Rasmussen finds that only 25 percent of likely voters think the financial bailouts were a good idea. A full 56% think they were out-and-out a bad idea. [Note: the 19% who are still undecided on the issue should have their voter registration cards taken away. How can you not have an opinion on this vital issue by now?

Unsurprisingly, political insiders don’t share this view:

There also continues to be a strong divide between the Political Class and Mainstream voters. While a strong majority of Mainstream voters are still against both of the bailouts, at least half of the Political Class think they were a good idea.

This dichotomy is supported by a recent Politico poll:

Only 27 percent believe the country is headed in the right direction, compared with 61 percent who think the nation is on the wrong track. Likewise, when asked whether the national economy is heading down the right or wrong track, just 24 percent chose the right track, compared with 65 percent for the wrong track.

Yet among the 227 Washington elites polled, more think the country is on the right track, 49 percent, than the wrong track, 45 percent. On the economy, 44 percent of elites think the country is on the right track, compared with 46 percent who believe it is not.

Politico also found that compared to mainstream Americans, the political elites were more supportive of Obama, less supportive of Palin, and tended to think of the Tea Party movement as a “fad”. And that’s just sad.

Further, a Bloomberg poll shows that 7 out of 10 Americans see even more joblessness and an increasing deficit, believing that the country is mired in recession.

Seven of 10 Americans say reducing unemployment is the priority. At the same time, the public is skeptical of the Obama administration’s stimulus program and wary of more spending, with more than half saying the deficit is “dangerously out of control.”

If Obama’s “stimulus” had actually created jobs instead of rewarding failure, the recession might be in the rear view mirror and public opinion would be much different. Instead, 70 percent think the economy is still in recession and 13 percent think we are headed for a double-dip. Meanwhile, real unemployment hovers just short of 22 percent.

Amity Shlaes compares today’s economy with that of 1932, the end of Hoover’s presidency and just when things started getting better. She notes that although there are factors that differenciate the two, there are a number of similarities. Read the whole thing, but here’s the money quote:

The takeaway from 1932? Resetting the euro’s criteria for existence and member countries’ obligations when it comes to bailing out one another should happen sooner rather than later. Democrats and the president should ignore unions and cut trade deals with Latin America. John F. Kennedy, a Democrat, supported tax cuts. Obama can too, or at least block rate increases. The president might also want to suppress his lawyer- Keynesian reflexes and reconsider policy when it comes to wages. But the 1932 crisis talk actually impedes such consideration.

If anyone believes that these can take place in today’s partisan environment just hasn’t been paying attention. Get settled folks, this recession isn’t going away any time soon.

Technorati Tags: Bankrupting America, Bailouts and Other Bad Ideas, Stimulus and Other Failures, Rising Unemployment in America, Unions and Other Drags on the Economy, Political Elites and Other Yammerheads, Barack Hussein Obama the Dangerous Choice

400 years ago today Galileo demonstrated his telescope to a group of Venetian merchants.

A refinement of models first devised in the Netherlands, Galileo’s slim, brown stick was puny even by the standards of something one might buy in a hobby shop today. But his eight-powered telescope, and the more powerful models he soon produced, when pointed skywards led Galileo to a series of groundbreaking conclusions.

The moon was not, as long believed, completely smooth. Another planet, Jupiter, also had moons. Meanwhile Venus showed a range of moon-like phases, something which could not happen if both it and the sun orbited the Earth.

This latter phenomenon had been predicted by Nicolaus Copernicus when, nearly a century before, he had proposed the notion of a planetary system with the sun at the centre, not the Earth.

