Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

Let’s finish the job.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

T R E 4 5 O N

Spilling the end game before they can coat it in frankl luntz-approved dogwhistles.

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

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

Ah, the different things are different argument.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

“And when the Committee says to “report your income,” that could mean anything!

White supremacy is terrorism.

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

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Open Thread

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Blah.

Name five people you would like to go to dinner and party with, and your answer can not be five supermodels (female or male) who all for some strange and inexplicable reason want to sleep with you.

I don’t know my five yet.

*** Update ***

I am replacing my old 4 year old CyberPower PC (well, not replacing it, moving it to the second desk so Shawn can have a desktop) and am just going straight iMac. Got two 27″ monitors, 32 gigs of ram, top of the line graphics card, and am just going to run VMWare Fusion so I can still have access to Windows programs, so expect a shitload of frantic tech questions tomorrow. I’m to the point now that Ijust want shit to work, and Apple does that for me.

Reader Interactions

230Comments

  2. 2.

    Walker

    Since it is an Open Thread.

    Been playing Watch Dogs this evening. The hacking missions are awesome. Especially when I hack a camera phone and ride along in a guy’s pocket.

    But then there is all this vehicle mission bulls**t. If I wanted to play GTA, I would have bought GTA. Let me go back the hacking.

  3. 3.

    Morzer

    Are we limiting this to living people? Or can the dinner and party include resurrected dead people?

  6. 6.

    Citizen Alan

    Are we allowed to put strychnine in the coffee and arsenic in the desserts? Because if so, I can think of five SCOTUS justices I’d LOVE to have dinner with.

  7. 7.

    trollhattan

    Hmm, Robert Duvall, Nancy Pelosi, President Obama, Uma Thurman, McKinley Morganfield (Richard Thompson if they have to be alive).

  8. 8.

    Soonergrunt

    Ban Ki Moon
    Buzz Aldrin
    Jane Goodall
    Julia Gillard
    My wife

    Bonus-both of my kids along for the dinner.

  10. 10.

    rikyrah

    I am choosing dead people.
    Dr. Dorothy Height
    Dr. John Hope Franklin
    Dr.Benjamin Elijah Mays
    Whitney Young
    Henry O. Tanner
    Walter White (former head of the NAACP)

  12. 12.

    lamh36

    President Obama and Michelle (uh…duh), Sandra Bullock (cause she seems like fun and has been a great NOLA transplant), George Clooney (cause uh…duh), ummmm…Hugh Jackman (cuz he seems like a lot of fun)

  13. 13.

    Chad

    I just ordered a new MacBook for my work laptop for this 3 year hardware upgrade. Im tearing my hair out. Its like windows, kind of, except with none of the shortcuts that make shit work. Its like “Different, but not better”. And why does every software company just kind of half ass the same program that works well on Windows for the Mac?

    /sigh

    #firstworldproblems

  15. 15.

    JPL

    Many years ago I came up with a list of folks that I would like to have dinner with.
    The list back them was John Updike, William Buckley, and Anne Tyler. It’s a strange list but one that would lead to interesting discussions.
    Several years ago, when Bush was still President, I mentioned to a son that if I had a dinner party GW would not be allowed, but Laura could attend. He was pretty shocked that at my imaginary party, I would prevent a President from attending.
    Now I would invite the President and his wife, Malia and Sasha and maybe Bo.

  16. 16.

    jl

    Monte Python, it it’s just yuks at dinner.

    If there are after dinner activities, the five most beautiful women supermodels/actresses of my choice, who will for VERY understandable and COMPLETELY OBVIOUS explicable reasons want to sleep with me after they enjoy my charming debonair presence and conversation.

  18. 18.

    Soonergrunt

    Well, THIS is…interesting.
    My newest follower on Twitter:
    sutjihadi
    @sutjihadi
    Game theorist & gamer. Sufi revert. Anti-capitalist quant & Assangian. Charter anon & occupier. Fractalist. Gaming is the dark matter of the social metaverse

  20. 20.

    JPL

    @lamh36: It’s a power play. Kasam Reed will not campaign for Jason Carter for Governor even though they are both Democrats. I think Reed believes he has more leverage with Governor Deal. I hate politics.

  21. 21.

    The Dangerman

    Lee Harvey Oswald (since the Earhart mystery is basically solved)
    The Beatles

    I’ll have to take a 6th, namely, a Supermodel that just happens to be a huge Beatle fan

    ETA: I suppose the Supermodel can be #5 and I’ll sit in for Ringo.

  23. 23.

    Mnemosyne

    Stephanie Pearl-McPhee
    Neil de Grasse Tyson
    President Obama
    Abraham Lincoln
    Harry Houdini

    It’s an ever-changing list, but those are the ones that come to mind tonight.

    ETA: And my husband can act as butler if he asks nicely. ;-)

  24. 24.

    ulee

    This is my back up list.
    Emily Dickinson.
    Thomas Jefferson.
    Bob Dylan.
    Oscar Wilde.
    Vladamir the Impaler.

