REALITYCHEX.COM - Constant Comments - Decoding the State of the Union

The Ledes

Wednesday, July 2, 2025

New York Times: “The Rev. Jimmy Swaggart, who emerged from the backwoods of Louisiana to become a television evangelist with global reach, preaching about an eternal struggle between good and evil and warning of the temptations of the flesh, a theme that played out in his own life in a sex scandal, died on July 1. He was 90.” ~~~

~~~ For another sort of obituary, see Akhilleus' commentary near the end of yesterday's thread.

The Wires

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New York Times: “The New York Times Company has agreed to license its editorial content to Amazon for use in the tech giant’s artificial intelligence platforms, the company said on Thursday. The multiyear agreement 'will bring Times editorial content to a variety of Amazon customer experiences,' the news organization said in a statement. Besides news articles, the agreement encompasses material from NYT Cooking, The Times’s food and recipe site, and The Athletic, which focuses on sports. This is The Times’s first licensing arrangement with a focus on generative A.I. technology. In 2023, The Times sued OpenAI and its partner, Microsoft, for copyright infringement, accusing the tech companies of using millions of articles published by The Times to train automated chatbots without any kind of compensation. OpenAI and Microsoft have rejected those accusations.” ~~~

~~~ Marie: I have no idea what this means for "the Amazon customer experience." Does it mean that if I don't have a NYT subscription but do have Amazon Prime I can read NYT content? And where, exactly, would I find that content? I don't know. I don't know.

Washington Post reporters asked three AI image generators what a beautiful woman looks like. "The Post found that they steer users toward a startlingly narrow vision of attractiveness. Prompted to show a 'beautiful woman,' all three tools generated thin women, without exception.... Her body looks like Barbie — slim hips, impossible waist, round breasts.... Just 2 percent of the images showed visible signs of aging. More than a third of the images had medium skin tones. But only nine percent had dark skin tones. Asked to show 'normal women,' the tools produced images that remained overwhelmingly thin.... However bias originates, The Post’s analysis found that popular image tools struggle to render realistic images of women outside the Western ideal." ~~~

~~~ Marie: The reporters seem to think they are calling out the AI programs for being unrealistic. But there's a lot about the "beautiful women" images they miss. I find these omissions remarkably sexist. For one thing, the reporters seem to think AI is a magical "thing" that self-generates. It isn't. It's programmed. It's programmed by boys, many of them incels who have little or no experience or insights beyond comic books and Internet porn of how to gauge female "beauty." As a result, the AI-generated women look like cartoons; that is, a lot like an air-brushed photo of Kristi Noem: globs of every kind of dark eye makeup, Scandinavian nose, Botox lips, slathered-on skin concealer/toner/etc. makeup, long dark hair and the aforementioned impossible Barbie body shape, including huge, round plastic breasts.

New York Times: “George Clooney’s Broadway debut, 'Good Night, and Good Luck,' has been one of the sensations of the 2024-25 theater season, breaking box office records and drawing packed houses of audiences eager to see the popular movie star in a timely drama about the importance of an independent press. Now the play will become much more widely available: CNN is planning a live broadcast of the penultimate performance, on June 7 at 7 p.m. Eastern. The performance will be preceded and followed by coverage of, and discussion about, the show and the state of journalism.”

No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any other way, nor will we proceed with force against him, or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgment of his equals or by the law of the land. -- Magna Carta ~~~

~~~ New York Times: “Bought for $27.50 after World War II, the faint, water stained manuscript in the library of Harvard Law School had attracted relatively little attention since it arrived there in 1946. That is about to change. Two British academics, one of whom happened on the manuscript by chance, have discovered that it is an original 1300 version — not a copy, as long thought — of Magna Carta, the medieval document that helped establish some of the world’s most cherished liberties. It is one of just seven such documents from that date still in existence.... A 710-year-old version of Magna Carta was sold in 2007 for $21.3 million.... First issued in 1215, it put into writing a set of concessions won by rebellious barons from a recalcitrant King John of England — or Bad King John, as he became known in folklore. He later revoked the charter, but his son, Henry III, issued amended versions, the last one in 1225, and Henry’s son, Edward I, in turn confirmed the 1225 version in 1297 and again in 1300.”

Page Links

Monday

Jan242011

Decoding the State of the Union

Peter Nicholas of the Chicago Tribune: "President Obama will call for a five year freeze on non-security discretionary spending in his State of the Union address Tuesday night, White House officials said, in a bid to help reduce the deficit and counter public perceptions that he spent too freely in his first two years in power."

Ezra Klein on "Competitiveness": "Framing the global economy as a competition rather than a shared enterprise preys on our fear of rising powers such as China and India. But, to the White House, it's for a good cause: It gets America's competitive juices flowing, helping galvanize us into making the changes and investments needed to secure our own future. The true competition that the White House is setting up is not between the economic models of China and the United States, but between the economic policies of Democrats and Republicans."

Michael Shear of the New York Times: "... advisers say Mr. Obama will lay out his case for investment in education and infrastructure, while tempering his call for new initiatives with an acknowledgment of the country’s long-term fiscal challenges."

Michael Crowley of Time adds his two cents: "This will, in effect, be Obama's opening pitch for re-election in the 2012 presidential campaign."

Perry Bacon, Jr. of the Washington Post: "Now, the president is expected to offer a series of proposals that don't fall on sharp ideological lines as last year's health care bill did, but will still test the two parties' ability to work together. He is expected to tout deficit reduction, but the two sides don't agree on how to get there. Republicans largely favor spending cuts, Democrats a combination of cuts and tax increases."

Marching Orders for Talking Heads (Picture That). Jake Tapper: "A cavalcade of Democratic talking heads were beckoned to the White House to be briefed on the president’s State of the Union address by White House senior advisers David Axelrod and Stephanie Cutter and communications director Dan Pfeiffer."

Decodng the Rebuttal. Richard E. Cohen of Politico: "In rejecting [President] Obama’s planned call for 'targeted investments'—which Republicans contend is a metaphor for more stimulus spending—[Rep. Paul] Ryan reportedly will respond that the 'spending binge' of the past two years failed to stem historic unemployment and the nation’s largest deficits. Instead, he will emphasize the need to cut federal spending in order to boost job creation." CW: what a surprise.

AND for the subtext of Michele Bachmann's rebuttal to the rebuttal, she has released her own budget proposal which involves stuff like eliminating the Department of Education & raising revenues by leasing "leasing land in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas companies." The sub-subtext of course is Bachmann for President.

Seating Arrangements (Con'd.)

Jennifer Epstein of Politico: "Rep. Gabrielle Giffords will be honored Tuesday night with an empty seat in the House chamber during the State of the Union address. Jeff Flake, a Republican, and Raul Grijalva, a Democrat, plan to sit together for the speech and keep a seat open for Giffords...." Here's a related Arizona Republic story.

Some Seating Arrangement Are Written in Stone. We know Justice Alito won't show up for the State of the Union address, as he "is taking advantage of a perfectly timed speaking engagement in Hawaii to avoid the event at which he became a reluctant player last January." We don't know what other Supreme's will skip the SOTU, but we do know where they sit on the Court. Click on the picture below to take a fun interactive quiz to see if you can put the members in their seats on the Court:

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