Mr. Trump for the Win

Remember in the late 1990's when "science" was telling us that the Atkins diet was quackery. They knew, everyone knew, that the way to be healthy and trim was to eat low fat, high carb. I mean, this was science, people. Meanwhile, you, me, everyone reading this knew someone who went on the Atkins diet and not only lost weight, but lost it fast. By the early 2000s science surrendered to fact. Fat does not make you fat, and your health is mostly a result of your genetics.

Bear with me here.

A few weeks ago polls were telling us that Hillary! was not only ahead, but way ahead. Meanwhile you, me, everyone reading this knows people who love Mr. Trump. We've seen the yard signs and bumper stickers pop up all over the place. Let's not even get to these raucous rallies of 10, 20, 30,000 people, standing in line for hours to see Mr. Trump. Meanwhile Hillary! – well, she gets a few hundred osteoporosis-stricken baby boomers. Something is going on here.

I am reminded of the great P.J. O'Rourke, who I first read at the age of 19 in 1992, writing about the Nicaraguan election of 1989. Polls there showed the Sandies were going to beat the Violetta Chmoro and the opposition UNO Party. Then on election day he saw people standing in line for hours to vote. O'Rourke confessed that he made the mistake of believing opinion polls in a country where it was illegal to hold certain opinions. The UNO romped, btw.

Anyone who thinks it is not illegal to hold certain opinions here in Obama's America is a fool.

I'm going to tell you another story:

New York City, 1948. A young Mark Stroock II is walking down the street when he gets caught up in a big rally of angry, PO'd city workers who have been told by their union bosses to attend the political rally or else. It's 5:30 and these guys are angry and ready to throw beer bottles. Up to the podium steps the embattled President Harry S. Truman, whom Gallup has assured the nation is going to lose badly. By the end of that rally Truman had those angry city union workers chanting his name and cursing their boss, Governor Thomas E. Dewey. Mark Stroock bet his friends Give em Hell Harry would win and got 8-1 odds.

Trump is going to win. We see the evidence everywhere. Don't believe "science".  Believe your lyin' eyes.

Will's Good Idea for 10-30-16

Nuclear Armageddon, anyone?

Yes, its a thing with me, ok. Probably because I'm a child of the 80's and I have been intrigued by the tele-movie The Day After.

Go ahead and watch it on Youtube if you like.

Now, what's really fascinating about the movie is the aftermath, which is dealt with in the third act. Roughly speaking we get two weeks, maybe three into the aftermath. What I find interesting is what we see here. A National Guard truck distributing food, another truck picking up bodies, troops executing looters, etc. Near the end we have a brief speech by the president. He assures us there has been 'no surrender' and the Soviets have suffered similar damage. The president makes reference to local governments and emergency recovery agency and even a rebuilding program.

So just what damage has the US suffered?

During the nuclear attack sequence we see stock footage of the SAC airborne command post, Looking Glass. This is actually taken from the documentary First Strike, also available on Youtube. We see a captain tell 'Major Rheinhardt' that 300 ICBMs are inbound. The question is what do they hit. First, obviously all our missile bases from Minot in North Dakota to Whiteman in Missouri. We can presume they hit SAC in Omaha, NORAD in Colorado, the big bomber bases scattered throughout the country, etc. There's no reason to suppose they did not also hit army bases like Hood in Texas, Drum in NY etc.

Now, we know they nuked Kansas City, so they undoubtedly nailed the other big cities, NYC, DC, LA, etc etc. And that's where they stopped. By which I mean they didn't nuke say, Sacramento, Trenton, Evansville, Pittsfield.  We see clearly that the vestiges of the state have survived.

I think back now to another early 80s nuclear thriller, War Games. There is a scene where the super computer controlling everything tells Mathew Broderick that the U.S. will suffer 80 million casualties. That's out of a nation of 230 million.

I think that's about right. Remember, The crisis has been building, some people have left the big cities so casualties there are not as heavy as they could have been.

Over all I'd say the United States has suffered massive damage but not fatal.

Ironically there should be no food shortage in the winter. First, an American's pantry is always full. Right now I must have half a dozen boxes of pasta in the kitchen. Second, the American farmer is so productive the Feds buy grain, feed, etc and store it. Those storage points are well outside urban areas. Third, there's a lot less people around.

Now, in the post Day After world, what else has been hit? The movie tells us that NATO was exploding low yield nukes in Europe. Undoubtedly they finished the job and annihilated the Soviet Army. The Soviets most likely did the same to the American Army. Europe is probably in worse straights then America.

But what else has been hit? Probably nothing. Why take out Toronto or Montreal? South America, Asia, Australia (don't even say it) has survived. So has Japan, India. Of course its possible to envision a scenario where the Soviets go ahead and nuke China as a defensive measure, but then the Chinese would just finish the job we started, wouldn't they? The point here is that help would be coming from overseas.

A novel about such a world would be interesting, no?

Friday Updates

The agent is pitching Pershing in Command. Yay.

