REALITYCHEX.COM - Constant Comments - The Commentariat -- August 12

The Ledes

Monday, June 30, 2025

It's summer in our hemisphere, and people across Guns America have nothing to do but shoot other people.

New York Times: “A gunman deliberately started a wildfire in a rugged mountain area of Idaho and then shot at the firefighters who responded, killing two and injuring another on Sunday afternoon in what the local sheriff described as a 'total ambush.' Law enforcement officers exchanged fire with the gunman while the wildfire burned, and officials later found the body of the male suspect on the mountain with a firearm nearby, Sheriff Robert Norris of Kootenai County said at a news conference on Sunday night. The authorities said they believed the suspect had acted alone but did not release any information about his identity or motives.” A KHQ-TV (Spokane) report is here.

New York Times: “The New York City police were investigating a shooting in Manhattan on Sunday night that left two people injured steps from the Stonewall Inn, an icon of the L.G.B.T.Q. rights movement. The shooting occurred outside a nearby building in Greenwich Village at 10:15 p.m., Sgt. Matthew Forsythe of the New York Police Department said. The New York City Pride March had been held in Manhattan earlier on Sunday, and Mayor Eric Adams said on social media that the shooting happened as Pride celebrations were ending. One victim who was shot in the head was in critical condition on Monday morning, a spokeswoman for the Police Department said. A second victim was in stable condition after being shot in the leg, she said. No suspect had been identified. The police said it was unclear if the shooting was connected to the Pride march.”

New York Times: “A dangerous heat wave is gripping large swaths of Europe, driving temperatures far above seasonal norms and prompting widespread health and fire alerts. The extreme heat is forecast to persist into next week, with minimal relief expected overnight. France, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece are among the nations experiencing the most severe conditions, as meteorologists warn that Europe can expect more and hotter heat waves in the future because of climate change.”

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.”

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Thursday

Aug112011

The Commentariat -- August 12

Okay, it now appears that my entire site is down. By accident, I was able to get this page up, but I probably won't be able to do so again, perhaps for 24 hours or more. So it may be that everything happens on Reality Chex Annex. This is getting to be more than I can handle....

... Update: the site is back in business but I'm still working on Off Times Square. I have learned the identity of an individual who was responsible for taking down the site last night. He apparently was looking for information about where I live. Because he was aware information available publicly was not up-to-date, I believe he may have stalked my neighborhood and may pose a threat to my safety. I have contacted the local police in the city where he resides.

I have put up a comments page on Reality Chex Annex on Paul Krugman's column: "what happens when influential people exploit a crisis instead of doing something about solving it."

The thing is that of course a commission concerned with the deficit should be concerned about jobs, as more jobs = 'free' way to cut deficit.... It's only in our crazy discourse that jobs aren't seen as central to the anti-deficit agenda. -- Atrios

President Obama spoke in Michigan yesterday. He puts some oomph behind this speech, in contrast to his most recent efforts, but he still won't say the words "Republican" or "Tea Party." The transcript is here:

... Jonathan Cohn of The New Republic: "We interrupt our regularly scheduled conversation about what President Obama hasn't done for the economy to bring you a reminder of what he has. And it comes in the form of a visit to Holland, Michigan.... Like the rest of Michigan, Holland has benefited substantially from Obama Administration policies."

Brian Beutler of TPM takes a quick look at the relevant backgounds of Nancy Pelosi's choices for the deficit super committee, Jim Clyburn (D-SC), Xavier Becerra (D-CA), and Chris Van Hollen (D-MD). ...

... Steve Benen: "... the key takeaway from the House Democratic selections is that all three are key, close allies of Pelosi, and they will very likely be representing her interests during the negotiations."

... Jack Gillum of the AP: "The 12 lawmakers appointed to a new congressional supercommittee charged with tackling the nation's fiscal problems have received millions in contributions from special interests with a direct stake in potential cuts to federal programs, an Associated Press analysis of federal campaign data has found."

