REALITYCHEX.COM - Constant Comments

The Ledes

Thursday, July 10, 2025

New York Times: “Twenty-seven workers made an improbable escape from a collapsed tunnel in Los Angeles on Wednesday night by climbing over a large mound of loose soil and emerging at the only entrance five miles away without major injury, officials said. Four other tunnel workers went inside the industrial tunnel after the collapse to help in the rescue efforts. All 31 workers emerged safely and without significant injuries, said Michael Chee, the spokesman for the Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts. The Los Angeles Fire Department said that no one was missing after it had dispatched more than 100 rescue workers to the site in the city’s Wilmington neighborhood, about 20 miles south of downtown Los Angeles.”

The Wires

Help!

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

Link Code: <a href="URL">text</a>

OR here's a link generator. The one I had posted died, then Akhilleus found one, but it too bit the dust. He found yet another, which I've linked here, and as of September 23, 2024, it's working.

OR you can always just block, copy and paste to your comment the URL (Web address) of the page you want to link.

Note for Readers. It is not possible for commenters to "throw" their highlighted links to another window. But you can do that yourself. Right-click on the link and a drop-down box will give you choices as to where you want to open the link: in a new tab, new window or new private window.

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

Constant Comments

Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.

Success is not final, failure is not fatal; it is the courage to continue that counts. — Anonymous

A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves. — Edward R. Murrow

Publisher & Editor: Marie Burns

I have a Bluesky account now. The URL is https://bsky.app/profile/marie-burns.bsky.social . When Reality Chex goes down, check my Bluesky page for whatever info I am able to report on the status of Reality Chex. If you can't access the URL, I found that I could Google Bluesky and ask for Marie Burns. Google will include links to accounts for people whose names are, at least in part, Maria Burns, so you'll have to tell Google you looking only for Marie.

Friday

Jan142011

Richard Holbrooke Remembered

President Obama & Clinton & Secretary of State Clinton speak at a memorial service at the Kennedy Center for Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, who died last month:

Comments Off

Permalink

Email Article

Thursday

Jan132011

Tucson Shootings -- January 14

Joel Pett, Lexington (Kentucky) Herald-Leader. Thanks to Jeanne B.Adam Nagourney & Jennifer Steinhauer of the New York Times: "... gun rights advocates and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle said Thursday that there was little chance the attack would produce significant new legislation or a change in a national culture that has long been accepting of guns. If anything, they said, lawmakers are less receptive than ever to new gun restrictions." ...

... The Times has a graphics page which contains maps loosely describing the laws of each state regarding carry permits & large-capacity ammo. It includes a good graphic of the Glock 19: "The gun is a semiautomatic weapon, and each pull loads the next round into the firing chamber. It is not difficult to fire more than once per second."

Helene Cooper of the New York Times: "First Lady Michelle Obama on Thursday urged parents to hold up the lives of Christina Taylor Green and other victims of the Tucson shooting as examples for their children, and to speak with their children about tolerance in wake of the tragedy." The letter from Mrs. Obama is here.

Laura Meckler & Jonathan Weisman of the Wall Street Journal: "On Thursday, the speech won praise from a vast swath of the political spectrum, including Democrats who have criticized Mr. Obama as insufficiently liberal and possible Republican challengers in 2012, among them former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty. Some commentators who have spent two years criticizing the president were lavish with their praise. Conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer said he 'wouldn't underestimate how this is going to affect the perception of the president.'" ...

... Michael Shear of the New York Times contrasts President Obama's speech with Sarah Palin's "blood libel" video: "Where Ms. Palin was direct and forceful, Mr. Obama was soft and restrained. Where Ms. Palin was accusatory, Mr. Obama appeared to go out of his way to avoid pointing fingers or assigning blame. Where she stressed the importance of fighting for our different beliefs, he emphasized our need for unity, referring to the 'American family — 300 million strong.'” ...

This probably ended Sarah Palin's political career.
-- Joe Scarborough, former Republican Congressman

Marc Lacey, et al., of the New York Times: "Law enforcement officials said Friday they have multiple photos of Jared L. Loughner posing with a Glock 9mm pistol next to his naked buttocks and dressed in a bright red g-string.... The photos were turned over to the police by Walgreens, where Mr. Loughner had taken the 35-mm film to be developed on Jan. 7, the day before the shooting." ...

