Tag Archives: mother

35,000 Cows: Is That a Lot or a Little?

by VilmaMerrill Posted on January 6, 2016

Mother Jones

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Here’s a little quiz. Based on the teaser on the right from the New York Times, how serious would you say this blizzard was in terms of milk production? It sounds pretty serious, no?

But nowhere in either the teaser or the linked article does the Times tell you just how much 35,000 cows is. Here’s the answer: there are 9.3 million dairy cows in the United States, so 35,000 represents….

About 0.4 percent.

I don’t get it. The blizzard is a worthwhile story, and the hit to farmers in the region is serious. No problem there. Still, why not take the extra five minutes required to dig up a couple of numbers and give readers a sense of whether this is a big problem from a national perspective? The only hint is 13 paragraphs down: “Consumers should not expect noticeable increases in the prices of milk or milk products.”

Instead, why not put something like this at the top of the story: “So far, more than 35,000 dairy cows have been found dead. Although this represents less than 1 percent of the nation’s dairy herd, for regional farmers it’s etc. etc….” Context is everything.

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35,000 Cows: Is That a Lot or a Little?

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Ted Cruz Knows What His Followers Want

by XAEBelinda Posted on January 5, 2016

Mother Jones

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Today’s test: one of these men is an illustration from a Nazi propaganda poster. The other is the president of the United States. Can you tell which is which?

The president is the one on the right, of course. He’s the menacing one who looks more like a stormtrooper than the actual Nazi, but still retains plausible deniability in case someone like me happens to point out the entirely coincidental resemblance. It comes to us courtesy of the Ted Cruz campaign, which is apparently fully adopting Trumpism as its guiding vision. The full context is below.

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Ted Cruz Knows What His Followers Want

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Enough With the Middle-Age Whites, Already

by TiffaniDdr Posted on January 5, 2016

Mother Jones

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In a Washington Post column over the weekend, Fareed Zakaria wrote this:

In a well-known paper, economists Angus Deaton and Anne Case found that over the past 15 years, one group — middle-age whites in the United States — constitutes an alarming trend. They are dying in increasing numbers.

I suppose I’m tilting at windmills here, but this misconstrual of the Case/Deaton paper really bugs me. It’s not “middle aged” whites who are dying of drug and alcohol poisonings, suicide, and chronic liver disease in vastly greater numbers. The chart on the right is taken directly from data in the Case/Deaton paper, and it shows two groups with outsize increases in mortality: 30-34 year olds and 50-59 year olds. So there are three age cohorts here. Roughly speaking, one cohort was born in the early 50s and shows big problems; another was born in the 60s and shows only moderate problems; and the third was born in the early 70s and once again shows big problems.

These cohorts might change if you examine the data using different age buckets, different diseases, and a different timeframe. Who knows? Regardless, if you’re going to put forward an explanation about why this is happening, it better account for all three age groups. You can’t just pretend the data points only to “middle-age” whites and then spin your theories from that.

Oh, and the paper is by Case and Deaton, not Deaton and Case. Either way, though, I sure wish one of them would step in to correct this.

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Enough With the Middle-Age Whites, Already

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Hillary Clinton Pledges to "Get to the Bottom" of UFOs and Aliens

by AllenFlora Posted on January 4, 2016

Mother Jones

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The truth is out there for Hillary Clinton.

When Daymond Steer from the Conway Daily Sun recently asked her to weigh in on UFOs—a topic Steer says he broached with Clinton in 2007—the Democratic presidential candidate reportedly promised to “get to the bottom of it” if she were elected to the White House.

“I think we may have been visited already,” she added. “We don’t know for sure.”

Clinton’s comments are among the rare public statements she’s made on UFOs and possible government cover-ups—a familiar subject for both Hillary and Bill Clinton. As Mother Jones has reported, the couple’s interest in extraterrestrial activity reaches as far back as the 1990s, when Laurence Rockefeller began lobbying the Clinton administration for the release of government documents relating to UFOs—documents that many say reveal the extent of government research into the phenomena.

Additionally, Clinton’s current campaign chairman, John Podesta, a former chief of staff to Bill Clinton and an X-Files fan, has long expressed interest in the topic.

But these statements are Clinton’s first remarks on the subject during this campaign. They will likely strengthen her support among voters who happen to be UFO enthusiasts and are not supporting any extraterrestrial candidates in the Republican field.

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Hillary Clinton Pledges to "Get to the Bottom" of UFOs and Aliens

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The FDA Is Giving New Cancer Treatments a Break

by FinlayDeBoos1 Posted on January 4, 2016

Mother Jones

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For a variety of reasons, I’ve never spent much time on the internet reading or conversing about multiple myeloma. A few days ago, however, I had reason to think I should educate myself a bit more. Among other things, I discovered that within the space of two weeks in the second half of November, the FDA had approved no fewer than three new treatments. I suppose this can’t be anything but coincidence, but then another coincidence piled on top of that: a New York Times piece about Richard Pazdur, the oncology chief at the FDA. Three years ago, his wife was diagnosed with ovarian cancer:

In her struggle with cancer and ultimately her death in November, Ms. Pazdur had a part, her husband and a number of cancer specialists now say, in a profound change at the F.D.A.: a speeding up of the drug approval process. Ms. Pazdur’s three-year battle with cancer was a factor, they say, in Dr. Pazdur’s willingness to swiftly approve risky new treatments and passion to fight the disease that patient advocates thought he lacked.

….Since Ms. Pazdur learned she had ovarian cancer in 2012…the average decision time on drugs by Dr. Pazdur’s oncology group has come down to five months from six months….“I have a much greater sense of urgency these days,” Dr. Pazdur, 63, said in an interview. “I have been on a jihad to streamline the review process and get things out the door faster. I have evolved from regulator to regulator-advocate.”

