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☆ Sales of 'The Handmaid's Tale' rose nearly 7,000% this week on Amazon — but 'Melania' takes the No. 1 bestseller spot
▼ + stars: | 2024-11-08 | by ( Grace Eliza Goodwin | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Sales of "The Handmaid's Tale" surged by nearly 7,000% on Amazon as of Thursday, CNN reported. "Melania," the memoir by Melania Trump. 1 book on Amazon's Best Sellers list as of Friday afternoon was Melania Trump's memoir "Melania," which came out last month. AdvertisementIn the foreword to her book, Melania Trump wrote: "I believe it is important to share my perspective, the truth, especially in these times of division and uncertainty. AdvertisementGeorge Orwell's "1984," which warns of the rise of totalitarianism, rose 250% in Amazon sales.

Persons: Melania Trump, —, Donald Trump, Margaret Atwood's, Barnes & Noble, Chip Somodevilla, Atwood, Roe, Wade, Kamala Harris, George Orwell's, Ray, JD Vance's Organizations: CNN, Service, Barnes &, Trump

☆ The Handmaid’s Tale, 1984 and other books are flying off the shelves after the election
▼ + stars: | 2024-11-07 | by ( Erika Tulfo | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

(CNN) – Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale,” a novel set in a totalitarian society, has shot to the top of Amazon’s bestselling books list following Donald Trump’s reelection. Former president Trump clinched a victory against Vice President Kamala Harris in Tuesday’s election, securing a second term, non-consecutive after he lost in 2020. “The Handmaid’s Tale” takes place in a theocratic, male-dominated future America where the US Constitution is suspended, media is censored and women (the titular “handmaids”) are forced to bear children for the ruling class. Many have harnessed comparisons to Atwood’s classic in the lead-up to the election, particularly around the topic of reproductive rights. Calm drew attention on social media after airing ads that gave viewers “30 seconds of silence” amid continuous election coverage.

Persons: – Margaret Atwood’s “, ”, Donald Trump’s, Trump, Kamala Harris, Harris, Roe, Wade, handmaids, Barack Obama, Valerie Jarrett, Joe Biden’s, Hillary Clinton, Atwood, X, It’s, Brett Kavanaugh’s, George Orwell’s “, Ray Bradbury’s, Melania Organizations: CNN, Barnes, Trump, US Supreme, MSNBC, Apple Locations: skyrocketing, Tuesday’s, America

☆ AI expert Gary Marcus thinks OpenAI will be the 'most Orwellian company of all time'
▼ + stars: | 2024-10-07 | by ( Lakshmi Varanasi | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

AI expert Gary Marcus says OpenAI may be forced to become a surveillance company to make money. AI expert Gary Marcus says the company shaping the global AI arms race is on the cusp of turning what Orwell imagined into reality. "What they're going to be pressed to do is become a surveillance company." But Marcus thinks the company won't be able to earn enough money to support its valuation that way because the technology isn't advanced enough. Marcus suspects that OpenAI will eventually tap into this potential income stream and become a powerful surveillance company.

Persons: Gary Marcus, OpenAI, —, George Orwell's, Orwell, Peter Norvig, Marcus, Paul Nakasone, Edward Snowden, Snowden, Sam Altman, Altman, he's Organizations: Service, Google, Stanford's, Capitol, Business Locations: that's

☆ Opinion: Rewatching ‘Notting Hill,’ the truly unbelievable part is Hugh Grant’s house
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-22 | by ( Opinion Laura Beers | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +11 min

The Notting Hill of the 1990s was still socially heterodox and shabby chic, a neighborhood where a group of 30-something professionals could plausibly have ended up. Even in the late 1990s, such access to disposable income marked the characters in “Notting Hill” out as privileged. Yet, in the 1990s, Notting Hill, long a center of Caribbean immigrant culture and the site of the annual Notting Hill Carnival, underwent a rapid process of gentrification. Between 1995 and 1999, Notting Hill house prices rose by 75%. The colorful terraced houses of Notting Hill, which these days sell for millions of pounds.

