As always happens at least once every year or two, someone has posted the Shel Silverstein poetry of doom eternal optimism...

Listen to Mustn'ts, child, listen to the Don'ts.
Listen to the Shouldn'ts, the Impossibles, the Won'ts.
Listen to the Never Haves, then listen close to me.
Anything can happen, child, Anything can be.

-Shel Silverstein (1930-1999)

My comment:
I have always found this verse to be horrifying. As an eternal optimist, it's ironic, because the first time I heard it, I took it as a wake up call -- "yes, terrible things can happen to anyone. You, too, can be homeless. You, too, can get cancer. You are not immune to the horrible things that only ever happen to other people." I still take it that way, even though I know it's most often seen as an encouragement. It's weird to me how this little bit of poetry can scare the crap out of me so effortlessly when usually nothing can get me down.

And it's true. I rarely take "chance" events personally and while I may panic on occasion, I get over it fairly quickly. I always take this verse as a warning not to get too presumptuous or comfortable, because anything can happen to turn your world upside down without warning, anytime. It really does scare the crap out of me.

Last time I posted this, I got two bazillion comments about how ol' Shel was only ever out to encourage and make kids feel like they could accomplish anything. I wonder. I wonder if this isn't meant to be a warning just as much as it's meant to be a "don't give up." Right behind your point of perspective, little girl, the dead hang in proof of life's eventual and inevitable conclusion.

Go to http://elgg.rendingtheveil.com/_invite/register.php and sign up now! Send suggestions and bug reports to webmaster@rendingtheveil.com

thank you all!

The Rending the Veil blogs go live Wednesday with the new issue. Tomorrow, we'll be setting up for a brief beta test. Who wants in? Anyone signing up now gets to keep their account and gets first crack at their favorite user name. Anyone already signed up with an RTV account will have their usernames automatically "blogified" by Wednesday. Feedback welcome, of course.

Perks: Blogs lol, profiles, widgets, not sure what all.

Not implemented yet: additional user pics, full friends pages (working on it, may be ready by Wednesday), the astrological and Thelemic dating functions I requested, paid accounts, various other shit.

Leave a comment, yo.

RTV is seeking content for the upcoming Samhain issue. I'm hoping to make this a special, really powerful issue with lots of diverse content. At the same time, I'd like to see a focus on spirit magick, astral magick, cyber magick, energy work, evocation, and other forms of subtle-level or spirit work. Articles on divination, reiki, traditions of the season, etc are also appropriate. If anyone on my flist wants to submit anything, you can reach me at sheta@rendingtheveil.com or submit to submissions@rendingtheveil.com (both will reach me, submissions will also reach Gerald). If you are a person who has not been involved in the zine previously but would like to, you can join rendingtheveil, hit me on Yahoo IM (shetakaey), or email me if you have any questions.

We have room for nonfiction, fiction, editorials, interviews, art, poetry, and pretty much anything else if you let me know soon enough. I need to know asap if you are considering submitting something, and final deadline is Oct 20 for anyone who has never submitted before.

Thanks much.

I happened to check my guestbook, and got irked, so I just added this to my personal website:

PSA:

Honestly, I’m aware that I’ve neglected the site. I am managing a webzine and editing books and 180 other things right now, so just bear with me. But I had to take the time to address a recent guestbook entry. Normally, I am not aware of it when my guestbook is signed, because the notifications mostly get spam filtered by Gmail and I don’t bother looking. See above for the “time is short” justification.

But tonight (October 3, by a few hours) a notice did land in my inbox and so I went to look, and checked out what I’ve missed. A week or so ago a girl named Rania from New Zealand signed and left me this comment:

“Girl, you are a flake. And I say that in a nice way.
Spirit lovers? I find that very hard to believe. But the more power to you if you do, its your life.
I know what it is like to be lonely, and when we create a ‘perfect’ lover out of whole cloth, a form of reality takes over. Then it is difficult to separate the real from fiction.
I admire your creative imagination!
I like your way of being up front and ‘honest’, makes a nice change.
Well, have a good life, and do try to get out more.
By the way, how often do you update this site, or have you moved on from this site?”

This intrigues me for a couple of different reasons. First of all, it’s kind of nice to hear from someone who didn’t just take my word for things as reason enough to believe me. It’s refreshing, but it’s also somewhat irritating, because she did judge and make up her mind on the spot, assuming that because she’d had a particular experience, that mine must be just like hers. Because you know, no one can possibly experience anything she doesn’t know about first hand.

