Friday Flag

Really four flags

Locked in the Cabinet

Our novels usually feature a lot of cabinet meetings, plans, machinations, back stabbings and such.

We've noted before that not only are we getting tired of writing these scenes, we suspect that the reader is getting tired of these scenes. 

We kept the cabinet meetings to an absolute minimum in Castro's Folly. During the entire first half of the book showing fighting in Honduras and Angola not one single cabinet meeting takes place. Still they crept in later on when the US is gathering a coalition to invade Cuba. Even so some readers complained that they didn't really know what was happening. 

Cabinet meetings work great for that because they give on a bird's eye view.

We've been binge watching Game of Thrones season 7. There's a lot of meetings between Danarys, Tyrian, etc, etc and we've found these both informative and fascinating.

Maybe we should rethink scaling back the cabinet meetings.

Deplorable Deutschland

We've noted before in this space our approval of the populist AfD party winning 13.5 of the seats in the German Budenstag. Whether in Germany, the Netherlands or France, we approve of populist anti-migrant movements.

No good can come from Mass Muslim Migration.

We don't think its unreasonable to suppose Germany should be filled with Germans. The Netherlands with Nederlanders,  England with Englishmen and so on. America being an immigrant country does require Germany to be one.

Historically speaking that's a loaded statement.

In Israel Strikes: War of the Red Sea, the German Chancellor grapples with her nation's history, both in a speech at the UN against an anti-Israeli resolution, and later when deciding to send the Kriegsmaine to stop Turkish runners of the Gaza blockade.

We agree with the AfD party leader that said Germany should stop thrashing itself over the war and take pride in the whermacht. The German army did some incredible things and never broke in either world war. The US Army studies the Krauts, for that matter so do the Israelis. Heh, our grandmother's father flew in the Luftwaffe during the Great War. History is complicated.

 

Deplorable German Jew?

Friday's Friday Updates

We are declaring the 2nd draft of The Austrian Painter complete. Still plenty of work to do but this is the book.

We are editing World War 1990: ANZACs.

We have just about completed the redesigns for the Pershing's War game.

No updates on Pershing in Command.

We're tired. We're dejected. We're demoralized.

Tie Dye Warrior

This is a quick story about a marine captain leading a mech company in a jungle sweep and clear operation. A massive firefight ensues.

And watch out for M-1 armed Koreans.

If this story sells, we'll turn it into a short story compilation.

Just click on the image or here.

Der österreichische Maler

Several readers have asked why The Austrian Painter's 1964 has no space program.

You people know who you are.

We know the book cover you people have in mind, an astronaut (we tried to translate this into German but the German word for astronaut is astronaut) planting the Reich flag on the moon.

It's been done lots of times.We can think of alt hist covers with Confederate, Nazi and Comnie flags on the moon.

Simply put The Austrian Painter's 1964 is a lot more peaceful than our 1964.

We'll explain.

After the Wars of the French Revolution and Napoleon, Europe was at peace for 99 years. This was by design. Nobody wanted to repeat the turmoil of 1792 to 1815. 

Ok, ok there were mid sized wars but nothing like the Napoleonic Wars or the Great War. 

At the end of the war the powers met at the Congress of Vienna to draw the map and make the piece. Interested readers should Google names like Metternich and Castlereagh. The five great powers, Britain, France, Prussia/Germany, Austria and Russia maintained the peace. There was no general European War until 1914.

Had the Great war not happened or happened differently, as it does in The Austrian Painter, our whole miserable, bloody 20th century would not have happened.

Europe would have continued along its path of industrialization, political liberalization, technological advancement, etc etc. Russia and the United States would have remained on the edge of European affairs.

Not gonna happen

Der Kulture Krieg

In handling the National Anthem controversy Roger Goodell made a major miscalculation. To be fair  hundreds of organizations have made the same decision over the last 25 years or so.

Corporate America has long feared angering any number of groups: gays, blacks, Jews, Native Americans, QWERTies, etc etc.

No one's ever worried about offending white, Christian middle-America. That's about 75% of the country, by the way.

Corporate America has a Pavlovian response to calls of 'racism' by the Reverends Jesse and Al or the squeals of 'hate' from the professional Nazi hunters at the Anti-Defamation League: cave immediately.

Last season Goodell let Colin Kaepernick get away with kneeling during the National Anthem even though NFL rules clearly state players must stand in a 'dignified posture'. He was worried about making an enemy of the race-baiting class. Meanwhile he told the Dallas Cowboys they couldn't wear decals honoring the five officers murdered by a BLM terrorist.

People really didn't like that.

The NFL's response was to kneel more, early and often.

Andrew Breitbart (PBUH) used to say that politics flows downstream from culture. This fight is about culture and it is a major battle in the culture war.

The NFL gave the finger to 75% of America.

Well, middle America is giving it back.

The forgotten fans

Image via

The NFL is Losing Fans

Yesterday we mentioned a recent poll which showed the number of people listing football as their favorite sport dropped from 53% in 2012 to 41% today.

This is an astonishing stat.

Now some of the drop is no doubt due to the recent National Anthem controversy.  But most of the drop is due to long term issues.We ourselves were giving up on the NFL even before the controversy because of a variety of issues.

 It is worth going over those issues again.

-These tattooed millionaires are hard to like. They strut and preen over making a tackle, never mind what they do after a touchdown. This is all part of so called gangsta culture and we hate it.

-Replay. Every catch, interception and score risks getting overturned by some micro-technicality like the ball moving slightly as the player goes down in the end zone. Replay was supposed to help refs who can't see through 300 pound linemen. It has become a huge part of the game, just as important as offense, defense and special teams. Networks now keep an ex-ref in studio just to explain the ruling.

-TV commercials I. This is how it works. Touchdown, commercial, Kickoff, commercial. Timeout, commercial. Replay, commercial. End of quarter, commercial. All the interruptions are hard to sit through.

-TV commercials II. To sit through an NFL commercial break is to be bombarded by Peyton Manning ads for Papa John's and Nationwide Insurance, fantasy football gambling, Cialis-Viagra-Levitra ads, the DirecTV Sunday Ticket, and NFL spots touting how great the NFL is.

