daf bit: Bava Kama 72

We know from the torah (Ex 21:37) that if a man steals an ox and kills or sells it, he must pay five oxen in compensation (five times damages). The mishna on today's daf discusses this case. If the thief is convicted of the theft on testimony of two witnesses and the slaughter or sale on testimony of those same witnesses, and the witnesses are shown to be schemers (who plotted together to testify falsely), the witnesses must pay the fivefold damages in full. (The torah says that false witnesses are subject to the penalty they sought to impose on the other. In this case they're testifying against the thief who would owe fivefold damages if guilty, so they pay the damages.) If, however, the theft is established by one pair of witnesses and the slaughter/sale by another and all the witnesses turn out to be schemers, then the first two pay twofold and the second pair pays threefold (for the total of fivefold). If only the second pair are schemers, the thief pays twofold and the latter witnesses threefold. If just one of the second pair is a schemer the testimony of the second pair is thrown out, but if one of the first pair is a schemer then everything is thrown out, because if there was no theft then there could be no illegal sale/slaughter. (72b)

For a sheep it's fourfold damages, according to the torah. I don't know why four for a sheep but five for an ox.

I like my credit-card provider

Me: books hotel in foreign city.
Me: books tour in that city.
Me: books another tour in that city.
Me: attempts to book tour in a different city.
Booking site: couldn't get approval.
Me: tries a different tour (and different vendor).
Booking site: nope, we don't like your credit card either.
Husband: tries (joint card) and fails.

Phone rings.

Caller: Hi, this is (bank).
Me: Oh good; I was just about to call you.
Caller: There were these transactions...
Me: Yes that was me.
Caller: Ok, better safe than sorry. We'll unblock your card now.
Me: By the way, here are some travel dates and locations.
Caller: Got it.

I'll gladly accept those five minutes of inconvenience for that level of fraud protection. I even still had a valid session for the failed transaction, so retrying was easy.

I would have called them with the dates and locations closer to the trip to avoid card declines, but I didn't think about how the advance charges would look.