President Biden: The NEW one and only politics thread

[Slacker]

 

[Starman]

My youngest niece, now a 15-year old freshman in high school, quit playing basketball (ie didn't come out) this year after playing pretty much every year for eight years straight (usually 2 or 3 different teams).

(She also does Irish dance, travel softball, track, and volleyball. And bowls.)

Last year as an 8th grader, she was the third best player on an undefeated junior high team. The best two players have gone up to the HS varsity as everyone expected, at a program which is perennially top-10 in the state.

At the very least now, she would be the star of the freshman team; quite likely she'd be playing JV.

She told her mother, my sister, StarSis of all the youth sports threads, that playing basketball wasn't really any fun. This seemed to contradict visible evidence; she was a blazing fast combo guard who always beat everyone down the court and seemed to have a great time playing.

My sister dug a little deeper into it, and eventually it was revealed that my niece, at age 15, had never gone anywhere on her own or with anybody else, with the purpose of playing basketball just for fun. She never comes out in the front yard to shoot baskets just for fun.

The only times she has ever played basketball in her life has been as part of practice or scrimmage sessions set up by adults.

My sister related to her that in her own high school days (late 80s) she played on playgrounds around town (sometimes going by bike) and organized Gus Macker teams to play with friends. My niece responded quizzically, "why would you want to do that?"

My sister repeated something I said to her some 40 years ago, "You can't make somebody want to play."

 

[Inky_Wretch]

Ted Cruz is reportedly planning on attending the Cotton Bowl. This means two things - 1. The weather will be fine since he's not going to Cancun. 2. Ohio State will win by double digits.

 

[Starman]

I'm sure the incoming regime has fantastic concepts of a plan of how to respond to this:

California wildfires: two people dead, 'high number of significant injuries' and estimated 1,000 structures destroyed, officials say – latest updates | California | The Guardian

 

[Cosmo]

He's going to tell Newscum to fork himself.

 

[Starman]

They should be raking the trees.

 

[garrow]

Sad!

Trump's transition team wanted to bring on 2,000 staff. They're falling short as insiders spar over loyalty tests

 

[Big Circus]

Actually, there's a growing trend - at least around here - of confiscating phones at the start of the school day. Or requiring they be quarantined to a special bag that only the teachers can unlock.

That said, I don't know how banning phones in schools fixes the chronic social isolation many people are now voluntarily choosing.

The amount of social issues our kids and their friends have is staggering. It's also functionally impossible not to have a phone as a teenager, and you can't even really take it away as punishment because homework is generally impossible to do without it. You can try to limit it or only use it in communal parts of the house or whatever, but good forking luck with that in the long term. And, of course, most of us adults are horrible role models on this front.

It's a real tough spot. I'm glad that schools seem to be getting the picture that phones are detrimental during the school day. My state has a new ban on phones during the day that will take effect whenever my kids go back.

 

[Inky_Wretch]

We've reached the point that other heads of state are actively trolling the POTUSE.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...ico-president-offers-name-change/77547713007/

 

[Starman]

We've reached the point that other heads of state are actively trolling the POTUSE.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...ico-president-offers-name-change/77547713007/

About a 25% chance he bombs Mexico City in response.

 

[Inky_Wretch]

About a 25% chance he bombs Mexico City in response.

"Mexico ... lemme tell ya, they're tough. But I love Mex-eee-co. Or is it Meh-he-co? Some people say it is. Anyway, Mexico City is the capitol of Mexico and I thought 'They send the worst people to us. But that's a great name - Mexico City!' I thought nobody knows what 'Washington D.C.' means. Deee Ceee - what does that even stand for? So we have some concepts of a plan to change our great capitol's name to America City. Isn't it beautiful? America City."

 

[Twirling Time]

Sleepy Merrick to the rescue.

AG Merrick Garland intends to release special counsel report on Trump's Jan. 6 case, DOJ says