-The rules. After the Patriots mugged Peyton Manning and the Colts in the 2005 AFC Championship, the rules were changed to favor wide receivers. This is great for fantasy football stats, an obvious motivation, but bad for defense. In fact defense is almost meaningless today. A defensive back's job is to tackle the wide receiver after making the catch.  Offenses march up and down the field and once they get into a groove, find that rhythm, they're impossible to stop.

These factors make for a slow, choppy game that lacks suspense and is filled with unpleasant people. No wonder fans are turning away.

Now we watch the officials

The Austrian Painter

We still have a few things to thresh out.

Russia. We're still not quite sure what to make of Russia.

There's no communism in this world and no Soviet Union but Russia is still a major factor just like in she was in 19th century Europe. Russia is confronted with hostile powers in the west, a restless Islamic Caucasus, and Mongoloid nationalism in Siberia.

We don't even know whose leading Russia in 1964. In a way this works. So far Russia is massive and faceless, a behemoth that simply is.

Actually, that's kind of working, isn't it?

Then there's China. Again, no communism so no Mao. You have a subdued Japan to the east, the British Empire to the southwest the French to the south in Siam, of course the Americans in the Pacific.

We suppose China is kind of peripheral to events in The Austrian Painter, but still, one should have details as squared away as possible.

The NFL is in Trouble

Television ratings are down 11%.

One poll shows 51% of football fans have watched less this year.

Another polls shows that the number of people listing football as their favorite sport has dropped from 53% in 2012 to 41% today.

Yet another poll shows 64% of the public think players should stand during the National Anthem.

Drudge tells us that a store selling Steelers gear is under threat of boycott and in Baltimore the house national anthem singer has quit.

DirecTV is offering refunds for the vaunted NFL Sunday Ticket Package.

The NFL has hired a crisis communications firm.

They should have gotten down on both knees

About an Orville

Last night we watched The Orville, Episode Three, 'About a Girl'.

In this episode a Mocklin crew member gives birth to a baby girl. Did we mention that the Mocklins are an all male species that considers being female a birth defect?

The reader knows where this went. Debate and legal trials follow.

That said, the script didn't seem to take sides. There were no good guys or bad guys. In fact We found it impossible to tell if the episode was arguing for or against the tranny agenda. Ordering a sex change for the baby could be scene as militant normalcy or tranny dis-morphia. Pick one.

By the way, this episode once again confirms Seth McFarland's Generation-X militancy.

The crew is on the holodeck playing a western game against Mexican bandits on a set that looks like it came right out of The Three Amigos. The Mexican jefe proposes a dance off to Girls Just Wanna Have Fun. When the crew wants to convince the Mocklin to keep the baby girl as is, they show him Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer.  You know the version we mean, Generation X.

Parable

Grandma Kathy

Kathy Yearick is a dear friend of my wife's family, the Moyers.

She and my wife's mother, Meriam, were roommates at Penn State and remained friends till Meriam's death in 2002. Afterwards Kathy was something a of a surrogate grandmother to my children, who know her as Grandma Kathy.

Professionally Kathy Yearick is a teacher and college professor helping ESL students. We should note that she edited To Defend the Earth and Israel Strikes.

Thirty six hours ago Grandma Kathy was killed in a car accident.

We already miss her.

Old Building, Old Teachers, Old Bernards

We've written before about our gig as a high school substitute teacher at Barnards High School in Bernardsville, NJ. 

[One should pronounce Bernardsville in the English fashion, 'Bernids' -Ed]

Bernardsville is an old ritzy town with lots of old families and old money. One could read the memorial plaques in the park going back to the Great War and recognize the names because their great grand-kids were in the high school. There were some nouveau-riche too, and for some reason a large Paraguayan population.

We got there in 2002, ten years out of high school ourselves. That seemed like a long time back then.

As it turns out Bernards High was built in the 1930s as was our own Hen Hud, and we're willing to bet they were designed by the same architectural firm. Both original buildings had the same feel and layout with classrooms the same size. Yes it was a little weird at first.

Bernards High had teachers going back to the 30's too. Ok, ok, only back to the 1950s. That's right, there were guys who had been there for 50 years. One such teacher, in his mid 70's, told us that in 1955 the board paid him $5000 a year, and because he also coached football, they gave him an extra hundred. Another teacher also told us how early on they dated students, and how they used to take hard cases out into the back stairway and rough them up.

In seven years we learned a lot about what really goes on with teachers. To a man and woman they all bitched about how difficult the job is and how unappreciated they were. Parents are often the enemy for failing to see eye to eye with the teachers. From a lesson plan perspective lots of teachers were mailing it in, teaching the same thing year after year and year after year. One day in 2006 when subbing in civics class we were told to show a video aimed at young people. I popped it in the video and say a bunch of MTV VJs from my youth.

By the time we were getting ready to leave, this writing thing was heating up, lot's of those older teachers were getting ready to leave to.

It was time for us both.

And the Deplorables March on...

...this time they're goose stepping.

In Britain they voted Leave.

In America they elected Donald Trump.

In the Netherlands they gave Geert Wilders 15 percent.

In France Le Pen came in second.

So the 'far right' AfD Party won 13.5 percent of the vote in the German elections.

Leftists have taken to the streets in protest. That is, these people are protesting a democratic outcome. They did the same here after Trump's win, and after Leave won the Brexit vote.

For the average leftist the idea of being part of global, cosmopolitan elite is a central part of their identity. Brexit, Trump, etc etc was a major blow to that identification and they freaked out.

We're glad, we like clarifying events, and the last year's worth of elections has certainly clarified things.

We see the same result everywhere. The left/Not-Really-Right coalition goes berserk over the public ignoring the conventional wisdom and voting for the designated bad guys. We remind the reader (s) that we supported Marco Rubio. At the time we named the primary Trumpageddon. 

Official Jews are throwing around the usual labels. We ignore these. Actually, no that's not true. We wear these labels like a badge of honor.  Official Jews like those at the ADL are useless. These are the people who crucified (see what I did there) Mel Gibson over The Passion of the Christ while ignoring the UN anti-Jewish Durban statement. While Abe Foxman and the ADl was investigating Gibson, the BDS Movement was burrowing into college campuses.Well done, Abe.

