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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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Wednesday

Nov102010

The Commentariat -- November 11

Micah Cohen of the New York Times has an update on the still-unresolved midterm races. Unbelievably, the pig in the ducky jammies won by about 800 votes; his Democratic opponent, an incumbent, is applying for a recount:

Stephen Gandel of Time: how Sarah Palin & the tea party could cause hyperinflation: "The real threat of inflation comes from tax policy, namely lower taxes. Lower taxes and the government will have a harder time paying back its debt. Investors run from our bonds and currency. Inflation ensues." Moreover, no matter what the actual policy, if investors & the public think the government is unwilling to pay for itself, inflation will follow.

The White House gives a whole new meaning to passive aggression - it has institutionalized a personality disorder into a governing style.... Obama promises he will veto any tax cuts for the rich. He loses the midterms and leaves the country. Droopy Dog Axelrod 'leaks' the caving-in to some inside- the- Beltway establishment reporter. It is officially denied. But since we now have a heads-up, the official pill won't be so bitterly hard to swallow once it becomes 'official.'
-- Karen Garcia ...

... Chicken-Shit, White House-Style. Howard Feinman & Sam Stein: "President Barack Obama's top adviser suggested to The Huffington Post late Wednesday that the administration is ready to accept an across-the-board, temporary continuation of steep Bush-era tax cuts, including those for the wealthiest taxpayers. That appears to be the only way, said David Axelrod, that middle-class taxpayers can keep their tax cuts, given the legislative and political realities facing Obama in the aftermath of last week's electoral defeat." ...

... NEW. You can sign Bold Progressives' (PCCC) petition against the tax cut for the rich. ...

... BUT Carrie Budoff Brown: "In an e-mail to POLITICO, Axelrod said: 'There is not one bit of news here. I didn't go beyond what we said before.'" CW: the inference here is that the White House has not committed to accepting tax cuts for the rich. Then why this? -- ", David Axelrod, said Wednesday that the White House has to deal with “the world of what it takes to get this done” – a signal to Democrats that they don’t have the votes to kill the high-end tax cuts in the face of a new Republican House majority and resistance from Democratic moderates in the Senate." This makes no sense. The tax cuts expire at the end of 2010. The Democrats still hold healthy majorities in both houses. There is not "a new Republican House majority" until early January 2011. ...

... AND Katy O'Donnell of the National Journal: "Senior White House adviser David Axelrod said this morning that President Obama has not caved to GOP demands on the extension of the Bush tax cuts, despite a report to the contrary."

... Marcy Wheeler: "Let yesterday be marked as the day when a nominally Democratic President began to dismantle Democrats’ signature policy achievement, social security, so he could shovel $700 billion to the very rich." ...

Catfood Commission Draft Proposal

Artwork via PoliticsPlus.org.New York Times: "A draft proposal released Wednesday by the chairmen of President Obama’s bipartisan commission on reducing the federal debt calls for deep cuts in domestic and military spending starting in 2012, and an overhaul of the tax code to raise revenue. Those changes and others would erase nearly $4 trillion from projected deficits through 2020, the proposal says." Here's the report.

CW: the chairmen put out the draft report, but there is no chance the full commission will ratify it. Ezra Klein explains more.

Megan Carpentier of TPM lists the chairmen's main proposals.

President Obama won't discuss it:

Dow-Jones: "House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) ... call[ed] the plan 'simply unacceptable.' The outgoing speaker said that any proposal must do 'what is right for our children and grandchildren's economic security as well as for our nation's fiscal security, and it must do what is right for our seniors, who are counting on the bedrock promises of Social Security and Medicare.'" Update: here's Speaker Pelosi's official statement.

More reactions via Alexander Bolton of The Hill -- but none from the White House (CW: which reportedly was blindsided by the early release).

The chairmen of the Deficit Commission just told working Americans to ‘Drop Dead.’ Especially in these tough economic times, it is unconscionable to be proposing cuts to the critical economic lifelines. -- Richard Trumka, AFL-CIO President

Kevin Drum: "Bottom line: this document isn't really aimed at deficit reduction. It's aimed at keeping government small. There's nothing wrong with that if you're a conservative think tank and that's what you're dedicated to selling. But it should be called by its right name. This document is a paean to cutting the federal government, not cutting the federal deficit."

