Kevin Drum 🕸

From the Wall Street Journal: OpenAI’s new artificial-intelligence project is behind schedule and running up huge bills. It isn’t clear when—or if—it’ll work. There may not be enough data in the world to make it smart enough. The project, officially called GPT-5 and code-named Orion, has been in the works for more than 18 months.... ...continue reading "18 months is not an AI crisis"

According to a new report commissioned by Waymo and conducted by SwissRe, Waymo driverless cars are about ten times safer than cars driven by people: The report is based on 25.3 million miles driven by Waymo cars in four US cities (San Francisco, Phoenix, Los Angeles, and Austin). This was before Waymo began freeway driving, ...continue reading "Raw data: The safety record of Waymo driverless cars"

Hardworking Iowa senator Joni Ernst delivers a bombshell: My investigations exposed that just 8 out of 5,000 @ENERGY employees show up on the average day! There are more reindeer on Santa’s sleigh than bureaucrats showing up @ENERGY. 🎅🏻🦌🦌 pic.twitter.com/yLvcRNL1gI — Joni Ernst (@SenJoniErnst) December 20, 2024 ZOMG! And this is the result of "investigations," so ...continue reading "In which I investigate the investigations"

Derek Thompson writes in the Atlantic about a mysterious new "health wave" sweeping the United States: In May 2024, the U.S. government reported that drug-overdose deaths fell 3 percent from 2022 to 2023, a rare bright spot in a century of escalating drug deaths. In June, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reported that traffic ...continue reading "The “health epidemic” isn’t, really"

Here is Hilbert surveying his domain before setting out for the day to find the best place for a noontime nap.

If it's inflation day that means it's also personal income day. Adjusted for inflation, disposable personal income increased at an annual rate of 1.3% in November: After accounting for inflation, disposable personal income is up 10% since the start of the pandemic.

Core PCE is The Fed's Preferred Measure of Inflation™, so let's focus on that this month. On a month-over-month basis, it came in at 1.4% in November: PCE is a volatile series, so it's best not to get too excited about monthly ups and downs, including this one. Nonetheless, core PCE has been on a ...continue reading "Core PCE inflation plunges in November"

Today the Border Patrol reported a total of 94,190 Southwest border encounters in November. This was the first time the number has dropped below six figures since Joe Biden took office. Out of the total, about 47,000 were caught trying to cross the border illegally. The rest were asylum seekers who presented themselves at border ...continue reading "Border crossings drop in November"

I forgot to mention that I'm out of the hospital and back home. In fact, I came home yesterday. I was scheduled to stay until today, but I made a nuisance of myself and bullied them into releasing me early. Why? This was my third time getting a treatment with a risk of causing Cytokine ...continue reading "Health update"

Our story so far: Democrats negotiate with Speaker Mike Johnson on a CR to keep the government open for another three months. After a bit of minor pressure from Elon Musk, Johnson reneges on the deal. The new deal is: Fuck you. We get everything we want, you get nothing. Now, I'm no Master of ...continue reading "Republican “fuck you” bill goes down to massive defeat"

The discourse is suddenly alive with revived talk of how the public turned against Joe Biden because of his mental incapacity. In particular, they hated being gaslit: told he was fine when the evidence of our eyes told us otherwise. However, there are some problems with this theory. Here's the first one: Biden's approval rating ...continue reading "Did Democrats lose because voters were mad at Joe Biden?"

Another one of the sand dunes near sunset at the Cadiz Dunes Wilderness in the Mojave Desert.

The Washington Post says people are "scrambling" to buy cars, appliances and other big-ticket imports before Donald Trump takes office and puts tariffs on everything. These kinds of stories are usually based on super thin anecdotal data, but maybe there's something to this one: There's no telling what's really driving this, but auto sales started ...continue reading "Tariff fears are (supposedly) driving car sales"

There's trouble brewing for Pete Hegseth. Apparently the Armed Services Committee takes seriously the nomination of someone to head up our armed services: At least a dozen senators are pushing to see the FBI’s background check on Pete Hegseth, Donald Trump’s embattled pick for Pentagon chief — a rare move for the committee that oversees ...continue reading "Is Pete Hegseth in trouble?"

I'm not sure if this is surprising or not: The most vaccine skeptical folks are independents, not Republicans. And skepticism is highest among the middle-aged. Worth a ponder.

From Rep. Blake Moore, asked why Democrats would vote for a spending bill that had killed off all of their priorities: Great question. Republicans can't pass anything by themselves because they're in such violent disarray. They know this perfectly well. They need Democratic votes. But Elon Musk and Donald Trump seem to think they can ...continue reading "Quote of the day: “Great question”"

More weirdness from Donald Trump, insisting that a CLEAN spending bill has to include farm aid, hurricane relief, and a debt ceiling increase: Can anyone imagine passing it without either terminating, or extending, the Debt Ceiling guillotine coming up in June? Unless the Democrats terminate or substantially extend Debt Ceiling now, I will fight ‘till ...continue reading "Donald Trump is afraid of the debt ceiling"

After Elon Musk had already coordinated a Republican revolt against the CR, Donald Trump jumped in to take credit: Republicans want to support our farmers, pay for disaster relief, and set our country up for success in 2025. The only way to do that is with a temporary funding bill WITHOUT DEMOCRAT GIVEAWAYS combined with ...continue reading "Trump wants a CLEAN spending bill except for almost everything in it"

I see that the CR is dead again, thanks to right-wing Republican opposition. Ah well. Who needs farm aid in the Midwest and hurricane relief in the South? But just to show what we're arguing about, here's yet another chart showing domestic spending by the federal government. This includes everything: discretionary spending, welfare entitlements, even ...continue reading "A quick look at every penny of domestic spending"

David Dayen says Democrats are adrift because they have no widely accepted leaders. That's true. Nancy Pelosi was a strong Speaker but she retired. Joe Biden is now a widely-derided lame duck. Kamala Harris lost, and losers never wield much influence. Chuck Schumer spends most of his time on legislative blocking-and-tackling. Young up-and-comers like AOC ...continue reading "Democrats in disarray! (For awhile.)"