Will's Good Idea for the Week of 5/31/26

Good morning, Stroock's Books Christian reader(s) and happy Sunday. As usual, don't skimp on the post-church lunch buffet. 

This little bastard is menacing the neighborhood: 

Last night at about 10:00 we were emptying the dishwasher and cleaning out the fridge. We lead the quiet life and we're fine with it. 

One month has passed since our last cigar. Maybe tomorrow. See we shall. 

The Israeli offensive in Lebanon continues. Today they captured Beaufort Castle, which is a very big deal. Amit Segal explains why. Meanwhile Hezbollah fires rockets and launches drones at Israel. The war has reduced Hezbollah from an existential threat to a nuisance. 

Once again, Doomers and Panicans fail to see the military, economic, and diplomatic blows the US and Israel have inflicted upon Iran. Every day the blockade strikes a new blow upon the Iranian economy. Trump is refusing to accept Iran's surrender. He's dragging out negotiations, not Iran. We'll ask the question again: are you such a loser that you don't know you've won? 

So Newark is wracked by anti-ICE riots*. Mikie Sherrill, our so far more or less not crazy governor, did a performative visit to the Delany Hall Ice facility last week. But this weekend she sent in the state police to quell the violence. Today Newark Mayor Ras Baraka announced a curfew. Dems wising up on the whole riot thing?

We submitted a piece to a Substack publication. Wish us luck.

Will's Good Idea for the Week of 5/31/26.

We're switching back to World War 1990: Thatcher's War today. Thatcher's War is 46,000 words. 

You people recall the Battle of Ardee, our 10,000 word description of a British and Irish forces fighting for Ardee. We may rewrite the battle as a bird's eye narrative. Or...what if the Dublin landing is bird's eye. Upon this notion, we shall dwell.

*Newark is half an hour from here and we really don't care what happens there. But these latest events are kind of interesting. 

Saturday Updates

Good morning, Stroock's Books weekenders and happy Saturday. 

We got in a Judaism last night. God seemed pleased. 

A long week, a good week. While the colonoscopy was routine, it was done because we had several symptoms that pop right up on a google search. It's always nice to find out you don't have colon cancer. 

One more test to go. 

Dear Iran doomers, kindly fuck off. The Iranians aren't playing Trump. Trump is playing the Iranians. With each day their economy gets worse. Trump knows this which is why he's dragging out negotiations. Here patience is more than a virtue. It's a weapon. In other words, Trump is refusing to accept Iran's surrender.  

The Things.

We've been very indecisive in recent weeks. For example, we wonder if we should get a new cover for Pershing in Command and have yet to make a decision. WACO: Will Always Chickens Out? We don't know. 

June is almost here. After a great month, we think it's time to put World War 1990: The Managua Campaign down.

Our BAOR story in the 5th nuke novel is coming along just fine. We may end up retconning again, slightly. Or we may tinker with the theme of the novel a bit. Either way, the story about the BAOR counterattacking is in good shape. 

Not that or that

Good morning, Stroock's Book's Kibbutzim and shabbat shalom. The air is cool, the breeze is pleasant. 

One minute you're on the gurney, receiving anesthesia and blabbing on about how the ceiling is moving, the next you're waking up and the doctor is saying, 'Everything looks great.'  We're not even sore, though we are still a touch woozy from the anesthesia yesterday. 

We have good news. We do not have prostate or esophageal cancer. We just have a few stomach problems.

That's two of the three things down. We'll do a third thing next month. What's with the elevated PSA levels? The internet says, 'PSA levels can rise due to a variety of factors, including prostate enlargement, inflammation, infection, age, medications, and certain physical activities, not just cancer.' 'But is he lucky?' Napoleon once asked. We are not, generally speaking, lucky.* We approach the next thing with great caution. 

There may or may not be a deal with Iran. Trump is 'thinking it over,' they say, because he can. The Israeli press is very pessimistic, but they're like that anyway. It's an Israeli/Jewish thing. And even moderate papers like the Times of Israel are sick of Netanyahu so they're not inclined to be positive. We await details, but what we saw yesterday looks pretty good. Consider also the twin military and economic blows Iran suffered and each day is a new economic hit against Iran.  Reading this, though, Stroock's Books believes that nobody really knows nothing. Exit question: doomers think Iran is stringing Trump along. But what if Trump is stringing Iran along? 

The Jerusalem Post tells us that for the Israeli Opposition Block, 'the math doesn't add up.' Quite right. Naftali Bennett can't quite get to 61 Knesset seats. The election (scheduled for October 27th) is still 50/50 and betting against Netanyahu seems unwise.

Related...Amit Segal tells us that 30 years ago today Benjamin Netanyahu defeated incumbent Prime Minister Shimon Perez. Ah...we remember it well. Back then American comedians made fun of Netanyahu's name, and we recall a dear friend asking us, 'Just how do you pronounce it?'

DOGE report.

Despite working on an empty stomach filled with acid and wondering if we were going to be told we have prostate cancer in the afternoon, we worked on the BAOR story. It's coming along. It'll come along more today. 

Baaaah! More than a week has passed since our Pershing queries. We're writing them off. 

*Dodgers' great Branch Rickey was right, as he was right with most things, when he said, 'Luck is the residue of design.'

