Chartmaster Geoff, of Uncommon Misconceptions has been trying to make this point, first at Innocent Bystanders, and again this morning at his own blog. Since it hasn't been pointed out anywhere else in the media, I thought I'd give it a wider audience here at AoSHQ:

For the past 5 1/2 months, the initial unemployment claims data have not really changed. HereÂ’s what I mean:

The data are oscillating about a slowly increasing value, indicating that, if anything, unemployment claims are increasing.

For the rest of his analysis, go to Uncommon Misconceptions.

See also his excellent take on Obama's Famous Tax Cuts.

And in case you're interested, here's the GOP.gov take on Obama's "tax cuts": more...

Posted by: Open Blogger at 08:12 AM | Comments (124)
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Yesterday a district court judge struck down the statute that instituted a National Day of Prayer. The judge held that it was an unconstitutional endorsement of religion.

"[I]ts sole purpose is to encourage all citizens to engage in prayer, an inherently religious exercise that serves no secular function," a Wisconsin judge wrote in the ruling, referring to the 1952 law that created the National Day of Prayer.

"In this instance, the government has taken sides on a matter that must be left to individual conscience," wrote the judge, Barbara B. Crabb.

The injunction against the National Day of Prayer will not take effect until the defendants in the case, President Obama and White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, have exhausted their appeals, the decision said.

It is expected that they will appeal.

Establishment Clause jurisprudence has been drifting further and further afield in the past twenty years. Eugene Volokh thinks there might be five votes on the Supreme Court to curb the anti-religious drift.

There now seem to be five votes on the Court for jettisoning the endorsement test. While Justice Kennedy takes a broader view of the Establishment Clause than do Justice Scalia and Justice Thomas (and, probably, Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito), he is on the record — in his County of Allegheny dissent (1989) — as opposing the no-endorsement interpretation of the Establishment Clause. What’s more, Justice Kennedy’s County of Allegheny opinion expressly pointed to the National Day of Prayer as something that should be upheld.

Of course, this rosy scenario relies on Justice Kennedy to do the right thing...

This also gives GOP senators some ammunition when questioning the President's court nominees. It's timely and something that seems so obviously constitutional to conservatives and so obviously not to leftists.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 05:52 AM | Comments (300)
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FRIDAY!

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 05:19 AM | Comments (79)
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Didn't we just spend ten months altering the provision of healthcare in this country? This time he isn't going to muck about waiting for Congress.

Earlier today, he issued a memorandum to DHHS, ordering the agency to set new requirements for U.S. hospitals that receive Medicare or Medicaid funding (which is almost all of them).

The hospitals must respect a patient's wishes regarding who is allowed to visit, including in advance directives when the patient may be incapable of designating visitors. This applies to all patient's wishes, not just regarding gays. Also, the hospitals may not discriminate in their visitation policies on the basis of race, color, national origin, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability.

The stealth provision that has gone unremarked in the title of the memo and the media coverage so far is that hospitals must also comply with advance directives giving non-family individuals the right to make decisions about patient care.

That's the real coup for gays in this order. There have only been, to my knowledge anyway, a few isolated incidents of hospitals denying visitation to gays who have a hospitalized spouse or partner. I'm glad the President is acting to end it, at least in hospitals that take federal funds. There's little reason not to fix a bad thing even if it's scarce, particularly when it can be fixed with little cost. (Support for allowing gay couple visitation rights is somewhere around 90% and Obama needed to throw a bone to the permanently pissed off Gay Left.)

But the real drama is when more than one person claims to have the right to make medical decisions for an incapacitated patient. What's the hospital to do when the parents want one thing but the gay spouse or partner wants something else? What about in a state like Virginia which bans legal recognition of statuses that "approximate the design, qualities, significance, or effects of marriage"? Go with the parents or the gay spouse/partner?

