Author: thependulumswings staff

Can Lightning Strike Thrice?

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

Has any city ever held more than one major championship trophy in the same year?  Yes.  In fact, when you consider the four major sports (NFL, NBA, MLB, and NHL) it has happened twelve times.  “It” is owning two titles at the same time.

The city of New York dominates with half(6) of these occurrences.  Los Angeles, Boston, and Detroit share the other six times with two for each city.

The most recent is actually current.  In 2020 the Lakers and the Dodgers each took home the trophy.  Six of the years were prior to 1953, or over 68 years ago when far fewer cities had professional franchises.

But has any city ever held more than two major championships in a year(note year, not concurrently)?  No.

But, could it happen in 2021?  Say hello to the Bay Area.  Nope, don’t wave at San Franciso.  It’s the Tampa Bay area.

With one down, as the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Tom Brady beat Kansas City in Super Bowl LV,  the city of Tampa needs two more to get there.

Last evening the Tampa Bay Lightning skated around, through, and faster in a game one rout of the Montreal Canadiens in the Lord Stanley’s NHL Finals. Winning a hockey game by a score of 5-1 is like winning an NFL playoff game by four touchdowns.  It was a beatdown.  Ah, but one game does not fill the old beat-up trophy with champagne, at least not yet.

Enter the Tampa Bay Rays into the conversation, please.  As the MLB 2021 season is very near the halfway mark in the regular season Tampa Bay owns the second-best record in the American League while trailing division leader Boston by one game in the standings.

The Rays do it on a shoestring budget and they do it with a lot of talent and heart.  Fluke?  Hardly.  The Rays lost in the ALDS in 2019 and in the World Series last year.  They have youth, enough experience, enthusiasm, super talent, and a very game manager.

The Bucs did it.  That’s one.

The Lightning look like a really good bet to do it.  They were 3-1 favorites to win the Stanley Cup prior to the game one dismantling of the Canadiens.  They quite likely will be two.

The Rays have a ways to go.  And, the National League is loaded with good to great teams such as the Dodgers, Padres, and Giants.

Alas, the dog days of summer are here.  And, in Tampa lightning is about to strike twice.

Can the Rays light up the sky over the bay a third time come fall?

 

 

Commitment to This Space

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

One of our staff writers is feeling a bit salty today.

Maybe it’s because he (or she-not sure about their pronouns) went saltwater fishing yesterday.  Or, more likely, it’s not.

The sports world giveth, and then sometimes the sports world taketh.

On Monday, Las Vegas Raiders defensive end Carl Nassib became the first active NFL player to come out as gay.  To this, we say, no worries.

His sexual orientation is his own business and that he chose to make it our business was “no biggie.”  It’s very well known that a percentage of NFL players past and present are gay.

But, this is just another important step you say?  After all, he’s the first to announce this while an active player.

What would be an important step is if this wasn’t an important step, rather if it was just another day.   “I’m a pretty private person so I hope you guys know that I’m not doing this for attention. I just think that representation and visibility are so important. I actually hope that one day, videos like this and the whole coming out process are not necessary.”

Boom, we think he nailed it.

But, well, the timing has us a bit puzzled.  It’s smack in the middle of Pride Month.  Coincidence?  Not likely.  Still, it takes confidence, so we guess there’s that.

He also announced a $100K donation to the Trevor Project, a suicide prevention organization for LGBTQ youth.  That sounds like a very worthy cause.  The “I’m a pretty private person” comment and this public donation seem to collide a bit.  But, we’ll still give the benefit of the doubt.

Then, there’s the NFL.

The league announced Tuesday it too is donating $100,000 to The Trevor Project, which is the leading national organization centered on crisis and suicide prevention efforts among lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning youth.

“The NFL is committed to year-long efforts around diversity, equity, and inclusion,” the league said in a statement. “We proudly support the LGBQT+ community and will continue to work alongside the Trevor Project and our other community partners to further enhance our collective work and commitment to this space.”

