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Why Are #OscarsSoWhite?

by Beau47Tgqggfj Posted on January 21, 2016

Mother Jones

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The answer to the question in the headline is easy: because Academy voters are mostly white senior citizens (94 percent white, average age 63) and their taste tends to be pretty conventional for white folks born in 1952. At least that’s what all the critics say. This explains, they say, why a great film like Straight Outta Compton didn’t get nominated. A bunch of old white guys just aren’t going to be moved by a film about an angry group of black gangsta rappers.

But what about the critics themselves? According to Hayley Munguia of FiveThirtyEight, here are the 20 films from 2015 that showed up on the most “Best Of” lists. The movies in red got Oscar nods:

Where’s Straight Outta Compton? Not in the top 20.1 Apparently the critics are a bunch of old white guys too.

Next up: maybe Munguia will compile similar lists for the acting categories. Who did the critics love? Did Idris Elba make the top 20? Michael Jordan? Tessa Thompson? O’Shea Jackson Jr? Teyonah Parris? I’m curious about whether the critics ought to be examining themselves as much as they’re examining the Academy.

1Only two movies not in the top 20 got Best Picture nominations. Revenant may have gotten released too late to make many lists. And Bridge of Spies didn’t deserve to be in the top 20, but probably got nominated because everyone loves Tom Hanks.

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Why Are #OscarsSoWhite?

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Global Warming Went On a Rampage in 2015

by RaymonGillen Posted on January 20, 2016

Mother Jones

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Remember that old chestnut, the climate chart that starts in 1998 and makes it look like climate change has been on a “pause” ever since? It was always nonsense produced by cherry picking an unusually high starting point, but it was still effective propaganda. But those days are gone for good. Last year was already considerably warmer than 1998, and this year has now blown away everything in the record books:

The globally averaged temperature over land and ocean surfaces for 2015 was the highest among all years since record keeping began in 1880. During the final month, the December combined global land and ocean average surface temperature was the highest on record for any month in the 136-year record.

During 2015, the average temperature across global land and ocean surfaces was 1.62°F (0.90°C) above the 20th century average….This is also the largest margin by which the annual global temperature record has been broken. Ten months had record high temperatures for their respective months during the year. The five highest monthly departures from average for any month on record all occurred during 2015.

George Will is now going to have to find some other way to lie about global warming. I don’t doubt that he’s up to it, but at least he’ll have to work a little harder.

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Global Warming Went On a Rampage in 2015

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Donald and Sarah Barnstorm Iowa

by TrinidadR24 Posted on January 20, 2016

Mother Jones

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Oh God. I know I shouldn’t do this. I know I shouldn’t post snippets from Sarah Palin’s endorsement speech for Donald Trump just because they amuse me. But I’m weak. So, so weak. Can you find it in your hearts to forgive me? Please please please? Thanks. Here goes:

On national security: I’m in it, because just last week, we’re watching our sailors suffer and be humiliated on a world stage at the hands of Iranian captors in violation of international law, because a weak-kneed, capitulator-in-chief has decided America will lead from behind. And he, who would negotiate deals, kind of with the skills of a community organizer maybe organizing a neighborhood tea, well, he deciding that, “No, America would apologize as part of the deal,” as the enemy sends a message to the rest of the world that they capture and we kowtow, and we apologize, and then, we bend over and say, “Thank you, enemy.”

Ed note: Actually, our sailors violated Iranian waters and were released after 16 hours. Nobody in the Obama administration apologized for anything.

On Islam: Are you ready for a commander-in-chief, you ready for a commander-in-chief who will let our warriors do their job and go kick ISIS ass?….And you quit footin’ the bill for these nations who are oil-rich, we’re paying for some of their squirmishes that have been going on for centuries. Where they’re fightin’ each other and yellin’ “Allah Akbar” calling Jihad on each other’s heads for ever and ever. Like I’ve said before, let them duke it out and let Allah sort it out.

Ed note: Um, which is it? Is Trump going to kick ISIS ass or is he going to withdraw and let Allah sort it out?

On Donald Trump’s family values: Oh, I just hope you guys get to know him more and more as a person, and a family man. What he’s been able to accomplish, with his um, it’s kind of this quiet generosity. Yeah, maybe his largess kind of, I don’t know, some would say gets in the way of that quiet generosity, and, uh, his compassion, but if you know him as a person and you’ll get to know him more and more, you’ll have even more respect.

Ed note: Actually, Trump married a model; started an affair with a younger actress; dumped the model; married the actress; started an affair with an even younger model; dumped the actress; and then married model #2. There’s no telling how long this one will last.