Furthermore, I didn’t just fall off the ol’ turnip truck yesterday. I’m 46 years old, I’ve been actively involved in the occult in some way or another since I was 12 and got my first tarot deck, and I’ve spent the last 15 years collecting evidence and exercising my own personal skepticism with regard to the issue of Meridjet. But Rania, well, she can read a couple of web pages and in 20 minutes she’s got it all figured out. Wow. I’m really glad she cleared things up for me, because otherwise I might have had to think for myself or something.

If it makes you feel any better, Rania, I’ve got a lot of other people of similarly skeptical natures helping me out on this one. I am not gullible, I am not lonely, I did not create a fantasy lover or a tulpa or a servitor or any of that happy shit, and I don’t require your 50-cent online psych evaluation, as “in a nice way” as it may be. I like your energy; you seem like a clear and happy person (if a bit leaky with your shielding), but you also seem under 25 years old and therefore are pretty much guaranteed to have just a tad less experience under your belt than I do, unless you were born in a world where Harry Potter is real and you are bestowed magical ability at birth. Or of course, unless you are one of those reincarnated super witches who was teaching ’em Wicca during the Stone Age. Beware those Burning Times!

All kidding around aside (after all, we mean all this in nice ways, right?), you might consider suspending judgment on a person until you know a bit more about them, rather than leaping headlong into an erroneous conclusion. Better luck next time.
— Sheta Kaey

Parallel universes exist - study
Sep 23 11:33 PM US/Eastern
here

Parallel universes really do exist, according to a mathematical discovery by Oxford scientists described by one expert as "one of the most important developments in the history of science".

The parallel universe theory, first proposed in 1950 by the US physicist Hugh Everett, helps explain mysteries of quantum mechanics that have baffled scientists for decades, it is claimed.

In Everett's "many worlds" universe, every time a new physical possibility is explored, the universe splits. Given a number of possible alternative outcomes, each one is played out - in its own universe.

A motorist who has a near miss, for instance, might feel relieved at his lucky escape. But in a parallel universe, another version of the same driver will have been killed. Yet another universe will see the motorist recover after treatment in hospital. The number of alternative scenarios is endless.

It is a bizarre idea which has been dismissed as fanciful by many experts. But the new research from Oxford shows that it offers a mathematical answer to quantum conundrums that cannot be dismissed lightly - and suggests that Dr Everett, who was a Phd student at Princeton University when he came up with the theory, was on the right track.

Commenting in New Scientist magazine, Dr Andy Albrecht, a physicist at the University of California at Davis, said: "This work will go down as one of the most important developments in the history of science."

According to quantum mechanics, nothing at the subatomic scale can really be said to exist until it is observed. Until then, particles occupy nebulous "superposition" states, in which they can have simultaneous "up" and "down" spins, or appear to be in different places at the same time.

Observation appears to "nail down" a particular state of reality, in the same way as a spinning coin can only be said to be in a "heads" or "tails" state once it is caught.

According to quantum mechanics, unobserved particles are described by "wave functions" representing a set of multiple "probable" states. When an observer makes a measurement, the particle then settles down into one of these multiple options.

The Oxford team, led by Dr David Deutsch, showed mathematically that the bush-like branching structure created by the universe splitting into parallel versions of itself can explain the probabilistic nature of quantum outcomes.
© Copyright Press Association Ltd 2007, All Rights Reserved.

The new issue of Rending the Veil is live. Please comment if you spot any glaring errors. thanks.

In other news, I've caught my daughter's cold. yippee.

Rending the Veil is in dire need of content for the next issue. If you have anything, we're taking nonfiction articles on pretty much any magical or mystical topic, fiction pieces, editorials, political articles, art, and poetry. We need it NOW, so anything you have ready, send to submissions@rendingtheveil.com asap.

Also, we are actively seeking content for the Samhain issue (October 31) now; since the Mabon issue is going to be thin, I want to make October a fat one. Specifically, I'd like to see anything about spirits or the subtle planes, or anything about evocation, etc. Spirit magick is the main focus, but not the only one.

Thanks!

I know some of you are seeing all these articles as spam. Good thing there's a scroll bar right over there. --->
I think this one is the most elegantly worded article so far. And it's the shortest.

