A persistent cyclist with a message for the US President Donald Trump joined a motorcade transporting him to flip him the bird.
She managed to get close enough to ride alongside the presidential car while “peatedly extend[ing] her middle left finger towards POTUS,” according to pool reporters covering the event.
Lone cyclist responds to @POTUS motorcade shortly after departing Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Va. (Photo: @b_smialowski/@AFP) pic.twitter.com/MKM1kVIyTY
— Steve Herman (@W7VOA) October 29, 2017
When the car stopped near the Virginia golf course, owned by the President, the cyclist was able to make sure her message was clear.
Steve Herman, bureau chief of Voice of America News, tweeted the report, writing “I just saw this happen as we left the Trump golf course in Sterling, Virginia.”
just absolutely tremendous color from the white house press pool today (h/t @Walldo) pic.twitter.com/GYI2z4kW7F
— David Mack (@davidmackau) October 28, 2017
Trump’s record on climate change speaks volumes about his probable attitude to cyclists, which we also reported on a couple of years ago.
During his presidential campaign Trump said: “We won’t be using a man like Secretary John Kerry, goes into a bicycle race at 72 years old and falls and breaks his leg. I won’t be doing that.”
In a second interview he’s filmed saying of Kerry: “He’s 73 years old and he goes into a bicycle race. He’s got the helmet, the whole thing, he’s negotiating a very important deal.
“You say John Kerry’s a joke. No, he’s a bicyclist, OK?”
“I don’t want him on a bicycle during nuclear negotiations.”
In one clip Trump puts his right hand up. “I swear to you I will never enter a bicycle race if I’m president,” he says.
59 thoughts on “Cyclist flips Trump the bird as she joins motorcade procession”
Chapeau madam!
Chapeau madam!
I’m a “climate change denier”
I’m a “climate change denier”. would you like to speculate on my “probable attitude to cyclists”?
FrankH wrote:
I’d like to speculate on your grasp on reality….
FrankH wrote:
I usually assume that climate change deniers are not very good at evaluating scientific research and balance of probabilities. I’d also assume that they form opinions based on emotion/opinion with little to no reference to facts. Thus, I’d assume that you’re probable attitude to cyclists is just an emotional response – probably a positive attitude if you’re on this site.
FrankH wrote:
Not really, why would I spend more time thinking about your opinion than you spent in forming it?
Simboid wrote:
Savage.
FrankH wrote:
I’d speculate that any interest in cycling has nothing to do with its environmental benefits. More broadly I’d guess you enjoy being contrary as it gives you a sense of knowing better than others – probably a reaction to deep seated self esteem issues. To be fair this is pure speculation and I’m really just describing the one climate change denier I know quite well.
jasecd wrote:
Sadly science is as comprised as anything else these days. It’s all about keeping that cash coming in rather than absolute truths. Look at all the medical discoveries that are good for us one decade and then vilified in the following ones.
Too many agendas from all sides to ever get down to pure facts.
jasecd wrote:
PARK LIFE!!
POTUS? I prefer IMPOTUS.
POTUS? I prefer IMPOTUS.
Good on ya!
Good on ya!
Meanwhile, in quickly
Meanwhile, in quickly becoming third world UK…
lork wrote:
Reality or the alternative reality projected by the climate models?
Sorry for my heretical views by the way, I didn’t really intend to disrespect anybody’s religion.
FrankH wrote:
Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
Care to point me to some evidence of reality?
hawkinspeter wrote:
Your imagination does you credit. Why don’t you imagine what my imaginary newsletter would contain if I had a newsletter?
Perhaps we could consider a
Perhaps we could consider something similar if IMPOTUS ever does ever make his visit here before he gets impeached or escapes to Russia for sanctuary. I’m thinking more in terms of several thousand cyclists giving him the finger, with me on my bent with a large placard of a finger sticking up from the rack. Let’s make him feel welcome with some real Brit cyclists’ hospitality.
They gave her more space than
They gave her more space than the typical SUV does when overtaking.
