UK's Former NOBLE Royal Society slips down slippery slope of politics

From "No Frakking Consensus", thanks to Canadian pal BIG BIKE MIKE

In recent years the world’s oldest science academy has been taken for a joyride. Three centuries of neutrality have been impulsively abandoned.

Yesterday a new report was released that...takes a close look at the misbehaviour of the world’s oldest science academy.

The UK’s Royal Society was founded in 1660. For more than 300 years...it “adopted a position of aloofness from political debates, refusing to become embroiled in the controversies of the day.” Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, the society’s journal explicitly declared that it was not the job of that organization:

to give an official ruling on scientific issues, for these are settled far more conclusively in the laboratory than in the committee room.

But in recent years, while few of us were paying attention, the Royal Society was taken for a joyride. Three centuries of tradition were impulsively abandoned.

Pronouncements are now issued from the mountaintop about who is right and who is wrong regarding scientific questions. Moreover, the Society has become a hive of political activity – releasing press statements, making demands on politicians, criticizing democratically elected presidents in foreign countries, and harassing corporations.

This body now appears to be just another arm of government (its main source of funding) promoting the global warming party line.

For example, the Society has made numerous statements about climate change that are scientifically dubious. One example is a BBC television show narrated by its current President, Sir Paul Nurse. Montford [Andrew Montford, the author of The Hockey Stick Illusion and the Bishop Hill blog] writes:

"A large section of the programme was given over to a defence of the global warming hypothesis, with evidence for the ‘consensus’ position presented by a NASA scientist named Bob Bindschadler …Bindschadler embarrassingly claimed that manmade emissions of carbon dioxide dwarfed natural ones, when even the [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's] own figures show that the opposite is true.

"The error was later acknowledged by Bindschadler. But that doesn’t change the fact that the president of the Royal Society knows so little about the subject matter on which he was lecturing the rest of us that he failed to notice this howler."

The Society also now meddles in realms in which it can claim no expertise at all – for example, economics.

[WAVE comment]: The despairingly abysmal depths this once noble organization has sunk to is not an unshared realm. All one has to do is note how many "above reproach" societies, groups, and organizations have gravitated to the politically correct AGW scam/hoax (which in essence is just another attempt by the New World Order* hacks to redistribute wealth and coalesce power).

It has been noted that it takes an average of 200 years for a society/government to fail. How long for an entire civilization, we wonder. After all, we are not dinosaurs, who had a run of about 180 million years. Humans? About 5000-6000 years. It's not looking good...

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* New World Order article published HERE, looks sort of loony, but you know what "they" say: behind every stereotype and conspiracy theory is a kernel or three of truth. We will leave it for you to decide how much...

Bill Murray: Celebrity with a brain -and- a heart?

"Take care of yourself, try to help others."

"I think we ought to be personally responsible," he said on CNBC's "Squawk Box" Friday morning. "I think if you can take care of yourself, and then maybe try to take care of someone else, that's sort of how you're supposed to live.

"I think we've sort of gotten used to someone looking out for us, and I don't think any other person is necessarily going to be counted on to look out for us."

Murray opined that many seen to forget the discipline early Americans needed to have just to survive.

"Occasionally, it seeps in that they came in wagons from Illinois to Oregon or whatever. That they came in wagons and the wheels broke."

He said this image leads to thoughts such as, " 'Gee, that must have been hard for those women to push that wagon up that mountain.'

"And that's what they had to do," he said. "There was no option but to do it yourself, to have your own responsibility."

Personal responsibility. Imagine.

Murray also had opinions about the current political campaigns and criticized both parties for their partisan bickering.

"They spend all their time just trying to destroy the other guy, not to work together, but to humble and humiliate the other so that they can't have success.

"It's not working to serve anyone anymore," he added. "I don't want to sound like a Rotarian, but if you're not some sort of common good, and you're only servic[ing] your sort of partisan alliance, you're part of what's destructive, you're destroying something."

Full story HERE.

As Bill O'Reilly might say: "Bill Murray, PATRIOT."

Again, WE'RE SHOCKED!!!

Pelosi might have skirted House ethics rules on campaign solicitations...

Just when you think obama would want to avoid STUPENDOUS blunders...

[from Drudge and other reports]

Archbishop: Obama Needs To Stop 'Intruding Into Internal Life Of Church'...

Top Republican vows to end WH attack on 'religious freedom'...

Catholic nun pleads with Biden to 'fix' ruling...