Original article here.

Today was an eventful day. I drove to Cleveland, reunited with my father’s side of the family and got arrested. More on that arrested part to come.

For the labor day weekend my father decided to host a small family reunion. My sister flew in from California and I drove in from Pittsburgh to visit my father, his wife and my little brother and sister. Shortly after arriving we packed the whole family into my father’s Buick and headed off to the grocery store to buy some ingredients to make monkeybread. (It’s my little sister’s birthday today and that was her cute/bizare birthday request.)

Next to the grocery store was a Circuit City. (The Brooklyn, Ohio Circuit City to be exact.) Having forgotten that it was my sister’s birthday I decided to run in and buy her a last minute gift. I settled on Disney’s “Cars” game for the Nintendo Wii. I also needed to purchase a Power Squid surge protector which I paid for separately with my business credit card. As I headed towards the exit doors I passed a gentleman whose name I would later learn is Santura. As I began to walk towards the doors Santura said, “Sir, I need to examine your receipt.” I responded by continuing to walk past him while saying, “No thank you.”

As I walked through the double doors I heard Santura yelling for his manager behind me. My father and the family had the Buick pulled up waiting for me outside the doors to Circuit City. I opened the door and got into the back seat while Santura and his manager, whose name I have since learned is Joe Atha, came running up to the vehicle. I closed the door and as my father was just about to pull away the manager, Joe, yelled for us to stop. Of course I knew what this was about, but I played dumb and pretended that I didn’t know what the problem was. I wanted to give Joe the chance to explain what all the fuss was for.

I reopened the door to talk with Joe and at this point Joe positioned his body between the open car door and myself. (I was still seated in the Buick.) Joe placed his left hand on the roof of the car and his right hand on the open car door. I asked Joe if there was a problem. The conversation went something like this:

Me: “Is there a problem?”
Joe: “I need to examine your bag and receipt before letting you leave this parking lot.”
Me: “I paid for the contents in this bag. Are you accusing me of stealing?”
Joe: “I’m not accusing you of anything, but I’m allowed by law to look through your bag when you leave.”
Me: “Which law states that? Name the law that gives you the right to examine my bag when I leave a Circuit City.”

( How he got arrested )

Original article at NYTimes. Emphasis below is mine.

It was appalling to watch over the last few days as Congress — now led by Democrats — caved in to yet another unnecessary and dangerous expansion of President Bush’s powers, this time to spy on Americans in violation of basic constitutional rights. Many of the 16 Democrats in the Senate and 41 in the House who voted for the bill said that they had acted in the name of national security, but the only security at play was their job security.

There was plenty of bad behavior. Republicans marched in mindless lockstep with the president. There was double-dealing by the White House. The director of national intelligence, Mike McConnell, crossed the line from being a steward of this nation’s security to acting as a White House political operative.

But mostly, the spectacle left us wondering what the Democrats — especially their feckless Senate leaders — plan to do with their majority in Congress if they are too scared of Republican campaign ads to use it to protect the Constitution and restrain an out-of-control president.

The votes in the House and Senate were supposed to fix a genuine glitch in the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which requires the government to obtain a warrant before eavesdropping on electronic communications that involve someone in the United States. The court charged with enforcing that law said the government must also seek a warrant if the people are outside the country, but their communications are routed through data exchanges here — a technological problem that did not exist in 1978.

( The rest )

Ganked verbatim, as quoted by catvincent

Sooo... innocence_jihad reports that according to the latest 'clarification' from 6A policy wonks (I may have put a wrong vowel in there...), the LJ user is responsible for whatever they link to.

In other words, if an old link in a post you made years ago dies and gets hijacked by pr0n of someone who looks like they might be underaged... you can get banned.

Details here and here.

If this is generally enforced, it basically kills LiveJournal as useful for the majority of blogging.

Oh - and if there was any doubt, there's good evidence that Boldthrough/Strikethrough 2/the latest round of banning was indeed started by associates of Warriors for In No Sence...

The Suicide Race begins with a full gallop down the treacherously steep "Suicide Hill." The horses' feet are literally in the air as they are forced over the steep ravine. Some animals somersault down the mountain and are trampled by other horses during the descent...If horse and rider are lucky enough to survive Suicide Hill, they are forced to swim or run (depending on the depth of the unpredictable Okanogan River) a span of approximately 50 yards, where more than one horse has drowned over the years.

