White Pills and Blue Big Blue

Happy Monday, Stroock's Books constituents and loyal reader(s). Today is 9/9, reminding us that a godawful anniversary approaches. No, we ain't doin' it, ain't doin' it at all. To quote Bush the Elder, 'Not gonna do it.' The symmetry of 9/9 gives us the creeps. Whack job Islamist terrorists love double numbered days. Remember the 7/7 London attacks? We approach today with great vigilance.

Israel Radar has horrific details about the six hostages murdered by Hamas. The earth cannot be shared with these people. Vanquish them. Pour out your wrath. Make them suffer. Who would make a deal with Hamas after this? Fortunately it seems momentum for a ceasefire and hostage deal is waning. Finish it, Israel. One day we will write a post about what we think the Israelis should do with a defeated Gaza. We don't know when that day will come or what will bring it about. But when the day arrives we will know it. 

White Pill Will? Okay, we're gonna say it. Rasmussen has Trump gaining. Nate Silver's predictive model favors Trump. And the NY Times has Trump beating Kamala by a point. A one point lead would translate into a solid Electoral College victory. It's like there's a goddamn pattern or something. Exit question: how do Trump and the GOP intend to Stop the Steal this time?

Sports Wrap: Okay, so the Giants are going to suck again this season. We hung on into the 4th quarter to see if coach Brian Daboll would lift sad-sack QB Danny Jones for last year's Italian-American sensation Tommy Devito. No luck. Mid-fourth we bailed and went to the gym. And what was with those uniforms? A blue day for Big Blue indeed. 

2024 is the Giants' 100th season. Only a few teams have been in the league longer. The Giants are one of the league's storied franchises, founded by Tim Mara in 1925 and run by Wellington Mara till his death in 2005. Tim Mara Jr is the principle owner now. The Giants are royalty to boot. Chris Mara is married to Kathleen Rooney, of the Pittsburg Rooney's, owners of the Steelers (founded by Art Rooney in 1933). The union produced among other children, actress Rooney Mara. 

Monday Blue: This will be a season full of Giants commemorations, so at least there will be something for fans to cling too. Stroock's Books supposes it should commemorate the Giants as well. For Super Bowl XXV, the 20-19 win over the heavily favored Buffalo Bills, remains a top five moment in our life nearly 35 years later. We lived that season, every game, every snap. We knew just how good that team was, and we believed. No one else did. So all season long we'll be talking about th Giants on Mondays. 

Hot Air reports on the new Great War memorial in Washington's Pershing Square. They're right. The memorial is stunning. Bravo to sculptor Sabin Howard and the commission. This seems like a good time to remind the readership that we wrote a history of General Pershing and the AEF, available at Amazon. Writing that we're tempted, just a wee bit, to do something about the AEF.

Campaign 2004 and More: Powerline reminds us that 20 years ago yesterday, 60 minutes aired the fake Killian documents story alleging George W. Bush had shirked his Texas Air National Guard duty. A commentor on Free Republic noticed that the Killian memo, purported to be written in the early 70s on a typewriter, was superscripted, like this - 9^th . See the little 'th'? Typewriters didn't work like Word where superscripting (and word wrap) happens automatically. And why would anyone bother if you had to do it manually? 

Powerline noticed the Free Republic comment and published it. Other bloggers picked up the comment, which spread across right-blogosphere. Charles Johnson at Little Green Footballs then copied the entire Killian memo in Microsoft Word using Times New Roman font, and noticed his Word doc and the Killian memo matched exactly. By the morning Drudge had the post, and that evening Fox ran a story on the matter. And that's when 60 Minutes' Killian memo story blew up. 

Health News: It's disappointing really. We got our bloodwork back. We anticipated writing a post called, 'You gotta pump those numbers up. Those are rookie numbers in this racket.' Well, son-of-a-bitch. Cholesterol, triglycerides, hemoglobin, they're all down 10-20 percent since last year's test. Our sodium levels are aggressively normal. We're still prediabetic, which they've been telling us for literally 30 years now. But were just barely over the line. At least  our right shoulder blade is bothering us. That's something, we guess. What the actual ef?

Monday Metal. More Rory Gallagher. Here's his classic Edged in Blue. The song begins with a slow, forlorn guitar solo leading one to anticipate a long paeon to Ireland's grim past, 'Ireland, oh Ireland, how awful were thee? Ireland, oh Ireland, how do I miss ye?' But no. There follows a military like drum beat and a happy go-lucky sounding song about a bad relationship. The guitar parts from the lead riff, to the filler between versus, to the transition all sound great. Give that lad five minutes and have a listen, would you?