The Official Jews even claim Trump is a Nazi. Uh, guys, have you talked to Ivanka about this?

Does anyone really think Germany is going to put the next Hitler in the Chancellery? Who would that even be. My god, the Official Jews really believe that, don't they?

Deplorable Krauts

The NFL is in Disarray

In Arizona the Cowboys, led by their controversial owner Jerry Jones, all locked arms and took a knee in prayer before the National Anthem. Hugh Hewitt says this was an attempt to de-escalate the situation. We agree. We never thought Jones was evil and admire what he's done with the Cowboys. We say well done, sir.

The fans booed anyway:

In Pittsburgh Former Army Ranger Anthony Villanueva stood alone while the rest of the team cowered in the tunnel. Coach Mike Tomlin publicly criticized the Silver Star winner. After a sleepless night QB Ben Rothlisberger said the team made a mistake. That should be an interesting locker room this week.

Andrew Breitbart (PBUH) said politics is downstream from culture.  This is the culture war. It was a minor skirmish until Trump jumped in and turned it into a major battle.

Now the left is defending the right of tattooed millionaires to give the finger to middle-America. 

Still think Trump doesn't know what he's doing?

The Grind

We write, all day, everyday. If we're not writing fiction we're working on history, or this blog, or the wargames we design.

We've gotten up, written for a couple of hours and then buried close relatives. 

It's what we do.

It may not be a real job, but man its a grind.

We could never work this hard at the job before. The implosion of our professorial career doubled the available time we had to write. We've taken advantage.

This year has been the hardest we've ever worked as a writer. Hard in that we've cranked out something like 300,000 words and hard in that its been tough to write those 300,000 words and tough to edit. ANZACs is done of course, so is the Final Storm, so is The Austrian Painter. Whatever Happened to Jake and Patricia Bloom is almost done.

Right now we're going through the last, absolute most final draft of World War 1990: ANZACs and it absolutely sucks. We've read this thing a hundred times. We've written, re-written, edited, re-edited, proofread, re-proofread and are now re-re-proofreading. All for a novel that did not turn out the way we wanted and frankly we have doubts about. And still a few typos will sneak through.

And when this is done we're going to turn around and it all over again for World War 1990: The Final Storm.

That's the gig.

This is pretty accurate

The Next Official Jewish Panic

Yesterday Frau Merkel won reelection in Germany.

Which is fine.

Also the 'far right' AFD got 13.5 percent of the vote.

Via Reuters we see the usual suspects throwing a hissy fit:

Ronald Lauder, president of the New York-based World Jewish Congress, called Chancellor Angela Merkel a “true friend of Israel and the Jewish people” and decried the AfD’s gains at a time when anti-Semitism was increasing across the globe.

Always the next Hitler is just an election away from taking power. I mean Trump, right?

And this little nugget straight from Reuters' ass crack:

Germany, home today to an estimated 200,000 Jews, has built a reputation in recent decades as a tolerant, safe place for Jews to live, but official data show anti-Semitic crimes reported to the police rising 4 percent to 681 in the first eight months of 2017 against the same period last year.

You don't suppose that massive spike in German judenhaus has anything to do with the 800,000 Muslims Frau Merkel let into the country, do you, Frau Merkel?

Angela Merkel, Judenhaus enabler

Not Metal but Genius Monday

A few years ago we discovered the Velvet Underground and we are so glad we did.

The comp album, The Very Best of, is a revelation to us.

We love the band's ability to underscore a simple melody with keyboards and or rhythm guitar as heard in What Goes On, an excellent rock song, or Pale Blue Eyes, a sad paean to a love that cannot be. Let's delve deeper.

It was good what we did  yesterday

And I'd do it once again

The fact that you are married

Only means your my best friend

But its truly, truly a sin

Linger on

My Pale Blue eyes.

Here Lou Reed tells his love  that what they're doing is wrong and they can only ever be best friends. Wonder what the back story to that is?

Then there are the drug songs, lots of them.

Waiting for My Man will speak to anyone whose ever had to wait for his dealer, that's for sure.

[TMI, dude-Ed]

Sweet Jane has a rollie-pollie beer hall feel which we love.

Heroin + Lou Reed = The Velvet Underground.

Which is another great point. The Velvet Underground was part of Andy Warhol's scene. This is the old New York of John Lindsey, Abe Beam and President Ford telling New York to drop dead.

Waiting for my Man illustrates this perfectly:

-Up to Lexington, one two five (that is 125th Street)...

And,

-Hey white boy, what you doin up town?...

Then,

-Up to a brownstone, three flights of stairs, everybody's staring, but nobody cares...

Overall The Very Best of is just a fantastic melodic rock n roll album.

We're learning the guitar solo in What Goes On and will post later in the week.

[Greeeat-Ed]

Writing Whatever Happened to Jake and Patricia Bloom we wanted Jake to discover a new band in 2003 on the eve of the Iraqi invasion. We think we have our answer.

Jake loves music, after all, especially Zeppelin. See for yourself in A Line Through the Desert:

Star Trek Discovery

So we caught the last half of Star Trek Discovery.

This was written by chicks, wasn't it? It feels like it was written by chicks. There was a lot of bickering, a lot of talking back and forth between Commander Burnham and Captain Georgiou.

Aesthetically there's never been a Trek like this and Discovery breaks away from the TNG, DS9, V sterile matrix.  The ship is named Shenzhou which seems like both a reflection of the modern world (as Star Trek should be) and a blatant attempt to suck up to Beijing.

We often found the filming disjointed and pointless.

There was an encounter with Klingons. They seem to be setting up a massive galactic space signal to bring the return of the legendary emperor Khaless, which is a nice plot point. These Klingons have been redesigned and are dressed seemingly like Elizabethan Era dandies.

Overall, not as bad as the first episode or first season of TNG, and that's a good start.

Still, we're sticking with Orville.

The NFL Hates America

Well that was an interesting Sunday.

In London players stood for God Save the Queen but not the Star Spangled Banner.

In New England several players knelt and were booed by the fans.

In Pittsburgh the Steelers stayed in the locker room. The lone exception was former Army Ranger Anthony Villanueva who proudly stood at attention and saluted-alone. The late owner Art Rooney rolls in his grave.