  26. 26.

    JPL

    The local NBC station in Atlanta has an amazing tribute to Maya Angelou. All the local stations have had extensive coverage but they had Andrew Young talking about his personal interactions with her. It’s nice.

  27. 27.

    lamh36

    @JPL: Since Cuomo is up for re-election right? I’m guessing by being willing with teh GOP side, he compensates if he is challenged from his left?

  28. 28.

    James E. Powell

    Why do so many people believe that supermodels make excellent (and therefore are the most desirable) sex partners? They photograph well.

  30. 30.

    Morzer

    @ulee:

    Have you considered subbing in Nero, DougJ, Pol Pot, Hannibal Lecter and Scott Walker? Just for the sake of diversity.

  31. 31.

    Ivan X

    John, I’m a Mac consultant. I’ve been enjoying Balloon Juice for years. If you run into trouble or have questions or whatever, hit me up and I’ll provide you with free support as a way of saying thanks.

    Also, too, I prefer Parallels Desktop to VMWare Fusion, but they’re both excellent. Also, glad to see you are getting the 27″ because you get a proper 7200 RPM drive, but buyer beware on the 21″ because if you don’t get the SSD, you’ll get stuck with a 5400 RPM drive (even in the so-called “fusion drive” config). But you can always add a fast drive via USB 3 or Thunderbolt later.

  33. 33.

    Francis

    Jimmy Carter
    Mahatma Gandhi
    Nelson Mandela
    George Washington
    the actual historical Jesus Christ

  34. 34.

    Omnes Omnibus

    Is this supposed to be people who I find interesting? Or am I trying to make an interesting conversational evening?

  35. 35.

    SatanicPanic

    You said party, right?
    Rihanna
    Lil Wayne
    Miley Cyrus
    That one English prince (not the bald one with with hot wife)
    Oscar Wilde
    Some fabulously rich stupid dude who wants to blow lots of money

    ETA- and I would say Kesha but she just got out of rehab

  36. 36.

    phantomist

    John Brown
    Abraham Lincoln
    Dorothy Parker
    Jackie Robinson
    Bill Murray

    And a lot of booze.

  37. 37.

    JPL

    @lamh36: I think Cuomo has higher aspirations. Kasem Reed is another story, because he’s popular in Atlanta. There is no reason for him not to campaign for a Democrat for Governor. He will campaign for Nunn though.

  39. 39.

    beth

    Thomas Jefferson
    John and Abigail Adams
    Sean Hannity
    Ted Cruz

    This lineup just to hear one of the founding fathers turn to Abigail and say “can you believe these assholes?”

  40. 40.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @JPL: Please include Sunny as well, even though the youngest ones always seem to get more attention (in the eyes of the older ones).

  41. 41.

    Soonergrunt

    @Morzer: MC used to email me quite a bit after she left here. She was witty, erudite, logical, polite, respectful of opposing views, and very articulate. We emailed back and forth for about a month.
    Then one day the emails just stopped.

  42. 42.

    RobertDSC-Power Mac G5 Dual

    President Obama and the First Lady.
    Duchess Catherine of Cambridge.
    Neil Armstrong.
    John W. Young.

  43. 43.

    scav

    Can I go fictional? I really want to add Sherlock Holmes into the mix.

    William Morris, Van Gogh, Dorothy Sayers, Oliver Sacks, and then it depends. Julia Child might be fun.

  44. 44.

    Concerned Citizen

    Hunter S. Thompson
    Fyodor Dostoevsky
    Phillip K Dick
    David Byrne
    Hugh Howey (I wanted a recent entry. Wool is bad ass.)

  47. 47.

    lamh36

    Man, I really wish BJ allowed gifs, cause I have one handy right now after reading this bit:

    Zeke Miller ‏@ZekeJMiller 39m
    Snowden: “People have unfairly demonized the NSA to a point that is too extreme”

  48. 48.

    beltane

    @Omnes Omnibus: There are many writers who are/were interesting but who probably wouldn’t provide much lighthearted banter at the dinner table. Seating Joe Strummer next to Andrew Sullivan, on the other hand, would have the potential to be entertaining.

  49. 49.

    gbear

    Well I’ve already been allowed to hold court with the five guys from Styx during their after-concert meal in Duluth MN, but that wasn’t much fun. I’m sure they were excited to have the guys from the second floor lounge band visiting them during their meal…

  50. 50.

    Lyrebird

    Jon Stewart
    Some single available male friend of Jon Stewart’s (does that break the rule? he doesn’t have to look like a model at all)
    Elizabeth Warren
    Michelle Obama
    Wendy Davis

    I dunno.

    I bet a dinner with J (McC) Cole and raven and so forth would be unforgettable, too.

  52. 52.

    Morzer

    @Soonergrunt:

    sutjihadi @sutjihadi · 12h
    Ppl that say are atheists are not strictly truthful
    They have inherited legacy judeoxianism along symbolic & behavioral paths of inheritance

    Apparently not everything is changed, changed utterly about Our Mutual Friend.

