eBay bans spells and magic potions

As of August 30, magic spells and potions will be added to eBay's list of prohibited items.

eBay is continually updating their rules, and continually ticking off huge segments of their community. This time, they are ticking off the magickal community, and you have to wonder if this wasn't a particularly unwise move on their part.

From eBay's perspective, listings for things like "I will cast a spell for you" and "I will send you a magical potion" have a high rate of complaints. What eBay calls a "bad user experience." Meaning, a lot of people get fleeced by these listings, or think they do, and contact eBay to complain about it.
 
As of August 30, magic spells and potions will be added to eBay's list of prohibited items. To quote eBay, "transactions in these categories can be difficult to verify and resolve." After all, if a seller advertises an iPad and sells you a block of wood painted with an apple, you can complain to eBay under the "item not as described" policy. But what if you are buying a bottle of "magical demon destroyer potion"? How is eBay going to be able to determine whether or not the tiny dropper bottle actually contains magical demon destroyer potion, versus plain old tap water?

Naturally there will be plenty of ways around this restriction, just as there is for every other forbidden item. Just like all those water pipes sold "for tobacco use only," sellers can still advertise art objects which just happen to have spells printed on them. After all, the main problem is with the sale of intangibles, which eBay has always frowned upon - if not banned entirely. 
 
I would never recommend that you try to circumvent eBay's rules. (And I am certainly against the practice of fleecing the unwary.) But if you want to sell your services as a spell caster, you simply have to bundle that service along with a tangible item. A little token, something easy to mail, and you're good to go. 
 
The bigger problems with this change basically boil down to a religious issue. And that is exactly why many people are complaining about it: they feel that eBay is unfairly infringing upon their right to practice their religion, and picking on them for being Wiccans (or whatever).
 
Trust me, though: eBay doesn't care. Their bureaucracy just keeps rolling, it doesn't really care what's in its way. All journalistic snark aside, this is a pretty small road block being thrown in the path of people who are selling magical goods and services on eBay. (And yet another hassle for the small sellers to navigate.)
 

Can you really retire on a cruise ship?

It's true, but would you really want to?

This is something that has been floating around on the Internet along with all the other crazy-ass chain mail email letters that your grandma forwards to you. I was reminded of it last night when I was watching a "King of the Hill" re-run, of all things. When Megalo-Mart buys out the organic food co-op, the co-op's butcher takes early retirement and reportedly buys a condo on a cruise ship.

But can you really retire to live on a cruise ship? It seems so plausible, and yet so unlikely. I am put in mind of another Fox show, a Simpsons episode from last season when Bart, seeing how much fun his family is having on their cruise ship vacation, engineers the vacation to last forever. It sounds fantastic on the face of it: imagine endless shrimp buffets! Exotic ports of call your whole entire life! So much better than being stuck in a boring old folk's home (excuse me, RETIREMENT COMMUNITY).
 
But as Bart discovered, retiring on a cruise ship may be a case of "be careful what you wish for."

First, the economic reality: it's plausible. According to this Snopes article, becoming a permanent cruise ship resident is "a feasible and cost-effective alternative to assisted-living facilities." A geriatrician at Northwestern University crunched the numbers and determined that, over the course of an average 20-year retirement, you would only pay an extra $2,000 for the cruise ship versus a retirement home.
 
But as Snopes points out, it may not be for everyone. Because your fellow passengers only stay 5 or 10 days, you never get the chance to form any long-term friendships. Your land-locked friends, family, and grandchildren will only get to see you for brief interludes when your ship's port schedule lines up with their location. 
 
Not to mention, you will probably be in a tiny, interior berth without a view. Bea Muller, an 86 year-old woman who retired to live aboard the Queen Elizabeth 2, lives in "a 10x10 cabin that barely fits a bed, radio, and television, with a bathroom smaller than the average closet found in a typical home."
 
But for some, this may be a small price to pay for the dream of living on board a cruise ship. Honestly though, the concept says more about the criminally high cost of retirement communities than anything else. It's expensive to get old! Kids, be sure to fully fund your 401k plans!
 

