First Lady Jill Biden marked her 70th birthday with a quiet bike ride down Gordon's Pond Trail, which was not closed to the public according to Secret Service, so onlookers who passed the Bidens by wished her well. https://t.co/A2Br5Q5wbK pic.twitter.com/vvcaykRsJh
— ABC News (@ABC) June 3, 2021
Because we need some lighter news.
Thank you, HumboldtBlue:
‘Beyond falling virus numbers? Beyond getting a pandemic under control?’ — Jen Psaki after a reporter questioned Pres. Biden's record 'beyond falling virus numbers' pic.twitter.com/cOGnK6i88i
— NowThis (@nowthisnews) June 4, 2021
Because of our vaccination program and our economic response — America is headed into a summer dramatically different from last year’s.
A summer of freedom.
A summer of joy.
A summer of get-togethers and celebrations.— President Biden (@POTUS) June 3, 2021
Biden wants to extend pre-school to 3-4 years old and two years of free community college. Those would be the extra 4 years. https://t.co/5BM2Eu0ef7
— Marquise. (@MarquiseDavon) June 2, 2021
stating something that is empirically true is literally the opposite of trumpian. be good at your job. be not bad at your job. https://t.co/E0WSFsf1Q3
— World Famous Art Thief (@CalmSporting) June 4, 2021
zhena gogolia
I love your posts!
Spanky
I hope that “free community college” also means “free technical school”, because a lot of people are more suited to skilled handiwork than the white collar kind.
Old School
TGIF!
HumboldtBlue
@Spanky:
It will up here because College of the Redwoods expanded its vo-tech classes 8-10 years ago to fill that niche of skilled labor. Those classes are as much a part of the school as English and math.
Ken
Tonight for the first time in 15 months, I’m getting together with friends to play board games. There’s a Biden accomplishment.
(I don’t think I’ll have a panic attack and run screaming from the room.)
HumboldtBlue
@Ken:
I hung out with my friends on Sunday, barbecued, watched NBA playoffs and had a great time unmasked in front of people for the first time in 18 months.
I gotta say, the resilience of the kids (2nd and 3rd graders) is pretty impressive.
Mary G
Happy tears:
Omnes Omnibus
@Ken: Just wait until someone sinks your battleship.
Brachiator
I needed a good laugh and God knows you cannot take this question seriously.
Elsewhere, this is a two year old story about an unexpected unemployment problem, but it popped up for me recently, and I enjoyed the whimsy.
I later saw follow-up stories about teaching old dogs new tricks, but there are reliability issues. And some of the poor little critters get flustered during trials under cross-examination.
guachi
C’mon, Joe! You’re wife is dropping you. Lay down those watts!
I’m a cyclist, so forgive me for staring at the bikes but… those look like entry-level bikes. Like they rented them for the ride, or something.
She’s riding a Trek. Probably a Trek FX1 but I can’t tell the brand that Joe is riding.
Another Scott
@Mary G: Kinda looks like a “her” to me??
Good, good.
Cheers,
Scott.
mrmoshpotato
@Ken:
One game of Monopoly takes 15 months. Get comfy!
zhena gogolia
@guachi:
There was at least one time during the campaign when they were biking. I think the reporter shouted out who was going to be the VP candidate, and Biden said, “You!” Something like that.
Maybe they rented them, but this isn’t their first time biking.
Baud
But no summer of love?
Brachiator
@Spanky:
I think that trade schools are often part of the community college system. This is certainly the case in California, with schools like Los Angeles Trade Technical College.
Bridgier
@guachi: definitely need to get something a little rowdier. POTUS/FLOTUS on an Evil Chamois Hagar would be a sight to see….
mrmoshpotato
@guachi:
Ahoy there, BikeSnobNYC!
Brachiator
@Baud:
That was the 60s, dude!
And just in time for summer concerts:
Ken
BikeGate! This will be the only thing the WH press corps asks about for the next month.
Fair Economist
@mrmoshpotato:
Don’t be ridiculous. A game of Monopoly doesn’t take 15 months.
It just FEELS like 15 months.
Ken
Clearly you don’t play by my cousin’s family rules, which not only put the tax money under Free Parking, but everything paid for properties including houses and hotels. Fifteen minutes into the game there’s a huge stack of bills and they’re basically waiting to see who hits it first, because they’ll win the game.
Old School
@Baud:
No, this year will be the slutty summer of casual sex.
Although Mrs. School has expressed her doubts about that.
