Will's Good Idea for the Week of 3/20/22

This is post 4873...closing in on 5,000, people. 

Some spring cleaning yesterday. Mrs. Stroock rearranged the curio cabinet, 'You put my vintage Burge King Star Wars glasses on the bottom shelf,' I said. 'And?' she replied. 'Nothing.'

Once a day we like to search 'Inforos' on twitter and see what pops up. Usually we see a breathless tweet from a guy calling himself The Tracker @HTracker10. Here's a good one:

Important to keep aware of #Russian #disinformation. I am still seeing people sharing links to sanctioned #GRU #Inforos sites like #Infobrics and Oneworld press - @Twitter needs to not allow this https://t.co/AOBVvhLuho

— The Tracker (@HTracker10) March 18, 2022

Thanks there, Mr. Anonymous Twitter Sluth. For younger reader(s) The Tracker's profile pic is from 1983's Wargames. That's some nice Gen-Xing. In another post, Mr. Brave Twitter Anti-Russian-Disinfo Tough Guy names 'key' Inforos employees. Sadly I'm not on the list. Damn it. For the record, everything I've ever written for Inforos or anyone else is 99 and 44/100 percent true. 

With sales of The Great Nuclear War of 1975 surging, and the read through of The Great Salvation of 1976* nearly complete, this week we're going to start the third book in the nuke series. We need a break from The Weser.

Book three will be a compilation of four short stories, each about an event in a single year. So one story for 1978, one for 1979, one for 1980 and one for 1981 through to the inauguration of the next president.** The final chapter will be a future history taking the reader all the way to 2025. We'll probably write a long intro talking about our thoughts on the war, our methodology, and foundational ideas. We may also write-one off vignettes at either end of each chapter. 

Post ideas in comments. 

*75's success is no guarantee for 76. To Defend the Earth did great but To Survive the Earth flopped.

**Guess who. 

Optimistic on Books, Pessimistic on Ruskis

Okay, a decent first day of sales...We'll call it friends and family +. The Great Nuclear War of 1975 cracked its categories' top 100. Not bad. KU reads are just ramping up. We'll see how sales develop over the next few days. So far, there's no reason to be pessimistic...yet.

We saw a few days ago that the Treasury Department has issued sanctions against various Russian organizations and Russians. Among those sanctioned are Inforos and our own KGB handler. Which is at once jarring and kinda funny. Wow, we know someone whose been sanctioned by the State Department. Cool! We're unclear as to what 'sanctioned' actually means. Best we can tell, our KGB handler can't pay us. No problem, the last articles are gratis, m'kay?

This blog admits the war hasn't gone the way the Soviets, sorry Russians, wanted. The press is bombarding us with images of shot down Russian jets, destroyed Russian equipment, and plucky Ukrainian freedom fighters poking the lumbering Russian bear. That's the media narrative. Wise observers approach the media narrative with great caution. 

Looking at the map, to our eye the Ruskis are slowly taking territory and moving toward their goals. We believe Ukrainian resistance will weaken slowly and then all at once. One day we'll wake up and see Russian tanks rolling into Kiev. Exit questions: what are Ukrainian losses and how long can the Ukrainians sustain those loses? 

[Are you defeatist?-Ed]

We are, and perhaps we should be reported to the authorities for failure to properly support the war. 

Why 5000? And other Notes

Two posts yesterday but less traffic overall. And you people wonder why we're toying with packing it in. Five thousand posts, people. Five thousand.

We begin the new year with some Russian collusion. Here are our predictions for 2022: 'There will be no war in Europe or the Pacific. China will grow stronger. NATO will arrive at some arrangement with Vladimir Putin over Ukraine. The internationalists will not be pleased. In Britain, Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Tory government will blunder forward and accomplish nothing. The populist right, led by Marie Le Pen and upstart Eric Zemmour, will make gains in the French presidential election. But incumbent Emmanuel Macron will win. Authorities will be unable to agree on a plan to rebuild the fire ravaged Notre Dame Cathedral.'

For those of you who think New Jersey is one big strip mall: 'A black bear weighing at least 400 pounds clawed and bit an 81-year-old woman Monday night outside her home in Sussex County before dragging the woman’s dog into the woods and mauling it to death, authorities said.' We have foxes in our backyard. And don't get us started about the deer. 

A planned book of the late Norman Mailer's essays has been cancelled because a neurotic, pill-popping Millennial editor discovered his 1957 essay, The White Negro. No, we're not going to get all smug about being an indy author because we are 100% beholden to Amazon. It could happen. How long? How long? Heck, we're surprised this blog hasn't gotten zapped. Now there's a thought...

We heard from our editor. The process has been delayed a bit by a family medical issue, but she anticipates sending us the 75 MS next week. We will attempt to finish 76 this weekend which will entail us opening the MS today. 

We went back through The Final Storm's Italian and Australian attack scenes. These are looking pretty good. We need to make additions of course. We'll read the British attack scene today. We haven't felt this good about The Final Storm in months.

We think we've written the final scene in World War 1990: The Weser.