Barbara Morrill in Daily Kos: ConservaDem Kent Conrad uses Veterans Day to tout the Catfood Commission proposals like this one:

Establish co-pays in the VA medical system and change the co-pays and deductibles for military retirees that remain in that system.

Morrill writes, "... nothing says remember the sacrifices made by our military men and women more than telling them they'll have to start paying for their VA care! But I'm sure Conrad had a flag pin on his lapel when he said it."

Digby: the "villagers are thrilled."

Karoli at Crooks & Liars: "Simply put, it makes the Reagan administration initial proposals for Social Security reform look progressive, ignores the truth about Social Security's funding status, pays lip service only to cutting the defense budget while simultaneously taking shots at unions, the poor, the underprivileged and the elderly."

** Skin in the Game. Dan Eggen of the Washington Post: the catfood commission has taken an "... unusual approach to staffing: ... about one in four commission staffers is paid by outside entities, many of which have strong ideological points of view about how to tackle the deficit." The commission's director says he employed these nonpaid ideologues to be "fiscally responsible." CW: you just want to slap these assholes:

Taxpayers fund the commission and they should work independently of Washington lobbyists and power brokers, This is the type of shenanigans that average Americans are so upset about right now - that money talks and everyone else is left out. -- former Rep. Barbara Kennelly, an advociate for preserving Social Security & Medicare

David Lindley & Wally Ingram, "Cat Food Sandwiches," via Firedoglake:

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The Economist: "It was chance that [President Obama's] tour took him to Asia’s biggest and richest democracies — South Korea and Japan were on the itinerary as hosts, respectively, of the G20 and Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) summits. But that lent the tour its tacit theme: that, crudely put, the American model still trumps the Chinese one."

Paul Kiel of ProPublica: "When the Obama administration launched its flagship foreclosure prevention program in early 2009, it pledged to spend up to $50 billion helping struggling homeowners. But the government has so far only spent a tiny fraction of that."

President Obama speaks at a Veterans Day rally in Seoul, South Korea. The President appears about 5 min. in:

Ed O'Keefe & Greg Jaffe of the Washington Post: "A Pentagon study group has concluded that the military can lift the ban on gays serving openly in uniform with only minimal and isolated incidents of risk to the current war efforts, according to two people familiar with a draft of the report, which is due to President Obama on Dec. 1."

Tim Egan of the New York Times posits that the Republican Congressional leadership will have to rein in the lying lunatics in their caucus if they expect to actually govern. CW: Not. Going. To. Happen. ...

... BUT Perry Bacon of the Washington Post: "Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), a favorite of conservative activists around the country, ended her campaign to join the GOP leadership late Wednesday, electing to bow out rather than face near-certain defeat in next week's leadership elections."

Austan Goolsbee explains that the President is in Asia to help boost American exports:

... Paul Wiseman of the AP explains why other countries oppose Fed Chair Ben Bernanke's move to buy bonds. CW: Wiseman does not try to explain economist Sarah Palin's opposition to the Fed's program.

Cenk Uygur rants on why gays should not vote for GOP candidates. CW: I agree with Cenk, but he doesn't go far enough. On this issue alone, no one, straight or gay, who supports basic human rights can vote Republican:

Joe Wilson reacts to Dubya's memoir Decision Points.

CBS News: The American Civil Liberties Union today urged the Justice Department to investigate whether President George W. Bush violated anti-torture laws by authorizing the use of waterboarding against detainees in the war on terror -- an admission Mr. Bush makes in his new memoir 'Decision Points.'" More in the Huffington Post here. ...

... CBS News: "Former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroder said Tuesday that former President George W. Bush 'is not telling the truth' in his new memoir 'Decision Points.'" He says Bush's description of an exchange between Bush & him about the Iraq War is false. "In his memoir 'Decisions: My Life in Politics,' Schroder wrote that Mr. Bush spoke in 'almost Biblical semantics' and gave off the impression 'that political decisions are a result of this conversation with God.'"

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