REALITYCHEX.COM - Constant Comments - The Commentariat -- October 15

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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

Oct152010

The Commentariat -- October 15

Banksters, Robo-Judges & a Do-Nothing Administration

Paul Krugman explains & comments on "the mortgage morass" as it stands today: "True to form, the Obama administration’s response has been to oppose any action that might upset the banks.... The response from the right is, however, even worse." ...

... The Rocket Docket. Brady Dennis, a straight reporter at the Washington Post, describes Florida's "rocket docket": judges whom the state has hired out of retirement to handle the foreclosure backlog are robo-signing uncontested foreclosures even though the banks' paperwork is not in order. Many judges, attorneys argue, are worse than the banks. ...

... How did we get in this mess? William Cohan shows us how it all started -- investment banks not only ignored advice that a large percentage of the loans they were bundling failed to meet standard underwriting guidelines, they withheld that information from investors to whom they sold the packages. Cohan is hopeful some banksters finally will get their comuppance: "So far, not a soul on Wall Street has been found to be criminally liable for the practices that led to the financial crisis. But thanks, in part, to the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, we are getting closer than ever to the day when the culprits will pay for what they did." ...

... New York Times: "Angelo R. Mozilo, the founder and former chief executive of Countrywide Financial, once the nation’s largest mortgage lender, agreed to pay $67.5 million Friday to settle a civil fraud case brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission last year." ...

... Ezra Klein has some good suggestions on how to fix the meltdown. CW: unfortunately, Klein's solutions require the federal agencies to get off their lazy, do-nothing asses. Good luck with that. ...

... The New York Times Editorial Board also suggest some fixes, including modifying bankruptcy laws to force banks to modify loans. "Throughout this crisis, the Obama administration has been far more worried about protecting the banks than protecting homeowners.... The banks that got us into this mess can’t be trusted to get us out of it. The administration and Congress need to act." ...

... David Hilzenrath of the Washington Post: "Stocks of major banks declined sharply Thursday amid concern that widespread corner-cutting in the foreclosure process could saddle the financial system with a costly and paralyzing mess. The sell-off was one of the most vivid indications yet that, just as banks were recovering from the financial crisis of recent years, foreclosure problems could take a new toll." ...

... Mark Gongloff of the Wall Street Journal on the markets' "acute uncertainty" about banks in light of the foreclosure crisis. ...

... Which only adds to pressure on the bank-friendly Obama Administration & on the friendly banks themselves to get off the dime, Bloomberg reports. CW: so far, nobody's budging. ...

... Max Abelson of the New York Observer: Wall Street blames the homebuyers: as one Goldman Sachs analyst said, "The problem is they don't deserve to be in that place. They probably deserve to be there less than they used to." ...

... The New York Observer's "Horror Stories from the Foreclosure Crisis." The first one: "Man without Mortgage Gets Foreclosed." Slideshow.

Thomas Cox. New York Times photo.... David Streitfeld of the New York Times: the little house in Maine that broke the bank. Thomas Cox, a former bank foreclosure officer, now working for a nonprofit, took on GMAC on behalf of a foreclosed homeowner & laid "the groundwork for foreclosure challenges nationwide." ...

... Digby points out that way back in 2007 she & Bill Moyers were on the Case of the Disappearing Paperwork. CW: this isn't a surprise to anybody in the industry, & it shouldn't be a surprise to regulators.

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I have this new diet, it’s called the 'Pretend You’re a Republican Diet.' It’s every time you see carbs or sweets or fats, you pretend you’re a Senate Republican and just say no. -- Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, who has lost 40 pounds since she gave birth two years ago

Justin Elliott of Salon: according to Gen. Hugh Shelton, who was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs during part of President Clinton's Administration, an unnamed Clinton cabinet member whispered to Shelton,

What we really need in order to go in and take out Saddam is a precipitous event — something that would make us look good in the eyes of the world. Could you have one of our U-2s fly low enough — and slow enough — so as to guarantee that Saddam could shoot it down?

Shelton says he replied, Why, of course we can. Just as soon as we get your ass qualified to fly it, I will have it flown just as low and slow as you want to go.

Smurfers. Scott Hensley of NPR: "how CVS became meth makers' favorite drugstore."

Sam Stein: Drummond Pike, "... the founder and CEO of the Tides Foundation (a frequent [Glenn] Beck target), has written advertisers asking them to remove their sponsorship of the Fox News program or risk having 'blood on their hands.'" ... Pike, who along with his organization was recently targeted by an assassin inspired by Beck's program, penned a letter on Friday to the Chairmen of the Boards of JP Morgan Chase, GEICO, Zurich Financial, Chrysler, Direct Holdings Americas, GlaxoSmithKline, AstraZeneca, Lilly Corporate Center, BP, and The Hartford Financial Services Group, Inc." The full text of Pike's letter is here.

How Low the Bar? Steve Benen: "The political world seems to realize that some real nutjobs have won major-party nominations this year, which then apparently leads to surprise when clearly unqualified nominees manage to engage in a debate without drooling on themselves for an hour.... We seem to have developed a depressing checklist: (a) did the candidate show up; (b) did the candidate speak English; (c) did the candidate remember the talking points drilled into his/her head by handlers from Washington; (d) did the candidate repeat the poll-tested zinger; (e) did the candidate avoid some kind of mental breakdown."

Scott Woolley of Fortune: why Carly Fiorina never mentions the job that gave her name recognition: head of Lucent Technology. Under Fiorina, they gambled big, & shortly after she moved to Hewlitt-Packard, Lucent went under because of huge, unwise vendor loans made on Fiorina's watch. But Fiorina made out like a bandit.

David Brooks wrote an op-ed column today about what a nice guy Rep. Mark Kirk is, even though he lied repeatedly about his military service record. (See my comment [#10, Marie Burns].) I'll bet Our Miss Brooks thinks Kirk's voter intimidation program is A-okay, too. But Olbermann doesn't:

Chad Levingood of the Delaware News Journal reports on Chris Coons' & Christine O'Donnell's second debate. ...

I've got Sean Hannity in my back pocket, and I can go on his show and raise money by attacking you guys. -- Christine O'Donnell, to GOP insiders who aren't helping her campaign

... "People thought of her as an ignorant, deadbeat witch." Keith Olbermann & Howard Fineman discuss Christine O'Donnell's candidacy:

Karoun Demirjian of the Las Vegas Sun recaps the debate/smackdown between Harry Reid & Sharron Angle. CW: rhymes with "witch." You can watch it on C-SPAN.

Bruce L. R. Smith, in a Washington Post op-ed, remembers Barack Obama, Sr., from their days at Harvard. Smith refutes Dinesh D'Souza's flimsy charge that President Obama inherited "Kenyan anti-colonialist" philosophy from his father.

Nick Seaver of AmericaBlog applied to be a member of the audience in President Obama's youth town hall, held yesterday. The "casting" rep who interviewed him asked him to come up with a "lighter" question than the alreadly boring one he suggested, but evidently his response wasn't light enough because the producers rejected Seaver. ... Washington Post follow-up: asked about the Seaver incident, Robert Gibbs gave a non-response response.

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