Religion and Congress
Monday, January 6, 2025
Jeff, Diamant, "Faith on the Hill: The religious composition of the 119th Congress,” Pew Research Center, Jan. 2, 2025.
Time to move to TikTok?
Friday, December 20, 2024
The share of adults reading news articles online in the US has fallen from 70 to 50 per cent since 2013. The share of Britons and Americans now consuming no conventional news media at all has ballooned from 8 to around 30 per cent... "Why the TikTok era spells trouble for the establishment,” Financial Times, Dec. 20, 2024. (Paywalled.)
The Bible Boom
Thursday, December 19, 2024
"Bible sales are up 22% in the U.S. through the end of October, compared with the same period last year, according to book tracker Circana BookScan. By contrast, total U.S. print book sales were up less than 1% in that period."> Via “Top Links 585 Mexico’s laborious economy. VW exits Xinjiang. Bibles are booming. Joan Robinson on time & history,” Adam Tooze, Chartbook, Dec. 18, 2024.
The year in homicide
Wednesday, December 18, 2024
"Murder likely fell at the fastest rate ever recorded in 2024 after falling at the fastest rate ever recorded in 2023 based on an assessment of 2024 crime data from numerous sources. The Real-Time Crime Index has murder down 16 percent in 309 cities with available data through October 2024, the FBI has murder down 23 percent through June (though it’s almost certainly overstating the decline), the CDC has homicide down 14 percent through May (provisional count), and the Gun Violence Archive has fatal shootings down more than 11 percent as of mid-December.
Wednesday, December 18, 2024 →
But…
Via “Top Links 589 How US arrivistes do it better. Exceptionalism weighed. Sino-Saudi ties. The global cotton boom and slavery in Egypt,” Adam Tooze, Chartbook, Dec. 16, 2024.
In FY 2023 (October 1, 2022, to September 30, 2023), the federal government spent about $6.2 trillion, or about $18,400 per person. This was down 8.5% from the previous fiscal year but up 15.9% from FY 2019.
“How much does the government spend, really?” USAfacts.com, Dec. 16.
Lives saved by vaccines: 1974 to ???
Saturday, December 14, 2024
"The lawyer helping Robert F. Kennedy Jr. pick federal health officials for the incoming Trump administration has petitioned the government to revoke its approval of the polio vaccine..." "Kennedy’s Lawyer Has Asked the F.D.A. to Revoke Approval of the Polio Vaccine,” New York Times, Dec. 13, 2024. "Since 1974, vaccination has averted 154 million deaths, including 146 million among children younger than 5 years of whom 101 million were infants younger than 1 year.
Baker/tarot card reader-turned-Chief of Staff
Friday, December 13, 2024
People who know [Argentine President Milei well say that his most enduring relationship is with his sister, Karina; he dedicated his book "The Path of the Libertarian" to her, as well as to his dogs. Until Karina became the head of Milei’s Presidential campaign, , she supported herself by selling cakes and giving tarot-card readings online. She is now his chief of staff, known by the masculine title of El Jefe.
A billionare with... a dollar fifty?
Thursday, December 12, 2024
Mr. Boulos has been profiled as a tycoon by the world’s media, telling a reporter in October that his company is worth billions. Mr. Trump called him a “highly respected leader in the business world, with extensive experience on the international scene.” The president-elect even lavished what may be his highest praise: a “dealmaker.” In fact, records show that Mr. Boulos has spent the past two decades selling trucks and heavy machinery in Nigeria for a company his father-in-law controls.
Living in the Multiverse, less interesting than the fate of bitcoin in El Salvador?
Wednesday, December 11, 2024
Willow’s performance on this benchmark is astonishing: It performed a computation in under five minutes that would take one of today’s fastest supercomputers 1025 or 10 septillion years. If you want to write it out, it’s 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 years. This mind-boggling number exceeds known timescales in physics and vastly exceeds the universe's age. It lends credence to the notion that quantum computation occurs in many parallel universes, in line with the idea that we live in a multiverse, a prediction first made by David Deutsch.
Sad about what's happening to Earth, suspicious of those who want to try to stop it
Tuesday, December 10, 2024
Eight-in-ten Americans say climate news makes them feel frustrated about the level of political disagreement on the issue. A large share (73%) also say climate news has made them feel sad about what’s happening to the Earth. At the same time, 51% of U.S. adults say they’ve felt suspicious of the groups pushing for action on climate change (a view expressed by 75% of Republicans). "How Americans View Climate Change and Policies to Address the Issue,” Pew Research, Dec.
Can you bear it?
Monday, December 9, 2024
Even if something is not edible, bears will try to eat it-scented air freshen-ers, cherry lip balm. The black bear is the terrestrial equivalent of a shark, the sharpest nose in the ocean; its sense of smell is seven times better than a blood-hound's, several thousand times better than a human's. A bear that detects so much as a Tic Tac will remember the location of that score forever-and teach it to her cubs….
Did GIs create the canon?
Sunday, December 8, 2024
Did GIs create the canon? William Faulkner only really became popular after the publication of Malcolm Cowley’s The Portable Faulkner, a paperback edition issued to GIs during the war. True for The Great Gatbsy too. "almost 155,000 copies were distributed in a special Armed Services Edition, creating a new readership overnight…" "Stranger Than Fiction — a bold survey of the 20th-century novel," Financial Times, Dec. 3. (Paywall.
Takeout's triumph
Saturday, December 7, 2024
The pandemic also solidified the shift toward takeout and delivery: Nearly three-quarters of restaurant meals are now consumed offsite, according to data shared with me by the National Restaurant Association, up from about 60 percent in 2019. “How America Lost Its Taste for the Middle,” The Atlantic, Dec. 5.
Flying cars, China's "low-altitude economy, and its underemployed youth
Friday, December 6, 2024
The “low-altitude economy” is a big trend in China at the moment. XPeng, one of China’s leading EV manufacturers, recently released a low-altitude flying car for instance. Drone deliveries are becoming increasingly common in Chinese cities, and various regions are actively developing low-altitude transportation networks. Shanghai, for instance, plans to establish 400 low-altitude flight routes by 2027. “China Markets in Everything,” Marginal Revolution, Dec. 4. Even in China, youth unemployment hovers around 20 percent.
China's Manufacturing Advantage
Thursday, December 5, 2024
In the year 2000, the United States and its allies in Asia, Europe, and Latin America accounted for the overwhelming majority of global industrial production, with China at just 6% even after two decades of rapid growth. Just thirty year later, UNIDO projects that China will account for 45% of all global manufacturing, singlehandedly matching or outmatching the U.S. and all of its allies. This is a level of manufacturing dominance by a single country seen only twice before in world history — by the UK at the start of the Industrial Revolution, and by the U.