“probable attitude to
“probable attitude to cyclists”
Thoughtcrime. Nice to see that 1984 is alive and well.
Another “climate change
Another “climate change denier” here, who happens to think that getting everyone on bikes would solve local air quality issues and the preponderance of unhealthy, fat people currently draining the resources of our health service, but do little to change the planet’s climate.
It’s not that I don’t think the climate is changing, just as it has done since the planet developed an atmosphere; it’s more that I am not at all convinced by the “science” of climate change, I see gross conflicts of interest in the way that organisations claiming to prove AGW are funded, and I do not trust politicians who have decided that they can change the climate through taxing the CO2 output of carbon-based lifeforms far more heavily than that of industry or large corporations.
I’m an engineer and well-used to evaluating evidence claiming empricism. I have read studies concluding that the Earth is warming and studies concluding that it is cooling. If AGW is such a nailed-on fact, why can’t the entire climate science community reach consensus and make a convincing case for AGW? Whereas, the “deniers” can point to holes in computer models, retrospective changes to data to better fit those models, and failure to forecast temperatures or ice coverage on any timescale. It looks like poor science to these eyes.
That’s before we get to why taxing CO2 output has been identified as the fix for the issue, rather than, say, methane, which is a couple of orders of magnitude more potent as a greenhouse gas.
So, rather than point and laugh, throw insults, or wrongly identify people who hold this opinion as Trump-lovers, why not simply link to some irrefutable evidence that climate change is directly linked to man’s CO2 output? I’ve looked for it many times, but failed to find it. What I find instead is that, as with most areas of our lives, science has become politicised. No longer something to agree or disagree with, but something to believe in or to deny.
This is a separate issue to air quality in our cities, which is absolutely horrendous, has been irrefutably linked directly to vehicle emissions and for which our politicians are doing far too little, far too late.
srchar wrote:
No you didn’t. Just lie to us and assume because you put some pseudoscientific mumbo jumbo in there you will sound like a learned skeptic. Nope. Where are these ‘cooling’ papers you speak of?Wattsupwiththat, perhaps. They don’t exist. And there was no strong cooling movement in the 70’s either, there were more Warming papers then. The Cooling movement has been debunked multiple times.
Sorry, but there just isn’t two sides to this story. The Earth is warming rapidly, and it is caused by human pollution. At least have the courage of your convictions and tell us that you don’t care about Climate Change. There are avalanches of data and studies. People who say they haven’t seen the evidence are liars, you sir, you are a liar. You have seen the evidence and have dismissed it because it did not fit YOUR political opinions.
srchar wrote:
https://www.skepticalscience.com/empirical-evidence-for-global-warming-intermediate.htm
srchar wrote:
It has reached consesus, with 97% of scientists agreeing that climate change is happening and that it is as a result of human activity. That’s an incredibly high figure and probably higher than for most other theories, and would be accepted as fact if it wasn’t for the oil company funded 3% shouting loudly and getting reported in the media.
You clearly haven’t been paying attention, and know little but still feel the need to give your opinion at considerable length. I generally find that the more verbose a person, the less their opinion is worth.
burtthebike wrote:
Thank you for your support. 🙂
FrankH wrote:
Satisfyingly succinct.
burtthebike wrote:
I’ll summarise in bullet points so that you can accuse me of reducing the issue to a few soundbites instead:
– The models are junk; the forecasting is terrible.
– The climate has always changed; nobody can put a figure on how much warming is due to humans and how much is due to other factors.
– Sea levels varied dramatically before industrialisation.
– The field is politicised and incidents like the email leak at East Anglia uni make it look like a scam.
You’re right in that I don’t care about climate change as much as I care about other forms of pollution, because my family and friends suffer far more from local pollution than they do from changes in climate. I also care about habitat destruction, but think we should be looking at the low-hanging fruit of deforestation, palm plantations, dynamite fishing and industrial pollution as higher priorities than CO2 emissions.
