Month: November 2024

In what's become a routine fixture of Republican legislators faced with the horror of a Democratic governor taking office, North Carolina legislators have rushed through a bill that strips the incoming governor of various powers. This one is a particular beauty:

Under another section of the bill, the governor must fill any vacancies on the state’s top courts with appointees recommended by the political party of the departing judge. That will prevent Stein from appointing Democrats to fill future openings on the state Supreme Court, where Republicans hold a majority.

I'm not going to pretend to be shocked by this. Nothing Republicans do in the name of naked power grabs surprises me anymore. But seriously? Cementing in place a Republican Supreme Court majority for all time? I never want to hear another word from Republicans about court packing in my life.

Here's the thing. There are places where I think the trans movement goes overboard, either by promoting extreme niche issues (biological boys in girls sports) or by dismissing inconvenient science too cavalierly (puberty blockers).

But then a trans woman gets elected to Congress and Republicans respond in their usual repellent way by loudly banning trans women from women's bathrooms on Capitol Hill. Can't give the bigots in your base any cause to doubt your genuine viciousness, after all. And you know what? Fuck 'em. In the face of this kind of performative cruelty I suddenly don't care about the other stuff so much.

Eggs again? The Washington Post reports that yet another chicken plague is tanking supply:

Eggs have vanished from many U.S. grocery shelves in recent weeks, sparking consumer fears that a shortage could coincide with the holiday season. Egg production in the U.S. dropped 2.6 percent in October from a year ago and is projected to decline 1 percent in 2024 compared to 2023, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) reported in a Friday release.

Hmmm. 2.6% doesn't seem like much, does it? But apparently it is:

The price of eggs has nearly doubled in response to a 2.6% decline in supply? Eggs must have an elasticity from hell. Sales are holding up fine:

Are egg producers really selling 97.4% of their normal egg supply for twice the price? That seems . . . not very likely. What's going on?

Double the cancers, double the health updates! Here's the latest test result for multiple myeloma:

Cosmically speaking, 0.40 isn't super great, but it's not bad and it's down from two months ago. This means it's unfortunate that I can't tolerate the Talvey, since it produced a pretty noticeable improvement after only one dose. Hopefully the Tecvayli will work just as well.¹

¹But without all the ghastly side effects.

Ezra Klein sez:

This drives me crazy. There are three great myths of the past five years that I'm going to go to my grave still fighting everyone about:

1. The 2021-22 inflation surge was sparked by the excessive size of Joe Biden's ARP. But it wasn't. The "excessive" size of ARP contributed no more than a fraction of a percent to inflation. Larry Summers was wrong.
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2. The Afghanistan withdrawal was a chaotic mess. But it wasn't. Under the circumstances it was actually a remarkable success and one of the great achievements of Biden's presidency.
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3. Operation Warp Speed was Donald Trump's greatest triumph. But it wasn't. It was conceived entirely by Congress and the private sector. All Trump did was parachute in a couple of months later and give it a name.

These are all hills I'm willing to die on. And I probably will.

Here is Look #1:

On a national level, there's nothing to see. Housing is historically plentiful. Here's Look #2:

This is new building activity, and nationally it once again looks OK. But building has nearly ground to a halt in Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston, New York City, Baltimore, and Washington DC.

There are two possible solutions to this. First, we can force big cities to approve a lot more housing that they don't want. Second, we can wait for people to migrate toward places they don't want to go. Bottom line: Someone's going to end up unhappy, and the only question is who.

Here's another Milky Way picture. It's not a great one, taken at the tail end of the season and requiring a lot of processing to get rid of some weird coloring. But lots of stars!

I'll be trying again with my new camera, but not for another six months or so. For the time being the Milky Way is below the horizon at night, taking a well-deserved rest until summer.

In 2022 Republicans won 50.6% of the total vote for the House of Representatives.

With most of the votes counted in 2024, Republicans have won 50.7% of the vote.

I dunno. This is perhaps not really a huge mandate for change for the Republican Party?

Elon Musk has successfully focused the discourse on the size of the federal workforce, and now there are bad numbers floating around on all sides. Conservatives like to show partial numbers that are hugely inflated by growth at the Department of Homeland Security. Liberals show numbers that include only salaried workers.

The real number covers the entire government and includes contract workers, who make up a huge portion of the federal workforce. And since the workforce obviously goes up as population grows, you have to adjust for that.

So here it is, based on figures from Paul Light, who is probably the best source of reliable figures we have.

Here's my latest PSA result:

Hum de hum. Anything under 4 is fine, but today's result is up from the last one. I don't like that. I've got a visit with the prostate doc next week, and I'll ask if this is anything to be concerned about.