Stimulus Payback?

According to an article at chicagobusiness.com the state of Illinois is getting 12% of the Stimulus package money for roads and bridges. As a state Illinois represents 2% of the 50 states. 1 state out of 50 is 2%. Population wise Illinois represents 4.3% of the nations population (according to 2007 estimates Illinois had 12,852,548 of the 301,621,157 U.S. residents). Square mileage wise Illinois represents 1.5% of the United States (57,918 of the 3,749,066 square miles).

If Illinois is only 1.5% of the square mileage, 2% of the states and 4.3% of the population how could they possibly warrant 12% of the stimulus money? There is NOTHING proportionate about this disproportionate amount of money. Does this NOT look like some sort of payback?

Most would think that the powers that be would prefer to remain above reproach in a situation like this and fly under the radar. The audacity of arrogance and elitism this must take to blatantly rob the American Taxpayers is staggering. So much for equality and the greater good. Whatever happened to “one for all and all for one”? Shouldn’t OUR tax money have been spread equally among the states in some fair and honest fashion? This is typical old-school Washington politics that we were promised would was going to end.

Approval Ratings

"The president continues to be highly regarded. By solid majorities of 65 percent or more, those surveyed said he has a vision for the country's future, has brought dignity back to the White House and is a strong leader willing to make hard decisions," reported a CNN/Gallup Poll.

Hey, not bad. Except that was written near the end of 2003 about George W. Bush. My how the tide can change quickly. Watch out for the undertow.

The current CNN/Gallup Presidential approval rating poll has Barack Obama slipping from 67% on inauguration day to 62% on April 5th. The Rasmussen poll had Barack Obama at 65% on inauguration day and sliding to 56% by April 5th.

While the numbers themselves aren’t that important they do both show the same trend. His approval ratings are sliding. The public as a whole are not as enamored with him as they were 70+ days ago.

Rasmussen uses another telling number along with their daily presidential tracking numbers. They see one key differential being between those “Strongly Approving” and those “Strongly Disapproving”. The day after his inauguration Obama had a +28 differential. 44% strongly approved while only 16% strongly disapproved. That key differential, while slipping, still remained in double-digits until March. On April 5th he had only a +6 differential with 36% strongly approving and 30% strongly disapproving. As of April 13th that differential is down to +2% with 34% strongly approving and 32% strongly disapproving.

As we learned in the time between 2003 and 2008 anything can happen. Will Obama’s ratings get better or worse…yes. They will do both. Where they will end up…nobody knows. Currently the trend is down. Hopefully for all our sakes that will change. Only time will tell.

Bowing Obediently

So, Barack Obama gives the Queen of England a casual head-bob of a bow like two guys passing each other in the hallway but the Muslim King of Saudi Arabia gets a full bow

If bowing is a respectful thing they why did he show more respect to the Muslim King of Saudi Arabia than to the Queen of England? His press people have “claimed” it was a two-handed shake but I saw the video and you can see his left hand is nowhere near the Kings hand at the time. Looks more like he's trying to kiss his ring. Maybe he just dropped his ipod. You also don’t have to “bow” to two-hand shake.

Was this a Christian/Muslim thing or a male/female thing? Did he show the Queen of England less respect because she’s a Woman? It was also reported last night that in the 11 Sunday’s since inauguration day he has not attended church yet while he promised to find a new church in the D.C. area after his election. Another broken promise.

Celebrity Prez

I was watching the Obama / Sarkozy concert this morning. Uh, I mean press conference (they’re holding it in a sports stadium for our celebrity prez). Obama really is not the public speaker his followers make him out to be. I think their praise is for what they WANT him to be and not what he IS. He seemed to be talking slower today to remove the “uh’s” but it wasn’t an improvement.

I was curious about “public” speaking last night so I paid close attention to people being interviewed on various news channels. Most people being interviewed are much smoother than Obama. I tried to pay attention to figure out why. Even though these people don’t know the questions coming into the interview they still answer the questions quickly and smoothly. But “why” I wondered. Then I thought “well, they do know their subject matter very well which is an advantage”. That hit me. Does Obama not truly know the subject matter as thoroughly as he should? Is that why he stumbles in press conferences? You don’t see the confident world class orator people claim he is when watching him in a press conference unless you’re already wearing the Obama colored glasses that make him seem Shakespearean.