Is this really only a 4 jewel watch? I mean, it just can't be. There must a good 15-17 hiding away somewhere in the process that wasn't shown here.

Absolutely. When I asked my wife to marry me, I had a local jeweller make a custom designed ring. No diamond, but it was guaranteed to be the only one of its kind.

A while later, I asked her if she was was disappointed she didn't "get a big rock". She told me she'd have a) hated it, b) never worn anything that cost that much for fear of losing it and c) slapped me silly for wasting money

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Skyclad
Historically, Witches worked Naked, and there are many references to naked Witches standing on their clothes. In a few illustrations, the Witches are clothed in the clothing of their time, but examination of the drawings indicates that the artist rarely knew a real Witch.
Gardner introduced the term Skyclad into the Craft in the 1950's with the reference to "Witches worship naked which is called in the East (Indonesia), 'Skyclad'" and the term stuck as a poetic way to refer to ritual nudity. Witches worshipped Skyclad in 1950's and today, but in the 70s, the Welsh and American Celtic Witches began to wear robes, which became the standard way to worship for years. By the late '70s, the Feminist Witches began to experiment with Skyclad worship, so by the late 80’s about half of the American and European Witches worship Skyclad.
There are a number of reasons for nudity, the first being that in the Charge, which was written by Doreen Valiente from older sources, The Goddess said,
"And as a sign that ye be truly free, ye shall be naked in your rites."

This Charge is so beautiful that many Witches who reject the Gardnerian Traditions, retain the Charge as one of the few declamations that, if not directly from the Goddess, was unquestionably inspired by Her. Thus, the argument follows that we MUST worship naked because it is the will of the Goddess whom we love.

This argument is countered by a later version of the Charge that says,
"as a sign that ye be really free, ye shall be equal in your rites."
However, this is a later American version not as originally written.
A more convincing counter to the Charge is simply to reject the Charge outright.
Reject all Traditional and Gardnerian ideas, so it is then easy reject nudity as well.

A second reason for ritual nudity is the practical one. Witches all over the world often report that naked is safer.
In rites where I have been robed there have been accidents, incidents where a person stepping on the hem of another’s robe, and causes them to trip. In a nine-foot Circle, if one person goes down, usually all follow.  

Naked people are more aware of their surroundings, so you step more carefully and bang into the Altar and others less than clothed Witches.
You feel the heat of candles, as opposed to not detecting the heat until after your robe is in flames, so it is simply safer to be naked.
At Sabbat where we had three Covens worshipping together in Circle, some were from our Outer Court, so wore robes. During the rite, one woman stood too close to the West candle and set her robe on fire. She did manage to extinguish the flames with little disruption, but I did hear about the accident after the rite ended.

