Friday Updates

Good Shabbos, Shabbot Shalom, Stroock's Books kibbutzim. 

A deluge of rain this morning. We're curious to see if the rain ditches, already brimming, overflow. Which would be cool, but trouble too. 

What Will's watching, Waco: American Apocalypse. We felt WAA was broad but not deep. Less kind to David Koresh then the drama from a few years ago was. Still, we learned something, especially about the inner machinations of the Feds. Reminder, the ATF are the bad guys at Waco. A lot of people died, including four ATF agents, because the Feds wanted to make a point 3/4

The Jets...Our own experience.  When we were a kid in the 1980s, the Jets were actually decent, making four playoff appearances ('81,'82, '85, '86). In 1986 they started out 10-0 and finished....10-6. We heard someone comment in 1996, a season the Jets went 1-15, that the team hadn't been on track since the '86. But when Bill Parcells arrived in 1997 till 2010, Rex Ryan's second year, the Jets were...okay. They definitely had some moments during this era. These include smashing the Colts in the 2002 wildcard game, and a pair of AFC Championship game appearances under Rex. Heck the 2000s were pretty damn good to the Jets. But Since 2011 the Jets have been terrible, with a winning record only once, 10-6 in 2015. 

For forty years have the Jets been great? No. They've still been on par with a lot of other franchises (the Houston Texans) or better even (The Cleveland Browns). That said the Jets have had plenty of disastrous, humiliating seasons (1995 and 1996, any year Adam Gase coached) and some horrific losses (the Dan Marino spike game) packed in there. 

So what? During that same era the Giants have suffered as epic and humiliating losses as anyone, including Miracle at the Meadowlands (look it up) and playoff choke jobs against Minnesota in 1997 and San Francisco in 2002 (our worst moment as a sports fan). Rather that indulging in self pity, a very Jets fan thing to do, the Giants rebounded and triumphed. By 2012 the Giants had won four Super Bowls, making them among the NFL's elite franchises of the previous three decades. By the way, someone who doesn't think Eli Manning is a Hall of Fame QB doesn't understand football and should switch to something more appropriate, like women's soccer.

In other sports news, disgraced Major League umpire Angel Hernandez is a c*cksucker. Last night's example of Angel's general unfitness to umpire came against the Phillies. Bryce Harper's ejection last night was good. Kyle Schwarber's from last year was better.

On to The Things.

We've had a good week with World War 1990: Norway. The Swedish intermission chapter is really taking shape. Right now we're trolling for command and control details. Looks like the Swedish Air Force uses divisions not squadrons and we don't know what they call these things, anyway. Update, figured it out.141st Division? We have the names of some real life contemporary wing commanders, not that it matters. We'll Finnish [Bad Yank joke-Ed] the rough of the Swedish intermission next week. 62,000 words and on track for a rough draft by 1 November. 

We've read through the five air raid chapters in World War 1990: The Final Storm. These are Dixie Station, Bornholm Island, Crimea, Far East. A case can be made for axing them. Also a case can be made for axing the higher echelon planning scenes. 'Mr. President, here's what we plan to do.' Next week, the SAS raid on REDACTED and the aftermath.