How many times do you think that the NFL PR Department and Commish Goodell read over that release before its release?  Plenty.  But, not nearly enough.

“Commitment to this space?” Good lord!  It sounds more like an investment a venture capitalist makes to the burgeoning space known as artificial intelligence or cloud computing, etc.

We submit that the NFL just can’t help itself these days.  Sure, its business model is somewhere between great and otherworldly.  But, it’s been behind and further behind the entirety of its own woke movement.  Transparency in the workplace is a desired process.  That’s a good thing for the NFL because you can see right through it.

They will “continue to work alongside the Trevor Project.”  Continue means doing what you’ve been doing before, doesn’t it?  A search of the NFL’s affiliation with the project prior to Monday came up empty.

It came up as empty as the PR release came up empty.

The 28-year-old defensive end was a third-round pick in the 2016 draft, previously played for the Cleveland Browns and Tampa Bay Buccaneers before signing a three-year, $25 million deal with Las Vegas in 2020.

His on-field performance last year fell WAY short of expectations for an $8 million a year player.  Oakland had better get their PR department working now on a release that they may need to drop if/when he becomes a training camp salary cap casualty.

But, if they’re smart they won’t ask the NFL to help with the wording.

 

 

Past Time for Pastime

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

Jerry Tarkanian had a full-time job from 1973 through 1992.  He was the head coach of the Las Vegas Runnin’ Rebels college basketball team.

Tark the Shark, as he was widely known, also had a part-time job back then.  He liked to poke the bear, the NCAA bear that is.

Tarkanian actually coached basketball at three universities — Long Beach State, Nevada Las Vegas, and Fresno State.  Each of them suffered penalties for breaking NCAA rules. But the coach never claimed he was a saint, only that he was surrounded by other sinners.

He also was a quote machine.  His most famous may have been, “The NCAA is so mad at Kentucky they’re going to give Cleveland State another year of probation.”

His simple point was that the NCAA wasn’t going to kill the goose that laid the golden egg.  Rather, they were going to actively pretend to be concerned with the various rules violations by investigating wrongdoing, but only to the extent that it needed to care for public perception.   They reacted when the public demanded, but never really acted if they didn’t.

Take Paterno and Penn St., please.

Like his up-tempo Rebels (is there a better nickname for a school that he thrived at in a better city than Vegas to do it in?) the callout of his sport and sports, in general, was early but as accurate as his team’s shooting.   They won 509 times against only 108 losses, had several Final Four runs, and won it all in 1990 in convincing fashion.

That season the team was heavily monitored by the NCAA, which visited their campus 11 times, and suspended 10 players at various times. The “blue bloods” didn’t like the “green” moving to the brash upstarts.

This brings us to Major League Baseball that needs a win in the court of public opinion in a convincing fashion as well.  There are no Cleveland State’s in MLB, but there are the Cleveland Indians and 29 other teams who have over time, and time again, bent every rule in the book possible.

If you ain’t cheatin’, you ain’t tryin.’

The credit for that old saying generally goes to NASCAR legend Richard Petty, though it just as easily could have come from Gaylord Perry or pretty much any of the tens of thousands who have thrown, pitched, or hit a ball since people started playing sports.

Blurring the line between legal and illegal, then figuring out how to get away with it, is as old as keeping score. You might not like it, but as long as you are spending your money watching it, MLB soldiers on.  And, on.

One hundred and two years ago there was the Chicago Black Sox scandal.

The spitball gave way to the neighborhood play at second base.  The strike zone has been different for different umps and umps have called pitches differently for various pitchers through the course of time.  Don’t believe that?  Ask Greg Maddux.

The steroids era only became so when the public (and congressional “leaders”) demanded it.  Prior, we all loved watching Sammy Sosa chase Mark McGuire and vice versa for the single-season home run record.  Ah, and there was this swellhead named Barry Bonds too.

Enter the electronic sign-stealing era a decade later.  The Astros were dumb enough to get caught, but they weren’t the only ones trying to catch the catcher’s signs. But, they did make for a fine example to other teams.

