Kevin Drum 🕸

Great news today! You may recall that the results of my immunofixation test have looked like this for the past nine years: "Monoclonal gammopathy" is a fancy term for cancer, and I had it. Then, late last year, the results changed: Still abnormal, but clearly below the level of firm detection. Today, I got my ...continue reading "Health update"

We now have Israel's explanation for killing seven World Central Kitchen workers earlier this week. In brief: drones followed the WCK trucks from a seaside jetty to the WCK warehouse. The Israelis knew exactly what they were. They also saw several cars join the trucks along the way, but they didn't realize they were part ...continue reading "Israel should be escorting humanitarian aid"

Whenever we go up or down the stairs, Charlie heads over to the upstairs railing to peer over the edge and watch. I'm not sure what he expects to see. Just checking up on his domain, I suppose.

America's greatest member of Congress speaks: God is sending America strong signs to tell us to repent. Earthquakes and eclipses and many more things to come. I pray that our country listens. 🙏 — Marjorie Taylor Greene 🇺🇸 (@mtgreenee) April 5, 2024 Oh come on, Marjie. A 4.8 earthquake? When God wants to send us ...continue reading "Earthquakes and eclipses"

The American economy gained 303,000 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 213,000 jobs. The headline unemployment rate ticked back down to 3.8%. I normally use a bar chart for the monthly jobs numbers, but I switched to ...continue reading "Chart of the day: Net new jobs in March"

The Wall Street Journal reports on a ballot initiative here in the Golden State that would make it harder to raise taxes: The businesses have gathered enough signatures to put a measure on November’s ballot that would require two-thirds of voters to approve most local tax increases and roll back some recently enacted ones.... Backers ...continue reading "Taxes in California haven’t gone up recently"

Jean Twenge writes today about the decline in reading among high school students. She has no problem assigning blame: So where is the time once spent reading going? Screens are the inevitable conclusion...There appear to be two stages to the decline of reading: 1976-2002 and 2012-2022. Sure, except that Twenge offers as evidence chart after ...continue reading "Is the plunge in teen reading because of smartphones?"

President Biden spoke to Benjamin Netanyahu this morning about Israel's attack on an aid convoy three days ago: President Biden emphasized that the strikes on humanitarian workers and the overall humanitarian situation are unacceptable. He made clear the need for Israel to announce and implement a series of specific, concrete, and measurable steps to address ...continue reading "Trump: Just kill the Palestinians and get it over with"

I was browsing around at studies of crime committed by immigrants and came across this from the Heritage Foundation: Increased Illegal Immigration Brings Increased Crime: Almost 2/3 of Federal Arrests Involve Noncitizens A 2021 Department of Justice report revealed that 64% of federal arrests in 2018 involved noncitizens, despite them comprising only 7% of the ...continue reading "Immigrants are pretty law-abiding people"

Sunrise at the Mexican border.

In the Guardian today, April McGreger writes about her son's kindergarten, which has cut lunchtime to 15 minutes and requires kids to remain silent the entire time: When I questioned this policy, his teacher told me the short lunches allowed more time for electives and special academic programming that made their school best in its ...continue reading "15-minute lunches and no talking"

I have perfect timing. Yesterday I noted that even though overall food inflation is low, there are still some items that have increased a lot. Today, the Wall Street Journal splashes this exact thing across their front page: "Calm down, Kevin," some of you are already saying. "Read past the headline and I'm sure they ...continue reading "Yes, food is more expensive. And wages are higher too."

The share of college students majoring in education has plummeted over the past 50 years: Needless to say, you don't need a degree in education to become a teacher. Most teachers have degrees in English or history or some other subject. Still.

There are several things that are more or less undisputed about the Israeli airstrike that killed seven aid workers in Gaza: It happened around 11 pm. Three aid trucks were struck. All had World Central Kitchen logos on their roofs. The trucks were traveling on a coastal road approved for humanitarian missions. World Central Kitchen ...continue reading "Did Israel deliberately destroy an aid convoy?"

How many children experience a desire to be the opposite sex—a feeling known as gender dysphoria? Of those who do, how many continue to experience it as they get older? A recent paper provides answers based on a longitudinal study of 2,200 children in the Netherlands that was carried out between 2001 and 2015: As ...continue reading "Raw data: Gender dysphoria in teens"

Why do so many people still think inflation is high? It's because they don't respond to averages. They respond to outliers. The cost of groceries, for example, has risen only 1% over the past year. In February food inflation was negative. And yet, 55% of Americans still say they worry about inflation a great deal. ...continue reading "Grocery inflation is at 1%. Why don’t more people know it?"

This is the Pauma Valley on a hazy day, shot from about halfway up Palomar Mountain. I took this on a rare daytime scouting mission that led me up a progressively rockier road that, toward the end, was only barely passable. It's a good thing I hadn't tried this in my old Mazda. But it ...continue reading "Lunchtime Photo"

New York City will soon have a new congestion pricing program. At peak hours, it will cost $15 to enter lower Manhattan by car. Naturally lots of people don't like this, so just as naturally they're suing over it. And naturally naturally, they're suing over allegedly insufficient environmental review: In court papers, they have challenged ...continue reading "New York City congestion pricing faces nearly a dozen lawsuits"

The BLS released its latest salary figures today, so I took a look because I was at loose ends. According to their data, the highest paid occupation in America is pediatric surgeon, at $449,320. In fact, physicians in general take 15 of the top 16 spots, with athletes squeezing in at #10. The lowest paid ...continue reading "Pediatric surgeons kicked ass last year"

Over at the LA Times, Lorraine Ali selflessly spent a day on Truth Social and reports back: Twenty-four hours of scrolling through posts from “Truthsayers” on the two-year-old platform explained why the site is tanking. In short, partisan echo chambers are stale, musty spaces that lack the sort of oppositional views needed to make social ...continue reading "Hardened reporter spends a day on Truth Social"