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News Media Infatuated With Donald Trump, Part 4,387

by PamalaSizemore Posted on January 4, 2016

Mother Jones

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Oh come on. A front-page piece about the fact that Donald Trump is airing a TV ad? Seriously? And the article itself is even worse:

The Republican presidential candidate’s long-awaited and hotly anticipated first ad, which was shared exclusively with The Washington Post, is set to launch Monday as part of a series that will air in the final month before the Iowa caucuses. Trump has vowed to spend at least $2 million a week on the ads — an amount that will be amplified by the countless times they are likely to be played on cable news and across social media.

Would the Post do this for any other candidate doing something as routine as airing an ad? Has it really been long-awaited? Or hotly anticipated? And shouldn’t that last line say “cable news and print media offered ‘exclusive’ looks”?

I know it’s tedious to complain about the mainstream media going gaga over everything Donald Trump says, but WTF? It’s an ad. There’s nothing special about it. It’s just a narrator saying the same stuff Trump has been saying forever. It’s not raising the temperature of anything. So why not just write a short blog post about it and move on?

In other news, apparently there’s a crazy woman who’s been following Hillary Clinton around for years in order to harangue her about Bill’s alleged sexual misconduct. She did it again today. In other words, this is practically the definition of “not news.” So why is it news at the Post?

The allegations of misconduct that have swirled around the former president for years have reemerged in the campaign recently, thanks to GOP businessman Donald Trump, who has said that those allegations are fair game on the campaign trail.

So there you have it. If Donald Trump writes a bunch of tweets about dogs biting men, then it’s news. Crikey. And as long as we’re on the subject, here is Trump once again selling the myth that he’s self-funding his campaign:

Trump said his advertising blitz is being financed chiefly out of his own pocket….“All me, 100 percent me — 100 percent,” Trump said. “I’m self-funding my campaign. We do have small donors that send in $12, $25, $100, but they just send it in. We’re not asking for it.”

Uh huh. Except, of course, for the fact that “Donate” buttons are the main things highlighted at the top of Trump’s web page. And if you click one of them, the donation page asks for contributions from $10 to $2,700. And that’s actually Trump’s main source of funding, not his own pocket. But sure. Other than that, he’s totally self-funded and he’s not asking for anything.

I’m curious: Is Donald Trump even capable of opening his mouth without saying something untrue?

See original article here: 

News Media Infatuated With Donald Trump, Part 4,387

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Modern Teenagers Not So Mysterious After All

by EarleneFlanigan Posted on January 2, 2016

Mother Jones

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At the New York Times today, Conor Dougherty clues us in on what it’s like being a teenager today:

Teenagers being teenagers, the room was full of angst and contradictions. They love Instagram, the photo-sharing app, but are terrified their posts will be ignored or mocked. They feel less pressure on Snapchat, the disappearing-message service, but say Snapchat can be annoying because disappearing messages make it hard to follow a continuing conversation. They do not like advertisements but also do not like to pay for things.

It’s nice to see that modern teenagers aren’t really that hard to understand after all. Plus ça change.

Continued here – 

Modern Teenagers Not So Mysterious After All

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Republican Demographic Problems Aren’t Just For the Future Anymore

by TamelaDennys Posted on December 30, 2015

Mother Jones

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Here’s an interesting poll analysis from Reuters. It shows demographic shifts since the 2012 elections, and it turns out that most groups are pretty stable. There are three exceptions. On the plus side for conservatives, Jews have become slightly more Republican. But on the minus side, Hispanics and young whites have become significantly more Democratic.

Hispanics are no surprise. Republicans have spent the past three years loudly opposing comprehensive immigration reform and playing “can you top this?” when it comes to border security. Then along came Donald Trump, with his murderers and rapists and his big, beautiful wall. The only surprise here is Hispanics haven’t moved further away from the Republican Party.

But it’s certainly odd that Republicans are losing both Hispanics and young whites. Or maybe not. Older whites are generally attracted to traditional conservative values and the vague racial dog whistles that Republicans specialize in. But younger whites are probably turned off by social troglodytism—especially anti-gay animus—and don’t respond to the dog whistles one way or another. So they’re leaving.

I guess it’s time for yet another Republican post mortem that they can then proceed to ignore. Why wait until after the election, after all?