Concorde, thanks for the link.
srchar wrote:
The slight problem is that none of what you say is true. Sea levels varied over much longer time-scales at a time when we didn’t have large cities on the coasts. Much of that variation is for reasons we understand and which aren’t happening now.
The leaked emails revealed nothing more than mundane academic politics.
But you appear to be a conspiracy theorist, so no evidence will get through to you.
The underlying science is pretty simple. CO2 is a greenhouse gas, it absorbs radiation in the frequencies that the earth emits, and so acts like a dam (not really a greenhouse), trapping energy till the earth’s temperature rises sufficiently to overcome it and escape.
We know CO2 concentrations have been rising. We also know the earth’s temperature has been rising in a way that is consistent with that.
We also know that no natural phenomenon (like those that have changed temperatures in the past) can explain it, in particular they can’t explain the dramatic speed of that rise (past temperature changes were orders-of-magnitude more gradual).
None of the things you claim deniers can point to are true. There were some things about 20 years ago, but those problems have all since been resolved (including the ‘skeptics’ of the University of Alabama having to admit their own satellite data, that failed to show the expected warming, was in fact in error).
I’ve been hearing increasingly weak denialist arguments for more than 20 years now, and they keep changing as each one is debunked in turn… though some still walk the earth like the undead, despite being disproved long ago.
Now if you have some way to (a) explain why basic physics of radiation and emission/absorption is wrong so that more CO2 won’t trap more energy, and (b) why the temperature is rising if it isn’t that, then go ahead and publish it and win a Nobel prize.
Methane is a greenhouse gas of course, and certainly does contribute, but it has a much shorter lifespan than CO2 (before breaking down to CO2 and water vapor) and there’s about 1/200th as much of it in the atmosphere. CO2 is what is driving current temperature rise.
As for the evidence – its all there in the science. Go and read it. You could start with the Realclimate site. Though presumably you’ll write those actual scientists off as part of the conspiracy.
srchar wrote:
Slightly shorter, but just as valid as your previous post; not at all.
burtthebike wrote:
Well said, you beat me to it.
To go back to the topic of the article, having just returned from a business trip to the U I was interested to hear the opinions of Americans on their president. The percentage who find him a total embarassment seems to be growing. One guy I know who is a Republican told me he’s really fed up with Trump and that he hopes McCain keeps on sticking the knife into the president.
srchar wrote:
Interestingly it’s been observed that engineers are over-represented among denialists . It’s been speculated that this has something to do with problems in how engineers are taught and the general culture of the profession.
(It’s also been observed that engineers are over-represented among terrorists, possibly for related reasons – though I personally think there are confounding factors due to correlation between popularity of engineering as a profession and the countries that produce more terrorists, but I was quite happy to use that particular sociology paper to wind-up engineers).
I don’t trust an engineer’s opinion on climate science, sorry. They have no special expertise on the subject. The last climate change denier I knew and argued with (who like you thought it was all a conspiracy) was also an engineer and turned out not to understand the basics (he was pushing the saturation argument, a very old misunderstanding of the topic).
And this ‘argument from incredulity’ deserves a special mention
..because it seems entirely circular. You are using your own reluctance to accept the evidence as proof that you are right!
And they have reached concensus (how on earth you can convince yourself otherwise just baffles me.
For those who enjoy Tolkien,
For those who enjoy Tolkien, may I suggest you have a look at the Twitter account of Gollum J Trump. Bigly amusement, precious!
What a pathetic bunch. One
What a pathetic bunch. One cyclist flips a bird at a group of black suv’s that may or may have not been the president. And that’s proof that the sky is falling? No wait, that was last weeks scare tactic. This week’s is what? Too many hurricanes? What’s next? My washer overflowed? Blame global warming. And look, if the numbers don’t support our socialist (aka communist) agenda we simply adjust (change)them. You lot are really pathetic. If you have a better way of life or government then be honest and put forth your platform. But you can’t can you because your form is oppressive and has failed time and time again over the centuries. Do I really need to mention examples? Hillary praising UK’s “excellent” health care. Really? Best thing brits have done in centuries is brexit and I’m so proud to claim England as my heritage.
