Wednesday Wallow

A nice easy hour on the treadmill yesterday at 3.7 and 3.8. We just cruised. Nevertheless we awake cranky, tired and sore. A rough night overall, we don't know why. That's two in a row.  Might be Thursday Downer material. We get this way in the second half of August now. 

The Taliban is already shooting women in Kabul. Western Feminists are screaming like a pod of beached whales. For 20 years these unfuckables made common cause with Islamists in the Middle East and at home. Feminists harpies for peace took to the streets with Sharia touting Islamists to oppose victory in Iraq. The purple hairs thought the hijab was cool and empowering. They argued that the burkha could liberate women from the male gaze.  You helped make this happen, you skanks. Reap it, bitches.

Would Shapiro, Carlson and all the rest stop calling the Taliban 7th century barbarians? These guys used WhatsAp to coordinate their military campaign. They DM'd Afghan forces to talk them into surrendering. At roadblocks they search people's phones for evidence they work for the government. Their religion is from the 7th century, but they aren't. The Taliban are a lot more than goat herders. To quote one of the tankers in The Beast, 'They sure have us on the run.'

We submitted our collusion to the Ruskis late last night. It probably won't get published till afternoon our time. 

We finished our readthrough of '75 excepting the Falklands chapter. The one-off scenes are what they are. Their purpose is to show what's happening in various parts of the country and how people and authorities in these places are dealing with the aftermath of the war. To that end they work. Still, they lack a narrative thread. There's nothing to be done. This is it. This is The Great Nuclear War of 1975. 

Which is worse, the Fall of Kabul or Toby Keith?

This blog formally recognizes the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan as the nation's legit government. Congratulations. 

Let's get things off on the right foot with an ironic yet timely Monday Metal:

Hahahahahahahaha! Aaaaaaahahahahahahaha! [Was that really necessary?-Ed] You have no idea how necessary it is.*

Steyn, as is his wont, has taken the measure of the moment and agrees with us that this is so much worse than Saigon. The Pentagon actually had a plan in 1975, look up Operation Frequent Wind. It's clear that the Pentagon had no plan for Kabul. Right now the airport in Kabul is swarmed with desperate people. How long till there's some sort of massacre? Bill Roggio gives CSPAN a long analysis of what went wrong and what's happening, and we think it's worth reader(s) time.

[You wanted out of Afghanistan too, knobhead-Ed]

That's right. We're not going to make the usual caveats. Maybe there could have been a more orderly retreat. It took the Taliban 6 years to oust the old communist government after the Soviets pulled out in '89. We always envisioned a couple of thousand US troops in Kabul securing the city and coordinating air strikes. In the end it doesn't matter. Twenty years was enough.

*Makes me sick to watch it.

Last Day

Picking the womenfolk up at the airport tomorrow.

Just a great run at the gym yesterday. We kept the treadmill on 3.7 and cruised. Why not? The real goal of those hour long runs is time, not speed, not even distance. We are of course, sore. Weird though yesterday, as it seems it was the women's 50+ hour or something. [Don't even say it-Ed]. We won't. Ouch! [Knobhead-ed].

Our latest bit of Russian Collusion: 'A snapshot of America today. It was alleged last weekend that at a baseball game between the hometown Colorado Rockies and the visiting Miami Marlins, a fan shouted racial slurs at an African American player. Rockies management quickly tweeted their ‘disgust’. Upon reviewing the footage though, it’s clear that the Rockies fan was shouting ‘Dinger!’, the name of the Rockies mascot, dinger being a colloquialism for a home run. The accused wanted to get a picture of Dinger with his grandchildren. The grandfatherly fan remains anonymous as the mere accusation of racism is enough to ruin his life...' Click to continue colluding.

