blog « The Irate Nation

Re: the President’s poll numbers

Jay Cost, "Another Look at Obama's Job Approval" - from the article: The polls generally find Obama's overall job approval higher than his approval on various issues....One can't help but wonder if a legislative success on the health care package will result in a further decline in the President's job approval rating.

Lots more discussion at the link, all of it fairly thoughtful - it's hard to be dismissive of polls if they can consistently yield this sort of information. I haven't linked to this at my blog because it's not something I can comment responsibly on; electoral politics is not my field. There is a recent entry that might be of interest to TIN readers; "Re: Some Open Questions for Conservatives" - a friend has a survey-type post asking what exactly makes a conservative. The essential part of her prompt is quoted, as well as my response. Helping her out with responses is welcome.

Tagged as: Approval, article, blog, care, Conservatives, COST, Decline, electoral politics, Health, health care package, Jay, Job, job approval rating, legislative success, look, Obama, polls, success, survey type, TIN No Comments

Lots of complaining…

Over at my blog, Links, "Critical of President Obama Edition" - it's a terrible title, I know. There's a link or two I've shared here (i.e. the one on health care "reform"), but a few things on the debt, the terror trial in NYC, and Afghanistan that you probably want to check out.

I don't have much more to add. I don't worry about what's happening in DC as much as I worry about the ability of the electorate to grapple with issues, and while the President's poll numbers are tanking, I'm definitely not seeing that disgust turn into anything productive. People know they don't like where the Democrats are going, but seem to be unable to articulate an agenda which addresses problems. We're gonna need more of the latter if the GOP is to become a serious party again. For all the complaining about the GOP, they've done an admirable job even while being battered by both the extreme Right and the whole of the Left; look up the much-maligned Lindsey Graham's skewering of Eric Holder if you don't believe me.

Tagged as: admirable job, Afghanistan, blog, care, disgust, Edition, electorate, Eric Holder, extreme right, Gop, Health, health care reform, Lindsey Graham, link, links, Obama, poll numbers, President, s poll, title 1 Comment

Veterans Day in Retrospect…

...and a few other links.

Over at my blog - Veterans Day, 2009: David Sullivan shares his experience. From the article: In Portland, Oregon this past Wednesday I went to my first Veterans Day Parade. I served from 1964-1968 on active duty in the Navy, then from 1979 -1996 in the Navy Reserve. This was the first time in 42 years I did not have to work Veterans Day.
"Who Needs Mathematicians for Math?" - crazy liberals in the field of Education have bad ideas, money and influence. Not a good combination.
"Chavez's Economic Problems Turn Nasty" - a case study in populism and tyranny.

Wasn't online much last week, and kinda glad I wasn't. The news is always repetitive, but sometimes moreso than other times, and being a blogger one has to roll with the news cycle. Sometimes that can be excruciating. Just hope the reading I did away from the computer will turn into more thoughtful blog entries.

Tagged as: active duty, article, blog, chavez, David Sullivan, day, duty, economic problems, experience, good combination, navy, navy reserve, news, Oregon, Parade, populism, Portland, portland oregon, Veterans, veterans day, veterans day parade, Wednesday No Comments

“Bloggers for Sarah Palin” Links, Part Final

There are lots of worthy blogs on the "Bloggers for Sarah Palin" blogroll, but I've featured 9 already on TIN, and the list below adds 5 more. I want to move on to another blogroll at least, though: some of the content has gotten really repetitive.

If you're a blogger and you want me to review your blog or feature a post, drop me a comment. There's no guarantee I'll link to you, but a comment means you get to do a bit of self-promotion, and I'll definitely take a look at what you've written.

Without further ado, 5 more posts you might like:

motorcitytimes.com, "Lingenfelter 455 T/A Concept Heading to SEMA" - I don't know much about cars, but this looks cool.
Pundit & Pundette, "Virginia's Taliban Ticket" - Democrats in Virginia have been using some rather desperate and heated rhetoric recently.
Motivation: Truth, "Sarah Palin & Election Day Reminder" - fta: Today is Election Day, and the eyes of the nation have been on three important races in particular: the race in the NY 23rd Congressional District, the gubernatorial race in New Jersey, and the gubernatorial race in Virginia.
Jefferson's Rebels, "Missionary Media Muddy the News" - fta: Today, the media has become the issue, and muddied the flow of information with its partisan advocacy. Over many years, I have watched this evolution in journalism with frustration. Night after night I have cursed the television or the newspaper because journalists will not ask the hard questions I need answered. Even worse, they stack the deck with like-minded people and clearly take sides, especially on political issues.
House of Eratosthenes, "Why is Blogging such a Boys' Club?" - fta: So I’m reading this sob story... as you might expect, the sob story was sobbing away wondering why the sobbingly sad sisters of bloggerdom were outnumbered by us cruel heartless blogger men.

Plenty to read above, but if that's not enough, over at my blog there's a commentary on Federalist 1 and another on Federalist 9 that serve as an introduction to the reasoning behind the Constitution.

Tagged as: Amp, blog, blogger, blogroll, boys club, comment, Congressional District, day, election, Election Day, eratosthenes, federalist, fta, gubernatorial race, Jefferson, New Jersey, NY, Race, Rhetoric, Sarah Palin, self promotion, today, Virginia No Comments

“Bloggers for Sarah Palin” Blogroll Links, 11/2/09

Frugal Cafe Blog Zone, "Eye-Gouging Thuggery on Football Field" - fta: Yes, it’s another “Hall of Shame” video capture of unsportsmanlike conduct… an embarrassing CFOYT: Captured Forever On YouTube thuggery moment...
This was an interesting find - a blog of an author who has written about the "pioneers" (his term) of Christian rock. Take a look: Goldfish and Clowns
Some really pretty pictures at Half-Baked Sourdough: The Septober show
From my blog: Jefferson's Epitaph, Education and the Enlightenment Republic

- rant ahead -

I do want to say that I'm encountering a disturbing number of posts on many blogs that are dismissive of swine-flu, and that's just stunning to me: yeah, I know people who caught this, and it's not some joke. Vaccination is a good thing and I want big government to get its act together and get the vaccine out and distributed. Vaccines work best when everyone takes them, because not all vaccine doses take. It's occurring to me that there is a strain of conservatism that holds that if something isn't directly experienced, it must be nonsense. Even without big government, the United States is a gigantic country with a multitude of interests and challenges - to some degree, the more conservative one gets, the more one is in opposition to the United States itself; the Federalist talks less about states' rights and more about the advantages of Union when making the case for the Constitution. My point is simple: everyone has the right to some degree to have a few ideas that are out there or a bit crazy. It's a free country. But we're social animals and what we do even to ourselves absolutely can make other people's lives miserable. I'm for winning in Iraq and Afghanistan, but the 85,000 Iraqi dead from the years of the occupation is a ghastly number: there's not one other country that lost more people in the War on Terror, and look at how we scream when any American life is lost (and compare the number of our war dead from both wars). Please think before embracing a political position - we're not judged by what TV pundits rant about or a few articles on the Internet say, but whether we thought of others and worked for them.

- rant over -