Dmurr wrote:
sorry, no time for that. Too busy eating white Anglo-Saxon Protestant babies.
ConcordeCX wrote:
woah, don’t goad stereotypicaltrollbot0.2 – it was probably coded by a North Korean.
I agree loosely with rschar
I agree loosely with rschar on the grounds that I overally believe that I feel that the climate has got a lot hotter compared to when I was a child, the greenhouse effect seems a plausible theory, but I haven’t really sat down and read any of the contrary studies and be able to evaluate them with science terms. What though I am 200% sure is that excessive fossil fuel consumption damages much more than we could possibly imagine our own lungs when off and especially when on a bike, and still the great majority of cyclists will regard the high viz victim blame and disk brakes on road bikes as the most interesting thing to discuss about.
Can I avoid being labelled a
Can I avoid being labelled a Denier if I agree that the greenhouse effect is real, and man-made emissions contribute, but also think that
1 the issue is politicised and politicians are extremely likely to fuck up the response (see the EU vehicle emissions tests for laughably ineffective controls on pollution, and global dimming as a potential unintended consequence of ‘steaming in’)
2 man-made impacts could well be a drop in the ocean compared to what earth is likely to be undergoing naturally?
davel wrote:
I’m curious about what the earth may be undergoing naturally. What kind of mechanism are you referring to? (e.g. increased sun output)
hawkinspeter wrote:
I’m curious about what the earth may be undergoing naturally. What kind of mechanism are you referring to? (e.g. increased sun output)— davel
I mean temperature changes and sea-level fluctuations that are completely independent of human tinkering, and are more extreme than the effects of human tinkering.
Eg. if you look at the sea levels for say the past 100 million years, an average from the various models is around 100 metres higher than they are now. And yet, 10,000 years ago, you could have walked to Germany, across Doggerland, past towns that are now 70m under the North Sea.
It’s unfortunate (but no coincidence) that we’ve colonised the planet at the time when sea levels are at pretty much an historic low. We really need to make friends with the Highlanders.
(edited to change ‘accident’ to ‘coincidence’ – ‘accident’ seems to reference design, whereas I was referring to the low sea levels being favourable for human population growth)
davel wrote:
Sounds like you’re referring to times like the warm minoan period. Although some areas were a lot warmer, other areas were colder and average global temperature was equivalent to mid-20th century temperatures. However, that warming is accounted for by increased solar output, whereas current temperatures don’t appear to have any cause other than human-created warming.
So, what mechanism do you think could possibly explain our current global warming?
By the way – check out the latest news on CO2: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-41778089
Here’s a handy little pic of average global temperatures (courtesy of https://xkcd.com/1732/):
hawkinspeter wrote:
Hang on – you’re really not going to walk me into the ‘bona fide denier’ trap. In my original post I said that I accept the greenhouse effect and man’s contribution to it. It’s undoubtedly having an effect along the lines of our measurements and how far the accurate ones stretch back (50 years?). Should we be doing all we can to tackle that? Absolutely. No axe to grind there.
My point is (and I’m willing to be backed up on this – I haven’t ‘studied’ this and might only be aware of models and studies with an agenda, say the Exxon Sea Level Curve sounds a bit fishy, doesn’t it? Maybe I’m a less obvious denier by accident/ignorance) that one of the measurable impacts that we are talking about is along the lines of a prediction of a 2-metre rise in sea level.
During the last ice age, say 20,000 years ago, sea levels were 120m+ lower than they are today.
As I understand it, the sea level models generally suggest that the sea, for most of the earth’s hospitable life, has been 100m-200m higher than it is currently. There have been ice ages and thaws that have had perfectly natural causes. I believe there is some debate about whether we’re still in an ice age, but my point is that the past 6-8,000 years in particular have been nice and stable, and we have the luxury of worrying about a 2m rise. It hasn’t always been like that and it won’t be, whether we clamp down on all emissions, or not. Doggerland became Atlantis through zero input from man.