Josh Boak of Politico: "A Standard & Poor’s director said for the first time Thursday that one reason the United States lost its triple-A credit rating was that several lawmakers expressed skepticism about the serious consequences of a credit default — a position put forth by some Republicans. Without specifically mentioning Republicans, S&P senior director Joydeep Mukherji said the stability and effectiveness of American political institutions were undermined by the fact that 'people in the political arena were even talking about a potential default,' Mukherji said."

Rosalind Helderman & Peyton Craighill of the Washington Post: with a 14 percent approval rating, Congress is less popular than "Cloning sheep. Cloning humans, even. Caning teen vandals. Believing that aliens have descended from space and abducted humans." ...

... In this photo gallery, the Wash Po compares Congress to a few other entities. Here's one: "Congress is about as popular as BP was during the summer of 2010, after an explosion of one of its rigs caused millions of barrels of oil to spew into the Gulf of Mexico. The oil company’s approval rating in June 2010 was 13 percent, according to a CNN/Opinion Research poll, just one percentage point behind our current Congress."

Right Wing World *

Look, she has done wonderful things in her life, absolutely wonderful things, but it is an undisputable fact that in Congress her record of accomplishment and results is nonexistent.... She’s got a record of misstating and making false statements. -- Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, speaking of Rep. Michele Bachmann

When you were governor in Minnesota you implemented cap and trade in our state and you praised the unconstitutional individual mandates and called for requiring all people in our state to purchase health insurance that the government would mandate. You said the era of small government was over. That sounds more like Barack Obama, if you ask me. -- Michele Bachmann, to Pawlenty

Michael Cooper of the New York Times: "As they tried to blame President Obama for the nation’s lowered credit rating, the Republican presidential candidates who squared off Thursday night in Iowa made several misleading, incomplete or simply false claims." CW: Cooper takes mild swipes at Romney & others, but he mostly whacks Bachmann.

Corporations are people, my friend. -- Mitt Romney, to an audience member who said Congress should raise taxes on corporations

Disproportionally wealthy people. -- Ezra Klein

It is a shocking admission from a candidate — and a party — that shamelessly puts forward policies to help large corporations and the wealthiest Americans at the expense of the middle class, seniors and students. -- Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), chair of the Democratic National Committee

Tim Egan: Gov. Rick "Perry’s tendency to use prayer as public policy demonstrates, in the midst of a truly painful, wide-ranging and potentially catastrophic crisis in the nation’s second most-populous state, how he would govern if he became president."

* Where you have to be even nicer to rich people. And pray a lot.

News Ledes

AP (via NYT): "A federal appeals court panel on Friday struck down the requirement in President Barack Obama's health care overhaul package that virtually all Americans must carry health insurance or face penalties. The divided three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the so-called individual mandate, siding with 26 states that had sued to block the law. But the panel didn't go as far as a lower court that had invalidated the entire overhaul as unconstitutional."

AP: "Bank stocks jumped Friday after several eurozone countries banned short selling, helping European markets push higher Friday ahead of expected further gains on Wall Street. The advance in Europe follows big gains in the U.S. Thursday, which helped support most stocks in Asia."

Al Jazeera: "Syrian security forces have opened fire at protesters in Deir ez-Zor, Idlib and Deraa after Friday prayers, according to media reports. Al Arabiya television said on Friday there were also demonstrations in the central city of Homs and the western city of Latakia. Earlier, Syrian security forces killed at least 11 people in raids near the Lebanon border and in the country's Sunni tribal heartland."

New York Times: "A withering critique of President Obama’s handling of the economy was overshadowed by a burst of incivility among the Republican presidential candidates who gathered here for a debate on Thursday night and fought to stay alive in the party’s increasingly fractious nominating race." ...

... Washington Post: "The last vestiges of 'Minnesota nice' fell by the wayside during a Republican debate here Thursday night, as the two candidates who have the most at stake in Iowa went after each other in the roughest exchange thus far in the race for the 2012 presidential nomination."

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