Persons: Laura Beers, ”, George Orwell’s, Richard Curtis ’, Julia Roberts, Anna Scott, Hugh Grant, William Thacker, Roberts, Laura Beers Laura Beers, it’s, —, Curtis, Hill’s, Hugh Grant's, Winston, George Orwell, Orwell, Tony Blair’s Britain, Bill Clinton’s America, Grant’s, Tony Blair, Steve Eason, Notting, Spike, Rhys Ifans, Notting Hill, Mike Kemp, San, Spencer Platt, Rishi Sunak’s government’s, Bill, Rewatching Organizations: American University, CNN, MCA, Everett, Notting, Labour, Hulton, Getty, Movement, Housing, Federal Reserve, New York State, Hill ” Locations: American, London, West London, Notting, West, Britain, United States, Young, Notting Hill, Central London, San Francisco, Manhattan, San Matteo, Redwood City, York

☆ Opinion: Google’s AI blunder over images reveals a much bigger problem
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-09 | by ( Rizwan Virk | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +8 min

When asked, Gemini politely refused in some instances to generate images of historically White people, such as the Vikings. In the image space, if you asked previous AI image generators for an image of a CEO or a doctor, they initially almost always showed images of White males. Google announced its Gemini AI chatbot was pausing the generation of people in images after concerns were raised that it was creating historically inaccurate images. What makes censorship and manipulation worse with AI is that today’s AI already has a well-known hallucination problem. It may be a portent of what’s to come with AI and Big Tech leading us into Orwellian territory.

Persons: Rizwan Virk, X, Dave, I’m, OpenAI’s, Gemini, Google’s, Pope, Sundar Pichai, we’ve, ”, didn’t, Michael M, George Orwell’s “, “ Organizations: Labs, MIT, Physics, Eastern, Arizona State University’s College of Global Futures, Center for Science, CNN, HAL, Google, Vikings, Fox News Digital, Gemini, Getty, Big Tech, Microsoft, Apple Locations: zenentrepreneur.com, White, German

LONDON (AP) — Go into many bookstores, and the nonfiction shelves will be dominated by men. The Women’s Prize for Nonfiction hopes to change that. An offshoot of the 28-year-old Women’s Prize for Fiction, whose past winners include Zadie Smith, Tayari Jones and Barbara Kingsolver, the new prize is open to female English-language writers from any country in any nonfiction genre. Lipscomb noted that in 2022, only 26.5% of nonfiction books reviewed in Britain’s newspapers were by women, and male writers dominated established nonfiction writing prizes. Authors from the United States, Australia, Canada, India, Jamaica, the Philippines and the U.K. are on the prize longlist, chosen from 120 books submitted by publishers.

Persons: ”, Suzannah Lipscomb, Zadie Smith, Tayari Jones, Barbara Kingsolver, Lipscomb, Mary Ann Sieghart, Naomi Klein ’, “, Patricia Evangelista’s “, Bohannon’s, Alice Albinia’s “, Leah Redmond, Anna Funder’s “ Organizations: Nielsen, Research, Queens, ” Locations: United States, Australia, Canada, India, Jamaica, Philippines, London

All 11 House Democrats spoke during a lengthy debate Wednesday and voted against the bill. Fairness West Virginia, the state’s only LGBTQ+ advocacy organization, said the bill would ban transgender people from using government building restrooms that align with their gender identity. “But the problem with it is, it affects real people, real constituents of ours, real West Virginians.”From 2010 to 2020, West Virginia lost the highest percentage of residents compared to any other U.S. state. Republican West Virginia Gov. Another bill that would prohibit transgender students from using school restrooms that aligns with their gender identity advanced through the West Virginia House Education Committee last month.

