Tag Archives: press

Jon Stewart Would Have Been a Terrible Host of “Meet the Press”

by August5317 Posted on October 8, 2014

Mother Jones

Gabriel Sherman says that Chuck Todd wasn’t NBC’s first choice to replace David Gregory as host of Meet the Press:

Before choosing Todd, NBC News president Deborah Turness held negotiations with Jon Stewart about hosting Meet the Press, according to three senior television sources with knowledge of the talks. One source explained that NBC was prepared to offer Stewart virtually “anything” to bring him over. “They were ready to back the Brinks truck up,” the source said. A spokesperson for NBC declined to comment. James Dixon, Stewart’s agent, did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

….Though not a traditional journalist, Stewart can be a devastatingly effective interrogator, and his Meet the Press might have made a worthy successor to Tim Russert’s no-bullshit interviews.

Help me out here, folks. Who’s crazy: me or NBC (and Gabriel Sherman)? This whole thing sounds nuts to me because Jon Stewart is a terrible interviewer. He’s congenitally unprepared for any serious policy discussion and frequently creates awkward moments where he literally seems to have run out of anything to say even though he’s still got a couple of minutes left before the next ad break. When he’s shooting the breeze with other comedians, his interviews can be pretty funny. But when he’s talking to serious folks? It’s almost painful to watch.

Am I wrong here? Am I missing something? Is Stewart really “devastatingly effective” and I’m just too shallow to see it?

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Jon Stewart Would Have Been a Terrible Host of “Meet the Press”

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This Week in 13 Photos: Sgt. Bergdahl, D-Day and Tiananmen Remembered, and Elections around the World

by FlorrieAnglin Posted on June 6, 2014

Mother Jones

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This week, the rescue of Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl after his five years held hostage by the Taliban raised big questions: Lawmakers wondered if the trade for five Taliban detainees at Guantanamo was worth it, and voiced concern about not being notified properly of the prisoner release. Others grew upset at the possibility that the controversial swap helped free a soldier who may have deserted his post.

The week also marked several anniversaries: the 70th anniversary of D-Day, the 30th anniversary of the Bhopal disaster in India, the 25th anniversary of the pro-democracy protests in Beijing’s Tiananmen square and the one year anniversary of the Gezi Park protests in Turkey. Syria held elections, despite little doubt that current president Bashar al-Assad would coast to victory. Eight US states also held primary elections.

A new state formed in India, the country’s 29th, after a five-decade long campaign. Ukrainian president-elect Petro Poroshenko met briefly with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin at a D-Day memorial in France. And two shootings, one in Eastern Canada and another in Seattle, made headlines. Here are the week’s events, captured in photos:

A woman rides in a car bearing president Bashar al-Assad’s portrait and painted the colors of the Syrian flag in Damascus, Syria on June 3. Dusan Vranic/AP Photo

Former paratrooper Fred Glover, 88, of the 9th regiment from Brighton, watches the landing of parachutists in Normandy on June 6, the 70th anniversary of D-Day. Michael Kappeler/DPA/ZUMA Press

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Ukrainian president-elect Petro Poroshenko, and Russia’s president Vladimir Putin meet on June 6 at an event in France commemorating the 70th anniversary of D-Day. Guido Bergmann/DPA/ZUMA Press

Seattle Mayor Ed Murray speaks on June 2 at a rally outside city hall after Seattle’s city council passed a $15 minimum wage measure. Ted S. Warren/AP Photo

On June 1, residents of Hyderabad celebrate the formation of India’s 29th state, Telangana, marking the formal division of the southern state of Andhra Pradesh. Mahesh Kumar A./AP Photo

A man works at a metal factory on World Environment Day, June 5, in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The UN-designated holiday aims to raise awareness of environmental issues. A.M. Ahad/AP Photo

Tens of thousands of people attend a candlelight vigil at Hong Kong’s Victoria Park on June 4, marking the 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen square crackdown on Beijing’s pro-democracy movement. Vincent Yu/AP Photo

A National Transportation Safety Board official looks through wreckage on June 2 in Bedford, Massachusetts, where a plane erupted in flames during a takeoff attempt. Lewis Katz, co-owner of the Philadelphia Inquirer, and six other people died in the crash. Mark Garfinkel/Boston Herald/Pool/AP Photo

US Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) on June 4 as he leaves a stop on the first day of a three-week campaign. Cochran, 76, is seeking a seventh term, and will face state Sen. Chris McDaniel in a run-off election in late June. Rogelio V. Solis/AP Photo

The coal-fired Plant Scherer on June 1 in Juliette, Georgia. The Obama administration unveiled a plan Monday to cut carbon dioxide emissions from power plants by nearly a third over the next 15 years. John Amis/AP Photo