The proofers are proofing Castro's Folly. Whoooo!

We are clawing our way to the conclusion of The Final Storm. Finally.

Whatever Happened to Jake and Patricia Bloom is progressing, 22K up from 18K last Friday.


We are wondering what To Attack the Earth would look like.

You're with the media...fuck you

There is nothing about this Breitbart piece on media harassment that is not totally awesome:

Triggered journalists from across the nation are bemoaning the treatment members of the press are receiving at Trump campaign rallies from the Trump supporters the media routinely misrepresents as ignorant racists, fascist Nazis, or disenchanted working whites.

With increasing regularity, these journalist snowflakes are “reporting” their victimization at the hands Trump supporters who chant mean things like, “CNN sucks” and call them names like “presstitutes.”

Awwww, Snowflake, are people actually fighting back?

As I have said before, Mr. Trump isn't running against Obama or even Hillary!. He is running against the media.

Remember, these are the people that smeared W. with the phony National Guard story and followed that up with another phony story about al Qaeda terrorists stealing explosives out of the Saddam era al-kaka facility. These are the people who gleefully reported every American combat death in Iraq. These are the people who dumpster dived on John McCain allegedly having an affair, and rooted around Clarence Thomas's garage. I could go on and on and on...

For members of the media elite, the occasional taunts and jeers signal a dangerous threat to the free press. During an interview with Kellyanne Conway on Tuesday, CNN’s Wolf Blitzer breathlessly asked Trump’s campaign manager to ask Trump to stop calling out the press at his rallies because he is scared “there could be an ugly incident” between Trump supporters and the “hardworking young journalists” who cover his rallies.

They're worried about an 'ugly incident'? Good.

Referring Site of the Day

Kraut foreclosure edition:

www.chefkontakt.de

That 90's 70's Show

Now, I was born in 1973 and have only vague recollections of the 70's. 1979 is the first year I really remember. I recall Star Wars and Rocky, my bowl haircut, Eight is Enough and the Gong Show. Sunday night were my two favorite shows; Battlestar Galactica and 8:00, CHiPs at 9:00. But really, I'm a child of the 80's, right down to the day-glo and mullett.

So recently I started binge watching That 70's Show on Netflix. I haven't watched an episode since 2001 or so. What struck me back then, and now, is the zanyness of the whole show, its farcical fell. Its down right silly, and that's a good thing. The show was a bit of sensation at the time, and part of the whole 70's revival that happened 20 years

We have Red, the stern, old fashioned dad, Kitty the happy homemaking wife who wants everything to be just-so. Their son Eric is the main character we're supposed to follow. He's the glue that holds the friends together.

Eric and his childhood friends always reminded me of my friends and I. We had the same situation. We'd known each other since kindergarten, grew up on the same street together, began noticing that some of us were boys and some were girls and weren't the girls kind of interesting now? Where did those tits come from? We even had a Fez, ahhhh Antoine...

We have half a dozen teenage characters, Eric and Donna (the couple we root for), Hyde (already cynical at 17) Jackie and Kelso (one is stuck up, the other stupid) and Fez (exotic foreigner from some undisclosed country). These aren't the cool kids. In fact we barely hear about other kids, or even school. They're just friends and inseparable. I swear to god this was me, Kevin, Owen, Nicole, Jane, Meg and Antoine.

One of the things the directors did, and maybe its typical of all shows, is the way the darkness outside seems to hover in the background; at work, in the car, even in Eric Forman's basement. Its a cold world and these friends and family are all the characters have. This is interesting because the actual 70's were a cultural hell of bright colors. Go back and look at say, Threes Company. But we don't generally remember the 70's fondly, and this mood fits that memory.

Eric isn't cool, he's not funny. He's a show kid trying not to be noticed who uses self abasing sarcasm to cover that up. We all knew a stuck up pretty girl like Jackie. Donna is the girls next door. Danny Masterson as Hyde is interesting. As for Ashton Kutcher's portrayal of Kelso, well, I watch despite, not because.  We'll talk about those last two at another time.

More wrong with the No Fun League

We have today a pair of excellent articles about the decline of the NFL. Here's TWS with a great piece:

It was also a possible suspect in the whodunit that has consumed professional football this year. Namely, what has happened to the NFL's TV ratings? To say that the NFL is the top-drawing sport on the small screen is an understatement. Last season, NFL games, starting with the Super Bowl (114 million viewers), accounted for 14 of the 15 most-viewed sporting events. (The college football championship game sneaked in at No. 7.) Indeed, the NFL accounted for 34 of the top 40 televised games. The remainder were college football bowls, the women's World Cup soccer finals, at No. 26, and Game 6 of the NBA basketball finals—aka the LeBron James-Stephen Curry show—at No. 40.

And another great article from The Federalist. The author cites five reasons why the NFL stinks: flags, commercials, inconsistent catch rules, the NFL's weird social media rules, and negative news about the NFL.