The magickal reason for nudity is that anything worn upon the body will interfere with and change the energy given off by the body. This includes clothes, make-up, perfumes, jewelry, glasses, contact lenses and so on.
This argument is quite logically countered by stating, “energy that can pass through a wall, cover miles of distance, and influence another person would not be stopped by a layer of cloth. “ Consider the greater awareness of your surroundings, being closer emotionally and physicality to the others in the circle. Being able to raise energy without the distraction of avoiding stepping on robes or pulling your sleeve up to keep in out of the candle flame.
Think of the Coven body, mind, and spirit that must generate a tremendous amount of power to send that spell over that distance. Once the Cone of Power is sent the spell won’t be deflected, but it can be deflected at the source by a relatively little. In other words, wearing clothing or non-craft jewelry or non-consecrated materials can easily deflect or alter the power that leaves the Circle. The spell, when it reaches its target, may be different or it may even reach a different target.
Nudity is rarely sexual, after ten minutes the naked Witch becomes bored with seeing bare breasts and genitals and is then free to work. A woman wearing a robe that cuts low in the front and is slit up the side to her hips will introduce into the Coven an attitude of sexual desire to the men as they try to see a nipple or thigh that, by being hidden, is desirable but when revealed by nudity is simply another body part. The men, in this situation, may have difficulty concentrating on the work in an effort to see what is barely hidden. Similar things occur in the female mind when the situation is reversed, though women are often trained to deny these thoughts to others and even to themselves.
There are Psychological factors to Nudity are that the people must accept themselves as they are or change themselves. It is difficult to put on a facade when you are denied a girdle, bra, wig, make-up, deodorant, aftershave, codpiece or other enhancements to your image. Once naked, the individual with their sags, and bulges shines and, becomes themselves and not a mask. 
When working magik, it is vital to know yourself and accept your own good and ill, for to attempt the path with false illusions will cause trouble when your subconscious rebels and forces your work to conform to a hidden truth.
To be naked indicates freedom from conventional mundane thought. When clothed in a suit or dress, you conform to societies expectations and become what they wish you to become. Your style of dress and hairstyle are a reflection, not of your own desires, but of what your peers wish you to be.
Equality between class and gender is assured when naked, as the rich no longer have jewels to show their class worth, and Women must face men as equals, both showing their inadequacies and realizing that the other sex is just as physically imperfect as you are. With this barrier down, men and women can accept each other as equals.
Once naked, you are free to place your mind into a sphere of magickal thought. A place between the worlds where the God and Goddess are not symbols hanging on a wall but REAL DIVINITIES, where all is possible.
It is necessary to be clothed at times; in public or when outdoors in winter it may be necessary to be clothed to allow the mind to concentrate on the goal and not to be thinking that the body is slowly freezing to death.
When this is necessary to wear a robe, it should be one that interferes with magik and mind as little as possible. It is best to wear a plain robe that is exactly the same as all others. To make a personal robe will introduce ego and class or sexual differences into the rite.
There are some uses to wearing robes. The simple act of putting on a robe that is reserved only for Ritual use causes the inner mind to awaken and to develop the attitude that "Now the mundane world is behind me, it is time for the magickal world to appear." This can be very effective to your working and will counter some of the physical drawbacks of wearing robes. If all are wearing identical robes, the attitude of equality within, 'the group' is enhanced, for there is nothing different between the people or sexes.
The robe must also be of a natural material such as cotton or wool since synthetics cause a great deal of interference with the power. A simple list of materials which will interfere with magickal power when worn from the least to the greatest effect is as follows: cotton, wool, conductive metals from silver, gold, copper, iron, synthetic materials such as nylon, or rayon, and Silk though a natural material is a strong magickal insulator.
In today’s world, you will find Witches who work Skyclad, robed, in costumes and even in their street clothes. Street clothes however; bring into the Circle all the influences that have become attached to those clothes over the day. These influences will affect your workings as well as your mind because the subconscious will see no difference between the mundane and the magickal, and as we spend most of our time in the mundane world, it is easy to see which will win.


"Nudity establishes a closeness and honesty among conveners and 'is a sign that a witches loyalty is to the truth before any ideology or any comforting illusions.” Starhawk.

This is probably not the case. He wants to be able to "see the boxes." Rather, as a typographer he would have to have been a master of stippling. It's not so much that his "vision is blurry" any more so than your peripheral vision is blurry. It's just that he only has peripheral vision to work with. You can still see these details with enough zoom, which is what the computer affords him. I suppose he could also do it with traditional optics (e.g. a jeweler's loop), but that would probably make the actual painting part pretty awkward.

Which in the related movie theatre etiquette vid they translated as "family jewels". Makes sense.

Was just pondering the precision of the Japanese engineers and designers....So much of the most mundane items designed and manufactured by the Japanese is jeweler's quality compared to the rest of the industrial world.

I will get to what is wrong with strongly denouncing Islam in a second....

As for the article, I hadn't actually read the whole thing but rather had heard coverage about it along with an article on Al Jazeera. Specifically, I take issue with Harris and his stance on the 'war on terror' (and aren't you essentially advocating for religious profiling by condemning Islam and its practitioners? Or is it rather that you identify it as a threat but wish to see no action taken?) I also have problems with Hitchens and his enthusiasm for the invasion of Iraq.

As for the quote I posted, after re-reading it, I think that I saw something that wasn't there. I believe that trying to prove that one religion is more evil than another is pointless. Reading history books, which oddly I have done, will not disprove that belief but rather reinforce it as the tragedy of all religions would be laid bare.

Finally, I would gladly take up your 'snidely', non-issued challenge. As a matter of fact, I've already done it. I lived in Indonesia for a year both in Muslim dominated areas and tribal, animist Christian dominated areas. While I am by no means an atheist activist, I nonetheless lived openly as an atheist and honestly answered the question of my religion (I have none) when it was asked of me. Nothing happened to me. Furthermore, I currently live on the Thai-Burma border in a Buddhist dominated country and do not hide my lack of belief when asked about it.

And that is where I come back to the problem of denouncing Islam. Just last month there were pogroms against Muslims by Buddhists in Burma (a smaller conflict than that which occurred last year against the Rohingya in Rakhine state). The proximate cause of this pogrom was a Muslim jeweler refusing to pay for damaged jewelry of a Buddhist woman. But more generally, it is a result of a campaign of extremist Buddhist monks issuing edicts about the evils of Islam and the dangers it represents to Burmese culture. Unequivocally condemning an entire religion invariably leads to this type of violence, and therein lies my concern.

