Apparently the latest hotness is to air minor differences with people you normally agree with. I'm in! Noah Smith argues today that our current economy is the best in a very long time, and overall I think he's right. But there's one thing I think he's wrong about: wage growth. Unfortunately, it's been pretty lousy ...continue reading "Wage growth has been sluggish for the past three years"
In a new report, the International Energy Agency predicts that renewable electricity will grow considerably by 2030 but won't hit its goal of tripling worldwide. Among large users, only China and India are forecast to triple: Virtually all of this growth is in solar, with about a quarter in wind. Everything else is a rounding ...continue reading "Renewable electricity will almost triple by 2030"
The YouGov weekly tracking poll stubbornly sticks with a 3-point Harris lead this week: Donald Trump is exactly where he was in July with 44% of the vote. It seems like this is pretty much his ceiling. But the undecided/other vote is still around 8%. Harris has made a bit of progress over the past ...continue reading "YouGov poll remains at +3 for Harris this week"
Marjorie Taylor Greene says that recent hurricanes are the result of weather control technology being wielded (presumably) by the Biden/Harris administration. Josh Marshall comments: I think normal upstanding Americans are underestimating how rapidly these weather control conspiracy theories are catching fire in the right. — Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) October 9, 2024 Is this true? I'm ...continue reading "Weather control is trending"
You know, this is a pretty big deal: Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday announced a plan for Medicare to cover long-term-care services at home, a significant expansion of the program that would be aimed at helping tens of millions of Americans who are caring for aging parents. ....Under Harris’s plan, Medicare would cover services ...continue reading "Kamala Harris wants Medicare to cover long-term home care"
California has a housing shortage. As a result, rents are high and vacancies are low. And yet: Housing construction has surpassed population growth and is within a hair's breadth of keeping up with job growth. So where does the shortage come from?
A "ghost gun" is basically a kit: you get a box full of parts, make some tiny modifications, and then put it together. Today the Supreme Court pondered whether ghost guns could be regulated like regular guns—i.e., require serial numbers, background checks, etc. Early in the argument, while Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar was making the ...continue reading "When is a gun not a gun?"
This is a Komodo dragon at the LA Zoo, using its tongue to check things out: As with many other reptiles, the Komodo dragon primarily relies on its tongue to detect, taste, and smell stimuli, with the vomeronasal sense using the Jacobson's organ, rather than using the nostrils. With the help of a favorable wind ...continue reading "Lunchtime Photo"
CNN's Joan Biskupic reports that Chief Justice John Roberts doesn't understand why people were upset about his presidential immunity ruling earlier this year: Roberts was shaken by the adverse public reaction to his decision affording Trump substantial immunity from criminal prosecution. His protestations that the case concerned the presidency, not Trump, held little currency. Is ...continue reading "John Roberts is puzzled"
Early ballots have been mailed out to everyone in California, so it's time for my traditional recommendations about how to vote on the ballot initiatives. As usual, keep in mind a couple of things: I don't like ballot initiatives because they lock things into the state constitution that shouldn't usually be locked in. So my ...continue reading "How to vote on California’s initiatives"
Even the New York Times now shows Kamala Harris leading by more than three percentage points: Another couple of points and Harris will be a sure thing—assuming, of course, that the polls aren't way off because Trump voters aren't responding. That's always a potential confounder.
Apropos of nothing in particular, check this out: A third of a century ago the US accounted for 26% of the world's GDP. Today, even though it's the biggest economy on the planet and developing countries like China and India have skyrocketed, we still account for 26% of world GDP. That is truly remarkable.
As usual, Camilo Montoya-Galvez of CBS News has an early release of the border crossing figures—though they're a little later than normal this month. In any case, he reports that there were 102,000 crossings in September: Of this total, 54,000 were illegal crossings and 48,000 were asylum requests made at border stations.
A few weeks ago I mentioned that California had passed a law banning "materially deceptive" campaign deepfakes created by AI. Today brings this comment: On Sept 27 @nytimes accused @elonmusk of being “misleading” for criticizing a new California law to censor parody. “The laws have exceptions for parody” said the Times Five days later a ...continue reading "California did not ban a parody video"
On this first anniversary of October 7, I have a bit of an unusual observation. I don't even know if it's correct, but here goes. On the Israeli side of things, there's no shortage of people who will publicly say exactly what they think Israel should be doing. Their point of view is pretty simple: ...continue reading "What is the pro-Palestinian argument?"
It is now OK in Germany to use an apostrophe to indicate the possessive: Guidelines issued by the body regulating the use of Standard High German orthography have clarified that the use of the punctuation mark colloquially known as the Deppenapostroph (“idiot’s apostrophe”) has become so widespread that it is permissible. The Deppenapostroph is not ...continue reading "Germany caves in on apostrophes"
I've spent ten years on chemotherapy with only moderate side effects: mostly fatigue and peripheral neuropathy. But Talvey! Jesus Christ. My mouth is cotton, swallowing is difficult, my breathing is so shallow I can barely climb a flight of stairs, and my sense of taste is completely gone. This stuff is a killer. It's difficult ...continue reading "Health update"
Tyler Cowen points today to David Deming, who is alarmed at the decline in retail jobs: The final labor market trend we uncovered was a very rapid decline in retail sales jobs, show in the figure below. Retail sales hovered at around 7.5 percent of employment from 2003 to 2013 but has since fallen to ...continue reading "Retail productivity is up 32% since 2000"
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