HOLIDAY READING: The Indispensables: The Diverse Soldier-Mariners Who Shaped the Country, Formed the Navy, and Rowed Washington Across the Delaware. #CommissionEarned
Archive for 2021
December 29, 2021
SKYNET BABY STEPS: Alexa tells 10-year-old girl to touch live plug with penny.
Amazon has updated its Alexa voice assistant after it “challenged” a 10-year-old girl to touch a coin to the prongs of a half-inserted plug.
The suggestion came after the girl asked Alexa for a “challenge to do”.
“Plug in a phone charger about halfway into a wall outlet, then touch a penny to the exposed prongs,” the smart speaker said.
Amazon said it fixed the error as soon as the company became aware of it.
Did some prankster at Amazon insert the “challenge” as a joke, or did Alexa come up with this all on its own?
THE GREAT NFL HEIST: HOW FOX PAID FOR AND CHANGED FOOTBALL FOREVER.
Hill: Rupert, God bless him, he knew sport was key. He knew the NFL was key. But Chase understood that in terms of developing the business, the NFC gave him the main metropolitan markets. I’ve always said this on many occasions. The architect of Fox Sports is Chase Carey.
Padden: The finance people and the salespeople at the network got together and said, “OK, how much can we pay for these rights?” They did an analysis of what kind of advertising they could sell and came up with the maximum break-even number. Then Mr. Murdoch came bounding into the room and said, “What do we have to bid?” We told him. He said, “That’s not enough. The NFL doesn’t really want their games on our network. They’re just using us to bid up CBS. I’ve got to bid CBS away from the table.”
Carey: You had to have a number that — I don’t have a better word for it — made them choke.
Murdoch eventually came up with the choking point: four years, $1.6 billion for the NFC rights. In 1993, it was an astonishing figure. It was half a billion dollars more than CBS had paid under their old deal, and 60 percent more than CBS was offering on the current one.
Krieger: When he does a deal, Rupert’s thinking about, “What’s this going to look like 10 years out, 20 years out? Will this help me build a network?” The other guys are trying to manage financials for the next quarterly financial report.
Ebersol: Did I ever think in my wildest dreams that there wasn’t going to be $400 million coming in on the other side? No.
Carey: It was fairly late Thursday night when we went over to make the offer.
Jones: I’ll never forget when we were sitting right beside each other there in New York — Pat [Bowlen] and I. The number came in for the NFC package. And underneath the table, we were kickin’ the living shit out of each other. He kept a straight face and I kept a straight face. We just kicked each other.
Tagliabue: To come in with a “4” instead of a “3” was pretty startling.
Roger Headrick, Minnesota Vikings president and CEO: We had no idea that the TV rights could escalate to that kind of a level.
Jones: It was aggressive enough that one of the biggest questions was, “Can they pay this?” As a matter of fact, there were several owners who said, “We need to get some lines of credit here to back this up.”
Because the next four Super Bowls would be split among three networks and Fox would get only one of them, Fox’s bid was lowered slightly, to $395 million.
Carey: The part I remember is, after I said [the $400 million number], Jerry Jones came up and said, “You guys are players.” That was Jerry’s response.
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Madden, who’d worked at CBS since 1979, had a place in American pop culture that was akin to Santa Claus, one colleague observed. He seemed eternally peppy, and his Madden Cruiser bus carried him around him the country. Madden had a video game (then in its fifth edition) and commercials for tough-actin’ Tinactin. But his genius was that he simultaneously made the TV analyst’s job more complex and more accessible than it had ever been before. Madden could explain the fine points of line play and then wax about the lineman’s belly and cut of his pants. Boom!
Madden’s regular-guyness belied just what a sought-after TV star he’d become. Early in 1994, his suitors included Fox’s Rupert Murdoch, ABC’s Bob Iger, and General Electric’s Jack Welch, who controlled NBC. Joe Buck later called Madden the “ultimate free agent.” Lesley Visser compared him to Moby Dick. At the end of the negotiations, Madden didn’t just get more money than any sports announcer ever had. He got a contract that paid him more per year than any player in the NFL.
Richie Zyontz, CBS producer: [Murdoch] came to one of our early seminars. I remember what he said: “If I have to introduce someone new to our country to one person who is uniquely American, it would be John Madden.”
Dick Ebersol, NBC Sports president: He was the first crossover football media star. He wasn’t just men. He was women.
Joe Buck, St. Louis Cardinals announcer: He was — to me at least, because it’s what I do for a living — larger than the game. Even though he said he wasn’t. “I’m just an everyman. I’m just the guy at the bar that you nuzzle up against and you’re elbowing during a big play.” But he wasn’t that. … He was larger than life.
Artie Kempner, CBS director: To this day, John Madden is the best analyst in the business. Here’s why: No matter who you are — Troy Aikman, Jon Gruden, Al Michaels, Cris Collinsworth — we’re not the reason you tune in to watch games. You watch games or events because of the game or event. But what John Madden did better than anybody is take a shitty event and make it interesting or engaging. You could have a 31–3 game, and John could keep your attention.
Neal Pilson, CBS Sports president: He’s one of the very, very few guys in the history of our business that brought a rating himself. I can give you at least one other, and that was Howard Cosell.
Eric Shanks, CBS broadcast associate: He’s a great observer of people. A guy would walk through the lobby and if his shoelace was tied over here or over here, he’d be like, “Watch out for that guy. He doesn’t do his job very well. If his shoelace is tied in the middle, that’s a guy you want to do business with.” That’s a pretty good rule.