Look folks, I love football. I hearken back to the glorious 2000 season. Man, I was on that couch from one till midnight watching the game. Its what I did. I live in a house with three little girls. I can name 14 Disney princesses. We watch what they want. Not on Sundays though. I should note that Mrs. Stroock is a bigger sports fan than I am. Hockey, that's the one with the puck, right?

But I tell you this, as I write this, the Monday Night game is an hour away, and I don't think I can handle Jon Gruden. A decade ago ESPN had a Sunday Night crew, Maguire, Patrick and Theisman, that made bad games fun to watch. Gruden makes good games hard to watch.

The Federalist is right about the flags. The game is over regulated and over managed. I don't even know where to start with the commercials. I'm sick of Peyton Manning and Viagra ads.

The game has been taken over by the black-ghetto under-culture, strutting, boasting, etc, which we see in the form of excessive celebrations for a touchdown, a catch, a tackle...It's hard to watch and the players are hard to like.

And so's the game.

Tuesday Tally

Why There Will be no World War Prequel

Because this has once against reared its ugly head in the comments section, I'm looking at YOU Marky Mark, let's go through all the reasons why its impracticable to do a book about the first two weeks of the war.

1-I am up to my neck in World War 1990. One novel in production (Castro's Folly), one being finished up (The Final Storm), one about to begin (Pacific Storm).

2-It's been done. See Red Storm Rising, The Third World War, Red Army....heck the novels of Ian Slater (at your own risk).

3-We already know who won.

4-There's not much opportunity to do anything unique, like an invasion of the Soviet Far East, or operations in Central America.

5-The climax would have to be the Battle of the Weser.

6-I'm a little sick of looking for ways to describe exploding tanks.

7-I'd like to move on with my.

Bonus: Nothing unique? You haven't said word one about Afghanistan. What about a snowy Finland op? Hmmmmmm.....

Referring Site of the Day

I give you:

mangafan.hu

Hungarian Manga fans.

Between them and the Ruski's I certainly seem to be garnering a sci-fi fan base in Eastern Europe.

Thanks, guys.

Keep on Trumpin'

Once again we see the university polls showing Hillary! with a substantial lead while the daily trackers show Mr. Trump with a small lead. I prefer to believe the daily trackers. Why not?

I should add there is some anecdotal evidence supporting my supposition:

First, most of the polls showing Hillary! ahead show her beating Mr. Trump by wider margins than Barry beat John McCain. ABC has her 12 points ahead. That is ridiculous. Obama was a phenomenon and beloved. Nobody loves Hillary! Not even Bill and Chelsea.

Bill: 'I didn't rape that ugly one, did?'
Chelsea: 'That's mom.'

Second, Trump packs 'em in. Yesterday in Ohio he filled a 30,000 seat arena. Hillary! can't do that. There's a massive enthusiasm gap here. Counting bumper stickers is dangerous, Trump stickers are everywhere, but that particular poll is supported by the above mentioned evidence.

D, the historical factors all favor Mr. Trump. As mentioned previously, it is very hard to replace the sitting president in your own party, ask Nixon and Algore. This is a change election.

5th, polls underestimated conservative turnout in America in 2014, in Israel in 2015, in Britain in 2015, and in Britain's Brexit vote this year.

6th, lefties can mock Trump all they want, but his 'the system is rigged' message is powerful with a lot of regular people.

Eta, the left really hates her. I mean, they really, really, hate her.

Just remember that. And also remember that in 2012 I assured everyone I knew that the polls were skewed and Mitt! would win. What a tosser.

That said, this represents where the race stands:

Metal Monday

One of the tragedies of hair metal, I say this as someone who thinks Poison cranked out some pretty good songs, is the hard rock bands that rode the hair wave to success and then crashed. They weren't really hair bands and had their roots in blues bases 70's rock. They have since come to be identified with hair metal. Lets start with a classic:

That's just a great rock and roll song. One of the babes in teh background went on in infamy in the Cherry Pie video (speaking of awful hair metal). This is just a tweak or two away from being a Doobie Brothers song.

Let's move on to my favorite. Tesla. I saw them in 1989 and I've seen then three or four times in the last decade, usually opening for Def Leppard:

There it is, a soulful singer, blues licks.

Here's another great one from them:

Almost a folk-rock song and one of my favorites. One of the first songs I learned to play on guitar.

I'm going to stipulate to everything the reader will say about the next band, from clothes, down to teh name, but c'mon, Cinderella rocked hard:

Sounds like a 70's band.

Speaking of damn near being a folk-rock band:

The very first rock song I learned to play, btw.

Now, Cinderella was successful, so much so that by their brilliant third album, the clothes and make up came off:

That's about 1990.

Left to their own devices, most of these guys look and sound like Aerosmith, the ultimate 70's band.

Will's Good Idea for the Week of 10-23-16

That is, World War 1990: Operation Pacific Storm.

We've already mentioned this a bit, but with the Castro's Folly in production and The Final Storm wrapping up, its time to put some mental energy into Pacific Storm.