On Trump’s fiscal rectitude: He, being an optimist, passionate about equal-opportunity to work. The self-made success of his, you know that he doesn’t get his power, his high, off of OPM, other people’s money, like a lot of dopes in Washington do. They’re addicted to OPM, where they take other people’s money, and then their high is getting to redistribute it, right?

Ed note: Actually, Donald Trump loves other people’s money. That’s why he’s been involved in no less than four bankruptcies: because he borrowed lots of other people’s money and then squandered it.

On her future career as a hip hop artist:

No, we’re not going to chill. In fact it’s time to drill, baby, drill down.
Cops and cooks, you rockin’ rollers and holy rollers!
Right wingin’, bitter clingin’, proud clingers of our guns, our god, and our religion….Tell us that we’re not red enough?
Yes the status quo has got to go….Their failed agenda, it can’t be salvaged. It must be savaged.
The main thing, the main thing, and he knows the main thing….He knows the main thing, and he knows how to lead the charge.

Ed note: Not bad! Let Dre produce and she might have something here.

OK, that should hold me for another year or so.

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Donald and Sarah Barnstorm Iowa

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The Real Republican Problem Is an Appallingly Shallow Bench

by ErwinHanson Posted on January 19, 2016

Mother Jones

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For what it’s worth, I want to toss out a theory of what’s happening in this year’s GOP primary. Basically, there’s no Mitt Romney or John McCain.

Here’s what I mean. In the past two cycles, Republicans have offered us Snow White and the Seven Loons. In 2008 the loons were Mike Huckabee, Ron Paul, Fred Thomson, Rudy Giuliani, Alan Keyes, and some other also-rans. In 2012 it was Michele Bachman, Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry, Herman Cain, and a few others. Both of these primaries were clown shows, but in both cases there was one savior: John McCain in 2008 and Mitt Romney in 2012.

This year the saviors were Jeb Bush and Scott Walker, but both have turned out to be horrible candidates. Rubio is a little better on the campaign trail, but he doesn’t have the gravitas to unite the middle of the party behind him. So that leaves us with the loons. Donald Trump is currently leading the loon pack, but honestly, it could have been anyone. Ben Carson, Ted Cruz, Carly Fiorina, Rand Paul, Chris Christie. They all have loon appeal, but not quite as much as Trump (so far, anyway).

It just goes to show that Mitt Romney was a better candidate than we gave him credit for. He was too stiff and too rich, but he had presidential credibility; he was able to subdue the loon pack; he chose a non-loon as running mate; and he ran a fairly decent non-loon campaign against Obama. He didn’t win, but just imagine how much worse any of the others would have done.

So the big story isn’t so much Trump as it is the failure of the Republican Party to field even a single decent mainstream candidate. The Democrats aren’t much better, but at least they have one. The truth is that both parties seem to have an appallingly shallow bench. I don’t quite know why, but to me that’s a bigger story than Trump. He’s just the latest clown in a party full of them.

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The Real Republican Problem Is an Appallingly Shallow Bench

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Southern White Women Are Apparently in Pretty Bad Shape These Days

by DanialLeverett Posted on January 19, 2016

Mother Jones

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Since I happened to mention the famous Case/Deaton mortality study in the previous post, here’s the latest from Andrew Gelman. As you may recall, Case and Deaton concluded that mortality among middle-aged whites from suicide, alcohol, and drug poisoning had skyrocketed over the past two decades. This set pundits afire with theories about what was going on, but Gelman has done some age adjustment to the cohorts that Case and Deaton used, and then broken up the data by gender, and then by geographic area. Here’s what he gets:

After 2005, there’s no effect on middle-aged men at all. It’s all women. And if you break it down further, nearly the entire effect is concentrated among women in the South. But why? Gelman punts:

I don’t have any explanations for this. As I told a reporter the other day, I believe in the division of labor: I try to figure out what’s happening, and I’ll let other people explain why.

I think that’s wise. For one thing, if you slice the data in a different way, you might get a different result. What’s more, as I’ve mentioned several times, the increased mortality affects the young too, not just the middle aged. So if you spun some brilliant theories about why middle-aged whites are so damn depressed these days, you might want to rethink things. Your new theory needs to explain why the young and the middle-aged are dying in greater numbers, and you also need to explain why it’s affecting primarily women in the South. Good luck.

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Southern White Women Are Apparently in Pretty Bad Shape These Days

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Two Corinthians Walk Into a Bar….

by FelixHuddleston Posted on January 19, 2016

Mother Jones

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Here is a very short history of Donald Trump and the Bible verses that he likes:

August 26: That’s very personal. You know, when I talk about the Bible it’s very personal. So I don’t want to get into verses, I don’t want to get into—the Bible means a lot to me, but I don’t want to get into specifics.