And, now, as the 2021 season to date MLB cumulative batting average was flatlining at an all-time low of .235, MLB decided to enforce the ban of foreign substances that they have had on the books forever.  The mere thought of it all left Gerrit Cole speechless.

Need more hitting? Voila!   In one week pitcher’s spin rates plummeted across the lower 48 and Canada as MLB decided to check for the substances when you’re watching the commercials that pay for MLB salaries. And, batting averages have gone up.

So the league that has games that many feel move too slowly, and was slow to adopt technology to better the umps’ in-game calls, was slow to enforce yet another rule on its books until less hitting meant lower ratings.

It’s still America’s pastime until it’s past time to act.

And maybe old Tark the Shark was ahead of his time in seeing through all of this.

Ball four is still a walk and money still talks.

 

 

Cringeworthy

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

Our readers always write.  And, as always, they are right.  BBR has been a bit light.

Words written in the virtual world are down as government stimulus checks are up.  Did Al Gore envision it this way?  Work at home in your pj’s, or better yet don’t work at home and stay in your pj’s.

As the old normal replaces the new normal that replaced the old normal previously, BBR is short-staffed.  Hence fewer articles recently.  We don’t mask our problems so to speak.

Staff decisions we’ve made a few.

One of those was to dispatch or not to dispatch our lead political writer to Geneva to cover the G-7 Summit.  We pondered this knowing that our staff isn’t on Biden’s staff’s shortlist of media to be called upon when he holds what his team calls “press conferences.”

But, funny thing.  There hasn’t been much to cover outside of the occasional times when Biden walks off of the stage in the wrong direction, or when he is scolded by Dr. Jill for not paying attention, etc.  One way to play offense is by playing defense.  Take the air out of the ball and run out the clock when #46 is exposed.

No one in the press is pressing Biden.  The same media that scolded Trump for not having daily press briefings, yet he was ever-present (too often) arm wrestling with the “fake news” fine folks, is ever so patient as Biden has called on them in a prearranged manner.

Trump never met a tough question that his ego told him that he couldn’t or shouldn’t answer, or put a reporter in his/her place.  Biden never meets a tough question.

Have you ever seen a U.S. President more closely guarded and scripted? He even announces out loud, as if he is ashamed of it. “Well, I better stick to the list of names I am supposed to call on, or I’ll get in trouble with my staff.”  Jeez.  There’s no freedom of speech or to choose available even in the highest office in the land.

Lapdog CNN personality Brian Stelter “interviewed” Biden Press Secretary Jen Psaki last week.   The interview was mocked by critics on both sides of the political aisle after the CNN host asked her what the media gets wrong when covering the Biden administration while largely avoiding tough questions.

How rare is it in today’s political climate when both sides of the aisle agree on anything?

If Biden and Putin would have held a joint press conference it would have been one hot ticket.  Our working title for the article to follow was “Cringeworthy.”

For now, Biden’s solo post-summit presser, which he began by saying he had just met with Russian President Trump, will have to do.  The ever-doting press quickly pointed out that Biden quickly corrected himself.  We don’t need to change the title after all, thereby saving a virtual tree.  It’s all cringeworthy.

Of course, we’ll need someone to get out of bed to write it, which is another story altogether.

 

 

Ten Piece Nuggets-Random

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

Thoughts, we have a few.  Nuggets, we have ten for you.

Sports and culture, and for that matter politics, seem joined at the hip these days.  So, we are here to serve.

