2007 Corrections
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The Dec. 13 article "The Right Wing's Jerusalem Gambit" stated incorrectly that the group Agudath Israel of America is a member of the Coordinating Council on Jerusalem. The story has been corrected.
[Correction made 12/18/07]
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The Nov. 12 article "Public Bathroom Dilemma: Paper or Air?" misstated how much energy is consumed by hand dryers. The corrected story now says that "5.7 million kilowatt-hours of electricity [are] used every day -- enough power to run an estimated 197,000 homes a day." The following explains how author Rebecca Clarren reached the new calculation. Watts are an expression of energy per unit of time, namely 1 joule per second. A kilowatt-hour (kWh) is not a standard unit in any formal system, but is commonly used in electrical applications as a measure of energy use and is used by power companies. Since 1 kWh = 3,600,000 joules, to get the correct calculation (now reflected in the original story), Clarren multiplied the average hand dryer's wattage, 2.3 kWh, by 0.0083 (how long a second is expressed in hours), and came up with 0.019 kWh. Then she multiplied that by the 3 million hand dryers that exist nationwide, X 100 uses per day, and came up with a total of 5.7 million kWh used by hand dryers every day. Based on the latest figures from the Energy Information Administration, the average household uses 10,654 kWh a year, or 29.19 kWh a day. Therefore, 5.7 million kWh divided by 29.19 kWh a day in home(s) equals approximately 197,000 homes a day. Also, the story now contains an updated link to the comparison of paper towels and hand dryers that the Climate Conservancy did for Salon.
[Correction made 11/13/07]
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A clarification: Since first publishing the Sept. 27 article "Does a Bigger Army Mean Another Iraq?" we have altered two sentences to clarify the position of former Sen. John Edwards. We changed a sentence that said Edwards "talks about an increase, but has not mentioned a number," to a quote from the senator himself: He said that the U.S. "might need a substantial increase of troops," without saying how big that might be. We also changed a sentence that said all three major Democratic presidential candidates are "on board" with a big increase in the Army to say that all three are "either on board or open to the idea," to reflect Edwards' more nuanced views on the subject
[Clarification made 9/28/07]
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The Aug. 13 feature "What's Wrong With Alaska?" contained numerous reporting errors: Ben Stevens is under federal investigation, but is not awaiting trial. Alaska's population is majority male and the most male in the nation, at 107 males for every 100 females according to the 2000 census, but the article originally asserted that a substantial majority of the population is male, which is an overstatement. The proportion of residents born out of state is closer to 60 percent than the 80 percent originally claimed in the article. The article said that the state's Permanent Fund payments were about $2,000 per year; in fact, the payments reached a high of $1,963 in 2000, but were only $1,100 in 2006, which is closer to the annual average. Additionally, the Permanent Fund was not created by a deal between the oil companies and the government but by an amendment to the state Constitution passed by Alaska voters in 1976. Contrary to the author's assertion, Veco did not double the size of Ted Stevens' house without payment. Investigators are trying to determine if Stevens paid full value for construction on his home, and the construction was managed by Veco. Sen. Lisa Murkowski did buy land from a real estate developer at a price that a watchdog group charged was below market value. Contrary to the author's assertion, however, the seller has not been accused of receiving any special consideration from the federal government in return. In addition, Murkowski has since sold back the land. Finally, contrary to the author's assertion, the oil drilling that began in Alaska during the 1970s has taken place largely on state-owned rather than federally owned lands. Salon regrets the errors.
[Corrections made 8/13/07 and 8/16/07]
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The July 17 article "The Salon Interview: Elizabeth Edwards" incorrectly stated that Ann Coulter called John Edwards a "faggot" at a conservative conference in January. The conference took place in March, not January. The story has been corrected.
[Correction made 7/17/07]
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The July 9 story "Katie Roiphe's Morning After" originally stated that Roiphe misremembered George Will's characterization of her book as a "barnburner," since he actually referred to it as a "bombshell." In fact, he referred to it as a "barnburner" in private correspondence with Roiphe. The story has been corrected.
[Correction made 7/9/07]
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The June 29 "Ask the Pilot" column contained an incorrect statement concerning the Phantom's 3,000 psi hydraulic system. The story has been corrected.
[Correction made 7/1/07]
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The June 1 story "The Corporate Takeover of U.S. Intelligence" mistakenly stated that 70 percent of the approximately $48 billion U.S. intelligence budget given to contractors amounted to "roughly $42 billion." Seventy percent represents approximately $34 billion. The error has been corrected.
[Correction made 6/1/07]
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The May 14 story "The Matt Drudge Primary" originally stated that Web-ranking service Alexa was owned by Google, when in fact it is owned by Amazon. The story also incorrectly referred to a Myrtle Beach, S.C., newspaper as the Sun-Times instead of the Sun-News and mischaracterized a pledge John McCain made about how he would handle information about the Iraq war if he were elected president. These errors have been corrected.
[Corrections made 5/14/07]
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In the May 10 story "The Impertinent Prince," the author recalled a quotation incorrectly and referred to Rita Hayworth instead of Ava Gardner as one of Mickey Rooney's former wives. The story has been corrected.
