Psychic Friends Beware

I've been too busy lately to while away my time online. Poor blog, I'm so sorry to neglect you, but it turns out that once in a while I need to actually do some work in order to get paid. It's an understanding I have with my employer. What free time I have outside of work is mostly devoted to clearing away the seemingly endless snow that has hit the Northeast this winter.

But since the weekend is here I thought I should finally take a break to let you know that witchcraft is now an officially recognized profession in Romania. The new law that regulates this went into effect on January 1 of this year. The downside to this is that under the law, witches are now obligated to declare their earnings as practitioners of the profession and pay income taxes on their earnings, as well as to make contributions to the national health insurance and pension programs.

Apparently witches are not happy about this new taxation. Their attempt to combat it with magic appears to have failed so far, though, so maybe more conventional methods are called for. Why don't they start a Romanian version of the Tea Party? I would think that their former colleague Christine O'Donnell might be able to give them a few tips.


She turned me into a newt!

But that's not the end of it. If another new law currently being debated before parliament passes, Romanian witches will face fines or imprisonment if their predictions fail to come true. That actually seems like a reasonable idea to me. Given the challenges inherent in trying to outlaw stupidity, why not at least establish a standard of legal accountability for metaphysical malpractice?

Predictably, Romania's witches are less than enthusiastic about the proposed new law. Queen Witch Bratara Buzea (I'll bet you didn't even know there was such an office) says that it is the cards that should be blamed, not the witch operating them, if their predictions fail. Interesting logic; I'll have to try that. The next time one of my consulting projects threatens to run over budget, I will just tell the client that it is all my pencil's fault. "Here," I will say, handing it over with the most solemn look on my face that I can muster, "please punish it."

[Editor's note: This is the part of the writing process where My Favorite Wife usually walks over to my desk to see what I'm giggling about and then walks away, rolling her eyes, after realizing that I'm just sitting here laughing at my own jokes.]