REALITYCHEX.COM - Constant Comments - The Commentariat -- May 22

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

Saturday

May212011

The Commentariat -- May 22

Maureen Dowd writes Queen Elizabeth's wildly successful visit and President Obama's upcoming trip to Ireland. I've added a comments page in Off Times Square for Dowd & have posted my comment on her column. If you want to write about something else, please do. ...

... The Irish Times has a page of stories on Elizabeth's visit to Ireland.

Commenter P. D. Pepe recommends Jon Stewart's take on the defenders of former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn, charged with sexually assaulting a hotel maid at the Sofitel in New York City:

Chris Hawley of the AP: hotel chambermaids are often the targets of unwanted and unprovoked sexual assaults and advances, and those who may appear to be in the U.S. illegally are the victims of preference.

Steven Erlanger & Maia de la Baume of the New York Times profile Anne Sinclair, the wealthy, famous beauty who is standing by her man, Dominique Strauss-Kahn.

Prof. Juliet Williams in a Washington Post op-ed: "One was accused of a crime, and one pleaded guilty to being a cad, but those quick minds in the infotainment business soon got Dominique Strauss-Kahn and Arnold Schwarzenegger into the same story line: Sex and politicians! ... Uh, no. One of these things is not like the other.... When a term such as 'sex scandal' is used to describe behaviors running the gamut from politically irrelevant to legally actionable, I’d say we’ve got a problem. And the weird accident of timing here reveals how badly we still confuse consensual if illicit sex with violence against women." CW: this is exactly what I said last week in a New York Times comment that was decidedly unpopular.

"Apocalypse Not." Christopher Goffard of the Los Angeles Times reports on the Rapture that wasn't. ...

... "The Great Disappointment." Stephanie Pappas of Live Science provides a brief history of what happens to believers when doomsday predictions fail. Here's an interesting one: "After Baptist preacher William Miller predicted the end of the world on Oct. 22, 1844 — a date thereafter known as 'The Great Disappointment' when nothing happened — his followers struggled to explain their mistake. One subset decided that on that date, Jesus had shifted his location in heaven in preparation to return to Earth. This group later became the Seventh-Day Adventist church."

Nicholas Kristof's quiz on the Biblical wrtings on sex is kind of fun. I would quibble with a couple of the specific answers, which Kristof bases on a book by Jennifer Wright Knust, but the general tenor of the Q&A is accurate, and Kristof's point is exactly right: "the Bible’s teachings about sexuality are murky and inconsistent and prone to being hijacked by ideologues."

Herman Cain, another Republican who will never be POTUS, formally announces he'll run anyway. Fox "News": "In 2006, Cain was diagnosed with liver and colon cancer. He says he's been cancer-free since 2007 and credits the nation's health care system with keeping him alive. He says it's one reason he's so opposed to the health overhaul championed by President Barack Obama." CW: Right. And as soon as all Americans are multimillionaires like Cain, I'll agree with him that we don't need a public healthcare system.

Mitch Daniels is not going to run for the job he is not going to get. (Also see today's Ledes.)...

Mitch Daniels is a friend of mine and one of the best governors in the country. While he may not be running, he is an intellectual powerhouse and will continue to play a leading role in the Party's politics and the Nation's policies. Mitch and I agree that America's out-of-control national debt is a threat to our nation's future, and that the next president must restore fiscal responsibility in Washington, DC. Mary and I wish Cheri and Mitch all the best. -- Tim Pawlenty

Ben Smith Translation: Whew!

Right Wing World *

CW: I missed this post by Alex Seitz-Wald of Think Progress, but you do have a right to know, however belatedly, that Sen. Rand Paul is stark-staring mad, & doesn't mind proving it during a Senate committee hearing, where he said, in part,

With regard to the idea of whether you have a right to health care, you have realize what that implies.... It means you believe in slavery.... I’m a physician in your community and you say you have a right to health care. You have a right to beat down my door with the police, escort me away and force me to take care of you? That’s ultimately what the right to free health care would be.

* Where facts never intrude.

Local News

Rachel Stassen-Berger & Bob von Sternberg of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune: Bradlee Dean, a Christian minister, delivers an invocation in the Minnesota State House in which he implies President Obama is not a Christian. The prayer caused an outcry on both sides of the aisle & may derail a vote on a state constitutional amendment to outlaw same-sex marriage. Dean said later he favored enforcement of sodomy laws. CW: here's a surprise: "U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann ... has fund-raised for Dean's group and is scheduled to share a stage with him at a Tea Party event ... September." With video.

News Ledes

President Obama speaks at the AIPAC policy conference:

... Here's the text of the speech.

New York Post: "Disgraced former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn attempted to lure two attractive hotel employees to his $3,000-a-night hotel suite -- and later put the moves on an Air France flight attendant following his alleged sexual assault on a maid, The Post has learned."

Haaretz: "Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu must accept U.S. President Obama's vision for Mideast peace if talks with the Palestinian Authority are to resume, chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said on Sunday." ...

ABC News: "King Abdullah II of Jordan, a key American ally and advocate of the Middle East peace process, says he does not have much hope for progress on negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians in the coming months.... Former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, who resigned this month as President Obama's envoy to the Middle East after serving two years, said that while President Obama's comments on the 1967 borders were "a significant statement," they do not signal a major shift in policy, especially when land swaps are taken into consideration." With videos of interviews.

President Obama spoke at an AIPAC conference this morning. AP story here. New York Times Update: "President Obama, speaking on Sunday to the nation’s foremost pro-Israel lobbying group, repeated his call for Palestinian statehood based on Israel’s pre-1967 borders adjusted for land swaps, issuing a challenge to the Israeli government to 'make the hard choices that are necessary to protect a Jewish and democratic state for which so many generations have sacrificed.'”

New York Times: "Gov. Mitch Daniels of Indiana said early Sunday that he would not become a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, telling supporters in an e-mail message that concerns from his family were the overriding factor in deciding to stay out of the race." Washington Post story here. ...

... Don't worry, Republicans; you still have Herman Cain who made a formal announcement yesterday and Tim Pawlenty who will make an announcement tomorrow.

AP: "A spacewalking astronaut ran into trouble Sunday while trying to lubricate a joint in the life-sustaining solar power system of the International Space Station, losing one bolt and getting a washer stuck in a crevice."

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