Readers will recall that at the end of Part I of Operation Eastern Storm, American forces had reduced Soviet forces in the Far East and even taken Petropavlovsk. There had even been some diplomatic Rigmarole with the Japs...er Japanese.

I thought it'd be interesting to bring Japanese forces into the war. In 1990 and even today, they have a fine military.

Also, at the end of Operation Eastern Storm the Soviets were having success with their distraction strategy, what with Saddam invading Kuwait. We'll see that in Castro's Folly and of course Pacific Storm as well. Here come the ANZACs, they're going back to Vietnam and this time their bringing some Gurkhas, may some Singaporeans too.

Good fun, good fun.

Referring Site of the Day

Kraut-Wanker Edition 


I give you a German event/ticket search engine. Insert obligatory whermacht jokes here:

www.eventax.de

Friday Updates

Castro's Folly is in production.

Trying to get The Final Storm wrapped up, coming slowly.

I am now in the early stages of Pacific Storm, by which I mean I've created a doc and am actively thinking about it. In a lot of ways this is the best part of writing, the fire of creation.

Centauri is once again on the backburner. There's no there there, no buzz, no ju-ju, no jzuzj...some other time.

Whatever happened to Jake and Patricia Bloom is the knew project. We've worked on it a bit this year already. When we reopened the doc this week it was 13K, now its 18k and should be 20 by the end of the weekend. That's good progress.

Referring Site of the Day

Limey Entrepreneur Edition

www.businesszone.co.uk

My aren't we high-brow; cherrio and all that....

Go Trump Yourself

I didn't watch the debate, instead I Netflixed That 70's Show (which I'll do a post on soon) and The Ranch (same).

Nothing that happened in last night's debate will change anything. Already the biggest takeaway is Mr. Trump's refusal to accept the election results outright. This is being portrayed as a blunder by the usual suspects but it fits right in with his 'system is rigged' message.

Hilariously (pun unintended till I wrote it, at which point I saw the pun) the Dems are screaming bloody murder about this. Really guys? You recall, don't you how Algore tried to steal the election in 2000 right? Don't you remember Babs Boxer delaying the Ohio vote count results for a day in 2004? You're the ones who made 'voting irregularities) part of the political vocabulary.

'Sore/Looserman' is the best bumper sticker since 'Vote for Cuomo/he's no homo'. Go ahead and google that last one.

So suck it.

Interestingly we see polls showing Hillary! ahead, but we see three tracking polls, Rass, IBD and LA-Times showing Mr. Trump. I've been watching and dissecting polls for a long time, and I don't know what to make of that. Once more, someone is really wrong.

10 Years On

It was about ten years ago that I started writing To Defend The Earth. I was working my day job, a substitute teacher at Bernards High School, when I began Guitars and Stars:

Grant sat on the blanket in the cool October night contentedly strumming his guitar. The notes drifted across the hill, but there was no one to hear except for Kristin, who was busy gathering her clothes. Two hours before he had been playing guitar in ‘Cal’s Drinkery’, where a hundred people had gathered to watch Arrival. Since everybody was glued to the TV no one had really noticed him, except for two girls playing pool near the stage. One of them wore snug jeans and sandals, and when she bent over to shoot, Grant saw she had a sunburst tattoo above her tailbone. She was shapely, with big brown eyes and long brown hair. Seeing them look over at him, Grant switched from testosterone fueled classic rock to more ‘sensitive’ songs. It was Led Zeppelin’s Tangerine that finally drew Kristin over to the stage. Grant and Kristin chatted for a while, and then ditched her roommate for the hill overlooking town, ‘to get a good view of the aliens, if they come our way,’ he had said....

I always liked that scene.

Actually, part of the idea had been percolating in my head for a decade. From Presidential Briefing.:

From: Secret Committee for Extraterrestrial Defense
To: POTUS
RE: Extra Terrestrial Defense
Top Secret: Not to leave the Oval Office

Madam President:

The Secret Committee for Extraterrestrial Defense (SCED) would like to congratulate you on your historic victory.

I first worked with the idea for an English class presentation waaaaaaay back in the summer of 1996. It stuck with me through the next ten years.

It did well, seeing something actually sell, after watching A Line through the Desert do absolutely nothing, was quite a thrill.

We have a squeal now, of course, To Survive the Earth. I began thinking about that one almost as soon as TDTE was out. The ideas just kept coming to me.

They have been ever since.

Tuesday Tally

Why Aren't I 50 points ahead?! Edition

In any normal year Mr. Trump would be finished. He's not. Why not? Most of the reasons are baked into the the fabric of elections. Let's see:

1-It is very, very hard to replace a president in your own party, ask Algore or Richard Nixon. Its been done twice, Martin Van Buren in 1836 and George Bush in 1988 (breaking the Van Buren Rule).

2-Its a change election. Hillary! is many things. Change ain't one of them.

3-Hillary! is a bad, horrible, no good candidate (why aren't I 50 points ahead?!')

4-The people who really love Mr. Trump, really love Mr. Trump. Nobody actually loves Hillary! Not even Hillary!.

