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'''November 18th'''

All three of us have been working very hard this week.  Not much more to say about that, except we’re all quite tired.  I’ve got more than the usual preparations to do today for ''shabbat'', so I’ll make this short.

The weather has been cooling down to seasonal norms, and is expected to be more or less normal in the near term.

A few things of note:
* [https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2016/11/hacking_passwor.html A $5 USB device] which can password-protected computers
* The US [http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/My-Word-US-flight-fight-and-fright-syndrome-472957 flight and fright syndrome]
* Anti-semitism [http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Column-One-The-Ellison-Challenge-472945 ascendant in the Democrat party]
* [http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/11/16/you-are-still-crying-wolf/ Food for thought] about Trump
* Fascinating video [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bX3EZCVj2XA from a former KGB agent] about brainwashing

Lately my work on [http://8th-dev.com/ 8th] has taken a back-seat to my paid contract work.  But I am still working on developing and improving it.  I most recently updated the “GUI” library it uses to the latest version, and discovered some new bugs in that library ''<sigh>''.  I discovered that bug while working on something else — something which used to work, with the old version.  This is why software needs lots of QA.

Here in Israel, some in our government have put forth a law [http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/220331 to outlaw loudspeakers at places of worship].  The law has come to be called “The Muʼezzin Law”, since the only “places of worship” in Israel which regularly broadcast extremely loud noises are the mosques.  Point of reference: we are 2.5km (about 1.5 miles) from the nearest mosque, but their 4am “wakeup call to the faithful” is loud enough to wake ''us'' up.  So I welcome this law, personally.  

Some in the Arab community also welcome the law; but most (or the most vocal, anyway) oppose it.  They claim it is “anti-Muslim”.  How, then, do they explain that Saudi Arabia has similar laws, or that Egypt is passing similar laws?  Thought so.  It remains to be seen whether or not the gov’t has the ''cojones'' to actually ''enforce'' the law… I’m skeptical.

Fortunately for us, the weather is cold and we can simply close the windows and reduce the noise level to just “annoying” rather than “outrageous”.

We’re going to take it easy this ''shabbat'' (as we generally do). Sarah’s abandoned us, so we don’t have her to kick around today.

This ''shabbat'' it’s just Esther and me. Since she’s under the weather, I’m cooking.  I’m the ''best'' cook, I only use the ''very best'' ingredients! Trust me!!  

We’ll try to enjoy:
<br>
roast beef and roasted potatoes,
lentil stew,
egg salad,
tuna salad,
various [http://www.joyofkosher.com/recipes/collection/recipe-terms-salatim/ ''salatim''],
and honey-cake (she made that a while ago…).

Until next time,<br>
''shabbat shalom''!

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