Moscow in the Morning

There's nothing quite like waking up in the morning and seeing your latest article in print: 'With just a few weeks left in 2021 President Biden’s poll numbers are abysmal. The Real Clear Politics aggregate of polls gives Biden an approval rating of 44%. The news gives little relief to the president. Overall, the Consumer Price Index shows inflation was up 6.8% in November. Prices for durable goods (cars, appliances, etc…) are up 14.9% and wholesale prices rose 9.8% over November of 2020. Compounding economic woes is the Covid Omicron variant which is raging across the United States. As of 14 November, the United States is averaging more than 117,000 Covid cases per day. Here in New Jersey, the state is averaging just over 4,000 new Covid cases a day, and the transmission rate stands at 1.26. Any number above 1.0 means the virus is spreading. The Centers for Disease Control estimates that the Omicron variant accounts for 13% of new Covid cases in New York and New Jersey...' On to Moscow.

We popped over to Russia Today and saw Moscow has sent a security proposal to NATO. Putin certainly has some chutzpah: 'The text delivered to the 30-member bloc focuses mainly on the movement of military personnel and material, including a promise that all signatories will not station their forces on European states that were not members of NATO in 1997. This excludes former Warsaw Pact members in Eastern Europe. Another article in the text includes a call not to place intermediate and short-range land-based missiles in the vicinity of each other’s territory.' 

That second part is certainly doable. That first part is a non-starter. NATO will deploy NATO forces anywhere it damn well pleases within NATO. Putin is basically trying to void NATO's post Cold War expansion. Inviting the Hungarians, Czechs, Slovaks and Poles was a good idea. Central Europe is NATO's natural boundry and bringing Poland in was just smart; just strike that idea from your head, Moscow.  But bringing the Baltics into NATO was foolish, and inviting Ukraine is madness. Look at the second letter in the acronym, geniuses. ATLANIC. What does Ukraine have to do with the Atlantic? NATO expansion is a fetish with the internationalist crowd. They love it, sexually. 

Overall, the Soviet, sorry Russian proposal seems like progress to this blog. Then again, our foreign policy is being run by Anthony Blinken, Jean Francois Kerry and of course, Joe. Joe's never, ever been right about anything on the foreign policy front. Ever. Maybe someone like Boris (who should resign for being an incompetent buffoon), can keep the US and NATO from being rolled or blundering into some sort of conflict. 

Below, your Friday Flag:

Will's Good Idea for the Week of 12/12/21

Hmmm...this morning we see lots of Swedish traffic to this blog. That can mean one of two things. People in Stockholm really like us, or Nightingale Russia! Yes, you guys anticipated our next move. A series of pro-Russian articles that the Kremlin can use to undermine American support for Ukraine. Nightingale Russia, that's sarcasm.

Because we were bored, we put three medieval warfare pieces up on Substack. One is free, the other two are behind the paywall. We will put up more medieval warfare pieces as time warrants. We are usually looking for something to do in the mid-afternoon, which is why we started this blog. That's it. That's Will's good idea for the week of 12/12/21.

Yesterday afternoon we cracked open World War 1990: The Weser and read the first two chapters. We found well written and edited chapters which introed the setting and characters. We were comforted but not at all surprised. Remember, we are among the best there is at what we do. 

The Jerusalem Post reports: 'Defense Minister Benny Gantz updated American officials that he has set a deadline for when the IDF will need to complete preparations for an attack against Iran. The Americans did not voice opposition to the Israeli preparations when presented with the date by Gantz on Thursday, a senior diplomatic source said the following day. “There was no veto,” the source said.' 

The Jew is brazen, no? Remember something about a potential conflict. There's all the stuff the Israelis have told us about; the assassinations, the document smuggling, the computer viruses, but there's also all the stuff we don't know about. The Imams are right. The Jew is clever. Final thought, as Jerry Springer used to say: Should the Israelis attack Iran, that lets us off the hook for writing a third Israel Strikes novel, no? [You're really keeping the important things in perspective -Ed]

Segwaying to potential war, let's pop over to Russia Today and see what's what...Not much going on. An article about the Ukrainian president, an article about the US sending missiles to Ukraine. If Russia goes silent about something, does that mean the crisis is cooling off or heating up. Kremlinologists? Anybody? Exit Sovietski question: can we start writing for Inforos again? 

Converging Israel, Russia and our own collusion now, our very own Inforos reports on last week's Israeli strike on Syria: 'This time, the Israeli Air Force missile strike hit the cargo platforms of the commercial sea port of Latakia in Syria's northwest. Local observers say there were several powerful explosions with a subsequent fire across a huge area following localized strikes on several dozen containers in the port. A container ship was also hit, suffering great damage.' Hmm, can't import stuff from Iran if your ports are destroyed. What day Israel's quasi war against Hezbollah and Iran in Syria will make a heck of a book. 

Aborted Aborted

This blog was flippant yesterday about the abortion case being argued at the Supreme court, wondering merely about the impact on next year's elections. In the American Conservative, Mathew Walther argues, we think, that the Supreme Court overturning Roe vs Wade would be a transformational event. 

Hmm...might overturning Roe vs Wade be the event that finally tears the nation apart? Forget for a moment the left's child sacrifice cult and the feminists' refusal to see something bigger than 'a woman's right to choose'. These people freaked out over net neutrality. I don't even know what that is. Democrats like Gavin Newsom ban travel to states they don't like over woke trivialities. What would an abortion ban require of him?