RUBIO: 'We will do'...

Rubio: [...this is] "the first time" an administration has clashed with faiths over matters of conscience and said if the president doesn't change his mind on the issue, "we [Congress] will have to do it for him."

CHURCH LEADER: JAIL OVER OBAMACARE...

Obama struggles to stifle uproar...

Obama forms super PAC he once decried

Catholic League Poised To Go To War With Obama Over Mandatory Birth Control Payments

Catholic Leaders Blast White House’s Take On Contraception Debate Negotiations Time Frame

Senate GOP pushes to shield faith groups from contraception rule


And then you get this report which can only encourage libs and frustrate conservatives:

SHOCK POLL: 20% of Republicans leaning to Obama?


[WAVE comment] What a crazy world we live in...

But things are looking up...

JACK IN THE BOX unveils new bacon milkshake packing 1,081 calories...

In the interest of full disclosure and a keen nose for investigative fact-finding, The WAVE -will- check this out and report back to you! You know, like before Michelle ANTOINETTE tries to ban it, along with bread.

More bad news for Algore and the AGW (global warming) scammers/hoaxers

POLAR ICE CAPS MELTING LESS THAN THOUGHT...

STUDY: Himalayas, nearby peaks lost no ice in past 10 years...

Scientists 'stunned'...

UPDATE

'I Feel Duped'...

More folks on government teat

This will come as no surprise to anyone paying the least little bit of attention to the ongoing attempt by the obama administration to further socialize and create government dependence, but we're going to tell you anyway.

From Investors Business Daily (IBD) HERE:

The American public's dependence on the federal government shot up 23% in just two years under President Obama, with 67 million now relying on some federal program, according to a newly released study by the Heritage Foundation.

The increase under Obama is the biggest two-year jump since Jimmy Carter was president, the data show.

The rise was driven mainly by increases in housing subsidies, an expansion in Medicaid and changes to the welfare system, along with a sharp rise in food stamps*, the study found.

"You can't get around the fact that policy decisions made over the past two years, on top of those made over the past several decades, are having a large effect on the pace of growth of the index," said William Beach, who authored the Heritage study.



*NPR, your friendly liberal media source, says this about Newt Gingrich and the "food stamp president" remark: Gingrich criticized Obama for the growth in food stamps, calling him "the best food stamp president in American history." He later said that "the fact is that more people have been put on food stamps by Barack Obama than any president in American history." We've rated that Half True because the number was headed upward before Obama became president.

Factcheck says: Gingrich goes too far to say Obama has put more on the rolls than other presidents. We asked the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition service for month-by-month figures going back to January 2001. And they show that under President George W. Bush the number of recipients rose by nearly 14.7 million. Nothing before comes close to that.

And under Obama, the increase so far (story date Jan 18 2012) has been 14.2 million. To be exact, the program has so far grown by 444,574 fewer recipients during Obama’s time in office than during Bush’s.

The WAVE will comment that Bush was president for 8 years; obama has been in for 3. Do the math. Can't? Let us help.

Bush food stamp adds per year: 1,837,500

obama food stamp adds per year: 4,733,333

Get it now?

One picture = 1000 words

[Thanks to RKK]

No caption needed.

Fact-Checking the President: Truth... or Fiction.. or in-between???

Fact or Fiction Number 1 - The Booming Economy: Obama's Jobs Story

Fact or Fiction Number 2 - Obama's Plan for Foreclosures

Fact or Fiction Number 3 - The American Auto Industry is Back

Fact or Fiction Number 4 - Debt Serious: Obama's Plug for Students

Fact or Fiction Number 5 - The Rich, Their Secretaries and Taxes

Fact or Fiction Number 6 - Soaring Energy Production and Advances in Offshore Drilling

Fact or Fiction Number 7 - Overseas Tax Breaks

Fact or Fiction Number 8 - The Tax Man Is Hereth: Can Obama Tax the Rich to Save the Debt?

Fact or Fiction Number 9 - Manchurian Trade Rate: Who Took on China More?

Fact or Fiction Number 10 - A Milk Spill Was Equal To An Oil Spill In The Eyes of Federal Rules

Fact or Fiction Number 11 - It's Getting Hot in Here: Obama Repeats a Demand to Tone It Down

Fact or Fiction Number 12 - Can President Obama Stimulate the Stimulus and Use the War Funds to Pay Down the Debt and Build New Roads?

Interesting reading, but it's from ABC News, so bring your salt shaker.

