Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

You can’t love your country only when you win.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

We are aware of all internet traditions.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

The willow is too close to the house.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

This really is a full service blog.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires

Today’s GOP: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

Meanwhile over at truth Social, the former president is busy confessing to crimes.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

You are here: Home / Balloon Juice / Meetups and social events / Friday Afternoon Open Thread: Proof of Life

Friday Afternoon Open Thread: Proof of Life

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boston meetup 17 jul 13

Picture from our first (of many, I hope) Boston-area meetup this Wednesday, at the Watch City Brewing Co, before most of us moved on to Lizzy’s Ice Cream. Photo courtesy of commentor The Conster (in the green & white shirt). I’m towards the back on the left-hand side, in the hat, and the Spousal Unit is right behind me. Not shown: EFGoldman & his lovely wife (who were sitting too close to the picture-taker). Click to embiggen; anybody else wants to identify themselves, please do so in the comments…

Community gatherings or otherwise, what’s on the agenda for the weekend?

Reader Interactions

52Comments

  1. 1.

    aimai

    My apologies that I didn’t make it. I’ve been wanting to meet you all, and especially Annie Laurie, for years–since I started noticing her nym at Sadly, No!. I’ve wrenched my back and I just couldn’t make it. I hope to be at the next one.

  6. 6.

    Betty Cracker

    The green balloons were a nice touch! You all look like lovely people, aside from the glowing DEVIL EYES! Aaiiieee!

  7. 7.

    Southern Beale

    There probably aren’t enough of us in Nashville to have a meet-up but we should ….

    In other news, for the Twitterati among us, there’s a hilarious #FoxBuzzFeed hashtag going on, mocking the Fox News freak-out over Obama’s comments regarding Trayvon Martin.

  8. 8.

    ruemara

    goodness, there are a lot of balloon juicers out there. was there any more movement on a Sacto meetup?

  9. 9.

    Citizen_X

    Is that PsiFighter way in the back left at THIS one, too? WTF, dude? Are you working in the fly-all-over-the-country-and-drink sector?

  11. 11.

    Hungry Joe

    Re Mitch Daniels’ trying to save Indiana schoolchildren from Howard Zinn (earlier thread): The story noted that “David Shane, top fundraiser and state school board member, replied [to Daniels] seven minutes later with a strategy directing Bennett and Indiana Commissioner for Higher Education Teresa Lubbers to review university courses across the state.”

    I lived in southern Indiana till I was 10, and on our block was a most unpleasant kid named David Shane. Two minutes on Google confirmed it: Same guy. The child is father to the jerk.

  13. 13.

    NotMax

    Looks as if the bald gentleman seated at the little table under the TV is chatting up Justin Bieber. :)

  14. 14.

    Suffern ACE

    This weekend, I’ve got tickets to Monkey at Loncoln Center tonight, tickets to Kaiju Wrestling tomorrow night, and we’re off to a demolition derby on Sunday. I think sometime last week I turned 13.

  17. 17.

    ranchandsyrup

    Nice pic! Glad you all had fun.

    With Comic-con, Over the Line and 1st weekend of Del Mar racetrack going on as well as having half of Arizona here, I’m going to stay as close to home as possible.

  21. 21.

    Mandalay

    Worth noting that the greatest nation the world has ever seen just exempted one of its own criminals from from being extradited….

    An ex-CIA station chief held in Panama after being convicted in Italy over the kidnap of a terror suspect is ‘”en route” to the US, officials say.

    Former Milan station chief Robert Lady had been released and had boarded a US-bound flight, said American officials.

    Lady was sentenced to nine years in jail for his involvement in the 2003 abduction of the man – an Egyptian cleric – in Milan.

    Normal rules don’t apply to us. We are so darn special.

  22. 22.

    gogol's wife

    Everybody always looks just like the people I hang out with in real life. I thought Conster was a guy!

  23. 23.

    lamh36

    The usual suspects are shouting “what took so long” for President Obama to speak on verdict (btw, it’s only been 5 days people!!!). I’m betting POTUS like all of us felt the same: the first day, we were numb, by day 2 we had a simmering anger, day 3-4, juror pissed us off….Day 4-5 Trayvon’s parents spoke about their feelings. Day 5 we could talk w/o getting angry.

    As for the President’s remarks, I just watched the complete statement by POTUS. It was heartfelt, personal, and without accusation and NOT divisive AT ALL. The usual racist will do what they gonna do, but that ain’t on us or POTUS.

  24. 24.

    Amir Khalid

    In other news, Manchester City FC goalkeeping legend and former WWII POW Bernhard “Bert” Trautmann has passed away at 89. Trautmann played the last 17 minutes of the 1956 FA Cup final with, it was later discovered, a broken neck; City won 3-1.

  25. 25.

    IowaOldLady

    So what’s it like to talk to BJers in real life? Do you talk politics and cats? Do you awkwardly ask about people’s off-line life? It must be odd not to have someone setting a thread topic.

  26. 26.

    MissMimi

    What a lovely group of people! I’m also in the Boston area so maybe next time there’s a meet-up I’ll be able to make it. Also, maybe by then you all will know who the hell I am. ;-)

  27. 27.