  53. 53.

    jl

    @lamh36: Tried to crash a BJer famous five dinner? People shouldn’t have invited Angelina without him, that shows no class.

  54. 54.

    billB

    Hey, you all are aiming low; Genghis Khan, Mao, Plato, Queen Hatshepsut, Cleopatra. Two chicks, two dudes and a neuter…. Great Party.

  56. 56.

    Omnes Omnibus

    Henry II of England, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Joe Strummer, Mme de Pompadour, and Richard Pryor.

  57. 57.

    lamh36

    @jl: Shoot, now I want to drop Clooney and add Brad Pitt, just so I can be like dude, WTF did you do?

    Seriously though, hope Mr Pitt is alright. That had to be scary for him and Jolie

  58. 58.

    beltane

    @lamh36: Let’s be grateful that the mentally ill man responsible wasn’t excercising his 2nd amendment rights in this instance.

  59. 59.

    scav

    @scav: Might sub in S. Colbert for van Gogh, the mix might be better and I’m not sure he’d enjoy it as much as I would. He might be better for an intimate pub lunch or afternoon at the Bistro.

  60. 60.

    BottyGuy

    Living:
    Barack Obama
    Louis C.K.
    Chris Rock
    Elizabeth Warren
    Charlie Pierce

    Dead:
    Dorothy Parker
    Mark Train
    Teddy Roosevelt
    Thomas Jefferson
    William Shakespeare

  61. 61.

    BGinCHI

    Fred Hiatt
    poison apple
    poison apple
    poison apple
    poison apple

    Main course: poison apple

  62. 62.

    jl

    @beltane: From the story it looks like a celebrity prankster tried for a gag and accidentally slammed Pitt in the face. Some guy putting the ‘ass’ into ‘assault;.

    Edit: I misread your comment. You familiar with who the assailant is? Is he a known nutcase who pulls pranks on celebs?

  63. 63.

    JPL

    Although it’s difficult to only find five people, who would you not want in your house?
    My list would include
    Cheney
    GW
    Steve Forbes.. (he’s just creepy)
    John Bolton ..(see above)
    Rush Limbaugh

    BTW It’s really, really, difficult to limit it to five.

  65. 65.

    beltane

    The only modern day Republican I would consider inviting to my dinner party is Arnold Schwarzenegger, but only if he was in the Conan the Barbarian stage of his career.

  66. 66.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @beltane:

    I never travel without my Balloon Juice feed. One should always have something sensational to read on a train.

  67. 67.

    Soonergrunt

    @lamh36: There’s a guy that Edward Snowden should meet. They should sit down, and hash their differences out about that. I think if only they met face to face, one could convince the other of his viewpoint.

    Someone should tell Glenn Greenwald about this Snowden fella.

  68. 68.

    The Pale Scot

    @Chad: Keyboard shortcuts for OSX

    You might find that using your thumb for the command key is easier than than reaching over for the control key in windows is. And most apps use the same keys. (At least in design and video, if its Quickbooks or Office, well……)

    Check out the system preferences panes and especially the keyboard prefs, you can make unique apps specific shortcuts and also the finder’s pref panel to customize the toolbar.

    My sister was a MSC Trainer, when 2012? came out she said fuck this bought a mac and became a flight attendant.

  69. 69.

    beltane

    @jl: I saw the assailant referred to as a “crazed man”. I guess he was just an obnoxious dumbass.

  70. 70.

    trollhattan

    My all-dead list: Churchill, Lincoln, Dorothy Parker, Ansel Adams, Jimi Hendrix.

  71. 71.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @efgoldman:

    Peter Schickele (I’ve actually had dinner with him.

    Yeah, but I bet you were never propositioned by Robert Merrill.

  78. 78.

    scav

    @Morzer: I want to know about how all the atheists in other cultures necessarily pick up the judeoxianism blahdiblah, plus why atheism is only truthful if it is completely untethered from all cultural norms of the surrounding culture? silly me, I thought the critical bit was not believing in a god / gods.

  80. 80.

    Fort Geek

    Abe Lincoln
    Franklin D. Roosevelt
    John F. Kennedy
    U.S. Grant

    …and George W. Bush, so that stupid bastard can explain himself to them.

  81. 81.

    gbear

    Rodney Crowell because his albums have been nothing but great stories for many years.
    Geoff Emerick to hear stories about Apple, The Beatles and Badfinger.
    Craig Finn from the Hold Steady to talk about our common hometown (that he used to namedrop constantly in his songs).
    Architect Fay Jones because his work is so beautiful.
    My friend Jim Hatch just to hear him laugh again.

  83. 83.

    Mnemosyne

    @lamh36:

    The news reports keep calling the guy a “prankster,” but when you’re sticking your face in people’s crotches (like he did to Bradley Cooper), that’s not a prank, that’s sexual assault. Ironically, this is one of those cases where if he’d stuck his head under a woman’s dress on the bus, he’d probably get more jail time than he did for doing it to America Ferrera.