State of the Union Address: "...insinuation of blame, proclaiming fantastic results, grandiose promises..." = BS

Fred Barnes, The Weekly Standard: "...mostly the speech consisted of an effort to make a big deal out of not much.

"[in his speech] in Osawatomie, Kansas, in December, ... he didn’t pull his partisan punches. Last night, he did.

"The president called on Congress to pass the payroll tax cut “without delay.” He didn’t mention that House Republicans approved exactly that last year, only to be forced to go along with the Democratic Senate that extended the tax cut for two months. Both parties now agree on a full year’s cut. So relax, Mr. President.

"Obama urged passage of legislation to reduce energy waste by manufacturers that, he claimed, would save $100 billion over 10 years. But do manufacturers really need to be incentivized to save costs of that magnitude? Chances are, they’re already doing it.

"He came out strongly for a law against insider trading by members of Congress. A smaller problem would be hard to find. He’s for doubling the number of work-study jobs for college students. But does this really require presidential attention?

"Then there were the hardy perennials. The president said he’d sign an executive order cutting red tape that slows down construction projects. Red tape always takes a beating in State of the Unions. And he’s ordering federal agencies to eliminate regulations that don’t make sense. The problem is federal agencies think their regulations do make sense. Thus serious deregulation won’t happen.

"Presidents from George Washington’s time have given historically significant addresses. State of the Union speeches rarely qualify. Until the presidency of Woodrow Wilson, they didn’t deliver them. They were written. That’s a practice Obama should consider reviving."

Jim Geraghty in Morning Jolt (NRO): "I figure Obama might see a bump in his numbers from this speech, because he basically said he can deliver utopia in exchange for some tax hikes on millionaires."

Los Angeles TIMES: "Obama delivers a confrontational State of the Union address - Obama opened an election-year debate on the role of government that could be more intense than any in decades.

"Warning Congress that "I intend to fight obstruction with action," he painted a confrontational picture that stands in sharp contrast with the conciliatory approach taken by the last Democrat to seek a second term, Bill Clinton."

Jon Henke tweeted (@JonHenke): "[The State of the Union Address] is a President's New Year's Resolutions. Lots of promises, mostly abandoned a few weeks later."

What is the SOTUA all about? Matt Welch at reason.com sums it up pretty well:

"Why does every SOTU sound eerily familiar? Because presidents have been saying the same things for a half-century. We can be pretty sure Obama will talk about improving the economy, creating jobs for the 21st century, achieving energy independence, improving our schools, confronting America's enemies, championing the global cause of freedom, tackling long-term entitlements, and building bipartisan coalitions to rise above political bickering and do the people's work, at this hinge point in history.

That's because every State of the Union has contained all or most of these nostrums stretching back a half-century. In fact, starting with John F. Kennedy's address to a joint session of Congress in 1961, you could take one sentence from each SOTU since, in chronological order, and cobble together a speech that will likely resemble much of what you'll hear tonight. (see Welch's full prediction of what the SOTUA would contain, and then compare to what was actually delivered. Pretty accurate!)

For our part, we enjoyed some Big Bang Theory and Frasier re-runs. Rather than a SOTUA re-run.

Have a nice day!

EXTRA! EXTRA! WAVE predicts State of the Union Address!!!

OK, not really -our- prediction. We're going to steal a line from a very smart guy, Larry Sabato.

His best? "...presidential bluffing with high stakes, but what choice does [he] have?"

Predictions from a bunch of "experts" HERE

Media hypocritcally censors FREEDOM OF SPEECH

Newt the Warrior lashes out at media again. And AGAIN, he's right.

From NYT, HERE:

Gingrich...on Tuesday morning threatened not participate in any future debates with audiences that have been instructed to be silent. ...[On] Monday...Brian Williams of NBC News asked the audience of about 500 people who assembled for a debate in Tampa to hold their applause until the commercial breaks.

In an interview with the morning show “Fox and Friends,” Mr. Gingrich said NBC’s rules amounted to stifling free speech. In what has become a standard line of attack for his anti-establishment campaign, Mr. Gingrich blamed the media for trying to silence a dissenting point of view.

“I think [Brian Williams] took them out of it because the media is terrified that the audience is going to side with the candidates against the media, which is what they’ve done in every debate.”

[WAVE comment]: And, we might add, the censorship imposed by NBC resulted in a debate that proved a good substitute for Sominex or a healthy does of tryptophan.