HT to Google, whose main-page logo commemorates the event.Technorati Tags: Galilei Galileo, Telescope

An anecdote from Presidential Diversions, by Paul Boller:

President Grant’s favorite recreation involved horses. He like to drive as well as ride, and he brought a competitive spirit in his driving. He loved to sit on the edge of his seat in a light racing buggy, pull the brim of his slouch had down over his eyes, lean forward until his arms and shoulder were just above the dashboard, and then, speaking a few words to the magnificent trotting horse in front of him, sweep past every other driver on the road. Once, when he was speeding along a street near the White House, a policeman arrested him for driving too fast. When it dawned on the officer that he had arrested the President of the United States, he started apologizing. President Grant interrupted him. “Officer,” he cried, “do your duty!” So the policeman fined him, took his horse and carriage to the police station and let Grant walk back to the White House.

Yes, times change.

In their book Generations: The History of America’s Future, 1584 to 2069, William Strauss and Neil Howe identified four generational archetypes that appear again and again, one after another in an unbroken cycle. Lately:

• The "GI" generation (born 1901-1924) which fought and won WWII fit the Hero/Civic archetype, whose principal endowment activities are in the domain of community, affluence, and technology. Members of Hero generations are conventional, powerful, and institutionally driven, with a profound trust in authority.

  Heroes threw off the yoke of English rule, ended slavery in the civil war and saved the world from the Third Reich. Hero leaders include Gurdon Saltonstall and “King” Carter; Thomas Jefferson and James Madison; John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan.

• The Silent generation (born 1925-1942) belong to the Artist/Adaptive archetype, whose principal endowment activities are in the domain of pluralism, expertise, and due process. Members of this generational type are subtle, indecisive, emotional and compromising, and often have to deal with feelings of repression and inner conflict.

  Artists settled America and lived in suburbia in the 60s. Their best-known leaders include: William Shirley and Cadwallader Colden; John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson; Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson; Walter Mondale, and Colin Powell.

• Baby Boomers (born 1943-1960) belong to the Prophet/Idealist archetype, whose principal endowments are in the domain of vision, values, and religion. Members of Prophet generations are values-driven, moralistic, focused on self, and willing to fight to the death for what they believe in.

  Prophets bring social change and wage righteous wars. Their best-known leaders include: John Winthrop and William Berkeley; Samuel Adams and Benjamin Franklin; James Polk and Abraham Lincoln; and Herbert Hoover and Franklin Roosevelt.

• Generation X (born 1961-1980) belong to the Nomad/Reactive archetype, whose principal endowments are in the domain of liberty, survival, and honor. Members of this archetype are ratty, tough, unwanted, diverse, adventurous, and cynical about institutions.

  Nomads raise hell when young and exhibit get-it-done leadership as adults. Leaders belonging to this group include Nathaniel Bacon and William Stoughton; George Washington and John Adams; Ulysses Grant and Grover Cleveland; Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower.

Whether you agree with Strauss and Howe’s work or not, their groundbreaking theories revolutionized generational thinking and has given historians a new way to look at modern history.

Blogging on Harvard Business, Tammy Erickson wonders Which Generation Will Give the U.S. Its Next President?

She notes that Strauss and Howe showed that Hero/Civic and Prophet/Idealist generations have historically produced the most U.S. presidents. The GI or Greatest Generation gave us Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, and the first Bush. The Silent generation has produced to vice presidents but no presidents. If elected, John McCain will be the first and probably last president from that period.

She then continues that Bill Clinton and George W. Bush are both Boomers from the Prophet/Idealist generation, and argues that Barack Obama is a Boomer as she uses the dates 1946 – 1964. Even using the traditional dates (1961 is the beginning of Generation X), one could argue that Obama (born 1961) is a cusper and identifies more closely with Boomers than Xers.

From this, Erickson makes some interesting observations:

Are there insights from this for today’s candidates? I’m struck that the Boomer candidates who seem to resonate the most strongly today seem to be those who can strike a strong idealistic chord. Obama and Huckabee’s strength certainly seems to stem from their articulation of strong values. Clinton’s victory speech in New Hampshire signaled a shift in this direction, as she described how she has now “found her voice.” This is perhaps not a time for emphasizing civic themes — building new programs and institutions — but touching idealistic hearts.

