Prestron

All this attention on Kennedy, the song stuck in your head… you’ve got to move on!

I fucking love that they are reminding everyone how weird the Republican Party is. Had to think about it a little to understand, and my take is that it is the uncanny valley of morality.

What I mean by that: Morality is basically defined by what is good for people. Moral things are good for people. Immoral things are bad for people. Some things have multiple good or bad effects and can be gray with mixed morality.

The uncanny valley is usually about our recognition of other human faces and bodies. When something appears only slightly, or completely human we accept it. But if something is close to human but perceivably off it disgusts us.

When the Republican Party—especially Trump, Vance, and the rest of the MAGAites—tell us that immoral things are actually moral it feels WIERD! We believe in democracy and the right to vote, hearing that people without children shouldn’t vote is weird and Vance’s explanation is weird!

Also with republicans’ constant need to create legitimacy pointing out weirdness cuts where it hurts. Things that are this kind of icky weird do not feel legitimate.

And if you’re just a regular conservative or Republican person reading this far I do not want to rub your face in this. Not all of their moral talk has been this weird. I recognize that the groups we associate with can be internalized into a piece of our identity, and when those internalized things are attacked it feels like an attack on you personally. That sucks, but we’ve still got to be honest about what’s going on here. I want you to be ok too.

You’ve got to understand the audience he’s talking to and the effect he’s trying to have. It’s not a legal claim being made in a legal setting and he knows it. Instead, he’s talking to people who are motivated by outrage. It’s incredibly disingenuous and I think you stop behavior like this just by talking away the benefit he has by acting this way. So let him be irrelevant and drown him out! If no one hears they aren’t going to get outraged.

“Sorry, you dialed Department Of. What you need is Department If. Happens all the time.”

“I followed the script” says enough. This guy doesn’t know shit and was probably following the advice of a bigger crank.

Requesting dismissal with prejudice is just a great detail. If granted, and the plaintiff tries to bring another suit for the same events, they’ll basically be told to GTFO.

That reminds me that my local library has WiFi hot spots you can check out for a week at a time. Sounds really helpful for someone who needs the internet for work, and can’t easily get to the library every day.

Use my pen knife my good man!

I appreciate that. I’ve thought of part of that, but tracking long term to figure out seasonal changes is a good idea.

Very nice! I’ve been working towards making and selling small bags and other cloth goods in the next year. I’m happy with my patterns and the cost and time to produce them. Now I’m figuring out the business side of it and what local merchant events I could do. Got any tips or unexpected hurdles when you started?

Fish and chips, but mostly fish.