Aaron Huertas

When I worked in WaPo Opinions in 2017-2018, senior editors specifically told junior editors not to factcheck Marc Thiessen and other MAGA columnists, otherwise they wouldn’t be able to publish anything by them at all, and “we need them for intellectual diversity.”

Old teleplay dialogue really tickles me:

"Well, Chambers? What have you got?"

"A corker of a migraine headache and eye strain."

That's awesome. I think I might have caught it on Nick at Nite when I was growing up? My parents always noted when it was on. My uncle had a bunch of old Star Trek episodes on Betamax at my grandparent's too. Good stuff.

creative destruction vindicated!

Can I wrote off the cost of audio books that I listen to at work while wearing noise-reducing headphones? Like how far does the definition of PPE go here?

Original Twilight Zone run is on Prime right now. I'm firing up To Serve Man. Can't beat the writing and how much they pulled off with episodic TV. (Everyone is smoking butts.)

Finally solving the male loneliness epidemic

Janice supports gay marriage and legalizing weed.

“I voted for Mr. Trump because he will pardon me for the crimes I committed on his behalf on January 6.”

Patiently waiting for the pollster to ask me if I think unions should be so powerful that formal government becomes a secondary source of political conflict.

If you hit me with a bunch of standard 2A questions I might look like a cross pressured voter but you’d never know what I actually want is democratically run public armories so people can store their guns outside of their homes and that that is less important to me than electric vehicle subsidies.

If you restructured this around salience it might yield something more coherent, but this also speaks to the shallowness of position taking as a strategy if you’re not able to raise the salience of “your” issues let along reach potential voters with your message.

Funny quiz but if someone is an NRA nut who also vaguely wants legal weed disclosing only the latter point is a bit silly

Anyone who does woodworking or drywall:

Good safety googles for people who wear contacts? Tight seal tends to fog up. Legit thinking about swimming goggles or just putting on my backup glasses for very dusty jobs.

John Lennon: Okay but how high are you right now

DeBlalias

they emailed a guy called Bill DeBlasio. He gave his opinion. It wasn't the mayor

Thought the Times had been hoaxed. Turns out to be so much better than that

Not only a chud safari but the author went for the subset of chuds on a chud dating site, really distilling down to the hardcore misogynists. 98% of the time you can directly trace the belief structure to propaganda exposure. It’s not complicated.

They’re not climate debate final boss but you can farm so much XP off them

Lot of second and third+ order media effects that are invisible to us, e.g. people who don’t directly consume politicized media are still getting info from more politicized friends, family (and influencers) who are drinking from the firehose.

You’re arguing against strawman points no one is making

No one is ignoring this. You’re making black and white absolutist / false dichotomy arguments to beat up strawmen. Muting now

is every election gerrymandered?

Now you're going from a criticism of voting to types of rallies. These are all forms of political action. You're creating false dichotomies instead of just promoting what you consider more effective forms of political action. For most politically active people it's both / and, always has been.

yeah saw both the posts and responded again

bsky.app/profile/aaro...

do you think that instead of pitting voting and striking / boycotting against each other people might actually (hear me out now) do all of that and more?

do you have anything specific and proactive to add to this conversation about forms of political action you think are effective?

did someone in this conversation say that voting is the only form of political action? do you have anything to contribute to this thread besides nihilism?

At a literal data science level it makes a potential voter invisible to a campaign.

Unrelated but when he sees the interstates outside the airport in NJ and smiles because that’s what truly feels like home. Absolute height of Paulie bits.

The oysterman candidacy is done, we need a senator mussels