Pete Macheska, CBS associate director: I’ll tell you a story. The Ritz-Carlton in Chicago, their lobby was on the 12th floor. He’d sit in the lobby for hours just watching people. I remember one time we were waiting to go to dinner, and the Rolling Stones were staying there. One guy goes, “Hey, there’s Mick Jagger.” John had no idea who Mick Jagger was. None.
Matt Millen, CBS analyst: Here’s the thing people don’t know about John. John is probably the brightest guy in the room. He just doesn’t want you to know it. He wants you to think he’s this big, lovable dog you can pet.
* * * * * * * *
Zyontz: John was football for Fox. He set the tone. He put us on the map. That’s obviously what Murdoch wanted, and he paid a ton of money. John was worth every penny because he gave us instant credibility.
Jerry Jones, Dallas Cowboys owner: If you make that kind of commitment [for the NFC rights], you’ll go after and get the best. That’s peanuts. That’s arguing about the price of the seasoning after you’ve paid a fortune for the steak.
RIP to the best.
WHY IS COVID RAGING IN BLUE STATES? That is a great question and Eddie Scarry of The Federalist is quite prepared to offer some sensible answers.
ISN’T THIS BASICALLY HOW AL CAPONE GOT BUSTED? You Won’t Believe What the IRS Says People Must Declare as Income.
JEFF BEZOS SMILES: SpaceX’s Starship is now grounded until MARCH: FAA changes date of its environmental review to February when it was previously set to be completed by Dec 31.
How many friends does Senator Karen have in the FAA?
FIVE BRAVEST JOURNALISTS OF 2021: Wait a minute! Before you get your panties in a wad because “journalists” and “bravest” are two words that for good reason are rarely are seen together in a serious sentence, understand that Rich Cromwell has his tongue firmly lodged in his cheek.
ANYTHING DEMOCRATS DON’T LIKE IS A “CONSTITUTIONAL CRISIS.” Meacham: If Trump runs in 2024 it will create a constitutional crisis.
And that’s because they’re always ready to violate the Constitution in pursuit of what they want. Which is always power.
LIFE IN THE BLUE ZONES: Chicago 911 Dispatcher Slams Mayor Lightfoot for ‘Blood on Hands’ as City Violence Soars.
HOW’S THAT PERMANENT DEMOCRATIC MAJORITY COMING ALONG? The Year the “Great Realignment” Became a Death Spiral for Democrats.
2021 has been the year of the Great Realignment. Rather than a one-off, Donald Trump’s impressive gains with non-white voters have proven the harbinger of a greater shift. Republicans won two heavily Hispanic districts in the Texas State House this past November, one which went Democratic in the presidential race by 14%, the other when Democrat Ryan Guillen switched parties in a district where no Republican had ever won more than 39% of the vote. Democrats have also begun to acknowledge their peril as they have come under fire over their use of the term “Latinx.” In the meantime, they are losing voters at a speed almost unprecedented not just in American but in world history. In 2020, Joe Biden still won Latino voters by a factor of almost 2-1. As recently as this summer, polls showed that advantage falling to a 50-50 split. This fall, as Joe Biden’s polling numbers have descended to the basement, his numbers among Latinos have fallen into the Earth’s core. Recent polls have Latino voters being less supportive of Joe Biden than white voters as a whole.
t is hard to describe the scale of this shift. The last Democrat to win the white vote nationally was Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964, when he won 62% of white votes overall. Barack Obama in 2008 managed a mere 43%. Joe Biden did only marginally worse in 2020, garnering 42%. Marist College, in their most recent poll, finds Joe Biden around that mark among white voters, with 40% approving and 56% disapproving of his job performance. While underwater, Biden’s numbers among whites are not horrific by historical standards for a Democrat. Obama won reelection with only 39% of the white vote in 2012. But he also won overwhelming margins among non-whites, to the tune of 93% among African Americans, 72% among Latinos, and almost as much among Asians. Joe Biden, by contrast, lacks any sort of cushion. As a whole, nonwhite voters disapprove of Joe Biden by a margin of 52%-44%.
That is not a data entry error or a typographical mistake.
Read the whole thing — and don’t get cocky.
ICYMI: LETTER FROM “PUBLIC HEALTH” EXPERTS URGING PFIZER TO HOLD THE VACCINE UNTIL AFTER THE ELECTION: “I didn’t even remember this but wow. I doubt the same letter would have been sent had 2020 not been an election year or had a Democrat been in office.” That’s Nate Silver I just quoted.
Quoth Tyler Cowen: “No, this was not a conspiracy in the strictest, most intentional sense (it didn’t need to be!), but it did kill thousands of people and manipulate our politics. . . . C’mon, people, let’s not be afraid to admit this one.”
Well, I’m not afraid to admit it. (Bumped).
VOTERS DON’T MUCH CARE WHAT THE CHATTERING CLASSES THINK: ‘Badass’ Marjorie Taylor Greene cruising to reelection, DC critics ‘delusional.’
MARK STEYN: America Sticks Out Its Tush. Plus: “There is a strange lack of desire for a future.”
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: Dems Will Take an Even Harder Run at Destroying America in 2022. “Democrats are more focused on the long game than Republicans, however. Just because they’re down in the dumps at the moment doesn’t mean that they’re taking their eyes off of the various insane leftist prizes that they want.”