  86. 86.

    Citizen_X

    What I really want is a small (<6 total) gathering where Rachel Maddow tends bar. Awesome mixology knowledge, and she'd be great conversation.

  87. 87.

    Emerald

    Shakespeare
    Abraham Lincoln
    Charles Dickens
    Obama
    Tim Curry

    And because this is fantasy, I’m having Carl Sagan in for the dessert course as well. And I demand Sam Clemens too.

    Congrats on the Mac. I’ve been a maccie for decades, and enjoy games with VMFusion (although GOG has been coming out with all kinds of older games they’re porting to Mac). Not to say that I haven’t had a few problems over the years, but mostly, the stuff just works.

  88. 88.

    KG

    Living: Emmy Rossum, Shakira, Yasiel Puig, Obama, and Freema Agyeman

    Dead: Thomas Jefferson, Wilde, Shakespeare, Bettie Page, and Agatha Christie

  89. 89.

    jonas

    Mine’s a Hollywood-centric affair:

    Chelsea Handler
    Julia Louis-Dreyfus
    George Clooney
    Stephen Colbert
    David Cross

  90. 90.

    Comrade Dread

    Living: Al Gore, Ian McKellen, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Louis CK, and Elizabeth Warren

    Dead: Kurt Vonnegut, James Madison, St. James, George Carlin, and Marie Curie

    Other: Jesus, mostly so I can could ask Him all the questions we’d all like to know the answers to, and get Him on video saying exactly what He thinks about the folks carrying on in His name.

  91. 91.

    Mike E

    What, no love for Ben Franklin?
    Stephen Colbert.
    Stephen Hawking.
    Stephen Jay Gould.
    My friend Marco whom I’ve known since 4th grade.

  92. 92.

    Morzer

    This is my C-list dinner party:

    Clooney, Colbert, Cumberbatch,Cyrus (Miley) and Crow (Sheryl)

  93. 93.

    Culture of Truth

    If we’re going fictional then I’m inviting Tyrion Lannister. and Gollum.

    Abraham Lincoln
    William Shakespeare
    Leonardo Da Vinci
    Martin Luther King
    Jesus

    Barack Obama
    Pope Francis
    Stephen Colbert
    Mikhail Gorbachev
    Jimmy Carter

  97. 97.

    Omnes Omnibus

    Another party would be: Rabelais, de Sade, Colette, Henry Miller, and Anais Nin. One would need to carefully consider the menu.

  98. 98.

    Culture of Truth

    I bet Ben Franklin, Oscar Wilde, Sam Clemens, Dorothy Parker, and Shakespeare would be great dinner guests. With artists like da Vinci, Michelangelo, Van Gogh, you take your chances on their conversation skills. In annother way, Obama is fascinating, but you know Biden and Bill Clinton are a lot of fun to hang out with.

  99. 99.

    jonas

    Ok, if I was in a more academic mood:

    Neil De Grasse Tyson
    Edward Witten
    Ira Flatow
    Walter Isaacson
    and our own Tom Levenson!

  100. 100.

    John Revolta

    Dead: Groucho, Thurber, Twain, Dorothy Parker, George S. Kaufman

    Living:

    …………………………….ummmmmmm, lemme get back to yez

  103. 103.

    NotMax

    Hm.

    Socrates
    Voltaire
    Peter the Great
    Lucretia Mott
    Nelson Mandela

    (And Escoffier as the caterer.)

    List subject to change daily, if not hourly.

  104. 104.

    Bob Munck

    @trollhattan: Duvall’s easy. Just get in the habit of eating at The Rail Stop or Girasole in The Plains, VA. Sooner or later he’ll wander in.

  105. 105.

    Comrade Dread

    @trollhattan: Well, I was assuming that whatever process we could use to resurrect her for an evening would take care of the radium poisoning, but if not, I could always swap her out for Nikola Tesla

  107. 107.

    beltane

    @Culture of Truth: Joe Biden would be terrific as a wedding guest. Bill Clinton is by all accounts an outstanding conversationalist, but he would need to be balanced out by someone who could occasionally step in and say “Bill, you’re full of shit.”

  110. 110.

    NotMax

    Loved, loved, loved Steve Allen’s Meeting of the Minds, which was based on a similar concept.

  112. 112.

    karen

    Jon Stewart
    John Oliver
    Stephen Colbert
    Bill Cosby
    Craig Ferguson

    I chose them because I figure those five topical comedians would have fun stories to tell and I love their humor.

  113. 113.

    joeyess

    Larry David, George Carlin, Ricky Gervais, Tim Minchin, and Sam Brownback.(just so he would be feel a twinge in his asshole)

  114. 114.

    jonas

    And holy shit sticks, did anyone catch this complete cowpat of a story in the NYT? Fucking villager reporting. Shorter: Koch brothers astroturf outfit promotes ridiculously craven anti-renewable energy policies in Ohio. Headline: Popular backlash against renewable energy!!!1!