Obama's order will end a great deal of uncertainty, both for gay spouses, who already have to spend more money than straight spouses to get the same rights, and for hospitals, who have to face the threat of legal action if they guess wrong about who gets to make medical decisions for incapacitated patients.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 06:52 PM | Comments (204)
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Happy Thursday M&Ms.

So Where is Obama Still Popular

Obama's overall approval ratings have been pretty consistently falling over the last year and are now at an all time low of 47%. But when you look at his approval ratings state-by-state, it turns out that he's very popular in just a few states (basically the Northeast and California) and unpopular everywhere else including the usual swing states. This bodes ill for the Democrats' long term branding and makes a wipeout election all the more likely.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 05:50 PM | Comments (1029)
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This sounds like a pretty big deal.

...In the current study, the researchers revealed the mechanism. They found that macroketone targets an actin cytoskeletal protein known as fascin that is critical to cell movement. In order for a cancer cell to leave a primary tumor, fascin bundles actin filaments together like a thick finger. The front edge of this finger creeps forward and pulls along the rear of the cell. Cells crawl away in the same way that an inchworm moves.

Macroketone latches on to individual fascin, preventing the actin fibers from adhering to each other and forming the pushing leading edge, Dr. Huang says. Because individual actin fibers are too soft when they are not bundled together, the cell cannot move...

..."More than 90 percent of cancer patients die because their cancer has spread, so we desperately need a way to stop this metastasis," Dr. Huang says. "This study offers a paradigm shift in thinking and, potentially, a new direction in treatment."...

Posted by: Purple Avenger at 04:28 PM | Comments (111)
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Well, at least he's consistent.

MIAMI (AP) -- President Barack Obama said Thursday he's amused by the anti-tax tea party protests that have been taking place around Tax Day.

Obama told a fundraiser in Miami that he's cut taxes, contrary to the claims of protesters.

"You would think they'd be saying thank you," he said.

At that, many in the crowd at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts stood and yelled, "Thank you!"

You've got to wonder what the One is thinking here. Is it simple delusion about his power to control the narrative, as Dan Riehl suggests, or is he so consumed by his own press clippings that he honestly doesn't realize the extent of the public's anger? Most likely: he just doesn't care and is completely playing to his base at this point, because there's nothing the nutroots like more than some sweet, sweet tea party hatin'.

Over/under on how low Obama will go in approval ratings before he starts referring to protesters as "teabaggers?" 40%? 35%? Your guess is as good as mine. more...

Posted by: Slublog at 04:26 PM | Comments (152)
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The need to protect Obama from bad press has brought out the inner poet in government officials. Another miracle in the age of Obama.

The Labor Department reported Thursday that first-time requests for jobless benefits rose 24,000 last week to a seasonally adjusted 484,000, the highest level since late February. Economists were predicting claims would fall.

It marked the second week that claims took an unexpected leap. In the prior week, claims rose 18,000 to 460,000.

A government analyst, however, cautioned against reading too much into both weeks' figures, saying they were clouded by seasonal adjustment difficulties related to the Easter holiday, which falls on different weeks each year.

The Easter Bunny.

To paraphrase Howie Carr, first they blamed the snow. Then the rain. Now it's the innocent Easter Bunny. I wonder what the excuse will be for April's numbers? Maybe people were too busy looking for the May flowers to find work? Hmmmm..."seasonal adjustment difficulties related to garden preparation." It has potential. Get on it, unnamed government analysts! more...

Posted by: Slublog at 01:49 PM | Comments (194)
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Woops! Turns out everyone can read the internets.

Jason Levin, the Portland man who caused a ruckus over his plans to "infiltrate" Tea Party protests in an aim to discredit them, teaches in a Beaverton middle school and now faces an investigation by the Teacher Standards and Practices Commission.

Melody Hanson, the commission's director of professional practices, said Wednesday that the agency opened an investigation because "there was enough concern that there was some neglect of duty" on the part of Levin.