    NotMax

    Detroit ping-pong.

    An Ingham County judge says Thursday’s historic Detroit bankruptcy filing violates the Michigan Constitution and state law and must be withdrawn.

    But Attorney General Bill Schuette said he will appeal Circuit Judge Rosemarie Aquilina’s Friday rulings and seek emergency consideration by the Michigan Court of Appeals. He wants her orders stayed pending the appeals, he said in a news release.

    In a spate of orders today arising from three separate lawsuits, Aquilina said Gov. Rick Snyder and Detroit emergency manager Kevyn Orr must take no further actions that threaten to diminish the pension benefits of City of Detroit retirees. Source

  29. 29.

    the Conster

    @IowaOldLady:

    It was great fun – There aren’t a lot of social situations where someone can mention two wetsuits and a dildo, and everyone knows exactly what you mean, and laughs. Also, stories about crazy wingnut relatives and friends were shared, with unanimous rolling of eyes. These are my people!

  32. 32.

    KS in MA

    You all look great! Sorry I couldn’t make it this time (from way out in western MA), but I’m hoping for next time!

    And I hope aimai feels better soon.

  33. 33.

    Xenos

    Feeling sad to miss good times in the Bay State. A hearty cheers and a salute to you all. I would try to put together an expat meetup, but with one guy in France, one in Germany, two in Japan and one in Indonesia, it will be hard to get a quorum.

    Enjoy some nice hoppy bevs for the rest of us!

  34. 34.

    burnspbesq

    @Mandalay:

    Dude, before you go blaming the United States (which is your default position with respect to anything that ever goes wrong anywhere in the world), you might to send a polite “wassup, y’all” to the Panamanian Ministry of Justice. The guy was in their custody, not ours. It’s entirely possible that there were good reasons, under Panamanian law or the Italy-Panama extradition treaty, why he couldn’t be extradited, but I’m willing to bet that you’ve done no research at all, because that’s how you roll.

  35. 35.

    ruemara

    stupid wordpress ated my comment. I’ll try again. If you create a position that fits one set of criteria you already have on your employee roster, but despite the skillset, you claim it fits another level of position that allows you to pay less and offer less benefits, is that legal, skating the edge of legal or waltzing off into illegal with a full band? Like say you create web designer 1 position, already have a web designer 2, but claim that web designer 1 is synonymous with clerical aide 1, so you can pay clerical aide salary, while having the same skill requirements as web 2 but sans management skills.

  36. 36.

    FlyingToaster

    I’ll join in on the apologies that I couldn’t make it (I’ll plead a screamy 5-year-old); it looks like an excellent time.

  38. 38.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @burnspbesq: Per Rachel Maddow on her show last night re this topic, there is not an extradition treaty between Panama and Italy.

  39. 39.

    Lahke

    I’m the half-headed person in pink on the right. It was a great time and we should do it often.
    Quick topic change:
    Just shook John Sayles’ hand! (Hero worship). He’s here with Chris Cooper talking about their latest movie Amigo.

  40. 40.

    ruemara

    @efgoldman: like you already have technical class 1, but you don’t want to pay for that level of salary, so you make a job with all the education and skill needs for that class, then you say it’s actually this lesser skilled, less education required category with attendant lesser pay. I think it’s legal, because, I dunno, it seems like pay schedules are pretty arbitrary anyway, but others are telling me it’s not, because you can’t say level 2 of that position is not just management class but a highly skilled management class, then say level one has the same requirements but no management duties, but counts in a lesser skilled class of worker.

  41. 41.

    maurinsky

    Small world – one of the ladies from my May Moms group (we were all due in May of 97) is in that picture!

  42. 42.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    I’m always a little ashamed of my raunchy self when I see the upstanding folks at a meetup.

  43. 43.

    Another Halocene Human

    Watch City! Shit, I haven’t been there in nigh on 15 years. Wow!

  45. 45.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Southern Beale: Now that I’m retired, I could get to Nashville with a few days’ notice. I enjoy the drive from Atlanta, and I have friends at Vandy I could stay with overnight. If you put something together, please let me know!

  46. 46.

    S. Holland

    Great pic!! Sooo nice to put faces with names here!! So happy for all these meetups…anyone up for a CT meetup?

  49. 49.

    DaveinME

    Anyone in and around the southern Maine area care to do a similar meetup? I live just outside Portland and there are tons of cool places for such a gathering.

    I don’t post much for comments, but have been a BJ reader for a long time.

    Here is one example of my public contribution to political discourse….

    Let me know if any are interested, otherwise I will simply have to haul ass down to Beantown for the next meet up! Looks like you all had an awesome time!!!

  51. 51.

    lojasmo

    @Citizen_X:

    Is that PsiFighter way in the back left at THIS one, too? WTF, dude? Are you working in the fly-all-over-the-country-and-drink sector?

    Evidently, there is alcohol on the east coast.

    Lojasmo +5

  52. 52.

    lojasmo

    MSP meetup in August? I suggest Sawatdee on Washington, Sawatdee on Robert, or Bulldog in Lowertown.

    Or Hell’s Kitchen in Minneapolis. Yum.

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