* Obama’s approval ratings hit new lows in Gallup and Rasmussen polls. It seems kind of gratuitous to point out a new low for him since his last new low was only a few days ago, except it’s just fun to point out when his popularity has sunk even further and say, “Haw! Haw!”

Obama campaigned on hope and change, but it kind of seems like all that hope people had in Obama during his campaign has pretty much disappeared. People still really want change, though — maybe even more so than before. Maybe a Republican can run on the change platform but combine it with something other than hope.

“Change and Hippie Punching”

* There was an earthquake in Virginia. Just a small one, though. I mean, when the earth starts rumbling there, you’d expect all of DC to be swallowed up into the earth, but it’s not God’s job to solve all our earthly problems.

Where was Obama during all this? On a golf course, of course. They told him about it immediately, to which he responded, “Shut up; I’m putting!”

* Pretty much everyone was happy the quake was minor… except for New York Times columnist Paul Krugman who wrote on Google+:

“People on twitter might be joking, but in all seriousness, we would see a bigger boost in spending and hence economic growth if the earthquake had done more damage.”

This is what’s called the “broken window fallacy” — a broken window stimulates the economy by giving work to the glass maker, so to really stimulate the economy you could send people around purposefully breaking windows. It’s pretty elementary how that’s a stupid theory, but apparently it’s beyond the understanding of a Nobel Prize-winning economist. It makes you wonder if that was the real Nobel Prize in Economics he won or if that’s just what they call the reward for successfully balancing your own checkbook while living in the mental ward.

It’s so dumb, I’m almost convinced it’s a hoax (and I notice Krugman’s Google+ profile has disappeared and here’s someone other than Krugman claiming he created it), but right after 9/11 he wrote about how that might stimulate the economy. Plus he recently blogged about how a space alien invasion would be an economic boon. With this and Friedman’s Chinese dictatorship love and Dowd’s… whatever in the world it is that she does, it’s like the New York Times set out to make a Mos Eisley Cantina of op-ed columnists.

* According to a Rasmussen poll, large majorities of Americans believe illegal aliens shouldn’t be allowed in public school, shouldn’t get free tuition for college, or be able to get a driver’s license. When explaining their reasoning, people said, “Because THEY’RE ILLEGAL ALIENS!”

This is one of those areas where the left likes to pretend there’s a big debate, but to the average person it’s like asking, “Should we lock up murderers?” — something they wouldn’t even think there was anything to debate about. Still, there are those who argue that Republicans need to take a softer line on this to appeal to Latino voters — since all Latinos are for breaking the law, as pro-amnesty Republicans seem to think — but my guess is if we give up on common sense for electoral gain, that will probably not work out for the best in the end.

* Even while Obama is on vacation, the debt is growing $2.95 million a minute. So that’s how successful Obama has been; the government can swell in size beyond belief even while he’s out golfing.

Here’s a new fun game: While Obama is giving speeches about the need for a “balanced approach” we can calculate exactly how much the debt grows while he does nothing but talk. A single “Let me be clear” costs $98,000.

* Wisdom of the Day: “Why does Facebook target me with ads for nude beaches in Toronto when I’ve lived my life in such a way as to avoid both nudity and Canada?” –Michael J. Nelson

* I mentioned I’m working on a novel before — and that still is my dream, to become a novelist — but a new writing project has come up, so the novel is on the back burner for now. I’m writing non-fiction — well, as non-fiction as my writing usually is — and this time I already have a publisher signed on. I’ll tell you more soon; be excited!