Not as Bad as You Think

Good morning, people of Stroock's Books. 

What's with the comment explosion yesterday?

We are allowed black coffee at least. 

We feel remarkably human for having not eaten in 24 hours and having our schedule disrupted. 

So the colonoscopy cleanse wasn't all that bad, though we have to do it again this morning (Update: again, not that bad). Our colonoscopy/endoscopy is scheduled this afternoon. We believe there's a not zero chance there will be some kind of bureaucratic snafu between now and then. We're pessimistic that way. 

DOGE report.

Despite being very annoyed and distracted we worked on the Somotillo aftermath chapter yesterday. Meh. But we're not exactly in the right headspace. 

We also worked the BAOR chapter in the 5th nuke novel. It's coming along. 

Day Before, Day of Annoyance

Yesterday at about 3:30 PM we put our phone down, a feeling of white-hot rage coming over us. You see, we had believed that tomorrow's procedure was going to be just a few miles down the road. No, the procedure will be done in a facility half an hour away. That would have been nice to know a month ago. We're getting pissed off again just writing about it. 

Prep begins shortly. Pray for us. 

We are not necessarily in the most humanistic mood this morning. 

In Texas, AG Ken Paxton obliterated RINO John Cornyn in the Republican senate primary. Paxton is slightly less electable than Cornyn, but he's running against James Talarico who comes off to everyone but gay race Democrats as a weirdo who loiters around locker rooms at odd times. Honestly, had the Dems nominated a normal human we'd still support Paxton. This blog would rather lose with Paxton than win with Cornyn.

Seriously, in 30 years of following politics we've seen the GOP win big victories. We've seen them hold substantial majorities in both houses. The GOP consultant class told us to support mediocre GOP candidates because if the Dems got in....well the Dems didn't get in and everything the GOP consultant class warned about happened anyway. So no, no RINOs. 

Related...so this month Trump knocked off 5 RINO Indiana state senators, RINO senator Bill Cassidy, whack job Thomas Massie, and now RINO John Cornyn. No, this blog is not sick of winning. 

Hot Air tells the story of Trump super-fan Kerry Sheron, beaten to death by his neighbor because he decorated his house with Trump flags and signs. Yeah...we flew a Trump flag all through 2020. No more. And since 10/7 we don't dare fly an Israeli flag. We still wear Israeli flag T-shirts to the gym though. 

Gonna be a Messy Week

Good morning, reader(s) of Stroock's Books, whoever you are, and happy Tuesday. 

Our sojourn across the Hudson River went fine yesterday. After lunch we stopped by the cemetery to commune with relatives. 

Afterwords we fixed our lawnmower (the push bar assembly needed four new screws) and mowed the lawn in the most patriotic and observant way possible. 

We're back to posting on Substack. Meh, it's a habit, and good place to vent.

The New York Knicks are in the NBA finals. We've never been much of an NBA fan. We yawn appropriately. 

War of the ants...not much activity, though we spotted some little ones on the windowsill last night. 

Health update...so we have a colonoscopy/endoscopy on Thursday. Prep begins tomorrow. We're that age, obviously. But this test was triggered by some blood work results. We're trying not to be pissed off about this [Why would you be pissed off about this?-Ed] Dunno. Wish us luck. 

Via Hotair (where else?) we should eschew doomerism. Recall that the Gaza deal turned out to be pretty good. And Trump 45 walked way from bad deals with North Korea and China. This blog remains cautious and circumspect. 

DOGE report. 

We haven't heard back on either of our Pershing article queries and classifying them as busts. 

We are not ready to pick up World War 1990: Thatcher's War. We'll tweak The Managua Campaign. One more week? 

We'll also be working on our British Army of the Rhine story this week. 

Memorial Day Monday

Good morning, Stroock's Books congregants and Happy Memorial Day. If you don't hear The Longest Day theme in your head and see that upturned helmet on the beach in your mind's eye right now, well, there's something wrong.  

We barbequed last night, most patriotically so. 

We'll be making a sojourn across the dread Hudson River today. 

We see no new headlines on Iran negotiations this morning. This from Trump is good. This is also good and here's a late summary. 

We're reminded of the Gaza negotiations, in which Israel got just about everything it wanted and the only bitter pill was prisoner release, which is Israel's own damn fault. 

We find the above terms acceptable and a far cry from the doomer gloom we were reading on Saturday. No, these terms are not perfect, but they are good enough. We're in 'are you such a loser that you don't know you've won?' territory.

Question for our fellow hawks? Does the proposed bridge and powerplant campaign make any sense? We don't think so. What's left to bomb, exactly?

It seems Iran pushed Trump for a maximalist deal and Trump said 'your fired'. Now Trump is pushing the Iranians. Bismarck said that in any negotiation there's a horse and a rider. Right now, Trump's the rider. We're paying an extra dollar and a half for gas. There economy is shutdown. See 'leverage' in your diplomacy handbook. We remain circumspect, cautious even. 

That's a lot more then we meant to write on that. 

DOGE report. 

We began work on the BAOR chapter in the 5th nuke novel. The grognard is hard at work, gathering much needed info as only he can. He's pestering us this very moment; FB messenger keeps dinging. 

We also wrote the rough draft of a short personal piece we pitched to a Substack guy.