Snowy Tuesday

Snow Day! Looks like we'll finally be able to break out the snow blower. We gotta bring those carbon footprint numbers up. 

So there's a special election to replace former congressman George Santos today. That the House GOP removed him shows they're unfit govern and don't have the balls to fight the Dems. Pussies. We've seen the ads on TV, they're ugly civic pollution. The Dem is slamming the GOP on abortion and comparing her to Trump. The GOP is slamming the Dem on immigration. Okay, if the GOP wins this race, we'll reconsider our political doomerism. 

As we've been saying, The Times of Israel quotes Egypt's foreign minister, '“There is a peace agreement between Egypt and Israel, which has been in effect for the past 40 years and will continue to be.''' Egyptians and everyone else in the Arab world hates Gazans more than the Jews and hate the Gazans more than they hate the Jews. Egypt et al will make a lot of noise, but they won't go to the mat for these people. Hamas? Yeah, Egypt loves Muslim Brotherhood organizations like Hamas. 

The international community is pressing Israel not to attack Rafah. They're terrified Israel will finish the job.  We'll see if international types can save Hamas from final defeat. Israel is in talks with the US now on a long ceasefire. Israel Radar says Netanyahu will agree to a ceasefire after the IDF takes Rafah. Netanyahu has expertly dragged out negotiations, as is his wont. We saw another report about Gazan refugees in Rafah fleeing north. Soon. 

Meanwhile The Times of Israel reports, 'France has delivered a written proposal to Beirut aimed at ending hostilities with Israel and settling the disputed Lebanon-Israel frontier, according to a document seen by Reuters that calls for Hezbollah and other groups to withdraw 10 kilometers (6 miles) from the border.' This blog doesn't see that happening. Our own theory is that Israel has delayed attacking Hezbollah so it can get Iron Beam in place. Israeli authorities are warning of a prolonged conflict in the north that may include the loss of power for several days. That's gonna be a heck of a war.

An Indy author we know says his significant online following doesn't really help him sell books. We were intrigued by this idea, so we compared ourselves to another writer with a massive online presence who published his first (and only he says) novel in late September, 2023. The novel has 349 ratings for a 4.7 star average and is ranked about 1800 in its Amazon category. By comparison The New American Order was published in late April of 2023, has 237 ratings for a 4.2 star average and is 324 in its Amazon category. For years we've lamented our failure to grow our online presence as a means to sell books. But maybe it doesn't matter?