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The Washington Post publishes a series of U.S. maps here to tell you what weather to expect in your area this summer in terms of temperatures, humidity, precipitation, and cloud cover. The maps compare this year's forecasts with 1993-2016 averages.

Zoë Schlanger in the Atlantic: "Throw out your black plastic spatula. In a world of plastic consumer goods, avoiding the material entirely requires the fervor of a religious conversion. But getting rid of black plastic kitchen utensils is a low-stakes move, and worth it. Cooking with any plastic is a dubious enterprise, because heat encourages potentially harmful plastic compounds to migrate out of the polymers and potentially into the food. But, as Andrew Turner, a biochemist at the University of Plymouth recently told me, black plastic is particularly crucial to avoid." This is a gift link from laura h.

Mashable: "Following the 2024 presidential election results and [Elon] Musk's support for ... Donald Trump, users have been deactivating en masse. And this time, it appears most everyone has settled on one particular X alternative: Bluesky.... Bluesky has gained more than 100,000 new sign ups per day since the U.S. election on Nov. 5. It now has over 15 million users. It's enjoyed a prolonged stay on the very top of Apple's App Store charts as well. Ready to join? Here's how to get started on Bluesky[.]"

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

Friday

Sep102010

Burn This Book, Con'd.

With the Crazy Cap'n. Crunch pastor from Gainesville teetering from yes to no to maybe* on whether or not he'll light the Bonfire of His Vanities, the Ocala (Florida) Star-Banner reports, "Westboro Baptist Church, the small Topeka, Kan., church that pickets funerals of American soldiers to spread its message that God is punishing the country for being tolerant of homosexuals, has vowed to hold a Quran burning if Gainesville's Dove World Outreach Center calls its off." Here's the Gainesville Sun story. ...

* AP: "Negotiations between a local Muslim cleric and the leader of a tiny Florida church who had threatened to publicly burn copies of Islam's holy text left the heated debate in a state of confusion with the ninth anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks a day away."

He clearly, clearly lied to us. -- Terry Jones, on Florida Imam Muhammad Musri

And The Tennessean reports that the Rev. Bob Old, a "longtime-Baptist minister ... plans to set fire to a Quran on Saturday at his home and then post a video of the burning book online. And if he had his way, there would be no Muslims in America":

If they want to have their religion, they can have it somewhere else.
-- Bob Old

... Chip off the Old Blockhead. Gainesville Sun Update: "A leading national minister and the adult son of Dove World Outreach Center Senior Pastor Terry Jones said they do not expect him to burn copies of the Quran on Saturday at the church in northwest Gainesville.... The younger Jones appeared in front of reporters with a gun on his right hip Friday morning...."

Constant Weader: am I the only one to think the real reason Terry & the Disciples won't be burning any holy books is this? -- Gainesville Sun: "The city of Gainesville ... will send Terry Jones ... a bill for the estimated tens of thousands of dollars it will cost to police the area if the church goes through with its plan...."

Damien Cave of the New York Times, on Gainesville: "... the people of this youthful city in central Florida are taking [Jones'] actions personally, with anger and heartbreak, as one of their neighbors drags their hometown into nearly nonstop news coverage and infamy. Gainesville, after all, is a university town that until a few months ago was best known for producing college football champions, Gatorade and rockers like Tom Petty. Educated and progressive, with a gay mayor and a City Commission made up entirely of Democrats, Gainesville is a sprawling metropolis of 115,000 people."

AP Standards guy Tom Kent sent a memo to staff outlining the Associated Press's policy on coverage of this story. Via Think Progress.

AP policy is not to provide coverage of events that are gratuitously manufactured to provoke and offend. -- Tom Kent, Standards Editor

Follow the Money

CBS News: "Terry Jones ... runs a church that spends most of its money on administrative expenses and operates a furniture business out his church.... The Dove World Church is for sale for 2.9 million." Terry & his wife Sylvia are the principals in several other businesses. And the church also lost a chunk of its local tax-exempt status this year. ...

... Reader Lisa pointed me to this more extensive post in the DailyKos that demonstrates how the church appears to be a front for the Jones' businesses. CW: I wouldn't go nearly as far as the exuberant poster does in her assumptions about the financial co-mingling & con-artist charges, but the raw data she (or he) provides make it pretty clear that the Rev. Terry has cheated on his local taxes & is way busier making money in various shabby enterprises than he is in ministering to his tiny flock.

Meaningless Aside. Matt Lewis of Politics Daily: one of the Rev. Terry's high school classmates (Cape [Girardeau, Missouri- Central High, Class of '69) was Rush Limbaugh. CW: I'm sure Terry & Rush will have lots to chat about at the reunion.

News Coverage of the News Coverage

Brian Stetler of the New York Times signals that it's time for the media to commence its ritual self-analysis. Stetler looks at the media's role in promoting the Koran-burning story & examines how & why the story mushroomed into an international affair into which even the POTUS was drawn. CW: fortunately, the Westboro loonies will give Stetler a chance to write a follow-up piece.

Roy Greenslade of The Guardian takes about the same tack & comes to the same conclusion as does Stetler: it's not our fault.

James Poniewozik of Time is less forgiving. In his view, not only did the media go nuts over the nuts, they allowed Sarah Palin & Co. to promote a false equivalency between burning the Koran & building a religious center: "it's not as if there's an argument that Koran-burning would be more sensitive a few blocks away."

AND the Government Finds a Book to Burn. New York Times: "Defense Department officials are negotiating to buy and destroy all 10,000 copies of the first printing of an Afghan war memoir they say contains intelligence secrets, according to two people familiar with the dispute. The publication of “Operation Dark Heart,” by Anthony A. Shaffer, a former Defense Intelligence Agency officer and a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve, has divided military security reviewers and highlighted the uncertainty about what information poses a genuine threat to security."

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