A compendium of random notes today.

From Gallup:  65% Dissatisfied With How Government Works.  No shit.   Excerpt:

Republicans and independents are largely responsible for the overall decrease in satisfaction with government effectiveness in recent years. Satisfaction among Republicans and independents began to wane during President George W. Bush’s final year in office. This may have reflected mounting public dissatisfaction with the Iraq war, coupled with the Democratic takeover of Congress after the 2006 midterm elections. Both groups’ satisfaction plummeted still more between 2008 and 2011, and has since dipped further.

With the performance of the Imperial Federal government over the last decade or so, what’s really amazing is that the number that are satisfied is still as high as it is.   Is it possible that 35% just aren’t paying attention?

Related:  Obama’s Polls Fall As Middle Class Gets His Number.  Excerpt:

Are you dazed and confused by Barack Obama, the nominal Democrat, whose conduct as president since 2009 has seen him sink from nearly 70 percent to 40 percent or less in the national polling, from which he has seemed to learn nothing, but still marches on?

Fear not, the doctor is in: Fred Siegel of the Manhattan Institute, whose latest book, The Revolt Against The Masses: How Liberalism Has Undermined the Middle Class, explains all you wanted to know about Obama, and much else. It explains why he never became the new Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy or Lyndon B. Johnson at his best, as he and they belong to quite different wings of their party.

Read the whole thing.  It’s worth the time.

Finally, a science note:  CoGeNT Gives Further Backing to Annual Dark-Matter Variation.  Excerpt:

A long-standing and controversial claim by the DAMA collaboration in Italy that it has observed dark matter has received fresh support from a US-based experiment. Like DAMA, the CoGeNT collaboration says that it continues to see a seasonal variation in the number of events registered in its detector. Such a variation would be expected if the Milky Way galaxy were shrouded in a “halo” of dark matter, but several other dark-matter searches have failed to see the effect.

Dark matter is one of the great mysteries in physics; now, we may be a bit closer to understanding exactly that that mysterious substance is.

And, on that note, we return you to your Thursday, already in progress.