Then there's Odell Beckham who did this:

(Getty Images)

Thank you NFL for not letting me down.

Accueillir les visiteurs Français

Thanks for stopping by, America's old comrade in arms.

We should note that our books are available in France. Just click.

Also in the forthcoming World War 1990: The Final Storm, France plays a major roll, both on land and sea.

Thanks again, fellas.

Vive le France!

The Austrian Painter-Reader Suggestions

We are declaring the 2nd draft of the Austrian Painter complete.

We feel we've smoothed out the text and transitions. Next comes the hardcore editing.

That won't be for a few weeks as we let the text sit and percolate.

Time remains for plot additions though. If we have to write a new chapter, we will.

To that end we once more we put out a call for reader ideas as to the world of the Austrian painter.

Germany wins the Great War, defeating France in 1914 and Russia in 1915. What happens between 1915 and 1964? What is the world of 1964 like?

Spoilers after the pic...

-The British Empire is still strong
-America has little role in Europe
-Their is no communism
-China is run by the KMT not Mao
-German has many African colonies, including Congo
-No nukes
-No space program
-France is a Gaullist basket-case

Mr. We Could use a man like Pete Rozelle Again

Commissioner Roger Goodell has a growing problem with his football players kneeling for the National Anthem.

President Trump has criticized those players.

In response Goodell's office has issued a mealymouthed statement which reads in part:

The NFL and our players are at our best when we help create a sense of unity in our country and our culture. There is no better example than the amazing response from our clubs and players to the terrible natural disasters we've experienced over the last month...
Divisive comments like these demonstrate an unfortunate lack of respect for the NFL, our great game and all of our players, and a failure to understand the overwhelming force for good our clubs and players represent in our communities.

The above word salad means nothing of course.

This kneeling issue is about to become a thing, a big controversy and running sore.

The NFL can't win.

Millionaire players kneeling for the National Anthem is not a good look, Roger.

In times like this we miss former NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle (PBUH). 

Under Mr. Rozelle the NFL went from a niche sport, fourth behind baseball, college football and boxing, to a national power house.
Rozelle understood the game was made for TV. He merged with the rival AFL. He thought up Monday Night Football. He got the owners to agree to a revenue sharing scheme.

In over 30 years as NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle acted with one question in mind, 'Is it good for the game?'

Kneeling for the National Anthem is not good for the game. Rozelle would have understood that and he would have acted accordingly.

Trump vs Sports

It is customary in America for the president to invite sports champions to the White House.

Steph Curry, for all you non-Americans, is the best player on the NBA champion Golden State Warriors. He expressed reservations about attending the scheduled White House event.

So Trump basically said 'screw you' and revoked the invitation.

Other NBA players are chiming in on this, most notably Lebron James, one of the best players ever to play the game. Said Lebron, 'Going to the White House was a great honor until you showed up!'

As he attacks the media, so Trump attacks sports. We support him. What, he's supposed to smile like an idiot while he dines with people who insult him?

This is culture war, people, and Trump is winning it.

We think this Yahoo Sports columnist has things about right:

He was Donny from Queens dialing into WFAN. First time, long time.
Stick to … politics? 

Whatever, sports is intertwined in American society, and Trump has found some low-hanging fruit here for his base to gulp down. And when it finds something it likes to chomp on, he’ll keep feeding it and feeding it. 

Protesters. Supposedly ungrateful millionaires. Wimpy regulations. Nostalgia.

Let's remember something. Donald Trump understands television. Anyone who ever watched The Apprentice  knows this.

Today more players will no doubt kneel for the National Anthem.

This is exactly what Trump wants.

Friday Flag: Brexit Edition

Negotiate this, motherfuckers

NFL 'color rush' Uniforms one Typo away from Oblivion

Last night we were watching a Jerry Seinfeld stand up performance which we recommend, by the way.

We forgot there was a football game last night.

Good thing.

Via Instapundit and Lindsey Thiry on Twitter we have this:

Let's be fair both the Rams and the Niners suck. Also Thursday afternoon (kickoff would have been in the 5 o'clock hour) is kind of a bad time for people to get to the stadium.

Screw it let's not be fair. Kaepernick is most closely associated with the Niners. Of course given that region's political predilections one wonders if fans aren't staying away because they support Kaepernick.

Let's look deeper. The Rams and Niners are wearing the infamous NFL 'color rush' uniforms for Thursday Night Foorball. Check those out, yo. Gansta black for the red and gold Niners, and a hideous yellow for the Rams. We recall one game where the Jets were wearing all green and the Bills all red. They looked like a giant Christmas celebration. Thank god our Giants haven't adopted these uni's.

[Sorry mate, week 14 against the Cowboys-Ed]

MotherF!@@#$!

We shudder to think.

If only someone made a typo and called these monstrosities 'colored rush' we'd be spared the whole hideous extravaganza.

It's almost as if the NFL doesn't want us to watch.

Here's Jerry on rooting for the NFL uniforms:

Roger Goodell, you want us to root for those hideous 'color rush' uniforms? What the fuck is wrong with you?

Keep on earning that $40 mil per, Roger. Keep on earning.

The Friday Updates for Friday

As noted we have  the World War 1990: ANZACs cover and the MS. Editing now.

We are threshing out The Austrian Painter.

We are working on the intro to our AEF compilation piece.

We are doing the counter manifest for our Pershing's War game.

We are spending some mental energy on finishing up Whatever Happened to Jake and Patricia Bloom.

No news on Pershing in Command.

How Can this Be?...

Via the increasingly indispensable Don Surber we learn that the Chinese Central Bank will no longer do business with Kim.

No outside bank means no capital. It means no foreign currency reserves. It means Kim's ability to buy on the international market is crippled. That's a body blow to Kim.

Trump just got China to stop banking with Kim. That's a yuuge deal folks.

Still think Chuck and Nancy rolled Trump on DACA? Suuuure.

When will the naysayers learn?

Trump has given Kim a nick name: 'Rocket Man'. That's bad news Kim, bad news. When Trump nicknames you you're finished. Just ask 'Low Energy Jeb', 'Lying Ted' and of course 'Crooked Hillary'.

You know, a lot of people like to jokingly call Trump a 'god-emperor'. But we're going to go a step further.

