The Russian/Jew News Whip Around

This blog is getting lots of traffic from Sweden of late, which means Nightingale Russia is dumpster diving us. Why don't you drop us a line, gals?

Hot Air has a piece about China's 'useful idiot' bloggers and vloggers who get paid by Beijing to say nice things about China and the CCP. We smiled. We laughed. Our KGB handler has never asked us to write anything about Russia much less anything nice about Russia. 

Segway...we dropped by Russia Today this morning. They were more bellicose on the Ukraine front yesterday than the day before. This morning we don't see much on the matter. This blog admits to finding RT surprisingly useful. What's our own Inforos got? There's a big headline about a phone call between Vlad and Boris. Another piece about Ukraine....but overall light bellicosity.

Some time ago we submitted an article to a military history magazine about Royal Navy plans for war with the US in 1862. This week we pointed out that the research for that piece was based on our own submission to Those in Peril, The Blue and the Red: Palmerston's Ironclads, which has been nominated for a Sidewise Award. Those awards will be announced this weekend. The article's publication date has been moved up. We are very good at what we do. 

Actually, we'll have a piece coming out in that same magazine next month about the Yom Kippur War and the Battle of the Chinese Farm. A very interesting and exciting battle in which Egypt gets the full Ariel Sharon. He went all biblical on the Egyptians, smashed and army, crossed Suez and surrounded an army.  An 11th plague...

More Jews....The Times of Israel reports, 'Iran’s state-affiliated Tehran Times issued a threat to Israel on Wednesday, publishing a map of the country riddled with markers as a reminder that Iranian forces can ostensibly strike anywhere they want. Alongside a front-page opinion piece headlined “Just one wrong move!” the map showed scores of markers along the length and breadth of the country.' Read the article, study the map, and believe the Mullahs. The coming war will be an existential conflict reminiscent of the London Blitz. Israel will suffer thousands of casualties and billions in damage to buildings and infrastructure. Israeli will also do horrible things. 

Will's Good Idea for the week of 9/5/21

Huh, we just realized the NFL season begins today. We'll be busy. We've never been less interested in sportball. Okay, Mrs. Stroock watches her Phillies at night and we'll sit with her for a few innings. We haven't watched our formerly beloved New York Yankees in a couple of years. Forget about the Giants. We're over them. Which is shocking as hell. We've been married, have three children, know professional success, and Super Bowl XXV* is till one of the five happiest moments of our lives. UPDATE: Whoops that's next week.

Post flood we've been on the phone with the insurance people and the DirecTV people. That took, like, an hour. They needed ten minutes just for them to figure out who I was. DirecTV is really pushing their look. The main satellite unit was underwater for several hours. It's no biggie, we really don't watch direct TV anymore and are only keeping it for the Stroock Northern Strategic Direction. So after all the phone time they can come in a couple of weeks to fix things. From there Mrs. Stroock wanted to speak to them....

Tomorrow we'll call the windows and doors people, as we believe both in the entryway have been compromised. We'll be taking out more bookcases and books today. After that the carpet, which refuses to dry out. 

We need to put off wrapping up The Great Nuclear War of 1975 today because we had an idea about the Falklands chapter. It's nothing huge. We're not adding 10,000 words. But we haven't been too sure how to finish it. Now we think we have something, but we need to let the idea percolate. Reminder, we've extended the summer deadline to 9/13. Thank you Bridgewater Raritan School District and Hurricane Ida, I guess.  

We have to admit we're tired. Not of writing but from writing. The prospect of doing a Blue and the Red story comp is exciting because it gives our brain a chance to take a break from the writing grind and get creative again. We love just sitting around and thinking about plot. 

So our KGB handler demands we write something about 9/11 this week. Twenty years. We're in awe. Looking at the calendar...oh for fuck sake it's a Saturday this year. That means memorials and rallies. We don't know what to think anymore. We've done plenty about 9/11 on this blog before. Don't expect much, if anything this year. Not after the debacle. We will say this, man, do we ever see things differently. 

*Wide right! Giants-20, Bills-19

Saturday Updates

We got back home today and immediately went to work. Mrs. Stroock has the girls going through clothes while we began the arduous task of removing books and shelves. Needless to say we're getting our workout. So far so good.

Above is a picture of your blogger poolside in Beach Haven, New Jersey. The family has been vacationing at that complex since 1980. Exactly thirty years ago we used to sit in that exact same place writing stories in a spiral notebook. It's important, because, well:

We learned about our nomination for a Sidewise Award this week.  They really liked The Blue and The Red, Palmerston's Ironclads. First off we must thank our editor Chris Kennedy the opportunity and our colleague James Young for even thinking of us. To be honest we don't really know what to think.  

Does this nomination change our 2022 plans? Might we do a short story compilation in that universe? Possibly.  We had ideas. A great land battle outside of DC. A British crew docked at New Orleans; culture class follows and the British captain has to make a decision about escaped slaves. A return of Frederick Hart would be in order. 

Because of Ida, school here has bene postponed to 13 September. We are adjusting our own schedule accordingly and will be working on World War 1990: The Weser till the beginning of school.

Tomorrow we'll finish The Great Nuclear War of 1975 and print out a hard copy for reading.