Will there be a future president from the next Strauss and Howe cycle, the “reactives” — in this case, Generation X? Possibly. Both Truman and Eisenhower came from the previous cycle’s generation of reactives. However, Strauss and Howe, in 1991, predicted that this generation’s term of presidency, if it occurs, won’t begin until 2020 — reflecting the likelihood of a continuing string of Boomers at the helm for the next decade.

After that, very likely, the next long stretch of presidencies will come from the next round of “civics” — today’s Generation Y.

Delving into prophecy using generational theory is a fascinating endeavor, and one can certainly argue that Strauss and Howe got it right when, in 1991, they accurately predicted trends in the behavior of the Millennial generation.

In The Fourth Turning (1997), Strauss and Howe predict a time of great crises from which the next Hero generation will have to face, the Millennials. While many see the darkening of our future as something to fear, I find that viewing it as just another cycle of history makes the future less uncertain, in spite of not knowing exactly what the crises will be.

And I take great comfort in the thought that a generation of Heroes will be ready to overcome adversity. May they be as great as the last generation of Heroes.

Cool Invention: We just bought a Dyson vacuum, and it is indeed a superior product. Now Dyson has come up with a better way to dry your hands. Cool.

Cloaking: Lenses that bend light “the wrong way” could lead to an invisibility shield — or maybe just better glasses.

Now that’s black! How about a surface that reflects no light.

Self-healing plastic skin: next stop, robots that bleed.

Synthetic Life: Scientists have created a new life by transferring genetic material from one bacterium into another. Once perfected, it is hoped that they can create custom microbes designed to produce fuel or eat up oil spills.

Ancient Rome — digitally restored.

Faster Ocean Waves: Global warming is making “planetary waves” move faster. Sounds like a good source of energy, to me.

Fast Matter: Scientists have clocked matter shooting out of a dying star at 99.999% the speed of light.

No Black Holes? The event horizon of black holes contradicts quantum mechanics, and two researchers think they can explain what really happens: black holes are really just black stars.

3 Petaflops: IBM’s Blue Gene/P supercomputer can do 3 quadrillion operations a second, or 3 petaflops. It can do 1 petaflop continuously in real-world operations.

Air Muscles: Japanese robot maker Squse unveiled a robotic hand weighing only 14 ounces with five human-sized fingers and artificial fibres that can be controlled by air pressure delicately enough to pick up an egg without breaking it.

DARPA Arms: But DARPA is overseeing the development of prosthetics that give feedback for pressure and eventually even temperature.

Tetrachromat: Some women may have four colour receptors rather than the usual three.

Blood Pressure Vaccine: A Swiss company claims to have a vaccine that combats high blood pressure. Just a shot every six months.

Marijuana Works: A double-blind, placebo-controlled trial indicates that pot helps HIV-positive patients gain weight, is well tolerated and does not impair cognitive performance. Think anyone stubbornly fighting medical marijuana is listening? Me either.

HIV Hope: Two advances in the multi-billion dollar War on AIDS. First, scientists have engineered an enzyme that appears to attack and remove the HIV virus from an infected cell. Second, there are prostitutes in Nairobi that are immune to HIV. Research indicates the women have unique protein molecules that help cells identify foreign invaders.

Fantastic Voyage: Israeli scientists have created a tiny robot that can navigate through tubes the width of human veins and arteries. It crawls along with tiny arms, and could even go upstream. A nice idea, but it’s a long way from medical deployment.

Nuclear Rockets: A scientist says using nuclear rockets will mean building the moonbase in 9 trips instead of 12 and will save $4.5 billion. A few modifications on the 40-year-old technology would mean not “spewing radioactivity” on Earth.

Opportunity Descending: Mars rover Opportunity is about to crawl into Victoria crater. It has been investigating from the rim since last September. Watch a cool NASA animation about the crater.

Smart Cooking: A new theory says cooking meat made our ancestor’s brains bigger. Way to go Homo erectus!

Giant Penguins roamed the earth 40 million years ago in Peru.

