Mostly Monday

Good Monday, Stroock's Books people. And a most Monday it is. 

We admit to being wracked with ill feeling and dare it be said, ennui (which we pronounce 'N-U-I' but classy people know should be pronounced 'on-we'). 

This blog's 10th anniversary comes on 8 April. This is post 5952. Do we blog on? [This again, JFC-Ed]. Meh, we feel like Marvin the manic-depressive robot in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. We have a vague but persistent sense that AI, or some such, is going to put us out of a job. Maybe we should beat AI to it. [Oh, okay, and what exactly would you do?-Ed] We shrug in the most Mediterranean (spelled it right on the first try) way possible.

There's some serious diplomatic a-go-go and Kabuki in Doha with Trump pressuring both sides to make a deal. 

There's actually lots of good reasons for Israel to extend the ceasefire. Strategically there's trouble in Syria and Judea/Samaria. And there's always Iran's nuclear program to worry about. Remember, Israel is so much better off strategically then it was on 10/7.

Locally, the IDF is still retraining after the lessons learned in the first round of Gaza fighting. They're also replenishing ammo. The IDF has suffered 12,000 dead and wounded, frankly, there's a manpower issue. 

Most importantly, with an extended ceasefire, Israel would get more hostages back, which is the politically popular thing to do and Netanyahu knows it. Remember Bibi's way, sideways-diagonally towards the goal. Which is another way of saying be patient. 

Overall we think an extended ceasefire is neither a good thing nor a bad thing. It is just a thing. 

DOGE report: More progress on the Battle of Derry. We should wrap up Chapter II today. Our plan is to get Chapter III, in which the UDR retakes Derry, written this week. Our hunch is we'll spend the next month editing and fixing the Derry chapters. We actually feel Thatcher's War is pretty on track for its Memorial Day rough draft completion. Which means we'll be in position to write a summer sneak in [Slow down there, cowboy-ed].

In honor of Canada choosing a new PM we'll read the CF-101 Voodoo Chapter in War Night this afternoon. And that ought to about do it.