REALITYCHEX.COM - Constant Comments

The Ledes

Thursday, July 3, 2025

Washington Post: “A warehouse storing fireworks in Northern California exploded on Tuesday, leaving seven people missing and two injured as explosions continued into Wednesday evening, officials said. Dramatic video footage captured by KCRA 3 News, a Sacramento broadcaster, showed smoke pouring from the building’s roof before a massive explosion created a fireball that seemed to engulf much of the warehouse, accompanied by an echoing boom. Hundreds of fireworks appeared to be going off and were sparkling within the smoke. Photos of the aftermath showed multiple destroyed buildings and a large area covered in gray ash.” ~~~

The Wires

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.

Help!

To keep the Conversation going, please help me by linking news articles, opinion pieces and other political content in today's Comments section.

Link Code: <a href="URL">text</a>

OR here's a link generator. The one I had posted died, then Akhilleus found one, but it too bit the dust. He found yet another, which I've linked here, and as of September 23, 2024, it's working.

OR you can always just block, copy and paste to your comment the URL (Web address) of the page you want to link.

Note for Readers. It is not possible for commenters to "throw" their highlighted links to another window. But you can do that yourself. Right-click on the link and a drop-down box will give you choices as to where you want to open the link: in a new tab, new window or new private window.

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

Jan022023

January 2, 2023

Late Morning Update:

The House January 6 Select Committee released more transcripts Monday. Links to those transcripts are here. ~~~

~~~ Kyle Cheney of Politico: "The Jan. 6 select committee has unloaded a vast database of its underlying evidence -- emails between Trump attorneys, text messages among horrified White House aides and outside advisers, internal communications among security and intelligence officials -- all coming to grips with Donald Trump's last-ditch effort to subvert the 2020 election and its disastrous consequences. The panel posted thousands of pages of evidence late Sunday in a public database that provide the clearest glimpse yet at the well-coordinated effort by some Trump allies to help Trump seize a second term he didn't win. Much of the evidence has never been seen before and, in some cases, adds extraordinary new elements to the case the select committee presented in public -- from voluminous phone records to contemporaneous text messages and emails.... Here's a look at some of the most extraordinary and important evidence in the select committee's files." MB: I'll be darned if I can find the database. The committee & the Googles are letting me down. Update: I'd say this is it.

The New York Times story on the Woes of Kevin, by Catie Edmondson, is here.

~~~~~~~~~~

Enjoy your day. Unless you care about the Woes of Kevin, there is no news in the land.

Melanie Zanona & Lauren Fox of CNN: "House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy outlined some of the concessions that he has agreed to in his campaign for speaker on a Sunday evening conference call -- including making it easier to topple the speaker, according to multiple GOP sources on the call. But McCarthy could not say whether he would have the votes for the speakership, even after giving in to some of the right's most hardline demands. Later Sunday evening, House Republicans unveiled their rules package for the 118th Congress, which formalizes some of the concessions that McCarthy has agreed to. The House adopts its rules package only after it selects a speaker, which McCarthy has not locked down, so there could be additional compromises made in the coming days."

Way Beyond the Beltway

Georgia. AP: "A Republican arrested after winning> his race for a seat in the Georgia House has decided to step aside instead of facing a possible suspension as soon as he was sworn into office later this month[.] The decision by Danny Rampey means a special election will be held on Jan. 31 to choose the new representative for the House seat based around Winder, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. Rampey, 67, was arrested last month after investigators said he stole prescription narcotics at the retirement complex he manages."

Brazil. Jack Nicas & André Spigariol of the New York Times: "President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva took the reins of the Brazilian government on Sunday in an elaborate inauguration, complete with a motorcade, music festival and hundreds of thousands of supporters filling the central esplanade of Brasília, the nation's capital. But ... the departing far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro..., [was missing. He] was supposed to pass Mr. Lula the presidential sash on Sunday, an important symbol of the peaceful transition of power in a nation where many people still recall the 21-year military dictatorship that ended in 1985.... Mr. Bolsonaro flew to Orlando on Friday night and plans to stay in Florida for at least a month.... In a sort of farewell address on Friday, breaking weeks of near silence, he said that he tried to block Mr. Lula from taking office but failed.... In an address to Congress on Sunday, Mr. Lula said that he would fight hunger and deforestation, lift the economy and try to unite the country. But he also took aim at his predecessor, saying that Mr. Bolsonaro had threatened Brazil's democracy."

Ukraine, et al. The New York Times' live updates of developments Monday in Russia's war on Ukraine are here. The Guardian's live updates for Monday are here. The Guardian's summary report is here. ~~~

~~~ The Washington Post's live briefing for Monday is here: "Key infrastructure facilities in Ukraine's capital, Kyiv, were targeted by drones overnight, officials said. The assaults were part of the latest wave of attacks throughout the country over New Year's weekend that left at least four civilians dead.... Ukrainian forces shot down 45 drones on Sunday, [President Volodymyr] Zelensky said in his first nightly address of the new year.... Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin both discussed the war in their New Year's addresses, with Zelensky promising victory in 2023 and Putin giving an aggressive and nationalistic speech."

News Ledes

New York Times: "After days of pounding rain, winds and snow, Californians woke up to sunny skies and waterlogged streets on New Year's Day, scrambling to recover during a brief intermission before the next rainstorms that are forecast to hit the region later this week. Northern California bore the brunt of an intense 'atmospheric river' system that brought floods and landslides to parts of the West Coast on Saturday. On Sunday, rescuers were still plucking trapped passengers from submerged vehicles, while bloated rivers and creeks spilled over banks. Streets in downtown San Francisco were still draining after the city nearly broke its record for the most rainfall on a single day. The National Weather Service's downtown site recorded 5.46 inches on New Year's Eve, 0.08 inch shy of the 1994 record in more than 170 years of record keeping there -- and 46.8 percent of the monthly rainfall."

New York Times: "Anita Pointer, the sweet and occasionally sultry lead vocalist on many hits of her family band the Pointer Sisters in the 1970s and '80s, died on Saturday at home in Beverly Hills, Calif. She was 74."

Comments Off

Permalink

Email Article

Reader Comments (3)

""I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty, of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God."
- Naturalization Oath of Allegiance to the United States of America

Could Melanie have her status revoked for her involvement, or lack thereof, in Jan 6 (i.e. violating her oath for naturalization?) Maybe even for misprision?

January 2, 2023 |

unwashed

@unwashed: Melanija Knauss, AKA Melania Trump, came here in
1996 on a visitor's visa. She worked illegally without a H-1B work
visa.
She was granted permanent residency under EB-1 Program for people
with "extraordinary abilities".
Those abilities were swimsuit modeling and posing nude.
I think our immigration laws are a little outdated, but I really don't
care, do you?

January 2, 2023 |

Forrest Morris

Forest: NO

January 2, 2023 |

P.D. Pepe

Comments for this entry have been disabled. Additional comments may not be added to this entry at this time.