Slate's mistakes for the week of Jan. 28, 2013.

Slate's Mistakes for the Week of Jan. 28, 2013

Slate's Mistakes for the Week of Jan. 28, 2013

Slate's mistakes.
Feb. 1 2013 4:00 AM

Corrections

Slate's mistakes.

Red pen

Photo by Gabriela Insuratelu

In a Jan. 31 “Politics,” John Dickerson misstated the length of a presidential term.

In a Jan. 31, "Nuclear Power," Katy Waldman stated that an atomic bomb destroyed the Martian invaders in the original War of the Worlds movie. In fact, the bomb failed to stop the aliens. They were subsequently defeated by germs.

In a Jan. 30 “Human Nature,” William Saletan said that former CIA chief legal officer John Rizzo quoted the line “You can’t kill everybody” from The Godfather. Rizzo attributed this line to Tom Hagen, but the line actually appears in a Godfather prequel, The Family Corleone. In The Godfather, the line spoken by Hagen to Michael Corleone is, “You want to wipe everybody out?"

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In a Jan. 30 “Moneybox,” Matthew Yglesias wrote that federal sequestration would cut military programs by 16.3 percent and domestic discretional programs by 9.2 percent. The size of those cuts have been diminished by the fiscal cliff legislation this year, to just over 7.3 percent for military programs and over 5 percent for domestic discretionary programs. Yglesias also misstated how much of the cuts would come in the year 2013: It’s a total of $85.3 billion, not $52 billion.

In a Jan. 30 "Trending News Channel" post, the headline misstated that Apple was granted a patent for its stores. It was granted a trademark.

In a Jan. 30 “Weigel” blog post, David Weigel misspelled Aleksey Vayner’s first name.

In a Jan. 29 "Brow Beat" post, David Haglund referred to improvising by Jon Hamm and Maya Rudolph. The sketch in question was written and rehearsed.

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In a Jan. 29 "Food," Andrew Lawler referred to Washington State University Vancouver as the University of Washington at Vancouver.

In the Jan. 29 "The Kids," Melinda Wenner Moyer inaccurately stated that male baby sitters are three times more likely to commit sex crimes than female baby sitters. But while 77 percent of sex crimes by baby sitters are committed by males baby sitters, because most baby sitters are women, the relative likelihood that a man commits a sex crime compared to a woman while baby sitting is likely higher than three to one.

In a  Jan. 29 "Politics," David Weigel misspelled the town name of Hazleton, Pa.

In a Jan. 29 “Weigel” blog post, David Weigel misquoted Rush Limbaugh as saying, “What are you doing is admirable and noteworthy.” Limbaugh said, “What you are doing is admirable and noteworthy.”

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In a Jan. 29 “Weigel” blog post, David Weigel misidentified the National Republican Congressional Committee as the National Congressional Campaign Committee.

In a Jan. 28 "Doers," Seth Stevenson mistakenly referred to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation as the Robert Woods Johnson foundation.

In a Jan. 28 "Future Tense" blog post, Will Oremus misquoted Derek Khanna as calling a cellphone unlocking ban an example of "super-regulation." He actually said "excessive regulation."

In a Jan. 28 “Moneybox” blog post, Matthew Yglesias misidentified the Federal Open Market Committee as the Federal Reserve Open Market Commission.

In the Jan. 28 “Politics,” David Weigel misspelled the last name of conservative columnist Amity Shlaes.

In a Jan. 28 “Vault” blog post, Rebecca Onion wrote that an anti-slavery broadside was published in America and that its author, James Wright, was a Massachusetts merchant. The headline called the broadside part of an effort to stop “American slavery.” While the Gilder Lehrman Institute believed that to be the case, based on information they received upon their acquisition of the item, scholars who saw the initial blog post have since proven that Wright was from England and the broadside was printed there.

Slate strives to correct all errors of fact. If you've seen an error in our pages, let us know at corrections@slate.com. General comments should be posted in our Comments sections at the bottom of each article.