Kevin Drum 🕸

During its current war against Hamas, Israel has deliberately forced two million Palestinians into refugee camps. Israel has deliberately leveled half of Gaza. Israel has deliberately denied food and medical aid to civilians. Israel has plainly carried out indiscriminate bombing with little care for who they kill. You can make a pretty good case that ...continue reading "Israel is committing war crimes. Genocide is not one of them."

The latest in lost money: "Failed to track." Sure. It went straight into the pockets of the Biden crime family, amirite? Wake up, sheeple.

Here is the national average price of gasoline over the past 20 years: The price this week is lower than 70% of the months between 2004 and 2023.

I wonder if this is true? Over the past year, remote workers were promoted 31% less frequently than people who worked in an office, either full-time or on a hybrid basis, according to an analysis of two million white-collar workers by employment-data provider Live Data Technologies. Remote workers also get less mentorship, a gap that’s ...continue reading "You’re more likely to be promoted if you go into the office. Maybe."

In its never-ending war against government interference with the perfect life, National Review recommends to us today an essay by Matthew Crawford about the indignity of motion-sensitive bathroom faucets. I'd normally try to provide you with an abridged excerpt, but it's really better if you read it in its full glory: It is characteristic of ...continue reading "Sometimes a sink is just a sink"

This is an odd post from Atrios: Remember Libya? A funny forgotten war in which we destroyed a country most likely (whether we knew it or not) to cover up Sarkozy's crimes. No one can offer up a better explanation, anyway, other than the usual liberal humanitarian intervention nonsense which explodes as ridiculous as soon ...continue reading "Yeah, I remember Libya"

Iowa has gotten about a foot of snow during the current storm. According to Research™ an inch of snow reduces voter turnout by 0.5%. Roughly speaking, then, we should expect that Monday's caucuses will see turnout about 5% lower than usual. That's not much, really, and there's no telling what it means in an all-Republican ...continue reading "Snowstorm will reduce Iowa caucus turnout slightly"

Charlie is still in the cone. We've made the mistake twice of releasing him too early, so this time it's staying on until his wound is genuinely better. As you can see, though, it doesn't keep him from a proper snooze. It's a funny thing. Charlie doesn't usually sleep in the bed with us at ...continue reading "Friday Cat Blogging – 12 January 2024"

The Wall Street Journal reports today about a new study on learning loss from the pandemic: In kindergarten, students tested in 2023 were about 2 percentage points less likely to begin school at grade level in both math and reading, compared with 2019, data compiled by the testing company Curriculum Associates show. Scores also remained ...continue reading "Kindergarten kids also suffered learning losses during the pandemic"

What a bizarre story we have today. According to the rules of the Sports Emmys, on-air talent is not eligible to win an overall award for a show. (They have their own category.) But ESPN wanted them to win anyway: ESPN circumvented the rule by inserting fake names into the credit list it submitted to ...continue reading "ESPN forced to return fake Emmy Awards"

This is a house out on the prairie near Towaoc, Colorado. I took the picture while I was scouting locations on the day before the eclipse.

The Wall Street Journal tells us today that more potent strains of marijuana are producing increased diagnosis of psychosis in teenage cannabis users: Rates of diagnoses for cannabis-induced disorders were more than 50% higher at the end of November than in 2019, healthcare-analytics company Truveta said this week. The trend is contributing to the broader ...continue reading "Cannabis might be causing more teen psychosis. Or maybe not."

Donald Trump decided at the last minute that he would deliver a closing statement at his trial after all. The judge allowed it on condition that Trump stick to the law and the facts, and Trump agreed. This naturally meant nothing. Jonah Bromwich reports in real time: Trump, speaking into the microphone, says the case ...continue reading "Donald Trump just can’t keep his mouth shut"

True crime author Ron Stodghill has a peculiar op-ed in the LA Times today. He's calling out the fact that true crime stories are mostly about white people: Critics of the genre warn that the homogeneity of true crime stories not only reflects racial biases — it exacerbates them.... Journalist Elon Green puts it this ...continue reading "Is the true crime genre too lily white?"

It's inflation day, and the BLS reports that CPI spiked up to 3.7% in December on an annualized basis: Core CPI didn't change much and ended the month at 3.8%. This is obviously not a good report, but as usual, it's a noisy series and a single month doesn't mean much. On a conventional year-over-year ...continue reading "CPI spikes up in December"

Among Republicans, sympathy for Israel far outweighs sympathy for the Palestinians, and this hasn't changed much over the years. The story among Democrats is different. Although sympathy for Israel has long been firmly positive, around 2015 it began to steadily deteriorate. Then, in 2023—but before the Gaza war started—it finally went negative, with more Democrats ...continue reading "Among Democrats, support for Israel has cratered"

Yesterday I posted a chart comparing illegal immigration to the number of job openings in the US. It was only for the past few years, and I thought you might be interested in a longer term look. Here it is: Illegal immigration has roughly followed job prospects for the past two decades. The number of ...continue reading "Illegal immigration is mostly driven by availability of jobs"

It was cold on Monday night: 33°F at the top of Palomar Mountain, where I did this month's bit of astrophotography. I thought my fingers were going to fall off. The sky wasn't perfect, but it was pretty good and nothing went wrong. I got a full night's worth of images and all of them ...continue reading "Lunchtime Photo"

Finally I have a chance to post some cheesecake with a genuinely newsworthy purpose: This might not look especially racy to you, and when I first heard about it I figured it was just an ordinary case of a conservative guy trying to make a buck. But no! Vox informs me today that it's become ...continue reading "Calendargate is splitting the right"

The Artemis II mission to orbit the moon has been pushed back: The space agency had planned to send four astronauts around the moon late this year, but pushed the flight to September 2025.... NASA cited safety concerns with its own spacecraft, as well as development issues with the moonsuits and landers coming from private ...continue reading "No moon orbit this year"