October 2010 archive

“The Edge… There is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over.” — Hunter S. Thompson

Leading up to the 1994 midterm elections, Bill Clinton’s job approval measured by Gallup was 46%. The Democrats subsequently lost 53 seats in the midterms that year.

Barack Obama’s presidential job approval for the last week of September was 44%. Historically in any midterm year with a president with a job approval below 50%, his party has suffered major midterm losses.

Congressional job approval measured by Gallup for the last week of September was 18% – the lowest congressional approval measured by Gallup going back through 1974.

Leading up to the 1994 midterm elections, Congressional job approval measured by Gallup was 23%. Again, the Democrats subsequently lost 53 seats in the midterms that year.

Gallup’s generic ballot – simply asking registered voters which party they plan to vote for – was tied for the last week of September at 46% for each party. Galllup’s historical data indicates that when the generic ballot is tied, Republicans are more likely than Democrats to turn out at the polls.

29 Sept. 2010 | Gallup’s Editor-in-Chief Dr. Frank Newport reviews four key indicators of midterm election results – all of which suggest the Democrats are likely to lose a significant number of House seats in November:

I and many others, including Michael Moore the other day, have many times stressed that the only way the Democrats can turn things around and not only save themselves but the country too in November is to start producing progressive results.

Obama and the Democrats have a month. I’d suggest they get busy.

Laura, Thom Hartmann, and others from Free Speech TV will be hosting live coverage of the One Nation, Working Together rally in Washington, DC all day today, October 2, 2010.

Right wingers and liberal Democrats both love to say that I advocate for some kind of nebulous utopian dream.

 from The Progressive Dilemma in the Diary What to do now? by tahoebasha3

The terms Utopia and utopian are often used as terms of disparagement, and not without reason. Massive social experiments based excessively on theory or reason have wreaked social havoc from The Terror during the French Revolution to the Maoist Great Leap Forward in the 1960s and 1970s. Yet one of the most dramatic Utopian experiments was never so labeled. The fact is that both Classical Economics and Neo-Classical Economics were/are utopian systems. In this sense Adam Smith predates Classical Economics. He was more practical and descriptive. Benthan, James Mill and Ricardo were prescriptive and axiomatic. And the economic system they created was, in fact, utopian, but of the dystopian flavor for all but the very wealthy. The 20th Century extension of Classical Economics — Neo-Classical Economics — retains all of the original utopian features despite the problems it has been shown to exhibit. Between them, Classical and Neo-Classical Economics as applied in the UK and the USA constitute the longest running Utopian experiment of which I know. We need to understand this history, which has been actively shunned, in order to understand where we are and where we are headed, unless we can change direction.  

WHAT A WAY TO GO

Ko-ko, a 14-year-old male giant panda at Kobe’s Oji Zoo, died after being given an injection as part of an artificial insemination process.

The National Diet Library is pioneering a kinder, gentler, safer method of pest control by using carbon dioxide to kill bugs and their larvae.

A 24-year-old man and his 19-year-old buddy were being held on suspicion of robbery causing death in Chiba after they allegedly cycled past a woman on a bike and grabbed her purse out of her basket. The woman lost control of her bike and died after smacking her head on the pavement.

Sakuranbo Primary School, scheduled to open next spring in Yamagata, will change its name after officials were informed that a porn website went by the same moniker. The local mayor said they didn’t want “suspicious people showing up when the children are walking to and from school.”

Can’t decide which genre you like best?  Does this list include Southern rock, soul music, blues and country music? This week’s selection covers all four bases, temporarily delaying such a choice.

This week’s song, released in 1970, provided an early and convincing glimpse of the considerable success that this group was to achieve.  Although the original group never release the song as a single, four subsequent cover versions by other artists would reach the charts. The original group continues to include this song in its playlist during their live concerts, which continue to the present day.  

This evening President Obama apologized to Guatemala’s President for human STD experiments conducted on Guatemalan prisoners, army trooops and mental hospital inmates.  Earlier today, Secretary of State Clinton and Health Secretary Sebelius tendered similar apologies.  The news of the experiments, which had been kept secret from the subjects and Guatemala’s government, has evoked a firestorm of criticism in Guatemala.

The events in question took place 64 years ago, and they were an egregious, secret series of human rights violations, that were “clearly unethical”.