Here’s one for Lou!  Seriously, this is a good discussion of what we used to call peer pressure, but what they now call ‘Social Proof’.  Excellent comment on the YouTube thread:

“There aren’t a lot of functioning democracies around the world that work this way where you can basically have millionaires and billionaires bankrolling whoever they want, however they want, in some cases undisclosed. What it means is ordinary Americans are shut out of the process.” Barack Obama, White House press conference, Oct 2013.

Breitbart London, James Delingpole reporting:
“Yes, indeed. But the millionaires and billionaires doing the damage are Obama’s allies on the liberal-left, not his enemies on the right. So says a devastating report published today by the US Senate Committee on the Environment and Public Works.
(more…)

… and of course the media will just, well, cover for him.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama defiantly dared congressional Republicans on Tuesday to try to block his efforts to act on his own and bypass a divided Congress that has thwarted his policy initiatives.
“So sue me,” he taunted on a sweltering day, as he pushed lawmakers to pay for road and bridge repairs. “I’m not going to apologize for trying to do something.”
Obama struck an aggressive tone in the face of a lawsuit threat from House Speaker John Boehner and in the wake of two defeats before the Supreme Court, including a unanimous decision from the court that he overreached when he appointed members of the National Labor Relations Board while the Senate was in recess. (more…)

(Via The Daily Caller) This may come as a shocker to some, but scientists are not always right — especially when under intense public pressure for answers.

Researchers with the IUCN Polar Bear Specialist Group (PBSG) recently admitted to experienced zoologist and polar bear specialist Susan Crockford that the estimate given for the total number of polar bars in the Arctic was “simply a qualified guess given to satisfy public demand.”

Crockford has been critical of official polar bear population estimates because they fail to include five large subpopulations of polar bears. Due to the uncertainty of the populations in these areas, PBSG did not include them in their official estimate — but the polar bear group did include other subpopulation estimates. (more…)

(Via WFB)  CNN’s international correspondent Jim Clancy called the West Point response to President Obama’s meandering foreign policy address “pretty icy” Wednesday.

Clancy said it was “not really a great speech to give at the U.S. Military Academy,” and the address has drawn bipartisan criticism.

“It was a philosophical speech,” he said. “It was not a Commander-in-Chief speaking to his troops. And you heard the reception. I mean, it was pretty icy.” (link)

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I’ve been reading articles for years now about energy initiatives in Great Britain, in a politically-motivated effort to force green energy on the citizens of the British Isles.

Today The Daily Caller News Foundation published this report:
Energy wars: Britain faces massive blackouts due to green politics (more…)

“March of the Phlegm-quins”  
The original Russian Vessel now abandoned, stuck in the ice;  the Chinese rescue vessel now abandoned, stuck in the ice;  the Glo-bull scientists are transferred to ship #3 an Australian Ice-Breaker.
CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — An Australian icebreaker carrying 52 passengers who were retrieved from an icebound ship in the Antarctic resumed its journey home on Saturday, leaving behind another two icebreakers trapped in pack ice.

The Aurora Australis will continue its interrupted resupply mission to Australia’s Antarctic base Casey Station before returning to the Australian island state of Tasmania in mid-January with the rescued scientists, journalists and tourists.
It had been slowly cracking through thick ice toward open water after a Chinese ship’s helicopter on Thursday plucked the passengers from their stranded Russian research ship and carried them to an ice floe near the Australian ship. But on Friday afternoon, the crew of the Chinese icebreaker that had provided the helicopter said they were worried about their own ship’s ability to move through the ice. (more…)

They left a Russian ship (leased by Australians) which was stuck in the ice, via helicopter, and were ferried to a Chinese ship (leased by more Australians) for evacuation.
Now they all sit on the Chinese Ship “The Snow Dragon” which is,….
…. wait for it,….. 

…… also stuck in the ice. 

(Via Telegraph) A ship which was used to rescue by helicopter 52 people from a trapped Antarctic   ship has now found itself in need of rescue – after it got stuck in   heavy ice.

The Green Ice Trackers, who were studying the scope of Antarctic sea ice, are stuck in the Ice because the Antarctic sea ice has grown too large to escape; the ice is at record breaking magnitudes.    Two rescue attempts have failed.  The ship will have to be abandoned and scientists rescued by Helicopter.
http://abcnews.go.com/International/stranded-antarctic-ship-prepares-helicopter-rescue/story?id=21365679
The Antarctic sea ice has never been as vast as currently recorded.  But the daily humor is inside the reporting the scientists are making while stuck in the record breaking ice.   “Sea Ice Is Shrinking Due To Global Warming“….   D’oh ! Pay no attention to the record breaking stuff around us…  it’s shrinking,… swear.

No, this is not a spoof – it’s an actual news story.   There are many people in Iceland who take their belief in Elves very seriously.
Very seriously.

The Nordic island’s “Huldufolk” or “hidden folk” affect construction plans so regularly that the road and coastal administration has come up with a stock media response for elf inquiries.
It reads: “Issues have been settled by delaying the construction project at a certain point while the elves living there have supposedly moved on.”
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