From:  

Republican Demographic Problems Aren’t Just For the Future Anymore

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Donald Trump Is a Germaphobe

by AndreasLwm Posted on December 23, 2015

Mother Jones

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I assume everyone knows this about Donald Trump, right?

A self-confessed germaphobe, Trump doesn’t even like to push a ground floor elevator button because it’s been tapped by so many people….This does not sit well with the masses, let alone the PTA crowd. Trump especially avoids shaking hands with teachers, since they are likely to be have been “in touch” with too many germy kids.

It’s no wonder that he finds it disgusting to even contemplate someone’s use of the bathroom. I can only imagine what Trump thinks of having to use public facilities himself—assuming he ever does. Maybe he always holds it in until he can make it back to the gold-plated lav on his plane.

This article – 

Donald Trump Is a Germaphobe

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Did LA Officials Panic Over a Dumb Prank?

by MattSteffey9 Posted on December 15, 2015

Mother Jones

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As you all know by now, schools in Los Angeles were closed today because authorities received a “credible threat” of some kind of attack. So far, all we know is that (a) it came via an email routed through Germany, (b) it contained the word allah un-capitalized, and (c) several other cities, including New York, received the same message. Was it wise to shut down every school in LA over this? Mike O’Hare says no, essentially because the threat strikes him as ridiculous, not credible.

This makes me curious: do we ordinary citizens ever get the chance to evaluate these threats after the fact? I get that it’s sometimes unwise to release a lot of information about events like this, but it also means that we never get to weigh the judgment and common sense of our elected officials. O’Hare thinks the risk that this was a genuine threat is infinitesimal. It seems the same way to me. After all, any half-bright teenager can write an anonymous email and route it through a proxy server somewhere just for laughs. Was there anything more to it than that?

Well, maybe there was, but they’re not telling us. Maybe there really was a good reason to believe this might be a genuine threat.

Or, maybe it was just a prank email and everyone panicked. I don’t live in Los Angeles, but if I were a taxpayer there I’d sure like to know more about this. City officials will almost certainly say they can’t comment further because the FBI is investigating yada yada yada, but I suspect they just don’t want to admit that they panicked over a dubious threat. I wonder if we’ll ever be allowed to know?

See original article here:

Did LA Officials Panic Over a Dumb Prank?

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The American View of Terrorism In One Chart

by BrandenK92 Posted on December 14, 2015

Mother Jones

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Courtesy of Gallup, this chart shows how Americans think of terrorism. It’s pretty simple: an attack on Americans produces a sizeable spike for a month or three. An attack on a European country produces a somewhat smaller reaction. An attack anywhere else is a yawn. The only possible exception is the Bali bombings of 2002, which is hard to untangle from the Beltway sniper hysteria, which happened at the same time.

If history is any guide, the current spike will be gone by January or February. Then again, there’s an election season about to start. I guess there’s no telling how long people can be kept terrified if our presidential candidates really put their minds to it.

Source article – 

The American View of Terrorism In One Chart

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Friday Fundraising and Catblogging – 11 December 2015

by WilfordBroger Posted on December 11, 2015

Mother Jones

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Don’t worry: catblogging isn’t being ditched today. But first, I’m going to make you read about our year-end fundraising pitch. Why? Because Monika and Clara have written a piece that breaks down our entire operation in chart form. Be still my heart! As you can see, two-thirds of our operating budget comes from readers:

From our beginning almost 40 years ago, we have made a bet that you would support a newsroom that tells the stories no one else will. And you did. Today, two-thirds of our annual budget comes from readers; some 40,000 of you contribute, more than at any other nonprofit news organization outside public radio and TV.

….Some of you—about 175,000, to be exact—subscribe to our magazine. Another 12,000 folks buy individual issues on the newsstand. About 10 percent of our subscribers also become donors—they tack on an extra $20, $50, or even (hooray!) a five- or six-figure gift. Then there are donations in response to specific appeals: For example, about 6,000 people have pitched in online to help us fight the billionaire who sued us for covering his political giving and anti-gay activism. What’s critical for the long haul is that our base is broad and deep enough to ensure that we’re not dependent on any single check or revenue stream.