      1.  College baseball is in full swing, pun intended.  Last Friday through today, the 16 who thrived in the week ago regionals went head to head in the Super Regionals.  With college football setting tv and attendance records and college basketball loyalty to March Madness, we wonder why college baseball doesn’t get more run.
      2.  Do we watch less tv as the weather warms?  Yes.  It’s time to swim, bbq, and go on vacation perhaps.  But, the stories, the drama, and the overall quality of the game seem underappreciated to us.  For example reigning champ, Vanderbilt has an ace and a deuce named Rocker and Leiter.  Or, maybe it’s Leiter and Rocker as co aces?  One leads the NCAA in strikeouts and the other is a close second depending on who threw last.  They’ll both go in the top ten of the upcoming MLB draft.  The Vandy duo and late-inning relievers allowed East Carolina one run in 18 innings.
      3. They’ll be tough to beat with that one-two punch.  But, the unknown is the only known in the college game.  Take the N.C. State v. the national number one seeded Arkansas Razorbacks three-game set as proof.  On Friday  Arkansas pummeled the Wolfpack 21-2.  Yes, 21-2.  Surely Saturday would be a 9 inning coronation for Arkansas culminating in a punched ticket to Omaha.  Cue Lee Corso.  Not so fast my friend.  State beat the Hogs 6-5 on Saturday and punched their Omaha pass with a 3-2 win on Sunday.  N.C. State was a 2 seed in the regionals and a huge underdog to the Hogs.
      4. Joining State and Vandy are Stanford (who took Texas Tech’s lunch money in Lubbock), Tennessee(far better than LSU), Arizona(solid performance), and Texas so far.  Dallas Baptist and Virginia play midday today while Mississippi and Notre Dame do tonight.  Winners move on, losers go home.
      5. Before we leave the college baseball game we have one question.  Why does anyone play on artificial turf south of the Mason Dixon Line?  Come on Vandy and others.  You have PLENTY of athletics department TV money.  Plant some grass and buy some dirt.  The only thing worse than artificial turf is brown artificial turf disguised as mud around the basepaths.  Worst of all?  Glad you asked.  The mounds and home plate areas of some parks are “fake mud” too.   It’s a bad look and we would imagine a bad brush burn, sliding pants or not, as well.
      6. Are you watching the NBA?  Every week a column pops that says fewer and fewer of us are.  Are we tired of the game that’s three-pointers after three-pointers?  Or, are we tired of the social agenda that the league embraced a year ago and remain hungover from it?  Both?  With Lebron and the Lakers already home we guess that the LA market viewership is not what the league wishes for this time of the year, either.  Though the Clippers are alive and on the other coast so is Brooklyn who is locked in what looks like a seven-game set with the Milwaukee Bucks.
      7. In the NFL offseason, Le’Veon Bell punched his ticket too.  Saturday he publicly stated his strong preference to not play for Andy Reid and the KC Chiefs ever again.  This is after a run in Pittsburgh where he wore out his welcome, as well as a brief stay with the NY Jets.  “I said what I said & I don’t regret at all what I said…for those who have a PERSONAL PROBLEM with me because of what I SAID, that’s fine…you have your right! just understand I ALSO have MY RIGHT for how I feel about MY PERSONAL problem with dude because of what HE SAID to me.”  Sounds PERSONAL with a capital P and more to us.
      8. Jon Voight, easily one of the top actors of the last fifty years, has had it with what he calls the hypocrisy of the left and the compliant media.  This time it’s about the “look past” of Hunter Biden’s latest problems.   He expresses that in a two-minute reflective video.  He’s done a few and clearly feels very comfortable in his skin in expressing his mostly conservative viewpoint.  That’s rare in Hollywood, but so is Jon Voight.   If he didn’t earn fifty awards for his portrayal of the Mickey Donovan character in the big hit series Ray Donovan, he should have.
      9. President Joe Biden’s expansive and expensive infrastructure plan/bill is running into roadblocks, pun intended again.  Progressive Dems want more climate change money while moderate Dems want less.  He’d like to get this through with bipartisan support.  But, moderate Republicans want even less cc money, while conservatives want none whatsoever.  It seems like it’s hard to please everyone and their agendas.  Good luck.
      10. Meanwhile, while we know this was last week’s news, we feel the need to comment.  Dr. Anthony Fauci said last week if you take exception to him, you take exception to the way overused narrative “the science.”  Please!  And, he said so while speaking in the third person.  The big ego of that diminutive man always impresses.  Less talk and more legit China investigation and China cooperation about the origin of the China Virus seem like the path we should be headed down.