[Correction made 5/10/07]
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The May 9 story "The O'Murdoch Factor" mistakenly identified CNBC's Jim Cramer as a Marketwatch.com columnist. The story has been corrected.
[Correction made 5/9/07]
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The May 4 story "Ricki Lake's "Awesome" Vagina" mistakenly referred to the hormone oxytocin as the prescription drug OxyContin. The story has been corrected.
[Correction made 5/4/07]
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The May 2 story "Israel's Wounds of War" orginally cited 1967 as the year of the hosatge rescue in Entebbe, Uganda. The year has been corrected to say 1976.
[Correction made 5/2/07]
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The April 9 story "The Greatest Living Critic" mistakenly stated that Alfred Einstein and Albert Einstein were brothers. The story has been corrected.
[Correction made 4/9/07]
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The March 16 story "Inside America's Powerful Israel Lobby" mistakenly identified Republican Norm Coleman as a member of the House Foreign Relations Committee, rather than as a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The story also mistakenly referred to AIPAC's closing gala dinner as having taken place on Tuesday night, rather than on Monday night. The story has been corrected.
[Correction made 3/16/07]
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The March 6 story "The Private War of Women Soldiers" originally said that National Guard soldier Demond Mullins told the author that "a commander in his camp turned a blind eye to rape all the time." But Mullins says that he heard only secondhand from his unit commanders about rapes in other units. The story also quoted Mullins as saying that more than one solider raped a woman in the shower, whereas Mullins says that he heard that only one man committed the rape. The misstatements have been corrected.
[Correction made 3/8/07]
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The March 6 story "The Private War of Women Soldiers" originally included the following statement from National Guard soldier Demond Mullins: "Rapes were happening every night ... Married men were doing it, everyone." Mullins says that he misspoke and was also misunderstood by the reporter. The statement has been deleted.
[Correction made 3/7/07]
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The Feb. 27 story "Watching Afghanistan Fall" contained several details with the potential to compromise U.S. troops in the region. These details have been removed.
[Correction made 3/3/07]
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An earlier version of the March 2 story "Christians Crusade Against Cancer Vaccine" stated that Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn is "anti-vaccine." Coburn says he supports voluntary vaccination against HPV but opposes making the vaccine mandatory. The story has been corrected.
[Correction made 3/2/07]
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Because of an editing error, the original version of "Steve Jobs' iTunes Dance" (Feb. 23) stated: "Once you put music on your iPod, you can't get it off again without Apple's software." The story has been corrected to say "... you can't get it off with Apple's software."
[Correction made 2/23/07]
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The Feb. 15 column "Libby's Cynical Defense" mistakenly stated that NBC's Tim Russert testified that Libby had given him information about Valerie Plame. In fact, he testified that he and Libby had not discussed Plame at all. The column has been corrected.
[Correction made 2/15/07]
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The Feb. 13 article "For McAuliffe and Schumer, It's All About the Money" incorrectly said that Terry McAuliffe's book "What a Party!" contains a conversation between Terry McAuliffe and Prince Bandar bin Sultan in which they discussed Nelson Mandela. In fact, the conversation was between McAuliffe, his wife and Mandela at a party given by Bandar.
[Correction made 2/13/07]
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In an early draft of display copy for the Feb. 12 story "How Obama Learned to Be a Natural," an editor used the term "uppity" to describe perceptions of Obama when he first ran for Congress against former Black Panther leader Rep. Bobby Rush. The term was intended ironically, but other editors who read the piece thought the irony of the racially charged word failed to come across, and substituted the word "smug" instead. Unfortunately, the version of the headline that first went to the Salon cover on Sunday night was the original. Salon regrets the error.
[Correction made 2/12/07]
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The Feb. 1 feature "The Power of King George" mistakenly referred to the year 1828 as the one in which a political crisis was caused by the U.S. Electoral College system. The year was in fact 1824; the story has been corrected.
[Correction made 2/1/07]
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In the Jan. 26 feature "Super Hot Skiing," contrary to what was first reported, the total acreage of ski areas in U.S. forests is 190,000 acres, not 190 million; the U.S. Department of Agriculture, not the Department of the Interior, oversees ski area permits; and it is all national parks, not just Yellowstone, Yosemite and the Grand Canyon, that total 84 million acres. The story has been corrected.
[Correction made 1/26/07]
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The Jan. 24 review of the movie "Hounddog" at the Sundance Film Festival incorrectly stated that the Catholic League had called for a boycott of the movie. In fact, the group asked for a federal investigation to determine if any federal child pornography laws were broken during the making of the film. The story has been corrected.
[Correction made 1/24/07]
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The Jan. 24 King Kaufman's Sports Daily contained two errors. Jerry Reese of the New York Giants was referred to as the first black nonplayer to become an NFL general manager. He is the second. And Tony Dungy, Art Shell, Dennis Green and Terry Robiskie were referred to as the only black men who had been hired for a second head-coaching job in the NFL. Ray Rhodes and Herm Edwards have also coached two teams. Both errors have been fixed.
[Correction made 1/24/07]
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The original version of "Shuttle Without Diplomacy" incorrectly stated that Gen. George Casey was forced into retirement. In fact, he was removed from his position and sent into internal exile as Army chief of staff.
[Correction made 1/11/07]