Here's our bit of Soviet collusion on the matter: 'This week the United States Supreme Court heard arguments in the case of Dobbs vs Jackson’s Women’s Health Organization. This case is about the state of Mississippi’s anti-abortion law which bans most abortions after 15 weeks and was drafted to challenge the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe vs Wade decision, which legalized abortion in all 50 states. The Supreme Court will not issue its ruling on Dobbs vs Jackson’s Women’s Clinic till the summer of 2022.To be clear, were the court to overturn Roe vs Wade...Click on through.'

With our charged rhetoric above we don't mean to trivialize abortion. This is a moral decision and those by definition will be difficult. We really don't mean to attack abortion per se, no. Our target is the abortionist, the pill-popping witches bragging in front of the Supreme Court about how great abortion is. They're the ones trivializing the issue. What is wrong with these people?

The Authorities Showed Up

There was a knock on the door yesterday evening, polite but insistent. We went to the foyer thinking, 'Feds. It's finally happening.' We opened the door to see two men. They wore gray suits, white shirts, black ties. Each gave the impression of being serious and unassuming professionals. Less Law and Order and more Dragnet.

'Crocket,' we nodded. 'Tubbs.'

These two had no sense of humor.

Both held up gold badges.

'Heavy Metal Police,' the one on the right said.

'We need to have a talk, sir,' said the one on the left.

'What seems to be the problem, officer?' We asked.

'You posted a Janet Jackson video for Monday Metal,' the one on the right said.

'Look,' we replied. 'Sometimes we do a not-Metal thing where...'

The one on  the left cut us off, 'Today is the 50th anniversary of Led Zeppelin IV's release....'

We hung our head in shame and accepted our ticket with as much quiet dignity and grace* as we could muster.

A tremendous oversight on our part. Why, we remember the first time we heard Led Zeppelin IV. Just like Kid Rock sung, it was 1989 our thoughts were short, our hair was long. We wore a black t-shirt and dayglo green and black checkered shorts. We were in the rowboat (which we still have) at the lake house and had just cast a line. We popped Led Zeppelin IV into our Walkman. We haven't looked back.  

Hey, folks, we had a lot to do yesterday. We got to the gym and did a great hour on the treadmill. We did some serious writing on World War 1990: The Final Storm, and made some changes that make The Great Nuclear War of 1975 just a bit better. 

Also, we colluded: 'Last week Republican Glenn Youngkin defeated Democrat Terry McAuliffe in the race for Virginia governor. Youngkin won 50-48%, with the remainder of the vote going to third party candidates. Republicans won the race for Lt. Governor and Attorney General, and also flipped the Virginia House of Delegates. Larry Sabato, head of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, quoted a high ranking McAuliffe campaign surrogate, ‘It’s a bloodbath’ for Democrats. McAuliffe conceded the race the morning after the election. The Washington Post’s exit poll shows Youngkin won 55% of independent voters.' Click it.

It was...18 years ago that we were lifting weights in our basement (in bucolic Peapack, NJ, across the street from the swan park). We were 30 years old. It was summer. The air was cool but a touch humid after a hot summer day. We were playing air guitar to some Zeppelin and thought, Gee, it'd be great if we could do that for real. And soon, because we started running, and finally earned our BA, and gotten our first article in print and because it was the summer of 2003 we figured, Why not give it a try?

And so did. And so we did...

*Reference.

Friday Polling and Russian Collusion

Will colludes twice in a week:  'Right now America is in the midst of a durable goods shortage and the term ‘supply chain crisis’ saturates the news. After a long lag due to the Wuhan Virus, demand is up once more. But America lacks the dock facilities to unload and store imports. As a result, more than a hundred merchant container ships lay at anchor awaiting their turn to offload their cargos at Los Angeles and Long Beach, the largest ports on the West Coast. Compounding the crisis is a nationwide shortage of truckers brought about by onerous Covid regulations and high unemployment payments discouraging work. This observer can personally attest to the shortages. Here in northern New Jersey, there is an acute shortage of new cars and the wait for new furniture extends into 2022.'What's Russian for click on through?

Our handler wrote us (in secret code, mind you), 'Will, write article undermining American faith in supply chain. Will pay many rubbles.' To which we responded (also in code), 'Da, Comrade. Is honor to serve party.' Note to Nightingale Russia (you pussies) this is just an example of our dry, witty, and over-the-top farcical sense of humor. You see, there are no codes or rubbles. 

Whoa: 'Gov. Phil Murphy leads Republican challenger Jack Ciattarelli by 6 percentage points heading into the final stretch of the race for New Jersey governor, according to a new poll. The Emerson College/PIX 11 survey released Thursday found the Democratic incumbent ahead of Ciatarelli 50% to 44% as he seeks a second term in the Nov. 2 election, while 7% of voters remain undecided. It’s the second straight poll that shows a single-digit margin in the race after a string of surveys early on showed Murphy leading by double digits in the Democratic-leaning Garden State.' 

So says NJ.com. This is about where we thought the race would be. Jack has run a tough and relentlessly on point campaign about taxes and spending. We saw him speak at a school rally earlier this year. Jack gave a short, sharp, perfect speech. It lasted like, a minute and a half. As noted previously, one see's tons of Jack gear, but hardly any Murphy gear. Don't get too excited. We still think Murphy wins. Hmmm...Here's another poll, 52-48. Holy Bon Jovi.

