You have been quite rude and insulting on this thread. If you had something intelligent to add, it got lost in the personal attacks. Just for the sake of posterity, let the record show that you have made unfounded assertions about the topic at hand, while refusing to cite any poll to support your position, or refute the polling that has been offered to demonstrate the fact of the matter.

Look at polls that compare current numbers with those from late last year (as my post said clearly).

Gladly. Here’s a sampling:

Obama at 63% in December

Obama at 63% in February

“According to weekly aggregates of Gallup Poll Daily tracking interviews, Obama has lost no support from Democrats and independents since taking office, but his approval rating from Republicans has dropped steadily week by week, from 41% at the start of his term to just 30% today.”

Obama at 63% in April

“Obama’s 63% first-quarter average matches the historical average of 63% for elected presidents’ first quarters since 1953. However, it is the fourth highest for a newly elected president since that time, and the highest since Jimmy Carter’s 69% in 1977.”

Tell me again where you got your evidence for a decrease in approval? I’m afraid I’m not seeing a really clear trend here.

And no, I won’t cite. You search it. You have a belittled reputation for making absurd statements based on cherry picking polls, completely misunderstanding their import based on the type and format of the questions, or out right lying about them. Perhaps it’s time you overcame that reputation by defending your nonsense as personal spin rather than supported by evidence.

All I can say is that when I pick a poll to cite, I cite it. If you can’t even be bothered to cherry pick the polls, and prefer to spout nonsense based solely on your own ignorance, more power to you. But please don’t accuse me of lying when you have no basis to do so. I’m always happy to defend my position, or to abandon it when proven wrong. Until then, stop pretending that your prejudice has anything to do with my reputation, thanks. You belittle the reader more than you know.

Peace.

DS

Not off topic at all. You are a perfect example of why someone like me finds the right so entertaining.

Your interpretation of publicly available and cited polling data is flat out wrong. Rather than admit your mistake or cite some data to support your thesis, you keep on ranting, name calling, engaging in personal attacks and accusing others of being incapable of reading comprehension and basic math. Good lord, even this site’s hero, Chuck Pelto, agreed my mathematical analysis was correct (in March).

Since inauguration, some individual polls have given Obama approval ratings as high as ~75% – some as low as ~50%. Some of the polls rely on likely voters. Some rely on registered voters. When averaged out, Obama’s approval ratings have remained ~60% over this 4 month time span. It takes at least two points to define a line. The mathematical equation for a line is y = mx +b. The trend is discerned from the slope of the line, m. The trend line is flat. The slope of the line (m) is one. There has been no significant increase or decrease in Obama’s approval ratings since he was inaugurated. Extrapolating this data is meaningless.

So hang in there JPT. Sooner or later there may be a significant decrease in Obama’s approval ratings over a long period of time. Then you can claim you were right all along.

If you need ‘em ‘splained to you, Alston, then I doubt very much that they would find any fertile ground to grow in.

Non sequitor. False claims and observations about the basis of an argument are fundamentally different things.

“And Alston…really! Are you claiming here that your ONLY objection to abortion is from a fiscal standpoint?”

Are there objections one ought to have?

Look, you moron. You didn’t understand what a trend was, how to read a graph and recognize one, or how to read a comment and understand what was being discussed. You touted your math skills and were embarrassed. Instead of saying, ‘Oh, misunderstood, sorry’, you wouldn’t let it go and made an utter fool of yourself dodging, weaving, redefining the matter under discussion, and finally tossing back the original definition given you as your own and declaring victory.

Now it’s we can’t look back at the start of Obama’s approval ratings, we must only consider the time span you choose that shows a level rating. You still want two points for a trend, the two you choose, so you can claim no movement in approval. Despite your desperate attempts to make that so, you yourself linked to the graphs that make a fool out of your claims.

And this had nothing at all to do with this thread, where you again jumped in without understanding the subject of my comment so you could assuage your sense of outrage at being shown to be a fool last time, and proceeded to do it again.

It’s you that needs to get over the election and understand that your hero has fallen off his pedestal and been revealed as just another politician. Not a very good one as a legislator, and way out of his depth as an executive. Despite your astonishment, that electorate is looking at your hero and his accomplishments since his election and inauguration and increasingly finding him wanting. And he’s subject to the approval of that electorate on any matter he addresses that concerns them. Just like any other president has been. That electorate includes not just the people how voted for him, but also the people who voted against him, and the people who didn’t vote at all. It includes not just democrats, but republicans and most importantly the voters who decide every presidential election, the independents. And if those independents are moving away from identifying with your hero’s party, you need to accept that as a fact and drop the foolish whistling past the graveyard notion, that the media is now having trouble with defending, that support for him is not dropping.