5- Hillary!'s year was 2008 and she blew it.

Bonus: '88 was Boddole's year, he got the nomination in '96. 2000 was John McCain's year, he got the nomination in 2008. 2012 was Jeb! Bush's year and too bad his last name is Bush. Adlai Stevenson never had a year, losing in '52 and '56; he even tried to get the nomination in '60, loser.

Monday Metal

Forgotten Metal Edition

One of my pet peeves is 80's retrospectives that only touch on the well known metal songs. Oh sod, here's Welcome to the Jungle, look there's Round and Round. Yawn,


Here's one from late 1988 in all its glory:

C'mon, check out that bass and those drums. Not to mention the guitar licks. That's metal.

Here's Dangerous Toys, who I thought were going places:

Here's one from Ratt, a band I never had any use for. But god, as a hormonal 15 year old, well, my god the babes in this video (all I could find was this mock up, for some reason the official video is not available):

Cool riff and bridge.

And finally:

Heavy drums, great riff, nice bridge. I don't care if they are totally ripping off Zeppelin. This one sort of reminds me of Kasmir (duh) combined with Blackdog. Kraut Wankers....Listen to the drums...booom, crash...John Bonham...boom crash...Jimmy Page....

Will's Good Idea for the week of 10-16-16

Hell with it, we're putting World War 1990: Castro's Folly into production.

Of course, Castro's Folly was originally intended to be a collection of short stories dealing with other aspects of the war. Instead it ballooned into a 75,000 word novel covering action in Honduras, Nicaragua, Angola and Cuba.

This one will have lots of Angolan Communists, South African Defense Forces, Contras (Nicaraguan Freedom Fighters), Sandinistas, the American National Guard, and M-48 tanks, god help them.

Castro's Folly also sets the stage for my little Pacific love letter to ANZAC forces. 

Turn the UN Building into Low-Rent Housing

Turns out that the Wailing Wall and Temple mount aren't really Jewish. Who knew?

Behold:

The Israeli government reacted angrily on Thursday to a United Nations body's resolutions that failed to mention any link between Judaism and its holy sites in Jerusalem.
The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) renewed the resolutions that criticized Israel for what it says are its policies that restrict Muslim access to a site considered holy by both Jews and Muslims in Jerusalem's Old City.

That's from the Arch of Titus, 1st Century AD, Roman soldiers looting the 2nd Temple.

Never Mind

Mr. We could use a man like Daniel Patrick Moynihan again:

Friday Updates

World War 1990: The Final Storm is going well, looking pruned and clean. 75,000 words, will probably bounce back up to 80 or 85K.

Centauri: Like pulling teeth, but we have some good set up. Probably setting this aside till the lightening strikes.

That Putin's War idea: looking increasingly implausible given the strong relations between Russia and China.

No news from the agent on Pershing in Command.

Pershing's War game, just about done.

In Which Life Imitates Israel Strikes: War of the Red Sea

News from Yemen:

The crew of a guided-missile destroyer fired three missiles to defend themselves and another ship after being attacked on Sunday in the Red Sea by two presumed cruise missiles fired by Iran-backed Houthi-forces, USNI News has learned.

And...

While U.S. sources haven’t confirmed the type of missiles, open source naval analyst and retired Navy Capt. Chris Carlson told USNI News on Monday the damage on Swift appears to be from the warhead used in a Chinese-built C-802 anti-ship missile (NATO reporting name CSS-N-8 Saccade). The C-802 is based on Cold War-era French technology.

In Israel Strikes: War of the Red Sea, Hamas begins its rocket war against the Israelis by firing off a salvo of Chinese made C-802 missiles:

Cruising four nautical miles to the north, Captain Avram saw the two missiles impact Saar. He immediately ordered battle stations and scanned the shoreline with his binoculars.            His radioman reported, ‘Saar requests assistance, Captain.’            Avram put his binoculars on Saar, but she was obscured by smoke. He tried to peer through, but saw only more billowing smoke and occasionally an orange flame. ‘Helm, make for Saar. Radio, tell Saar we are on the way and then inform Naval Headquarters in Tel Aviv.’            Avram ordered the boat’s helicopter in the air.            As they approached Saar he could see that she was listing. Smoke billowed from two fires both within the superstructure. The boat’s five inch gun flamed as well. He could still make out the bare outline of missile contrails and followed them to the shore. He saw a flash and then another. Two more missile contrails reached into the air. There were two more flashes, and then two more after that.            Sensors reported, ‘Captain! Six contacts…make that eight contacts!’            ‘Course?’            ‘Right for us!’

Anywho, great thing, that deal we got with the Iranians, no?

Putin Strikes

Looks like I better write Putin Strikes while I still can, eh?

Putin puts nuclear missiles in the Baltic, orders the diplomats to send their dependents home and cancels a state visit to Paris. What a crisis.

Oh come now, this is no crisis. Obama will fold. He always folds.