On another note the Wuhan Virus from Wuhan China transmission rate is now .87. Any number over 1 means the Wu-flu is spreading. So another wave is ending. I've walked into places without a mask that you wouldn't believe. It is our belief that Murphy is going to institute mask and vax mandates so...

*Breaking, Must Credit Stroock's Books*
Begin: William Stroock formally endorses Jack Ciattarelli for governor...
Stroock: Murphy's a tosser. Will impose mandates...

Further Stroock: A Jew never votes Irish when there's an Italian on hand...Developing....

An Afghan for Thursday

Baaah...We awake sore and groggy. Another rough night. 

This blog calls on the Taliban to respect women's and LBGT rights in Afghanistan. Don't laugh. We said don't laugh.

How many of the Afghan refugees and so-called refugees do we take in? We've got to take some but not....oh who the hell are we kidding? This is going to be like the Mariel Boatlift. Another Biden disaster is in the offing. Via Instapundit, enjoy this tale of Afghan refugees in Germany...As for the solutions offered at the end of the article, yeah sure.

We are told there's already a resistance forming in the Panjshir Valley in eastern Afghanistan. It's led by Ahmed Massoud, son of Ahmed Shah Massoud, our main ally in the 80's.  Do we help? Looking at the map, we're not sure how. But why not, right? We have written about this. This is our base for World War 1990: Operation Tet.

Speaking of the Russians and Afghanistan, here's our latest collusion: 'On 8 July president Biden assured the press, ‘The likelihood there’s going to be the Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely.’ Later that month, General Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff declared, ‘The Afghan Security Forces have the capacity to sufficiently fight and defend their country, and we will continue to support the Afghan Security Forces where necessary in accordance with the guidance from the president and the secretary of defense.’ Last Thursday American intelligence officials warned that Kabul could fall within 60-90 days. It took the Taliban less than a week to roll into Kabul.' Click on through to Kabul/Moscow nexus. 

What Will's Watching, Star Trek Voyager-Season 1.  We haven't watched Voyager since the 90's and stopped watching several seasons before the finale. Till this day we have no idea how Voyager ends. We'll go into more detail in other posts, but 15 episodes in Voyager pleasantly surprises us. Here's why Voyager works. Unlike TNG there's no kinks to work out. Everyone already knows what works and what doesn't. This is a series in top form from the get-go. Also, we think we like Voyager now because, frankly, we're 48 not 24. Lemme put it this way. In 1996 we though Janeway was gross. Not so much now. 3/4

Friday, Friday da-da, da-da-da-da

Friday and another week to go. Solitude brings out the worst in us. We're bored and we brood and we obsess. Back to the gym today. Probably all weekend. We're sleeping okay. One of the cats starts after us about 6:30 AM. 

The other day we commented on a friend's post about Killer Andy C., 'The man's killed more New Yorkers than Osama bin Laden.' Someone sent us a message saying, 'He killed 0 people you sick fuck. Bin Laden didn't do 9/11.' To which we replied, 'You're right. It was the Jews.' Nightingale Russia that's a joke, that's....Oh we don't know why we bother.

Segway....

Here's our latest bit of Soviet collusion: 'In the wake of the Delta Variant, the Centers for Disease Control recommends people in areas with ‘substantial and high transmission rates’ wear masks indoors. Frances Collins, Director of the National institute of Health went further. Collins told CNN that parents should wear masks around their children at home. He later backtracked. Blue municipalities are following CDC guidelines...'Click on through to the rubles.

What Will's Watching: The Miami Vice Pilot...Everyone over 40 has the theme song in their head now. Oh, you younger generation. You'll never understand what a big deal this was in the mid-80s. It's all there, white blazers with turquoise shirts, shimmering gray suits and skinny ties. Sonny Crocket is an ex jock, Vietnam vet, divorced and lives on a boat with a pet gator. Ricardo Tubbs is down from New York looking for revenge and just filled with 80's New York cool. And the thing is they made it look so easy. Phil Collins' In the Air Tonight was so in demand people actually went back and bought the Risky Business soundtrack because The Miami Vice soundtrack was out of stock. We had forgotten just how well done that scene was, cruising along the coastal highway in the dead of night, loading a shotgun, waiting for it to go down. 

More trouble in Israel. Hezbollah rocket fire, followed by Israeli arty fire. Hezbollah fired 19 rockets, which seems like an weird ( we almost wrote odd, heh) number. We're gonna assume one rocket failed to launch. Iron Dome intercepted ten. This seems ominous. Ten rockets were deemed a threat to civilians. Don't doubt that Hezbollah can shoot. Chances our proposed US-Iran war novel is overtaken by events: low. [Oh you want to make predictions, do you?-Ed]

Below, your Friday Flag, Bunker Hill edition:

Your Friday Sports and Collusion Roundup

Oh look, we're colluding with the KGB again: 'To watch broadcast television in America during the summer of 2021 is to be bombarded by Covid-19 advertisements. The commercials usually come in two forms. First, corporations tell Americans that, ‘We all came through the pandemic together’ and also, ‘We’re here for you now.’ This is a sentimental advertising ploy designed to pull the heartstrings...'Click, to continue colluding.

