22 April 2011

No workout this morning; I’ll REST and perhaps stretch sometime today.

Weather Thunderstorms…it was 31 F yesterday prior to that. But my perception of what April has been like has been off; statewide (but perhaps not in Peoria?) rain is actually down a bit….and temperatures are actually up and rain is slightly down. I suppose what has happened is that we’ve had a unusually warm day here or there which set me in the “all right! We are now in our warm phase” when in fact, it is still April.

Perceptions can be wrong.

News of the weird
We had that thunderstorm which is continuing. Perhaps Gov. Rick Perry’s god made a mistake? (there was a proclamation to pray for rain for Texas, and perhaps his deity missed?).

Killing cats…for costumes?

see more funny videos, and check out our Yo Dawg lols!

Politics
the national mood (perhaps, driven in part by gas prices?) is low; neither the President nor Congress is especially popular:

Amid rising gas prices, stubborn unemployment and a cacophonous debate in Washington over the federal government’s ability to meet its future obligations, the poll presents stark evidence that the slow, if unsteady, gains in public confidence earlier this year that a recovery was under way are now all but gone.

Capturing what appears to be an abrupt change in attitude, the survey shows that the number of Americans who think the economy is getting worse has jumped 13 percentage points in just one month. Though there have been encouraging signs of renewed growth since last fall, many economists are having second thoughts, warning that the pace of expansion might not be fast enough to create significant numbers of new jobs.

The dour public mood is dragging down ratings for both parties in Congress and for President Obama, the poll found.

After the first 100 days of divided government, and a new Republican leadership controlling the House of Representatives, 75 percent of respondents disapproved of the way Congress is handling its job.

Disapproval of Mr. Obama’s handling of the economy has never been broader — at 57 percent of Americans — a warning sign as he begins to set his sights on re-election in 2012. And a similar percentage disapprove of how Mr. Obama is handling the federal budget deficit, though more disapprove of the way Republicans in Congress are.

Still, for all the talk from Congressional Republicans and Mr. Obama of cutting the deficit as a way to improve the economy, only 29 percent of respondents said it would create more jobs. Twenty-seven percent said it would have no effect on the employment outlook, and 29 percent said it would cost jobs. [...]

Most Americans think neither Mr. Obama nor the Congressional Republicans share their priorities for the country. Mr. Obama’s job approval remains below a majority, with 46 percent saying they approve of his performance in office, while 45 percent do not. And support for his handling of the military campaign in Libya has fallen since last month: 39 percent approve and 45 percent disapprove. In a CBS poll in March, 50 percent approved and 29 percent disapproved.

Republicans have their own challenges. More than half of poll respondents, 56 percent, said they did not have a favorable view of the party, as opposed to 37 percent who said they did. (The Democratic Party fared somewhat better: 49 percent did not have favorable views of it and 44 percent did.)

As the House speaker, Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, becomes the face of his party in Congress, more disapprove of his job performance (41 percent) than approve of it (32 percent); 27 percent said they did not have an opinion of him.

Speaking of approval, note that the a President’s approval is often linked to stuff like gas prices, as Bonddad Blog points out.. Here is a graph showing the Bush approval ratings with gas prices and surf to the blog to see a comparison between Obama approval ratings and gas prices:

Prof. Pollkatz notoriously kept a record during the eight years of Bush’s presidency of a graph he called “Bush Approval: In Fact It’s a Gas”:

Barack Obama should be thanking his lucky stars that it is 2011 and not 2012. And he’d better hope that Oil’s choke hold on the economy loosens by then.

The President can also take solace that the Republicans aren’t exactly thrilled with their current field.

Science This is fascinating:

Researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have for the first time observed the activity of a single gene in living cells. In an unprecedented study, published in the April 22 online edition of Science, Einstein scientists were able to follow, in real time, the process of gene transcription, which occurs when a gene converts its DNA information into molecules of messenger RNA (mRNA) that go on to make the protein coded by the gene.

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