Persons: “, ”, Democratic Del, Kayla Young, Mike Pushkin, JB Akers, ” Akers, Pushkin, ” George Orwell’s, ” Pushkin, ” Del, Diana Winzenreid, Winzenreid, Jim Justice Organizations: Virginia's Republican, GOP, Democratic, Capitol, Democrats, Democratic Party, West Virginians, Republican, Wheeling City Council, Republican West Virginia Gov, West Virginia House Locations: CHARLESTON, W.Va, Kanawha County, Kanawha County Del, West Virginia, Wheeling, Ohio County

☆ AI might be reading your Slack messages: 'A lot of this becomes thought crime'
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-09 | by ( Hayden Field | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +11 min

Aware's analytics tool — the one that monitors employee sentiment and toxicity — doesn't have the ability to flag individual employee names, according to Schumann. Speaking broadly about employee surveillance AI rather than Aware's technology specifically, Williams told CNBC: "A lot of this becomes thought crime." When including other types of content being shared, such as images and videos, Aware's analytics AI analyzes more than 100 million pieces of content every day. "It's always tracking real-time employee sentiment, and it's always tracking real-time toxicity," Schumann said of the analytics tool. Amba Kak, executive director of the AI Now Institute at New York University, worries about using AI to help determine what's considered risky behavior.

Persons: George Orwell, there's, Slack, Jeff Schumann, Schumann, Jutta Williams, Williams, chatbot, he's, Orwell, Rather, Amba Kak, Kak, they're Organizations: Istock, Microsoft, U.S, Walmart, Delta Air Lines, Mobile, Chevron, Starbucks, Nestle, AstraZeneca, CNBC didn't, Delta, CNBC, Humane Intelligence, Goldman Sachs Asset Management, Nationwide, CBS, Meta, New York University, Federal Trade Commission, Justice Department, Opportunity Commission Locations: Columbus , Ohio, Chevron, United States, Slack

☆ 40 Years Ago, This Ad Changed the Super Bowl Forever
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-09 | by ( Saul Austerlitz | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

Four decades ago, the Super Bowl became the Super Bowl. It wasn’t because of anything that happened in the game itself: On Jan. 22, 1984, the Los Angeles Raiders defeated Washington 38-9 in Super Bowl XVIII, a contest that was mostly over before halftime. Conceived by the Chiat/Day ad agency and directed by Ridley Scott, then fresh off making the seminal science-fiction noir “Blade Runner,” the Apple commercial “1984,” which was intended to introduce the new Macintosh computer, would become one of the most acclaimed commercials ever made. It also helped to kick off — pun partially intended — the Super Bowl tradition of the big game serving as an annual showcase for gilt-edged ads from Fortune 500 companies. It all began with the Apple co-founder Steve Jobs’s desire to take the battle with the company’s rivals to a splashy television broadcast he knew nothing about.

Persons: George Orwell, Ridley Scott, Steve Jobs’s, — Scott, John Sculley, Steve Hayden, Fred Goldberg, Anya Rajah, JOHN SCULLEY, we’re, “ Organizations: Super Bowl, Los Angeles Raiders, Washington, XVIII, CBS, Apple, Fortune, Chiat, Businessweek, IBM Locations: Steve

☆ Before He Was George Orwell, He Was Eric Blair, Police Officer
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-05 | by ( William Boyd | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

BURMA SAHIB, by Paul TherouxGeorge Orwell died of tuberculosis in 1950, at the age of 46. The word “Orwellian” is as omnipresent as “Kafkaesque.” His two dystopian novel-allegories — “Animal Farm” and “1984” — have sold in the millions around the world. Almost everything that Orwell wrote seems to be in print. But there is one area of his life that is relatively unexplored and full of baffling gaps, not to say mystery. He was still several years removed from becoming “George Orwell” by adopting the nom de plume that would carry his legacy.

Persons: Paul Theroux George Orwell, Shakespeare, Winston Churchill, ”, Albert Camus, Henry David Thoreau, Walt Whitman, Tolstoy, Orwell, Eric Blair, “ George Orwell ”, Paul Theroux Organizations: Eton College Locations: BURMA, Britain, British, Burma, Myanmar

☆ Your Next 10 Steps After Watching the New ‘Napoleon’ Film
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-21 | by ( Victor Mather | More About Victor Mather | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Since you’re already in Paris to see that horse, stop by the Louvre for one of Jacques-Louis David’s masterworks: “Le Sacre de Napoléon” (1807). Far from a stock figure, he is a fully realized person in the novel, displaying egotism, anger and a liking for snuff. If that famously thick book is too much, there are several film versions. Herbert Lom plays Napoleon in a 1956 Hollywood film starring Audrey Hepburn and Henry Fonda. And Prokofiev wrote an opera that was last seen at the Met in 2008, but is readily available on streaming services.