At this point, we really don't have much else to ad about the ninnies at Nightingale Russia and their accusations against us. We will say this, large swaths of the Democrat Party are compromised by China. We'd rather be compromised by Russia. Admit it, Nightingale Russia, Putin is cool AF. We lay down in a pool of our own blood and whisper, 'The kompromat...the kompromat....'*

This has been floating around the internet for a few days:

Look at those lovely young ladies, accomplished athletes. No, they'll never be rolling in cash the way that purple haired misanthrope will be. Still they can look forward to careers in futball, and when they're ready, a family and home. Which would you choose? Pride of a nation. 

What Will's Watching: We admit to enjoying the Olympics in a detached sort of way.  Maybe we're just having fun with the Daughters. The games are going to be a miasma of Woke human interest stories, aren't they? Sure, NBC always pours it on, every athlete has a major struggle to overcome. This year it's going to be even worse. Must be hard to be a millionaire celebrity athlete. Just ask Megan Rapinoe. You're no Jessie Owens. Yes, we are actively rooting against Woke US athletes. 

Below, your Friday Flag, Sydney 2000. Pride of the USA:

*Reference

Nightingale Russia: Read Carefully Next Time

Nightingale Russia thinks Inforos recruited us to the Soviet's great misinformation campaign. To make their point, the anonymous anti-disinformation warriors in Sweden quote this blog.

Stroock goes on to describe how he became involved with InfoRos, explaining: ‘We became aware of those nefarious Ruskis through our friend Sara [sic] Abed who wrote a lot about the Middle East for them at the time. We got Sara to do a quick article about us and our Zionist stoogedom… That was our in with Moscow and from there we’ve written more than 50 clearly marked and obvious op-ed pieces about American politics and foreign affairs, with brief forays into matters Israeli and British…We are paid a fixed sum for each article and the exact number is none of your business, but we assure you it is many, many rubles.’ *

After quoting us, the gals at Nightingale Russia make this bizarre claim, 'Stroock’s comments imply that InfoRos asks writers like Abed, who are already producing content for the agency, to keep an eye out for other journalists who could be recruited to the cause.'

Nightingale Russia, your reading comprehension skills need work, Лошадь мочи. Read what we wrote again, slowly, out loud, and take notes. The quoted paragraph doesn't imply Sarah Abed recruited us. It doesn't imply anything. The paragraph says the exact opposite of what Nightingale Russia claims. Inforos didn't recruit us, we recruited Inforos, Гандон. 

*For the record, here's the post they're quoting.

A Thousand Swedes Ran Through the Weeds, Chased by one American

The Swedes are back this morning. Hi Nightingale Russia, you irony impaired dimwits. We're about 2/3rds done with our Substack article on the brave anonymous anti-Putin warriors based out of Helsinki, Sweden [Finland-Ed]* As promised, it's Nightingale Russia week here at William Stroock dot BlogSpot dot com. As The Critical Drinker says, let's begin, shall we?

Nightingale Russia writes: 

'In a since deleted post Stroock joked Maxim being a Russian spy, ‘We sent our post about Junkpedia [sic] to Maxim our editor at InfoRos in Moscow. He has quite a sense of humor for a KGB agent.’ He obviously had his Russian intelligence services confused...'** 

Let's quote again:

Stroock writes about Maxim a few more times saying in December 2020 that he was writing ‘next week’s KGB column this week’ and in the same paragraph mentioning Maksim again, ‘Maxim, I am rolling’. The paragraph discusses Joe Biden and the ‘China/Dem spy scandal.’ In January 2021, ‘We have a lot on our plate and weren’t planning on colluding with the Russians this week. But Maxim got into bed next to us, put a gentle hand on our shoulder and asked, ‘Honey, are you awake?’ So it looks like we’ll chronicle more of the internal GOP war. It’s nice to be wanted.’ It certainly appears that Stroock is responding to Maksim’s request to write stories about US political events.

They excerpt, but totally miss, our gag about wandering the streets of San Francisco 'looking for American nuclear wessels.' We're not surprised. 

You know, лох, a blog riddled with quips about being compromised by the KGB, compares writing to putting on a slinky black dress, strappy heels and hanging out at the bar, and marinates in ironic self loathing in which the author is berated by an imaginary Liverpudlian editor whom we once fired over MeToo concerns, should probably be read with a certain ironic detachment, чертовски дно.

*Reference

**Here's the post Nightingale Russia claims we deleted. We have never deleted a published post.

Will's Good Idea for the Week of 7/18/21

A beautiful morning and afternoon, with a couple of hours on the lake thanks to a kind neighbor who asked, 'Why don't you just get a new boat?' and then, 'Your kids want to go for a swim?' There followed biblical levels of rain. More today. 

You'd have to be an inhuman monster not to laugh at the Texas Democrats who fled the state to deny the legislature a quorum to pass an election security bill, posted pictures of themselves without masks on an airplane, and then caught the Fauci Flu. It's hilarious. Don't let them back into Texas without a two week quarantine!

