Having Faith in Our Leadership

A headline caught my eye on the CNN ticker this morning: “Poll: More disapprove of Bush than any other president”. While this doesn’t surprise me, I did find the details interesting:

A CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey released Thursday indicates that 71 percent of the American public disapprove of how Bush is handling his job as president.

“No president has ever had a higher disapproval rating in any CNN or Gallup Poll; in fact, this is the first time that any president’s disapproval rating has cracked the 70 percent mark,” said Keating Holland, CNN’s polling director.

“Bush’s approval rating, which stands at 28 percent in our new poll, remains better than the all-time lows set by Harry Truman and Richard Nixon [22 percent and 24 percent, respectively], but even those two presidents never got a disapproval rating in the 70s,” Holland said. “The previous all-time record in CNN or Gallup polling was set by Truman, 67 percent disapproval in January 1952.”

While Gallup polling goes back to the 1930s, it wasn’t until the Truman years that they began surveying monthly approval ratings.

CNN Senior Political Analyst Bill Schneider adds, “He is more unpopular than Richard Nixon was just before he resigned from the presidency in August 1974.”

President Nixon’s disapproval rating in August 1974 stood at 66 percent.

Absolutely amazing.

Five Years Later

Yesterday marked the fifth anniversary of the Iraq War, and served as yet another reminder of the colossal misuse of time, energy, and funding:

Iraq War Cost

And where the money could have been spent:

Iraq War Could Have Bought

(c)2008 The New York Times Company

Daylight Not-So-Saving Time

daylight-saving-time.jpg For most of the people in the United States, Sunday, March 9, 2008, marks Daylight Saving Time, a period when clocks are pushed forward one hour to try and lengthen the amount of daylight in any given afternoon. We then set the clocks back one hour in the fall to re-center our collective Qi.

Aside from being a complete annoyance in the spring (who wants to lose one hour of sleep?), its presence has been made even more troubling since the passage of the Energy Policy Act of 2005. Among other energy-policy pork projects, the bill altered the points in the year during which the clocks are changed — effective in the fall of 2007. Thus, this March is the first time we’re changing our clocks three weeks ahead of schedule.

Many consumer electronics with on-board clock microchips that are supposed to auto-detect the DST change (VCRs, DVD players, etc.) were “confused” in the fall when we changed the clocks a week later than usual, and likely will be confused again tomorrow morning. Unless those electronics were manufactured after the law was passed, or they are actively connected to some internet- or radio-based time server, they will keep humming along one hour off until the date they originally would have changed; April 1, in this case. Our electronics were trying to be smart, but we found a way to fool them!

But the reason for this post was not a rant on technology, but one on economics. Using the state of Indiana and its 6 million inhabitants as a proxy, researchers at UC Santa Barbara have started to analyze the economic impact of the change in our DST schedule. Preliminary conclusions find out that it may be costing us more for this additional month of daylight adjustment, rather than the hoped-for net reduction in energy usage and health costs.

How much, you ask?

Something to the tune of $8.6 million per year in higher energy bills, plus up to $5.3 million per year in “increased pollution costs.” Extrapolating that across the entire U.S. would certainly add up quickly. Professor Matthew Kotchen’s publication gives the details, and it’s well worth the read.

Questions to Ponder

Question Mark A light post to cut through the stress of a Friday:

  1. Can you cry under water?
  2. Why do you have to “put your two cents in,” but it’s only a “penny for your thoughts?” Where’s that extra penny going?
  3. Why does a round pizza come in a square box?
  4. How is it that we put man on the moon before we figured out it would be a good idea to put wheels on luggage?
  5. Why is it that people say they “slept like a baby” when babies wake up like every two hours?
  6. Why do people pay to go up tall buildings and then put money in binoculars to look at things on the ground?
  7. Why do doctors leave the room while you change? They’re going to see you naked anyway.
  8. Why do toasters always have a setting that burns the toast to a horrible crisp, which no decent human being would eat?
  9. Why does Goofy stand erect while Pluto remains on all fours? They’re both dogs!
  10. If Wile E. Coyote had enough money to buy all that ACME crap, why didn’t he just buy dinner?
  11. Why is “bra” singular and “panties” plural?
  12. If corn oil is made from corn, and vegetable oil is made from vegetables, what is baby oil made from?
  13. If electricity comes from electrons, does morality come from morons?
  14. Did you ever notice that when you blow in a dog’s face, he gets mad at you, but when you take him for a car ride, he sticks his head out the window?