Sarah Wheaton of the New York Times: "Logs of Jared L. Loughner’s conversations with fellow players in an online game of strategy show a young man who has become frustrated by his inability to find a job, who views his early education as tantamount to slavery, and who has frequent run-ins with his college professors." You can read Loughner's conversations at this Earth Empires site. I'm going to pass.

Andrew Longstreth of Reuters: "... it's increasingly clear that Arizona authorities could legally have detained [Jared Loughner] for psychiatric evaluation and treatment -- and potentially have been able to avert the tragedy.... Arizona has one of the least restrictive laws when it comes to detaining apparently mentally ill people against their will. Under the state's broad involuntary-commitment statute, the government can mandate in-patient treatment for anyone determined to be 'persistently or acutely disabled.' That could include a broad range of seemingly troubled individuals.... In Arizona, virtually anyone who had suspected that Loughner had mental problems and needed help could have filed an application to a state-licensed healthcare agency for a court-ordered evaluation." CW: not the first time I've linked to a story that draws the same conclusion, but it bears repeating.

A Fox "News" reporter at its Tucson affiliate K-GUN (anybody see anything wrong with those call letters?) speaks to Ashley Figueroa, who says she is Jared Loughner's former high school girlfriend. I'm posting this with reservations, because I don't think it has much value:

Oh, no. Another ex-girlfriend. I didn't even listen to this one, but here ya go:

News Stories:

AP: "Security was tight Friday morning as the hearse entered the church parking lot and U.S. marshals checked the IDs of everyone entering the lot. Four big coach buses brought dozens of judges who knew [Chief Judge] Roll over the years. Dignitaries including former Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, Sens. John McCain and Jon Kyl, and former Vice President Dan Quayle will attend...." More from the Arizona Daily Star.

New York Times: "Five days after she was shot in the head at close range, Representative Gabrielle Giffords is able to keep her eyes open for as long as 15 minutes and can move her legs and hands, although her right hand has only slight movement, doctors at University Medical Center here said on Thursday." ...

... Arizona Daily Star Update: "Doctors said Friday morning that U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords continues to make 'confident' progress.... Dr. Peter Rhee said out of the 11 people who arrived at University Medical Center after Saturday's shooting, four remain hospitalized and one, Ron Barber, an aide to Giffords, will be released today."

Comments Off

Permalink

Email Article

Thursday

Jan132011

A Tale of Two Tea Parties

In a column titled "A Tale of Two Moralities," Paul Krugman writes, "Today’s G.O.P. sees much of what the modern federal government does as illegitimate; today’s Democratic Party does not.... What we’re talking about here is a fundamental disagreement about the proper role of government."

My comment is buried again today, so I've reproduced it here:

If you want to eliminate violent and incendiary language, you have to eliminate the modern tea party movement itself, which has as its model a violent act of vandalism, sponsored by the merchant class & carried out by ruffians. The Boston Tea Party -- to one extent or another -- precipitated the American Revolution, which was the ultimate act of civil disobedience.

Any language that attempts to delegitimize the other side would have to go if "civil discourse" is the goal. I don't mean just the birther narrative; I mean language that characterizes the other side or government employees as enemies of the country or of the Constitution. Last week, Rep. Darrell Issa said, "The enemy is the bureaucracy." Who do you think the bureaucracy is? It's people like those Census workers CNN commentator Erik Erikson said he would shoo off his property with "his wife's shotgun" & Rep. Michele Bachmann said she would refuse to answer.

Erikson's reaction to the census, a Constitutional requirement, brings to mind my next taboo. Erikson said of the census, "The servants are becoming the masters. We are working for the government. We are becoming enslaved by the government."

So ditto for language that suggests the "government" or the other side is going to "take away our freedoms" or "enslave us." In the midst of his call for civility (ha!) on ABC's "This Week," former House Majority Leader Dick Armey urged tea party members to "continue to do their duty and defend our liberties." Defend our liberties? Parse that tea party code & what have you got? "Defend" = take up arms; "Our" = "It's US (WE) against THEM; "Liberties" = our natural and/or Constitutional freedoms, of which THEY want to deprive us.

Other euphemisms for acts of violence are just as bad. Sharron Angle's "Second Amendment remedies" comes to mind; she is providing a "Constitutional" rationale for violent acts against the government.

Whichever side of the national debate is correct, the side that believes the government is illegitimate, that it is attempting to "take away our freedoms," that taxation amounts to "tyranny" and that "revolution" may be the only remedy -- cannot tone down the rhetoric & speak with civility. Civility is antithetical to a movement that proposes revolution.

Comments Off

Permalink

Email Article