Cats, charts, and politics
With a heavy heart, I have to tell you that after a long battle with cancer my husband Kevin Drum passed away on Friday, March 7, 2025. No public memorial services are planned. In lieu of flowers, please donate to the charity or political cause of your choice. A Facebook page, 'In Memory of Kevin ...continue reading "Health Update"
Everything is getting worse: Other counts are getting worse and I feel terrible. Nonetheless they're slow walking the immunoglobulin treatment, which I think is my only chance. These guys are going to kill me before they figure out what's wrong.
The LA Times has finally activated its long-awaited, AI-powered "bias meter," announced last December by its owner, Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong. It appears at the bottom of all opinion pieces and looks like this: Color me a little unimpressed. Practically everything was labeled center left, and that's all it does. Meh. Just below is a "Perspectives" ...continue reading "LA Times bias meter goes live"
It's official: The U.S. will pause all military aid to Kyiv until President Trump determines that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is making a good-faith effort toward peace negotiations with Russia, according to a White House official. Trump's revenge is now complete.
Construction data was released today, and once again I don't get this: Following the pandemic, everyone was supposedly working from home. Downtowns were hollowed out. Vacancy rates were 50%. And yet, construction of office buildings has never fallen below its pre-pandemic peak. We're putting up new office buildings like gangbusters. What's going on?
The other shoe drops: The Trump administration has stopped financing new weapons sales to Ukraine and is considering freezing weapons shipments from U.S. stockpiles, moves that threaten Kyiv s ability to fight at a critical time in its battle against Russian forces, current and former U.S. officials said. The shutdown of financing new weapons sales began ...continue reading "Trump plans to halt…
The soda wars, begun they have: At both state and federal levels, the Kennedy-led Make America Healthy Again movement is backing efforts to prevent people from spending food-aid benefits on sugary, carbonated beverages.... But the U.S. Agriculture Department, which oversees the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, has rejected the requests for more than 20 ...continue reading "We…
Holy cow: My inflammation is still going up despite massive doses of steroids. What the hell is going on?
Republicans love smoke-and-mirrors budgeting. They're laying off thousands of workers chaotically even though salary costs are a tiny fraction of the federal budget. Elon Musk is pretending to save far more money than he really is. Now Senate Republicans are trying to hide the cost of extending the 2017 tax cuts using a new wheeze ...continue reading "Smoke-and-mirrors budgeting is everywhere"
Donald Trump plans to levy 25% tariffs across the board on Canada tomorrow: The result, an overwhelming majority of economists agree, would be inflation and supply disruption in the United States, while Canadian industries could face large-scale layoffs. Inflation in the US and unemployment in Canada! Sounds great. And whole factories will shut down: Because ...continue reading "Destruction of…