Kevin Drum 🕸

In a review of Talent, Edward Nevraumont says: Everywhere I have worked, the organization’s hiring processes were tilted in favor of experience over intelligence. Interviews include behavioral questions or assessments of specific skills. Rarely is anyone on the hiring loop running problem-solving sessions that require the candidate to demonstrate how they might deal with the ...continue reading "You should hire smarts and savvy, not just experience"

Bob Somerby wants to know if the logician/mathematician Kurt Gödel is a genius or a charlatan. The answer is "genius," but it's hard for non-mathematicians to understand his seminal theorem or why it matters. Bob is relying on Rebecca Goldstein's biography of Gödel, and this is a mistake since it's a biography, not a mathematical ...continue reading "Gödel explained"

Tyler Cowen directs us to Roland Fryer, writing today about the pay gap for Black workers: For decades, social scientists have shown that raw gaps in employment outcomes [...] misstate the amount of actual bias in an organization. ....One of the most important developments in the study of racial inequality has been the quantification of ...continue reading "We have to improve the education of Black children"

This is the Louvre as viewed from the left bank of the Seine. I like this view because it forces me to see the Louvre not as a museum, but as a royal palace, which it was intermittently for three centuries before Louis XIV finally abandoned it for good when he moved to Versailles. Ironically, ...continue reading "Lunchtime Photo"

In the Washington Monthly, Paul Glastris writes about regulation and monopolies: Federal regulation is not a hindrance to freedom or prosperity but bulwarks of both. Unfortunately, [in the early '80s], leaders of both parties adopted a contrary set of ideas, dubbed “neoliberalism”: that deregulating markets was the key to economic growth. Wait. The Monthly is ...continue reading "Washington Monthly goes medieval on neoliberalism"

Supreme Court liberals have been caught in public recently praising their conservative brethren. This has provoked the ire of many progressives, who are convinced they must be idiots, but I'd like to propose a radical alternative: the justices might be lying in order to form good relationships with conservatives. Why? Because when you're in a ...continue reading "Why are liberal Supreme Court justices praising conservatives?"

How is our mental health doing? It's gotten a lot of attention in these post (?) COVID days, some of it based on this Gallup poll from a few months ago: The line to look at is the "excellent/good" line at the top, and it unquestionably dipped during the height of the pandemic. At the ...continue reading "Americans’ mental health held up pretty well during the pandemic"

Tonight I find common bond with the conservative movement in the US on a development that's a threat to all of us. I speak, of course, about QR-code menus in restaurants: QR-code menus are annoying, but not exactly the greatest civilizational threat of our time. But there’s a serious aspect of this, too: They not ...continue reading "QR menus must be stopped"

The Guttmacher Institute recently reported a rise in the abortion rate. It's the second recent increase, following one in 2019: In addition, the absolute number of abortions increased; the abortion/pregnancy ratio increased; and this happened in every region of the country. Why? It's all guesswork at this point, but there are a few theories: It's ...continue reading "Raw data: Abortions in the United States"

Here's a tidbit of interesting news that I missed last week: liberals are breathing a sigh of relief because the Supreme Court ruled unanimously against the government in American Hospital Association v. Becerra. Liberals were anticipating this ruling with trepidation. The issue in question was related to the way Medicare reimburses hospitals for certain prescription ...continue reading "Liberals lose on court deference, but they’re happy anyway"

I don't have anything substantive to say here, but WTF Uvalde police department? Are they seriously trying to prohibit access to bodycam video and other evidence related to their recent school shooting because . . . well, Jason Koebler of Vice tells us what they're saying: The city and its police department want to be ...continue reading "The Uvalde affair gets worse and worse"

The LA Times has an op-ed by Lex Rivers today with this title: Why is it so hard to get healthcare as a trans cancer patient? Nothing could have prepared me for what I was about to endure as a trans cancer patient. The abusive treatment I have experienced makes clear how having cancer and ...continue reading "How badly are trans cancer patients treated by American doctors?"

I was cleaning out some old folders over the weekend and came across this picture of a white rose. It had a bit of a yellow cast in the center that I didn't like, but when I opened Photoshop to remove it I accidentally ended up changing it instead. I was quite taken with this ...continue reading "Lunchtime Photo"

Back in the Golden Age of blogging the Texas Republican Party platform was a regular object of ridicule, one that I'd write about every couple of years. It was always a hoot. Take back the Panama Canal! Return to the gold standard! Abolish the federal income tax! Today the Texas GOP platform is back in ...continue reading "Here’s a walk down memory lane with the platform of the Texas state GOP"

The LA Times has a story today about low-income housing—mostly in Northern California—that costs more than $1 million per unit to build. The culprits are the usual ones you'd suspect: state regulations, inflation, supply chain problems, union labor, strict environmental standards, and so forth. I don't doubt that all these things take a toll, but ...continue reading "Is low-income housing too expensive?"

I forgot to show you the apartment we stayed at in Paris. Here it is: The top picture shows the street we were on. At the far end among the greenery—about a two-minute walk—is Madeleine, and a short turn to the left leads to the metro station. The bottom picture shows the inner courtyard. The ...continue reading "Our apartment in Paris"

This is Hilbert rolling around on the backyard patio, only to be momentarily distracted by a dog walking by. Hilbert is oddly fascinated by dogs. Not afraid, precisely, and not sociable either, but always intrigued. What are these furry things that are almost like us? A strange breed of cat? Something else? What what what?

What did Republicans learn from Watergate? I'm here to explain: Bipartisan investigations are very bad things. Following Iran-Contra, it became obvious that they were very, very bad things. Partisan investigations are great! They are highly effective at damaging the opposition and should become a routine tool of Republican administrations. On the 50th anniversary of Watergate ...continue reading "The lessons of Watergate"

I'm not an economist with a sophisticated macro model or anything like that, but even before this week I thought that a recession was almost inevitable. Here are the basic reasons why: The economy has been propped up by COVID-19 spending for a while, which is a good thing. But the last stimulus bill passed ...continue reading "Recession is coming"

Courtesy of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, here's a map showing which states have increased employment the most over the past year: The biggest states have been the slowest to increase employment, but they're now catching up with very large gains over the past few months. The biggest annual gainer in percentage terms is Nevada, ...continue reading "Employment is still more important than inflation"