None of this, for me, is saying ‘fuck it – just pollute’; the argument has become predictably, depressingly, polarised. We can tackle the impacts of our lifestyles AND understand more about what some of these models might tell us, even if it means that Kevin Costner was right. I’d like to see climate change understood and tackled as ‘change in the climate’ and not only get funding because of both sides of a row about how much we’re fucking up the planet.
davel wrote:
Sea levels have varied a lot over time, but most of the changes have had geological causes. As far as I understand it, the major problem with current sea level rises is that it’s due to melting land-based ice. The problem with land-based ice melting is that the albedo of the land reduces (i.e. it reflects less light) which then leads to increased warming.
Here’s an informative page from NASA about albedo: https://climate.nasa.gov/resources/education/pbs_modules/lesson2Engage/
You’re right in that sea level has been a lot higher, but that’s over a geological time scale (millions of years ago) and was before humans existed. Personally, I’d rather not have the sea levels that high again.
Surcharge, whilst the two and
srchar, whilst the two and fro of scientific argument rolls on, i have to pick you up on confusing an argument about scientific evidence and the political response.
right from the earliestwarnings I recall as a child the problem was always a decent response required governments to shackle industry and industrial growth, thus wealth generation and so it was never going to happen. Use the issue to skim a bit more revenue from the individual? Of course they do! None of the political response is surprising or relevant.
i recall a time when there was an ozone layer completely over the Antarctic and when the ice caps were only thought to be possibly receding. In the 70s there was a lot of predictions of what we are now seeing happening, I believe what I see.
So no ozone layer, and I recall scientists discussing if the tiny loss of polar ice was cyclic! Hahaha! The portents of doom even dar d to suggest that one day the NW passage would be free of ice!!! (Oops, packs bags and walks away…)
as a complete aside, when it comes to religion I’ll believe in Christ thanks!
@srchar – the science
@srchar – the science community has reached a consensus about global warming – it’s clearly happening and very clearly related to human activity. It’s the politicians that think that it’s in doubt.
You stated that you’re conversant with evidence – could you point me towards any evidence that global warming isn’t happening or isn’t correlated with human activity?
It doesn’t matter if the
It doesn’t matter if the earth was warmer 50 million years ago. 50 million years ago there wasn’t the same set of species on the planet. Humans weren’t there. What matters is what has happened recently. It is incontrovertible that humans are causing the recent warming, not to mention massive pollution and species extinction. But if you don’t like that for reasons of attitude or religion or whatever it is that fills the heads of idiots, deny away, just be aware your denying doesn’t stop it happening.
And just today:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-41778089
Just saw your timeline – yes,
Just saw your timeline – yes, no argument there. My point is that we seem to be at an historically low temperature. One should be able to make that point and suggest that we might regress to the mean at some point, without being accused of denying man-made global warming.
TL;DR all my previous shit:
1: yes, we are fucking up the planet, and need to stop.
2: the planet, as far as we can tell, has been significantly hotter than it is now, and hotter than our likely impacts will make it, for the majority of the time that it has hosted life.
3: it is possible to believe (1) and (2).
Edit: thanks for the NASA link. Albedo looks a bit like ‘global dimming’, a by-product of particulate pollution.
Source: Glen Fergus via https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geologic_temperature_record#/media/File:All_palaeotemps.svg
@davel – just because a
@davel – just because a significantly hotter planet can support life does not mean that I’d like to live there or that it could support human life.
More importantly, we need to look after planet earth as I keep all my stuff there.
hawkinspeter wrote:
There’s also the question of the speed at which we transition to that warmer earth. And that there’s now rather a lot of investment in infrastructure (too little of it cycle-related) that can’t easily be moved.
(Like that XKCD graph – Davel’s posted graph is a logarithmic scale, so that speed of transition question isn’t clear on it)
The Earth was a lot warmer in past eras, but much of what we currently live on was under water.
