Month: November 2023

Yesterday I put up this picture:

As a matter of courtesy, not law, I asked what this bicyclist should do. Just stay there because it's a bike lane and that's that? Or, because it's also a right-turn lane, move up a bit and let the right turners make their turns?

I genuinely didn't know how this was going to go, but I didn't expect such a lopsided response:

I'm surprised that such a huge majority think she should stay put. Is that because many of you don't live in states where you can make a right turn on red? It doesn't matter there, of course. Aside from that, though, it takes no effort to stop a little further up instead of right in the lane blocking traffic. So why not do it?

Apparently this argument cuts no ice. Bicyclists can stop where they like, and motorists shouldn't worry about it. End of story.

This is no surprise since GDP grew so rapidly in Q3, but productivity was up sharply too:

We've now had two quarters in a row of strong productivity growth. This doesn't tell us much about the health of the economy right now, but it's good long-term news since productivity growth is the core of long-term prosperity.

From the New York Times:

Fears that Israel’s expanding military operations in Gaza could escalate into a regional conflict are clouding the global economy’s outlook, threatening to dampen growth and reignite a rise in energy and food prices.

....“This is the first time that we’ve had two energy shocks at the same time,” said Indermit Gill, chief economist at the World Bank, referring to the impact of the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East on oil and gas prices.

Am I the only one shaking my head over this? The war in Gaza is important for lots of reasons, but even if it expands it's far too small to affect the global economy. Just for the record, here's the price of oil over the past few weeks:

There's no telling what could happen if the war escalates, but the oil market sure doesn't seem to be worried about it. The price of crude has barely budged since the war broke out, and there's no reason to think that OPEC countries are willing to risk their own economies by starting up an embargo over the fate of the Palestinians in Gaza. Nor does the text of the article provide any evidence for this.

On the other hand, I'm more or less in the more general camp that believes the world economy is fairly fragile right now and could easily be pushed into recession. In fact, I continue to think it's likely. I just don't see the war in Gaza having anywhere near the heft to influence things one way or the other.

Here's a question for the hive mind. I'm genuinely undecided about it and I'm curious what other people think.

At red lights, motorists are supposed to move to the right if they want to make a right turn. In many places around here, this means (legally) moving into the bike lane. However, if there's a bike ahead of the motorists, they're stuck. For example:

This is not a legal question, just one of courtesy. Should the bicyclist move forward and around the corner in order to leave the right-turn lane free? Or should motorists just accept that sometimes bicyclists in bike lanes will be in their way?

Senators of all stripes, even Republicans, are getting fed up with Tommy Tuberville's hold on hundreds of military promotions. Tonight it all spilled out:

Republican senators angrily challenged Sen. Tommy Tuberville on his blockade of almost 400 military officers Wednesday evening, taking over the Senate floor for hours to call for individual confirmation votes after a monthslong stalemate. Tuberville, R-Ala., stood and objected over and over again, extending his holds on the military confirmations and promotions with no immediate resolution in sight.

....Showing obvious frustration and frequent flashes of anger, the Republican senators — Sullivan, Graham, Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst, Indiana Sen. Todd Young and others — read lengthy biographies and praised individual nominees as they called for vote after vote. They said they agree with Tuberville on the policy, but questioned — as Democrats have for months — why he would hold up the highest ranks of the U.S. military.

I don't get this. The Senate majority leader—that would be Democrat Chuck Schumer—is not required to honor holds. He can call for a vote on all 400 promotions any time he feels like it. The only thing standing in his way is that a motion to proceed can be filibustered and would require 60 votes to break.

But if Republicans are truly tired of Tuberville's shenanigans it should be no problem to overcome a filibuster. Are they fed up enough to spend all night calling for votes but not fed up enough to break a filibuster? Why not?

With Tucker Carlson gone, apparently Jesse Watters is determined to become Fox's new lunatic conspiracy theory guy:

JESSE WATTERS (CO-HOST): We had a former CIA guy come on "Primetime" the other day, and he said the CIA makes money on the side with drug trafficking.... And one of the reasons — one of many reasons — Donald Trump was defeated was because the CIA had had it with this guy, because he was threatening the cash flow....

DANA PERINO (CO-HOST): Wait, you're saying the CIA is funding itself by the drug trade?

WATTERS: Yeah, they take a cut. That's what the former CIA guy told me.

You know, I could be convinced the CIA funds itself with planeloads of smack or meth. Why not? That stuff happens in movies all the time, right?