Trump is the Kwisatz Haderach!

ANZACs Cover

Alright we have the cover for World War 1990: ANZACs

America's other Great UN Speech

We give you Ambassador, later Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan speaking before the UN after that body passed its so called Zionism is Racism resolution:

A shameless openness indeed. The man's outrage and disgust comes through even forty years later.

Moynihan was the smartest man then alive. A prophet who in his paper, 'The Plight of the Inner City Negro' for saw the cataclysm that was besetting the black community. Drugs, faithlessness, generational poverty. At about the same time, when working in the Johnson Admin, he got the Interior Department to clean up the National Mall in Washington. Gone were the T-shirt and fireworks stands which degraded the entire setting.

He makes our list of 100 greatest Americans who were never president.

We voted for Moynihan his last election in 1994. Upon discovering this video we were even prouder that we did.

We even quoted him in Israel Strikes:War of the Red Sea.

Hot for (substitute) Teacher

Via The Daily Caller, we have a case of a hot twenty something substitute teacher schtupping one of her male students.

We do not understand this phenomenon. If she were average looking at best, and wanted to get revenge on the pretty girls for being prettier than she, this would make some sense. But really, what does a hot 25 year old want with a 17 year old boy?

Get yourself a man, honey.

Actually, we were a substitute teacher at Bernards High School, Bernardsville, NJ for seven years. It was an easy gig, six hours, $85 a day. The key was to always pick up the phone and say yes. Always. Once they realized you never turned them down hey'd keep calling. Most mornings about 6 AM the phone would ring, Robin the school secretary was on the other end, 'Hey Will...Joe Foglia...' That's all the info we needed. We're proud to say lots of teachers requested us. I guess they were 'hot' for us. Thanks folks we'll be here all week.

[clap...clap...clap-Ed]

Subs weren't really expected to do much. Hand out an in class assignment, show the movie. Very rarely was one expected to teach.

We always brought our laptop and got a ton of work done. Large swaths of A Line Through the Desert were written and edited within Bernards High. Actually, the Jess character, fiancee to Jake's gunner and best friend was based on a girl there. At least two chapters in To Defend the Earth were begun there as well.

Anyhoo, by the time we left in 2009 Bernards High was getting some new young teachers as the oldsters, and man were they old, were finally retiring or being pushed out. Some of the new teachers were cute too.

[Men or women? We're not judging-Ed]

We never heard anything about the new girls, but man, the stories you'd hear about some of the oldsters back in the day...

Trump at the UN on the Norks

As noted in a previous post we liked the president's stance on North Korea.

[Nuke 'em? Americans...-Ed]

There's really nothing left to do. We've been trying diplomacy for 25 years. Hadn't worked, has it?

[Are you advocating war?]

Not today.

[Tomorrow?-Ed]

No. In this short piece his most preppiness Tucker Carlson makes a great point. The foreign policy class has been wrong about everything.

[He's talking about Iran, dumb ya dumb Yank-Ed]

But the point still holds.

Again, we've been negotiating with the Norks for 25 years its gotten us nothing but a whacky dictator with a stockpile of nukes and ICBMs.

[So what would you do?-Ed]

If Kim is getting a missile ready for launch we destroy it on the launchpad.

If Kim launches a missile we destroy the launchpad and one other site.

If Kim launches missiles at any piece of US territory we launch a sustained aerial campaign against him.

If Kim uses a nuke in anger we destroy North Korea.

[It sounds all too easy-Ed]

It's better than anything the pointy-head foreign policy types have come up with.

UN Trumped

We're not sure we've ever heard the president, any president threaten to destroy another nation. Trump did just that yesterday. We'll come back to that.

We liked the focus of Trump's speech. One by one ;North Korean, Iran and Venezuela.

The speech was packed with plenty of applause lines. We liked the stony silence they received from the assembled 'dignitaries'.

We liked that Trump called socialism ''...a failed ideology that has produced poverty and misery everywhere it has been tried.' We also like that he said, The problem in Venezuela is not that socialism has been poorly implemented but that socialism has been faithfully implemented'

The man understands socialism.

Prime Minister Netanyahu said he loved the speech. Anyone still want to say Trump is a Nazi. Jeez.

The Austrian Painter

When we conceived this project we envisioned the Austrian painter living in a musty old apartment and living the life of an old bohemian.

This was certainly true of Hitler who was a flop house artist more or less supporting himself.

Hitler lived in a one room sublet until the late 20's. In 1929, we think, with the success of Mein kampf He moved into a nine room 3rd floor apartment complete with three bedrooms, two baths and a maid. Hitler spent much time decorating his knew digs and spent lavishly on furniture and other  home items. Later he redecorated the Reich Chancellery and official residence.

It looks like the Austrian painter is going to have to be more than a solitary old man in a cramped apartment.

Kraut Wurst or Worst

Via Instapundit an interesting article on German attitudes about the Holocaust and Jews. Instapundit pulls this quote:

Every observer of Germany knows that its officially prescribed attitude of perpetual atonement over the Holocaust coexists with an anti-Semitism that’s been on the rise for decades. These two phenomena are unquestionably linked – which is to say that the hostility of many Germans toward Jews is rooted in their awareness of their grandfathers’ or great-grandfathers’ wartime actions, their awareness that they’re expected to spend their lives professing guilt for these actions, and the fact that, in a country full of reminders of those actions, it’s impossible to escape this awareness.

How, after all, can a country that did what Germany did in the 1940s be psychologically healthy only three generations later? Henryk M. Broder, the German Jewish writer, put it this way in 1986: “The Germans will never forgive the Jews for Auschwitz.” It’s become a cliché that Germans love dead Jews – they just don’t care for living ones.
Six years ago I reviewed Tuvia Tenenbom’s eye-opening book I Sleep in Hitler’s Room: An American Jew Visits Germany. Tenenbom, I wrote, was “constantly exposed to rote expressions of sympathy for the victims of Auschwitz – and rote expressions of rage over Israel’s supposedly deplorable treatment of the Palestinians.”

 Obviously, Germans enjoy equating Israel with Nazi Germany because it helps relieve their historical guilt. Germans will tell you that they’re resolved never to let “that” happen again – but they’ve managed to convince themselves that the group most in danger of being subjected to “that” in today’s Europe isn’t the Jews but the Muslims. Therefore, the best way to atone for what their ancestors did to Jews is to kowtow to Islam.