The fleet of Chinese zombie ships

These unlicensed, rotting, illegal fishing vessels are crewed with slave labor

A lot of complicated diplomatic negotiations go into the laws that dictate which countries can take which fish from which international waters. But the business of high seas fishing is as lucrative as it is difficult to police. And who can say which fish really came from which waters? Many officials are inclined (with bribes) to look the other way. Others may not even realize there is a problem with a load of fish that are actually from mixed sources.

These are the market forces that drive the "Chinese zombie ships." These ships are former fishing vessels which were abandoned by their original owners, sold, or simply stolen. They chug slowly through the planet's oceans, fishing illegally, and selling their catch to unscrupulous "real" fishing vessels.
 
These pirate ships ply international waters, or anchor just off the coast of countries like Guinea with no effective navy or Coast Guard equivalent to police ships anchored in her waters. The ships are rotting away - maintenance costs money - and all safety measures have long since been abandoned. Leaking fuel and oil, fishing illegally, these ships rarely dock in port. Docking in port raises too many questions, and exposes the ships to the authorities.

Smaller ships, many of them inflatable Zodiac-style rafts, zip back and forth to the ships. They ferry food, water, and gasoline; everything the zombie fleet needs to survive.
 
Oh, and slave labor. 
 
Most of the crew of these ships are being held against their will, in a form of indentured servitude with little hope for escape. They work the ships because the captains threaten their families, or because they are simply not allowed to leave, and are beaten (or worse) if they refuse to work.
 
Human life is as cheap as a clapped-out fishing freighter these days. Their illegal catch is sold to various vessels, depending on the catch. According to Greenpeace, "High value stock goes to Las Palmas, in the Canaries, and off to the dinner tables of Europe. The "dirt" fish is shipped to Africa." 
 
High seas piracy may sound alluring and intriguing, but the reality is far from the swashbuckling imagery of Hollywood. This lawless fleet of rusted out fishing ships crewed by people with no hope for freedom is a depressing reminder of the economic realities that exist in so much of the world today. It's a real problem, but it's unclear who is going to fix it, much less how. 
 

UFOs depicted In petroglyphs

Throughout the world, petroglyphs that seem to depict alien contact can be found.

Last week I ran across a mention of UFOs and aliens as depicted in petroglyphs, and I have been utterly smitten with the topic ever since. Petroglyphs abound throughout the world, with many found right here in the United States. Petroglyphs themselves are fascinating, being a record of someone's doodle (or religious ceremony, or depiction of real life events, or whatever other meaning you want to assign to them - most likely, "all of the above, depending on the petroglyph") from tens of thousands of years ago. 

Petroglyphs are art that was carved or chiseled directly into rock in prehistoric times. Unlike other forms of prehistoric art (like cave paintings), petroglyphs would have been both extremely difficult to create and permanent. Think about how hard it would be to carve a drawing into a rock face: obviously you would only do it if you had a real, burning need to do so. Petroglyphs are the ultimate form of permanent art, communicating across the space of thousands of years.

And throughout the world, petroglyphs that seem to depict alien contact can be found. A lot of these are no doubt just a function of us modern people projecting our imagination upon a somewhat suggestive figure. For example, this supposed UFO (from Mockingbird Canyon in California) looks a lot more like either a wild berry or a fish egg, along with what is probably either a basket for collecting berries or a woven fish trap. It's all about the context you bring to the experience. But one has to ask, is it more likely that ancient peoples were depicting a UFO experience, or passing along information on gathering food?
 
Other supposed alien depictions seem to be relying on the size differential and difference in clothing between the figures being shown. As is the case with this petroglyph from Ridgecrest in California. But the more obvious interpretation is that these are showing people of different ages and social statuses - adults and children.
 
Still others may be depicting bizarre ceremonial costumes, fictional characters, imagined prophecies, or bad dreams. But it's sure hard to look at a petroglyph like this from Utah and NOT see a cheerful robot. Much less to look at this one and not see a classic 1950s UFO.
 
Which brings us to the final problem: it's difficult to determine how legitimate some of these petroglyphs really are. An archaeologist would be able to tell if a petroglyph was carved into rock 10,000 years ago or only 10 years ago, but none of these petroglyphs has, to my knowledge, been officially authenticated. And so we are left to wonder, as is so often the case.
 

7,500 sq. miles of rock found floating on ocean

Sailor calls it "the weirdest thing I've seen in 18 years at sea."