Erectus Rising: Speaking of Homo erectus, it is thought that our ancestor starting settling down about 10,000 years ago. But a German professor claims to have evidence that this actually started happening about 400,000 years ago. That changes everything.

Kitty Roots: Research indicates that domestic cats came from wild cats that interbred over 100,000 years ago in the Middle East. All I know is that if I see any of my cats facing east six times a day, I’m going to shoot the little bastard. That’s all I need, a furry terrorist under my own roof. Careful, they’re cunning!

B
ad Burqa: God created us naked for a reason. Turns out that Muslim women who cover themselves completely are deficient in vitamin D, which others get from the sun. In other words, strict Islam makes women sick.

Hatshepsut Found: In the “find of the century”, the 3,000-year-old mummy of Queen Hatshepsut has been found. Hatshepsut was Egypt’s most powerful female ruler, often appearing in a fake beard.

Peanut Butter Diamonds: Yes, it’s possible to squeeze and heat peanut butter until it turns into a diamond. But this isn’t really news — we’ve been doing it for the last 50 years.

Changing Stripes: A tiger may not be able to change its stripes, but Jupiter can. New images from the Hubble and the spacecraft New Horizons. And speaking of stripes, this is the strangest looking zorse, ever.

An objective review of the movie 300, subtitled The story behind Frank Miller’s ’300′:

Nevertheless, with its digital scenery, its monstrous villains, its muscular, superheroic Spartans, and its Matrixesque high-speed camerawork, 300 is a genuine spectacle, for good and ill. It creates a lurid phantasmagoria of Thermopylae, a fascinating, bizarre hallucination which concentrates the mind on the Three Hundred’s brutal fate–as well as the drama of free men choosing to fight and die to oppose a tyrant’s army.

Those interested in how the movie compares to what actually happened should read it.

For those really interested, I recommend Last Stand of The 300 on the History channel. You will get an understanding as to just how pivotal this battle really was.

Otherwise, you can try this 4-minute video on the History Channel’s site. Some of the “facts” differ from those in the documentary, and the sound was a little garbled for me. Still, fairly interesting.

One of every seven Brazilian legislators are being investigated on charges ranging from corruption, embezzlement and bodily harm to manslaughter — and that’s only taking the federal courts into account.

Claudio Abramo, of the non-governmental organization Transparencia Brazil, said the numbers also were a worrying indication of corruption at local and regional levels of government.

Gee, ya think?

Villagers are puzzled by the Chinese government’s decision to paint a mountain green. Theories range from improving the area’s feng shui to the government wishing to appear more “green” — the barren mountain used to be a rock quarry.

Another Hollywood myth explodes: the recent discovery of an ancient coin reveals that Cleopatra wasn’t all that good looking.

Hey ladies, we just can’t help it:

When a man fails to help out around the house, his poor performance might be related to a subconscious tendency to resist doing anything his wife wants, a new study suggests.

We’ve known for a while that our desks and computer keyboards are little germ factories. But now we find that women’s work spaces have four times the bacteria than their male counterparts. My childhood best friend was right — women are gross!

Microsoft released the first security fix for Vista on patch Tuesday. This one is especially ironic for the OS billed as the “most secure ever”: the hole allows someone to take complete control of your computer.

Glenn Reynolds has a few links that should put a stake in the heart of the revisionist claims that returning Vietnam vets were never spat on.

Hat Tip to non-blogging Advised by Wolves.

In remembrance, a reminder of determination and valor as the Battered Bastards of the Bastion of Bastogne stood their ground.

While evil lurks in the hearts of men and fascism threatens to engulf the world once again, this is a story that should be told every Christmas.

Advised by Wolves gives the heads up that the History Channel begins a new series tonight that looks fair to middlin’ cool. Dogfights:

The new series DOG FIGHTS recreates famous battles using state-of-the-art computer graphics. With up to 25 percent of the program consisting of animation, viewers will feel like they’re in the battle, facing the enemy. First-hand accounts will drive the story. Rare archival footage and original shooting supplement the remarkable computer graphics.