One  of the tragedies of Hitler is that he will forever be the most famous German. Not Einstein, not Beethoven.

[Yeah that's the tragic bit-Ed]

I said 'one of', Motherfucker.

Germany will always be best known for the Second World War rather than its work in industry, art and science; a nation that has done much to advance the lot of man.

There's this headline too:

Germany Should Take Pride in Its WWII Soldiers, Far-right Candidate Says
A founder of the Alternative for Germany party, Alexander Gauland, says Germans should be proud of the Wehrmacht the way the French are of Napoleon

Quite right.

Every military in the world studies the Germans, from the Barbarians to the Landskenchts, to Frederich, to Moltke, to Guderian.

That includes the Israelis by the way.

Of course, a good part of A Line through the Desert takes place in Germany. Jake Bloom encounters arrogant socialists, cynical women, price gauging cabbies; there's even a holocaust reference or two. Sometimes we feel we were too tough on the krauts.

Stroock's Soft NFL Ban

So we went to the Giants game last night.

[How is that in anyway part of a 'ban'?-Ed]

I said its a soft ban.

[Soft, eh? What is it with your insistence on something being soft oh flacid on?e-Ed]

Anyway we went because it was a corporate box. Yes. that's right Stroock Enterprises Lmtd. maintains a box and Met-Life Stadium.

[You missspelled 'My wife's company has a box at Met-Life Stadium-Ed]

It was nice, classy even.

[And you weren't escorted from the premises?

Deion Sanders was even in the box next to us:

Who won the game?

[You don't know -Ed?]

We left at the end of the 3rd. We told you we were banning the NFL.

[Yet you felt compelled to post a picture of Prime Time, loser-Ed]

Editing (again) World War 1990: ANZACs

We have the physical proof for World War 1990: ANZACS.

Actually we've been wondering about proper usage for ANZACs  (Australian New Zealand Army Corps) or Anzacs. It really depends, but generally in conversation Anzacs is proper.

This is the absolute worst part about writing. We've read this thing 25 times already and its only on the 26th that one finds certain typos. Bear in mind that this is after an editor has taken a look.

We're working with the PDF printout of the manuscript. So far things are looking pretty not too bad.

Our proof readers will get the hard copy book and go through it. Once they're done we'll enter the final changes.

This is almost certainly the last round. If all goes well...[that's a huge, I'm sorry yuuge, if-Ed] about a month.

Anyway we slog on, slog on.

Monday Metal

We had a Monday Metal idea and we've completely forgotten what it was.

Which seems apropos.

Last week we were talking with our bagel guy about Rock n Roll. We both recognize that rock is dead. We don't really know how it happened and we're not sure what killed it.

Sure rap or hip-hop 'music' is number one now, but we believe that is at least partially due to rock dying.

The last important rock music was Grunge, discussed in this space before: Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Sound Garden and Alice in Chains. Nirvana is the last great rock bond.

Grunge died quick though and nothing really replaced it.

At about the same time Grunge died we jumped off the rock train and got into classical, a move for which we are profoundly grateful. Here we discovered Tchaikovsky, Beethoven, Mendlessohn, Borodin....

Anyway rock is old and its been old for some time. We first noticed this in 2001. After 9-11 there was a big benefit gala at Madison Square Garden and everyone playing, at least all of the important acts, were middle-aged to old. The headliners were Paul McCartney and Billy Joel. They are rock royalty of course and that's a problem. Rock shouldn't have royalty. Rock is about sticking it to royalty. I fought the law, remember? You can't do that when you are the law.

Years later, in 2008 we think, there was a massive Earth Day rock and roll extravaganza and a lot of these same people came out. Roger Waters was headlining. He must have been at least 50 then. It was Mark Steyn, (we think) who pointed out that at the time of Woodstock, Dean Martin was 48.

When we go to Guitar Center it's usually a gray haired fading tattoo guy behind the counter.

Hey, we like to catch the old acts. This summer we had Bryan Adams week here. Last summer we saw AC/DC. Brian Johnson is our father's age. The Rolling Stones are still touring and they look ridiculous as they fill 60,000 seat arenas across the globe. The new acts we like, Wolf Mother, The Answer, they stay close to home and fill arenas too, 1,000 seat arenas.

How soon till they're playing 500 seat venues?

Stephen Colbert's Nazi Sympathies

There is a dignified way to express one's politics in entertainment.

Last night's Emmys wasn't it.

All art will have some element of politics if the artist is at all politically sentient. Casablanca has plenty of anti-Nazi propaganda, right?

We do talk about politics here but not exclusivity and we make no secret of our loathing for Hillary! The reader knows what their getting into.

[Man, if I could go back in time and tell myself to chose another writer-Ed]

But we keep our straight opinions out of our books.

As we said all art will have an element of politics. We have a world view and it comes through. Israel is inherently good. Readers of World War 1990: Operation Eastern Storm will notice that we don't much care for Pat Buchanan. A reviewer of World War 1990: Operation Arctic Storm thought the Battle of Nome read like an NRA ad. To Survive the Earth has a story full of pistol packing Girl Scouts.

Actually we have a habit of criticizing those on our side. New Gingrich will make a cameo in World War 1990: The Final Storm and he is ridiculed.

So Stephen Colbert turned the Emmy's into a political rally. Steve, other people used to politicize their art. You seem kind of familiar with them:

Notes on Stroock's NFL Ban

We totally forgot their was an NFL game on Thursday night. So the ban is going well.

We should define out terms. We'll be folding some laundry later and will probably have a game on in the background while doing so.

[What are you, a woman?-Ed]

This is more of a soft ban, but a ban nonetheless.

[We don't know what that means.-Ed]

Let's review our reasons.

1-We hate the rules. Because one cannot so much as get a hair out of place on a wide receiver offenses march down the field. No lead is safe. This great for ratings and fantasy football stats, but not for the game.

2-We hate instant replay. Every play gets a full IRS style audit. Were both feet down? Did the ball move? Did the player make a 'football move' to establish possession. As the great John Madden said, let's just have a catch be a catch a touchdown be a touchdown and a fumble be a fumble. Enough.