Afghanistan is collapsing. We are intrigued by these three infantry battalions arriving in Kabul to secure the embassy and airport. A big battle like that could make a hell of a short story. One of our World War 1990 ideas is Tet in Kabul, from the Soviet Pov. Anyway, The NY Post quotes an expert saying that the Taliban will be on the outskirts of Kabul within 30 days. Fools. They'll have the city way before that. This blog isn't calling for us to stay, but since they're out in the open, why not bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb the Taliban on the way out? Jesus, it's all gonna be over by September 11th, isn't it?

By now you've all seen the latest Hunter Biden expose. For the record, the Russians have never stolen one of our laptops. We used to be thankful that we didn't end up like Hunter, but now we wonder if we have what it takes*. An 18 day bender. JFC. When Joe says Hunter is the smartest man he knows, we believe him. What are they gonna do when he drops dead from a crack overdose? No, Viagra fueled sex binge.  [Prediction?-Ed]. Prediction. 

So Air Force ends with a titanic and entirely fictitious aerial assault on a Japanese fleet. The crew of the Mary Ann spot the fleet when flying to Australia and send out the word. There follows a well executed scene in which the Army Air Corps, Marine aviation and Navy get orders to scramble everything they have.** After that viewers are treated to a spectacle as dozens of American aircraft descend on the Japanese fleet. Everything that could be accomplished with models has been accomplished here and the result is a visual spectacle of destruction. It's almost as if Howard Hawks let a bunch of ten year old boys write and shoot the scene. We can see the writer's room now, 'Let's just blow the fuck out of everything.' It's glorious. 

Below, your Friday flag:

Timely

*Reference.

**Readers, in which novel did I recreate this?  

Lovely Ladies of the Left

The cold is ravaging the Stroock family. All except us. Unless that scratchy throat we had yesterday was our lone symptom. Seriously, we should have been laid low by now. Yes, we're aware we're tempting both Kek and Jobu.

One tries to be positive. One tries to eschew mean words. But then one sees Mad Maxine Waters bashing the Declaration of Independence, and Cori Bush Tweeting, 'This land is stolen land and Black people still aren’t free,' and the lovely ladies of the US Women's Soccer team turning their backs on the National Anthem, racial shyster Nicole Hannah Jones gets tenure at UNC but choses Howard instead...One word comes to mind, and it rhymes with... 

Zerohedge says the Taliban is unstoppable: 'In recent days, the Taliban’s march through northern Afghanistan gained momentum with the capture of several districts from fleeing Afghan forces. More than 300 Afghan military personnel crossed from Afghanistan’s Badakhshan province as Taliban fighters advanced towards the border. The Afghan soldiers escaped to neighboring Tajikistan, saving their lives from the enemy. On July 4th, the Taliban was on the verge of taking Faizabad, the provincial capital of the Badakhshan province. Senior local officials have already taken a flight and escaped to Kabul.' This blog couldn't care less. There's nothing in Afghanistan worth fighting for. We hope people that worked for the US are getting out of the country. But seriously, 20 years and you folks can't get your shit together?

A very good day of writing. We went through the now 25,000 words we've written for The Weser and gotten things straightened out, explained, and making sense. We still don't have much of an idea how we're writing the British. We don't want this chapter to look like the American chapter, do we? We'll see. 

For that matter, World War 1990: The Weser is starting to feel like the battle scenes in World War 1990: Nederland. We're working with a lot of the same ideas and themes. Which is fine. When someone reads and likes the thing you wrote, they want another thing just like it. 

Then we went through the Falkland naval scenes in The Great Nuclear War of 1975 and came away pleased. We've been using A Carrier at Risk, about the ARA 25 de Mayo as a reference for the Argentine navy. This is part of the Latin America @War series. Yesterday we discovered there's a volume about Brit sub efforts. So it's in the mail. 

We have the Admiralty dispatch one sub only to the Falklands. Why not three? Seriously, why not? Because one lone sub makes for a submarine adventure. In other words, because the plot needs it. Ok, a throw away line about resource scarcity and needing to keep the sub fleet in the North Sea, Atlantic, etc to watch out for the Ruskis will do it. But still.