Described by a witness as "the weirdest thing I've seen in 18 years at sea," the New Zealand Royal Navy is currently investigating a vast swath of white pumice found floating atop the South Pacific Ocean. 

Pumice is a lightweight stone that you may have encountered as a food scrub. This lava rock's light weight and sharp microscopic edges make it perfect for this purpose. Pumice is formed when lava cools very quickly, as might happen when a lava flow encounters the ocean, or from an underwater volcano. The super-fast cooling causes the rock to puff up, in principle not unlike a marshmallow in the microwave. When the rock cools, this puffed-up shape causes it to be incredibly light and buoyant. Which explains why it is floating atop the ocean.

The raft of pumice in the South Pacific Ocean is roughly 250 nautical miles long by 30 nautical miles wide. (One nautical mile equals 1.15 miles.) The sailors encountered the mysterious occurrence at night. When they hit it with their spotlights to see what it was, it lit up brilliant white as far as they could see in either direction. In aerial photographs, the floating pumice raft looks like an exceptionally thick, frothy series of white caps on the surface of the ocean - until you realize the scale of what you are seeing.
 
The rock is "brilliant white," and is floating in a large raft about two feet high above the surface of the ocean, comprised of lumps of pumice each of which is about the size of a golf ball. The New Zealand Royal Navy's ship was able to safely sail into the middle of the floating rock, because it was too lightweight to damage the ship's hull. This allowed the sailors to gather samples from several different points, for the scientists to analyze back at the lab.
 
Researchers speculate that this floating pumice slab is most likely the result of an underwater eruption. (Perhaps because there is so much of it, surely we would have noticed an eruption that large if it were above sea level!)
 
Initial reports were that the floating pumice raft originated from the underwater volcano Monowai. However, it will likely be impossible to track down the source of the pumice with 100 percent certitude. The pumice will no doubt travel far on ocean currents, being so buoyant. Pumice from the colossal eruption of Krakatau in 1886 "washed up on African beaches months later."

The Possession: Is the Dybbuk Box real?

As always, it depends on who you ask.

I recently saw a trailer for a new Sam Raimi movie coming out this fall called "The Possession." It purports to be "based on a true story," that of the infamous Haunted eBay Dybbuk Box. But how real is it all?

Well, as always, it depends on who you ask. The Dybbuk Box itself is real, in that it is a literal object which you could (in theory) pick up and touch. It is a small wooden box which was put up for sale on eBay in 2004 with an amazing story behind it. How true is that story? It's hard to say for sure.
 
According to the lore of the box, it had belonged to a Holocaust survivor who purchased it before fleeing Europe for the United States. She kept the box in her sewing room, and strictly ordered everyone (including her granddaughter, who sold it upon her demise) never to touch it because it contained a dybbuk.

A dybbuk is an evil spirit from Jewish folklore. They are believed to be the malevolent spirits of people who died, but whose souls were refused entrance to the afterlife because of their Earthly misdeeds. The word "dybbuk" derives from the Hebrew word for "attachment," as the dybbuk is said to attach itself to a living person and possess them. 
 
The granddaughter, in dealing with her grandmother's estate, sold the box to a Portland, Oregon antiques dealer named Kevin Mannis in 2001. Mannis found that the box contained numerous small items, like a pair of wheat ear pennies, and a small golden wine goblet.
 
He also found that he suddenly had a run of extremely bad luck, and a series of recurring nightmares which he supposedly shares with every other owner of the Dybbuk Box. The box has been blamed for an elderly woman's stroke, the sudden burning out of an entire household of light bulbs, the mysterious transient smell of cat urine and/or jasmine flowers, and more.
 
What I find most interesting about this object is that none of the reported phenomena are what you would expect to see from a dybbuk. The object seems to be behaving like any other run-of-the-mill cursed item, causing (in the words of one owner) "a tidal wave of bad luck." Even people who visit the box's official website have reported effects including "strange headaches, nightmares, and other plagues." 
 
But where are the stories of possession? Isn't that what a dybbuk does, after all? Is this a dybbuk box without a dybbuk, or what?

The Louisiana Pizza Parlor Ghost

This Louisiana pizza parlor claims to be haunted, and they have published the videos to prove it. But despite - or perhaps because - of the national attention Stocky's Pizza has received, many people in the paranormal community are convinced that these videos are simply hoaxes.

