Will's Bad Idea for Thursday, 12/12/24

Lots of blessed rain yesterday. The skies are clear and sunny today....hmmmm we haven't had an Arturo Fuente in nearly four weeks. We dunno, high in the mid-thirties though. But if the air is still....

Three days in a row at the gym, strength-cardio-weights. We're tired and sore. We like going to the gym and doing so seems like the most productive use of late afternoon dead time. We believe it's time to alter our lifting program once more by lowering weights and upping reps. We'll see. There's no denying results though.

Drones persist in the skies of New Jersey, but nobody knows nuthin'. The New York Post has a few plausible theories. Joint Base McGuire is about half an hour from here. We're going with the military theory. Also, it could be the Jews. You know what the imams say. 

Actually, the Jews may be too busy to fly drones over New Jersey. As of last night, the IAF has conducted 320 strikes on former Assad regime targets. My word. Today, various media outlets report that the IAF has hit Damascus, Tartus and Latakia. Meanwhile the Israeli army is fortifying the buffer zone with Syria. On a personal note, our Syrian contact seems confused and befuddled, with mixed feelings about the whole affair. 

Breitbart reports on the Israeli aerial assault on Syria and notes some intriguing possibilities. On Twitter, Joel Pollack says an Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear program is 'imminent'. There's a logic to the Israelis attacking Iran's nuclear facilities now. The Middle East is reeling from the fall of Assad. And Joe Biden is the weakest lame duck president of our lifetime, he's powerless to do anything to deter the Israelis before or punish the Israelis after the fact. Also, wouldn't Trump like to have this problem taken care of when he takes office?

For these reasons we've been wondering for a few days if now was best time for Israel to strike. Hmm, the Israelis could seize an airbase in eastern Syria* and use it to stage attacks on Iran. A talented, charismatic and good-looking author once wrote a brilliant novel about the Israelis doing something like that. 

Hot Air reports that Time Magazine (which we weren't entirely sure was still a thing) has named Donald Trump its Person of the Year. For younger reader(s) this used to be a big deal. Here's the list of previous awardees through 2020. Interesting, no? What can one say about Trump? They stole an election from him. They tried to bankrupt him. They tried to lock him up. They even tried to kill him. By the way. Look at 2006. We were Time's Person of the Year. Not kidding. God, that was so lame. 

Will's Bad Idea for Thursday, 12/12/24...alternate Medieval history. We've had a few ideas. Our most prominent is a novel where Charlemagne leaves his empire to one son, who spends a generation waging unremitting war against the Vikings. We could do a novel where Harold (recognized by Stroock's Books as England's last legitimate monarch) wins the Battle of Hastings. Or an alternate Crusades or....Baaaa....we swipe at the air and drink our grog. We just don't see how alternate Medieval history would become our third thing.

*Seizing an airbase in east Syria (maybe in the Kurdish region? They've no love for the Mullahs) could lop 300 + miles of the strike. What if the Israelis took H-2 airbase in Western Iraq? Why not?