Now, back in the day, I used to wonder why we were poking around Eastern Europe. Why bring the Baltic states into NATO? What's the point of that? For that matter, what's the point of NATO anymore? I mean really, the Germans are going to fight the Russians? Or the Norwegians, Belgians or Dutch? Yeah sure, Ok.

As it happens I've been reading a bio of Putin. He's pretty much what we think he is, stern, calculating, brutal when necessary and interested in restoring the greatness of Mother Russia. Mission accomplished, I'd say. In this space I have argued that Putin is securing his western flank because the eastern flank is so problematic. But I think I got it wrong. He gets on splendidly with China. He secured the eastern flank so he could make trouble on the western flank.

He's just so damn brazen about it. Georgia, Ukraine, Syria now the Baltics. I wonder what Putin has on us. He's probably reading our diplomatic correspondence word for word. Has he got a man in the White House? The State Department? He owns Barry, that's for sure.

Look, Poland, I like you a lot, I really do. My advice, talk to Putin and get the best deal you can. The man is not unreasonable.

I'm not dying for Danzig.

The Final Storm

Plugging along here.

I am confronting a very complex problem. That is, we have four acts essentially; an intro, the battle in Europe, the battle at sea and the wrap up (saving the spoilers here).

I had the same problem with Eastern Storm and solved it by lopping off 30,000 words which are now the first 30,000 in The Final Storm. This book would feel much better structured without the sea battle, but it has to be in there.

I suppose I could intermingle the acts, but then the reader is bounces all over the place, from Warsaw to the Kola, to the Crimea, to the Sea of Japan back to Warsaw, then to Washington....

I like things nice and organized, like a concise paragraph.

Plugging along here.

Post Debate Thoughts on Mr. Trump

Well, Mr. Trump certainly cleaned Hillary!'s clock, didn't he.

Here's what he did.

-First, the whole 'lewd tape' controversy is dead.
-Second, now the matter of Bill Clinton's status as sexual predator and Hillary! his enabler is alive and kicking.
-Third, he debated Hillary! and the moderators and kicked ass in true Trumpian, dare I say, Putian style.

Now at this point, one is tempted to make excuses for Mr. Trump and and equivocate and....

Ahh, hell with it, I don't give a crap.

Trump: Make American Great Again!

Nirvana and U-2 Songs

I didn't watch the debates. I never watch the debates. Instead I did the patriotic thing and watched a Canadian baseball team.

Here's what people are talking about:

-The fly that landed on Hillary.

-Trump's great one liner.

-Bill's sexual assault victims.

Trump won.

BTW, if anyone gets the two musical references in the title I'll send them autographed copies of all my books.

Pre-Debate Thoughts on Mr. Trump's Locker Room and the Culture War

The right, by which I mean the Alt-Right is winning the culture war.

Witness:

Twitter's stock is tanking.
The NFL's ratings are tanking (this is incredible).
Target is shelling out $20 million for new bathrooms.

To that end, let's look at this latest Trump imbroglio.

Listen, ladies. We all talk like that, you get that right? Your beloved husband has, over drinks with his buddies, said all kinds of lewd, risque things. Only beta-male nancies say they haven't and they're lying.

Now, back in the 90's the right (myself included)  used to stammer and stutter in these arguments about Bill, and those same culprits are not jumping ship on Mr. Trump. Condi Rice has condemned him, oh my! Great work on Russia there, Condi. Jeb! Bush is appalled. The same people who lost in '96, '08, and '12 are losing now.

It took the Alt-Right, Milo and Vox and Breitbart and Vdare and Kathy Shaidle to say the obvious. That is:

Juanita Broderick
Kathleen Wiley
Paula Johns
Monica Lewinsky

Etc. etc.

I won't watch the debate. I need a drink or five before these things and my gout just won't allow it.

I hear Mr. Trump is going on the offensive. well good.

Will's Good Idea for the Week of 10-9-16

As noted before, because To Survive the Earth is tanking, for the moment, all other books in that universe are at best suspended. This means To Liberate Mars and To Strike the Stars.

I might pick them up again at some point, but as of now, we're looking at another five years before To Liberate Mars comes out.

In the meantime, we're editing The Final Storm and trying to wrap up Centuari.

Great Minds Agree with me on the NFL

Vox Day, a blogger whom I , very interesting, agrees with me about the NFL. His recommendations are as follows:

• Reduce the 17-week, 16-game season to 15 weeks, with 14 games.
• Ban all politics by players and the league. No more flags on helmets, pink cleats, or protests. If the league can discipline a player for wearing the wrong color wristband, it can do so for failing to stand at attention, Bud Grant-style, for the anthem. Black helmet stickers for one game to honor a deceased player, coach, or owner are acceptable.
• Cut down on the number of flags, particularly those that nullify a big play without having directly affected it. And get rid of instant replay. It's only made matters worse, to the extent that no one even knows what a catch is anymore.
• Stop emphasizing the pass. 500-yard passing games are flag football and BYU, not the NFL. Pass interference is 10 yards, automatic first down.
• Encourage more white players by adopting standard, race-neutral 2-game bans for an arrest, 4 more games for a conviction. Teams will tend to prefer the more law-abiding marginal white players over the more athletic marginal black players because the former will be able to stay on the field.
• No more wild card teams. Win the division, make the playoffs. Two rounds and the Super Bowl will end playoff fatigue.