For years, employees of Stocky's have reported experiencing objects moving when no one was around. However, none of these accounts (that I have heard, at any rate) involves an object moved farther than it would have if it had simply fallen on its own. Even aside from objects that may not have been placed as securely as the person thought, rats and mice are a sad fact in many commercial kitchens, and they can certainly knock things over as they go foraging at night.
 
But in this case, the restaurant is completely covered by security cameras. After several weeks of high activity, the manager got fed up and started checking the cameras. In the first video, two metal ice scoops appear to fly across the kitchen. In a second video, a bottle of bleach falls to the floor. 

Skeptics point out that in both cases, the items were moved from a shadowy edge of the screen, with a doorway in the upper left-hand corner. It would not have been difficult for a prankster to stand in the doorway and use a length of wire to reach out and knock over the ice scoops and the plastic bottle.

This particular restaurant only recently opened at this site, and employees have reported experiences since the beginning. In addition to objects falling and being moved, the store's motion sensors have been tripped when no one was on site, and employees report having an ominous feeling of being watched. 
 
The obvious question is, what was in that location before Stocky's? The answer is that it used to be a convenience store. The manager of Stocky's says she has heard that "a terrible automobile accident happened on the premises in which a woman was hit and her car actually smashed through the wall of the store."
 
Could it be this woman's ghost which is haunting the premises? It's hard to imagine anyone being so fond of the convenience store where they died that they actively worked to push out the next business that opened there. You have to wonder, what was there before the convenience store? Or could this be just a case of Louisiana's famously ghost-friendly atmosphere at work?

Independent Olympic Athletes: Olympians Without A Country

One of the more talked-about elements of the opening Olympic ceremonies was the miniature procession of four athletes under the banner, "Independent Olympic Athletes." A lot of people were wondering, who are these independent athletes? And how do you compete without a country?
 
This is the third time that athletes have competed under the "independent" banner. The four athletes are from two locations: three of them are from the Netherland Antilles (Reginald De Wint: Judo, Liemarvin Bonevacia: 400m, Philipine van Aanholt: Sailing), and one is from South Sudan (Guor Marial: Marathon). In both cases, the athletes were left country-less for the Olympics basically due to bureaucratic issues.

Ordinarily, a country's National Olympic Committee is the governing body which chooses which athletes will be sent to the Olympics. Each National Olympic Committee is controlled by the International Olympic Committee, which is responsible for creating, blessing, and revoking NOC status.
 
The Netherland Antilles was dissolved in October of 2010. This Caribbean country consisted of five islands, which up until then had been governed under the auspices of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The islands had never fully supported this arrangement, which was a holdover from colonial times. After the Netherland Antilles dissolved, three of the islands (Bonaire, Sint Eustatius, and Saba) became part  of the Netherlands, while the other two islands (Curacao and Sint Maarten) became constituent countries of the Netherlands. 
 
A minor political shuffle, in other words, but one which otherwise would have allowed three qualifying Olympic athletes to fall through the cracks for the 2012 Olympics. The Netherland Antilles Olympic Committee had planned to continue for the 2012 Olympics, but its status was revoked by the IOC in 2011. However, the IOC recognized that the three qualifying athletes could still be allowed to compete under the independent banner.
 
In the case of South Sudan, this country broke away from Sudan in June, 2011. It did not have time to form a National Olympic Committee, but marathon runner Guar Marial qualified for the finals, and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) allowed him to compete under the independent flag.
 
Marial's case is unique, in that the Sudan offered to allow him to compete under the Sudanese flag. However, Marial is a refugee from Sudan, who was kidnapped at the age of eight and forced into a labor camp during the civil war. 28 members of his family were killed in the war, but luckily Marial was able to escape. He fled to the United States, where he was granted residency (though not citizenship) as a war refugee. 
 
Marial refused Sudan's offer, saying that "If I ran for Sudan, I would be betraying my people. I would be dishonoring the two million people who died for our freedom."
 

Olympic Mascots: Illuminati Puppets, Or Just Plain Creepy?

"Of course, the Olympics has a long history of bizarre and un-loveable mascots."

