Big Blue Blew on Sunday and Blowed up Monday

Good afternoon, Stroock's Books people. A cool and damp morning we have here in northern New Jersey. 

Hey look at us, mixing it up with a complete stranger on FB. [Oh, that's just an excellent use of time, not -Ed]. Oh look, he's saying bad things about our family. But honestly, the most galling aspect of this affair is that our name is right in front of him, and he's still spelling it wrong. Exit question: why does everyone leave the 'c' out of Stroock?

New York sports suck hole: The Jets won, huh. They beat the Browns so don't get too excited. Beats being the Giants, though. The Giants blew a 20-10 lead and lost to the Bears 24-20. Jaxon Dart went into the concussion protocol, and Russell Wilson replaced him. A quick reminder that Wilson has lost starting jobs in Seattle, Denver, Pittsburgh, and now New York. So yeah, no. The man has played himself right out of the HoF. Put Jameis Winston in. The Giants suck and everyone knows it. They're 2-8...2-8. 

Does head coach Brian Daboll suck? You bet he does. Will firing him do any good? No it won't. At this point our hope is that Pittsburgh decides a change is needed and fires HC Mike Tomlin. Pittsburgh has had three coaches in the last 55 years so it's unlikely. Nevertheless....Tomlin has his critics, but the man has won a heck of a lot of football games....and so, the Brian Daboll era in Giants history comes to an end.

At least the Redskins lost. The Redskins are scum/the Giants are #1. Okay, no they ain't. Okay, actually, the Redskins are only one game better than the Giants. The Giants may not be #1, but the Redskins are indeed scum. Hey look at that, the president was at the game and in the broadcast booth. A nice moment, nice and based. Also kinda fun.

Former NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue has passed. Tagliabue wasn't Pete Rozell, the visionary he replaced in 1989. But under Tagliabue's leadership the NFL grew and finally overtook baseball as the nation's most popular sport. Most importantly, MLB, the NBA, and the NHL all had labor disruptions in the 1990s. Under Tagliabue, the NFL had no lockouts, no strikes. Rest in peace, sir. 

Dems finally caved (it seems) in the shutdown imbroglio. So yeah, killing the filibuster for a CR, whatever the long term plan, was a terrible, no good, lousy idea. And we'll remind reader(s) once again, we're dealing with the GOP here. What makes people think the GOP has bills on the tarmac lined up and ready to fly in a congress sans the filibuster? Conservative, please. 

The Dem base is screaming now, just screaming. One week ago, Bluski Trotskyites thought they'd squeeze the GOP after their election victories in NYC, VA, and NJ. We ourselves learned this lesson the hard way the last 30 years or so. Electoral victories do not translate into policy successes. Hard work and horse trading does. 

The Times of Israel reports that another Israel-Iran war is 'Only a matter of Time'. Israel Hayom says Iran is readying a simultaneous barrage of 2000 ballistic missiles. That's a pretty heavy lift. But Iran remains a threat. Which is just one of the reasons why we favored wrapping up the Gaza War. Iran, Bibi. Exit question, what did both sides learn from the last war? 

Today is the Marine Corps' 250th birthday. Happy birthday, Marines. As it happens, we watched Full Metal Jacket over the weekend. Needless to say, 4/4. But the viewing left us wondering what it all meant.  At the end Joker shoots the dying VC sniper, and even Animal Mother is like, 'Whoa, hard core, man.' Did the battle in Hue rob Joker of his humanity? We think so. Marines out there, what do you think?

DOGE report: Okay....we're going to try things a bit differently this week. We'll try to bang out a nuclear war short story in the mornings, and read through Thatcher's War in the afternoon. We'll take Thatcher's War a chapter a day. We want to write one short story this month. Morning Rory sequel it is.