Kevin Drum 🕸

Here is the rate of "border encounters" over the past decade or so: Border crossings spiked at the end of Donald Trump's presidency and since then have remained at about 5x the normal rate. Is this a crisis? I think borders should be enforced but it's never been one of my hot buttons. Partly this ...continue reading "The past two years show that illegal immigration isn’t a very big problem"

Here's a chart from the CDC showing the biggest sources of drug overdoses: Here's what I don't understand. The first (known) case of a China White overdose happened here in Orange County in the late 1970s. Since then, various analogs of fentanyl have been available on the street now and again, but it was never ...continue reading "Why did it take so long for fentanyl to become popular?"

This is a fragment of the famous theme restaurant at LAX. At least, it's a fragment of what used to be the famous theme restaurant at LAX until a few years ago when it closed for lack of business. However, the observation deck got rebuilt a while ago and you can still visit it one ...continue reading "Lunchtime Photo"

Noted without comment:

The White House trading desk did well this year: Emergency releases from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve are slated to end this month, concluding an unusual attempt to lower gas prices after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sent oil prices soaring. Over the release period, Washington sold 180 million barrels of crude at an average of ...continue reading "Oil trades put US $4 billion ahead this year"

According to CryptoCompare, the value of assets under management for all crypto investments fell 14.5% in November. Here's a chart showing crypto AUM for the past year: Notice that the y-axis is denominated in $Billions, with a B. Total crypto AUM is down two-thirds over the past year and currently amounts to about $20 billion. ...continue reading "Crypto assets fall 14.5% in November"

Here is the lead story in the LA Times this morning: As it turns out, this is not the product of intensive investigative reporting. It's based on a report written three years ago by the bar itself. And sure enough, as a matter of plain fact the Times' headline is correct: The biggest disparity here ...continue reading "Black men and the California State Bar"

Federal official are investigating GM's Cruise unit over complaints that their self-driving cars are annoying because they've been designed to be super safe. This is catnip for Atrios: I think Sam was the first person who really made this crystal clear, that even if autonomous cars sorta "work" they'll be unpleasant and people won't really ...continue reading "Driverless cars don’t work yet. So what?"

As you probably know, for the past few months Gov. Doug Ducey of Arizona has been building his own makeshift border wall out of shipping containers. Here's a picture: This wall is illegal, ridiculous, expensive, and environmentally hazardous. But put all that aside. Isn't it also God's gift to coyotes and their customers? Stop me ...continue reading "Let us ponder Gov. Doug Ducey’s jerry-built border wall"

Here is Hilbert on the front lawn eating grass while Charlie looks on. The purpose of this, of course, is to make himself throw up a few hours later when he's inside the house. He will make sure to do this on one of our area rugs instead of the wood flooring where it would ...continue reading "Friday Cat Blogging – 16 December 2022"

In a desperate effort to avoid writing about Elon Musk on a day that's light on news, I present you instead with results of the annual BLS count of occupational deaths. Here's the total: That's a 6% increase between 2020 and 2021, but 2020 was an outlier. Aside from that, occupational fatalities have been flat ...continue reading "Raw data: Occupational fatalities in 2021"

Better late than never: The price of gasoline just keeps on falling. It's now lower than it was a year ago no matter how you measure it.

I have good news and bad news for local readers. The good news is that the Queen Mary reopens today after a two-year shutdown. And the city of Long Beach is conducting free one-hour tours! The bad news is that the tours are already all filled up. Easy come, easy go. Anyway, it turns out ...continue reading "Lunchtime Photo"

Is crypto just a stupid scam, sort of like the Tulip Bubble? I'd say the answer is obvious based on one single thing: Crypto enthusiasts actually tout the fact that anyone can create a cryptocurrency, which is almost the only true thing they say. But it should be pretty easy to see that if something ...continue reading "You don’t have to know anything to know that crypto is a scam"

A year ago the CDC published a study of mask-wearing in elementary and secondary schools. They collected data from 565 counties and produced the following results: With a couple of small exceptions at either end of the chart, schools that required masks were correlated with lower rates of COVID-19 cases in children. A pair of ...continue reading "Should we be masking students in K12 schools?"

E.J. Dionne writes today about inflation. But I would like to dissent in part and concur in part. Here's what he says: I was among those who did underestimate the immediate threat of inflation in early 2021, so I salute those (notably former treasury secretary Lawrence H. Summers) who warned us about what was coming....[But] ...continue reading "It’s time to change our minds about the cause of our current bout of inflation"

Retail and food service sales were down 7.9% from October to November: This is a sizeable decline, though it's not wildly out of the ordinary. Generally speaking, retail sales have been pretty flat during 2022 with the trendline showing a steady but small decrease. That said, down is worse than up. November's decline is probably ...continue reading "Chart of the day: Retail and food service sales for November"

Today brings yet another story about the catastrophic state of our public schools, this time from Tom Edsall. And I just don't know. These stories keep coming and coming even though the simplest, most straightforward data says there's nothing to it. Here is the K-12 student-teacher ratio for the past two decades: And here is ...continue reading "There is (still) no reason to panic about our schools"

Jack Sweeney is a guy who operates a Twitter account called @elonjet. It uses public information to track the location of Elon Musk's private jet and post it in real time. A few days ago there was a kerfuffle about the account being de-amplified: it still existed but a search for it brought up nothing. ...continue reading "Elon’s jet: A drama in three or four acts"

This is the Sandy Bottom Nature Park near Newport News, Virginia. I got out here to stretch my legs and got a couple of good pictures out of it. This one is an ordinary little marsh, but with lovely shadows because it was taken early in the morning.