Rachel Maddow interviews Jon Stewart

They end up having a really fascinating conversation about public discourse and the role of the media. Forget prime-time TV – set aside an hour to watch it this evening.


(bigger version here)

I find it interesting that Jon Stewart sees himself as fighting one battle (against TV news’ amplifying echo chamber) while everyone else wants to see him as fighting another (against rampant stupidity, especially on the right wing).

QOTD

Truthiness is tearing apart our country, and I don’t mean the argument over who came up with the word. I don’t know whether it’s a new thing, but it’s certainly a current thing, in that it doesn’t seem to matter what facts are. It used to be, everyone was entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts. But that’s not the case anymore. Facts matter not at all. Perception is everything. It’s certainty. People love the president because he’s certain of his choices as a leader, even if the facts that back him up don’t seem to exist. It’s the fact that he’s certain that is very appealing to a certain section of the country. I really feel a dichotomy in the American populace. What is important? What you want to be true, or what is true?

–Stephen Colbert

via this 2006 interview

QOTD

Every time I hear something about Christine O’Donnell being a lunatic, I think of this recent quotation by Jon Stewart:

“The last thing that I would suggest is that her witchcraft or masturbation stance should be what we should be thinking about or focusing on, and I think that’s an enormous mistake that the Democrats will make. We like to sit around the office and we have a little game called ‘How will the Democrats blow it?’ And that’s the way they’ll do it. They’ll think somehow that that will resonate with voters, that 20 years ago Christine O’Donnell on MTV said ‘Masturbation is a sin.’ And they’ll play it, and they’ll ridicule it, and the voters will be like, ‘Yeah, I don’t have a job.’ That’s how they’ll blow it.”

While I agree that the craziness of the Tea Party needs to be brought to light, I think it’s useful for all of us to remember that we need to point out how crazy they are on serious issues too. That idea has kind of refocused my thinking over the last few days.

New Media Fail

The funny thing is, having read all the crazed twitters today, I actually have less of an idea of what’s going on in Iran. It’s almost like you need people whose job it is to take conflicting data in a dangerous part of the world and make sense of it. We could call them reporters…

via

Bad graphs and bad reporting

Several blogs, including GOOD and the New York Times Economix blog have been reporting on obesity, and using this graph as evidence:

obesity rate vs time spent eating

The authors of the graph (and the blogs) claim it shows that countries whose populations eat more slowly have less obesity. I took one look at that graph and said “Bullshit”.

The points are scattered all over, and if there is a correlation between the two factors, it’s a very weak one. To prove this, I re-created the graph in Open Office by approximating their data points. I then did a logarithmic fit of the data, which produces a graph that is very close to the original. So far, so good:

obesity rate vs time spent eating

When you fit lines to data, there are ways to measure how well that line describes the data, by using something called the Coefficient of determination (R-squared). This value ranges from 1, which means the line fits perfectly, all the way down to zero, which means the line is basically arbitrarily drawn.

If you look at my graph, you’ll see that the R^2 value of this line is 0.18. That means the fit is very weak and should pretty much be ignored. Even though the line draws your eye and makes you believe the relationship, there is very little correlation here.

Now, this doesn’t mean their conclusion is wrong. There very well may be a link between speed of eating and obesity. However making that inference from this data would (and should) get you laughed out of any serious medical or scientific meeting. This is a case of bad graphing, bad reporting, and plenty of blame to go around.

The BBC gets it wrong

Wow, this BBC article about breast cancer and embryo screening gets it wrong big-time.

[H]e said that, in this case, not carrying the BRCA1 gene would not guarantee any daughter born to the couple would be unaffected by breast cancer because there are other genetic and environmental causes.

Bzzzzzzzt. Sorry. This science reporter fails the test, and does so repeatedly throughout the article.

Everyone has the BRCA1 gene, and it actually helps prevent cancer! See, BRCA1 is involved in the process of DNA damage repair, which reduces the number of mutations in the genome. A properly functioning BRCA1 protein helps stop cancer before it starts.

What confused the reporter was that only some people have BRCA1 genes with mutations. When one or a few base pairs in the BRCA1 gene are altered, it can change the resulting protein and cause it to malfunction. These mutations are what confer a higher risk of breast cancer.

At least one scientist interviewed in the article gets it right:

Dr Alan Thornhill, scientific director of the London Bridge Fertility, Gynaecology and Genetics Centre, said: “While the technology and approach used in this case is fairly routine, it is the first time in the UK that a family has successfully eliminated a mutant breast cancer gene for their child.

It probably could have been more clearly said, but he does state that it’s the mutant copy of the gene that’s being eliminated, not the gene itself.

You may say that I’m playing semantics here, but this is crucially important stuff, as the article makes very clear. People are going to have to begin making serious decisions about risk factors affecting themselves and their children. It’s hard enough to convey this information when we get the facts right. Muddying the waters with bad reporting only makes the job tougher.

Update: Props to the BBC for changing the article. I don’t know if it was my contact form submission or someone else’s, but they’ve updated the article to make it more correct. That said, shouldn’t they acknowledge the change somewhere on the page? A footnoted erratum would go a long way towards improving transparency.

Elite

e·lite (noun) – representing the most choice or select; best

Doesn’t elite mean good? Is that not something we’re looking for in a president anymore? . . . Not only do I want an elite president, but I want somebody who is embarrassingly superior to me.

Why is the only sensible political commentary these days on Comedy Central?

This is the best we can do?

It’s hard to pick just one quote from this piece on TV pundits, politics, and orange juice:

There is no spin possible that turns “asking for orange juice” into an issue of elitism or snobbery: there is, in an infinite sea of alternate realities, not one in which asking for orange juice demonstrates an important negative aspect of character. It is stupid. It is aggressively stupid; it is soul-burrowingly stupid; it is mind-fuckingly stupid. It is the kind of stupid that seeps into the rug so that the entire building stinks of stupid for the next ten years whenever the air conditioning comes on. It is the kind of stupid that wounds all those who come into contact with it. It is a stupid that has been rendered physical: it leaves a scar.

. . .

It is difficult, after all, to do anything but just plain laugh at the political “experts” shoved in front of us, experts so incompetent and up their own esteemed asses, at this point, that they really can’t report on anything more substantial than orange juice stories. They can’t do it — it is not a matter of secret bias, they are just not capable. The top “pundits” of cable television weren’t hired for their smarts on the hard issues, they were hired to make ridiculous, off-the-cuff pronouncements on the petty trivialities of the day. They know no more about the concerns of small town Americans than they know about roping cattle or performing a colonoscopy, and yet they will sit on television, in suits costing more than some of the used cars the rest of us drive, and claim expertise on all three.

Read the whole damn thing, and then demand better.

We’re Screwed

Media Matters wonders where the serious debates have gone

Not one question about renditions. The words “habeas corpus” have not once been spoken by a debate moderator. Candidates have not been asked about telecom liability. . . . But NBC’s Brian Williams did ask the Democratic candidates what they would “go as” for Halloween.

Paul Krugman agrees that there’s a problem:

Just 12% of stories examined were presented in a way that explained how citizens might be affected by the election, while nearly nine-out-of-ten stories (86%) focused on matters that largely impacted only the parties and the candidates.

How do we fix our broken media?

Civil War in Four Minutes

Click through to youtube and use the full screen toggle if you’re having trouble making out the details.

The third battle on here is listed as “Jefferson City”, but I can’t find any details on that battle. Could that be the Battle of Boonville? Any Civil War Buffs out there?

Dipshits

From the “This is going to backfire” category:

A Brussels court said Google Inc. violated copyright laws by publishing links to Belgian newspapers without permission and ordered the company to remove them, setting a precedent for future cases in Europe.

. . .

The journals lose advertising revenue when Google uses snippets of articles and links directly to stories, bypassing ads on their Web sites, said Bruno Vandermeulen, a Brussels-based lawyer at Bird & Bird.

The journals are going to lose a hell of a lot more advertising revenue when no one reads their online paper anymore. Generally, the people who access your site through Google News are those who aren’t going to click through several pages of your site to find the stories they’re interested in. Google wasn’t stealing the content, they were giving a short snippet and linking to your site. With as big of an audience as Google News reaches, that’s driving a hell of a lot of pageviews your way.

Example #837 of why print media companies don’t understand the web. I won’t shed any tears when they’re gone – the companies that evolve to fit this pervasive new medium will be the powerhouses of the next century.

Lite-Brite Music Video

If the robots win, we’ll have to listen to techno.

Twangers

I never saw a kids’ show like this when I was growing up…

Homomyms are a bitch

Watch the movie first:

Turns out that this was a real appetite suppressant candy in the late 70′s and early 80′s, before the epidemic. Sales dropped precipitously in the later part of the decade, as people became familiar with the autoimmune disease by the same name. The company’s response? “No problem! We’ll just change the name to Diet Ayds.”

Somehow, I don’t think they thought their cunning plan all the way through.

source: Museum of Hoaxes

Scary Mary

Short Film

Sexual Consent is pretty freaking funny. In case the title wasn’t enough to warn you, it’s probably NSFW, though it doesn’t contain any nudity.

Right on the Money?

The Daily Show addresses the oft-abused use of question marks in TV news:

It’s also a good reminder of the editorialism that seems to be infesting TV news more and more.

Good Night, and Good Luck

Go read this fantastic monologue given by Keith Olbermann, at the closing of his show tonight. (or better yet, watch the video here)

He borrows a few of Edward R. Murrow’s words, and a whole lot more of Murrow’s style and journalistic excellence. This is what journalism should be.

He’s a Curious George

Remix

Recently, a contest was held to see who could do the best remix of a motion picture trailer. The twist? They had to make the movie seem like it was from another genre all together.

Here’s a pair of the best ones:

Props to Waxy for the links.

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