3-We hate the players. This goes way beyond Kaepernick. We loath the best player on the Giants, the showboating but un-accomplished Odell Beckham. We loath the hip-hop culture in the NFL. The braying, the preening, the taunting. These guys are worse than my 4 year old showing off her pink pony dress.

4-We hate the pandering. Because the NFL has a yuuge problem with its players beating up the women in their lives, October is breast cancer month. This means the players are decked out in pink crap; cleats, bandannas, wrist bands. Hot pink does not go great with NY Giants blue.

5-We hate the cheerleaders [Yeah sure-Ed.] No seriously. They look more like strippers. What is this, the XFL? Jesus. [You watched half a season of that-Ed] I did, and it sucked.

6-We hate the commercials. First the way the breaks are scheduled, touch down-commercial, extra point-commercial, kickoff-commercial  Second, to watch an NFL game means being bombarded by commercials in which the NFL tries to sell you stuff, jerseys, aps and the like. It also means being bombarded by DirecTV Sunday ticket ads, Peyton Manning Papa John's ads, Viagra ads, Levitra, ads, Cialis ads [Gee those seemed to catch your attention-Ed].

Yeah, yeah. Shut the fuck up, Ed.

[Why don't you shut the fuck up and go fold some laundry-Ed.]

Will's Good Idea for the week of 9-17-2017

Putin's War: The Battle of the Three Gorges Damn

As China pushes deeper into Siberia the Russian Air Force launches a suicidal aerial attack on China's Three Gorges Damn the modern wonder though which China controls the Yangtze River.

We're thinking a big aerial battle, Russian Backfire bombers, a sky full of missiles, tracers, search lights. Maybe commandos.

This whole thing could be very Rogue One.

The Majority That Wasn't

15 Years ago we read an article by John Judas and Ruy Texiera, later turned into a book, titled The Emerging Democratic Majority.

The article was loaded with demographic analysis, voting trends and the like and posited that we were entering an era of Democrat Party dominance.

That fall in the midterm elections the GOP picked up seats in the house and in the senate. Bush was reelected in 2004. The Dems romped in 2006 and 2008. The GOP did the same in 2010 and 2014. Obama was reelected in 2012. Of course Trump...

This month John Judas writes that the Emerging Democratic Majority thesis was wrong.

Well duh.

The thesis was right about immigration, minority population growth and all that. But it had a flaw as fatal as the  Death Star exhaust port. Judas and Texiera assumed all those minorities would simply keep voting Democrat. They also assumed the white working class would stay Democrat.

The white working class votes Republican today and Trump was able to peel off enough minority voters to put him over the top. Trump got 29 percent of the Hispanic vote. That's two points better than Romney in 2012, by the way.

 Voter's choices shift depending on circumstance. For example, a successful Hispanic car dealer might not be enamored with Democrat plans to raise energy prices. Indian Americans might not like the Dems embrace of Michael Brown, who after all assaulted an Indian shop keeper. Trump swung white working class voters and cracked Hillary!'s blue wall in MI, PA, and WI. Coalitions never stay stable.

We got that in 2002.

By the way, the Trump coalition dies with Trump.

Mirrored not Aspirational

So we've taken to binge watching new sitcoms (thanks Hulu). Lately we've been into The Mick, about a mess of woman come to look after her rich sister's kids, Fresh off the Boat, about an Asian family in America, and Speechless. 

Now Speechless is interesting, it's about a messy family with a (I dunno what's the word, special needs, disabled? Pick one) child. Minnie Driver plays the mom and she's an overbearing aggressive alpha-female. But that's not all that's wrong with this family. They're constantly fighting with the school district, we have some experience with that. After they move into a new neighborhood the husband warns everybody that the house won't get fixed, the lawn won't get mowed. The daughter says, echoing dad, 'Where not jerks.We're idiots.'

Actually Minnie Driver's mom character reminds us of Lois from Malcolm in the Middle. Of course that blessed show revolved around Lois and Hal and their four hellion boys. Malcolm is a genius. Reece is border-line nuts. Francis is in military school, Dewey is just weird. MitM debuted in 2000 after a decade of high drama teen shows like 90210 (it makes us sick to write that zip. Never watched an episode, though we totally wanted to bone Shannon Daugherty [TMI-ed])

In their hangups and psychosis the MitM family was more realistic than anything on TV at the time. In essence MitM broke the TV tropes. This ain't Gilmore Girls 'Oh mother, I just don't know who I want to go to the prom with.'

But MitM wasn't the first trope-breaker. That honor belongs to Married with Children, no explanation required, and of course the ultimate sit-com family bashers, The Simpsons. We haven't watched the show since 1997 and think its unwatchable now. But it's just part of the TV landscape today. In its time The Simpsons was very controversial. Drug Czar William Bennett warned us all about watching The Simpsons. Our high school banned Bart Simpson T-shirts.

Before these groundbreaking shows sitcoms were about normal family's (for the most, part readers are welcome to point out exceptions in comments). We're talking Father Knows Best, Dick Van Dyke, The Brady Bunch, Cosby. These were aspirational. Everybody wanted Bill Cosby to be their dad.

So what happened?

We suppose TV just couldn't play to our aspirations forever. Of course TV, such as it is today, can't go on mirroring us forever. We suspect soon there will be a sit-com where everything is perfect.

How ground breaking.

Blog Updates

Alert reader(s) may have noticed a few things about this blog of late.

First we are blogging more frequently.

Lately we're putting up four or five posts a day.

Those posts are coming earlier in the day. We're usually up at 4:30-5:00 we have no idea why.

[Likely the torment and abuse you've hurled at me these last four years twisting your dark soul, if you even have one-Ed]

We've also changed the way we blog.

We usually have one post about writing. One about politics. One about current events. One about culture, and so on.

So if you want our insightful and clairvoyant political analysis, you'll get that. We also realize that some readers don't see eye to eye with us on this stuff. While we like to write about politics, and we love, love, love bashing Hillary! this is not apolitical blog, per se. It's a blog that like politics.

So if you like us for our creative thoughts, you'll get a post on that. If you like cultural stuff, you'll get a post on that.