Persons: Jacques, Louis David’s, Napoléon ”, Napoleon, Pope, Read, Leo Tolstoy’s, ” Napoleon, Herbert Lom, Audrey Hepburn, Henry Fonda, Prokofiev, William Thackeray’s, George Orwell’s Organizations: Louvre, Notre Dame, Times, Met Locations: Paris, Moscow, Hollywood, Le

☆ Opinion | Why Big Money Can’t Easily Change Campus Politics
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-20 | by ( Ross Douthat | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +11 min

First, Jewish donors probably can’t win the identity politics game. But this strategy also has inherent limits, insofar as the free speech protected by campus administrators is only as diverse as the people who are speaking. Which brings us to the second point for would-be reshapers of the university: If you can’t influence faculty hiring and tenure, you may be wasting your money. Will the University of Pennsylvania miss the collection of major donors who’ve denounced the school in the past week? But not with the goal of using such student groups as a means of conflict with the administration or the faculty.

Persons: Jason Willick, specter, Willick, you’re, Donald Trump, there’s, Bernie, Sanders, they’re, who’ve, Leland Stanford ”, Rather, Michael Brendan Dougherty, Chris Caldwell, Anthony Grafton, Anthony Lane, Arthur Brooks, George Orwell, Zvi Mowshowitz, Keith Phipps, Martin Scorsese’s “, Foucault, — Maxi, ” Organizations: The Washington Post, Cornell, University of Pennsylvania, Big, Hillel, Penn, — Locations: The Washington, State, Israel, tokenism, Harvard, Poland, Foucault’s

☆ Russian troops have put up dozens of surveillance towers across Mariupol to track Ukrainians' conversations and digital activity
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-28 | by ( Sonam Sheth | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Russia put up towers in Mariupol that track Ukrainians' digital activity, an advisor to the city's exiled mayor says. He described the Russian troops' activities as Orwellian. "This is equipment for monitoring conversations and Internet traffic of Mariupol residents," Andryushchenko wrote alongside a video. The Russians are also using the towers for military communications, he wrote, adding that Russian troops have erected 40 such towers in Mariupol over the last three months. Old Orwell would simply be amazed how all his fictions became the reality of Mariupol," Andryushchenko wrote, referring to "1984" author George Orwell.

Persons: Petro Andryushchenko, —, Andryushchenko, Orwell, George Orwell, Andryushchenko's, Vladimir Putin, Putin, Sergei Shoigu, Shoigu, ISW Organizations: Service, Kyiv Post, Ukraine, Institute for, Russian, Telegram, New York Times Locations: Russia, Mariupol, Ukrainian, Kherson, Odessa, Kharkiv, Ukraine

London CNN —A graffiti wall in London’s bustling street art hub of Brick Lane has become an unlikely canvas for protest messages against China’s authoritarian rule, after it was whitewashed and painted over with propaganda slogans promoting Chinese Communist Party ideology. On Chinese social media, some supporters argued the young Chinese artists were exercising freedom of expression and applauded them for “exporting” Chinese culture and values. By Sunday, the slogans had been overlaid with a flurry of new graffiti that was deeply critical of both Xi and the Chinese Communist Party. A grafitti wall in Brick Lane was whitewashed and painted over with red slogans promoting China's "core socialist values." There’s no one leader or anything, but everybody’s expressing their dissenting views against the Chinese Communist Party,” he said.

