Once again as if part of an oft-repeated scenario, ground fog and warmth this early Tuesday on California’s north coast as we push on through the work week.
However, for someone who’s just fed-up with work, I have nothing-but Friday on my mind.

And as the planet disintegrates a little bit every few seconds, Americans have discovered we are not the center of the universe anymore, in fact, we not the center of anything, except maybe attention — which is not always good.

(Illustration found here).

In the wake of a poll last week which revealed Barack Obama as the worse president since 1945, a couple more polls have revealed the general public is not as dumb as generally suspected, especially when it comes to Iraq and the horror-hole of that country’s current condition.
And yet…
A new Quinnipiac University National Poll once again shows we don’t want no more of Baghdad:

The 2003 war in Iraq was the wrong thing to do, American voters say 61 – 32 percent, and President Barack Obama’s decision to withdraw all U.S. troops in 2011 was the right thing to do, voters say 58 – 37 percent in a Quinnipiac University National Poll released today.
But voters disapprove 55 – 37 percent of the way President Obama is handling the situation in Iraq and disapprove 52 – 42 percent of the way he is handling the situation in Afghanistan…
The pace of U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan is “about right,” 46 percent of voters say, while 26 percent say Obama is moving “too quickly” and 20 percent say “not quickly enough.”
Among voters in military households, 32 percent say “too quickly,” as 19 percent say “not quickly enough” and 41 percent say “about right.”
By a 51 – 27 percent margin, American voters blame former President George W. Bush, rather than Obama, for the situation in Iraq.
Only 35 percent of voters, however, say Obama is better than Bush conducting foreign policy, while 39 percent say he is worse.
…
American voters say 56 – 39 percent that it is not in the U.S. national interest to get involved in Iraq. But a total of 72 percent of voters say it is “very likely” or “somewhat likely” that if Islamic militants take over Iraq, “they would launch a terrorist attack against the U.S. in the near future.”

Jason Ditz at antiwar.com adds this:

Previous polls have showed similar opposition to US involvement in another war in Iraq, though they don’t seem to be impacting the Obama Administration’s decision to continue escalation.
Rather, they seem to have impacted the “talking points” without any real change, with officials promising they wouldn’t send troops, then that they wouldn’t send “combat troops,” then, having sent the combat troops, spurned claims of “mission creep.”
US officials seem to recognize voters’ opposition to the new war, but they aren’t letting it get in their way.

Who listens to us anyway — outside the voting booth.
And the Iraqi government is becoming as shitty as the US form — Iraq’s parliament delayed any action on anything, especially concerning asshole Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki until next month, even as those ISIS crazies are banging on Baghdad’s door with weapons galore.

So, speaking of our august country…
Americans seems to put away the rose-colored glasses and have stepped out into the open air — not good, though.
Via Yahoo Finance:

That’s the bottom line in a new Gallup poll measuring the extent of freedom in 135 countries.
Only 79 percent of Americans say they’re satisfied with their freedom to choose what to do with their lives, down from 87 percent in 2008.
The top five nations where people feel most satisfied with their freedoms are New Zealand, Australia, Cambodia, Sweden and the United Arab Emirates.
At No. 33, the United States is sandwiched between Bahrain and Cameroon.
Gallup doesn’t define “freedom” in this poll, so citizens of different countries are likely to interpret the word differently.
That’s why Cambodians — enjoying peaceful elections as they recover from years of war — rank among the top five.
Still, changes over time show whether people in a given nation feel their freedoms are improving or deteriorating.
The United States is one of the few places where freedoms appear to be on the wane.
Of the 100 countries where Gallup measured changes in freedom during the past five years, 75 of them registered an improvement, while 21 registered a decline.
Four stayed the same.
Of the decliners, only five nations report sharper drops than the United States.
Two of them — Syria and Afghanistan — are dominated by armed uprisings.
Two others — Tajikistan and Thailand — are racked with political turmoil.
Luxembourg, the most prosperous of the decliners, has become a target of U.S. and European authorities going after tax evaders with foreign accounts.
Such unruly company seems to have knocked some of the swagger out of the typical American.
In a separate set of polls by Pew Research, the percentage of Americans who believe the United States “stands above all other countries” dropped from 38 percent in 2011 to 28 percent in 2014.
Young Americans are least impressed with their home country, with only 15 percent of 18-29-year-olds saying the United States is the world’s No. 1 nation.
Among seniors, 40 percent feel that way — but still, that’s down from 50 percent just three years ago.
That newfound humility corresponds with an economic comedown that is looking permanent for an uncomfortably large portion of Americans.
The recession that ended in 2009 ravaged the economic fortunes of many American families, with median household wealth still about 40 percent lower than it was before the recession.
Jobs have finally started to return, but for many workers, pay is lower than it used to be.
People feel they’re falling behind, and the data show they’re not imagining things.
That’s a loss of economic freedom, which impacts other choices.
Many Americans seem to question the basic premise that everybody can get ahead in the so-called land of the free.
A recent analysis by USA Today found living the American Dream, loosely defined, costs a typical family of four roughly $130,000 per year.
That’s in a country where the median household income is only about $53,000, or less than half of what’s needed for a middle-class lifestyle.

We’re finally maybe see the handwriting on the wall of  so-called exceptionalism..