Nate Silver

Nate Silver (and Puppies) Know Who Wins The Super Bowl

Nate Silver, the statistical genius who predicted the outcome of the last two presidential elections and the most recent Senate race, has now revealed his pick for the winner of the Super Bowl. Are you ready for it? It's Beyonce! Nope, it's actually the San Francisco 49ers. And, unfortunately for ... More >>

The 12 Months of Crazy: Rightbloggers' Greatest Hits of 2012

It's been a hell of a year for conservatives, so naturally it's been a flaming, bloody hell of a year for our subjects the rightbloggers. If this is the sort of thing that gladdens your heart, then sit by the fire and let us brighten your holiday season by reviewing, month by month, the rightblogg ... More >>

Rightbloggers' Solution to Obama's Reelection: Bring Back Culture War and White People!

It would be cruel to take too much pleasure in the rightblogger reactions to last Tuesday's events. Lest we forget, Democrats too have been known to lose faith in their fellow Americans when a big election doesn't go their way. So let us, after a brief review of their wrathful ejaculations, focus o ... More >>

Here's the Official Post-Election Petition Asking Obama to Let New York Secede from the Country

Up until election night, there was a legitimate, widespread fear that President Obama was going to lose the 2012 election. Liberals were pissed; many even spoke about moving to Canada, or Australia, or Britain, or any place that wasn't the United States but where people still spoke English. Then c ... More >>

The Best of Nate Silver's Burrito Blog

Nate Silver is the New York Times statistician who predicted President Obama's reelection with statistical precision, and whose forecasts caused a "Drunk Nate Silver" snowball on Twitter. He also used to run a burrito blog called the Burrito Bracket back in 2007, way back before he correctly predict ... More >>

NY State Liquor Authority Keep the Booze Flowing

Due to Sandy, Gov. Cuomo and the New York State Liquor Authority announced that they will take measures to help venues with liquor licenses in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, including extending license renewal dates, free license replacements, and New Year's Eve permits. [See More: The Best of Nate S ... More >>

The First Election Day Ballots were Counted at Midnight, and Someone got Blown Out

Yesterday, President Barack Obama and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney completed their final full day of what will go down as one of the most incessant, important, negative and, yes, divisive presidential races in the history of the United States. The two candidates spent their last 24 hour ... More >>

Rightbloggers Anticipate Romney Landslide, Denounce Nate Silver, Katy Perry

The election's Tuesday, and the whole political blogosphere is one endless screaming rah-rah for one candidate or another. We advise against all direct contact with it from now till next weekend. The preemptive victory dances of the left blogosphere are, as we never tire of paraphrasing Jed Leland, ... More >>

Stats Man Nate Silver Releases His First Book, The Signal and the Noise

Speaking with the Odds God

Unlike All Of The Media, Paul Ryan Is Not So Psyched For The Debate

Over the past two weeks, as the media buries the grave for Romney's campaign and writes its tombstone, we've heard it a million times, over and over again: the debates could change everything. The debates are going to be the most exciting television this fall. The debates will finally show the human ... More >>

Stop-and-Frisks, Crime Spikes and a Lesson in Statistics

A few months back, we reported on the outrageous statements made by the Boys in Blue that praised the low murder rate as a sign of victory for stop-and-frisk. And our argument was simple: if you stop-and-frisk everyone, then, yes, the murder rate will go down. But this is the kind of upside-down tho ... More >>

Baseball Predictions Are Much Better In Hindsight

​Suppose you brought all the smartest baseball kids on the block together, locked them in a house for two weeks with an unlimited supply of Twinkies and beer, and asked them to pool all their statistical tools to predict the upcoming baseball season? What might the result look like? SBNation's J ... More >>

Rightbloggers Get Behind Newt Gingrich, This Month's Next President of the United States

The GOP Presidential race has had its share of joke candidates -- all of whom rightbloggers have taken seriously. There was Donald Trump; then the black Trump, Herman Cain; then Paul Ryan, Michelle Bachmann, Rick Perry, Chris Christie, and Herman Cain again. As erstwhile frontrunner Cain's campaig ... More >>

Rightbloggers Double Down on the Second Coming of Herman Cain

Months ago, rightbloggers were celebrating the rise of Herman Cain. Then they grew restless, and moved on to Michele Bachman, Rick Perry, and Chris Christie, each of whom disappointed. Now Cain is back, hilariously leading in some GOP Presidential polls and winning some straw polls, too. Cain is pr ... More >>

This Is What the Occupy Wall Street Arrest Pattern Looks Like

C.S. MuncyCops faced off against protesters this morning in the Financial District.​A number of Occupy Wall Street protesters were arrested this morning during confrontations with the police on various streets in the Financial District. NYPD spokesman Paul Browne puts the number at 14. One man ... More >>

Harry Levine of Marijuana-Arrests.com: "We Are Always Encouraged When the Police Decide to Obey the Law"

Queens College​Much of what we know about the racial discrepancy between marijuana use and marijuana arrests in New York comes largely from the research of one man: Queen College sociology professor Harry Levine. Levine is the go to guy for information on marijuana and the criminal justice sys ... More >>

Was Bloomberg's Case of White Mayor's Burden the Straw That Broke Ray Kelly's Back?

