REALITYCHEX.COM - Constant Comments - The Commentariat -- December 23

The Ledes

Thursday, July 3, 2025

CNBC: “Job growth proved better than expected in June, as the labor market showed surprising resilience and likely taking a July interest rate cut off the table. Nonfarm payrolls increased a seasonally adjusted 147,000 for the month, higher than the estimate for 110,000 and just above the upwardly revised 144,000 in May, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Thursday. April’s tally also saw a small upward revision, now at 158,000 following an 11,000 increase.... Though the jobless rates fell [to 4.1%], it was due largely to a decrease in those working or looking for jobs.”

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.

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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

Thursday

Dec222011

The Commentariat -- December 23

My column in the New York Times eXaminer is on David Brooks' Sidney Awards, Part II. The NYTX front page is here.

White House Christmas card 2011.... Sweet, right? Oh, not if you're a member in good standing of the Anti-Obama Club:

Via Daily Kos.How the Grinch Was Forced to Give Back Christmas, Temporarily. Rosalind Helderman of the Washington Post: "Facing withering criticism from across the political spectrum and abandoned by Senate allies, House Republicans bowed to political reality Thursday and agreed to a two-month extension of a payroll tax cut for 160 million Americans. The agreement represented a remarkable capitulation on the part of House Republicans, who had two days earlier rejected such a deal with Democrats as the kind of half-measure that their new majority was elected to thwart. And it amounts to a Christmas gift for President Obama, who attempted to paint his Republican opponents as willing to raise taxes for millions of Americans. Such an image could have cost the party politically just as it is gearing up to try to take back the White House and the Senate in 2012." ...

... Jackie Calmes of the New York Times: "What surprised the administration, and not least Mr. Obama, was how much House Republicans would contribute toward the White House’s goal [of portraying President Obama as a stand-tough economic populist] through their miscalculations in waging this holiday-season showdown over tax cuts for 160 million workers and assistance for several million jobless Americans. The stand by House Republicans, which openly divided the party and put them in conflict with Senate Republicans, helped Mr. Obama perhaps as much as anything the White House and Congressional Democrats did."

Elections Have Consequences: "During a time when secular values are under constant attack by many religious leaders and political candidates, the Secular Coalition for America presents the 2012 Presidential Candidate Scorecard." Thanks to Kate M. for the link.

** The New York Times Magazine devotes itself to "These American Lives," the stories of extraordinary and ordinary Americans who died in 2011. Start here.

** Rania Khalek in AlterNet: "... some American school districts are pushing the boundaries of corporal punishment ... with the use of Tasers against unruly schoolchildren. The deployment of Tasers against 'problem' students coincides with the introduction of police officers on school campuses, also known as School Resource Officers (SROs). According to the Los Angeles Times, as of 2009, the number of SROs carrying Tasers was well over 4,000." And that's not all: "... the Southern Poverty Law Center found that pepper-spray has been used on students nearly 100 times in the last five years" in the Birmingham, Alabama school system.

Bill Adair of PolitiFact defends the organization for making the Democratic claim that the Ryan plan "ends Medicare" PolitiFact's "Lie of the Year." CW: Sorry, I wasn't convinced. You can argue convincingly against anything Rush Limbaugh & Ann Coulter say, but when you're arguing against Paul Krugman & Ezra Klein, you've got to come up with better excuses than that they're part of the "liberal echo chamber." Boing, boing, bullshit. ...

... Update: Krugman responds. CW: Needless to say, I'm with Krugman. ...

... AND R. J. Escow of Campaign for America's Future does a superb job of taking Adair to task. Thanks to reader Bonnie for the link.

Max Abelson of Bloomberg News has a roundup of remarks made by the One Percent about how unfairly the 99 Percent have portrayed them. So in the spirit of the holiday season, I will not persecute these greedy, selfish, hyper-sensitive asses today.

C. J. Chivers of the New York Times: "The United States is discussing with the Libyan interim government the creation of a program to purchase shoulder-fired, heat-seeking missiles from militia members and others who gathered them up during the war.... The talks are the latest step in a multinational effort to contain the risks posed by the thousands of portable antiaircraft weapons that are unaccounted for after rebel fighters overran government weapons depots during the battle against Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s forces."

Right Wing World

** A Campaign of Lies. Paul Krugman: Mitt Romney "has already gotten away with a series of ... fraudulent attacks [on President Obama]. In fact, he has based pretty much his whole campaign around a strategy of attacking Mr. Obama for doing things that the president hasn’t done and believing things he doesn’t believe." While he's at it, Krugman calls out the media for letting Romney get away with this & PolitiFact for its so-called Lie of the Year, which is the truth. You go, Paul. ...

... Vice President Joe Biden in a Des Moines Register op-ed: Mitt "Romney appears satisfied to settle for an economy in which fewer people succeed, while the majority of Americans are left to tread water or fall behind. His proposal would actually double down on the policies that caused the greatest economic calamity since the Great Depression and accelerated a decades-long assault on the middle class. Romney also misleadingly suggests that the president and I are creating an 'Entitlement Society.'... The only entitlement we believe in is an America where if you work hard, you can get ahead."

News Ledes

AP: "Congress on Friday approved a two-month renewal of payroll tax cuts for 160 million workers and unemployment benefits for millions, handing President Barack Obama a convincing victory for his jobs agenda. Back-to-back voice vote approvals of the measure by the Senate and House capped a retreat by House Republicans who had insisted that a full-year bill was the only way to prevent an immediate tax increase on Jan. 1." ...

... Los Angeles Times: President "Obama is expected to quickly sign the accord, allowing him to join his family in Hawaii for his traditional holiday retreat in his home state." ...

... Politico Update: a liveblog of President Obama's statement to the press is here. The full transcript of his statement is here.

New York Times: "Suicide attackers detonated two powerful car bombs outside government offices in Damascus on Friday, in what appeared to be the most brazen and deadly attacks against the government since the start of the uprising in Syria in March. Dozens were killed at the State Security Directorate headquarters and another security installation, SANA, the government news agency, reported."

Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, former President Clinton & Secretary Clinton attend the service for Vaclav Havel in Prague. AP photo.AP: "Czechs and world leaders paid emotional tribute to Vaclav Havel on Friday at a pomp-filled funeral ceremony, ending a week of public grief and nostalgia over the death of the dissident playwright who led the 1989 revolution that toppled four decades of communist rule.... Havel's wife Dagmar, family members, friends and leaders from dozens of countries gathered Friday at the towering, gothic St. Vitus Cathedral which overlooks Prague. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron were among some 1,000 mourners who bowed their heads in front of the coffin draped in the Czech colors. Former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright — paid tribute to Havel at the cathedral, which dates to the 10th century and has not witnessed a state funeral since 1875. 'We will terribly miss him but we will never, ever forget him,' said Albright, who is of Czech origin, in Czech."

AP: "Several thousand Egyptians rallied in Cairo's central Tahrir Square Friday to denounce violence against protesters, especially outraged by images of women protesters dragged by their hair, beaten and kicked by troops."

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