You’ve been served.

I’ve Got Your Number

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

A funny thing happened on the way to the prom.  Actually, a funny thing happened when you got to the prom at Exeter High School in Exeter, New Hampshire a few days ago.

Turns out that either you were vaccinated and could show proof, or you were “branded” with a number on your skin via a Sharpie that identified you as one who was not vaccinated before you were allowed to enter.

If you were “numbered” you were then tracked throughout the evening.  After every three or four dances you were required to raise your hand so that undergraduates(aka minions) could trace your whereabouts relative to others. Not to worry where you were in the ten minutes in the interim.   Jeez.  This would provide contract tracing to anyone in the future if need be.

Sure it would.  Can you imagine “contact tracing” accuracy in a big room filled with active adolescents?

All of this utter nonsense occurred, it really did.  And more.  They also left the list of student names (first and last) with the info on whether they were vaccinated or not on a table outside after the prom.

New Hampshire Rep. Melissa Litchfield, who represents the Brentwood district, heard it loud and clear from some of her constituents.

“I find it absolutely unbelievable that the administration was allowed to treat the kids like prisoners in Nazi Germany,” one person told Litchfield. “Marking them, thus singling them out, and then having to raise their hands is beyond tolerable.”  Strong feelings, and a bit over the top with the Nazi comparison, but we get the point.

“First the school could be looking at lawsuits for violation of Hippa [HIPPA] rights,” the constituent continued. “They have no business asking for a vaccine card.”

If a student tests positive for COVID in the week ahead, all the “numbered kids will miss graduation and all their senior week activities per the school’s contact tracing policy.”  We’ll show you!

Where does this end?  Should we “brand” children with STD’s?  Aids? Flu?   Where are you ACLU?

The slope is oh so slippery.

Maybe this was but one school going rogue.  Maybe it wasn’t.

Back in the day, individual rights were fiercely protected.  Now, you have a follow the herd mentality.  Do as the government says or else.

Never mind that the chances of a teenager getting very sick from COVID-19 is roughly 1 in a million.

Never let freedom get in the way of “the science.”

We should follow “the science,” er, the government.

Sheep.

 

 

No Gas, No Meat, No Problem.

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

Surely you’ve heard of the expression “never two without three?”

First, it was the Colonial Pipeline Company that was struck May 11th by a ransomware attack.  This is where a bad actor puts malicious software, or “malware,” onto their network, that encrypts drives and software to the point that they couldn’t run the business.  For the better part of a week the east coast either had or created a gas shortage by hoarding the commodity.  And, it was just when you were getting ready to drive to your favorite Memorial Day BBQ.

Then yesterday, a day after you grilled out, the world’s largest meat processing company was targeted by a sophisticated cyber-attack.  Computer networks at JBS were hacked, temporarily shutting down some operations in Australia, Canada, and the US, with thousands of workers affected. The attack could lead to shortages of meat or raise prices for consumers.

Russian hackers are believed to be behind both attacks.  Did the cold war turn virtual a half-century later?   Are these two cyberattacks just warm-up bands?

It’s never two without three. So, what’s next?

“White supremacy,” Joe Biden said yesterday.   Wait, what?

“According to the intelligence community, terrorism from white supremacy is the most lethal threat to the homeland today,” Biden said. “Not ISIS. Not Al Qaeda.  White supremacists.”

This is actually comforting to know though.  Prelection and continuing into his first 150 days we were told that climate change was the greatest existential threat to our country and planet.  Some running against Joe actually told us it was too late to save us from us already.

No oxygen, no land to stand on, no petroleum, no meat, no worries.  White people-worry.

And, then there is, or was this little pandemic problem.

Never mind!

Biden revisited the massacre yesterday of the black community in Tulsa 100 years ago.  And, there is certainly nothing wrong with doing that.  Then he attempted to show the long history of white supremacists in the country comparing it to the clash between the protesters in Charlottesville.

