Kevin Drum 🕸

Here's a quick look at the federal judiciary as of today: Aside from the Supreme Court, it's pretty close to 50-50 even after Mitch McConnell's four-year demolition derby. By the time Joe Biden's first term comes to an end Democrats will probably control a majority of the seats at all levels of the judiciary except ...continue reading "Some thoughts on the judiciary"

This is Charlie posing next to our new drapes. They are still tied up at the bottom because, apparently, we need to "set the pleats." This sounds ridiculous to me, but Marian knew all about this concept and accepted it without question. So set them we will.

On Monday I wanted to find out if the price of gasoline had gone up or down, so I headed over to the EIA site. But there were problems: Hmmm. Here is Tuesday: We are experiencing network issues, so our release of gasoline and diesel fuel prices will be delayed today. We will provide updates ...continue reading "What’s going on at the Energy Information Administration?"

A couple of weeks ago I said that gun regulation would never pass, but here we are: a bipartisan gun bill has passed the Senate and will pass the House today. It will then become law whenever President Biden decides to schedule a bill signing ceremony. So Sen. Chris Murphy proved me wrong after all. ...continue reading "Our little gun bill is set to become law"

The FDA has ordered Juul to take its vaping devices off the market due to "insufficient and conflicting data" about the safety of its e-liquid pods. This has prompted another round of arguing about whether or not vaping is, on net, a public safety improvement, especially among teens. But I think the data is in ...continue reading "Vaping leads to higher teen nicotine use"

I got aimlessly directed to the latest Fox News poll this morning, and as I was browsing through it I came across its results for the generic congressional ballot ("Would you vote for the R or D candidate in your district?"). Here it is: For some reason I was under the impression that Democrats were ...continue reading "Dems are behind right now, but not by much"

This is sunrise on the Seine, somewhere near Les Andelys. For some reason—probably jet lag, I suppose—I was up every morning during our Seine cruise and spent my time on the sun deck taking pictures and watching the crew. There were never more than one or two other passengers there. Just not an early-rising bunch, ...continue reading "Lunchtime Photo"

Today is ATUS day, the day when the BLS releases the latest numbers from the American Time Use Survey. I was looking forward to comparing 2021 with 2020, but I forgot that ATUS had been suspended in 2020 due to COVID. Still, we have charts. Here's one for the percentage of people who worked at ...continue reading "Charts of the day: How we spent our time in 2021"

In the New York Times today, Jessica Grose interviews Linda Villarosa about the maternal mortality rate. It's worth a read, but first I'd like to reacquaint you with the basic statistics. First, here are the latest US maternal mortality rates by race: And here's the US maternal mortality rate over time: Everything here is nuts. ...continue reading "The maternal mortality rate has skyrocketed over the past three years"

This is a Louisiana egret resting in a bed of daisies that match his beak. Apparently this egret has an excellent color sense.

Over at Vox, Rachel Cohen asks: Should you keep abortion pills at home, just in case? With Roe on the brink, more experts are talking about advance provision of mifepristone and misoprostol. Medication abortion, or taking a combination of the drugs mifepristone and misoprostol, is an increasingly common method for ending pregnancies in the United ...continue reading "Yes, most women should keep abortion pills at home, just in case"

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"