The race does not end on the far bank, however. As the animals struggle out of the river, riders kick and whip the horses into a gallop up a steep grade to the finish line, inside the Stampede Arena. By the end of the final uphill sprint, the surviving animals stand panting and exhausted. A number of horses have even collapsed and died in the Arena after completing the "race." Still others suffer broken knees, legs, necks, and pelvic bones—injuries that often require the animals to be euthanized.

Click the link to see how you can help put a stop to this awful, sanctioned abuse.

I made this a couple of nights ago to sell on Rending the Veil in my gallery. I'll make more stuff soon, but have been focusing on cleaning and organizing the house. I'm going to bed in a minute or 20.

( Behind the cut )

Haven't been online this weekend due to insomnia followed by a big crash followed by random each again. Right now am in insomnia mode, with a tummy ache. I expect I'll be crashing before long. I hope. lol

Is there anyone here who would like to showcase and sell their art or handmade (occult-relevant or oriented) wares in the Rending the Veil Art Galleries? I'm setting it up right now. If you want in, write to me at sheta@rendingtheveil.com for specifics. I need content. Several people intend to be involved but no one has yet sent me content so I only have my own stuff to work with. The page I'm working on right now is the main gallery page which will link to the subgalleries. You can see it here, but remember it's not done and I'm still playing with it (to say the least). Ultimately there will be links in the scroll box, with each artist having his or her own subgallery and title graphic. In the subgallery areas, the scrollbox will contain thumbnails that link to the individual item pages. Upon request, subgalleries can be grouped to show all of one type of item on one page, with a thumbnail linking to that section (e.g. "Essential oils" or "wands" or "bracelets") rather than one page for each individual item.

Store cut is 20%, with a discount rate of 10% charged for high-overhead items. Shipping will be by the artist and artist will provide shipping fees. etc. Let me know. So far I've got Gerald, Gerald's wife April, Mats (the RTV staff artist, and omg he is awesome), Lupa, me, Frater SL and a couple of other folks. Hit me up.

Some guy wrote a thinly-veiled op-ed piece about the TOStastrophe (har har I'm so funny) here, and the best comment I've seen so far reads thusly:

Sarah from 209.129.85.4 at Wed, 08 Aug 2007 20:12:50 +0000:
As a non-participant in fandom, my only complaint is that LiveJournal is breaking California business practice (consumer protection laws) which if I'm reading right is applicable to any business based in California (which they are).

Additionally, in the United States and California, drawings depicting pubescent minors (e.g. young teenager but hitting puberty) are legal as long as they are clearly distinguishable from actual child pornography. If they look so realistic that one cannot tell they are animated, then it is illegal. Ones that look so fake you have no trouble realizing they are not real children are not illegal. Even their own cited law states at the bottom:

(11) the term "indistinguishable" used with respect to a
depiction, means virtually indistinguishable, in that the
depiction is such that an ordinary person viewing the depiction
would conclude that the depiction is of an actual minor engaged
in sexually explicit conduct. This definition does not apply to
depictions that are drawings, cartoons, sculptures, or paintings
depicting minors or adults."

Harry Potter is not a real character, hence, any of his "distinguishing characteristics" are null and void. Since it was distinguishable and not based on a real character (and let's not forget the fact that the artwork in question was NOT of minors, fictional or not), technically it would only face copyright infringement (though Rowling and many other authors I've read on actually tend to be happy their characters are idolized so much). By California law it is not child pornography (or federal law). If it was, they wouldn't be able to sell manga or shota in bookstores. Which, they do.

Because of this clause, and a strike-down in 2002 (http://archives.cnn.com/2002/LAW/04/16/scotus.virtual.child.porn/) even if Harry had been 17 instead of 22 like he was in the artwork, it would have been legal except for the copyright.

However, the problem isn't whether or not LiveJournal allows cartoons of children in explicitly sexual positions. Users there have been frustrated with being called child pornographers wrongly, yes (especially since most of them do not draw underaged fictional characters... They are a very small minority).

LiveJournal has every right to censor whatever material they wish to being a private company. However, they have refused to reinstate journals that depicted adults in pornographic communities. They have only done so with male-on-male erotica. More importantly, they promised users that they would only be suspended permanently if something was blatantly illegal (and they're not including copyright). They have refused to clarify their TOS, or even update it to their new standards.