​As we learned yesterday from the excellent reporting of WNYC's Ailsa Chang, NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly has ordered that cops stop arresting people for marijuana (or "marihuana," as the NYPD spells it) if the pot was never in public view. The timing of this announcement is curious. Ever sinc ... More >>

Ruben Diaz, Sr.: "I Praise the Lord" for Ability to Support Republican Bob Turner in NY -9

C.S. Muncy​"Senator Reverend" Ruben Diaz, Sr., the sole Democratic Senator to vote against the Marriage Equality Act, has just announced that he's supporting Republican Bob Turner in tomorrow's special election in NY-9, which will fill the seat vacated by Anthony Weiner. Gee, we wonder...wha ... More >>

Holy Crap, it's the Ames Straw Poll!

Frontrunner Michele Bachmann has her eyes on the prize.​Today, in Ames, Iowa, the race for the Republican presidential candidacy begins its gestation. Candidates, pundits and voters flock to the campus of Iowa State University to, according to the Los Angeles Times, "mingle, eat barbecue and h ... More >>

You Are More Likely to Get Laid on a Wednesday

​In a very important undertaking, Christian Rudder of OkCupid and Nate Silver met up to talk about various dating -- okay, let's call it what it is -- sex statistics, because everyone loves statistics that help them have sex. OkCupid being OkCupid, they're very good at figuring out these datin ... More >>

Huckabee Out, Gingrich, Paul In, Which Rightbloggers Declare Good News for Herman Cain

There was some action in the GOP 2012 Presidential race last week, with Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul declaring themselves in and Mike Huckabee declaring himself out. Rightbloggers sifted the results, and found them good -- because there was at least one true conservative left whom they could support ... More >>

Ruben Diaz Sr.: Gay Marriage Over My Dead Body

​UPDATE AFTER THE JUMP: Why Diaz's date for a protest presents a special problem for a potential counter-protest. As the newly formed New Yorkers United to Marry sets their sights on the New York Senate, there's one vote they're definitely not going to swing. It's no real surprise that Senat ... More >>

Huffington Post Hit With $105 Million Lawsuit By 9,000 Angry Unpaid Bloggers

​In its intermittent battles with unpaid writers, The Huffington Post and its (often reluctant) defenders have trotted out a number of arguments, including most commonly the assertion that the bloggers write without compensation for attention, and most like it just fine that way. Others have a ... More >>

Rightbloggers Compare Large National Protests (Union) Unfavorably with Large National Protests (Koch Brothers)

Last weekend rallies were held in all 50 states in support of the teachers' union in Wisconsin. And at the Wisconsin state capitol, at least 70,000 people came out on Saturday to protest Governor Walker's attempt to break the union. Sounds like a big deal, right? Hundreds of thousands of people tur ... More >>

Live-Bonging the Prop. 19 Vote with Broam Chronsky

​As the results of America's midterm elections come to light, the Village Voice's expert panel of political thinkers and shapers will be weighing in live over the course of the evening. Covering California's landmark vote on whether or not to legalize Marijuana, Proposition 19, is our special ... More >>

Andrew Cuomo, Carl Paladino, and Those Nutty Polls

​The day before Mike Bloomberg defeated Bill Thompson by 4.6 percent of the vote last November, Quinnipiac said the mayor would win by 12 points. Its poll the day before the 2005 election predicted Bloomberg would beat Fernando Ferrer by 38 points, twice his actual margin. The good news for ... More >>

Press Clips, Day 8, Lunch Edition: New York vs. The New Yorker Cage Match Edtion

Pictured: a figurative portrait of New York Observer senior editor Christian Lorentzen. ​Press Clips has returned to the roost, and we're starting the week off with great news, great media squabbles, hypocrisy, and self-awareness. In other words, your Monday Media Proctology Exam has arrived. ... More >>

Dr. Doom ("Nouriel Roubini"): 40% Chance of "Renewed Recession" for American Economy Is

​Nouriel Roubini -- who's basically living like a rap star after screaming about how utterly fucked the American economy was before it happened, watching it happen, and telling everyone how he told them so -- just made a headline tonight when he put the chances of a "renewed recession" for Ame ... More >>

Mosque Near Ground Zero Becoming Political Hot Potato

Our little neighborhood construction flap over whether to build a mosque (which is really like the equivalent of an Islamic version of the Jewish Community Center) near Ground Zero took a huge step onto the national and then international stages over the weekend. At a Ramadan Iftar dinner at the Wh ... More >>

Bringing Down Dave Weigel Reactions Round-Up: Who Dunnit and Why?