Go back to the warm cocoon full of all the people who you just know are all the people with all the opinions that matter. Where you came from and where everybody just KNOWS Obama has the approval of everyone that matters, because after all, they ALL approve of him.

I must say, Alston, I enjoy immensely pinning you down and then watching you respond by criticizing the water-stains on the ceiling or how the curtains have faded.
It’s very entertaining, you know.

You certainly display a talent for arguing past the points that is head and shoulders above the pygmy trolls that infest this site.

As I recall, I asked:
“And Alston…really! Are you claiming here that your ONLY objection to abortion is from a fiscal standpoint?”

and you reply with the Scopes Monkey Trial and the Mullahs of Iran, whih naturally and inexorably leads you to this statement:
“By all means, though, continue to consider me an atheist with a hatred of all things religious if that is what you require to make sense of my words”

That’s a misattribution, Alston, I didn’t say that you were an atheist or that you hated all things religious, I simply asked you if the ONLY qualm you had against abortion was that you might have to pay for one whose pregnancy you hadn’t caused.

But thanks for the world historical tour from Tennessee to Tehran.

You go on to ask me:
“Do yo actually know any gays? I do. Tons. I work with them all the time in theatre”

I reply,(and kindly take notice, Alston that I am directly addressing the point you raise), that I probably do, at least I suspect that some of them may be a bit “light in the loafers”.
Thing is, since my friendships, except with my wife, don’t extend to sexual congress, whether they are homosexual or not is of little interest to me. In fact, if I meet someone and the first thing out of the mouths is that they ARE gay, then I will probably avoid that person as someone who has a rather obvious chip on their shoulder.
(See, Alston, I answered your question directly without diverting into the sad state of modern British stage musical comedy or the dearth of Nordic street-mimes in colonial Quito,Ecuador.).

But here’s a flat bit of lying you did that I cannot let slide:

“Your position seems based on ignorance, and you are repeating an argument that was debunked decades ago. Having some gay friends might do you some good.”

No, Alston, it’s a position based on experience. I am rather a good-looking chap, and I’ve been subjected to advances from dirty male deviant pedophiles since my early teens.
Ever work in a gas station back when there were such things as Full Service islands, Alston?
No?
You’d be amazed how many calls from horny perverts a good-looking 15 year old can get.

Furthermore, Alston, the vast majority of the pedophilia cases that have rocked the Catholic church have been same-sex ones…that’s homosexual pedophilia.

Far from being debunked decades ago, it was happening as recently as last year, chum.

Does this make ALL gays a pack of leering short-eyed deviants?

Certainly not.

But there ARE enough of that number among them, and as they are to the extent protected and defended by that community, that has a cost TO the Gay community.

Denial of state sanction for their living arrangement is one of those costs.

When a school principal uses school funds for children to see their lesbian teacher getting “married”, the majority of us know EXACTLY what lesson it is that someone is trying to teach, and to whom, and to what purpose.
Teach your OWN kids whatever you wish, but you will NOT teach mine what I morally object to.

Some people better get that through their heads, Alston, because when it comes to protecting children, especially my own, I can be very…unpleasant.

Monstrously so.

The US courts have been ruling against purely religious argument since the Scopes Monkey Trial. Realistically there are no valid arguments against the teaching of evolution; there are only religious ones. These are being pruned. This is the trend, and the trend continues. Observing this and illustrating this isn’t an attack on christians, and I find it sadly amusing that any number of christians invariably presume this. Ye of little faith.

Interestingly when I speak of cultural WMD (blue jeans, rock music, ipods, coca cola, etc.) doing a number on Iranian youth and loosening the grip of the ayatollahs, *nobody* accuses me of attacking the religion of islam. This tells me that few of you have the capacity to step outside your preconceptions and view the religion/state issue from afar. The issue, of course, is the amount of influence of purely religious argument on state policy. Certainly in the case of the muslims the christians find comfort in the idea that muslim countries ought to be more secular. But not their own?

