Will's Wednesday Woes

The basement has been remediated. Our walls are gone. Next step, drywall estimates. Then carpet. And then....

Right now our library is a pile of books in the utility room. Twenty-five years ago we had one book case. When we moved to New Jersey we had four. Last week we lugged 12 book cases up to the curb. Each had been stacked with books. That's roughly 25 years of accumulation. We've been wondering, do we really need it anymore? What are we going to do, accumulate another 500 books over the next 25 years?

Our doubts have a lot to do with age and the passage of time. We don't mind that it's been nearly 30 years since we graduated high school or that we're pushing 50. For younger readers, age accelerates time. Going from 30-45 was a lot quicker than 15-30. Once we hit 50, 60 is right around the corner. We just know we'll wake up on July 19, 2033 and think, wow that was a quick decade. 

Our magazine article writing days are over, for the most part. We really don't need the books we got for a piece on the Fulani Jihad or WWII in the Middle East or the South Koreans in Vietnam. So we're just not sure there's a point to hanging on to all these history books. Over a thousand of them. Maybe we're just cynical and jaded. 

Zerohedge reports Californians have soundly voted no on recall. This blog is pleased. California wants Gavin Newsom. California asked for Gavin Newsom. California deserves Gavin Newsom. California uber-ales. As we compared Newsom and Justin before, for those interested, here's what's happening up in the land of hockey and canoe portage. We expect Fidel Castro's kid to win. 

Which brings us to What Will's Watching, Alone Across the Arctic: Adventurer Adam Shoalts canoes from Dawson across northern Canada to Baker Lake. The scenery is breathtaking. The man's endurance is astonishing. In all he travels something like 3000 miles. On many occasions he has to carry his canoe dozens of kilometers, then go back and get all his stuff.* 4/4

More good work on the The Final Storm. We went back through the Sovietski opener and then read through the Washington DC opener. We may need another scene there. We also did some side work on The Weser. We'll do some more today.

*It makes us sick to use so called 'metric numbers'.

There will be no Blue Wave

Much to our surprise the GOP managed to get John Cox on the ballot for governor. He'll be running against walking* dumpster fire Gavin Newsom and his dumpster fire of a city, San Francisco. That race alone ought to draw out enough Republican voters to save a few threatened congressional seats.

Here in New Jersey our own Senator Bob Menendez (Dirt-bag, Dirtbagamala) seriously under-performed in his primary. NJ.com asks:

Lisa McCormick's surprisingly strong showing against U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez in Tuesday's Democratic primary begs the question: What about Bob? 

McCormick, a virtual unknown who did not report spending any money on the race, received the support of almost 4 in 10 Democratic voters.

While Menendez, D-N.J., was never seriously threatened with losing his party's nomination for another Senate term, his performance wasn't a good sign coming on the heels of his Senate Ethics Committee admonishment and a criminal corruption trial that ended in a hung jury before the charges were dropped.

Meanwhile the GOP nominated Bob Hugin for Senate, who strikes us as a good candidate. NJ elects Republicans, and Menendez is in big trouble. They're gonna have to work for this one. Again the GOP here ought to be motivated enough to turn out and save a few vulnerable house seats.

In our own house race, CD-07 our man Goutam Jois got about 12% of the vote. We voted against Leonard Lance for the guy who sounded vaguely Indian, we forget his name.

*Watch your step!

On a Bench Carved from Redwoods

Yesterday we wrote about the Democrat Party's thin bench after 25 years of being the House of Clinton's play thing. We also noted that perhaps the best candidate on a thin list of candidates is the seemingly competent governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo.

We move on now to California. Incidentally I'm all for the secession of those west coast weirdos. Anyhoo, we were on record here predicting that the 2016 Democrat primary would be a bloodletting between Joe Biden and Governor Moonbeam. Whoops. Said Moonbeam is retiring and almost certain to be replaced by his Lt. Gov, Gavin Newsom.

Newsom is among other things the former mayor of SF, wonder how Dirty Harry would feel about that. As far as policy goes, right now he's promising to introduce a state single-payer system to California, that is state-socialized medicine. That's certainly a winner with his constituents. Other than that we've no idea what his policy positions are except that he can check off all the right boxes vis-a-vis the boutique Democrat Party issues. Gay marriage, pot,  illegal immigration, grown men in the girl's room...you name it.

So there's another viable Democrat Party Candidate for 2020. Enjoy guys!