What Will's Watching, Mets @ Pirates: Up 6-0 in going into the 8th, the Mets' bullpen gave up five runs and let the Pirates back in the game. The Mets hit a homer in the top of the 9th making it 7-5. The Mets' closer pitched the bottom of the 9th, promptly loaded the bases and gave up a grand slam. Pirates 9, Mets 7. Beat the Mets. Cheat the Mets. Step right up and defeat the Mets. Bring your kiddies. Bring your dog. Come on out and eat like a hog. LOL Mets.

A Confederate reader points out that you don't call a Southern Man a Yank. Seriously, check the comments, people. Wonder how many fights broke out in Britain during The War (no not that one), because some Limey said, 'Sorry Yank,' to a Georgian. Yes, we're already playing off that in World War 1990: The Weser.

Nightingale Russia, the fallout. We've mentioned before that someone from Sweden has been going over this blog. Given the deep dive Nightingale Russia did on our old posts, it was obviously them.  Which brings us to Will's Good Idea of the Week. of 7/18/21. We're going to do two things about the anonymous anti-disinformation warriors at Nightingale Russia. We'll Fisk their hit-piece on us here. Meanwhile, we're also writing a Substack article on same. One will be respectable, one won't.  Betcha my reach is greater than yours. 

Our KGB handler wants something for this week. A lot to cover. In the meantime, off to crank out a few thousand words of The Weser.

Saturday Updates from Russia

We awake tired and sore after pulling kayaks in and out of the water. We still refuse to so much as get in the boat. The Stroocklettes have been informed thusly and are adjusting themselves to the new order. Middle and Youngest Daughter have camp next week, so they will be fine. Looks like some daddy/daughter time with the teenager is in the offing.

Reader(s), it's happening! Please, this blog implores you, if you click one link this morning, click this one. It's an expose from something called Nightingale Russia, and it's all about us. We read it like eight times yesterday. [Ego?-Ed] Absolutely. When we found the piece we were just so....happy. We smiled, we laughed like an idiot. Eight times. We're going to read it again after we're finished here. We've been waiting for this. Nightingale Russia quotes extensively from this blog, and it's obvious that they just don't get the joke. Which is hilarious. We'll deal with these people next week.

In other news, The National Interest has pirated another one of our magazine articles. We admit it's flattering. It's nice to see people recognize that we are among the best there is at what we do. At the bare minimum we're going to start bragging that our work appears in The National Interest. When we get home we're going to send them an invoice at $800 per. Not kidding. 

We think we're going to start a Twitter account just to see how long we can go before it gets taken down, Fauci did Covid, that sort of thing. Because Fauci did Covid.

On to the things:

Being bogged down with children and boat issues we haven't done anything on The Great Nuclear War of 1975.

World War 1990: The Weser is coming along splendidly, though. We're at 32,000 words. The 8th Infantry Division section is partly done, which means it's partly not done. But we're good. We figured out how to start the British chapter and have done so. This entailed adding a British general scene at the beginning, watching as 4 Armoured Division pulls back from the Weser. We also introduce some BBC guys. Also, the Brits meet the Confederates. Two of the 211th ACR's squadrons will cross the Weser, one will remain on the west bank maintaining contact with the Limeys. This chapter is going to be a chess match between the Brit and Jerry general and we'll convey action via listening in to the command net, a trick we've used before and love doing. We'll punctuate with the BBC guys. The first part of the book takes up 30,000 words. We'll keep this chapter about 10,000. Maybe 12,000....15,000?

Friday Anniversaries, Collusion and Flags

This is the big day, 7/16/21. Twenty years ago today Mrs. Stroock and ourselves moved to a quaint and rustic farmhouse in bucolic Peapack, New Jersey. We knew we'd been living in Northern Virginia too long because people were complaining about a heat wave and we didn't think it was that bad. Anyway, we lived in Peapack for four years till moving to Bridgewater. 

Ah....the summer of 2001. The summer of the shark. We remember everything; Gary Condit, Corey Stringer, the whole bag, The calm before the storm. It was our first semester back to school at American Military University, online.  It felt great to be back in the New York Metro Area. We could watch the Yankees. We were around Italian people again, there was a curious lack of them in Northern Virginia, which explains the mediocre Pizza. We used to go to Pizza Hut. We went to a game at Shea Stadium and saw Barry Bonds. 

We told Mrs. Stroock about the big day, her reply was, 'And?'

Here's our latest bit of Soviet Agitprop: 'All throughout 2021 the Democrats have been trying to exploit the 1/6 Capitol Hill Riot for political gain and disgruntled Republicans have been happy to join in. Liz Cheney, daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney and former chair of the House Republican Caucus voted to impeach Trump over the 1/6 riots, as did ten other House Republicans. Six Senate Republicans voted to convict. Columnist George Will, a giant of the post-war Conservative movement declared, ‘I’d like to see Jan. 6 burned into the American mind as firmly as 9/11.’ Steve Schmidt, former John McCain presidential campaign strategist and co-founder of the ostensibly Republican Lincoln Project said, ‘The 1/6 attack for the future of the country was a profoundly more dangerous event than the 9/11 attacks.’ Click on through. The pic alone is worth it. Just add it to the rap sheet, NSA. Count one: the defendant wrote brilliant and inciteful articles for Inforos...

