Happy Friday. Post whatever you got.
Sunday is Halloween. I hope everybody already has their costume picked out.

Not my photo, but I couldn't pass up on Harland and the Hens.

In the tubes this morning is a story about “Jewitches”—women who know they are both Jewish, and witches. “The kinds of witchcraft that I practice draw on my training in Jewish ritual,” says one. Well. Yeah.

This follows a recent story with the headline: “Why Are Women Becoming Witches?”

I laughed out loud at that one. “Because they already are!” I said. “It’s just a question of whether they recognize it.”

All women are witches. This is Known. When once men got control of the words, and the stories, witches started getting portrayed as Bad. But that is just shit made up. Witches—that is, women—are actually Good. Unless you are bad to them. Then, there might be a Problem.

I apologize for this greatly truncated and over simplified version of events. I wanted to quickly hop, skip and jump over the premise to get to the point. Admittedly, much has been omitted in the run up to current affairs, so please bear with my brevity and hopefully it will appear somewhat coherent. This is an age old dialogue that we've all contemplated for decades, but it is now staring us right square in the face, much to our chagrin.

The day the hunter-gatherer stepped foot from the forest and scratched the earth to plant a crop was the day that set us on the path where we find ourselves today. Because of this new sedentary lifestyle brought on by agriculture and animal husbandry, villages, towns, and cities were subsequently established due to the capacity to store enough surplus food stuffs to survive the winter. Humans like feeling safe and their bellies full. As the population grew and soil lost its fertility, water dried up and/or fouled, the need for new fresh dirt and water to grow ever larger crops led to outward expansion. This expansion often led to war with neighbors. As these populations grew into city states it foreshadowed empire. As empires grew so did the demand for more resources, a demand that prompted even further expansion and further conquest.

I like how this headline is worded. Because is there anyone is America today that doesn't expect the progressives to fold like an accordion?

Since our pompe à chaleur (heat pump) died, we've been hard up for heat. It was an air to water heater for underfloor radiant for the ground floor and for radiators upstairs. Really nice heat.

(Not really ready for prime time...)

First, some background: on Oct. 22 Joe Lauria at Consortiumnews.org had reported:
‘Chief Justice of England & Wales, Who Blocked Lauri Love Extradition, Joins Bench for Assange Hearing’; The most senior judge in England and Wales, who let activist Lori Love evade extradition to the U.S. on humanitarian grounds, will join Lord Justice Timothy Holroyde at the U.S. appeal hearing against Julian Assange next week.’

No one in the comments had asked how it works with an even number of judges works in their system. No tie-breaking vote?

“Instead they recommended that Love be tried in the United Kingdom on charges of hacking into U.S. government computers. (The U.S. then dropped the charges.) Unlike Love, Assange is accused of no crimes in Britain. But like Love, he has been deemed (by the magistrate’s court) at high risk of suicide if he were to be extradited to the United States.”

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