REALITYCHEX.COM - Constant Comments - The Commentariat -- January 28, 2012

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.”

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The Commentariat -- January 28, 2012

President Obama's Weekly Address:

... The transcript is here.

Maybe you're sick of the State of the Union address, but Jim Fallows -- a former presidential speechwriter, BTW -- has a terrific edition, with his own smart annotations. Click on the underlined text, and the annotations pop up. Some are pretty funny. ...

... Robert Scheer writes an excellent reality check on President Obama's SOTU address. CW: what he writes is exactly the reason I backed Obama over Hillary Clinton -- I did not want to get Clintonized again. Yet Obama, if he is Bush III on foreign affairs, is Clinton II on domestic policy. ObamaCare is fiscally-conservative HillaryCare, Dodd-Frank & its Volcker Rule is nowhere near Glass-Steagall, & Obama's Simpson-Bowles Commission belt-tightening deficit-reduction is as Clintonesque as it gets -- right down to Bowles, who was Clinton's chief-of-staff. Occupy is far from finished its work. Read Scheer, who hits other topics in the SOTU. I think the only difference between then & now is that WE are smarter this time. We must stay smart. And tough.

Diane Sawyer interviewed President Obama; the interview aired Thursday:

Peter Whoriskey of the Washington Post: "The Commerce Department on Friday issued its quarterly report showing that the economy expanded at a comfortable rate of 2.8 percent during the last quarter of last year.... But the report and other recent economic data suggest a stark divide between the fortunes of businesses and people. Companies are thriving again, but households have come under financial stress.... The employment level is down about 6 million from its peak of about 146 million just before the downturn.... Wage increases have been modest, too.... Though consumers are spending more, they are also saving less, with the personal savings rate dropping for each of the last four quarters.... Moreover, disposable personal income is slightly lower than it was a year before in inflation adjusted dollars."

Here's the text of an e-mail I just got from my friends at Google. See the January 26 Commentariat for related new stories:

We're getting rid of over 60 different privacy policies across Google and replacing them with one that's a lot shorter and easier to read. Our new policy covers multiple products and features, reflecting our desire to create one beautifully simple and intuitive experience across Google.

We believe this stuff matters, so please take a few minutes to read our updated Privacy Policy and Terms of Service at http://www.google.com/policies. These changes will take effect on March 1, 2012.

March 1, 2012 is when the new Privacy Policy and Terms will come into effect. If you choose to keep using Google once the change occurs, you will be doing so under the new Privacy Policy and Terms of Service.

Reuters: "Apple Inc has never turned 'a blind eye' to the problems in its supply chain and any suggestion it does not care about the plight of workers is 'patently false,' Apple Chief Executive Tim Cooksaid in an email to employees. Cook was responding to a report in The New York Times about working conditions at Apple's main contract manufacturer, Foxconn, in China, an issue that for years has been a thorn in the company's side." CW: Ah, good. None of those damning reports is true. And Cook is really earning his $60 million a year, isn't he?

Matthew Yglesias in Slate: "... Data released this month as part of the [International EnergyAgency]’s ltest World Energy Outlook report ... shows that in 2010 the world spent $409 billion on subsidizing the production and consumption of fossil fuels, dwarfing the word’s $66 billion or so of subsidies for renewable energy. Phasing fossil fuel subsidies out would be sufficient to accomplish about half the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions needed to meet the goal of preventing average world temperatures from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius."

David Firestone of the New York Times: in case you've forgotten, because Republicans keep lying to you about them & Newt & Willard keep sliming each other with them, Fannie & Freddie did not cause the financial crisis.

Right Wing World

** Daniel Denvir in Slate: "... the stereotyping of black government dependency ... serves the strategic end of discrediting the entire social safety net, which most Americans of all races depend on. Black people are subtly demonized, but whites and blacks alike will suffer." CW: I thought this was 40-year-old "news," but Denvir puts the history of social safety net programs together to make some very good points. For instance, I never thought of this: "On Social Security, [Rick] Santorum is making what appears to be a safe argument for reform: cutting rich people out of the program. Right now, Social Security belongs to everyone. Cutting rich people out is the first step to making it a program for the poor. Making something a program for the poor — see food stamps, Medicaid and welfare — is the first step toward eliminating it."

Mitt Romney, Candidate of the Great Vampire Squid. Nicholas Confessore, et al., of the New York Times: "No other company is so closely intertwined with [Mitt] Romney’s public and private lives [than is Goldman Sachs --] except Bain itself. And in recent days, Mr. Romney’s ties to Goldman Sachs have lashed another lightning rod to a campaign already fending off withering attacks on his career as a buyout specialist, thrusting the privileges of the Wall Street elite to the forefront of the Republican nominating battle." Goldman has been bankrolling Willard for decades, and now they're his biggest contributors.