Anne Laurie
@Mary G: To my eyes, that is an about-to-stop-nursing bitch.
She just wanted to get away from the kids, whatever it took, poor girl!
Ken
Board games, haircuts, casual sex… there’s all sorts of pent-up demand finally being released.
Barney
“Apart from the virus recovery, the economy, the world respect, what has Joe Biden ever done for us?”
Ohio Mom
Zhena:
I think that was the goofball Doocy from Fox asking who would be VP.
Biden seems to enjoy teasing Doocy (he deserves every bit of it, needless to say).
On another note, free preschool for all will allow schools to start identifying and helping kids with learning differences and developmental delays during critical brain growth years.
You can really influence a kid’s developmental trajectory during the preschool years. Universal preschool will have lasting effects, it’s an important idea and a worthy goal.
Ken
@Barney: Are we doing the Life of Brian skit?
?BillinGlendaleCA
On a FB photography site I won Picture of the Day for my Milky Way and Live Oak that I shared with you all on Wednesday’s OTR. Other than that life is a shit sandwich sans bread.
trollhattan
@Spanky:
Betting it’s common among community college districts to have a robust technical and vocational tracks. The one nearest us has aviation tech and cosmetology, for example. You essentially exit the program into paying jobs (presuming you pass the boards on cosmetology).
James E Powell
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
You’re awesome!
And the more bread you have, the less shit you have to eat.
Jeffro
We’ll be up there in a week, Uncle Joe – come back, stop by, I’ll buy the ice cream! ;)
?BillinGlendaleCA
@James E Powell: Yeah, ain’t got no bread though.
Actually, I got one other compliment on my work. I met another photographer when I was shooting at Leo Carrillo a bit over a year ago. Turns out he’s pretty well known and has been featured on APOD(NASA’s Astronomy Pic of the Day) 6 times. The pic he was taking that night was the Milky Way out of a sea cave. He posted a pic of the zodiacal light* from Death Valley recently on IG, I gave it a like and added a comment that I’d shot it at Leo Carrillo, he wanted to see it(only my patrons had seen it so far), so I put it up and shared the link. He thought it was an amazing photo
*Zodiacal light is a portion of the sky that lights up after the sun has set, it’s caused by the recently set Sun reflecting off dust particles near the inner planets. It usually only occurs near the Spring and Fall equinox in the higher northern and southern latitudes, but occurs all year long near the equator.
Roger Moore
@Ken:
If you use the published rules and play well, the game doesn’t take too long. There’s a slow beginning part while everyone buys up properties, a flurry of trades, and then a while of everyone going around hoping to avoid the other players’ monopolies. Eventually, someone gets bankrupted, and then it’s pretty much over. The game only takes a long time if people never trade to get monopolies.
Monopoly is actually quite well designed in terms of the flow of money in the game. When there are no monopolies, the combination of the cards and money from passing Go is enough that people gradually build up cash reserves. Once they start building houses and hotels, the combination of finance for mortgages, loss of money reselling houses and hotels, and the cost of the “assessed for street repairs/make general repairs on all your properties” cards combine to pull money out of the game, so it will eventually end. Doing things like giving people money for landing on Free Parking actually makes the game drag on by putting money back in.
Jeffro
@Old School: there was a very funny picture from some dorm hall at my undergrad institution last week
It was a poster-sized “Hot Girl Summer Points List”. You get 10 points for making out with a stranger, 20 points for making out with 2 in a night, 50 points for um er having relations with a stranger, etc. It went up to 500 points for things I’m not gonna even put in italics.
You deducted points for a UTI, or for getting a boyfriend (the horror!) =)
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Jeffro:
Yeah, it’s too early for Balloon Juice After Dark. Maybe wait a bit.
Wapiti
@Ken: We played Bananagram’s at my sister’s on Sunday, 5 players total. We had played over zoom maybe 4 times, but it was a lot of fun to play together at last.
Gin & Tonic
For those who haven’t been following, Roman Protasevich, the Belarusian blogger/journalist/dissident who was arrested off the Ryanair Athens-Vilnius flight recently, appeared on Belarusian state TV the other day to “confess” and to pledge his support of Lukashenko. Since I’m not going to link to Belarusian TV, here’s an artist’s conception of that appearance:
Note that Belarusian-to-English transliteration is weird.
catclub
hence the magazine name.
debbie
This is nice to see after a crappy work week. Thanks.
