Kevin Drum 🕸

Take a look at this photo: How would you describe it? This is a small white house. This is a white small house. The answer is #1, of course. The second description sounds obviously wrong even though it just changes the order of the adjectives. Native English speakers understand this intuitively even if nobody ever ...continue reading "Watch the order of your adjectives!"

A week ago I predicted that the Senate would do nothing on gun regulation. But over the weekend negotiators announced they'd reached a deal. So was I too cynical? Maybe! But keep two things in mind: Nothing has passed yet. There's plenty of time for things to fall apart. Even if it passes, the "framework" ...continue reading "Gun regulation is still going nowhere"

A couple of months ago the chatterati could talk about nothing but supply chain problems causing shortages of consumer goods. Now, with whip snapping speed, everything has changed. Suddenly the conversation is all about gluts: The big-box retailer Target said Tuesday that it’s having inventory troubles. Target has a lot of stuff, including furniture and ...continue reading "Wait. Supply shortages are suddenly yesterday’s news?"

I didn't check the COVID-19 stats at all while I was on vacation, so I figured I should take a look now that I'm back. This time around, I was interested in death rates by vaccination status. Here it is: The CDC provides death rates by vax status through the start of April. The more ...continue reading "COVID-19 Update: Hardly anyone is dying anymore"

The price of gasoline continues to skyrocket. This got me curious about how closely it's following the price of oil these days, so I went back and did a more careful job with the regression chart I've posted a few times already. Here it is: Gasoline is now selling for 61¢ more than the current ...continue reading "What’s going on with the price of gasoline?"

Over at New York, Sam Adler-Bell says that he doesn't care about the word "woke." If you don't like it, fine. But if you believe in the principles behind the word, you need to quit using its pseudo-academic language with anyone other than your own circle of true believers: This idiom — or perhaps communicative ...continue reading "Politics is just another word for persuasion"

Did you watch the 1/6 hearings last night? I did, but thanks to lingering jet lag I dozed through bits and pieces of it. I think I mostly got the gist, but there were some things I probably missed. Anyway, it seemed pretty effective, though as usual it's all but impossible for me to judge ...continue reading "How many people still have uncertain opinions about Trump and 1/6?"

We return you now to our regular Friday programming featuring fully American cats. In today's photo, Charlie is showing off his hunting skills by leaping onto a painted ping pong ball. He mainly likes it because it rolls around nicely and makes a great sound when it bounces off walls. He never quite brings it ...continue reading "Friday Cat Blogging – 10 June 2022"

Jim Geraghty tells us what's on his mind: How Can a Tired, Old, Overwhelmed President Respond to Terrible Inflation Numbers? Earlier this week I wrote, “we don’t know precisely what the national inflation numbers for May will be, but we can all sense they’re not going to be good.” It turns out that May’s inflation ...continue reading "Is inflation high because Joe Biden is sleepy?"

Woke pronouns have drawn George Will's attention this week. The scandalous activity took place in Kiel, a town of 4,000 in central Wisconsin: In April, the district lodged a complaint against three eighth-grade boys for the offense of “mispronouning,” referring to a classmate using the biologically correct pronoun “her” instead of the classmate’s preferred “them.” ...continue reading "Right-wing pronoun cops win huge victory in Wisconsin"

Today is inflation day, and the BLS reports that the US inflation rate has basically plateaued at above 8%. March was 8.6%; April was 8.2%; and May has clocked in 8.6%. Core CPI has actually declined for the past few months. Note that these are the standard year-over-year figures, which compare May 2022 with May ...continue reading "Chart of the day: Inflation in May"

With my vacation officially over, it's time to put other things back into the daily photo rotation. This one is a picture of some guys playing a bit of beach volleyball in Laguna Beach a few weeks ago. I don't know who they were, but they were really, really good.

How polarized is America? A couple of Vanderbilt political scientists decided to find out: According to the prevailing national narrative, American unity is at or near an all-time low....Even so, we do not have good, systematic evidence about national unity — or, more important, about how it may have changed over time....To overcome this, we ...continue reading "Vanderbilt study says Americans are hopelessly at each other’s throats"

Here's an excerpt from a Vox piece about the upcoming congressional hearings on the January 6 insurrection. It's typical of dozens of others I've read: The committee is going to great lengths to make the primetime presentation compelling , including bringing in former ABC News president James Goldston as a consultant. They will gather Thursday ...continue reading "If you’re putting on a show, don’t brag about putting on a show"

While we wait for new inflation numbers to be released on Friday, here's a quick look at the inflationary pressure facing the economy right now: This is based on core PCE inflation, the Fed's preferred measure. However, instead of showing year-over-year inflation, it uses month-over-month in order to get a sense of how inflation is ...continue reading "Inflationary pressure seems to be easing"

This is an allegedly famous house in the town of Vernon, but I suspect "famous" should be taken in the same sense you'd take "World Famous Burgers" at your local diner. Maybe it's locally well known, but it probably ranks about 100,000th on the global list of famous things. Pretty, though.

Here in the western United States, everything is drying up. Just about everyone is familiar with time-lapse photographs of Lake Mead, the reservoir created by Hoover Dam, showing how its water level has been steadily falling for decades. It's down 160 feet since 2000, and if it drops another hundred feet the lake will no ...continue reading "The western US is parched and choking"

While I was away, Washington Post reporter Dave Weigel posted a joke on Twitter: This is a tasteless joke and I have no idea what prompted Dave to retweet it. A little too much to drink? A recent breakup? Beats me. I hope his editors tell him that this was inappropriate and he needs to ...continue reading "Dumb joke gets star reporter suspended for a month"

I couldn't help myself. I had to take a quick look at the headlines to see what had happened while Air France was flying me home. Imagine my surprise when I saw this one in the Washington Post: If we just give them another few days, they'll put together a deal for sure! Sure they ...continue reading "Gun deal is facing tough times"

Home to good ol' hazy Los Angeles, that is. Perhaps tomorrow I'll check to see what I missed out on today.