    Just kill me.

  117. 117.

    NotMax

    @jonas

    Not just Ohio. They’ve been at the same thing in Kansas for quite some time. Extreme bills have been brought up repeatedly in the Kansas legislature which, so far, has not bitten the poisoned apple.

  120. 120.

    jonas

    I’m reminded of some of the classic, if campy, Dean Martin Celebrity Roasts — which were just epic:

    Don Rickles
    Dean Martin
    Bob Newhart
    Phyllis Diller
    Nipsey Russell

  122. 122.

    scav

    Stephan Fry would likely be a good choice to keep conversations going. So, if I limit myself to living actors, Oh fink, I am already so over five. Pat Stewart, Cumberbatch, Gatiss, and I really want Gregory Doran in there, so now I need a Shakespeare-heavy night. v. misc night. Still shuffling, but I think I’ll put Simon Callow/Roger Rees & Ian Mckellen in with the Shakespeareans, Michael Wood ditto for historical end, add Hugh Laurie and the leftover Simon Callow/Roger Rees guest to the misc night and then pout a bit that I still don’t have Roger Allam and Anton Lessor squeezed in for voices alone. I need a restaurant.

  128. 128.

    moderateindy

    so expect a shitload of frantic tech questions tomorrow. I’m to the point now that Ijust want shit to work, and Apple does that for me.

    Does nobody else see the glaringly obvious contradiction in those two sentences?

  131. 131.

    Suffern ACE

    I might invite the pilot of the missing Malaysian flight, and then give the exclusive interview to Glenn Greenwald, just to piss off Michael Kinsley.

  132. 132.

    Vixen Strangely

    David Brooks, Charles Pierce, Driftglass, Tengrain, my own spouse(moral support), and I would need a supply of liquor adequate to confront (enjoy) the resulting smashup.

  135. 135.

    NotMax

    To the commenter whose initials are O. O. – may just be me, but the same thing is happening with responses to your posts as happened to Yatsuno’s original nym, to wit, they just disappear into the phlogistan. Has been occurring for about three days now. FYWP.

    Curious if anyone else experiencing the same.

  140. 140.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @NotMax: Sorry, man. Were they complimentary comments or not? It matters to me, in that I need to decide whether or not to participate in the potential solution.

  142. 142.

    NotMax

    @O. O.

    Complimentary. And too often glib. :)

    Just tried a response with the single word “Testing” – it vanished.

    Anyhoo, the response to #127 was along the lines of the internet being in dire need of a rimshot symbol for some time now.

    Years back kept using this:

    \__/

    but none seemed to understand what it was meant to represent.

  144. 144.

    feebog

    Elmore Leonard
    Sir Francis Richard Burton
    James Madison
    Samuel Clemons
    Sammy Davis Jr.

  145. 145.

    Violet

    @NotMax: I had that happen a day or two ago. Wondered if it was a name thing. I made sure my comment contained no forbidden words and still FYWP disappeared it.

  148. 148.

    Violet

    @NotMax: Yep. Happened with Yutsy and he had to change his name. Now it seems to be happening with O O. Seems like FYWP is acting up.

  149. 149.

    hilts

    T.E. Lawrence
    George S. Patton
    Emma Goldman
    Martin Luther King
    Mary Wollstonecraft

  150. 150.

    am

    That new rig is a hoss. You could get pulled over with that much screen real estate and ram. I bet you’ll enjoy it…

  151. 151.

    scav

    @NotMax: My random disappearences weren’t OO related, in fact I don’t think they were replys at all. There have been a lot of complaints about FYWP being hungry recently. Spam filter might be involved, based on some of the comments I’ve heard and an error message I received. Although that’s not to say OO might not be caught up in it more centrally.

  152. 152.

    mike with a mic

    @John Cole

    You do realize that imacs one use a mobile GPU, which are vastly slower than desktop grade GPUs, and two suffer the apple curse of always being a generation or so. The fastest GPU option in an imac is a 780m chip, it’s a neutered GF104 product and slightly between the old 670gtx and 680gtx desktops, it doesn’t even compare to the desktop GTX 780ti/Titan Black (which is the current fastest nvidia graphics card). Even more hilariously, the mobile 800 series parts have been out for a bit now, so not only do you have a crippled mobile graphics card, you’re a generation behind as well.

    apple does some things well provided you live their ecosystem and don’t fall into the power user area, but they don’t do top of the line, and they are utterly pathetic when it comes to high end parts. Either lacking high end completely, showing up a generation or two behind the party, or in the case of their current imacs managing to do both at the same time.

    And that’s not even a “build your own and overclock it dude” type issue, it’s a “you’re using a last generation mobile graphics part, there is nothing high end or top of the line about this unless you were high when you wrote it and topped it off with another line of blow”.

  153. 153.

    NotMax

    @scav

    As I recall the earlier happenstance, it was not a universal thing which zapped all trying to reply while incorporating the nym as a link.

