Will Stands in the Breach

We went for a walk yesterday afternoon and will do so again this afternoon.

Looks like we'll be getting 4-6 inches of snow tomorrow. That's just enough for us to rev up the snowblower. Certain North American readers are thinking 'Wuss'.

For those of you who know us on FB, the more we post pics of kids or cats or whatnot, the more we really want to post mean things. 

We've gone through the British attack scene in The Final Storm once again. What we once thought was weak is looking better and better. This is one bear of a book.

We're going over The Weser's final scenes. We're not quite sure if were done. Maybe? As it stands now the ending just kind of fades out. Know what I mean? That might not be a bad thing. 

We've been tweeting about NJ07 and issues important to same. Nothing yet.

NJ.com reports:  'State Senate President Stephen Sweeney on Thursday formally announced his plan to appoint Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg to the board of directors of Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey. Weinberg, who announced a year ago she wouldn’t seek re-election after three decades in Trenton, will resign from the Legislature on Friday to accept the new position, Sweeney said in a statement. The news of her planned resignation and appointment to the board was first reported by NJ Advance Media Wednesday evening.' Hmmm...does it look bad? Probably. Is it bad? Probably. We shrug indifferently.

Mark Judge writes a scathing assessment of Ben Shapiro. 'Shapiro has a brilliant mind and it was fun watching him rip apart liberalism. He’s the Lt. Commander Data of the right, reporting to annihilate the weak arguments of virtue-signaling college students.' Heh, Data. We like Ben Shapiro, but agree with Judge on this one. Facts don't care about your feelings, Shapiro likes to say. But left feelings don't care about Shapiro's facts, and he doesn't get that. Judge is always worth reading. Still, he writes articles in niche publications. Shapiro has founded a conservative media empire. 

The Daily Caller reports the Mannings are interested in buying an NFL franchise. Anyone whose watched Petyon and Eli's Monday night broadcast knows these two understand football. However, acumen doesn't necessarily translate into winning sports. John Elway won a Super Bowl as the Broncos' GM. But Derek Jeter has been a bust as the Miami Marlins' owner so far. Supposition: Peyton would be the owner, Eli the GM and Cooper would run the business end. You gotta better plan?

Russia Today's homepage is loaded with stories about Kazakstan. Quoth: 'The first plane with Russian peacekeepers on board took off for Kazakhstan early on Thursday, as the Central Asian country remains gripped by violent protests provoked by a sharp hike in fuel prices after the New Year.' Peacekeepers. Oh that's good. Other sources report Soviet, sorry... Russian troops are fighting in the streets. Peace Keepers. Still laughing at that one.

Breaking! Must credit Stroock's Books...

When asked about the Kazakhstan situation, William Stroock replied, 'Kazakstan? You mean like, Borat? There's fighting in the streets? Russian troops? Who gives a crap? I don't love it but I'm not going to go boycott the Olympics over it or anything...Now excuse me while I go meet my 'friend' Maxim for some perogies and Borscht.' 

Developing...

You Gotta Suck Before you don't Suck

Ezra Klein is the wunderkid founder of Vox. He's also a young and obnoxious know it all whose taken it upon himself to 'explain' the news to us dullards.

In this old article, journalist Mark Judge asks, 'Has Ezra Klein ever been told off by an editor?' He guesses no.

It's not a pleasant experience, we can assure reader(s).  We learned early on.

Our first year at Wesley college we joined the student newspaper, The Whetstone. The paper was staffed by upper classmen and run by a 30 year old Air Force* vet. The staff had all known each other for a couple of years, and the previous year they'd been locked in a battle with the administration as they tried to cover the labor issues wracking the campus.** These young people were already hard-bitten, skeptical reporters. The moto on the wall, If everyone is happy with your newspaper, you're doing something wrong. 

The Whetstone was riven by personality conflicts, ego and envy, making for a toxic place. Putting the paper together usually took all night with sessions sometimes lasting till 6 AM. Tempers flared, nerves ran raw. One night the assistant editor tried to tell the editor what to do. The editor responded by pointing both fingers at him and said, 'Mike, I could kick your ass fucker!' The office was a tension filled boiler room.

Into this environment we stepped, a scared, insecure 19 year old.

Boy we learned a lot about writing and reporting. The staff knew plenty about both. We wrote sports, covered campus news and were expected to produce good, clean copy. When we failed, and we failed often, the editor, who at age 30 might as well have been our father, would ream us in front of the rest of the staff. We were once sat in the middle of the office and lectured by the staff on everything we were doing wrong. That was a rough afternoon. We can still feel our face turning red, our brow sweating, the sickening feeling in the pit of our stomach. The Whetstone kept us though, we must have been doing something right, or they must have spotted some potential, or maybe they just needed a warm body to cover sports. We were lucky.

We don't think Ezra Klein ever thought of himself as a warm body, or just lucky to be writing. We sure as heck do. Klein never had the HS sports beat. He never covered a football game and then ran across campus to cover the softball game, write the former while attending the later, and remembered to get a quote from the softball pitcher who gave up six runs and is pissed because your question implied it was all her fault.

We don't think Ezra Klein ever did that. 

*Dover, Delaware

**A messy affair that led to firings, lawsuits, protests and action by the National Labor Relations Board.