But Donald Trump secretly trying to put a stop to it? That's a bridge too far, my friend. We all know that Trump would not only have adored the idea, he would have regaled his post-presidential Mar-a-Lago pals all day long with stories about drug-financed assassinations or something. Sadly, that hasn't happened. Sorry, Jesse.

Over at National Review, Dan McLaughlin accuses Democrats of being unfair:

Have you heard? Republicans are threatening democracy and are probably racist and transphobic for trying to expel state legislators who don’t abide by the rules of their chambers and disrupt legislative business — and now they’re trying to kick nearly an entire caucus out of a state legislature it controls!

Well, except that the move to wipe out a whole legislative caucus is being done by Democrats.... We are yet again reminded that the rules are all Calvinball to Democrats and their mouthpieces in the national political press. They mean none of it, ever.

That sounds bad. But maybe you'd like to hear the actual story here?

Oregon is a Democratic state, something that Republicans obviously don't like much. So, since they can't win actual elections, Republican legislators have developed a habit of leaving the state en masse to prevent the legislature from reaching the quorum it needs to do business. This got tiresome, so last year Oregon voters approved Measure 113, which bars members from reelection if they miss ten or more legislative sessions. It was enormously popular, passing by a whopping 68-32% margin.

Republican legislators thumbed their noses at it. In May they walked out again for 42 days. As a result, they are barred from running for reelection in 2024 (or possibly not until 2026 depending on how a court case turns out).

In other words, "Democrats" aren't doing anything. Obviously Measure 113 was their idea, but it was approved overwhelmingly by the public and its penalties were well known to the Republicans who walked out. They were automatically disqualified from reelection by law—enforced by the Secretary of State—not by a partisan vote in the legislature.

This all seems straightforward enough, but McLaughlin thinks it's outrageous because....

....It's not clear, really. The closest he comes to a reason is that Republicans used their walkouts as a way of "stymieing extreme Democratic proposals on abortion, guns, transgender surgeries, and other issues." It's not clear to me why he thinks this is a reason the law shouldn't apply.

McLaughlin is an odd duck. In former days he was a relatively moderate conservative, but he has since moved to National Review and become outraged about absolutely everything Democrats do. This is life in Donald Trump's Republican Party, I guess, even if you don't like Trump yourself.

This is the colonnade at St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. This picture has been sitting around forever, and it's the last of my Italy photos from 2021.

It's hard to remember that there was once a time when I woke up this early. I'm lucky to roll out of bed before ten these days.

This seems unusual:

Wisconsin Democratic Gov. Tony Evers on Tuesday sued the Republican-controlled Legislature, arguing that it is obstructing basic government functions, including signing off on pay raises for university employees that were previously approved.

....The Legislature included a 6% pay raise for UW employees over two years in the state budget it passed earlier this year that Evers signed. But pay raises also must then be approved by a GOP-controlled committee of legislative leaders. That panel on Oct. 17 approved pay raises for state workers, but not UW employees because [Assembly Speaker Robin Vos] opposes spending at the university for diversity, equity and inclusion efforts and positions.

Am I wrong to think that governors don't generally sue their own legislature? Or does this happen more often than I'm aware of?

Anyway, as Evers says, this is bull----. Just more culture war grandstanding that hurts everyone, including the 99% of university workers who have nothing to do with DEI. I wonder: Is Wisconsin now the worst state in the country? I know the competition is stiff, but....

Greg Ip asks again today: Why are Americans so sour about the economy? He acknowledges that it's all very odd, with unemployment low and inflation dropping. He concludes that the only solution to the mystery is "referred pain." That is, people feel bad about the world and they're taking that out on the economy.

But I'll make a pitch once again for a simpler answer: It's Republicans who are sour about the economy, not Americans in general. Here is Republican economic sentiment over the past few years:

Republican optimism about the economy plummeted starting precisely when Joe Biden won the 2020 election—that's before Ukraine, before inflation, before the American Rescue Plan, before COVID vaccines—and has stayed in the basement ever since, regardless of anything else happening in the world.

This did not happen among Democrats or Independents. Indies stayed the same throughout the election period and then dropped a bit when inflation started to bite. Democrats got more optimistic after Biden's inauguration and then fluctuated depending on conditions.

Only Republicans showed this pattern: a steep drop immediately upon Biden's election and virtually no change since then. All they care about is the fact that Joe Biden is in the White House. Fox News has been saying since Election Day—and ever since—that Biden will wreck the economy, and Republicans believe it regardless of what their own eyes and ears tell them.