 I like the wildcards and god yes, please on the second point.

Point four, about passing, is spot on, too. I like defense. I miss defense.

And it cannot be said enough, get rid of replay.

Hitting Everything Red

The above titled basically describes the Pentagon's plans for nuclear war when Kennedy took off in 1961.

Bearing that in mind yesterday I read a chilling alternate history from Robert Cowley's 'What If' a collection of essays on alternate history scenarios.

The scenario in question is Robert L. O'Connell '2nd Holocaust' imagining the Cuban Missile Crisis resulted in a nuclear exchange.

Its not what your thinking, we launch, they launch, Armageddon ensues. Oh no. The story hinges upon the fact that 1-the Pentagon and SAC basically had a 'dead hand' plan in case the national command authority was destroyed, and 2-Soviet commanders had permission to use nukes as needed.

So the Soviets in Cuba wipe out the American base at Gitmo and then bombard the marine landing areas at Matanzas and Mariel. A sub commander off the Virginia coast fires on and destroys Washington, Kennedy, and the entire cabinet. For several hours there is no national command authority until the Speaker of the House, Mike McCormick is found in Boston in sworn in.

In the meantime SAC throws everything it has against the Soviet Union, winning a crushing military victory. Because the Soviets manage to get off a few missiles the next day, SAC launches another massive attack leaving every city and military base in the USSR a smoldering ruin. Bomber pilots fly around the country looking for targets only to find said target has already been hit.

After a nuclear 'twilight' its found that 9/10s of the Soviet Union's population, 233 million people, is dead. America becomes an international pariah.

Those interested in such things will like that Nixon is defiantly elected in 1964 declaring 'nothing to be ashamed if' but is defeated in 1968 by Eugene McCarthy.

Chilling stuff, and well executed.

Referring Sight of the Day

Check it out:

www.cgsociety.org

Cool stuff, guys.

Friday Updates

We are slugging through The Final Storm and a lot of the issues have been cleared up.

No news on the history book front.

Centauri coming along ok, but right now I'm afraid the story I'm working on 'Head Scarf' is going to come off like a PSA. Also, with the apparent flop of To Survive the Earth, do I really want to do Centauri. The 50,000 completed words tell me yes.

Referring site of the Day

More Ruskis:

armor35.ru

Russian modelers. Not models, sorry, modelers.

Drop a line....comrades....

Europe: Weak, Feeble, Parochial

The Prime Minister informs us that she plans to trigger Article 50 and initiate the Brexit by March of next year:

Dismissing the arguments of some opponents of Brexit that the results of withdrawal negotiations under Article 50 of the EU treaties should be put to a second referendum, Mrs May said: "Come on! The referendum vote was clear, it was legitimate, it was the biggest vote for change this country has ever known. Brexit means Brexit and we are going to make a success of it."

The elites lost this one, which is remarkable.

She's taking exactly the right tac:

Britain must look beyond Europe for economic success, the Prime Minister said on Sunday as she suggested there would be no deal on immigration to keep the UK in the single market.
Setting out her first detailed blueprint for Brexit, Theresa May said that the UK would become “truly global” as she listed eight nations including China, India and Singapore prepared to sign major free trade deals with the UK

A hundred years ago, heck 50 years ago, Britain ruled a cosmopolitan empire which spanned the globe. The sun never set upon that empire and the isles were packed with people who had served along all points of the compass, from Cownpore to Aden to Nairobi to Singapore.

Since the 1970s Britain has been a part of Europe. Its a small place, insular and parochial where the latest football score is the most important news event. A continent where the average person can't place California, Texas, or Florida on the map. A continent blissfully unaware that there's a war on, whose nations barely make a contribution to NATO operations, who can't even see the Russian colossus on their doorstep:

 Maggie, I tried to name a daughter after you.

Brexit can't come soon enough:

A report from the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) found there was an increase in hate speech and racist violence in the UK from 2009 to March 2016.
Blaming the press, ECRI Chair Christian Ahlund, said: “It is no coincidence that racist violence is on the rise in the UK at the same time as we see worrying examples of intolerance and hate speech in the newspapers, online and even among politicians.”
The report makes a whopping 23 recommendations to Theresa May’s Government for changes to criminal law, the freedom of the press, crime reporting and equality law.

Yeah, because hurt Muslim feelings are the problem in Europe right now. That's exactly what I thought as Muslims were assaulting women in Cologne.

Whitehall told the Euro's to get bent:

In a written statement to the ECRI, the Government said: “The Government is committed to a free and open press and does not interfere with what the press does and does not publish, as long as the press abides by the law.”

 I like this Theresa May woman.

Referring Site of the Day, So I Married an Axe Murderer Edition.

Aye lad...Scottishresearchpools.ac.uk.