September 16: Proverbs, the chapter “never bend to envy.” I’ve had that thing all of my life, where people are bending to envy.

January 18: I asked Jerry, and I asked some of the folks, because I hear this is a major theme right here, but Two Corinthians, right? Two Corinthians 3:17, that’s the whole ballgame. Where the spirit of the lord—right? Where the spirit of the lord is, there is liberty. And here there is Liberty College, Liberty University.

See? Trump is willing to study. At first he knew nothing. Then he boned up and kinda sorta named one verse that kinda sorta exists—but not really. Finally he boned up some more and named an actual Bible verse which he quoted accurately. Sure, he had to ask for one, and he had to read it off notes, but still. Progress!

But there’s still one more step: learning how to accurately cite Bible references. In front of a crowd of thousands of Christian students at Liberty University, he talked about “Two Corinthians” instead of “Second Corinthians.” Here’s what’s weird about that. It’s not just that anyone who’s so much as gone to Sunday School knows that you say “Second Corinthians.” Even if you’d never been to church in your life, you’d know it from watching movies or TV or listening to ministers at weddings and funerals. It’s just standard background knowledge in any culturally Christian country.

Now, nobody with a brain has ever believed that Donald Trump is a Christian in any serious sense. I don’t think he could pass a third-grade test of Bible knowledge. But today’s gaffe, as trivial as it seems, suggests more: that he literally has paid no attention to Christianity at all. In fact, given how hard that is in a country as awash in religious references as the United States, it suggests much more: Donald Trump has spent most of his life actively trying to avoid religion as completely as possible. And yet, apparently evangelicals love him anyway. Go figure.

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Two Corinthians Walk Into a Bar….

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Donald Trump is a Mediocre Businessman

by Dewey2569v Posted on January 17, 2016

Mother Jones

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I know I’ve beaten this dead horse before, but I continue to be a little surprised that no one has seriously attacked Donald Trump on his business acumen. After all, it’s his big calling card: he knows how to negotiate great deals and he’s made a ton of money from them.

But this doesn’t seem to be true.1 In fact, he seems to be a pretty mediocre businessman. Today, for example, the New York Times tells the story of Trump’s 1988 purchase of the Plaza Hotel. As even Trump admits, he was so enamored of owning it that he overpaid significantly and managed it poorly, something which contributed to his eventual financial downfall:

Once he owned the hotel, Mr. Trump put his wife, Ivana, in charge of renovating it….By 1990, the Plaza needed an operating profit of $40 million a year to break even, according to financial records that Mr. Trump disclosed at the time. The hotel had fallen well short of that goal, and with renovating expenses, in one year it burned through $74 million more than it brought in.

But Mr. Trump didn’t spend a lot of time sweating over the Plaza’s finances. He was too busy with new challenges. A few months after the Plaza deal closed, he purchased the Eastern Air Shuttle for $365 million, and in 1990, he opened the Trump Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City, which cost $1 billion to build. Some of the loans he took out to pay for deals were personally guaranteed.

….Mr. Trump’s brief ownership of the Plaza…marked the beginning of his transition from an owner of major assets to a manager of major assets. An increasing share of his wealth would come in the future from licensing his name, not just to builders but sellers of suits, cologne, chandeliers, mattresses and more. In professional parlance, he went from “asset heavy” to “asset light.”

The Plaza was a huge money loser. The shuttle was a disaster. Trump never understood the casino business, and his Atlantic City properties started hemorrhaging cash almost as soon as they were completed. All of this pushed him to the edge of personal bankruptcy, which he avoided solely because his banks decided Trump’s holdings could be liquidated at a higher price if they allowed him to stay solvent. In the aftermath of this bloodbath, he raised money by taking the remains of his casino and resort properties public. And since this was a public company, we know exactly how well it did: it lost money every single year and went into bankruptcy proceedings in 2004 (and again in 2009 for good measure). Since then, he’s mostly bought and managed golf resorts, which has been a good but not great business for him.

Bottom line: When it comes to building and managing tangible assets, there’s really not much evidence that Trump has much talent. He inherited a huge amount of money and nearly lost it all during his first couple of decades in the development business. However, before the money ran out he was able to use it to create the “Trump show” (his words), and in the couple of decades since then his income has come not from building things, but primarily from licensing and entertainment.

