Not Ceasing Yet

We walked five miles Tuesday and hit the gym yesterday. We avoided the rope pully though, as we have a sore left shoulder. Soon we shall take a gym hiatus and figure out how we're going to exercise next year. We doubt we'll hit our goal of 239 pounds (that's 17 stone for speech impaired reader(s) across the pond). We're not surprised. The Christmas/Holiday season is a terrible time to try to lose weight, and in another life, Mrs. Stroock would have her own baking show. 

Speaking of, Mrs. Stroock is taking the girls to visit relatives in Indiana today. We're already getting morose and we could easily turn this post into a Thursday Downer. 

It seems hostage negotiations between Israel and Hamas have ceased. Honestly, good. Treading lightly and speaking carefully, we see parallels between Israeli hostage families and American 9/11 families. It's not all about you.

Israel Radar says the Israelis are warning the world that war with Hezbollah is imminent. We'd quote, but the Israel Radar story cites other reports (see how that works, Claudine Gay, plagiarizing hater of Jews?) and reader(s) should click on over. Exit question: does Hezbollah want war with Israel?

Stroock's Books believes if Israel cannot coexist with Hamas, then Israel cannot coexist with Hezbollah. But we have counselled patience from the beginning. The Israel Radar story notes that Israeli reserve forces have been mobilized for weeks, training and learning lessons from the Gaza War. Israel also gains valuable intelligence while it waits. There is a huge anti-Hezbollah element within Lebanon, surely some are informing on them. Reminder, the war against Hezbollah will be so much worse than the war against Hamas. 

We're not going to write about the Colorado ballot decision, Trump, etc etc. Because we don't think it matters. In the end the feckless GOP is to blame. The Dems will do what they want, and the GOP will cower. If the GOP retaliates anywhere in any way we'll be stunned. As we asked some GOPe friends in 2020, how do you expect to win next time, if you won't stop the steal this time? And so it has come to be.  As Edward Grey once said, the lamps are going out. 

On to nicer things....we're reading through World War 1990: Norway. So far so good. 

We wait for our people to deliver the KDP file of World War 1990: The Final Storm. We'll probably hit the publish button as soon as it's uploaded, so we may tell ourselves we published two novels in 2023. Look at the dates, you'll see we very often publish a novel in December.