John O'Laughlin
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olaugh.bsky.social
John O'Laughlin
@olaugh.bsky.social
mke-bos-sfo

compulsions (fun): music, scrabble, running
compulsions (other): politics, urbanism
Reposted by John O'Laughlin
November 21, 2025 at 11:12 PM
Reposted by John O'Laughlin
What a goddamn legend. Every big tough conservative masculinity guy has been crying about how terrifying cities are to live in for the past two years and now Trump wants to move back to NYC
Reporter to Trump: Would you feel comfortable living in NYC under a Mamdani mayoralty?

Trump: "I would. I really would. Especially after the meeting, absolutely."
November 21, 2025 at 9:28 PM
Reposted by John O'Laughlin
Elon Musk’s MechaHitler is a longtermist e/acc that hates children
I literally could not stop myself from inappropriately laughing out loud for real
November 21, 2025 at 12:37 AM
perhaps notable that gemini 3 pro is currently shorting googl in alpha arena
November 20, 2025 at 4:32 AM
Reposted by John O'Laughlin
women are always saying “lord grant me the confidence of a mediocre man.” ok well he did. now what. is the world a better place? look at what you’ve wrought.
Olivia Nuzzi's 'American Canto': Read the Exclusive Excerpt
She flamed out and she faded away. 'Vanity Fair'’s West Coast Editor returns to the written word to survey scorched earth.
www.vanityfair.com
November 17, 2025 at 3:46 PM
Reposted by John O'Laughlin
San Diego has 2x the population of Helsinki and about 270 people died in traffic related fatalities in 2024
“Helsinki hasn’t registered a single traffic-related fatality in the past year…Citing data that shows the risk of pedestrian fatality is cut in half by reducing a car’s speed from 40 to 30km/hr, city officials imposed the lower limit in most of Helsinki’s residential areas & city center in 2021.”
Helsinki just went a full year without a single traffic death
The capital city is Finnish’ed with car-related fatalities.
www.politico.eu
November 17, 2025 at 5:27 PM
Reposted by John O'Laughlin
the more times i see this the more I think it belongs in a textbook about using woke language to reactionary ends
"I'm a rando who prefers to believe that everything is a conspiracy and am happy to tell women that I know better than she does how their literal job works" That a news org makes an editorial decision you wouldn't (or I wouldn't) doesn't mean someone is killing a story on behalf of a powerful person
"I write for the New York Times, and I can assure you that we've never buried stories on behalf of powerful people, many of those powerful people being part of NYT management. We only publish what's fit to print, like Zohran's application to Columbia that was leaked by a white nationalist"
November 14, 2025 at 4:20 AM
Aesop Rock - Full House Pinball (Official Video)
YouTube video by Aesop Rock
www.youtube.com
November 13, 2025 at 8:48 PM
Reposted by John O'Laughlin
Man I resent the idea that New York needs to be unpleasant to live in to be authentic so much, it’s pervasive and it holds the city back in so many ways
left NIMBYism is a study in cognitive dissonance and paradoxes:

the homes are simultaneously vacant yet full of rich people

the homes are simultaneously “luxury” yet “shitholes”
November 13, 2025 at 3:27 AM
To be clear, Slava Ukraini, but geez what a tough break for the name of your country to literally mean borderlands. Your country’s name is Old Slavic for “disputed territory”
November 12, 2025 at 4:08 PM
Reposted by John O'Laughlin
November 10, 2025 at 7:45 PM
Reposted by John O'Laughlin
American politics makes a lot more sense when you realize that the GOP is afraid of pissing off the GOP base, and the Dems are afraid of pissing off the GOP base, but neither party is afraid of pissing off the Dem base.
March 14, 2025 at 10:24 PM
November 9, 2025 at 8:01 AM
Reposted by John O'Laughlin
the contrast between the left in NYC and San Francisco is incredible

winning the mayoralty by relentlessly focusing on the cost of living and making government more effective vs. promoting a shitcoin named after a bodega cat run over by a Waymo
November 7, 2025 at 7:25 PM
My son has reached the age when kids yell a basketball player’s name while throwing up a shot. He yelled “Bronny” before bricking his pants off the front side of the laundry hamper and unfortunately I couldn’t hold back a laugh. Sorry little guy
November 7, 2025 at 1:16 AM
Reposted by John O'Laughlin
the future of the democratic party is a coalition of the wokest people on tumblr and absolutely dead-eyed pursuers of the national interest and the maximization of GDP
funny that the two groups in the political class who have been the least enthusiastic about trump term 2 are like neocon blob guys and economists
I feel like the econ policy people have been less annoyingly centrist on Trump than the rest of the think tank ecosystem purely because the only concrete policy he’s pursued in two months are tariffs, which like none of them like
March 23, 2025 at 2:47 AM
Reposted by John O'Laughlin
Eric Adams is amazing because when he won every media person was leaping over each to go “this is the normal sane leadership that the political left doesn’t understand normal sane Americans crave” and then every day since that Eric Adams has been like “Leprechauns are real and I’m going to cook one”
August 14, 2023 at 4:43 PM
Reposted by John O'Laughlin
Please check all that apply
November 5, 2025 at 1:29 AM
Reposted by John O'Laughlin
Will Smith caught 73 innings this World Series

That’s the most caught in a WS, surpassing:

71, Lou Criger 1903 (8 games)

Prior most in 7g WS: 
67, Muddy Ruel 1924

h/t @EliasSports
November 2, 2025 at 5:06 AM
Reposted by John O'Laughlin
Yoshinobu Yamamoto is the first pitcher in MLB history to win 3 games ON THE ROAD in a single World Series.
Yoshinobu Yamamoto is the first pitcher to win 3 games in a single World Series since Randy Johnson in 2001. Johnson won Game 2 and Game 6 as a starter and Game 7 as a reliever. Yamamoto did the same.
November 2, 2025 at 4:18 AM
Reposted by John O'Laughlin
"normies do not care about this thing and so it is no use raising a stink" is imho just an excuse for not doing politics, which is the job of making normies care about something
October 24, 2025 at 2:47 AM
Reposted by John O'Laughlin
it’s pretty incredible how prop 50 in California is literally polling ahead of Kamala’s performance right now. turns out there are almost no libs who support unilateral disarmament in the face of GOP trying to rig elections, and great to see Virginia joining the fight
VA Dems *confirm* they're moving forward with a plan to revisit the state's redistricting commission. It would require lawmakers to pass an amendment twice, which would then go before voters—in theory early enough next year to allow time for a remap before 2026.

From Reid Epstein at @nytimes.com
Virginia Democrats Plan to Redraw House Maps in Redistricting Push
www.nytimes.com
October 23, 2025 at 3:51 PM
Reposted by John O'Laughlin
The most impactful scene in the most popular movie made in 1996 was aliens blowing up the White House
do you think normies care about the East Wing being demolished?
October 23, 2025 at 9:44 PM
100 years from now people will all assume it was 9/11 that blew up the white house
October 23, 2025 at 12:32 AM
Reposted by John O'Laughlin
Fascinating platform story happening around the Graham Platner stuff. The number one source for almost all of the discourse about Platner on X right now is from an account that only had 70 followers at the start of the week, isn't a real Maine news outlet of any kind, and was created in August.
October 22, 2025 at 9:03 PM