway.

What do you mean with "weird" ? For example, weirder than in the US, France, Germany or the UK ?