​Speculation continues to swirl surrounding the leaked listserv emails that led to the resignation of Dave Weigel, the Washington Post's blogger on the conservative beat. To recap: Weigel belonged to an exclusive group of political reporters and commentators, headed by fellow WaPo young Ezra K ... More >>

Statistician Nate Silver Takes on the KFC Double Down

Robert SietsemaBad, or just drawn that way?​We were content to rate the KFC Double Down a two out of five blechs and leave it at that, but FiveThirtyEight's Nate Silver has taken it upon himself to add some interesting analysis to the already hyper-analyzed monstrosity. Statistically speaking, ... More >>

Nate Silver Rates Park Slope Top New York Neighborhood

​Nate Silver, the baseball statistician whose analysis of political polls has made his fivethirtyeight.com one of the top independent political websites in the country, has turned his eye on New York and picked Park Slope as our top neighborhood.

Yankees Prospects Look Grim -- Star Pollster Nate Silver

​If Nate Silver is correct, both the Democratic Party and the New York Yankees might be headed for tough times this fall. The ace political pollster/baseball analyst projects the numbers for 1,600 major league ballplayers in the current Baseball Prospectus 2010, and things don't look good for ... More >>

Nate Silver Predicts Republican Odds of Victory in Today's Senate Race are "3:1"

When Nate Silver talks...​New York is looking to the North today as Martha Coakley attempts to keep Ted Kennedy's old Senate seat for the Democrats. The Massachusetts senate race has the cover of the Post and has President Obama pleading with New York Democrats (via e-mail) to report to a phon ... More >>

Vijay Iyer Tops the Fourth Annual Village Voice Jazz Poll

Historicity and records from other fresh faces take our 2009 jazz poll

Local paper: Scozzafava supports Democrat

​In the wake of yesterday's suprise announcement that Republican candidate Dede Scozzafava was dropping out of the race for the open congressional seat in NY-23, a number of powerful state unions, Scozzafava's husband, and possibly Scozzafava herself have switched their suppport to Democrat Bi ... More >>

New Poll: Mayoral Election Out of Reach, Give Up

The election is a week from tomorrow, and the final vote-discouraging polls are rolling in. Today Quinnipiac shows Mike Bloomberg up 53 to 3r percent among likely voters -- pretty much what the Marist Poll showed last week. The only question, says Quinnipiac's polling director: "Will voters see thos ... More >>

The Queer Issue: Beefcake's Golden Age

City's Public (and Maybe Private) Drinking Down

The new Zagat New York City Nightlife Guide is out, and its survey indicates that citizens are not hitting the bars and clubs like they used to. Zagat finds 56 percent of survey respondents going out less, 38 percent finding cheaper places, 27 percent ordering fewer drinks, etc. Given the economy, ... More >>

Cheek, in Review: 7 Days of Runnin' Scared

"As Christians we are sorry if you have ever felt pushed away from Church or ever felt like you didn't fit in. That was people, not Jesus." -- message handed out by members of the Awakening Church at Union Square station. Tea parties were all the rage -- literally! We read the tea leaves and att ... More >>

2,000 Tea Party Denounces Obama Spending, Cheers USA, Fox News

On February 28, a Tea Party demonstration in New York's City Hall Park drew about 250 protesters who decried President Obama as a socialist, a communist, and the second coming of Hitler. This evening's Tea Party on the edge of the same park was much, much bigger -- stretching on the west sidewalk ... More >>

Oscar Night Rightbloggers Mad at Milk, Indians

We're still congratulating ourselves on beating Nate Silver and other geniuses with our Oscar predictions. But, as you might imagine, rightbloggers had a worse night -- not just in predicting, but in reaction to Sean Penn's win for Milk. "As I emphasized in my article from earlier this week," harrum ... More >>

Alleged Leaker, Nate Silver, Carpetbagger, and Runnin' Scared Pick the Oscar Winners!

Yes, Carly Simon won an Oscar, but not for Costume Design. Photo by Alan Light. The Oscars are tomorrow night, and an alleged leak of the winners is making it more interesting than usual. The Academy has denounced the list as a "complete fraud." If so, it should be exposed tomorrow, though the ev ... More >>

Out There In The Dark: Rightbloggers Go Hollywood!

As we get closer to the actual transition, rightbloggers are shifting gears. They're losing interest in the remaining pre-inaugural Obama business. We probably won't see anything like the Hillary Clinton Constitutional crisis again. Leon Panetta's CIA appointment drew some criticism on the grounds ... More >>

Prognostication is a Lonely Business

Rightbloggers On Palin's Turkey Slaughter ("The Lady's Got Spunk") and Other Big Wins

Pollster-of-the-Moment Says: Obama 349, McCain 189

Your Turn: Where the Yankees Spend Big

Atlas Slugged

Alex Rodriguez is one of the greatest Yankees ever. And the whole world is on his back?