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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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Friday

Jun062014

Woman as Object

If you go to this doctor & get the shot, the spouse -- he or her -- gets the shot free. -- Overheard at McDonald's this morning.

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"Remember; long runs first, inside miters before outside miters. On really long runs of trim cut the two end miters first and then join the two sticks with a 45 degree lap. Mark the wall studs before nailing and only nail the trim where you marked the studs, anymore and you are adding to the work by too many nail holes to putty," -- JJG, in a comment yesterday on "I Fall to Pieces"

Thanks for the advice. Thru past trial-&-error, that's exactly how I do it. I use painter's masking tape to mark the stud locations. I know how to do the corners by first butting a 90-degree cut up to the corner, then meeting it with a coped piece, but I'm wa-a-a-y too lazy to do that. So I go with the 45s. There is some lightweight kind of Spackle (not sure of the name) that I bought yesterday & have used before for crown-molding (which I do cope) that is easy to apply & hides any itty-bitty gaps that occur where the corners aren't quite square or the angle cuts otherwise don't meet perfectly. Works for me.

Marie

P.S. If you ever come across a light-weight compound miter saw, let me know. I haven't been able to find one, tho I haven't checked the Internets lately. The one I have, which is pretty old & ready for replacement, isn't especially heavy, but it's too heavy for me to be carrying around.

June 6, 2014 |

Marie Burns

Marie,

I have an old miter saw and it's not all that lightweight, but I see newer ones that don't look all that heavy at Lowe's and Home Depot. You could check their sites. They give the weight in the specs under each listing.

Speaking of things overheard....

This wasn't so much overheard as yelled at me by a red state co-worker.

The story was about how awful and terrible and hateful of America New York state is because they have a couple of gun regulations. It was a looooong harangue (looking at my watch didn't help) about how necessary guns are, supported by invented anecdotes from Wingnut History 101, but according to this guy, the worst thing is you can no longer purchase large clips for handguns, rifles, and semi-automatic weapons. Horror. I didn't bother asking why someone would need such large clips for things like self-defense because I realized that was a stupid question. Suppose the Red Army was attacking your house. Or the entire Obama clan. Dummy.

This finally led to the spittle flecked pronouncement that liberals had pretty much made everything illegal in New York except for marrying a gay man. I almost asked "What about if you're a woman who wants to marry a gay man?" but he was already fit to be tied.

It's funny to see some of these people work themselves up. It's like watching someone over-inflate a balloon. You find yourself scrunching up your face and involuntarily taking a step back as the balloon reaches that point where you can see through it. You just know that sucker's gonna blow at any second.

It's freakin' exhausting being around these people.

June 6, 2014 |

Akhilleus

Marie: Are you being accusative?

June 6, 2014 |

Patrick

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