Persons: ”, Xi Jinping, –, Critics, Xi, George Orwell’s, “, Milan, Lyndon Li Shixiang, Ivana Kottasova, Yi Que Organizations: London CNN, Chinese Communist Party, Communist Party, CNN, Milan Kundera, Hong Locations: Brick, China, London –, Britain, Lane, London’s, Hong Kong, Xinjiang, Tibet, Tiananmen, Hamlets, London, Australian

☆ Google fails to end $5 billion consumer privacy lawsuit
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-08 | by ( Jonathan Stempel | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

The logo of Google LLC is seen at the Google Store Chelsea in Manhattan, New York City, U.S., November 17, 2021. The Oakland, California-based judge also pointed to several Google statements, including in its privacy policy, suggesting limits on information it might collect. "As we clearly state each time you open a new incognito tab, websites might be able to collect information about your browsing activity during your session." The lawsuit covers Google users since June 1, 2016. The case is Brown et al v Google LLC et al, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, No.

Persons: Andrew Kelly, Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, Monday, David Boies, George Orwell, Rogers, Jose Castaneda, Brown, Jonathan Stempel, Jonathan Oatis Organizations: Google, Chelsea, REUTERS, Court, Northern District of, Thomson Locations: Manhattan , New York City, U.S, , California, Oakland , California, California, Northern District, Northern District of California, New York

☆ Auction of Charlie Watts' book collection includes signed 'Great Gatsby' first edition
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-10 | by ( Amarachi Orie | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

CNN —A collection of first-edition books and jazz memorabilia belonging to the late Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts will go up for auction in September. Leading the auction will be a signed first-edition copy of F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby." “Charlie built his collection of modern literature and jazz with passion, intelligence and dedication, and this two-part auction celebrates his distinguished collecting taste,” they added. Christie's Images Limited 2023The collection also includes objects that once belonged to jazz legends, including Watts’ favorite saxophonist, the late Charlie Parker, according to the release. Christie's Images Limited 2023Highlights from the collection will go on display in Los Angeles between July 25 and 29 and New York between September 5 and 8.

Persons: Charlie Watts, Scott Fitzgerald, Scott Fitzgerald's, Benedict Winter, Mark Wiltshire, “ Charlie, George Orwell, Agatha Christie, James Joyce, Fitzgerald, Watts, Charlie Parker, Parker, Irving Berlin, George Gershwin’s, “ Porgy, Bess, ”, Charlie, Dave Green Organizations: CNN Locations: London, American, British, Los Angeles, New York

☆ Charlie Watts book collection to be offered for sale at auction
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-10 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

[1/2] Members of the Rolling Stones (L-R) Charlie Watts, Ronnie Wood, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards arrive for the "Exhibitionism" opening night gala at the Saatchi Gallery in London, Britain April 4, 2016. REUTERS/Luke MacGregor/File PhotoLONDON, July 10 (Reuters) - Books and jazz memorabilia belonging to late Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts will go under the hammer in a two-part sale in September, auction house Christie's said on Monday. "Charlie Watts: Gentleman, Collector, Rolling Stone – Literature and Jazz" will feature more than 500 lots, with price estimates ranging from 800 pounds to 300,000 pounds ($1,023 - $383,730). Also on sale are rare editions of books by George Orwell, James Joyce, Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie. The flagship auction will take place in London on Sept. 28, while an online sale will run from Sept. 15-29, Christie's said.

Persons: Charlie Watts, Ronnie Wood, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Luke MacGregor, Christie's, Scott Fitzgerald, Harold Goldman, George Orwell, James Joyce, Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie, Watts, Charlie Parker's, Porgy, Bess, George Gershwin, “ Charlie, Marie, Louise Gumuchian, Ed Osmond Organizations: Saatchi, REUTERS, Thomson Locations: London, Britain

☆ Opinion: Welcome to the ‘looking-glass’ world of Putin’s Russia
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-10 | by ( Opinion Daniel Treisman | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +8 min

Welcome to the weird, through-the-looking-glass world of Vladimir Putin’s Russia, where everything is its opposite and almost nothing is what it seems. That may hold as well for the still-murky fate of last month’s mutineer, Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Wagner group. Daniel TreismanWorse yet for the Kremlin, Prigozhin’s claim — coming from a diehard nationalist — will seem quite believable to many Russians. In this looking-glass world, the president has no time for politics. After the war started, Navalny offered a 15-point program for ending it and rebuilding a democratic Russia.

