Kevin Drum 🕸

When I was out in the desert last week letting my telescope image the Lagoon Nebula, I spent my downtime trying yet again to take a better picture of the Milky Way. The basic problem is simple. Since my camera is on a fixed tripod, the longest exposure I can take is about 15 seconds ...continue reading "Lunchtime Photo"

A decade ago California passed Prop 47, which converted certain nonviolent property crimes into misdemeanors and reduced sentences a bit. But did it go too far? This year, Prop 36 is on the November ballot to reverse some of the changes. The motivation, of course, is a rise in crime. But has crime actually gone ...continue reading "Did California go too far when it loosened punishment of property crime?"

The Producer Price Index, a measure of wholesale inflation, rose a bit through the beginning of the year but fell sharply in July, from 2.7% to 2.3%: Average PPI over the past year has been 1.8%. This is more evidence, as if more were needed, that inflation is sufficiently under control. There's no need to ...continue reading "Wholesale inflation drops in July"

In honor of the end of the Paris Olympics, here's one of my last remaining pictures from our trip to Paris a couple of years ago. This is the Palais de Justice taken from the Seine. You can't see it in the photo, but it was pretty busy this day, with gendarmes blocking off entrances ...continue reading "Lunchtime Photo"

Here's the lead of a Wall Street Journal article about hourly workers: In the bowels of Boston Logan International Airport, a sign on the door of ABM Industries recently warned would-be job seekers: “WE ARE CURRENTLY NOT HIRING,” it said. “PLEASE KEEP CHECKING.” This was their premier example of an alleged slowdown in the hiring ...continue reading "How are hourly workers doing?"

The Wall Street Journal is inexplicable. Take a look at this headline/chart combo from today's paper: The chart is clear as day: Boomers in the Reagan era were stuck well into "unaffordable" territory for more than six years. Millennials, by contrast, spent 15 years with wonderful, super-affordable housing and since then have been barely in ...continue reading "Housing today is expensive, but not by a lot"

J.D. Vance says he thinks we ought to have a bigger Child Tax Credit. Kamala Harris says we should eliminate the tax on tips. Huh. What's next? Vance saying we need more illegal immigrants to get the birth rate up and Harris saying we need both a Bitcoin and an Ethereum strategic reserve? Meanwhile, Donald ...continue reading "Everything is crazy"

I get three or four fundraising emails every day from the Kamala Harris campaign. That strikes me as fairly normal these days. But before Joe Biden dropped out and she entered the race, I got zero emails per day. Can anyone explain this? Obviously I was on the email lists, but the Biden team never ...continue reading "Biden vs. Harris"

Big news today! Revenue at Donald Trump's social media company was up $70,000 in the second quarter: If this growth trend keeps up, Trump Media might have quarterly revenue of $920,000 by the end of the year. That's almost a million dollars! They also reported a profit of -$16 million. They reported nearly $20 million ...continue reading "Trump Media almost has revenue of $1 million"

At the start of COVID, Congress passed a law requiring states to maintain enrollment for anyone then on Medicaid. This produced a sharp increase in Medicaid enrollments until early 2023, when the requirement was ended. Since then, Medicaid has been unwinding and returning to normal operation, which means everyone has to qualify anew each year. ...continue reading "We have added 20 million people to Medicaid in the past decade"

Yesterday a reporter asked Donald Trump if he thought Kamala Harris's career had been helped by her relationship in the 1990s with powerful California politician Willie Brown. This was a perfect opportunity for Trump to throw out a remark about Harris sleeping her way to the top, or something equally Trumpish and obnoxious, but he ...continue reading "Donald Trump is hallucinating things"

This is Hilbert being uncooperative. As soon as he saw the camera he trotted off to the far side of the yard to hide behind the bushes and then just stayed there. He also made it clear that if I tried to follow him he would lead me on a chase around the entire house ...continue reading "Friday Cat Blogging – 9 August 2024"

The Society of Family Planning released its latest abortion estimates a couple of days ago, and they show that the number of abortions continues to increase. Here is the abortion rate in states where abortion is permitted: However, not all of these abortions are performed in states where abortion is permitted. Check this out: Shield ...continue reading "Abortions continue to rise in wake of Dobbs"

This is so stupid I can hardly bring myself to write about it, but just for the record: No, Tim Walz did not sign a law that requires schools to stock free tampons in boys' restrooms. The law leaves implementation up to individual school districts, and they're free to do as they want. Most districts ...continue reading "Tampons in boys’ restrooms? Nope."

Donald Trump doesn't know what mifepristone is: Reporter: Would you direct your fda to revoke access to Mifepristone Trump: You could do things that would supplement. Absolutely. And those things are pretty open and humane… pic.twitter.com/963ovR6MRR — Acyn (@Acyn) August 8, 2024 It's hard to believe, but Trump is getting more ignorant over time. Or ...continue reading "Trump is running scared on abortion"

We will have at least one presidential debate: Former president Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris have agreed to a Sept. 10 debate on ABC, the network said Thursday. Yesterday I was telling a friend that after a bunch of hemming and hawing and blustering, Harris and Trump would negotiate a debate as usual. ...continue reading "The ABC debate will proceed as scheduled"

This is the last of my photos of the Eastern Sierra from 2021. I'm not sure why I've never put it up before this, but it's finally getting its day in the sun.

All done! My prostate has been fully fried and now it gets to rest and heal up. Follow-up testing will tell us how well the radiation treatment worked, but the excellent interim PSA results make me pretty confident that everything went well.

Here is tonight's headline in the Washington Post: The GOP nominee has grown increasingly upset about Kamala Harris’s surging poll numbers and media coverage since replacing Joe Biden on the ticket. Poor baby. There's more, of course: “It’s unfair that I beat him and now I have to beat her, too,” Trump told an ally ...continue reading "Donald Trump is unhappy"

A recent paper by Christopher Ruhm of the University of Virginia quantifies the value of various efforts to combat COVID-19 in the US. The headline result is a composite score for different states based on what kinds of restrictions they imposed, but I found the detailed national breakdown more interesting. Here are his estimates of ...continue reading "What worked to stop the spread of COVID-19?"