thependulumswings

One of our short order cooks(staffers) decided to take an unannounced 7 day trip to Florida last week.  Regrettably, this left us short-handed, and BBR went dark for the week.

However, our chef is back.  And in short order we’ve got some ready-to-consume nuggets below.  They’re filled with facts, opinions, and some spicy satire sauce as you like them.

1.  Having not flown in a quick three years, we learned quickly when we did that some things don’t change.  Does the TSA work for the government, or do they work for us?  The correct answer is us.  We are the government.  We pay them to work for us.  Rude, indifferent, commanding, demanding, disorganized, and sloppy are words that come to mind to describe the power-tripping men and women in the blue unis.  It’s a thankless job and because of how they perform it no one will say thanks.
2. It’s a special treat to hear one of them barking to the minions waiting in line the commands about what to do and not do.  They are hard to understand to begin with, but the monotone delivery is even less effective from behind one of those temporary light blue masks. There are so many ways to more effectively communicate than this rabbit hole that we’ve jumped down for the last 20 years.
3. Did you know that the legislative branch of our federal government is the only branch that creates federal law?  It is.  And, it hasn’t made wearing a mask in airports nor on airplanes a law.  Good sheep we are as we are herded on and off the aluminum tubes.  “Be sure to put your mask back in place between bites and sips” might be the dumbest utterance on a plane ever.  And, that’s saying something.  The “mandate” is extended and in place till 4/18, and no one knows why.
4. By 4/18 we likely will have scared ourselves back into the covid corner again.  The subvariant omicron BA.2 has been classified as a “variant of concern” according to the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).  It’s either more or less transmissible than the last one, going to get you more or less ill as the booster does or does not help.  The CDC will let you know what it thinks after the wave has passed and they’ve followed the science.
5. That’s the same CDC that says now that it accidentally inflated children’s COVID death numbers in “coding logic error.”  Terrible!  Maybe it wasn’t a coding logic error, but an error in logic to make you want to jab your child?  The UK will be ready for BA.2.  Around 5 million people are eligible for an additional COVID jab in England, with fifth jabs hinted at as Britain rolls out its ‘Spring Booster’ campaign.
6. UK Health Secretary Sajid Javid is not the first government official to hint at the possibility of a fourth and a fifth vaccination(that’s not a vaccination), however.  The good doctor Anthony Fauci said this past weekend, “We may need to boost again. That’s entirely conceivable. But before we make that decision about another boost, we want to determine clearly what the durability of protection is of that regular boost, that third shot that we’re talking about.”  Third, fourth, fifth.  Who’s counting?  The WHO is counting.  So is Pfizer’s CFO.
7. Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) said Monday on MSNBC that at the Senate hearing today for Supreme Court nominee, Ketanji Brown Jackson, he “felt the emotion flowing through me from ancestors and generations that made this day possible.”  And, that sounds good.  He then went on to say, “Biden said it’s about time we reach deep into the well of quality and genius and talent and create credentials for black women and show she’s like Jackie Robinson, except probably overqualified.”  Did Cory Booker ever crack a history book?  Thurgood Marshall and Clarence Thomas are curious.
8. When 81 million of us voted for student loan forgiveness did we realize that we also were voting for $6/gallon of gas and WWIII?
9. What are we doing foreign policy-wise with Ukraine anyway?  The country was and is corrupt.  They’re non-NATO.  Why do we have to stick our nose in every global dust-up?  Russia is wrong to attack a sovereign nation.  We told them as much.  We’ve sanctioned them.  We’ve frozen assets.  Enough.  We don’t need to send money or planes and certainly not troops.  Send us some of the Ukrainian refugees and we’ll look after them with free food, blankets, medicine, and masks, plenty of masks.  And, as a reminder that’s free to them, money to you.
10. Like airplanes, time flies when you’re having this much fun.  If you don’t take our word for it at least take VP Kamala Harris’ word for it.  She spoke to the passage of time four times in 30 seconds yesterday.  Click on the link, open the video, and lose thirty seconds of your life that you’ll never get back. Say what? Harris has had a difficult time retaining employees in her communications department. At the beginning of 2022, her communications team was undergoing a second political reset before she had served even one year in office, the Washington Post reported.   Say what?