9 out of 100 ain't bad
For the first time ever, the congressional approval rating is in the single digits. Currently, 9% say that congress is doing a good or excellent job. The approval breaks down to 8% of republicans approve and 13% of democrats approve. Though I don't have data on them, I would assume that independents approve at an even lower rate... that would be needed to pull the average rating down to the mark 1 point higher than the republican approval... either that, or there are a whole lot more republicans than democrats (which, as of 2004, is not the case). But with only about 2 dozen of our representatives being first timers, it seems apparent that the mentality is "My guy is ok, but it's all the other ones that suck." 50 United States? How about 435 disunited districts? Everybody say it with me... "let's wipe the slate clean and give someone else a shot to screw up."
Also... props to Priguy for doing a bang up job on showing how the sentence "Christopher Columbus discovered America in 1492" is relatively meaningless.
Christopher Columbus- No one on any of the 3 ships was named Christopher Columbus. Manuscripts name the famed explorer both as Christobal Cologne and Christof Columbo.
Discovered- Not only do we have physical evidence that Vikings arrived in the new world before Columbus, but there is the whole matter of about 2 million people already living in the once undiscovered land.
America- Name a part of America... did you say San Salvador? Because that is where he landed... well, it became San Salvador later. America was named for Italian Cartographer and con artist Amerigo Vespucci... he drew maps of the Atlantic coast based on descriptions of other explorers and then claimed to have made the journey himself. Columbus never touched foot on the mainland of north or south america.
1492- It was only 1492 to the neo indo-europeans... I don't know what year it was on the Chinese calendar... but it certainly wasn't 1492.
Bang up job.
-ellipses
posted by Ellipses at
8:18 AM
9 Comments:
First of all, thanks to ellipses for the kind words. And I'd like to offer some props to him as well for keeping the blog going in Brant's absence, but more important, keeping it interesting.
I should note however, that I'm disappointed in the other regular contributors for not posting any comments. Hmmm...I wonder if Brant is posting under a series of pseudonyms.
As for the congressional approval rating, all I can say is, "What the hell did people expect?" There was a plethora of worthless candidates vying for the positions, and even when it came to the candidates who weren't completely worthless, it still became a matter of choosing the lesser of two evils. And that pertains to republicans, democrats, independents, green party members and commies.
Nancy Pelosi is a psychopathic liberal bitch who is completely out of touch with reality, and with that nut job overseeing things, again, what the hell did people expect?
On a similar note, Prez George enjoys this dubious distinction: he is the only president in history to have both the highest AND lowest approval ratings ever in the same term of office. And people thought he wouldn't accomplish much...
Does the fact that GW had a record high approval rating after 9-11 and leading up to the Iraq war put a lot of culpability on the public for all the stuff they don't like about his administration now? The president, to an extent, acts as an agent of the people... and yet, when praise ripens into scorn, it is he that becomes the pariah... the public bears little more than ill will.
-ellipses...
Oh, Priguy... while you are around... did you "get" the Tuberculosis joke in the entry from a few days ago?
-ellipses
I want to respond to your question about Georgie, but it will be later.
No, I didn't get the tuberculosis reference, although I thought and thought and thought.
Ellipses hit the whole Bush thing right on the head. Right after 9/11, patriotism soared, everyone wanted retribution, everyone wanted anything remotely close to terrorism stopped at whatever cost. That is until the actual cost emerged.
The public is indeed largely culpable for the plummet in Bush's approval ratings because as a society, we want instant gratification in everything. Many people think that we can zip in, drop some bombs, nobody gets killed but everyone gets scared, and we withdraw and the entire Middle East is full of daisies and white picket fences.
A massive segment of our population is absolutely incapable of handling anything negative. That's evidenced by the fact that "grief counseling" is now a viable and even necessary career choice. There are millions of people who are incapable of processing negative emotions without help. The sad fact is that when there is a war, people die.
We as a society demand to be immediately informed of everything. The dumbest thing the military did of late is the embedded reporter. Brant could confirm this old newspaper/television adage: If it bleeds, it leads. Thus, we're spoon-fed video footage of carnage with reports of spilled blood and the horror of war instead of anything else. Frankly, we don't need to know what every bullet hits.
This isn't an easy situation. We have no exit strategy. And even if we did, most of the whackos over there are uncivilized to some extent. "There's violence and unrest in the Middle East." That could be a headline from the time things were written in Sanskrit until today. It would be like reporting that the desert is hot. Even if we had a perfectly executed, flawless exit strategy, within months that whole region will fall right back into what it knows and does best: fighting among themselves. But I digress.
I can understand that people disapprove of Bush and how this war is/was being handled. But we're dealing with an enemy who considers it an honor to commit suicide. We can't compete with that or fight it or even understand it. You can't negotiate with them. There are just too many people are too short-sighted and impatient when it comes to ending this thing. Hating Bush isn't going to make it any better any time soon. Mark my words...whoever takes the role as our next president will falter just as much or worse as this president. And we'll bitch some more, which takes us right back to ellipses' original point about the low approval rating for congress.
Priguy, ... I don't know if you consider me a "regular," but I still check in from time to time. However, some very long work days give me little time and energy to write responses. Yes, I do have something to say on most of the topics. I do have a couple of other Boards that I frequent as well, and have some spirited debates happening right now. Maybe I'm presumptuous to think that you might miss my postings.
One more thing, ... I want to remind you and ... that I was the one to point out the flaw in the mixed forest story. So, I have been able to make some contribution, albeit small.
Roger, you're right about the long days. I'm fortunate enough that I have a fair amount of free time, hence some of the tirades I've written on here.
But for the record, I do consider you a regular contributor, and it wouldn't be presumptuous at all to think I miss your postings. You, ellipses and Brant are my favorite contributors. I enjoy reading your posts. You always have an interesting point of view and more important, you can back it up.
I was kind of poking at others like the slew of "anonymous" folk who lurk here when Brant's around. And of course there's always Scott's inane, one-line non-sequiturs that mean nothing...well you get my drift. Write when you can. Some of us really do appreciate intelligent, quality writing.
Tuberculosis is from an episode of Seinfeld... George is having Jerry play a word association game for whatever reason... Here is the dialogue:
George: They give you those word association tests. I love those.
Jerry: That'd be great. There's no wrong answer.
George: Potato.
Jerry: Tuberculosis.
George: Blanket.
Jerry: Leroy.
George: Grass.
Jerry: Tuberculosis.
I thought it was funny then... I find it vaguely amusing now.
-ellipses
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