Early Celebrations

We celebrated Christmas on my Mom's side of the family today... first time ever that we didn't have it ON Christmas Eve.  Not sure why...but it was fun.  My uncle had his brother and family over -- have not seen them in years -- so it was good to catch up and such.  He didn't cook (sadly) but had food brought in, and it was... fine!  We spent a lot of time together, eating and talking and catching up.  I mean, there has been an odd vibe to the weekend as it is -- Xmas on a Monday will do that -- so in some ways this off-holiday Christmas was with that, but it was...good.  I got home at 7:30 or so and thought about a trip to the gym (again) for legs, but... I ended up finishing some stuff up and nodded off slightly.  Up now, which is... interesting.  Hope my sleep cycle isn't off; I am tempted to turn in slightly early tonight, just because I can....

All of these college bowl games made me realize how much I missed playing NCAA Football on the PS2.  I mean, not so much the games, but the creating your own school (or playing an existing one), setting up a program, recruiting, etc.  Really no time to do any of that now, of course, but it would be nice if I could.  OK, I could, but... there are other things to do.  Like read, do SVDP stuff, etc.  I am up to 64 books so far and while 70 is probably out of reach... I can try, at least.

New restrictions on SNAP would hit majority-Hispanic House Republican districts - POLITICO
Is this a problem?  I guess to me an obvious solution is to mandate more strenuous work requirements as part of SNAP eligibility.   As someone who volunteers at a community food pantry, I can assure you that a good number of our clients are perfectly capable of working, but choose not to.  Mandating work would also do such things as boost Social Security receipts (more people are working and paying into the system) and lessen the need for immigration -- again, these people can do some of the jobs (and can be trained, if need be).  Plenty of people are poor and work already and shuffle child care (one job that some of these people could do!) and transportation issues and do not need benefits, so... why not more?