“What happened in Greenwood was an act of hate and domestic terrorism, with a through-line that exists (existential maybe?) today,” he said. “Just close your eyes and remember what you saw in Charlottesville four years ago on television.”

You should remember and will repeatedly be reminded about what happened in the prior four years that culminated in an insurrection (if you think it rose to that level).  There were dog whistles everywhere hinting at it we were told and told.

When Joe asks you to close your eyes at least he is being overt about his path.

After all, it’s but one step from pulling the wool over them.

 

 

 

Hey Big Spender!

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

Dr. Fauci and the CDC have spent a year hard at work.  And, thanks to their great efforts now you can go back to work and pay some taxes.

Actually, Moderna, Pfizer, and Johnson & Johnson have spent a year hard at work, not your government, but we digress already.

But, now your government is hard at work attempting to spend more money that we don’t collect in taxes.  Actually, they have always been hard at work spending money that we don’t have.  US debt in 1990 was 3 trillion bucks.  By 2000 it was $6 trillion.  In 2010 it reached $12 trillion.  In 2020 it raced to $27 trillion.  And, by year’s end 2021 we’ll cross $29 trillion at a minimum.

Do you see a pattern of behavior from the math above?  Of course, you do.   But, notice that doubling the debt every decade is out of style.  If it were still in style the figure for 2020 would be $24 trillion.  But add another $5 trillion to that as well.

But wait, there’s more.

It’s the golden rule.  He who has the gold makes the rules.  Except in the American government, it’s the power rule.  He who has the power makes the rules.  And, they propose the budget.  Or, we should say they write the spending bills?

President Biden, aka The Big Spender, has proposed a $2.7 trillion infrastructure spend.  And, almost $700 billion of it has to do with infrastructure as you know it.  The rest is pork.  Green New Deal like pork.  Far-left pork.  You have to feed the hungry minds that got you there.

And, the Republicans are outraged.  “Way too much,” they say.  And, after a $700 billion counter from them, Biden countered at $1.7 trillion.  How so very nice of both of them to offer to spend less of what we don’t have.  And, now?  And, now both sides seem to be willing to dance at about $1 trillion.  How so very nice of them, we repeat.

The Republicans refuse to budge on the 2017 individual and corporate tax cuts as a bargaining chip to agree to $1 trillion.  Swell.  We’re ok to spend more, we’re just not ok to approve paying for it.  It’s not hard to understand why they are the minority party.  Mitch McConnell couldn’t sell bourbon to his Kentucky constituents.

Seems like Biden, aka The Great Compromiser, is willing to drop a few dimes off of the human infrastructure part(s) of the infrastructure deal.  What’s human infrastructure, you ask?  Really, it’s just a fancy way of saying pork, but not saying pork.

Notice, both sides of the aisle are ready to spend.  It’s only a matter of how much and when.

But, wait, there’s even more.

This AM The NY Times breaks a story, surely leaked by the Biden team, that his 2022 budget calls for $6 trillion in spending.  The 2021 spending side of the budget (a misnomer if we ever heard one) sits at a fat $4.8 trillion.

So, what do you say we ask Congress for a teeny itty bitty 25% increase in government spending?  Most year-over-year asks come in along the lines of the cost of living increases (roughly 2-4%).  Can’t you hear them?  “This isn’t the time to cut back, we’re coming out of a pandemic.  People are hurting.”  When is a good time?  We wonder?

The Democrats are always a step ahead.  While you’re debating the infrastructure, we’ll propose breaking the bank with next year’s spend.  By the time Congress gets to the budget,  the White House will propose, oh, say, that DC becomes a state?

It’s the largest proposed increase since WWII.

And, we’re not even at war.

At least, we’re not at war with another country, just our own.

 

 

Ten Piece Nuggets-Random

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

Back by popular demand is our Ten Piece Nuggets column, random style.  Who knew that your taste buds would be so approving last week?  You did, and you told us as much.  Sports, news, politics make for some good hash to hash out.