    But it was consistent in whom it did affect, and affected increasingly more people as time went on.

  154. 154.

    ulee

    And white privilege. Yes, it exists. But I’ll tell you, if you grow up in the Northeast in high school, you are going to get your ass kicked, or fight back, everyday of your life. I’m getting tired off all this bullshit self pity.

  155. 155.

    ruemara

    5… people? Hmm, I already had nice time meeting up with BJers. We could do that again. I did want dinner with Kathe Kollewitz, Marguerite Duras, Bruce Lee, Heisenberg & Seneca. But more of a short tea time. Who knows if I’d really like their company or they mine?

    @ulee: Calling out white privilege isn’t self pity. Is this blog set to “douche” lately?

  159. 159.

    ulee

    Have you been to these neighborhoods? Do you have any idea on how bad the situation is?

  160. 160.

    Groucho48

    Koch Brothers
    Adelson
    Roger Ailes
    Hannibal Lecter

    I’d leave for a beer run, early on, but provide a couple bottles of chilled Chianti to tide them over

  161. 161.

    srv

    John, you do know 4K monitors are a thing now? $700. But you need the right box to drive those monitors.

    Imagine what Steve looks like in 4K.

    My five:
    George Clinton (what the fuck is wrong with you people wanting Bill?)
    Natalie Portman (she’s not a supermodel, she’s superwoman!)
    Wes Craven
    Elon Musk
    Krugman

    Neil dG Tyson loses out because I had him in college.

  162. 162.

    divF

    According to Emily Post, six is too small for a dinner party – ten is a better number. I name eight for each list, since Madame and I will make 10. So two categories:

    (1) Public figures:
    Nancy Pelosi, Steve Martin, Jerry Brown, Linda Ronstadt, Ian McKellen, Emma Thompson, Tony LaRussa, Meryl Streep.

    (2) Balloon Juicers (FPer’s and otherwise):
    John Cole, Tom Levenson, Soonergrunt, Anne Laurie, Hungry Joe, raven, aimai, Yutsano, c u n d gulag, … oh, to hell with it, you’re all invited, and I’ll press-gang Cole and anyone who shows an interest into helping me with the cooking (I have a big kitchen)

  165. 165.

    Jordan Rules

    Next thread needs to be what’s on the menu at these fascinating dinner parties.

  166. 166.

    Mnemosyne

    @ulee:

    You do realize that trying to tell black commenters that you understand black people better than they do is what makes them call you a douchebag, right?

  169. 169.

    ulee

    You ever walked down a street in the hood, niggah? This is how the it’s talked. Don’t be so shocked.

  170. 170.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Jesus
    Adam Smith
    Benjamin Franklin
    Mary Shelley
    Heinz Guderian (or Erich von Manstein)

    If they have to be alive:

    President and Mrs. Obama
    George Lucas (WTF were you thinking with Jar-Jar, idiot?)
    Paul McCartney (WTF were you thinking when you married that model, idiot?)
    Patrick Stewart

  171. 171.

    JustRuss

    @Ivan X:

    but buyer beware on the 21″ because if you don’t get the SSD, you’ll get stuck with a 5400 RPM

    Damned if you’re not right. I’m going to be buying few dozen of these this summer, and slow hard drives make my life harder. Thanks for cheaping out, Apple!

  172. 172.

    mike in dc

    Jimi Hendrix
    Bruce Lee
    Albert Einstein
    Richard Pryor
    William Faulkner

    Living:
    Louis CK
    Juan Cole
    Elon James White
    Aisha Tyler
    Elizabeth Warren

  173. 173.

    Jordan Rules

    I really wish I knew howw to sew like my grandmother. I’m enthralled with the women’s wardrobes in Poirot. Really, all the Art Deco stuff is so on point. But ooh wee I really want some of those clothes. They are cinched and snatched! Fab!

  175. 175.

    ulee

    Anyway, my whitebread ass is off to bed. I need to work tomorrow. Good thoughts for all of you.

  176. 176.

    mai naem

    Five’s too few for a nice dinner party. You need a few more. Richard Feynman, FDR, LBJ, Leonardo Da Vinci, Einstein, Eleanor Roosevelt, Julia Child, George Carlin, Gregory Peck, Stephen Colbert, Alexander Fleming,Charles Dickens, Buddy Holly and Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

    There’s a million others though – Molly Ivins, Ann Richards, Christopher Columbus, Vasco Da Gama, Francis Drake, Elvis Presley, John Lennon, Mohammed, Malcolm X, Gregor Mendel, Harriet Tubman,Jimmy Stewart, Roald Dahl, Truman Capote, Scott Fitzgerald, Rasputin,Paul Robeson, Fidel Castro, Buddha, Mary Magdalene, Teddy Roosevelt, Lewis and Clark, Geronimo, Robin Hood, Alan Turing, Robert Oppenheimer

  178. 178.

    patrick II

    Bill Moyers
    Neil deGrasse Tyson
    Paul Krugman
    Steven Colbert
    Elizabeth Warren
    Barack Obama

    I know that is six, but I couldn’t decide who to kick out.

