Iraqing On

New Jersey is reporting 4K+ new cases of the WuFlu per day. Here in Bridgewater, the town is adding 5-10 cases per day.  The high school has reported several cases and is switching to remote learning immediately. We suspect the rest of the school district will do the same after Thanksgiving. We know people who got the Wuhan Virus, they report flu like systems but are doing OK.  Mrs. Stroock is making cookies for them later today.

It looks like Tom Malinowski has finally won the congressional race here in NJ07. We think he's a nice guy and give him a rating of SANE. Had the Dem's promoted freshmen like Malinowski rather than Ms. Venezuela and Somalia's Finest, they'd be in better shape. That pair and their dingbat colleague Rashida Tlaib are the Dem's future.

We broke down and wrote a column for our KGB handler in Moscow and will submit it tonight. 

More late night writing yesterday. We wrote a scene about some Iraqi combat engineers led by a foreigner. We are eagerly reading about Saddam, Iraq and the Iran/Iraq War. 

Boy The Great Nuclear War of 1975 is a slog. At this rate we'll be lucky to finish this readthrough by the end of the December. Who knows, maybe the later stuff is better written.

Seventy-Five Years

So, seventy-five years since VE day. That number's a bit worrisome. It's a nice round number, divisible by itself and three.

Because here's the thing reader(s). After 1945 we got off lucky. Of course there wasn't peace from 1945 till 2020 anymore than there was peace during the 99 years between Waterloo and the Marne. But from 1815 to 1914 there was no continent-wide conflagration. And then it all ended with a trivial assassination. Why, we bet on the morning of 29 June, 1914 the average Englishman saw the headline, shrugged and got on with his morning tea.

'What's this about Austria then, dear?'

'They assassinated the crown prince.'

'Oh I do hope they have a lovely and proper funeral.'

'Hyacinth...'

When the Wuhan Flu from Wuhan China broke out, we assured Middle Daughter, 'Don't worry. China's a real country. They can handle this?'

Go on, hit the laugh-track button. Because The Seventy-Five Years Peace is a great title for a history book.

Stroock to Murphy: You're no Hitler

This blog hasn't talked much about locking down versus opening up for one simple reason. We're at ground zero, more or less, and our perspective is warped. 

New Jersey has 130,593 cases, Somerset County 3,364 and Bridgewater, 405. The rate of infection is slowing. Still, when people say it's time to end the lockdown, well, we're not so sure about that.

We say, ask the experts. They're never right. This time their fancy slide rule models were all wrong. Back in the late 90's, experts thought up the idea of giving ARM mortgages to people with bad credit, and were telling us eating a low fat, high carb diet was the way to be healthy. So yeah, no. Expertise is worthless. So if an expert says do something, we say do the opposite.

Anyway, we know people like to kill Governor Phil Murphy for his Tucker Carlson interview, but aside from saying he wasn't thinking about the Bill of Rights, we thought he did fine. And he has done fine. We haven't seen him issuing edicts from the throne, he isn't scolding people. In fact, this Monday he was congratulating the good people of New Jersey for not acting like knuckleheads after opening the parks last weekend.

A lot of this is tonal. Murphy comes across as saying, through his mask, mind you, 'Look, folks, you need to social distance for a while, ok?' And he's given us clear benchmarks for when things can open back up. Basically that's when the hospitalization rate shows a steady, sustained decline.

Murphy is the complete opposite of that little Hitler, Michigan's Gretchen Whitmer... 

B is for Bat, Which Beijing Boils

The Daily Caller reports that the US intel community believes the Wuhan Virus from Wuhan China leaked out of the Wuhan virology lab down the street from the Wuhan wet market.

Well duh. 

China's Chernobyl? It certainly seems that way.

This blog admits it's nervous. This is a yuge international humiliation for the Red Chinese. Their ham-handed propaganda efforts are ham-handed. Just read Australia's Tim Blair telling Beijing to get bent:

The Daily Telegraph this week received a letter from the Australian Consulate General of the People's Republic of China, who took gentle issue with our excellent coverage of the coronavirus crisis. Following is a point-by-point response to the Consulate General and China’s communist dictatorship...

The Commie Cat Cookers in Beijing don't even know how to play this game, writing to the Daily Telegraph as if a stern letter from the authorities is all that's needed to put the paper in its place. 

As Joe Biden would say, c'mon, man. 

So the Bat Eating Bullies of Beijing are busted. Between the trade war, the Hong Kong protests, the Uighers and now the Wuhan Wet Willies, the Beijing Bat Boilers are having a rough year. If our economy is bad just imagine how the Commies of Canton are doing.

And that's why we here at Stroock's Books are so nervous. There are two traits at play. First, Commies do not take setbacks well. Second, anyone else remember what happened the last time an Asian nation lost face like this?

Dems Scream

By now reader(s) are aware that San Fran Nan is holding up small business relief and showing of her $10,000 a piece twin fridges filled with $13 a pop ice cream.

Then there's Joe Biden, in mental collapse before a befuddled and amused nation. Is this the best they could do?, ask Normal Americans. What must your average Democrat be thinking? We'd be sad, depressed, enraged. Which should concern Normal Americans. If Dems this pissed off now, what are they gonna be like after election day.

Becuase they're going to lose, and they know it, bigly. 

Which is why Dems are screaming about mail in double voting and voter suppression. Remember, these people think former Georgia Tech Offensive Lineman Stacey Abrams won the governor's race in 2018. So they're laying the groundwork for 'election irregularities'.