Levin teaches in the media lab at Conestoga Middle School, although he described himself in an interview earlier this week with Talking Points Memo as a technology consultant.

Levin started a web site called "Crash the Tea Party" that he said was aimed at encouraging people to pose as Tea Party protestors while acting in outlandish ways in hopes of discrediting the movement.

Both the school district and the teachers licensing commission received calls protesting Levin's actions and saying it was inappropriate for teachers.

I'm sure you all join me in wishing Levin all the best in getting exactly what he deserves.

Thanks to @slublog

Posted by: DrewM at 12:21 PM | Comments (217)
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Obama is such a uniter that he has legendary astronauts taking sides.

He just thanked a shuttle astronaut for fixing the Hubble Telescope since he has a photo taken by it in his private White House office. It's all about him.

Also, he mentioned that Buzz Aldrin is 'in the house'. Let me just say, I'm sick and tired of the President of the United States treating events as if they are comedy shows. "In the house" is a juvenile expression and simply an unworthy way to refer to these types of events.

Now he's whining about previous administrations and their changing priorities. He inherited this NASA budget!

Upping NASA's budget by $6 billion over 5 years.

Focusing on robotic exploration of solar system and more focus on Earth challenges like...climate change!

Partner with private sector for access to low earth orbit.

So far, nothing that new.

Transforming the Orion capsule, which was supposed to be part of the lunar mission, into a rescue capsule for the ISS. Talk about a shrinking mission.

Nothing new here. This sounds more like a bid to hold down electoral losses in Florida this year. I wonder if this visit was scheduled before the health care bid or if it was a pay off for Suzanne Kosmas' flip on health care. She's pretty much considered a dead duck because of NASA cuts that hurt her district.

Now he says he wants to send astronauts to an asteroid then to Mars in the 2030's. Look for lots of comparisons to Kennedy's 'Land a man on the Moon by the end of the decade' speech from the Lapdog Media.

Says we don't have to go back to the Moon to get to Mars because we've been there. Not a lot of applause for that because they know it's stupid.

NASA has to come up with breakthrough propulsion technologies. Space bio-fuels!

Says the job cuts are result of decisions made 6 years ago, not 6 months to retire the shuttle. True but he cut the replacement program that people would have segued into. Nice try but the Blamer in Chief.

You can tell when Obama cares about stuff and when he doesn't. This is the latter. It's a check mark in a list of things he had to do today. Nothing new. People were hoping that he might announce an extension of the shuttle program but nope.

BTW- the network I'm watching this on is slobbering over how wonderful the speech was. MSNBC? Nah, Shep Smith on FNC.

Overall he made it sound nice but every President says nifty stuff about what they want to do with NASA and it never gets done.

Shep just said, "I don't see where the detractors of this President get off". Man, he'd be at home at MSNBC.

His guest, Homer Hickman is lambasting Obama and the NASA administration. Here's his blog.

Quite honestly, at this point, I don't much care what they announce and pronounce. I do not think any of them are capable of organizing a DAR scrap drive. This includes Senator Bill Nelson who is about a mile wide and a millimeter deep when it comes to almost any intellectual pursuit. Am I being unkind to all concerned? I don't care. They've made me lose sleep, worrying about their erratic drive toward spaceflight mediocrity.

With this crowd, all I can do is hope they won't screw things up so much it can't be fixed later. My guess is after they're done talking, we still won't know what's actually going to happen, mainly because they don't know, either. These are folks who, in more serious times, might be considered, well, loons. President Obama operates at about 110,000 feet (e.g., he still can't tell anyone what's in his health care plan after all these months of angst), Charlie Bolden would rather be home with his grandkids (great idea), John Holdren is a radical "global warmer" (which requires a suspension of intellectual curiosity), and Bill Nelson is a space who needs to be filled (with someone else). The rest make Lady Gaga look smart.

Posted by: DrewM at 11:04 AM | Comments (271)
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