  1. Bitcoin hit a high for the year and its existence of $64,895 on April 14.  Just 40 days later, Sunday, it was down 50% from that high, standing roughly at $32,000.  If anyone reading this understands virtual money give our staff a buzz at 1-800-SAY-WHAT.   Imagine if it was our standard currency.  In 40 days the price of a loaf of bread would have doubled as your purse was effectively cut in half.
  2. Of course, if anyone understands how our government can print money virtually day and night in the last 12 months, please call too.  Have you noticed prices creeping north at your local grocer?  The word from your government is that these increases are only temporary as demand surges post-pandemic.  We aren’t so sure.
  3. The Pope is at it again.  This time he tells us mere mortals that we’ve been abusing planet Earth.    For a long time, the earth “has suffered from the wounds that we cause due to a predatory attitude, which makes us feel like owners of the planet and its resources and authorizes us to irresponsibly use the goods that God has given us,” the pope declared in a video message for the launch of the Laudato Si platform, a seven-year ecological project.  “From the hands of God we have received a garden; we cannot leave our children a desert,” he declared.  Speaking of abuse, didn’t the church already leave a few children in the worst desert of all?  Some folks just can’t stay in their lane.
  4. Everyone is a climate change expert.  Listening to the pope, live-alone bachelor Al Gore must be smiling inside of his 10,070-square-foot estate near Nashville, Tennessee. Though a report by the National Center for Public Policy Research said that according to data obtained from the Nashville Electric Service, a public electric company that powers Mr. Gore’s home and most of Nashville, the 20-room mansion used 230,889 kilowatt-hours of electricity during the 12 months ending in 2019.  That’s roughly 21 times more than the 10,812 kWh a year used up by the typical American household, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.  Lucky for him, his invention of the internet easily pays for such excess.
  5. Meanwhile, another expert, this one on infectious diseases, said this one year ago in May of 2020.  “If you look at the evolution of the virus in bats and what’s out there now, is very, very strongly leaning towards this could not have been artificially or deliberately manipulated the way the mutations had naturally evolved,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci.
  6.  And now?  Fauci was asked by PolitiFact managing editor Katie Sanders late last week if he still believed the virus was developed naturally.   “No, actually,” Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) said. “I’m not convinced about that, and I think we should continue to investigate what went on in China until we continue to find out to the best of our ability exactly what happened.”    One mask, two masks,  Red mask, blue mask.  We borrowed those words and manipulated them a bit from another doctor who has been outed.  Dr. Suess.
  7. Brooks Koepka got swept up in the mass of humanity that rolled towards the 18th green Sunday as 50-year-old Phil Mickelson won the PGA Championship. But, he’s yet to get swept up in the Bryson DeChambeau craze.  This video proves that and then some.  It’s a must-see for 45 seconds.  Even though Bryson is making big bucks on the big tour, he’s obviously living rent-free in Brooks’ cranium.
  8. “They” say that there is nothing like playoff hockey.  “We” agree with “they.”  Overtimes, tied series, and nonstop end to end skating take us back to yesteryear when we didn’t have to listen to social blah blah, jerseys with causes in place of names, and incessant whining about all that’s wrong in a world that is and always has been far from perfect.  It’s only a hunch, but we’re guessing that the tv ratings are way up for the NHL playoffs right about now.  And, they accomplish all of these ridiculous athletic moves on ice skates.  Drop the puck.
  9.  Aaron Rodgers’ feelings are hurt.  Brian Gutekunst, the Green Bay GM who drafted his eventual replacement, is his target.  “I think sometimes people forget what really makes an organization,” Rodgers said Monday. “History is important, the legacy of so many people who’ve come before you. But the people, that’s the most important thing.  Culture is built brick by brick, the foundation of it by the people, not by the organization, not by the building, not by the corporation. It’s built by the people.”  Well said, Aaron.  And, you’re one of the people. In fact, you’re the most important person on and perhaps off of the field in the organization.  Swallow that immense pride and huge ego and buckle up your chinstrap, please.  Vince Lombardi is looking down at you while looking down at you from above.
  10. As MLB approaches the 1/3rd mark on the season, who leads the AL East?  It’s not the Boston Red Sox, nor the New York Yankees.  They are the big spenders.  It’s the Tampa Bay Rays, again. Tampa Bay won it in 2020.  They would be the ideal team for a remake of the great movie Moneyball.  The league average for entire organizational salaries is $258 million.  The Yankees are spending $402, while the Sox ( or Sawks if you hail from there) stand at $352.  Tampa?  Glad you asked.  They’re getting it done with $126.