JoyceH
@guachi: Some cyclists start at “entry level” and stay there – and enjoy themselves and get some exercise. You got a problem with that?
Feathers
@Spanky: in lots of places the vo-tech high schools offer community college courses at night, for courses like welding and auto body, which require specialized equipment. I know a friend was debating whether to pay the audit rate or the for credit tuition. Also, for credit always got priority in enrollment, so that was a consideration.
debbie
@guachi:
More importantly, why isn’t the security detail wearing helmets?
Steeplejack (phone)
@guachi:
Or, you know, bikes that casual weekend riders who aren’t brand queens might have.
catclub
@Feathers:
retirement learning here i come. Best learn to weld on someone else’s stuff.
VOR
@Ken: The show “Comrade Detective” on Amazon Video is a parody set in mid-80s Romania. There is a sequence where the detectives, true Communist believers, consult with some prisoners in an attempt to understand the game “Monopoly”. They view it as a diabolical tool to indoctrinate young children into the capitalist system.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@JoyceH: That’s why I ride a tricycle.
Steeplejack (phone)
@zhena gogolia:
My brother has a beach house in Rehoboth, regularly hikes Gordon’s Pond Trail and has seen the Bidens biking many times.
bemused
Dr. Biden is so accomplished, youthful and beautiful. She and Michelle Obama are the best First Ladies ever.
Jeffro
@Steeplejack (phone): LOL @ ‘brand queens’
SO stealing that
Steeplejack (phone)
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Congratulations! (On the photo, not the sandwich.)
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Steeplejack (phone): Thanks.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Jeffro:
Feel free—not mine.
rikyrah
@Mary G:
???????
Nora Lenderbee
@guachi: You can have just as much fun on a low-end bike as a high-end bike. I’m a cyclist with several fancy bikes. It’s great to see the Bidens riding, period. I don’t need a president who’s thinking about shaving off a few more grams by replacing his spoke nipples with unobtanium.
Geminid
@Spanky: I think free community college means free technical school. In any event, after President Biden announced his infrastructure program, Kamala Harris visited the battleground state of North Carolina and spoke at the Greensboro Technical Community College: “We are going to take a giant leap into the future. That is what the American Jobs Act is about.”
Then Harris visited an electric school bus plant in High Point. Biden’s plan called for the conversion of twenty per cent of America’s school buses to electric during this decade. I think that is one target that will be exceeded. Once parents understand the improvement in the air their children breath, every school district will want them.
Fair Economist
@VOR:
That’s – kinda true? The game was initially developed to demonstrate how *awful* the capitalist system was, with all players but one bankrupt, and with a companion socialist game which everybody could win at. But people found the capitalist version more fun to play, and the socialist companion game was dropped, so it is kind of propaganda for the fun of capitalism, albeit unintentionally.
rikyrah
Daily Kos (@dailykos) tweeted at 4:07 PM on Thu, Jun 03, 2021:
Kristen Clarke confirmed and either Republicans are eerily quiet or their voices aren’t registering https://t.co/ylhExoDglK
(https://twitter.com/dailykos/status/1400559835897290758?s=02)
Patricia Kayden
catclub
@Patricia Kayden:
I think a better quote would be ‘the zebra won’t change his spots’ but that could be just me.
Omnes Omnibus
@catclub: I think you should be very worried because I was about to post the same thing. Not a good sign for your mental health.
cain
@Baud: It is for me!!!
StringOnAStick
I’m not a brand queen about bikes though I have what was a hot and super light full suspension mountain bike 20 years ago, right before they started really beefing up the frames because the sport headed towards being much more technical and the lighter frames were breaking under the strain. I’m not a technical rider, I like to cruise in the woods, not do death defying jumps, etc.
Now the bike I love has had the front shock fail and it may have been rebuilt too many times and I’ll have to scour the used world for a serviceable replacement front fork/shock. I love that bike, it weighs 24 pounds and all the new ones are hideously expensive and heavier by a lot. I really hope it can be fixed, I don’t want to replace it; we’ve been through a lot together
SFAW
@Omnes Omnibus:
With the candlestick. In the Library. While yelling “Yahtzee!”
different-church-lady
That woman is deadly with answering a question with a question.
Kayla Rudbek
@guachi: and now I’m wondering whether the Bidens would like riding a tandem. The Eastern Shore/Delmarva is a great place for tandem riding, nice and flat…
Kayla Rudbek
@debbie: agreed. They could find helmet models that would accommodate the wiring/electronics that they need for work.