Skip to main content

Pilot Push Back Against Vaccine Mandates

Maybe you've heard of doomsday cults: religious sects with charismatic leaders who predict the world will end by a certain date. Doomsday comes--but by some miracle, the world doesn't end. Neither does the cult--many members go on being members. 

So it is with coronabros. We were all supposed to die of COVID (well, a bunch of us, anyway). Now that apostates have kept on living, left the cult and refuse to take the holy water, some of the cultists are coming unglued. 

Southwest Airlines cancelled over 1,000 flights over the weekend. The word over at Unreported Truths is that there's a pilot sick-out over vaccine mandates, and pilots from other airlines are ready to join them. Some blue checky-check on Twitter called the sick-out "domestic terrorism." Silence is violence, and apparently so is not showing up for work. Other cultists want the president to fire them, apparently not realizing that Southwest Airlines is a private employer, nor that firing pilots wouldn't put planes in the air.

Photo from Pexels.


Fauci thinks it's too early to know whether people can get together for Christmas, but I think it's early enough to make a backup plan for Thanksgiving flights. 

As we go to hell in a handbasket, let's at least enjoy the ride. My recommendations for dinner and a movie: 

Low-Carb Mexican Casserole

I thought I'd seen a recipe for a Mexican casserole involving eggs, beef and cheese, but there isn't one in any of my cook books, nor do I use very many online recipes. So maybe it's my own creation, dreamed up while I had a crop of Anaheim chilis and a craving for Mexican food. If it isn't, let me know who to give credit to.

Low-carb Mexican casserole.


7 Anaheim peppers (Hatch chilis), roasted and peeled*
1 pound ground beef
4 eggs
1/2 c salsa
2 cups shredded cheddar
1/2 t cumin
1/2 t garlic powder
1/2 t onion powder
salt and pepper to taste
Hot sauce (optional)

Preheat the oven to 350 (180C or gas mark 4). Brown the ground beef with the cumin, garlic and onion powder. When the beef is done, spread it in a 9x13 pan. Beat the eggs and pour them over the beef. Spread the salsa over the beef and eggs. Top with the chilis, then the cheese. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, and more spices if desired. Bake for 40 minutes and top with hot sauce if desired.

*If using fresh chilis, broil them at 450 (230C gas mark 8) for five minutes, then turn them over and broil for five more minutes. It's OK if the skin turns tan or black. If the skin isn't puffing up, leave them under the broiler longer, turning every five minutes. The riper the chilis, the faster they'll be ready.  Remove them from the oven when done and let them cool, then peel. Use gloves with spicy chilis. Split the chilis lengthwise and remove seeds.

Movie: Mayberry Man

This crowd-funded movie from here in central Indiana involves an arrogant movie star, Chris Stone, who is sentenced for speeding and stealing peaches to spend a week among the folksy people at Mayberry Fest, an annual event that pays tribute to The Andy Griffith Show. Like the show, the movie is warm, funny and suitable for the whole family. I saw it last night at the Heartland Film Festival, where some of the actors and others involved with the movie discussed the cast (some are real-life tribute artists), the budget (low--but I wouldn't have guessed from the production value) and distribution (it's in a few theaters, on Amazon Prime, and the DVD is for sale). If you can't be with friends or family on Thanksgiving, Amazon Prime lets you organize a watch party.



Comments

Popular posts from this blog

What $115 Buys--Junk Food vs. Real Food

A lady recently went off about how little food $115 buys, complaining that the pile of (mostly) junk food she bought wouldn't make a week's worth of lunches and snacks for her children. Sad to say, but this looks like what I see in a lot of grocery carts.  Fat pic.twitter.com/qbM23ydaOq — shellshock (@shellshockkk) March 7, 2025 Coincidentally, I paid almost exactly the same amount today on groceries that would make lots of healthy lunches. It's filling food that won't leave you hungry every few hours for snacks. If we want to make America healthy again, this is the way.  

Celebrities Shilling for Big Soda

There's a push in Washington and ten states to ban soda (and other junk food) from SNAP, a program for low-income people to buy groceries. This seems like a no-brainer: the N in SNAP stands for nutrition, and soda doesn't have nutrients. It's liquid sugar, the last thing we need in a country full of diabetics. People can drink water for virtually nothing and save their SNAP money for actual food. Yet a number of posts from otherwise sensible accounts have opposed this.  Reporter Nick Sorter says that a company called Influenceable has been paying influencers to post these opinions. (Click on the link for the full thread.) 🚨🧵 EXPOSED: “INFLUENCEABLE” — The company cutting Big Checks to “influencers” on behalf of Big Soda Over the past 48 hours, several large supposedly MAGA-aligned “influencers” posted almost identical talking points fed to them, convincing you MAHA was out of line for not… pic.twitter.com/PpPwH9lHGe — Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) March 22, 2025 Sorter adds...

$17/pound chips! Real food is cheaper

 My latest video on YouTube: Real food is generally cheaper than junk food--the pictures prove it. I took these at Kroger and from their website in March 2025. Prices are either straight from the tags or calculated based on product weight.  Music: On We Go (ClipChamp)  First photo by AS Photography: https://www.pexels.com/photo/vegetables-stall-868110/

Not Only Cheaper, But Easier

A while back, I wrote about saving money on break time coffee and snacks. I haven't done very well putting it into practice. But a post by James Clear today got me thinking about it again: Warren Buffett uses a two-list system to prioritize things. Check it out --and follow the instructions. Using Buffett's two-list system, two of the goals I ended up with were taking care of myself and saving $400 more per month than I already am. As I said, I've been wanting to save money, and the system made me really focus on this. I came up with 11 money-saving ideas, six of which had to do with food. Buying hamburger in bulk. Ranch Foods Direct sells one-pound packages of 80% lean pastured ground beef in bundles of 20 for a lot less than Whole Foods. Sprouts only carries super-lean beef that's grass-fed, and it's more expensive, too.  Not driving to Whole Foods. Whole Foods is out of my way, and saving a weekly trip saves gas. Coffee at home, tea at work. Tea is fr...

1972: Carole King, M*A*S*H and...Food for 2014?

I feel well enough to try Atkins induction again. The palpitations are gone, even without taking potassium. My energy level is back to normal--no more trucking on the treadmill early in the morning  to burn off nervous energy or emergency meat, cheese and mineral water stops after yoga. It's back to lounging around to Chopin and Debussy in the morning and stopping at the wine bar for pleasure. I'm using the original Atkins book: Dr. Atkins' Diet Revolution from 1972. While looking in the book for a way to make gelatin (which is allowed on induction, but Jello(TM) and products like it have questionable ingredients), I felt the earth move under my feet : those recipes from 42 years ago look delicious and they're mostly real food. It makes sense, though: the cooks who wrote the recipes probably didn't have had a palette used to low-fat food full of added sugar or a bag of tricks to make low-fat food edible. Anyone who writes a recipe called "Cottage Cheese and...