Till then, later.

Follow the Political Science

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

“Follow the science,” we were told by our political leaders.  “Ok,” we mostly replied.

“It’ll be two weeks to flatten the curve,” we were promised.  “Sounds good,” we begrudgingly replied.

“Two masks are better than one,” the power-hungry cried.  “Go to hell,” all but the most obedient sighed.

“No real change can occur until we can have the masses vaccinated,” came the disappointing announcement.  “Ugh,” we collectively uttered.

And, after a year and counting, last week the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) announced that the science now provided a comfort level for them to make a proclamation.   People fully vaccinated against Covid-19 do not need to wear masks or practice social distancing indoors or outdoors, the director of the CDC announced Thursday.

“If you are fully vaccinated, you can start doing the things that you had stopped doing because of the pandemic,” Dr. Rochelle Walensky said during a White House Covid-19 briefing. “We have all longed for this moment when we can get back to some sense of normalcy.”
Calling it an “exciting and powerful moment,” Walensky said the science supports the updated CDC guidance.
But the science must not apply in Washington DC.  At least not yet.

House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy introduced a resolution to update the House’s mask policies in light of the CDC’s revised guidelines.  McCarthy introduced H. Res. 414, a privileged resolution that would direct Congress’s Attending Physician to update the House’s mask policies in light of the updated guidelines on masks.

Why is the resolution privileged?  Isn’t everything in DC privileged?  We digress.  Who knew Congress had an attending physician?  Isn’t everyone in Congress privileged?  We digress again.

Democrats blocked the resolution to update the House’s mask policies straight down partisan lines, with 218 votes cast against vs 210 Republicans voting in favor.

Not one Democrat followed the science.  Not one Republican disagreed with the science.  Amazing?  No.  Shameful?  Yes.

Resolution co-authors, along with McCarthy, released the following as part of their full statement after the vote.

After a year of lockdowns and restrictions, Americans are yearning for normalcy, and we should celebrate the progress the vaccines have helped us achieve in just a few months.

Vaccinated Americans should have the confidence to return to their pre-pandemic routines, and the federal government should help reinforce trust in the vaccine. This should start with our leadership in Congress. That is why we are calling on Speaker Pelosi to stop politicizing science as a personal vendetta against her political opponents. Instead, she should adopt the same mask guidance from the CDC, which the White House and Senate are using as the basis for their protocols.

As elected officials, we have a responsibility to send a message to the American people that we believe in the safety and efficacy of the vaccine.

In other words, that same science that we followed at the outset of this pandemic should be followed now.
“The Speaker’s reluctance to trust the science will only help to sow distrust in the vaccines,” the Republicans concluded in their statement.
In other words, if you can’t trust the CDC’s recommendation on masks, why should you trust the recommendation to get vaccinated?  Sixty-three percent of Americans haven’t been vaccinated yet.
Last week BBR published the results of the Rasmussen Poll that asked Americans how much longer should we continue to wear masks.  If you recall six percent said indefinitely.   Was Speaker Pelosi one of those in that six percent polled?
No, she and her 217 followers in Congress were not.
They love watching the polls though.  Political polls.  Always.
We’re guessing one shows that a good bit of their vaccinated base isn’t quite ready to shed their baby blanket, er, mask.
Maybe it is about science after all.  Political science that is.