The First Monday in September and the last Before School Begins

We awake this morning to find five spammy emails from the Trump campaign. Who is this helping? 

A 90 degree + heat wave begins this week in New Jersey.

The alligator is still on the loose. 

Between walking and mowing the lawn on Saturday, and going swimming yesterday, we've had great back-to-back workouts. We're back, baby (said in Frank Costanza). 

We remain bored with events in Israel. 

A long video at the excellent Real Life Lore channel about the Ukraine War and how Russia is grinding it out. Nut graph, as the J-school losers would say: the Russian attrition strategy is working, the Russian economy remains strong largely due to oil and natural gas sales, and Putin is popular in Russia. BTW, we strongly recommend the Real Life Lore channel for its excellent general info vids on a host of interesting subjects.

The Ukraine War is about the narrative. That narrative is one of brave, plucky Ukrainians valiantly holding off the lumbering Russian bear till the Russian army collapses and the unpopular Vladimir Putin is overthrown by the millions of Russians pining for western style rainbow democracy. The Victoria Nulands of the west would love to replace Putin with a Boris Yeltsin type. Remember the Snake Island Defenders, or the Ghost of Kiev? The truth is far more complex. Neither Russia nor Ukraine are caricatures. This war is bad and made worse by the West.* Reminder, only one side has a Nazi problem. The narrative is a lie.

The New York Post reports, 'Ohio cops released bodycam footage Friday showing an officer fatally shooting a pregnant mom of two when the suspected shoplifter refused to leave her car and accelerated toward him.' Watch the video. We think this woman was pretty obviously guilty, and there's no doubt she accelerated toward the cop, who was standing in front of the car with his pistol drawn for some reason.  'Stop the car!' the cop shouts after his partner shoots the woman. We ask once more, was what the cops needed worth this woman's life? Suggestion, take down the tag number and nab the suspect at home. 'Ma'am we can do this here or at your home. It'd be so much easier if we do this here and now.'

Good progress on World War 1990: Norway. There's a reason we write the way we write. We're not a big outliner. We just know what we want to write and wright A. Since we want C to happen, we must also wright B. Finishing B gives us a good idea for making C work, which catapults us to D, E, and F. And so it was yesterday, when we figured out how to finish the VDV plot in the NATO counterattack chapter. 

*Because the world is run by people whom we wouldn't trust to sit the right way on a toilet seat, we state once more we don't think Russia should have invaded Ukraine and Putin is wrong. We backed that up by quitting a fun and productive gig that we really enjoyed and really miss. 'Sorry, Maxim. If you guys haul off and invade Ukraine, I'm not writing for you anymore.' It was an easy decision to make.