An Upopular President Heading Into SOTU.

A quick rundown of recent job approval ratings for the president heading into tomorrow's State of the Union address:

Time Poll. Jan. 24-26, 2006. N=1,002 adults nationwide. MoE +/- 3%

"In general, do you approve or disapprove of the way President Bush is handling his job as president?"

Approve: 41% (41)
Disapprove: 55% (53)
Unsure: 4% (5)

ABC News/Washington Post Poll. Jan. 23-26, 2006. N=1,002 adults nationwide. MoE +/- 3%

"Do you approve or disapprove of the way George W. Bush is handling his job as president?"

Approve: 42% (46)
Disapprove: 56% (52)
Unsure: 2% (2)

FOX News/Opinion Dynamics Poll. Jan. 24-25, 2006. N=900 registered voters nationwide. MoE +/- 3%

"Do you approve or disapprove of the job George W. Bush is doing as president?"

Approve: 41% (42)
Disapprove: 51% (49)
Unsure: 8% (9)

Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg Poll. Jan. 22-25, 2006. N=1,555 adults nationwide. MoE +/- 3%

"Do you approve or disapprove of the way George W. Bush is handling his job as president?"

Approve: 43% (50)
Disapprove: 54% (47)
Unsure: 3% (3)

CBS News/New York Times Poll. Jan. 20-25, 2006. N=1,229 adults nationwide. MoE +/- 3%

"Do you approve or disapprove of the way George W. Bush is handling his job as president?"

Approve: 42% (41)
Disapprove: 51% (52)
Unsure: 7% (7)

In each and every one of those polls, the majority of Americans disapprove of the way President Bush is handling his job. And in all but one of them, his numbers have fallen since the last poll; that must be what the press means when they gleefully report on the "Bush Bounce."

Keep that in mind as the president addresses the nation tomorrow evening -- an extremely unpopular leader peddling even more unpopular plans for the country. It's no wonder an overwhelming majority of Americans want to see him change the course and follow the lead of the Democratic Party.

[Democratic National Committee:]

What is interestig is how much of the media is talking about his numbers improving. These show a slight decline, with over 50% of the people disapproving of his job performance. The media is just too enamored of itself, as I am sure even people on the right are aware.  8:56:31 AM    

U.S. must make entry simple for Canadians. On Jan. 26 we commented on how important it is to us to have a federal government in place in Canada that is sympathetic to working across the border with Americans. We need to follow up that point by saying the United States needs to return the favor. Unfortunately our federal government is currently headed the opposite way. [Tidepool's Front Page News for Salmon Nation]

Another law that does nothing but hamper lawful citizens. The only criminals/terrorists this will catch are the ones who are too stupid. And those got caught without this in 2000. The economic effects on border communities will be large though. So, little or no protection, huge economic impact. This county voted for Bush in 2000. They learned their mistake and voted for Kerry in 2004. A quick perusal of the counties along the Canadian border where major commerce occurs reveals that many, if not most, are Blue. So this is the consequence of voting for Kerry, I guess. What a great country!  8:52:49 AM    

Federal Mine Agency Considers New Mine Rules. After one of the deadliest months for coal mining in years, federal mine regulators last week began formally considering safety improvements to help miners survive underground fires and explosions. Among the proposals: mandatory caches of oxygen tanks and breathing masks inside every coal mine.

The idea may have struck some miners as familiar, because it was. A similar proposal was put forward by the same regulators six years ago, only to be scrapped by the Bush administration shortly after it took office. And the oxygen caches were not the only proposed safety improvement to be withdrawn. [Tidepool's Front Page News for Salmon Nation]

Perhaps someone is finally listening. Or not. Let's see if they actually DO anything.  8:43:39 AM    

TUAW Tip: you can rotate windows, too.

Filed under: OS, Software, Productivity, TUAW Tip

For today's TUAW Tip, I thought I'd build on Scott's tip yesterday (concerning the Application Switcher) with a simple tip about cycling windows, not applications. Many of us know (or will soon) that using cmd - tab will switch between applications, but plenty of users still haven't discovered the wonders of cmd - ` (the key right above tab), which allows you to switch between windows within an application. So if you, for example, have a few documents open in Word, cmd - ` will easily let you switch between just those documents, without having to bother with any other windows and apps you have open.

One catch: this works in most apps such as browsers, iChat and even iPhoto, but not in a select few, such as Photoshop. In fact: if anyone knows how to cycle windows in Photoshop, please sound off in the comments.

Now that you're armed with both cmd - tab and cmd - `, virtually no window is safe from your view. Combine this trick with a little Exposé action and you could obtain the ranking of "OS X window management ninja."

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[The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)]

I live by these keyboard commands. Combine these with a 4 button trackball and I am smokin'.  8:10:32 AM