Many factors are driving him, he continued. “Was Mary’s illness one of them? Yes,” he said. But in 2012, he added, Congress also passed a law that gave the F.D.A. more money and a new pathway to work more closely with drug makers when a medicine may save lives. Another important change in the same period, he said, was a surge in advances in genetic research that made some medications more effective and easier to test.

“The drugs simply got better,” Dr. Pazdur said.

Again, I suppose this is mostly coincidence. But I still wonder if Mary Pazdur’s cancer played a role in all these multiple myeloma treatments getting approved recently? If so, her death may eventually play a role in saving—or extending—my life. A butterfly flaps its wings….

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The FDA Is Giving New Cancer Treatments a Break

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2016 Has Arrived With a Bang

by CarsonBrownell Posted on January 2, 2016

Mother Jones

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Huh. My breakfast exploded this morning. That’s never happened before.

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2016 Has Arrived With a Bang

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Can You Figure Out Today’s Mystery Map?

by GracielaFitzwate Posted on December 31, 2015

Mother Jones

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Let’s play a game! What is this a map of?

  1. Popularity of Adele vs. Taylor Swift in 2015
  2. Rain patterns and drought as a consequence of global warming in 2015
  3. Support for Donald Trump among Republicans in 2015
  4. Change in cable TV penetration during 2015
  5. Support for using ground troops against ISIS in 2015

The answer is 3, support for Donald Trump among Republicans. But I tricked you. It’s also a map that shows where racially-charged internet searches are most common. Here is Nate Cohn on Trump’s support:

His geographic pattern of support is not just about demographics — educational attainment, for example. It is not necessarily the typical pattern for a populist, either. In fact, it’s almost the exact opposite of Ross Perot’s support in 1992, which was strongest in the West and New England, and weakest in the South and industrial North.

But it is still a familiar pattern. It is similar to a map of the tendency toward racism by region, according to measures like the prevalence of Google searches for racial slurs and racist jokes, or scores on implicit association tests.

But remember: no fair confusing correlation and causation! This might just be a big coincidence.

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Can You Figure Out Today’s Mystery Map?

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We’re Going to Ring Out 2015 With Marshmallows

by ThanhBwwjbznhwm Posted on December 31, 2015

Mother Jones

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Look what I found at the 99¢ store last night: Mexican marshmallows. (Cat shown for scale.) According to the package, they can be used to make all manner of tasty treats. So what should I make? Or should I just toss them into a bowl tonight as a New Year’s Eve party appetizer?

And speaking of that, when did New Year’s Eve become NYE? I’ve only just noticed it this year, which probably means it started five or ten years ago. Is this a texting thing invented by those ubiquitous “millennials” I hear so much about, because they didn’t want to spell out the whole thing once a year on their “smartphones”? Or what?

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We’re Going to Ring Out 2015 With Marshmallows

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Racists Hate the Idea of Paying College Athletes

by JoesphOGXD Posted on December 30, 2015

Mother Jones

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Well, I’ll be damned:

Could racial prejudice also affect attitudes toward paying college athletes? There are good reasons to believe that it could.

….To find out whether racial prejudice influences white opinion on paying college athletes, we conducted a survey of opinions on “pay for play” policies using the 2014 CCES. In a statistical analysis that controlled for a host of other influences, we found this: Negative racial views about blacks were the single most important predictor of white opposition to paying college athletes.

….To check our findings’ validity, we also conducted an experiment. Before we asked white respondents whether college athletes should be paid, we showed one group pictures of young black men with stereotypical African American first and last names. We showed another group no pictures at all. As you can see in the figure on the right, whites who were primed by seeing pictures of young black men were significantly more likely to say they opposed paying college athletes. Support dropped most dramatically among whites who expressed the most resent towards blacks as a group.

Apparently this gap is also visible in ordinary poll results: “In every survey to date, blacks are far more likely to support paying college athletes when compared to whites. For instance, in the 2014 Cooperative Congressional Election Study, 53 percent of African Americans backed paying college athletes–more than doubling the support expressed by whites (22 percent).”

I’m basically willing to believe that race and racial animus permeate practically everything of significance in America. But I wouldn’t have guessed this. I’m not sure why, but it just never occurred to me to think of big-time college sports as a “black thing,” even though it obviously is. It just goes to show how deeply our racial sickness infests us.

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Racists Hate the Idea of Paying College Athletes

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The Airwaves May Soon Be Awash With Footage of Donald Trump Mugging in the Debates

by TWWTawnyalsjmn Posted on December 29, 2015

Mother Jones

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My colleague Russ Choma, who was apparently denied entry to a Donald Trump rally in chilly New Hampshire, nonetheless reports that Trump says he will soon begin spending millions of dollars on television ads in early primary states. Maybe so—or maybe it’s just Trump jabbering again. Who knows? But this is interesting:

In recent days, Trump’s campaign has faced a slew of new attacks from rivals and questions from the media about his viability. Jeb Bush’s campaign has been running regular anti-Trump ads in the Granite State, featuring Bush sternly scolding Trump at the most recent GOP debate, while Trump makes exaggerated and silly faces.

OK, OK, it’s not that interesting. But I thought “no use” clauses were pretty commonplace in political debates. You’re allowed to use clips from the debate for the purpose of news analysis, but not for advertising. But I assume Bush isn’t breaking any rules here, so I guess debate footage is fair game this year. That has the potential to be bad news for Trump.

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The Airwaves May Soon Be Awash With Footage of Donald Trump Mugging in the Debates

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