Will takes on the New York Beat and goes really not Metal Monday

Ooookaaay. This week we'll wrap up the rough draft of the Franco-Italian-Israeli air strikes on Soviet nuclear forces in the Ukraine. We've got plenty of Italian Tornados and Star Fighters flying about. The Tornado's target is Pervomaysk. Have fun!

We should also wrap up The Great Nuclear War of 1975's Looking Glass officers discussing the course of the war. We also use these scenes to show a slice of life up in Gillette, Wyoming, which is home to what's euphemistically referred to as the Western DoD. There are huge coalmines around Gillette, and the Looking Glass scenes gives us the chance to talk about the Feds shipping coal to Colorado and the Pacific Northwest. We think that's interesting.

Zerohedge tells us that New York Governor Kathy Hochul wants to renovate Penn Station. Good. The current Penn Station is a 1960s era big government dump that has all the charm of an overcrowded elementary school and smells like a combination of cardboard boxes  and rotten tomatoes. Hochul's plan will cost $5-7 billion and take 5 years. Even if one doubles both numbers, good. 

Look, guys, Curtis Sliwa was never going to be elected mayor of New York City. That's just not how things work there. You have any idea what it took to elect Rudy in 1993?

Everyone thinks of 1970's dystopian New York as the cities' low point. And maybe it was. But by 1990 the crack-wars had driven NYC's murder rate to the highest ever recorded. The city was riven by race riots and anti-Jewish pogroms and Black Mayor David Dinkins seemed okay with it. 1993 wasn't NYC in Deathwish, but the porn shops still dominated Times Square and the Yankees sucked. You want a feel for the time, go watch Ron Howard's The Paper,* where a racially motivated murder hangs over a city wanting to burst.

People had had enough, and NYC elected Rudy, who said he'd fight crime. The rest is history. Back in our 90's DC days, we'd have to explain to these young gun southern Republicans from Texas and Florida that stormed DC with the 104th Congress that yes, Rudy was pro-abortion, favored gay marriage, and endorsed Mario Cuomo, but he hated crime. And in NYC that made him a GOP. 

Eric Adams may be a Democrat, but he talks like mid-90s Rudy. 

Below, the gritty, un-fabulous, pre-Friends New York. Give me a beat!:

*Watch The Paper. Watch it! Cop Confirms: They didn't do it.

Wither Rutgers

One of this blog's Confederate readers noted that yesterday began the college football season. He and I will always have a special bond becuase he likes Ole Miss and my man Eli Manning* went to Ole Miss.

One of the quirks of the Northeast is that it's not really good college football country, with one notable exception being the Irish and Notre Dame. But really we have no college football loyalties.

We married a Penn State girl (actually Mrs. Stroock went to UD but her parents went to and met at Penn State. She grew up with a cat named Nittany after the Penn State Nittany Lions.) Her lions crushed Idaho yesterday 79-7. Hope the network TV money was worth the humiliation, Idaho. 

Such is the way of college football were the top 25 or so teams beat and wail on the weaklings.

Here in New Jersey we have Rutgers (New Jersey U) which has pretended to be a top football program for 20 years. They even joined a serious conference, the Big Ten, home to Penn State. Go ahead and laugh, we do. People do go to the games, but its more of a 'thing to do on a Saturday' than actual rabid fandom. We're about 20 minutes from campus. 

When Penn State comes to town every other year Mrs. Stroock and her sisters go to the games. Last year when the Nittany lions annihilated the Scarlet Nights someone was spotted with a sign calling for the expulsion of Rutgers from that proud conference.

*Brother of the less successful Peyton Manning. Eli is 2-0 is the Super Bowl while Peyton is 2-2.