What's Your Number, Israel?

How Many is Enough?

Mrs. Stroock is away on business, leaving us here with three (3) teenaged daughters. So there's still plenty of women here to tell us what to do.

We had a rough weight session at the gym yesterday. Ouch. We like lifting, but man, that was not fun. The scale said we are 237 pounds.

Ha-ha...so this time our thermostat wasn't working properly. That's three unrelated (or so it seems) AC issues in six weeks. Those issues all result in the same outcome, air not moving through the system fast enough and causing the pipes to frost up. They fixed it, for now. They may replace the thermostat entirely. We'll see. Ha-ha again. They just called and want to do it tomorrow. When the phone rang at 8:22 we knew exactly who and what that was.

We've got one of them fancy modern 'smart' thermostats that does like 20 things (tells you the weather, syncs with dealer tech for maintenance checks etc, etc) when we only want it to do two things: turn on the AC and turn on the heat. Meanwhile, up at the Stroock Northern Strategic Direction, the house is on the same thermostat since at least 1973. Click on over, that's the one. We've no memory of another thermostat up there. Replace it with a modern smart thermostat? Are you people effing nuts?

We are so tired of thinking/worrying about our AC.

The Israelis are going to conquer and occupy all of Gaza, they say. Frankly we're skeptical. Or we got a bad feeling about this. Either way. Yes, Israel is on another military/PR downswing. It's a trough, a ditch. They've climbed out of the ditch several times during this war.

Israelis take to the streets and demand a hostage deal. Who can blame them? But this blog asks hostage relatives a tough question, a fair question. How many convicted murders should the Israelis trade for your loved one? What's your limit?

Exit question: why do we not hear about the ethics of releasing 120 convicted murders to get a hostage back? Sub question: what about the relatives of the people murdered by that released terrorist?

Hot Air says the Dems may not have a Blue Wave next year. That's a long way off. But we agree. Right now, the Dems are effing nuts, bonkers. The entire party should be institutionalized, 'Show me on the doll where Donald Trump hurt you.' We remain wary. But do note that oppo party off year landslides ain't no slam dunk anymore. See for example 1998, 2002, 2018*, and 2022. Right now, the Dems winning the House is still more likely than not. But they've a lot of work to do.

In Texas, Dem lawmakers have bravely fled to New York and Illinois to deny the legislature the quorum it needs to pass congressional redistricting. Good. As we've said, we're glad the GOP finally struck first on election battlefield prep. The legislature has issued arrest warrants, and governor Kurt Abbot is threatening to vacate the flee-baggers. Double-plus good. It's good to see the GOP get serious about using power.

Shorter Mark Steyn: Canada is gay. But reader(s) of this blog new that already. And Canada, Powerline wants to know why you goddamn people can't control your wildfires.

DOGE report: We had a good day yesterday writing a couple of scenes beginning the British invasion of Ireland. We shall have another such day today, inshallah. The invasion begins as tragicomedy and farce. The RAF blows up Taoiseach Charles Haughey's Yacht, Celtic Mist, for instance.

*Upon this hill we will die. The 2018 election is badly misunderstood. Three things were at stake, the GOP won two of them. Those wins being the senate, and some big governorships. You know, Florida, Georgia, etc etc. And it was Trump who dragged the GOP over the finish line.