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The travelling salesman trope, and it's implications, are as old as the hills. http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TravelingSalesman

In that case shouldn't the narrative have been shown from the point of view of the village occupants? The closest we saw to them suffering any consequences of their actions was a distant puff of purple smoke as the Smoke Seller laughed.

If let the buyer beware was the point, then show me the buyers suffering the consequences. A massive guard dog turning into a mangy ankle-biter while defending his owner from a burgler, the boy's airplane / rocket turning back into a pointy stick and catching him in the eye, show me the old ladies at a fancy party being laughed at when their fancy bags and clothes turn back into tat, or the major becoming a laughing stock when, as he goes to unveil it to invited dignitaries, his massive monument tuns back into a walking cane (without even a jewel adorning it anymore).

Here is the english version (I shortened it a bit) :
"A gift that can make someone really happy. Dicky our solid silver pendant that will fill your girlfriend, your wife or your mistress with wonder. Take a closer look at this sublime jewelery that I'm wearing. Delight for the eyes, delight for luxury also michel bevause dicky is one of a kind that will be the perfect match for an evening dress weared on the skin, or even a mohair pullover. Dicky will makes you an elegant women and sophisticated woman in all occasion.

We can have a closer look of the pendent details, with exquisite grooves and a bigger piece at the end of it. But it's not over as I kept the best for the end because Dicky is not a simple jewel like the other. You can express your mood with a nice feature added by the designers. Happy, not happy, happy, not happy."

Stellar internet fame in a small dysfunctional cadre of fools, tools, jewels and ghouls ~ Boo-Yalu!! ..on someone having to code-you-up some blinky-dink thingly to go by yer handle. King Nada, Je salute!!!

>> ^quantumushroom:

Spain is in serious trouble because it spends too much money, money it does not have. The Spaniards are rioting over ginormous tax HIKES, which is what American taxocrats continue to demand at every turn.
Obama has already brought market chaos and uncertainty. However you want to polish his crown jewel, the turd known as Obamacare, the results are/will be huge tax hikes, reduction in services, continuing skyrocketing medical costs, and STILL, by their own admission, 30 million without health insurance.
Even if reelected, Obama is a fool and will be forgotten as a symptom of a larger malaise that began a century ago.
At this point, no president is capable of stopping out-of-control government spending. President Romney will only buy us a little more time before imminent revolution; it won't be an MTV version of revolution either, with underwear models with little smudges of black on their multiculural cheeks beating back government stormtroopers with the force of love. It's going to be blood up and over your knees, cities leveled, hell on earth.
Hey, sometimes it's necessary.

>> ^volumptuous:
QM, Pennypacker et al... They will respond to this in one of two ways:
1- "That's what these Spanish OWS losers get! go get a job!"
2- "This is what Obama is going to bring to America!"
Both are equally repulsive, and fictions of their imagination.



If the Market didn't like Obama, why does it support him soo much monetarily? You need to do your homework man, it's the Rich against guys like us, join the proper side.

Spain is in serious trouble because it spends too much money, money it does not have. The Spaniards are rioting over ginormous tax HIKES, which is what American taxocrats continue to demand at every turn.

Obama has already brought market chaos and uncertainty. However you want to polish his crown jewel, the turd known as Obamacare, the results are/will be huge tax hikes, reduction in services, continuing skyrocketing medical costs, and STILL, by their own admission, 30 million without health insurance.

Even if reelected, Obama is a fool and will be forgotten as a symptom of a larger malaise that began a century ago.

At this point, no president is capable of stopping out-of-control government spending. President Romney will only buy us a little more time before imminent revolution; it won't be an MTV version of revolution either, with underwear models with little smudges of black on their multiculural cheeks beating back government stormtroopers with the force of love. It's going to be blood up and over your knees, cities leveled, hell on earth.

Hey, sometimes it's necessary.


>> ^volumptuous:

QM, Pennypacker et al... They will respond to this in one of two ways:

1- "That's what these Spanish OWS losers get! go get a job!"
2- "This is what Obama is going to bring to America!"
Both are equally repulsive, and fictions of their imagination.

>> ^bareboards2:

My favorite cop moment was when the bilingual cop asked a question in Spanish to a scared looking little man. The man answered, in Spanish, "I don't speak English." You see the cop take a breath, to translate what he said into Spanish -- and he stops himself.
"Wait, I asked that question in Spanish." Turns to his partner, "Didn't I say that in Spanish?!" Turns back to the scared looking little man, "I asked that question in Spanish!!!"
Both of them were so bilingual, they confused themselves.
I have watched maybe 15 minutes of Cops in my lifetime, and that little jewel just happened to be part of my channel surfing.


Submit that.