 

You gotta feel for the designer of the London Olympics mascots, who took to Slate recently to pen an impassioned defense of his creatures. But that right there should tell you something. If you find yourself having to explain why your creature design is NOT creepy, you have already lost.
 
Wenlock and Mandeville are the large, white, Gumby-like mascots of the 2012 Olympics. They are the work of designer Grant Hunter of Iris Worldwide, who refers to people who think the mascots are creepy as "naysayers."
 
Frankly, I'm surprised that the designer is surprised. How can you create a creature that has one giant eye in place of a head, and not expect people to find it off-putting? The designer's explanation was weak at best, and references the omnipresent use of video cameras to bring the Olympics to the world. Which is precisely the point of the creatures' detractors: they look like walking cameras. 

George Orwell's 1984 was set in London, of course. And the CCTV network that has spread across Britain is certainly unsettling to contemplate. Not to mention that it's like "you watch the Olympics, but the Olympics watch you back." 
 
Wenlock and Mandeville's designer not only doesn't refute this take on their design, he embraces it. "Yes, cameras are everywhere […] But since when has that become a negative?"
 
As for whether or not the mascots are symbols of the Illuminati, although there are numerous intricately detailed, point-by-point explanations online, I have my doubts. For one thing, if the Illuminati are secretly running the world, why would they want to embody themselves in the high-profile Olympic mascots?
 
(That's something I have never understood about many of the Illuminati conspiracies. Why would an organization which thrives on secrecy keep tipping its hat by prominently placing symbols of itself in the public's eye?)
 
Of course, the Olympics has a long history of bizarre and un-loveable mascots. Who can forget Izzy, the mascot of the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta? Izzy was a blue… like… THING. Wikipedia describes it as "an abstract shape." It was a blue creature with two large eyeballs, two hands, and two feet in big white cartoon shoes. 
 
Sure, it looks like Mandeville peed his pants with that blue fluid they use for sanitary pad commercials. Sure, they are supposedly drops of steel. (It's true!) Sure, "one columnist theorized that the pair were the product of a drunken one-night stand between a Teletubby and a Dalek." But when you get right down to it, these two are harmless. I mean, they PROBABLY aren't designed to usher in a New World Order of total surveillance. 
 
Probably.

Utah "Goat Man" spotted running with the goats

Last week, Cody Creighton was hiking along through the Wasatch Mountains outside Ogden, Utah when he spotted something strange. On a facing hillside he saw a small herd of mountain goats moving through the rough terrain. But there was something unusual about the last one, which was trailing far behind, and looked unusual even at a distance.

Creighton busted out his binoculars, and discovered that the "unusual goat" was in fact a man in a goat costume. "The man appeared to be acting like a goat while wearing the crudely made costume, which had fake horns and a cloth mask with cut-out eyes." 
 
The goat man was on his hands and knees, "climbing over rocks and bushes and pretty rough terrain on a steep hillside." When the goat man spotted Creighton he froze, then put his mask back on and "scurried to catch up with the herd."

Creighton reported the sighting to park authorities, who are concerned for the goat man's safety. This fall the park will be issuing hunting permits for 60 wild goats, and there is a real chance that the goat man could be accidentally shot by hunters.

There is, of course, the question of why. Why dress up in a goat costume and clamber through the Wasatch Mountains? The goat man's behavior is being called "furry-like" by some sources, keying on the connection between a homemade animal costume and the furry subculture, which abounds with people who wear homemade animal costumes.
 
When you hear about someone wearing a costume to sneak into a herd of wild animals, you worry he's planning to do something unseemly to them. But in the case of mountain goats, I don't think that's going to be an issue. Goat Man has a lot more to worry about than the goats do.
 
Mountain goats are an introduced species in the Wasatch Mountains, where they are having a devastating effect on the local ecology. Mountain goats are as deft and fleet of foot as they are ornery, and they have a reputation with hikers and campers as being confrontational, even dangerous animals. Between the terrain and the difficult personality, it's hard to imagine wanting to spend very much time with a herd of mountain goats. (As opposed to, say, deer or dolphins.)
 
The story of the Utah Goat Man raises an interesting question. It makes me wonder if some Sasquatch sightings have actually just been sightings of regular human beings wearing Sasquatch costumes. Either because they are trying to blend in with the Sasquatch and gain their trust, or because they truly want to become "one with the Sasquatch."
 

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