  179. 179.

    Amir Khalid

    Five people is rather too crowded a table for me, most evenings. But okay, I’ll play:
    Hang Jebat
    Puteri Gunung Ledang (The Princess of Mount Ophir, to you Westerners) — now there’s a woman who knows what she’s worth!
    Anne Hathaway
    Juan Cole
    Grumpy Cat
    Captain America

  180. 180.

    Amir Khalid

    Some sports news — Malcolm Glazer, famous about a decade ago for putting Manchester United FC on the hook for the billion or so dollars he borrowed to buy them up, has died at the age of 85. Without ever setting foot in Old Trafford.

  181. 181.

    Summer

    Bede
    Shakespeare
    Cabeza de Vaca
    Jon Krakauer
    Isabella Bird

    We will be giddy and no doubt go out dancing after coffee. Maybe Tim Robbins, Stephen Colbert, Son House, Paul Robeson, and Hallie Flanagan will join us.

  183. 183.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @rikyrah: That’s funny, I was gonna choose all dead people too, only it doesn’t matter which ones, their dead. Which is fine by me ’cause their quiet and I want to eat my dinner in peace.

  185. 185.

    schrodinger's cat

    Emmy Noether
    Richard Feynman
    John LeCarre
    Benedict Cumberbatch
    Indira Gandhi ( I find her fascinating, she was India’s Richard Nixon)

    I had a fun dinner IRL just couple of days ago. I had dinner at the Cricket Club of India’s bar overlooking the Brabourne Stadium. The Mumbai team was practicing at the nets and one of my dinner companions was a former test cricketer (someone who represents India in the 5 day matches against other cricketing nations). Really cool. AFAIK, CCI is the oldest cricket club in India. Walking through their main dining hall was like being transported to another era.

  189. 189.

    ? Martin

    Living people, in no particular order

    Mike Rowe
    Jennifer Lawrence
    Stephen Colbert
    Ta-Nehisi Coates
    Elizabeth Warren

    BTW, never buy new Apple hardware 5 days before WWDC. If nothing is announced by Tuesday of next week, pull the trigger.

  191. 191.

    Baud

    your answer can not be five supermodels (female or male) who all for some strange and inexplicable reason want to sleep with you.

    Then I got nothing.

  194. 194.

    NotMax

    @OzarkHillbilly

    If this is the same glitch which happened previously, it is slightly different, in that sends only the replies to one specific individual into never-never land. Not for everyone, but consistently for just some of us.

  195. 195.

    low-tech cyclist

    Sticking with the living, a politics-themed list:

    Michelle Obama
    Hillary Clinton
    Elizabeth Warren
    Nancy Pelosi
    Kirsten Gillibrand

  196. 196.

    NotMax

    Another list, for no reason other than marking time.

    Jonathan Swift
    Theodore Dreiser
    Srinivasa Ramanujan
    Josephine Baker
    H. L. Mencken

  197. 197.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @NotMax: I do not recall if my comments were general or specific replies, I only noticed my rising irritation. I will pay more attention in the future.

    For the record, I am the most computer illiterate person here. I only mentioned my previous problems because it has been going on for months (in a very hit and miss way) and thought that info might be useful to those more knowledgeable than I.

  199. 199.

    Alex S.

    David Bowie
    Emperor Frederick II of the Holy Roman Empire
    Warren Buffet
    Katharine Hepburn
    Gautama Buddha

    I’m not sure that this would yield an interesting conversation though…

    I also like the Bill Murray suggestion…

    Also, I’m afraid that VA Secretary Shinseki will have to go.

  200. 200.

    SRW1

    @Amir Khalid:

    I am not a ManU fan, but apparently Glazer’s spawn stink up OT quite enough. Presumably when they pick up their checks for the precious ‘advicing’ they do as non-executive directors on the ManU board. These guys (&girls) really know how to milk a company for all it is worth.

  202. 202.

    Keith G

    I want folks who can answer important questions about history that I have:

    Sun Tzu
    Jesus of Nazareth.
    Mohammed
    Augustine of Canterbury (d. CE 604)

    The fifth spot may have to be settled by rolling dice (with apologies to Jesus) to decide between Paul of Tarsus, James Madison, and Abe Lincoln

  203. 203.

    Bobby Thomson

    @lamh36: Cuomo is the primary reason I’ve learned to stop worrying and accept a Clinton candidacy.

  205. 205.

    Morzer

    @lamh36:

    Anything that involves Cuomo getting a good, hard kicking and being exposed as the greedy little legacy brat he is sounds excellent to me.

  206. 206.

    low-tech cyclist

    Theme for this list of dead guys:
    Buddha was he where it’s at, is he where you are,
    could Mahomet move a mountain, or was that just PR?
    – Murray Head as Judas in Jesus Christ Superstar

    Jesus of Nazareth
    Siddhartha Gautama, aka Buddha
    Muhammed
    Saul/Paul of Tarsus
    Isaiah of Babylon (the guy who wrote chs. 40-55 of Isaiah)

  207. 207.