Persons: Daniel Treisman, “, ”, Vladimir Putin’s, mutineer, Yevgeny Prigozhin, Wagner, Alexander Lukashenko, Dmitry Peskov, Peskov, Prigozhin, Putin, Alexey Navalny, Alexander Zemlianichenko, Orwell, Vladimir Kara, Murza, Emmanuel Macron, Navalny, Angela Merkel Organizations: University of California, CNN, Russian Federal Penitentiary Service, Russian, Putin, Kremlin, Twitter, Facebook Locations: Los Angeles, Moscow, Belarus, Vladimir Putin’s Russia, Belarusian, Minsk, St . Petersburg, Kremlin, Russian, Melekhovo, Vladimir, Russia, Kara, Rostov, Sochi, Ukraine, Dagestan, Crimea, “

☆ The Crossed ‘Signals’ of MoMA’s Largest Ever Video Show
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-06 | by ( Jason Farago | More About Jason Farago | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

I sure got my wish with “Signals: How Video Transformed the World,” which closes this weekend at the Museum of Modern Art — and which, screen for screen, hour for hour, stands proud as the most perplexing exhibition of the year. Maybe a dozen times since its opening in March I have ascended to MoMA’s top floor for this ambitious, irregular exhibition of video art, the largest this museum has ever put on. Given the recent subtropical weather here in New York, this final weekend might be ideal for wrestling with “Signals” in MoMA’s climate-controlled galleries. “Signals,” drawn from the museum’s collection by the curators Stuart Comer and Michelle Kuo, is decidedly not a history of video art. (Fair enough: Nauman had a major retrospective in these same galleries in 2018, and Jonas has one coming up next year.)

Persons: bafflement, ”, Stuart Comer, Michelle Kuo, Bruce Nauman, Joan Jonas, Nauman, Jonas, Nam, Paik, Orwell Organizations: “, Museum of Modern, I’ve, New Locations: New York, Paris

☆ Insight: Young Russian lawyers step up to defend anti-war protesters
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-04 | by ( Lucy Papachristou | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +8 min

"I have always had a keen sense of justice," Gominova told a Reuters reporter based in Poland. "Defending protesters in court is my version of protest," said Gominova, who began representing anti-war activists in court almost immediately after the invasion. With numerous civil society groups disbanded by the state, many other lawyers also defend anti-war activists independently, but it is hard to determine how many. Several Russian lawyers have attracted the attention – and condemnation – of authorities, not only for defending critics of the invasion but also for expressing their own opposition. Before the Ukraine conflict, Gominova, in St Petersburg, worked mainly on civil cases ranging from family disputes to consumer rights.

Persons: Young, acquittals, Sofia Gominova, Gominova, Violetta Fitsner, Alexei Navalny, Vladimir Kara, Murza, Russia's, Evgenia Kara, Vladimir, Vadim Prokhorov –, Putin –, Prokhorov, Dmitry Talantov, Ivan Safronov, Maria Bontsler, Anastasia Rudenko, George Orwell's, Yuri Mikhailov, Mikhailov, Filipp Lebedev, Gabrielle Tetrault, Farber, Mike Collett, White, Mark Trevelyan, Andrew Cawthorne Organizations: Russia, Ukraine Lawyers, Petersburg Bar Association, Moscow Bar, Russia's, Ministry, Russian Federation, Reuters, U.S, of America, Facebook, Thomson Locations: Ukraine, acquittals Moscow, Russia, Soviet Union, Poland, St . Petersburg, St, Petersburg, Moscow, Ivanovo, Russian, St Petersburg, Tbilisi, Geneva

The case, though framed as clash between free speech and gay rights, was the latest in a series of decisions in favor of religious people and groups, notably conservative Christians. A Colorado law forbids discrimination against gay people by businesses open to the public as well as statements announcing such discrimination. But when the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case, 303 Creative L.L.C. He was the author of every major Supreme Court decision protecting gay rights under the Constitution. But he was also the court’s most ardent defender of free speech.