Now more than ever, it is time to liberate Cuba. This blog has no doubt that the boys of the 82nd Airborne Division will be welcomed as liberators. Seriously though, we saw the Squad's head communist, AOC, called the embargo cruel. That's stupid, because so is AOC. Send her home to Venezuela [She's from Yorktown, two towns over from where you grew up, knobhead-Ed]. But despite being a dumb brunette, AOC has a point. What has the embargo ever accomplished?

Moving on to another War of Liberation. We listened to a MINT Press livestream about the Cuba situation and the US in general, and one of the interviewees claimed that US law mandated an invasion of the Netherlands if an American was ever detained and tried by the International Criminal Court. That would be so cool. We could send the 82nd and 101st to Eindhoven and Nijmegen just to reminisce. 

What Will's Watching, The Godfather. We're probably not the only ones here that watched the Godfather* movies on AMC the other day. We were always confused by the final scene in the Godfather II, where the film flashes back to December 7th 1941. Okay, the Japs attack Pearl Harbor on Vito's birthday, Carlo meets Connie. We learn Michael joins the Marines. Is Coppola telling us that Michael will do what he has to do? We pondered this the other night and then realized what Coppola is trying to show us. Vito arrives and everyone gets up to greet him, except Michael, who remains at the table, alone. In the end, Michael will always be alone. 

The boat is in the water. We admit it felt good to drive it from the boat ramp across the lake to our dock. But we'll be damned if we get back in that thing. The bilge is busted and we need to put a new one in. On the drive back, a wheel came off the trailer. When we say that thing is haunted by our grandmother, we mean that thing is haunted by our grandmother. Man, she really doesn't like that boat. Do not mess with southern women. EVER.

Below, our Lake Buel neighbor's late CSA flag:

*The Godfather III is unfairly slammed. It's a decent movie, it's just not as good as the other two.

Nuking the Veep

Great back to back days at the gym. Weights on Wednesday, running yesterday. We were sore from lifting and approached the treadmill with great humility. The hour went smoothly and pretty quickly. 

While running we got in a lot of good thinking about The Weser. We're still not sure just how were going to show the British. We know exactly what we're doing with the 9th East German Panzer Division. Bunch of Kraut tossers. We think we'll need another two weeks to wrap up the American chapter. 

We just love waking up and seeing our collusion published: 'It finally happened. On 22 June Senate Republicans used the filibuster to defeat the Democrats HR1, the For the People act. All 50 Republicans voted against ending debate and bringing HR1 to the floor for a vote. HR1 would ban voter ID and mandate mass mailing of absentee ballots, among other provisions. Republicans, many of whom think the 2020 election was stolen, say this will enable mass fraud by Democrats. HR1 would have nationalized American elections and may not even be constitutional. Article II, section 1 of the Constitution says presidential electors will be chosen in a way determined by the state legislatures.' Seriously, Moscow can't get enough of the filibuster. Click our collusion. 

Actually, the communists can't get enough of us. We counted, and in the last two years we've written 75 pieces for Inforos. We cover a lot of things, but our main beat is US politics. See young writers, find a beat and cover it. Inforos didn't have anyone like us before we came along. We are Moscow's man on the ground in America and remunerated for our efforts. 

What Will's Watching: Extinction. A well executed movie about an alien invasion. Extinction has a great script with characters we cared about. The actual alien invasion is an interesting visual feast. Lots of turns and twists that seem ridiculous at first but make sense at the end. The movie asked you to ponder moral questions, like a good scifi flick. 4/4

The Washington leak-wars have ramped up. Zerohedge tells us: 'Vice President Kamala Harris' office is a toxic, 'abusive' environment where "people are thrown under the bus from the very top,' according to 22 current and former staffers, administration officials and associates of Harris and President Biden. In a Politico exposé reminiscent of a Feb. 2019 New York Times in which over fifty current and former staffers decried her dysfunctional campaign (h/t @mattdizwhitlock), Harris and her Chief of Staff, Tina Flournoy, are slammed for running an office with "low morale, porous lines of communication and diminished trust among aides and senior officials.'

We call BS on leaks out of KAMala's office. This is Biden's people. CoS Ron Klain and 'doctor' Jill are running things. But what's the angle? When Joe goes down, they can't put Jill in charge. Can they? Marginalizing KAMala is one thing, but driving her out, well, that's something else, as Han would say. 

So let's think this through. If Klain and Jill force KAMala out, with whom would they replace her? We were about to write that they can't replace a POC with a white woman like Amy Klobuchar, but could they? Dem's don't care about looking like hypocrites. KAMala is toxic. She's not popular. Not only did she not win a single primary, she didn't even win a single vote. KAMala has no constituency. Don't kid yourself. For a variety of complex reasons, women don't like KAMala.  She is the 21st centuries' Andrew Johnson. Not even Willie Brown could save the Veep.

The Gods are just Messing with us now (bastards)

Mrs. Stroock, who is not yet cleared to drive, sent us to the grocery store to pick up a few things. It will surprise some readers that in New Jersey, one can purchase fireworks at one's local Shoprite. 

Mrs. Stroock not pleased. 

Remember, there are half a million Hindus in this state. Diwali, which is like Christmas and Guy Fawkes Day rolled into one, is now a school holiday here in Bridgewater. You say fireworks. We say, 1st Amendment. Actually, the Bridgewater police department is very accommodating about fireworks and lists what's legal and not before telling residents to be careful and have fun.