By all means, though, continue to consider me an atheist with a hatred of all things religious if that is what you require to make sense of my words.

The majority therefore, MUST recruit new converts to their deviant lifestyle… [snip]

Do yo actually know any gays? I do. Tons. I work with them all the time in theatre (probably a third of the group at any given time is gay.) My kids were raised knowing them. Your position seems based on ignorance, and you are repeating an argument that was debunked decades ago. Having some gay friends might do you some good.

Perhaps so, and then in addition to possibly being stupid, you seem, after all is said and done,to have no principles after all.

My principles aren’t yours, therefore I have none? So you *are* doing the inflammatory rhetoric thing. That’s OK by me; it makes you feel better and tells any casual reader that doesn’t share your agenda that you’re wrong. I’m not trying to influence YOU. The more you flame, the weaker your position.

And… you lurking casual readers know who you are. Hi guys.

My post at #238 was twice submitted on Friday night, and was twice “moderated” into the “byte-bucket”.

As I suspected, when it comes to issues about homosexuals, some moderators here have an agenda of their own.

Thanks for letting it through, Saturday night’s mod.

I’m glad you like it, I modeleld it after you.

Sorry, Alston, but you don’t get a pass from having YOUR opposition to unrestricted abortion smeared with the same brush they use against anyone else who opposes their agenda.

Maybe you think you will, but then maybe you are also irretrievably stoopid.

Do like I challeneged you to, go float your “fiscal position” on their blogs and see what it gets you…care to wager that you won’t be tarred and feathered as a ChristoFascist Dominionist…just like the rest of us?

And Alston…really! Are you claiming here that your ONLY objection to abortion is from a fiscal standpoint?
You have no moral or ethical qualms about the procedure at all?

Perhaps so, and then in addition to possibly being stupid, you seem, after all is said and done,to have no principles after all.

At least no principles worth the name.

Certainly…but then who is it causing the “noise” about homosexual marriage?

You can’t have it both ways, Alston. You can’t very well tell religious conservatives to “STFU” about “social issues”, changing the status quo about abortion with their reasonable restrictions, but then turn around and hotly defend the morality,(sic), of homosexuals seeking to change the status quo by having the State affirm their living arrangements as a “marriage”.
…not without coming off like someone who has a big fat penis growing out of the middle of his forehead and hanging down beside his nostril.

“That’s a religious argument from the ground up.”

Alston, Alston, Alston…it appears that that’s another of those thought-mechanism word traps that you’ve fallen into,

I mean seriously…if some partisan of the Left labels the opposition as being based on a “religious argument”, are those the “magic words” that induce the “Jedi Mind Trick” upon you?

Let’s be clear upon a few things first, shall we? When you say it’s a “religious argument” in the American cultural context, you’re REALLY saying it’s a “Christian argument”.
You got a problem with Christianity? Take it up with Christ.

And to break you out of that mind-trap you’re ensnared in, no, objection to gays being married is NOT solely a “religious argument”.

Y’see Alston, there’s such a thing called “defining deviancy downward”…the term was first coined, as I’m sure you know, by Pat Moynihanm who went on to become a Demicrat senator from New York, (Hillary Clinton took his seat when he retired).
A certain subset of the homosexual minority in this country want the State’s affirmation of what may be nothing more than their lifestyle choice because once they are armed with Caesar’s imprimatur, they can openly enter the school systems and proselytize to the youth.

Gays recruit, Alston…there may be such a thing as a hereditary homosexual, but if there is, I think that that would bem genetically speaking, a rather rare breed of cat.

The majority therefore, MUST recruit new converts to their deviant lifestyle, (and NO segment of sexual society worships “youth” like the homos do).

What better place for them to “hunt” than in a high school, among adolescents who are having a hard enough time of it as it is? Turn them loose among vulnerable adolescents with a State-sanctioned message that “It’s Okay to be Gay”,(or some such government rot), and they will have an endless supply of young future bedmates to pervert and exploit.

That’s what the REAL objection is, Alston. That is what’s REALLY going on with THAT issue.

Didn’t you ever have a queer make a pass at you when you were a teen?

It happened to rather more of us than you might expect, and I, at least, did not forget about it.

Now if Adam and Steve want to shack up long term and name each other as beneficiaries and go about their business quietly and in private, I could care less, I don’t approve of it, but as long as they keep their business THEIR business, then it’s none of mine.