If, by being in California they are subject to consumer protection laws, then they have broken at least 3 laws to date - fraud and changing TOS without official notification, as well as enforcing their unofficial TOS that is described unclearly in the LiveJournal business community, but not in the TOS page.

And not to mention the terrible customer service, ignoring the issue for five days, as well as not responding to new questions shown in their community.

I understand in Canada cartoons depicting sexually explicit situations may still be illegal (and I find the stuff disturbing to look at) however, LiveJournal is only held to US Federal law, and California law where they are based, and banning cartoons was listed as too broad and constitutional. Even so, the rare people on LiveJournal who do create it usually only do so to already-existent stories... After all, it is "fan" art and "fan" fiction.

An open letter to SixApart & LiveJournalhttp://bubble-blunder.livejournal.com/80818.html.

Very well stated, sort of like a petition. Probably won't work, but it's worth a try.

CHESHIRE, Conn., Aug. 6 — Dr. William A. Petit Jr., his head bloodied and legs bound, stumbled out of a rear basement door of his two-story home here into a pouring rain, calling the name of a neighbor for help.

The neighbor heard the shouting, but so did the two men inside the house, who peeked outside from an upstairs window. They were both serial burglars with drug habits, having racked up numerous convictions for stealing car keys and pocketbooks.

This time, they took something far more precious.

The men, the authorities say, had already strangled Dr. Petit’s wife, Jennifer Hawke-Petit, 48, and in short order would also kill the couple’s two daughters, Hayley, 17, and Michaela, 11. The elder suspect, Steven J. Hayes, 44, had poured gasoline on the girls and their mother, according to a lawyer and a law enforcement official involved in the case, in hopes of concealing DNA evidence of sexual assault. He had raped Ms. Hawke-Petit, and his partner, Joshua Komisarjevsky, 26, had sexually assaulted Michaela.

Moments after Dr. Petit escaped, as the house was being surrounded by police officers, the men lighted the gasoline. The girls were tied to their beds but alive when the gas Mr. Hayes had spread around the house was set aflame.

The rest is here.




Normally, I am anti-death-penalty. But once in a while, a case comes up where it seems justified to me. These men were caught leaving the residence, so there's no fear of a mistaken identity. What they did was horrific. They deserve to be brutally raped and then set on fire while tied up and unable to move.

CORRECTION: The posts in question were not friends-locked. This was evidently an unsubstantiated rumor. However, in their official statement in lj_biz, "theljstaff" have stated that the same ambiguous rules apply to all posts, including filtered and private.

1. LiveJournal was always rabidly First Amendment-friendly. The Abuse Team refused to address or even look at any locked post, regardless of content. People who whined about being offended were told to do the sensible thing and not fucking look at it. Clearly, this has changed.



2. Three times since 6A took control of LJ have they banned users for objectionable content. Then they backpeddle and apologize, citing pressure from extremist groups. Then they do it again.



3. They accepted money from at least one of these users last month during the Permanent Account sale. That account has now been suspended, and all content deleted. No warning. No refund. No chance for the artist to conform to a new interpretation or a new rule. Just a permanent ban and all of her personal journals and their content deleted. Any one of us who use LJ for anything other than a grocery list would be pained and offended if our journals were unrecoverable for a sin we didn't know we had committed. After all, LJ was fine with this content before 6A, and they were okay with selling this user her permanent account just a month ago.



4. There are new ambiguous rules and arbitrary interpretation that keeps changing without warning. Sure, we all agreed to the Terms of Service, including that they may be changed without warning etc, but those of us who've been with LJ for years and never been cited for any problems would be very surprised to suddenly learn that when we posted about running that red light or about sex with our gay lover, we are now in violation of the TOS and we've been suspended, with no way to appeal that.



5. Friends-locked posts have never been policed. Why would they suddenly be policed now and held against us?



6. If you're not offended by this, wait. Something's bound to happen that will affect you, eventually. 6A has proven itself all too willing to run helter-skelter and willy-nilly over its customers, and to mock them while it does it. You're not exempt any more than the people who thought they were safe yesterday or last month.



7. Personal note: This all just makes me sick. It's not about the content. It's about the mis-application of power.

bradfitz

brad