For the love of Kek would you people call me Will and look me up on FB  and or Gab? A valued reader suggested a book in the comments. The book looks great and at some point we will pick it up, thanks. But one must needs be careful with these situations. One of the many reasons we don't read fiction anymore is that we don't want other people's ideas creeping into our own. That being said, we're gonna get this one so as to improve our own work's realism.

Tucker Carlson tells us that the NSA has been spying on him. This blog assumes the Feds are reading its communications. So when we message a buddy of ours, 'Hey did you see that sideline NFL cheerleader? Nice tits,' we figure an FBI agent is logging it. We're not kidding. We write for Inforos after all. Right now we're working on a piece for our commie handler on budget reconciliation and the filibuster. Real subversive stuff. We suspect the Feds would argue that by writing legit news, we're providing cover for Soviet disinformation. In fact, the media has made that argument before. 

[Do you really think you could be in some sort of legal trouble?-Ed]

We'll put it this way. We cannot 100% rule out the possibility that the Feds will concoct something against us. Look at what they did to General Flynn, Roger Stone, etc etc. We have a plan.  More likely is some coordinated press campaign. They hit Inforos last summer and even quoted one of our articles, without attribution, mind you. Assuming Amazon didn't cancel us, getting the media spotlight would be a great way to sell books.

[Knobhead-Ed]

Anywhoo...Sometimes one writes a thing without really knowing what it's about. We've been doing that with the 8th Infantry Division's counterattack. But then we had that flash of inspiration, that lightening across the sky. The point of the chapter, the theme, is that the 8th finally has a chance to bring about a battle on its terms. When the moment comes, can marshal all it's resources at the decisive point. Hello arty, MLRS and Apaches. 

We got back to The Great Nuclear War of 1975 yesterday; Argentine chapter. So far, we like what we. Pressing onward. Ever onward. And we did so during the late afternoon in a Mavis Tire waiting room. You see, we got in the car to take the girls to the pool, and noticed we had a tire air pressure problem. That's when we saw the screw in the tire. And so Kek laughed...

Swords, Scots, Queen, Monday Metal

Ahhhh...the ideas for The Weser are blazing across the sky like a lightening strike. Which is all well and good and useless unless those ideas translate into wordage. 

[Wordage?-Ed]

I'm rolling, Wyatt (if you goddamn people don't get that reference, stop reading this blog).

Today we'll do an East German scene. Division commander, they just routed a Belgian division, or some such. Wouldn't it be fitting for the British armoured division to match up with the East German armored division. 'Why look, Jerry again!' Yes, yes it would.

Back to the nukes as well. We'll start reading through another chapter of '75 this morning. We've got an air force guy walking the tarmac in Casper just before Air Force One arrives. Why not make him the guy that mans the phone in the presidential meeting room as well? We can expand character and use him to add observations, 'Who the fuck are these bastards trying to kid?' Indeed, we are among the best there is at what we do.

Here's our very latest bit of collusion with Russia: 'When this observer first got interested in politics in the late 1980’s, the budget deficit was an important issue. Prognosticators worried about ever expanding deficits hampering economic growth and creating an impossible debt burden for future generations. In 1991, the Federal budget deficit was $269 billion and the national debt totaled, $3.6 trillion, 60% of GDP. There followed three decades of ham-fisted attempts by Republican and Democrat budget hawks to get a handle on the debt. They failed.' Click it.

The Critical Drinker explains why Highlander is so unbelievably awesome on multiple existential plains. In the Stroock household we measure awesomeness in Highlander Units. The GOP's mayoral win in 85% Hispanic McAllen Texas scores 4.5 Highlanders out of a possible 5. Scoring 5/5 is thought by physicists* to be impossible outside the presence of Clancy Brown.

Here's the best song from Queen's 'unofficial' Highlander soundtrack:

My god that guitar solo...it's operatic. If reader(s) are wondering whether we've written armored counterattacks with that lead reverbing in our head, wonder no longer. We've loved that song and album for 30 years. There can be only one.

*Spelled it right on the first try!

The Friday Fuck All (illustrated)

A week since Mrs Stroock left for Indiana. We're tired, bored and angry. 

Last night we made London Broil, grilled to perfection with a salad, spicy potatoes and sourdough bread. So far no gout.

An Arab friend posted a 'Hands off my Hijab' meme which we read, or shall we say, misread, before being fully awake. Think about it. 

[You knobhead-Ed].

Seriously. 

So Inforos made the news again. Yet another article claimed that the site's founder Denis Tyurin is a GRU agent. We asked our handler in Moscow, who knows the man. He says Tyurin denies it. Here's a rather impressive chart:

If you google Denis Tyurin you get a Russian hockey player. Maybe the NHL is behind all this? I like hockey.

You think that the journos reporting on Inforos would have some basic curiosity and, I dunno, look up the people writing for Inforos. Who, what, where, when, why. Try it some time. But that's not really what they do.

So this happened last night:

Super secret GRU misinformation websites run out of Siberian missile silos probably don't get hacked. 

Mad whatevs, yo. Payment continues nonetheless:

Every spring we get bored and order new flags. Those of you who don't know us on FB haven't seen them yet.

Below, Rohan will answer the call: