<![CDATA[Gawker: the breakdown]]> http://cache.gawker.com/assets/base/img/thumbs140x140/gawker.com.png <![CDATA[Gawker: the breakdown]]> http://gawker.com/tag/the breakdown http://gawker.com/tag/the breakdown <![CDATA[ 100 Jamie Lynn Spears Headlines Analyzed ]]> With the news that Britney's little sister Jamie Lynn Spears was preggers came an avalanche of media insanity. Will we have not one, but two Spears vaginas to keep track of now? Whose baby will fetch more cash for tabloid photos? Whose baby's daddy will have the worse rap career? And what about Gramma Spears' bookdeal? Let's take a look at the sibling rivalry and the JLS reaction.

jlssmallClick to enlarge!

This chart reveals the thrust of more than 100 of the most recent headlines for stories on "Jamie Lynn Spears." Even though a hearty 12 percent of headlines were generic announcements of her being impregnated, 15 percent were comments about her getting knocked up as Brit's sister.

Some highlights:

TMZ interviewed Uncle Odus:

He tells us the family was "shocked' and yet "we aren't." As a pastor, Uncle Odus says he's seen "this type of thing" more often than he'd like.

Papa Bear O'Lielly added her to the pinhead club:
On the pinhead front, 16-year-old Jamie Lynn Spears is pregnant. The sister of Britney says she is shocked. I bet. Now most teens are pinheads in some ways. But here the blame falls primarily on the parents of the girl, who obviously have little control over her or even over Britney Spears. Look at the way she behaves.

But Mary J. Blige was there to offer support:
"Stay strong, baby girl. If that's her choice (to keep the baby) then congratulations. Hope she's responsible and I hope she understands what that brings.

So what's older brother Bryan Spears up to these days?

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Thu, 20 Dec 2007 12:15:14 EST marypilon http://gawker.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=336212&view=rss&microfeed=true
<![CDATA[ Exactly What Makes James Lipton So Irritating ]]> james_lipton.jpgOur Intern Mary has applied her sharp analytical mind and excellent Excel skill to Inside Inside, the wretched memoir by Inside the Actor's Studio host James Lipton. We've already examined the man's choice in epigraphs (pretentious), his favorite holiday (ridiculous) and his taste in women (whorish). But now the hard data is in.

This data is culled only from the first chapter but one can fairly extrapolate that similar proportions will be found throughout the 464 pages of the book. In one paragraph on page 8, he mentions: Ibsen, Chekhov, Shakespeare, Moliere, Aeschylus, Goldoni, Sheridan, Wilde and Maeterlinck.

piechart.jpg
[Click to enlarge]

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Fri, 09 Nov 2007 14:05:23 EST Joshua Stein http://gawker.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=320457&view=rss&microfeed=true
<![CDATA[ The 220 Best Women's Halloween Costumes On Amazon And eBay ]]> For the truly last-minute shoppers among us, our brave Intern Mary has looked at the top 220 Halloween costumes for women on Amazon and eBay. Would you like to be a sexy witch? A plus-size witch? A Bavarian woman? A sexy firewoman? A sexy bumblebee? A sexy tinwoman? THAT IS JUST A FEW OF THE 220 OPTIONS THAT YOU HAVE!

And here, in the most psychotic graph EVER CREATED, ARE ALL THE REST OF THEM.

Click to enlarge, IF YOU DARE! THE DEAD WILL RISE AND WALK AMONGST US IN "GIRL'S POODLE JACKET" AND "WONDER WOMAN (TODDLER)"! HAIL SATAN!

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Wed, 31 Oct 2007 17:30:06 EDT Choire http://gawker.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=317431&view=rss&microfeed=true
<![CDATA[ What Does Bill O'Reilly Really Say About Black People? ]]> Fox News motormouth Bill O'Reilly is upset—he says that his recent remarks about those oh-so-well-behaved black people in Harlem were totally taken out of context! So we wondered: Well, what context were they in? Searching through the Fox transcripts, using the terms "Black, "African" and "African-American," and discarding comments about Africa (such as about Darfur or the IMF), Intern Mary itemizes the way in which Bill O'Reilly has talked about black people.


As a bonus, some of our favorite O'Reilly moments:

"Black Americans are understandably sensitive about any racial comment made by a Caucasian because of past history. It is true that the most vile things imaginable can be said about the white majority without any consequence, but America has a different set of rules for different groups." —10/4/05

"With single black women now heading 54.4% of all African-American households, the seeds of social chaos are deeply planted... Forget about counting on parents, that's a pipe dream. The truth is that many parents are addicted to the pipe or the bottle or to pursuing an irresponsible life. Even Bill Cosby can't force a screwed up mother or father to be responsible." —7/8/04

And of course: "Senator Barack Obama seems to be a nice guy; I won't say he's 'articulate,' because some African-Americans hear that word and take offense. In fact, I won't give the Senator any compliments other than the nice guy description, just to be on the safe side." —2/8/07

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Thu, 27 Sep 2007 13:41:03 EDT Choire http://gawker.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=304483&view=rss&microfeed=true
<![CDATA[ Which New York Newspaper Has The Most Accurate Weather Forecasts? ]]> RADAREach morning we wake up, open the front door, grab the newspaper, look at the forecast for the day's high temperature, and dress based on that forecast. (Occasionally we also shower.) And every day, around noon, we find ourselves complaining that we're too hot because the paper was completely wrong. So we asked Intern Mary to track the weekday results of the city's three major papers and the New York Sun against the actual high temperatures over a two-week period. She also looked at the online predictions, for those of you who get your news that way. Her findings may surprise you!

weather_online
Online
The Daily News was the worst offender here, deviating an average 6.78 degrees from the day's high. The Post and the Times, both of which use AccuWeather for their online predictions, were the closest, with only a two degree deviation. Overall, the online temperature matched the actual high a pathetic 10.25 percent of the time, giving a ninety percent chance that forecasts are off by at least one degree. Special mention goes to the Sun, which was 23 degrees off on Aug 21st and 21 degrees off on Aug 22nd.

Average Variation By Paper
1) Daily News: 6.78 degrees
2) Sun: 6.53 degrees
3) Times and Post 2 degrees

weather_print
Print
The Post takes the title here, being off an average of almost four degrees from the day's high. The Times is the most accurate, with an average 1.54 degree difference between forecast and reality. Overall, the print temperature matched the actual high only 17.3 percent of the time. So print temperatures are more accurate than online temperatures, but are still wrong more than 80 percent of the time.

Average Variation By Paper
1) Post: 3.77 degrees
2) Daily News: 2.62 degrees
3) Sun: 2.61 degrees
4) Times: 1.54 degrees

What's the lesson here? Watch T.V. NY1's "Weather On The Ones" is usually right, right? But if you can't stand to do that, maybe you actually have to buy a newspaper!

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Tue, 18 Sep 2007 11:57:14 EDT abalk http://gawker.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=300927&view=rss&microfeed=true