Kevin Drum 🕸

I don't know what kind of tree this is, but the red leaves were pretty so I took a picture of them. Anybody want to help ID this bit of Louisiana swamp flora?

Houston, we have a problem: Disneyland’s Electrical Parade is ditching its patriotic float. Why that’s a good thing The most notable change appears to be happening with the Main Street Electrical Parade, which is doing away with an America-first finale that had survived a number of decades and featured a closing stars-and-stripes float of the ...continue reading "BREAKING NEWS: Disney hates real America"

Tyler Cowen pointed today to a recent paper that says the US redistributes more to low income groups than any European country. But here's a chart from the paper: We're close to the bottom! So what's up? The answer is taxes: According to the authors, our tax system is more progressive than those in Europe. ...continue reading "Let’s compare the bottom 50% in the US vs. Europe"

This is a busker on the Seal Beach pier with Long Beach harbor in the background. As it happens, though, she wasn't actually busking. She played her violin for a few minutes just to attract attention, and then put it away. Her real business was selling small paintings: portraits, elaborate letterforms, mythical animals, and so ...continue reading "Lunchtime Photo"

Here are the headlines today about Ukraine: LAT: Russia orders troops into eastern Ukraine as fear of war grows NYT: Putin’s Order Sending Forces to Separatist Enclaves Is Condemned at U.N. WaPo: Putin orders troops to eastern Ukraine WSJ: Putin Orders Deployment of Troops to Breakaway Regions in Ukraine Guardian: Russia strongly condemned at UN ...continue reading "Russia invades Ukraine"

This is Silverado Creek at the southernmost point of Silverado Road where it leads into Silverado Canyon. I think there's a movie called Silverado, isn't there? It should have been filmed here.

Is our electricity distribution system getting less reliable? Yes and no: If you look just at day-to-day operations, nothing much has changed. Power outages are slightly worse, but only by a little bit. But when you count "major events," the duration of power outages has nearly doubled over the past decade or so. Why? Is ...continue reading "Raw data: Reliability of the US electricity distribution system"

For some reason a chart of pedestrian deaths has been making the rounds in my Twitter feed: I replotted the chart to show pedestrian deaths per capita, which looks like this: This is very peculiar. Whether you look at the raw data or whether you adjust for population or vehicle miles driven you get the ...continue reading "Why did pedestrian deaths suddenly turn upward in 2009?"

As I semi-promised earlier today, here's a chart showing the housing situation in each state: States like Maine and Vermont have loads of housing, while the entire West Coast is at the very bottom. Oddly, Texas is well below the average. I would have expected them to have loads of housing. And with that I'm ...continue reading "Yet more about housing in the United States"

Remember the great worker shortage? It's why there are so many job openings going begging. But where did all the workers go? Nobody seems to know. Perhaps the explanation is simpler than we think. Maybe it's just that a whole lot of people retired during the pandemic: That's from Miguel Faria-e-Castro of the St. Louis ...continue reading "How many excess retirements did the pandemic create?"

Last night I wrote a post about the number of housing units in the United States. It's all correct. Unfortunately, I also talked about about housing units in California. When I went back today to take a more detailed look at California, I realized that I had transposed a couple of numbers in yesterday's post, ...continue reading "Update: Housing units in California"

Here is the Census Bureau's definition of a housing unit: Housing unit is a house, an apartment, a group of rooms, or a single room occupied or intended for occupancy as separate living quarters.... Tents and boats are excluded if vacant.... Living quarters of the following types are excluded from the housing unit inventory: Dormitories, ...continue reading "Raw data: Housing units in the US"

I continue to believe that Donald Trump will get away with everything, but there's no question that his legal position has deteriorated considerably over the past week or so. Here's a review of recent headlines. Enjoy.

Here is Hilbert relaxing in the garden on a summery day in February. He had just spent some time warming up his fur in a sunny patch and headed off to this nice, shady spot to cool down.

Are you wondering how the Ukraine crisis is playing out in Russian media? LA Times staff writer Nabih Bulos reports from Kyiv: To hear Russian media tell it, the government of Ukraine is run by neo-Nazis waging a genocidal campaign against ethnic Russians in the country’s east, where Moscow-backed authorities regularly uncover mass graves full ...continue reading "The view from Moscow is a grim one"

As we all know, the number of job openings has soared over the past year: But how are individual states doing? Here are the top and bottom ten: Alaska and Wyoming are begging for workers and not getting them. Those are presumably good states to go to if you want to start fresh and find ...continue reading "Raw data: Which states have the most job openings?"

Things I didn't know until last night: Buddhism had first arrived in China during the Han....Eunuchs proved enthusiastic converts, comforted by the promise of reincarnation; they carried their severed parts, their "precious," băobèi, in a special container so that they could be reunited with them in the next life. OK then.

The Electoral Count Act is a 19th century relic that provides rules for how to count electoral votes in presidential elections. Unfortunately, it's so vague and poorly drafted that, in practice, it's close to worthless. The reason it's back in the news these days is obvious: after the debacle of 2020—and with a potentially worse ...continue reading "Here’s an idea for reforming the Electoral Count Act"