Putting more effort into this platform just seems like a good use of time.

The reader(s) may be asking, 'Are you on Twitter?'

[Really? You think people are asking? Ed]

The answer is yes, but not under our name and only for the purposes of meme-war activity.

We are, however, on Gab, just click.

We strongly recommend Gab as the free-speech alternative to Twitter.

Gab: speak freely.

It's a Beautiful Wall, and it's Gonna be There

Watch, people. And substitute 'wall' for 'bridge'.

Look people, we don't know if it's battered wife syndrome. We don't know if it's jaded lover syndrome. We don't know if it's a matter of our public school system being so deteriorated that people just don't speak English anymore.

Whatever the reason, we have a failure to communicate. So repeat after us: There. Is. No. Deal.

That is there is no deal in which Trump traded away the wall for DACA.

We quote the great Don Surber who opines:

Being bullish, I read it as an admission by Democrats that the wall is non-negotiable. Off the table. President Trump has the authority to build the wall, and he will.

He goes on to say:

This was what was meant by "excluding the wall" because President Trump told them the wall was non-negotiable. Show some faith, OK? He did not seek election to sell you out.

Trump tweeted that there's no deal and that any deal would have to include massive border security. Here is said tweet:

Trump sent our a massive email last night in which he said there is no deal:

WE WILL BUILD A WALL (NOT A FENCE) ALONG THE SOUTHERN BORDER OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA TO HELP STOP ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION AND KEEP AMERICA SAFE.

Last night the House passed a budget with 1.6 billion for a border wall.

That's three strong pieces of evidence against Trump making a deal.

Channeling Surber again:

Friday Updates for Friday

World War 1990: Anzacs is in production and we are working on the cover.

The Austrian Painter is not as smooth as we would like it to be and editing is taking longer. We thought we'd be done by this point. We're halfway. We still think we'll have draft #2 done by the end of the month.

The  rough draft of the 2nd chapter of our AEF book is complete.

There is no news on Pershing in Command.

We might have a deal to develop an operational level war game about the AEF.

Roger Goodell, the Form of the NFL's Destruction II

Via the Biglead we have stories about empty NFL stadiums in Los Angeles and San Francisco (or San Jose...whatever):

Week 1 of the NFL season had plenty of important stories worth following, but maybe the most entertaining was the mostly empty stadiums in Los Angeles and Santa Clara. Both the Los Angeles Ramsand San Francisco 49ers had sparse crowds for their home openers, and that has not gone unnoticed by the NFL.

LA didn't want one NFL team now it has two. One of them is the Chargers. The Chargers are San Diego's team and they belong in San Diego. No one gives a crap about the LA Chargers. It sounds ridiculous. When the Chargers moved to LA we figured at least they weren't moving to St Louis or something. At least San Diego can still follow them. But no. It looks like Chargers fans are giving the gigantic FU to the Chargers and the Spanos family.

Good for them.

Ok, ok, Paul Tagliabue let teams move, the Browns, the Raiders, the Rams and the one big mistake he made was not getting a team back in LA pronto.

But Pete Rozelle (PBUH) understood that moving teams was a bad idea. At least he fought Al Davis and tried to keep him from moving from Oakland to LA.

In our lifetime the NFL has gone from the sport that dominates winter to the sport that dominates America. Its a cash cow. Now you've got empty seats, Roger. Empty !@#$ seats. That was thought to be impossible! But you've pulled it off Roger. You've pulled it off.

Bravo,CLAP...CLAP....CLAP....Bravo.

DACA Trump, DACA

Word is there's a deal on DACA.

Good.

That deal does not include a wall but does include enhanced border security measures. We'll wait and see what those are and we should note that right now the White House is saying they didn't nix a wall in the DACA deal.

Look folks we noted here earlier we thought Trump was going to use DACA to get his wall. Well it might not happen, oh well.

Several good things are happening here.

First, Barry's unconstitutional DACA edict is no more. That's half the issue right there.

Second, DIMers (Descendants of Illegal Migrants) get a legal way to stay. Look immigration hardliners, these people were never going to be deported. Finding a legal way for them to stay is a massively popular idea. You really want to deport these people? I don't.

Third, for the second time in a week the Dems have made a deal with Trump. They're normalizing him. If he's so evil, why are they dealing with him? It helps separate them from their whacked out base.

Fourth, the deal undercuts the feckless ninnies in the GOPe.

Fifth, the deal takes a contentious issue off the table.

Yeah, we wanted to trade DACA for a wall.  Trump's already said he intents to push for the wall later. We'll see.

Hey man, democracy is messy.

UPDATE: Trump denies a deal was made, only a discussion and said 'massive border security' wold be needed in such a deal.

....And then come Nirvana

Via Ace, we have Nirvana's first TV performance:

Now this clip is fascinating.

We all know the famous music video, shot in earth tones, cast in a dark haze. But here's Nirvana on a sound stage packed with 1991 deco. It's really the most 1991 thing to ever happen. That kind of imagery was everywhere.

Here's the original Seinfeld logo:

Here's Cinemax opening graphics:

Here's HBO:

Here's the original Melrose Place opening, it made us physically ill to retrieve it, but that's the price we're willing to pay for cutting edge cultural commentary. We give, people. We give:

Now here's Smells like Teen Spirit:

And that's why Nirvana was such a big deal.

Ave! Ave Pournelle Imperator!

Over at Taki's, the indispensable Steve Sailer eulogizes the great Jerry Pournelle.

Pournelle, let us say, led an interesting life to say the least. Author, politico, philospher, Cold War strategist. We'll get to that in another post.

Sailer talks about my three favorite Pournelle novels: Lucifer's Hammer, Footfall, and The Mote in God's Eye.

We loved the universe Pournelle created with Larry Niven in Mote. It is a universe a thousand years in the future where man still hasn't found intelligent alien life. It is a world of the Second Empire of Man, of King and Parliament, kilted soldiers, dominion planets...That world is turned upside down when space-faring aliens are discovered. The aliens, or Moties as they're called, are brilliantly conceived as is the problem with their civilization and why man wants to keep them locked up in their star system.

Via Chronology.orghttp://www.chronology.org/grafix/jp-emblem2.gif here's the flag of Pournelle's Empire of man.