Turkish protesters clash with police during the one-year anniversary of the Gezi Park protests on May 31 in Istanbul, Turkey. Cesare Quinto/NurPhoto/ZUMA Press

Police in New Brunswick, Canada search for a suspect who killed three Canadian police officers and injured two others on June 4. 24-year-old Justin Bourque turned himself in after a massive manhunt. Steve Russell/The Toronto Star/ZUMA Press

President Obama walks back to the Oval Office with the parents of US Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, after announcing their son’s release by the Taliban after five years in captivity. Rex Features/AP Photo

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This Week in 13 Photos: Sgt. Bergdahl, D-Day and Tiananmen Remembered, and Elections around the World

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The Week in 15 Photos: Santa Barbara, Maya Angelou, and a Transgender Army Vet’s Big Win

by DustyPocock Posted on May 31, 2014

Mother Jones

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It was a week of mourning and upheaval around the world, beginning with the mass shooting that killed six and injured 13 at University of California, Santa Barbara. A few days later, the nation said farewell to poet Maya Angelou, and at week’s end, VA head Eric Shinseki resigned amid outrage over his agency’s secret healthcare backlogs. Half a world away, turbulent elections in Ukraine fueled political uncertainty and renewed fighting, while in the European Union’s parliamentary elections, far-right parties made unprecedented gains. Here are 15 of the most remarkable photos that captured the week’s events.

Students walk into the sunset after Wednesday’s oceanside memorial to the victims of the Santa Barbara mass shooting. The News-Press/Peter Vandenbelt/AP Photo

Maya Angelou passed away on Wednesday at age 86; just seven weeks earlier, she’d attended her own portrait’s unveiling at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery. Paul Morigi/AP Images for National Portrait Gallery

Students in Paris protest the results of the European elections, where the National Front party won a quarter of France’s vote. Lewis Joly/Visual/ZUMA Press

Denee Mallon, a 74-year-old Army veteran, at Albuquerque’s Trans March Thursday; the next day, a government review board granted Mallon’s request to have Medicare pay for her gender reassignment surgery. Craig Fritz/AP Photo

Supporters of Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, Egypt’s former military chief, celebrate his victory in the country’s presidential election, plagued by low turnout and boycotts, on Cairo’s Tahrir Square Thursday. Amr Nabil/AP Photo

A demonstrator protests Thailand’s military coup in Bangkok on Wednesday. Wason Wanichakorn/AP Photo

Glaziers work on the coating of a ledge that juts out from the 103rd floor of Chicago’s Willis Tower on Thursday. One such coating cracked Wednesday night when a family was standing on it. M. Spencer Green/AP Photo

Pope Francis visits the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem, with Israeli President Shimon Peres and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, on Sunday. Amos Ben Gersho/APA Images/ZUMA Press

The Soyuz TMA-13M spaceship takes off at the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Thursday, carrying a new crew to the International Space Station. Dmitry Lovetsky/AP Photo

Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki speaks to the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans on Friday, a few hours before tendering his resignation. Charles Dharapak/AP Photo

President Barack Obama hugs White House press secretary Jay Carney after announcing that Carney will step down next month. Susan Walsh/AP Photo

Ansun Sujoe, 13, of Fort Worth, Texas, left, and Sriram Hathwar, 14, of Painted Post, New York, celebrate after being named co-champions of the National Spelling Bee on Thursday. Evan Vucci/AP Photo

Tara Cowan demonstrates with other members of Open Carry Texas on Thursday; gun rights advocates are suing the city of Arlington over a ban on distributing leaflets at high-traffic intersections and roads. Tony Gutierrez/AP Photo

Ukrainian President-elect Pyotr Poroshenko, left, with Kiev mayor Vitali Klitschko, announcing that he won’t curb the use of force in battling the pro-Russian insurgency. Efrem Lukatsky/AP Photo

Coffins for members of the Vostok Batallion, a pro-Russian militia, who died in clashes at Ukraine’s Donetsk airport. At least 30 bodies were sent to Russia for burial, raising further suspicions of Russia’s involvement in the conflict. Sandro Maddalena/NurPhoto/Sipa USA/AP Photo

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The Week in 15 Photos: Santa Barbara, Maya Angelou, and a Transgender Army Vet’s Big Win

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Watch Bill Nye Explain Climate Change to GOP Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn

by Billy Maso Posted on February 16, 2014

Mother Jones

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Bill Nye is getting good at this.

Fresh off a mega-debate that embarrassed Young Earth creationists and led to none other than Pat Robertson denouncing their views, Nye appeared on Meet the Press today to debate Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), a global warming “skeptic.”

On the air, Blackburn, who is vice-chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, denied that there is a scientific consensus on climate change and argued that “you don’t make good laws, sustainable laws, when you’re making them on hypotheses, or theories, or unproven sciences.” (There is indeed such a scientific consensus; at one moment, host David Gregory had to correct Blackburn on this point.)

