It's July 7th and it already feels like the dog-days of summer here. We're in the midst of a second heatwave in as many weeks. Would the sun just finish off our lawn already? We threw in the towel last spring, didn't even seed. Too much going on. Put the damn thing out of its misery.
We did back to back gym days. Machines on Monday, a great session by the way, and an hour on the treadmill yesterday. We love our treadmill time. God help us we do love it so.
NJ.com reports: 'New Jersey on Tuesday reported no newly confirmed COVID-19 deaths in its daily pandemic update — the first time that’s happened in nearly 16 months as the state, a one-time coronavirus epicenter, marks another milestone in its recovery. The state also reported another 145 confirmed cases, while there were fewer than 300 coronavirus patients hospitalized statewide for the fourth straight day.' The Delta variant is here, but so far so good. Twice we thought we may have had the Wuhan Virus from Wuhan China. Last spring we believed a February 2020 cold might have been the Beijing Bat Bug, and we thought we may have had the Peking Pangolin Pox last November. Duh, it came from a lab, probably on purpose.
According to Andy Ngo and the Post Millennial, the lovely ladies of the US Women's Soccer Team that turned away from the 98 year old WWII vet playing the National Anthem were facing a flag at the far end of the stadium. Some claim exoneration. Nonsense. This requires further investigation into the athletes themselves, their friends, associations both present and past. A thorough examination of their high school yearbooks for un-patriotic sentiments is called for. The allegation has been made, and it's up to Ms. Rapinoe and her gal pals to prove it isn't true.
Hot Air tells us the Taliban is on the march: 'NBC News has been following some reporters who are embedded in various areas of Afghanistan and it turns out that our old negotiating “partners” in the Taliban have indeed been on the move. And they aren’t skulking around in the shadows, either. They have invited reporters to look at collections of weapons and military vehicles they have seized from the abandoned provinces and bases.' It's gonna get real fucking ugly real quick, isn't it? We're talking embassy helicopter evacuations, right? Personally, we'd be slamming Taliban concentrations from the air. Well of course we're going to attack Joe for the coming disaster, even though we want the hell out of Afghanistan.
[Cynical, Yank-Ed]
Sub thought: Lets say the Soviets are still in Afghanistan in the World War 1990 universe. Why wouldn't they be? A short story about the Soviets defending Kabul against a Tet like Muj offensive would be pretty cool, no? Exit question: who're the good guys? Right now, we'd have to say Ivan.
I think that would be a fantastic story to read, but that I can think of there's a few keynotes to think of - if the Muj make an all-out play for power. They're gonna be out in the open - perfect targets for Soviet & DRA airpower, the Soviets and Afghan Government Forces could fill Kabul with tanks and APCs and the Muj are gonna have to break through all that and while the Afghans are amazing fighters when they're in the mountains, I don't think (unless they managed to steal enough of it) they can break into a city guarded by mechanized forces with access to airpower. That would mean that Guerrilla Fighters would have to come out and engage a standing army in the kind of battle that standing armies in an insurgency pray the enemy would do.
ReplyDelete- Now one way you could do it that I can see is have it turn into Fallujah (Afghan Government loses Kabul, the Soviets have to move in and re-take it or something similar). I love your quote "We are very good at what we do" - and it's damned true Mr. Stroock, just wanted to present some things to mull.