FluffyKittenofTindalos wrote:
Agree on all points – plus we don’t know the effects yet of all the extinctions that we’ve already seen or are imminent.
hawkinspeter wrote:
We are in total agreement there.
I’m just making the point, because it seems that a lot of ideological knee-jerkers still hear this and shout ‘denier’ like they shout ‘Brexiter’ or whatever else the Graun is telling them to shout, that it is possible to think that, and still believe that we are living in a particularly favourable, exceptionally stable period. If we’re thinking long-term, it’s probably wise to plan for another ice age or greater sea rises being round the corner, rather than the 2m/2° changes we’re trying to avoid at the moment.
Unfortunately, while we have governments thinking in 5-year terms, and chief execs of oil companies thinking of their pension, and people picking either side on the Internet, I don’t think we’re going to get that. Either side ‘winning’ won’t do it for me. We still don’t know enough about climate change in general.
Edit – ‘Grant’? Graun
davel wrote:
But most of those large-scale long-term changes are due to mechanisms we understand quite well (e.g. Milankovich cycles). And they tend to operate on scales that are far more long term than even the most far-sighted politician is ever going to prepare for. You might as well suggest we need to start preparing for when the Sun goes nova.
We know enough about ‘climate change in general’ given the time scales involved.
FluffyKittenofTindalos wrote:
OK – quick Google to confirm he was the orbit bloke…
I thought there was quite a bit of skepticism about the fit of these cycles and there was another school that suggested there was another glacial imminent (apologies if this is way off – been a while since I read anything on this)? Is this all smoothed over now? (hoping for a simplish ‘yes’ – not expecting you to do my Googling for me)
Sea level rise is also driven
Sea level rise is also driven by thermal expansion of the oceans. I believe currently that’s the more important factor than land-ice melt.
FluffyKittenofTindalos wrote:
Currently, it’s around 50/50 but thermal expansion will have a greater affect in future, partly due to the increased water mass from the melted ice.
Why does it have to be all
Why does it have to be all about temperature overall, or indeed sea levels overall, as about changing temperatures in certain areas destroying habitats, food sources and species?
Reducing whether or not climate change is occuring to simply ‘the earth’s temperature’ is surely to risk missing the detail that matters.
PRSboy wrote:
The two together though. If you increase the total energy budget, on average it will get warmer, but it obviously won’t get uniformly warmer everywhere, and some places might actually get colder. But more energy in the system means more extreme events and rapid change.
@srchar – there can be lots
@srchar – there can be lots of criticism of scientific thought, but the heart of the matter is the evidence.
Please point me to some evidence that global warming is either not happening or not being caused by humans (or to support whatever your point is).
Without evidence, you’re just spouting hearsay and political nonsense.
The Universe doesn’t care
The Universe doesn’t care whether you ‘politicise’ the subject of Climate Change. The CO2 and other gases are in the atmosphere and temperatures are increasing in correlation with their emission.
Meanwhile some Humans say they want to take action on the problem and want to spend money to mitigate the effects. Meanwhile meanwhile some other Humans who are scarred they might need to spend money to preserve the health and livelihoods of other Humans accuse them of ‘politicizing’ the subject. This despite the clear scientific evidence that there is a growing problem.
The sad thing is we have heard the same arguments used before and will again. Trump claimed Texas was a “500 year” storm; just like Katrina then? The irony is the US is one of the countries worst hit by the very problem they are ignoring*, but hey it only effects poor people.
*ditto guns.
Way to go, fellow citizen and
Way to go, fellow citizen and sister cyclist! That’s making American great again! However, Jeffrey Beauregard Sessions III will not be amused and will hound you until you crash crossing some train tracks.
Way to go, fellow citizen and
Way to go, fellow citizen and sister cyclist! That’s making American great again! However, Jeffrey Beauregard Sessions III will not be amused and will hound you until you crash crossing some train tracks.
Way to go girl
Way to go girl