Matt Viser of the Boston Globe: "Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has long been critical of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, blaming the government-backed housing lenders for inducing the home-mortgage crisis and saying they have become too unwieldy.... Yet Romney has profited from investments that were made in both government entities.... And unlike most of Romney’s financial holdings, which are held in a blind trust that is overseen by a trustee and not known to Romney, this particular investment was among those that would have been known to Romney."

Local News

Campbell Robertson & Stephanie Saul of the New York Times: "A close look at some of the clemency applications of the nearly 200 others who were pardoned [by outgoing Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi] reveals that a significant share contained appeals from members of prominent Mississippi families, major Republican donors or others from the higher social strata of Mississippi life." Barbour issued "more than 10 times as many pardons as his four predecessors combined."

News Ledes

New York Times: "NBC News is asking that the Romney campaign remove from its ads any references to material from the network in response to a new commercial that consists almost entirely of old footage of its former news anchor, Tom Brokaw, reporting on Newt Gingrich’s legal troubles.... The Romney campaign said Saturday that it ... was reluctant to take the ad off the air because it believes it falls within the provisions of the fair-use doctrine...." Here's the ad:

Here's the campaign ad which NBC wants the Romney campaign to take down:

Reuters: "The Justice Department issued civil subpoenas to 11 financial institutions as part of a new effort to investigate misconduct in the packaging and sale of home loans to investors, Attorney General Eric Holder said on Friday. Holder declined to provide specifics, including the names of the firms."

New York Times: New York City "Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said Friday that 'The Third Jihad,' a film depicting many American Muslim leaders as extremists, 'should not have been shown' to New York City officers. The film was played on a loop for officers during 2010 in a waiting area outside a counterterrorism training course, Mr. Kelly said. He placed responsibility for the decision to show the film on a sergeant, whom Mr. Kelly did not identify."

Guardian: "The head of the Arab League monitoring mission in Syria has said violence has risen significantly in the country in recent days, as the UN prepares to debate a resolution on the crisis next week. The flashpoint city of Homs has again been the focal point of clashes, which are thought to have killed at least 100 people since Wednesday. Activists in the besieged city reported a massacre had taken place at the hands of regime forces on Thursday."

Guardian: "Four current and former employees of the Sun newspaper and one serving police officer have been arrested as part of Scotland Yard's investigation into police corruption. The Metropolitan police have also launched a search at News International's headquarters in Wapping in a bid to secure any potential evidence relating to suspected payments to police by journalists."

Reuters: "Greece and its private creditors head back to the negotiating table on Saturday to put together the final pieces of a long-awaited debt swap agreement needed to avert an unruly default."

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Thanks for the Jim Fallow's edition––found it interesting and yes, pretty funny in parts. I then clicked on to to his link re: his GRRRRR response to the ubiquitous God bless business after all of Obama's speeches. I recall one time that Obama didn't end with that and Fox had a fit about it. For those of us who cringe at that piety, pretty sure that this nation isn't being blessed by any god at any time, we keep hoping that this kind of thing will be dropped from the end of speeches and replaced by something like Ya'all have a nice day, hear?"

January 28, 2012 |

PD Pepe

@ P.D. Pepe: ha ha! Love your substitute for "God bless America." "Hear," BTW, should be pronounced "hee-yah," a pronunciation that may be incomprehensible in the Midwest & West, but works well in the South & New England.

I used to correspond with Jim Fallows -- haven't lately -- and I think I got him on the the anti-"God bless America" kick. We were discussing some of the basic elements of Obama's speeches, and Fallows helped me get an idea to Obama's speechwriters that I was sure would make the message clearer to the average, low-info listener. The speechwriters did throw in my idea once, but they dropped it, tho it's back now since Obama got on his populist/re-election kick.

Somewhere in the course of that discussion with Fallows, I mentioned how I hoped Obama would drop the "God bless America" coda -- which at first he didn't always use -- and Fallows took up the cause. I love that guy!

January 28, 2012 |

Marie Burns

On the subject of religion in public life — which nearly always overlaps at least somewhat with politics, because there is always a politician or would-be politician ready to blast the opposition for being inadequately pious — let’s not forget the case reported in the NYT January 26 of the Rhode Island atheist teenager catching great flak for her successful lawsuit against her public school for its display of a large prayer in the auditorium.

Despite the Constitutionally-mandated separation of church and state, often the most vehement intolerance is directed towards those not making what the religious consider to be sufficient public display of belief in some religion.

January 29, 2012 |

Fred Drumlevitch

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