Trump seems to have two genuine talents. The first is that he’s apparently a masterful reader of people. The second is that he’s a hypnotic blowhard, which accounts for his success at both branding and TV, as well as his success at scams like Trump University.

Needless to say, we’ve seen both of these talents at work on the campaign trail. The first allows him to zero in unerringly on his opponents’ most sensitive spots—weaknesses that others frequently don’t even see, let alone exploit. The second allows him to mesmerize the media and the public while pulling off the greatest scam of his life.

But as a businessman, he’s so-so. He lets his decisions be guided by his gut, and his gut isn’t really very good. That’s where Trump Plaza, Trump Air, Trump football, Trump City, the Trump Taj Mahal, Trump Steaks, and Trump University come from. That’s not much of a recommendation for the presidency.

1Needless to say, he can prove his business mettle anytime he wants to. He just has to open up his books. Show us revenues and GAAP earnings over the past 20 years. Show us return on equity and return on assets. Break it all down by business line so we can see how much is from TV and branding vs. tangible projects. There’s nothing hard about it.

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Donald Trump is a Mediocre Businessman

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Charts of the Day: Which One Do You Believe?

by MinervaShuman9 Posted on January 15, 2016

Mother Jones

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Over at the motherblog, Kristina Rizga has an interesting piece about what happens when you try to integrate majority-black schools. Basically, nobody likes it. The poorer (mostly black) parents don’t like the idea of a bunch of rich folks coming in and pushing them around. The richer (mostly white) parents don’t like the idea of their kids going to a low-performing school. But Kristina points to a substantial body of research showing that, in fact, white kids do fine when they move to schools in poorer black neighborhoods. In fact, they might even do better on a variety of metrics.

The whole piece is worth a read, but because I’m a nerd I going to use it as an excuse for a statistics lesson. One of the links in the piece is to a recent report from the federal government about the black-white achievement gap. It contains three charts of note. The first is on the right, and it shows white test scores in schools with different densities of black students. Basically, it confirms the worst fears of white parents: as the percentage of black kids goes up, the test scores of the white kids go down.

But wait. Maybe the white kids in majority-black districts are lower performing to begin with. So let’s control for income. That gets you the chart on the bottom left. Not so bad! Then let’s control for some other characteristics. Bingo! If we do a proper job of comparing apples to apples, white kids actually do better when they go to schools with very high densities of black students. White fears turn out to be entirely unfounded.

So here’s the question: which chart do you believe? The one with the raw data? Or the ones with all the fancy-pants statistical controls? Are the controls legitimate? Or are they just the result of a bunch of liberal analysts in the Department of Education torturing the data until they get the politically correct result they want?

Even statisticians might disagree about this. So how are laymen supposed to understand it? If you were a parent and these were your kids we were talking about, which chart would you believe?

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Charts of the Day: Which One Do You Believe?

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Why Is No One Talking About the Menace of the Pacific Ocean?

by TangelaCulpeppe Posted on September 24, 2015

Mother Jones

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Look, if we’re going to have a wall on the Southern border and the Northern border, then I want a wall along the Western border too. I won’t feel safe until we build one.

Shame about the view, but national security comes first.

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Why Is No One Talking About the Menace of the Pacific Ocean?

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Quote of the Day: "Carly Cut His Balls Off"

by GilbertHancock Posted on September 24, 2015

Mother Jones

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It’s been obvious to me for a while that the best way to get under Donald Trump’s skin is to attack him where it really hurts. Don’t call him a clown or an entertainer. That’s water off a duck. But he genuinely cares about his reputation as a dealmaker. Hit that. Or his reputation for being tough. Hit that. National Review’s Rich Lowry finally took this approach last night, and it worked:

“Let’s be honest: Carly cut his balls off with the precision of a surgeon — and he knows it,” Lowry said on “The Kelly File.” Host Megyn Kelly was shocked. “You can’t say that!” she said, before covering her eyes with a hand. “You can’t say that.”

….Trump quickly exploded on Twitter and wrote in a tweet: “Incompetent @RichLowry lost it tonight on @FoxNews. He should not be allowed on TV and the FCC should fine him!”

….”I love how Mr. Anti-PC now wants the FCC to fine me,” Lowry tweeted, adding a hashtag: #pathetic….Lowry finally threw up a white flag and offered this tweeted compromise: “A deal for you, Donald: if you apologize to Carly for your boorish insult, I might stop noting how she cut your b**** off.”

See? Easy peasy. Now I want someone to take on his dealmaking acumen. It shouldn’t be too hard. That should really get him hot under the collar.

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Quote of the Day: "Carly Cut His Balls Off"

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