    Digital Amish

    Frank Zappa
    Arthur C. Clarke
    Katherine Hepburn
    da Vinci
    Eleanor Roosevelt

    alternative (pot luck):
    Rush Limbaugh
    Sean Hannity
    Michelle Malkin
    Mark Levin
    Hannibal Lector

  208. 208.

    jayackroyd

    Jared Diamond
    Neal Stephenson
    Russell Munroe
    Noam Chomsky
    Stephen Colbert

  209. 209.

    jayackroyd

    Public policy people

    Larry Summers
    Elizabeth Warren
    Rahm
    RJ Eskow
    David Dayen

    Surveillance State

    Edward Snowden
    Marcy Wheeler
    George HW Bush
    Robert Gates
    David Brin

    Deep State

    Bill Clinton
    Dick Cheney
    Noam Chomsky
    James Bamford
    Joe Wilson

  211. 211.

    hartly

    Limited to living people/creatures:

    The Philly Phanatic
    Terrance Dicks
    Christopher H Bidmead
    Eric Saward
    Phillip Hinchcliffe

  216. 216.

    lethargytartare

    ” I’m to the point now that Ijust want shit to work, and Apple does that for me. ”

    “so expect a shitload of frantic tech questions tomorrow.”

    lol

  218. 218.

    Mike E

    @hartly: Heh, Dave Raymond was the original Phanatic and would tell some good tales about breaking in that character… I’d have him join my dinner party just to do impressions of Tommy Lasorda!

  219. 219.

    MCA1

    I’m keeping in mind that it’s a dinner party here, so I drop all the weighty historical figures whose brain you’d love to pick for a couple hours from the list. Instead, I go with “I think hanging out with this person in a group would be delightful and I could just sit back and be entertained by the conversation.” MLK, Jesus, Beethoven, Lincoln, all those folks are more like “Name the five people you’d most like to have coffee with one-on-one.”

    That narrows it down, but it’s still an unwieldy number. Eventually cut from the list: Jim Jarmusch, Robert Downey, Jr., Tilda Swinton, George Clooney, David Sedaris, Garrison Keillor, Faulkner, Churchill, Gene Wilder, Ernest Shackleton, Ed Norton, Stephen Colbert, Steve Martin, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Mick Jagger, Louis CK, Ben Franklin, Hemingway, Woody Guthrie, Teddy Roosevelt, Jack Nicholson, Jim Henson, George Carlin, John Cleese, Jack Lemmon, Jeff Bridges, Bill Murray.

    I’m left with this, today at least: Mark Twain, Conan O’Brien, Mel Brooks, Bob Marley, and Mario Batali to cook and bring some choice Brunello. After dinner, we meet Jennifer Lawrence, Charlize Theron and Audrey Hepburn for drinks, and Mozart, Prince, and Ellen Degeneres crash the party.

  220. 220.

    Rex Everything

    Glenn Greenwald
    Edward Snowden
    Ralph Nader
    Jane Hamsher
    Freddie DeBoer

  223. 223.

    SFAW

    It would have to be multiple dinners for me

    Kelly Johnson
    Meine Grosseltern
    Kubrick and Kurosawa
    Samuel Clemens
    Ludwig van

    Harry Parker
    Abraham Lincoln
    Paul Robeson
    Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton (thanks for the reminder, feebog!)
    Sun Tzu or Clausewitz

    … for starters

  224. 224.

    Suzan

    The founding fathers (Paine, Franklin, Adams, Jefferson, as many as allowed) plus Jesus and Sarah Palin.

    I’d sell the video.

  226. 226.

    mclaren

    Sappho.

    Heraclitus.

    Lao tzu.

    William Shakespeare.

    Ibn Al-Haytham.

    (Assuming some magical device could let me speak their lingo.)

  227. 227.

    Douglas Wayne Wieboldt

    If not necessarily alive: Brahms, Verdi, Marquez, Plath & Monet.
    If alive: Arvo Part, Andras Schiff, Doris Lessing, Terry Goodkind & Michelle Obama

  228. 228.

    Douglas Wayne Wieboldt

    If not necessarily alive: Brahms, Verdi, Marquez, Plath & Monet.
    If alive: Arvo Part, Andras Schiff, Doris Lessing, Terry Goodkind & Michelle Obama

  229. 229.

    Douglas Wayne Wieboldt

    If not necessarily alive: Brahms, Verdi, Marquez, Plath & Monet.
    If alive: Arvo Part, Andras Schiff, Doris Lessing, Terry Goodkind & Michelle Obama

  230. 230.

    Douglas Wayne Wieboldt

    If not necessarily alive: Brahms, Verdi, Marquez, Plath & Monet.
    If alive: Arvo Part, Andras Schiff, Doris Lessing, Terry Goodkind & Michelle Obama

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