Click the link if you want all the gory details of how we operate. Or, if you’re one of the brainy ones and you already get it, just click the button below:

And now for catblogging. Because you guys deserve it. This week is a classic: a cat in a box. Lots of Christmas stuff comes in boxes, and that means the house is full of cat toys this time of year. And cat chew toys, since Hopper likes to gnaw boxes to shreds. She’s no pussycat about it, either. (Wait. Am I allowed to say that?) I tell you, she goes after boxes with a will. Every time she bites off a piece, she spits it out and makes a yucky face, but it doesn’t stop her. She may not like the taste, but she really likes to shred cardboard. She also likes to stick her furry little snout into the camera, which gives you a picture like this—taken early in the week when the box was still relatively intact.

See original article here – 

Friday Fundraising and Catblogging – 11 December 2015

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Republicans All Seem to Like Obama’s Strategy to Defeat ISIS

by OuidaLindstrom Posted on December 8, 2015

Mother Jones

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Do any of the Republican candidates have a plan for defeating ISIS? As near as I can tell, most of them have offered up variations on this:

Bomb ISIS, just like Obama, but better.
Use Iraqi ground troops, just like Obama, but better.
Put together a coalition of local allies, just like Obama, but better.

Am I missing anything? Aside from being more bellicose (the sand will glow, we’ll bomb the shit out of them, etc.), all of the candidates are saying that Obama’s strategy is basically sound, but they’d tweak it a bit here and there. They’d stop worrying about civilian deaths so they could drop more bombs. They’d somehow train Iraqi forces better than the Army is doing right now. And they’d put together a real coalition, though it’s never really clear what they mean by that or how they’d accomplish it.

Anything else?

Continued – 

Republicans All Seem to Like Obama’s Strategy to Defeat ISIS

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Why Are University Professors Such Schlubs?

by NapoleoZZM Posted on December 4, 2015

Mother Jones

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For no reason whatsoever, I am reproducing below the results of a decade-old bit of research that uses student scores from RateMyProfessor.com to construct average hotness scores for different academic disciplines. The authors used a scale from -1 to 1, which is entirely nonstandard in the field, so I’ve renormed the scores to the more generally accepted scale of 1 to 10. I assume professorial hotness is, in fact, average, which means the various disciplines should probably range from about 3 to 7. But not a single one even breaks 5.

What does this mean? University professors are slobs? 18-year-old students have really high standards? Movies and television have conditioned us to think of really hot actors as average, thus making us all disappointed with real life? I dunno. What’s your guess?

See more here – 

Why Are University Professors Such Schlubs?

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Robots Will Take Your Job Someday, But In the Meantime They’ll Decide Which Jobs You Can Have

by Rob028740809 Posted on November 23, 2015

Mother Jones

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Are you worried about the robots coming to take your job? You should be! But that’s still a ways away for most of us. In the meantime, the robots will be deciding which jobs we’re allowed to have. Today, the consistently fascinating Lydia DePillis points us to a new study that evaluates how well computer algorithms do at hiring new workers. The test bed is a large company with multiple locations. The workers perform relatively rote cognitive work that the authors can’t reveal, but it is “similar to jobs such as data entry work, standardized test grading, and call center work.”

In order to hire better workers, this company rolled out a new test that consists of “an online questionnaire comprising a large battery of questions, including those on technical skills, personality, cognitive skills, fit for the job, and various job scenarios.” So how did stony-hearted Mr. Robot do?

Better than humans, according to the authors. The test rates each applicant as green, yellow, or red, and they found that greens stayed on the job for 12 days longer than yellows, who in turn lasted 17 days longer than reds. This is significant since the average job tenure at this company is 99 days. More to the point, the authors find that more interference from hiring managers leads to worse results. “In our setting it provides the stark recommendation that firms would do better to remove discretion of the average HR manager and instead hire based solely on the test.”

But maybe hiring managers choose more productive workers? Nope. “In all cases, we find no evidence that managerial exceptions improve output per hour. Instead, we find noisy estimates indicating that worker quality appears to be lower on this dimension as well.”

Hmmph. I guess it’s HR managers who really need to be scared here. Apparently they simply add no value at all for jobs like this. Eventually, though, we’re going to start looking at whether these tests systematically discriminate against women or blacks or other protected classes. It would be pretty easy for this to happen either intentionally or unintentionally. Then the robots will either have to get smarter or else, ironically, find themselves out of a job.

Continued: 

Robots Will Take Your Job Someday, But In the Meantime They’ll Decide Which Jobs You Can Have

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