According to Voteview, here's the skinny on Mike Johnson, our new Speaker of the House: He's pretty conservative, but a little less conservative than Jim Jordan. According to their ideology rankings, he's the 82nd most conservative member of the House, compared to 9th for Marjorie Taylor-Greene and 20th for Jordan.
The number of new one-family homes purchased ticked up at an annualized rate of 83,000 in September: It's remarkable that new home sales have stayed so robust in face of massively higher prices: The last time prices increased like this, during the high-interest Volcker regime of 1979-82, new home sales were cut in half and ...continue reading "New home sales just keep on rising"
Meta is being sued by 41 states for knowingly putting teens in danger. There are two big complaints. The first is that Facebook and Instagram recruit users under 13 in violation of the federal Children's Online Privacy Protection Act. This is plausible and easy to understand. But the other, bigger complaint is that Facebook and ...continue reading "Meta sued by 41 states for turning kids into addicts"
Oh come on. He only got nominated a few hours ago: 🚨🚨BREAKING — TOM EMMER has dropped out of the race for speaker. — Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) October 24, 2023 This was already ridiculous, but now it's positively insane. On the other hand, it's looking better and better for a Kevin McCarthy comeback!
The Wall Street Journal reports that militia groups allied with Iran have started targeting American forces: Iran in recent days has unleashed the regional militias it has spent years arming. ....Though Pentagon spokesman Air Force Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said Monday that the U.S. doesn’t have information that Iran “explicitly ordered” the recent militia attacks, ...continue reading "Iran proxies have entered the Mideast war"
According to WeCount—not to be confused with WeCount! or We Count or Wecount—abortions declined in the five months following the Dobbs decision but then started rising. The abortion rate today is higher than it was before Dobbs: The reason for this is obvious: abortions went down in states that banned them but went up in ...continue reading "Raw data: The number of abortions in the US"
Republicans first chose their majority leader to be Speaker of the House. Then they kicked him out and chose the new majority leader. Then they chose the founder of the House Freedom Caucus. Now they've chosen Tom Emmer, the majority whip. They're just going down the leadership list. In case you're wondering, next up is ...continue reading "Whose turn is it next to be Speaker nominee?"
Trump lawyer Jenna Ellis has pleaded guilty for conspiring to overturn the 2020 election. That's the fourth plea deal in the Georgia case. Only 15 more to go.
The New York Times presents us with a chart today showing that rich kids are far more likely to get high SAT scores than poor kids: What's the cause of this huge inequality? Children from rich and poor families receive vastly different educations, in and out of school, driven by differences in the amount of ...continue reading "Rich kids get way higher SAT scores than poor kids"
The Border Patrol released its September numbers today, and once again they're up: Border encounters in September were up 19% from last year and up 16% (to 270,000) compared to last month. About 50,000 of these were legal asylum requests while the rest were illegal crossings between ports of entry. Last month CBP said it ...continue reading "Border encounters reach record high in September"
Tyler Cowen has written a new book called GOAT: Who is the Greatest Economist of all Time? It's deliberately written from a fanboy perspective and it's available free here. It's a fun read and I recommend it. GOAT is a regular old book, but it's combined with a GPT engine that allows you to engage ...continue reading "Who is the greatest economist of all time?"
Last Friday was the final moonless night of the month, so I trekked out to Palomar Mountain to try out my new narrowband filter for a second time. I originally planned to photograph the Ghost Nebula, a smallish object with interesting colors. But at the last minute I discovered that narrowband filters don't work on ...continue reading "Lunchtime Photo"
This is a remarkable chart: The title is a little unclear. It refers to the software and computer services indexes tracked by the Datastream database. I've seen plenty of stories about the sad state of Europe's tech sector, but this chart sure brings it home. It might as well not exist for all the impact ...continue reading "Chart of the day: Tech is the sick man of Europe"
What should I call the site originally named Twitter? The people have spoken: I'll keep on calling it Twitter for now. Maybe for another few months. Sorry, Elon.
Apparently the idea that we don't have free will is so scandalous that the LA Times decided it needed an opposing opinion. So they recruited John Martin Fischer, a philosopher at UC Riverside, who says "of course we do." Well. I guess that's that. Argument over. But maybe not quite. I wouldn't bring this up ...continue reading "Like it or not, we must now take another crack at free will"
Jason Furman draws our attention to a new paper that analyzes the effect of the 2017 business tax cut. Long story short, the authors find that cutting taxes increased investment. I'm skeptical of this, and I'll show you why in three charts. First up is a chart from the paper itself showing, as promised, that ...continue reading "Did the 2017 tax cut increase business investment?"
I have been obstinately refusing to call Twitter by its new name, X, but I know that can't go on forever. The question is, How long can it go on? My problem isn't that I hate X, it's that I'm not sure most people know what X is yet. So far, mainstream outlets are still ...continue reading "Take my X/Twitter survey!"
Here's what's happening in London: London police said on Friday they had recorded a 1,353% increase in antisemitic offences this month compared to the same period last year, while Islamophobic offences were up 140% in the wake of the attack by Hamas on Israel. ....Police in the British capital ramped up patrols amid growing tensions, ...continue reading "Antisemitic attacks have skyrocketed over the past two weeks"
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