Mattie Awakes

No posting for a couple of days...alas.  Saturday were errands, a gym double, and making jello for family Christmas - it came out perfectly, phew!  And then yesterday was family Xmas on my Dad's side.  It was nice -- not as many people due to illness -- and it was a bit energetic, as my fun-loving cousin hosted, but it was good to see everyone and get together.  It sort of ended earlier than expected; I had to take a cousin to the airport (I was the only sober person there, or sober enough to operate a motor vehicle), and we were finishing the poker game.  Ate too much, as always -- I am at 183 pounds, and that is not acceptable!

I am trying to hit my goal of reading 50 books.  I finished two over weekend -- one was the Mike Pence autobiography, which was...interesting?  I do like the insider perspective, but again, it is the truths they want to tell, and what actually happens.  I also finished Overy's Rain of Ruin, which is a truncated (well-written and informative, but short) look at the end of WWII with Japan.  He argues (as in his other books) that the US conventional bombing of Japan was quite effective, that the Japanese were running out of the will to fight, that the atomic bombs nudged them into surrender, and that there is almost no evidence that we dropped the bombs as a warning to the Soviets.  I think we tend to forget that and that the worry over US casualties were the main reasons why we dropped them, and no one should feel badly about it.

Donald Trump and Mike Lindell are targeting Tim Walz. Some Republicans are worried that could backfire. - POLITICO
This could be me, but we need to win here, and while yes we should smack Walz around with fraud and such, it would be much harder with Lindell at the top of the ticket, and as such... we should find someone else.  I am a little surprised no one at the White House gave him a federal job, but...sometimes I do wonder who is advising POTUS, and then I recall that it matters but not that much...