Persons: Neil M, Gorsuch, Lorie Smith, Smith, Smith’s, Mary Beck Briscoe, Judge Briscoe, “, ” Judge Briscoe, Timothy M, Tymkovich, George Orwell, ’ ”, ”, Anthony M, Kennedy, Justice Kennedy, Jack Phillips, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Brett M, Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett Organizations: Supreme, U.S ., Appeals, Circuit, Colorado Civil Rights Commission Locations: Colorado, Denver, “ Colorado

☆ Opinion | The American Empire in the Fog of Ukraine
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-30 | by ( Ross Douthat | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

In a critique of the political thinker James Burnham, penned in the wake of World War II, George Orwell wrote:Power worship blurs political judgment because it leads, almost unavoidably, to the belief that present trends will continue. Whoever is winning at the moment will always seem to be invincible. But a war that seems stalemated, that grinds without dramatic shifts, poses a somewhat different challenge to political judgment; the observer is always tempted to discern a certain trend, a sweeping historical judgment, amid a state of ebb and flow and wartime fog. The war in Ukraine is a case study, yielding very different big-picture arguments based on developments from month to month and even week to week. The same pattern applies to analysis of how the war fits in the global power picture.

Persons: James Burnham, George Orwell, Orwell, Yevgeny Prigozhin, Samuel Huntington’s, Francis Fukuyama’s Locations: South Asia, Asia, Tobruk, Cairo, Berlin, London, Ukraine

☆ Opinion: The impact of PGA Tour-LIV Golf deal goes far beyond sports
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-08 | by ( Aaron David Miller | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +8 min

Yet, these days, the sad truth is that Saudi Arabia has no need for sportswashing. And in December 2019, Saudi Arabia became president of the G-20, hosting a virtual summit because of the Covid-19 pandemic. The golf deal is a reminder that “money money money” is a formidable diplomatic political tool. A US brokered deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia would be a powerful counterpoint to China’s recently facilitated Iranian-Saudi détente. Of course, one can hardly be shocked to learn that where’s there’s money, golf and Saudi Arabia, there just might be a Trump angle as well.

Persons: Aaron David Miller, ” Miller, LIV Golf, Joe Biden’s, it’s, we’ve, you’re, Jamal Khashoggi, , Cristiano Ronaldo, Sen, Richard Blumenthal, Blumenthal, Biden, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, It’s, LIV, can’t, Zelensky, Bashar al, Assad, Mahmoud Abbas, ”, Jake Sullivan, Antony Blinken, Trump, Eric Trump, Facebook George Orwell Organizations: Carnegie Endowment, International Peace, Democratic, Republican, CNN, PGA, English Premier League soccer, One, LIV, PGA Tour, Washington Post, Saudi Crown, MBS, Arab, US National, Trump, Twitter, Facebook, Saudi Locations: East, Saudi, United States, Saudi Arabia, Washington, Berlin, Sochi, Davos, Connecticut, China, Russia, Ukraine, Iran, Israeli, Israel, Iranian, Britain

☆ Fact Check-Inflatable pig at Roger Waters show 10 years ago featured Star of David
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-05 | by ( Reuters Fact Check | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

However, one Facebook user uploaded the image (here) alongside the caption: “So apparently, THIS is what was on hand at Roger Waters' Berlin concert last night. News outlets have also included the picture in reports about one of Waters’ 2023 Berlin shows (here, archived: here) (here, archived: here). The Pink Floyd co-founder did not mention the use of a Star of David in his statement about the Berlin concerts (here). A black inflatable pig with a Star of David featured at Roger Waters’ concerts at least 10 years ago. It did not appear at Waters’ 2023 Berlin shows.

Persons: Pink Floyd, Roger Waters, David, Rogers, Waters, Pink Floyd’s, George Orwell, Martin Halweg, Read Organizations: Waters, Reuters, Facebook, Twitter, Stone, Washington D.C, YouTube, Pink, Berlin Police, Star Locations: Berlin, Washington, Belgium, Nazi

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