But Nye rebutted her with some simple science lessons that made a lot of sense—noting that going from 320 to 400 parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, something Blackburn called “very slight,” is actually a very big change in percentage terms (Nye said 30 percent; it is actually a 25 percent increase). At the same time, Nye also hammered home a compelling message centered on patriotism. “As a guy who grew up in the US,” he said, “I want the US to lead the world in this….The more we mess around with this denial, the less we’re going to get done.”

The key gotcha moment in the debate came when Nye called out Blackburn for failing to lead on the climate issue. “You are our leader,” he said to Blackburn. “We need you to change things, not deny what’s happening.”

“Neither he nor I are a climate scientist,” Blackburn noted during the debate. But as Nye observed, only one of them is a politician, whose job is to use the best information that we have at our disposal to make the world work better.

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Watch Bill Nye Explain Climate Change to GOP Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn

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Come for the Crooning, Stay for the Wordplay on Lambchop’s "Nixon" Reissue

by HalleyR55yl Posted on February 3, 2014

Mother Jones

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Lambchop
Nixon
Merge

If you know this Nashville collective mainly for recent albums like Mr. M and OH (Ohio), the most striking thing about the reissue of 2000’s lush Nixon is how different leader Kurt Wagner sounds. Currently a woozy basso crooner, he was a woozy, much-higher crooner back then, with a intriguingly scruffy falsetto suggesting Curtis Mayfield’s degenerate down-home cousin. In any case, Nixon is a fascinating listen that tempers Wagner’s penchant for updating and warping the smooth country-politan sounds of the ’70s with mellow soul influences, all the better to make his sly, tartly dark observations on human nature more appetizing.

Taking its title from the wonderful Wayne White painting of the same name—which is also the cover—Nixon has little or nothing to say about the late, disgraced former president (unless utterly oblique references count), but it does include “The Petrified Florist,” underscoring Wagner’s knack for offbeat wordplay. This two-disc set also includes White Sessions 1998: How I Met Cat Power, a five-song Wagner solo set with its own sleepy charms.

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Come for the Crooning, Stay for the Wordplay on Lambchop’s "Nixon" Reissue

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Friday Cat Blogging – 31 January 2014

by PhilomenaJephco Posted on January 31, 2014

Mother Jones

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It rained yesterday here in Southern California. I’d put the total damage at a hundredth of an inch, and wunderground.com says I have it about right. It was more like a heavy fog than real rain. But just like those Atlantans freaked out by two inches of snow, it was enough to send Domino scurrying for the warmth and protection of a blanket, which someone had considerately put right on top of her faux sheepskin pod. It turned out to be a great way to ride out the storm.

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Friday Cat Blogging – 31 January 2014

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If Bing Wants to Attract Power Users, It Needs an Advanced Search Page

by Rad7edzw Posted on January 31, 2014

Mother Jones

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Matt Yglesias embarks on a short tour d’horizon of Microsoft’s future today and ends with Redmond’s white whale of a search engine:

And then there’s Bing. I am obsessed with Bing. Not because I use Bing or because Bing is a commercially important product but because Bing is a socially important product. Steve Ballmer’s heroic determination to compete with Google on search has helped us resolve a lot of very thorny issues that would arise if Google Web Search became a monopoly product. But while we all (in some ways even including Google) owe Ballmer a debt of thanks for doing this, it’s far from clear that it’s been a smart business decision for Microsoft. All the “Scroogled” ads in the world aren’t going to turn this into a market-leading product, and Google at this point seems to be benefiting from both superior engineering and strong network effects. But what will we do if Bing goes away?

I’ve used Bing. It works fine. In some ways it’s better than Google. In others it’s not. But there’s a very specific reason I’ve never switched: Bing has no advanced search page. Oh, you can do an advanced search if you care to remember the syntax for all the operators, but like millions of other people, I don’t care to do that. Google, conversely, makes it easy for me to do an advanced search. They also allow me to restrict a search to a date range, which is very, very handy.

Now, it’s true that most people don’t ever do an advanced search of any kind. They just type a few words into the search box and press Enter, which is one of the reasons that 99 percent of the world is hopelessly incompetent at searching the internet. But serious users use it, and it’s serious users who can end up being evangelists for your products. So why not add an advanced search page? The cost is basically zero, so it’s not like there’s really any downside. What’s the holdup?

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If Bing Wants to Attract Power Users, It Needs an Advanced Search Page

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Here’s a New Attempt to Fight the Scourge of Publication Bias

by BennieW87ooqw Posted on January 31, 2014

Mother Jones

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Tyler Cowen points today to a wonky but interesting new paper about publication bias. This is a problem endemic to scientific research that’s based on statistical analysis. Basically, researchers only publish something if their results are positive and significant. If their results are in the very large “can’t really tell for sure if anything is happening” space, they shove the paper in a file drawer and it never sees the light of day.