'Freeeeeedoooooooom!'

Actually:

Surviving a Flop

The above named flop is To Survive the Earth.

Now, its predecessor, To Defend the Earth did well upon publication five years ago. I moved several copies a day, a real revelation after A Line Through the Desert never really sold. It was fun logging in every morning and seeing the number move. I still remember the sequence, for a while it came in twos, from seven, to nine, etc etc. While TDTE was moving I was starting Israel Strikes. It was a nice time.

Well, that just aint happening with To Survive the Earth,  despite advertising. Yes, I'm surprised.

I recall seeing Steven Spielberg say he has no idea why some of his movies are hits and others are flops. I know how he feels. I mean, George Lucas thought up Star Wars, Indiana Jones....and then Howard the Duck.

Anywho, the point of this post is that To Survive the Earth is doing so bad, right now all plans for further novels in that universe are suspended; at best. That means no 'To Liberate Mars', no 'To Strike the Stars', etc, etc...

We'll see.

Now maybe I can get those knots out of The Final Storm...

Referring Site of the Day

Soviet War Hammer edition:

dawnofwar.org.ru

'Cmon, Ruskis. Say hi at least.

Tuesday Tally

Sports Edition

Every season NFL football gets just a little harder to watch. Here's a few tweaks to make the game easier on the eyes.

-Make the players act like grownups: No more strutting. No more dancing. No more silly gestures. Are we eight? You spike the ball in the end zone. That's it.

-Ban gesticulations: One of my biggest pet peeves is players making that gay 'throw the flag gesture', make doing it a 5 yard penalty. For that matter, no more getting off the turf and demanding the refs throw the flag. No more of that on the sidelines either.

-Get rid of replay: This is now a 4th part of the game along with offense defense and special teams. Good lord this slows down the game. As the great John Madden once said, 'Let's just have a catch be a catch, a fumble be a fumble and a touchdown be a touchdown.' I can live with the occasional missed call.

-Dress Code: Sorry coaches, stop dressing like a eight year old going to church. Jacket and tie. Dan Reeves was the last coach to dress appropriately When Rex Ryan is one of the better dressed coaches in the league, we have a problem.

Bonus

Get rid of Peyton Manning: By my count he's hocking Papa Johns,Nationwide Insurance and Directv. Almost every commercial break one is starting at his dorky face. Enough already. Peyton, you retired. Go play gold or something.

(Not) Metal Monday

When Sam Dunn made his epic 11 part (get it?) documentary on Heavy Metal, he took some time to describe how things had changed by the mid 70s and metal fell by the wayside a bit. Punk was competition, of course, but also glam metal. He showed this clip:

Indeed, not metal. Heck, in 1988 I would have thought this was the faggiest thing in the history of all fagdom.

Not a bad song though, I'd heard it before, though I cannot think when or where. That band is Sweet, spoken of in this space before as a pre-cursor and influence on Def Leppard. I didn't realize I'd heard at least one other Sweet song:

Man, I thought that was sung by the Bay City Rollers or something.

Now, out of curiosity I downloaded Sweet's greatest hits, and I have to say, I've enjoyed them immensely. Here's a good one:

What I find interesting is Sweet's groove hooks, the (then) modern sounding synth backing, and their harmonizing. I love the background vocals, never quite heard anything like it.

One more:

That's British glam rock in all its glittery glory. This stuff never really took off here in America, just not out aesthetic. Two other things. In the 1970s Britain was falling apart and the pubs were filling up. People wanted to have a good time. Now here in America, people go to bars to watch sports and or drown their sorrows, but the local pub in England is part of the community fabric. They have a real tradition of sing alongs, and Sweet is certainly great sing along music after a pint or three.

Last one:

I am reliably informed that the above is a feature of parties throughout the UK.

Man, did Britain ever need Margaret Thatcher.

Mr. Trump's Taxes

So Mr. Trump set things up so he might (great journos there at the Times and AP) not have paid taxes for a while.

Now, when the left pulled this crap in 2012, what with Romney's 15% tax rate, the right, myself included, launched into flustered defenses about tax rates and how Romney was forking over 2-3 million a year in taxes, etc, etc.

It's nice to see someone on our side finally understands how to play this game:

Drudge:

And of course, Breitbart:

That's how its done people.

Will's Good idea for the Week of 10-2-16

Still on the Sino-Russo war thingy

I think we're going to have to do this, a one off near future techo-thriller like Israel Strikes [Wasn't there a sequel?-ed] shut up, ed.  China Strikes?

Maybe.

Now this is interesting. I've been doing some TO&E research on the Soviet...er Russian defense of the border area. Russian plans reflect a reality. Most of the Singo-Mongolian border is lightly defended with a couple of brigades deployed in the Lake Bakail area.

But, the Khabarovsk, Vladivostok corridor is a fortress with eight brigades plus numerous air defense units, commandos, etc. Russian plans concede  the center to Chinese forces and focus on holding the Pacific coast, one suspects until international pressure builds for a ceasefire or some such.