Kevin Drum 🕸

This is a statue of Karl Lueger, mayor of Vienna at the turn of the century. "Under his administration," says the Encyclopedia Britannica, "Vienna became an efficient, modern metropolis." Thus the statue. Unfortunately, Lueger was also something of an antisemite—apparently an inspiration for no less than Adolf Hitler. This is why SHAME is now spray ...continue reading "Lunchtime Photo"

The Julian Assange plea deal is a little more interesting than I initially thought. To simplify considerably, there were basically two things Assange was charged with: Obtaining and distributing classified national defense material. Actively helping Chelsea Manning obtain the material. In particular, prosecutors alleged that Assange "agreed to crack a password hash stored on U.S. ...continue reading "What exactly did Julian Assange plead guilty to?"

Here are the top and bottom ten states for change in unemployment over the past year: The worst performers are mostly blue states. The best performers are mostly red states. Make of that what you will.

Well, this is going to piss off a whole lot of people: Israel’s Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled that the military must begin drafting ultra-Orthodox Jewish men.... In a unanimous decision, nine judges held that there was no legal basis for the longstanding military exemption given to many ultra-Orthodox religious students. Given the absence of ...continue reading "Ultra-orthodox layabouts have to serve in the army, Israel’s supreme court rules"

From a New York Times article about the San Francisco Philharmonic: The orchestra has begun the process of seeking permissions for a possible renovation; it is trying to get them approved before the building turns 50 years old, when it will acquire historic status under local law, making changes difficult. San Francisco's concert hall was ...continue reading "Please save historical preservation for historical buildings"

Julian Assange's endless fight with the US justice system is finally over: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has agreed to plead guilty to a felony charge related to his alleged role in one of the largest US government breaches of classified material.... Under the terms of the new agreement, Justice Department prosecutors will seek a 62-month ...continue reading "Julian Assange is about to be set free"

Oh, you'd like a prediction about Thursday's debate? Happy to oblige. I predict that it will go normally. Trump will blather and lie while Biden will answer questions coherently with occasional enunciation problems. It will not swing voting intent by more than 1% or so. Also, the moderators will ask at least one question about ...continue reading "My prediction for Thursday"

I caught another SpaceX launch from Vandenberg Space Force Base last night. It launched just as we got home from a walk, so this picture shows it over our house. Well, over our neighbor's house, anyway. But they all look alike, so it doesn't make much difference.

What color is the sky? Daytime or nighttime? The color of the sky is determined by Rayleigh scattering. I heard once that the color is different in the Southern hemisphere because the scattering is backwards. I think it depends on what planet you're on. Has it OCCURRED to any of you that color blind people ...continue reading "A conversation on the internet"

The Congressional Budget Office has provided updated projections for the cost of maintaining expanded Obamacare subsidies: It's about $30-40 billion per year. That's less than half a percent of the federal budget. It would be a crime to cut this off, but that's what will happen if Donald Trump is elected president. It's the least ...continue reading "Keeping expanded Obamacare subsidies is super cheap"

I guess it's time to to ditch Netflix. The shows aren't very good anymore. Many (most?) now have ads, and you know those will keep increasing until they've pushed it to the very edge of customer tolerance. And for some reason they refuse to explain, they're updating their app to prevent offline downloads. Put this ...continue reading "What should I replace Netflix with?"

MAGAland is obsessed with the idea that White House puppeteers are going to drag Joe Biden's listless body to Atlanta next week and then prop him up just before the CNN debate and shoot him full of meth or Adderall or something. Then they'll point to the stage and say "Go get 'em, boy," all ...continue reading "Trump yet again accuses Biden of drug use"

From the New York Times: Columbia University placed three administrators on leave this week while the school investigated their conduct at an alumni panel discussion on antisemitism last month, according to a university spokesman. The administrators were placed on leave after leaked images emerged last week showing the trio sharing disparaging text messages during the ...continue reading "Columbia deans placed on leave for . . . something"

The Wall Street Journal editorial page takes about its thousandth whack at California today: California Will Teach Kids Anything Except How to Read Daniel Buck complains in this piece that California adopts all sorts of weird educational standards—true enough—but won't adopt a statewide requirement to use phonics in reading instruction. I'm sympathetic to this since ...continue reading "Can the Wall Street Journal editorial page read?"

I wonder how many moderate voters actually know what Donald Trump's agenda is if he wins the presidency again. Here's a list of Trump proposals, some official and others just musings on the campaign trail. The question is, which ones should we take seriously?

There are an awful lot of people that Donald Trump and his MAGA allies want to send to prison: Joe Biden Hunter Biden Dr. Fauci Hillary Clinton Alvin Bragg Fani Willis Peter Strzok and Lisa Page Bill Barr Mark Milley John Kelly Am I missing anyone? Probably. Gonna be busy times at the Department of ...continue reading "Lock ’em up"

Here's something a little odd. According to YouGov, Trump and Biden have been essentially tied in trial heat polling since the beginning of the year. With only a couple of exceptions in 25 weeks of polling, they've been within 1% of each other the entire time. However, the number of undecided voters suddenly jumped at ...continue reading "There are more undecided voters now than six months ago"

This is Charlie rolling around on the backyard patio. He's been escaping the yard lately, so we've set an early curfew and put him back in a collar. Bright pink this time. So far he hasn't chewed it off, so we're hopeful.

Tyler Cowen points today to an essay by Dean Ball about regulation of AI. Basically, Ball is afraid of endless upward ratcheting. A seemingly limited law—like California's, which proposes to regulate AI models that could produce WMDs and similar catastrophes—is likely to grow over time: Let’s say that many parents start choosing to homeschool their ...continue reading "Yes, AI will likely be selectively banned in the future"

Last night I did a quick check on how Donald Trump's Truth Social stock was doing. It was down but not worth a post. But it turns out I was just a day too early. DJT plummeted 15% today and has now declined by half since Trump's guilty verdict in the hush money trial: Volume ...continue reading "Trump stock has been tanking ever since his guilty verdict"