REALITYCHEX.COM - Constant Comments - The Commentariat -- September 8

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

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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

Wednesday

Sep072011

The Commentariat -- September 8

I've posted a comments page on Gail Collins' column (linked below) on Off Times Square.

Adam Nagourney & Jeff Zeleny of the New York Times: "Mr. Romney and Mr. Perry began going at each other in the very first few minutes of the debate here at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum. Mr. Perry attacked Mr. Romney’s record of creating jobs in Massachusetts and his championing of health care legislation when he ran the state.Mr. Romney, in turn, cast Mr. Perry as a career politician. The exchanges between them grew steadily more intense during the opening moments of the debate and reflected the fact that both men have to some extent similar strategies: running on their records as governor." ...

... The Los Angeles Times has a liveblog of the debate here, and the New York Times has a liveblog here. ...

... The ABM Party -- Anybody But Mitt. Gail Collins: "The Republican nominating campaign has thus far been one long primal scream from party members desperate to avoid making Mitt Romney their nominee. Really, they will look at anybody. Remember the Donald Trump moment? Michele Bachmann, Front-Runner? Who knows where their glazed eyes will turn next? Rudy Giuliani is now running around saying that he might get in the race 'if I think we are truly desperate.' Which they would really, really, really have to be. The current front-running Mitt Alternative is Perry, possibly the first major presidential candidate opposed to the direct election of U.S. senators since the advent of the Bull Moose Party."

Former Vice President Al Gore in a blogpost on President Obama's decision to nix the EPA's new ozone standards:

Instead of relying on science, President Obama appears to have bowed to pressure from polluters who did not want to bear the cost of implementing new restrictions on their harmful pollution — even though economists have shown that the US economy would benefit from the job creating investments associated with implementing the new technology. The result of the White House’s action will be increased medical bills for seniors with lung disease, more children developing asthma, and the continued degradation of our air quality.

Vice President Joe Biden in a New York Times op-ed: "... a successful China can make our country more prosperous, not less. As trade and investment bind us together, we have a stake in each other’s success. On issues from global security to global economic growth, we share common challenges and responsibilities — and we have incentives to work together." CW: the essay includes some info I'd often wondered about (and which should have come out prominently in the debt ceiling debacle): "China holds just 8 percent of outstanding Treasury securities. By comparison, Americans hold nearly 70 percent."

Raymond Hernandez of the New York Times: "Linda E. McMahon, the wrestling mogul who spent $50 million of her own money in an aggressive but failed Senate run in Connecticut last year, will announce in the coming week that she ... will seek the [Republican] party nomination next year for the seat being vacated by Senator Joseph I. Lieberman.

CW: The First Time Ever I Agree with Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.). Andrew Pollack of the New York Times: "The bill to overhaul the patent system that is now before the Senate contains a provision that could get an influential law firm off the hook for a possible $214 million malpractice payment.... Critics ... say it is really a special fix for one drug manufacturer, the Medicines Company, and its powerful law firm, WilmerHale.... Back in 2001, the company missed the deadline for applying for a patent extension by a day or two, potentially losing nearly four years of patent protection on its main drug, the anticoagulant Angiomax. The provision would guarantee that Medicines Company would get the extra patent protection, and it would relieve WilmerHale of a possible malpractice payment to its client. Senator Jeff Sessions ... is planning to propose an amendment to strip the provision from the bill."

News Ledes

ABC News: "U.S. authorities are scrambling to sort through information that the CIA developed in the past 24 hours indicating that at least three individuals entered the U.S. in August by air with the intent to launch a vehicle-borne attack against Washington, D.C. or New York around the anniversary of 9/11, according to intelligence officials. Officials say the alleged terror plot was initiated by new al Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden's successor, who had pledged to avenge bin Laden's death earlier this year in a U.S. raid."

p>New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg addresses the terrorist threat:

Politico: "A federal appeals court on Thursday threw out two challenges to President Barack Obama's health care overhaul on procedural grounds. Delivering a two-pronged win to the Obama administration, the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals said Virginia has no right to challenge the law’s requirement that nearly all Americans buy insurance. The court also said that Liberty University couldn’t challenge the law before the mandate goes into effect." NPR story here, with quite a good audio report. Here's a pdf of the rulings.

For news & views of the President's speech before Congress, see the September 9 Commentariat.

New York Times: Fed Chair Ben Bernanke said in a speech today that consumers are depressed -- they think the economy is worse than it is, and that's making them overly cautious.

President Obama will speak to a joint session of Congress about jobs creation at 7:00 pm ET. Count on the White House website to carry it live online.

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