Michael Brendan Dougherty

Me: Hey kid! Back up, you're going to get bit by that crocodile if you're not careful. Them: Crocodile lover. Big Croc shill. Why do you hate innocent kids?

about us on a neighborhood group chat, that led to several home “protesting” us, while we remained unaware. We know this because one family came clean. He denies this as well. If our grass is any longer than his or leaves out longer, he calls the town. it’s nuts.

I show the son security footage from over my driveway that happened to catch the whole incident in clear detail. The father still argues that he didn’t do it because his bumper isn’t damaged and tries to take umbrage that I’m “videotaping” them. This guy has spread baseless rumor

My neighbor hit his son’s parked car this morning. Stopped to look back at it after he did. And then drove away. Thirty minutes later his wife and son come to my door to scream at my wife that I must have done it. He gets home. Doesnt share because son confronts me in the street.

@FeserEdward I have time to discuss the moral problems with the firebombing and the nuking of Japan. But, the thing being remedied was not just Pearl Harbor. It was ending the militarist regime that committed atrocities in China and Korea. The successor regime was an improvement.

There are a couple of senses of "proportionality" relevant to applying just war criteria. One of them is the general principle regarding punishments, to the effect that a punishment should be proportional to the offense. That entails, among other things, that an offender cannot have inflicted on him a punishment of a type or degree that he does not deserve. There is also the proportionality that is operative when applying the principle of double effect. While killing the innocent, for example, can never be directly intended, an action that will likely result in the deaths of the innocent as an unintended side effect can in principle be permissible in some cases. But the harm inflicted by that act cannot be out of proportion to the good it is meant to secure.

Just as Hiroshima and Nagasaki were grotesquely out of proportion to the evil of the Pearl Harbor attack, what was done to Gaza is grotesquely out of proportion to the evil of the October 7 attack. What begins as a just cause is often corrupted by war’s self-righteous bloodlust.

@MartinPolanyi Yeah “definitely”

@michaelbd If the election was closer Orban would have definitely tried some bullshit. On election day his minions were already spreading bullshit about how Tisza was stealing the election. In the end Orban got beaten so badly that the people would have hung him if he had not conceded

Some people have truly managed to increase their derangement about Viktor Orban since he conceded after 60 percent of the vote was in. “Well he WAS going to try a military putsch!” “Look at this government office? Seems recently renovated!”

A Fidesz-korszakban az ellenzék akár egy órán keresztül, vagy akár annál is hosszabban tehetett fel kérdéseket egy kormánytagnak. Az új, a Tisza által meghatározott eljárásrendben ezt leszűkítették: 4 perc per kérdés jelöltenként. Gyanítom, ez továbbra is Magyar Péter kifinomult szájkosara a politikusaira, akik szinte az egész kampányban le voltak tiltva, hogy újságíróknak válaszoljanak. Továbbá Magyar Péter azt ígérte, hogy a kormánya nem fél a kérdésektől, vége a propagandának, és a Tisza-kormány új kommunikációs stílust vezet be: partneri viszony lesz a sajtóval. Most mégis eltörölték a „Kormányinfót”, ahol minden héten egyszer körülbelül 30 újságíró – vegyesen ellenzéki és kormánypárti újságírók – két órán keresztül kérdezhette a kormányt bármiről. Ki hitte volna, hogy pont azok, akik habzó szájjal ordibáltak a jogállamiság hiányáról, azok fogják elkezdeni lebontani gőzerővel… Szarkazmus.

An elite human capital moment

@traddingtonbear @robbysoave @neoavatara I mean, singular hero retreats to recusant Estate to confront and defeat, in the chapel, the swishy internationalist terrorist who was threatening the sustaining Mum figure.

@michaelbd @robbysoave @neoavatara Haven’t heard this one before. Say more?

I do want to remind everyone that Christopher Nolan is responsible for the most rightwing major studio film of all the time, The Dark Knight Rises. So perhaps we should wait to see The Odyssey before all making up our minds about it.

Spotted in the NYC subway. “Zero screen time.” An iPod Shuffle ad in 2026. When we built the iPod, the goal was the technology disappeared and you could have your music wherever you were. 1,000 songs in your pocket. Now we’re living through a moment where people are actively looking for ways to disconnect from the infinite feed, algos, and constant notifications. That doesn’t mean technology is bad. It means the best technology understands when to step back. Not every problem needs another screen, another menu, or another layer of complexity. Constraints create freedom (read: @DavidEpstein new book Inside the Box). And often removing features creates a better product than adding them. The future of technology shouldn’t just be more engagement. It should help us be more human.

@Support can we get some action on restoring one of our senior writers, Dan McLaughlin, to his account @baseballcrank? We can confirm his identity and that the people currently controlling the account since a phishing incident on May 2 are impersonating him, have changed his account information, and are not authorized users. Please contact us if you require additional proof.

"I can't imagine anything worse." Closer ties with the EU is "absolutely not" going to see off the "mortal threat" to Labour of the rise in working class support for Reform, warns Lord Glasman. @KateEMcCann | @StigAbell

What @davidmcw is describing is a resource curse. Ireland gets unbelievable revenue from American multinationals, and this enables financial and planning incontinence.

@MichaelMcGough3 It would be interpreted as undermining.

@michaelbd If Vance felt so strongly about the war he could have resigned. I'm old enough to remember Hubert Humphrey being criticized for not distancing himself from LBJ on Vietnam.

It’s so good to see so many commentators say, “Yep, I’ve been wrong on the wisdom of directly confronting Iran for a long time, especially these past few months, and consequently I’m updating my priors and from now on will support voices of restraint like JD Vance.”

@bf_crane “She likes fishing with her family.” Basically Authoritarian

@michaelbd her being twelfth billed on the Kid Rock festival is virtually klan membership lol

Morgan Wallen serves such an interesting purpose in American life. Everyone interprets proximity to him as a coded reactionary message, he’s like our Wagner in that way and only that way.

@MuskieGo If you read them all he was the lead arguing against, but said, if you do “go big and get out.”

@michaelbd Wasn't Vance supposedly a voice for a larger Iran action? I've heard so many versions that I don't know what is correct.

Just kidding, they’ve gone silent after spending months proclaiming the deeply Millenial geostrategic wisdom of “You can just do things.”