Kevin Drum 🕸

It strikes me that we have been in an almost continuous state of panic this entire year. Some is real, some is media-driven. Here are a few examples: The withdrawal from Afghanistan, even though it had major problems only on the first day and then went pretty well, considering the circumstances. The Fed's panic over ...continue reading "Every month we find something new to panic about"

Now we're talking. Cosmic cliffs & a sea of stars. @NASAWebb reveals baby stars in the Carina Nebula, where ultraviolet radiation and stellar winds shape colossal walls of dust and gas. https://t.co/63zxpNDi4I #UnfoldTheUniverse pic.twitter.com/dXCokBAYGQ — NASA (@NASA) July 12, 2022 Take Five: Captured in exquisite detail, @NASAWebb peered through the thick dust of Stephan’s Quintet, ...continue reading "NASA unveils Webb images of the Carina Nebula, Stephen’s Quintet, and the Southern Ring planetary nebula"

Man, listening to these NASA people you'd think infrared was the greatest invention since the yellow first down line. Are they really trying to explain a chart showing a spectrograph of an exoplanet in the near infrared? Come on. No more infrared boosterism. Let's see some images!

Here's the latest internet meme about monkeypox: Absolute insanity: The Biden Admin won't accept 1 million doses of Monkeypox vaccine from Denmark because the FDA failed to do a timely inspection of the plant -- even though EU authorities did inspect the plant and approved its product for use in the EU. https://t.co/quqedbtVHp — Josh ...continue reading "How big a disaster is the FDA’s monkeypox approval delay?"

According to a new poll, Donald Trump is not very popular these days among Republicans: His post-presidential quest to consolidate his support within the Republican Party has instead left him weakened, with nearly half the party’s primary voters seeking someone different for president in 2024 and a significant number vowing to abandon him if he ...continue reading "Republicans are souring on Donald Trump"

This tweet piqued my interest: What this reminds me of is the fact that LA/LB, which this specialist talks about as being partially automated, has been awarded in efficiency reports the title of the least efficient port in the worldhttps://t.co/AVsUdN8zPl — David Dayen (@ddayen) July 12, 2022 This is true according to the World Bank, ...continue reading "Does automation increase efficiency at container ports?"

There's an odd story in the LA Times today: In the last eight months, the rate of change in annual rental costs for new tenants has more than doubled, reaching its highest level on record, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics reviewed by The Times. The data, which are not in the ...continue reading "How much are new rents going up? Not so much!"

Those of you who read this blog on weekends already know about my latest night sky photography adventures. But there's more going on. For quite some time I've been mulling the idea of getting more serious about astrophotography, and lately I've been mulling it more actively. I haven't pulled any triggers yet, but all this ...continue reading "Lunchtime Photo"

A bunch of people have put up complicated charts today showing that wage growth is cooling down. Here's my simple chart: Well, maybe mine isn't really any simpler. But as you can see, wages have been running behind inflation for the past 18 months, and even nominal wage growth (shown quarterly by the cute blue ...continue reading "Wages are moderating no matter how you measure them"

Are Republicans bound and determined to make Donald Trump's dream come true of routinely stealing elections they've lost? It sure looks that way. Are they the only ones who think think that elections are rigged by their opponents? Um... The trend here is so obvious that I hardly need to point it out. When Bush ...continue reading "About a third of everyone doesn’t trust elections"

The Los Angeles Times reports today on the strange tale of methotrexate: Methotrexate is a cheap, common drug prescribed to millions of Americans.... Many have rheumatic illnesses. Others take it to treat inflammatory bowel disease, psoriasis or cancer.... In low doses, it has proved to be one of the safest, least expensive and most effective ...continue reading "Methotrexate is now a victim of the Supreme Court"

Caleb Williams is USC's quarterback of the future. But when he was still in high school, his father was already thinking about the imminent arrival of an endorsement-fueled college game: So Carl and his business partners, who together own a D.C. area gym, sketched out their own plans with Caleb’s help while he was still ...continue reading "Today’s college quarterbacks need mission statements"

It's been a month or two since I've done this, so here, once again, is a chart showing the average monthly mortgage payment for houses sold in the US. This time I'm showing it as a percentage of income: As you can see, mortgage payments for newly purchased houses were pretty steady from the end ...continue reading "Raw data: The cost of buying a house"

I feel like writing a big ol' post about my latest adventures with night sky photography. This will be of interest to only a few, so don't say you weren't warned. June is a good month for photographing the Milky Way, so after we got back from Paris I decided to give this another go ...continue reading "A weekend soliloquy about night sky photography"

As we all know by now, the US added 372,000 jobs in June. Is that good? Bad? Neither? Just for fun, I'd like to show you why it's wise not to pay too much attention to any single instance of this number. Background first: The monthly jobs number comes from the payroll survey done by ...continue reading "Did we really add 372,000 jobs last month?"

Wednesday was a momentous day: we let Charlie out into the backyard for the first time. And it went great! Charlie swatted bugs and roamed around the ferns and a good time was had by all. Thursday was . . . not so great. Charlie almost immediately hopped the fence into our neighbor's yard and ...continue reading "Friday Cat Blogging – 8 July 2022"

Let me get this straight. In the Pennsylvania Senate race we have one guy who lives in New Jersey running against another guy who had a stroke and hasn't been seen in public since. Am I missing anything here?

An awful lot of people still don't seem to get the fact that you have to adjust wages for inflation to see how people are doing. A 5% wage increase is good if the inflation rate is 2% but bad if the inflation rate is 8%. So here are two charts that show what's been ...continue reading "Wages continue to plummet"

The American economy gained 372,000 jobs last month. We need 90,000 new jobs just to keep up with population growth, which means that net job growth clocked in at 282,000 jobs. The headline unemployment rate remained flat at 3.6%. This month's report is something of a statistical mirage. The size of the civilian labor force ...continue reading "Chart of the day: Net new jobs in June"

Friday is new jobs day. Here's my prediction: If new jobs are higher than expected, it's an indication that the economy is running too hot. This is producing a demand-driven inflationary spiral that needs to be stomped on. If new jobs are lower than expected, it's an indication that workers are holding out for higher ...continue reading "My prediction for new jobs"