Kevin Drum 🕸

Yesterday we toured Schönbrunn Palace, and when we got to the ballroom our guide asked if we knew how long imperial balls lasted in the age of Maria Theresa. The obvious answer is "a few hours," with the exact length variable. But here's how things went: Short silence, then someone pipes up. "24 hours." "Three ...continue reading "Lunchtime Photo"

A trio of academic researchers are concerned that most Americans don't know how pregnancies are dated. It turns out I didn't know either. I've always assumed that pregnancy is dated from conception and lasts about 39 weeks. Nope. Pregnancies are dated from the start of the mother's last menstrual period, which is usually about two ...continue reading "A 6-week abortion ban is really a 4-week abortion ban"

Via Stefan Schubert, here's an interesting chart: The sudden increase in the 1860s is likely due to the invention of reliable guns, which made assassinations a lot easier. But what's up with the big increase starting in the '50s and then dropping away in the early 2000s? Why were there a record number of assassinations ...continue reading "Assassinations have plunged over the past two decades. Why?"

I've made this point before, but it's worth making again: inflation at the grocery story has been very, very low for over a year. Here is monthly inflation in groceries: Over the past 12 months, inflation in groceries has averaged 1.1%, way below the normal rate. The press ran about a million pieces when food ...continue reading "Food prices are down, wages are up"

Because of time zone challenges and my slothful ways, I don't normally post about new inflation figures until well after the rest of the world. My slothful ways aren't likely to change anytime soon, but today you all get the benefit of my being six time zones ahead of the BLS. So here are April's ...continue reading "Inflation settles down in April"

The Wall Street Journal reports today that people are cheating on employment drug tests more often: Approximately 6,000 urine samples out of about 5.5 million collected from the general U.S. workforce last year were classified as substituted, Quest said. That’s a more than sixfold increase from the previous year. Well, sure, but as the orange ...continue reading "Are Americans really cheating on drug tests more?"

The Washington Post writes today about President Biden's decision to transfer $1 billion in arms to Israel after halting a shipment last week: The decision underscores the administration’s reluctance to defy pro-Israel donors in the Democratic Party who criticized Biden’s decision last week to withhold the shipment, which included controversial 2,000-pound bombs that have been ...continue reading "Joe Biden has been rock solid on Israel"

The Danube floods every now and again, and in the town of Passau it's traditional for buildings to mark the heights of past floods. The most comprehensive set of markers was this one on the town hall. The highest flood was in 1501, but very close behind was an enormous flood just a decade ago ...continue reading "Lunchtime Photo"

One of Joe Biden's problems is that he has a hard time taking credit for his successes. He's taken oil and gas production to new records, but never mentions it because fossil fuels are unpopular with his liberal base. He got us out of Afghanistan, but can't brag about it because the press insists the ...continue reading "Joe Biden has big trouble taking credit for his victories"

News from the Golden State: California exodus left a gaping population hole. Can the Golden State bounce back? Though the state population grew 0.17% in 2023 — the first year of growth since the COVID-19 pandemic — California is still 1.2% smaller than it was in 2019.... Experts said it’s still hard to know how ...continue reading "California is doomed, part 567"

There's a point here, but probably not the one The Nation intends to make: Denigrating the sea change in policy represented by the threat to withhold weapons shipments to Israel as “too little too late” runs the risk of undermining the great historical achievement of the anti-war and pro-Palestinian movement.https://t.co/T8HRwY4Aas — The Nation (@thenation) May ...continue reading "Israel changed Joe Biden’s mind all by itself"

I missed out on the northern lights spectacle—Austria is a bit too far south and a moving boat isn't the best platform for night photography anyway—but that doesn't mean we're completely skyless today. When I went out last week to image the Eagle Nebula, I had some time to kill because the Eagle doesn't rise ...continue reading "Lunchtime Photo"

Kevin Engel, a student protester at Dartmouth, explains why they won't give up: “We’re not going to stop,” he said. “Palestine will be free within our lifetimes. The students are taking up the burden of doing that work because no one else really is.” Engel is 19 years old and he's just one guy, but ...continue reading "What do the Gaza protesters think they’re accomplishing?"

Vox reports on a new law in New York that gives New York City the authority to lower speed limits: Sammy’s Law allows city officials — rather than the state’s Department of Transportation — to determine the speed limits on their streets with input from community members. The bill will allow the city to drop ...continue reading "Time to lower speed limits?"

A pair of researchers has published a new paper claiming that global warming is astronomically more dangerous than we've thought until now. Their thesis is simple: historical evidence shows a very strong correlation between average global temps and extreme weather events, and those extreme weather events are very costly. Interestingly, they do something I haven't ...continue reading "How dangerous is climate change?"

The job hunting market has evolved approximately like this: In the late '90s, a few bright entrepreneurs began creating online job seeking websites like Monster and Indeed. This made it easier to apply for jobs, and companies became awash in applications. To keep from going mad, HR departments started employing automated screening technology. The job ...continue reading "Let your bot do the job hunting"

Here's an interesting tidbit. Since the start of the year there have been precisely two short periods when people were interested in Joe Biden's age: The first spike came when special counsel Robert Hur made gratuitous remarks about Biden's age in his classified documents report and spurred a mountain of press coverage. The second spike ...continue reading "Raw data: Public interest in Joe Biden’s age"

The recent police shooting of Roger Fortson, a US Air Force senior airman, prompts Vox to look at the bigger picture of police killings: Black people comprised 13 percent of the US population but accounted for 27 percent of those killed by police, according to Mapping Police Violence, a nonprofit tracking this information. That's one ...continue reading "Police don’t kill Black people any more than white people"

The Washington Post brings our attention today to the famous Keeling Curve, which shows the concentration of CO2 at the top of Mauna Loa. In March CO2 concentrations were 4.4 ppm higher than the year before, a new record.¹ In 2000, CO2 increased at an annual average of 1.17 ppm from the previous year. In ...continue reading "Raw data: CO2 emissions continue to accelerate"

I forgot to take a new picture of Hilbert before we left town, so instead here's a rare archival photo of Hilbert on his first day home from the shelter, September 22, 2014. Wasn't he a cutie pie?