Here’s an example. Suppose several teams coincidentally decide to study the effect of carrots on baldness. Most of the teams find no effect and give up. But by chance, one team happens to find an effect. These statistical outliers happen occasionally, after all. So they publish. And since that’s the only study anyone ever sees, suddenly there’s a flurry of interest in using carrots to treat baldness.

The authors of the new paper apply a statistical insight that corrects for this by creating something called a p-curve. Their idea is that if the true effect of something is X, and you do a bunch of studies, then statistical chance means that you’ll get a range of results arrayed along a curve and centering on X. However, if you look at the published literature, you’ll never see the full curve. You’ll see only a subset of the curve that contains the results that were positive and significant.

But this is enough: “Because the shape of p-curve is a function exclusively of sample size and effect size, and sample size is observed, we simply find the free parameter that obtains the best overall fit.” What this means is that because p-curves have a known shape, just looking at the small section of the p-curve that’s visible allows you to estimate the size of the full curve. And this in turn allows you to estimate the true effect size just as if you had read all the studies, not just the ones that got published.

So how good is this? “As one may expect,” say the authors, “p-curve is more precise when it is based on studies with more observations and when it is based on more studies.” So if there’s only one study, it doesn’t do you much good. Left unsaid is that this technique also depends on whether nonsignificant results are routinely refused publication. One of the examples they use is studies of whether raising the minimum wage increases unemployment, and they conclude that once you correct for publication bias, the literature finds no effect at all (red bar). But as Cowen points out, “I am not sure the minimum wage is the best example here, since a ‘no result’ paper on that question seems to me entirely publishable these days and indeed for some while.” In other words, if a paper that finds no effect is as publishable as one that does, there might be no publication bias to correct.

Still, the whole thing is interesting. The bottom line is that in many cases, it’s fairly safe to assume that nonsignificant results aren’t being published, and that in turn means that you can extrapolate the p-curve to estimate the actual average of all the studies that have been conducted. And when you do, the average effect size almost always goes down. It’s yet another reason to be cautious about accepting statistical results until they’ve been widely replicated. For even more reasons to be skeptical, see here.

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Here’s a New Attempt to Fight the Scourge of Publication Bias

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Economy Grows Fairly Decently in Q4

by Teofilnpc Posted on January 30, 2014

Mother Jones

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Economic growth slowed down a bit in Q4, but remained fairly healthy. The BEA announced today that real GDP increased 3.2 percent last quarter, due almost entirely to private sector growth. Slowdowns in federal spending actually cut GDP growth by 0.98 percent—about two-thirds due to cuts in defense spending and one-third due to cuts in domestic spending. This is the price of austerity: if federal spending were growing at a normal rate at this point in a recovery, GDP growth last quarter probably would have stood at around 4.5 percent or so.

Everything else was pretty positive:

The increase in real GDP in the fourth quarter primarily reflected positive contributions from personal consumption expenditures (PCE), exports, nonresidential fixed investment, private inventory investment, and state and local government spending that were partly offset by negative contributions from federal government spending and residential fixed investment. Imports, which are a subtraction in the calculation of GDP, increased.

Consumer spending increased decently, and inflation was extremely subdued at 1.2 percent. All in all, a decent report, if not a spectacular one. Now we all get to wait and see if it’s good enough to offset all the turmoil in emerging markets that’s got everyone so jittery.

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Economy Grows Fairly Decently in Q4

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Apparently the Denver Broncos Have Lots of Dumb Fans

by TerenceBuchholz Posted on January 28, 2014

Mother Jones

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The other day I noticed that the Broncos were favored to win the Super Bowl, and I was puzzled. I thought the Seahawks were favored. But I don’t pay a lot of attention to this stuff, so I figured I just misread something somewhere.

But no! Apparently the betting line has changed substantially over the past week or so. The New York Times explains why:

The oddsmakers know things. They know there are two kinds of money: the sharp dough of professional gamblers and the square dollars of the public. They know that betting lines are meant to be moved….They know that square money is enthralled by favorites and falls hard for teams that have done a lot for them lately. The Broncos, for instance, not only covered against New England, but looked good doing it. It’s part of the reason Denver is currently the 2 ½-point favorite even though oddsmakers opened with the Seahawks — a team they believe is better — as a 2- to 2 ½-point favorite.

That’s a big swing. Apparently the dumb money is falling hard for the Broncos. If that’s the case, the smart guys ought to make a killing. We’ll see about that.

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Apparently the Denver Broncos Have Lots of Dumb Fans

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