This blog did not and will not send requests for bitcoin donations.
There seems to be a virus or some sort of malware going around causing blogs to “send out” chat messages to blogs that they follow asking for help with the purchase of certain items through donations of seemingly small amounts using bitcoin and adds a link to the message.
The message goes as following (at least the first message I got went like this): “Hi there buddy. I need help, I’m trying to buy a laptop and I can’t afford it. I’m about 0.36$ short, and I’d really appreciate if you could help me and transfer some money to me via bitcoin using this *link*.”
The small details in the message seems to have a few variations with the greeting, amount and purchased item showing up in different variations from formal to friendly, from 0.016 to 2$ and from a phone case to a laptop among others.
The blogs that are affected send out the messages to blogs that they follow for a long time mostly, so you are most likely to receive the message from a long time, active follower whose name you might recognize or a mutual etc. The blogs that are affected are not spam bots but actual active followers who follow the recipient for months or years and most likely the blogger who “sent” the message is unaware of the message being sent.
DO NOT OPEN THE LINK.
Opening up the link will cause the virus to spread even more and infect your computer/mobile with any sort of malware.
If you have received a message of that sort from this blog please know that it was not sent by me or within my control and ignore/delete the message without clicking the link.
Got dozens of these and sorry if you got a spam from me!
We’ve all been there. These seem obvious until you do them.
💥 Burned hair and fingers. Practice fire safety! If you have long hair, TIE YOUR HAIR BACK if you’re doing spells with an open flame and do NOT touch incense burners without oven mitts. It really hurts.
💥 Clogged sinks. Be smart with how you dispose spells! Do NOT put a bunch of herbs or other spell ingredients down a sink that has no garbage disposal. It’s gonna get clogged and you’re not going to want that bill from the plumber because of a clump of bay leaves.
💥 Coughing fits. Ventilate your area before you burn stuff! Inhaling a bunch of smoke from a bundle of cleansing herbs is not going to be fun.
💥 Faded and destroyed crystals. Don’t set your crystals in the sunlight unless you are 100% sure it won’t fade the colors, and make sure how to safely cleanse and use crystals so you don’t damage them. You don’t want to put your crystal in some water for a cleansing and see it get damaged.
💥 Bent, torn, and damaged tarot cards. Don’t shuffle them like a playing deck all the time and don’t cleanse them in water. Also, don’t go outside with your cards if it’s a windy day. Seems obvious until one of your cards gets carried away by the wind and lands in some mud.
💥 Spells that take 5000000 years to manifest. Try grounding and centering before doing spells! It helps so, so much with speeding up the spells’ manifestations.
💥 You do a spell for money and the spell decides to manifest by having your car damaged so you get money from the insurance money. Close or make loopholes in your spells! Adding little tidbits to a spell can make a better outcome of the spell’s manifestation, such as casting a wealth spell and adding, “This money shall be given to me without a negative cause.”
💥 The house smells like weed. Research what a herb smells like before you burn a bunch of it. Sometimes burned sage smells like weed. Plus, sometimes if you a burn a herb or plant, the smoke from it can kill or hurt you, like yew.
💥 You just drank some aloe vera juice and now your stomach is hurting and you’re sick. Research the possible side effects of herbs and plants before ingesting them. Some herbs can endanger your health, so research them before you decide to chomp on them.
Hey guys, I’m doing a holiday sale for my etsy store: CandleLightCrystal. Coupon is “CRYSTAL” for 10% off (though it should be applied automatically if you click the link). Coupon expires December 31st. Happy Holidays everyone!
The House GOP just voted and passed its Tax Reform Bill that would cause tuition waviers to be counted as taxable income. This could raise taxes of grad students so much that it makes graduate study completely unaffordable.
Chris Marsicano started a Twitter thread on how to effectively create impactful voices to be heard by the GOPs in the Senate during reconciliation of the House and Senate Tax Bills:
1. As y’all know, I study higher ed lobbyists and used to work for one. A friend asked how I would lobby against the Graduate School Tuition Waiver Tax if I were still in the game. I thought about it, and here’s how I would tell students to oppose the #GradStudentTax
2. First, I would shorten the name of the Graduate School Tuition Waiver Tax to the “Grad Student Tax.”
Pennsylvania – Sen. Toomey – (717) 782-3951 Nevada – Sen. Heller – (702) 388-6605 South Carolina – Sen. Scott – (803) 771-6112 Lousiana – Sen. Cassidy – (225) 929-7711
6. Why those states? Those are the states that GOP members of the Senate Finance committee represent. When the House and Senate Bills are reconciled, these are the people who will be doing the reconciling. You want the #GradStudentTax gone in the final bill.
7. I would then tell anyone who plans on calling their Senators to express opposition to the #GradStudentTax in the kindest way possible. In short, keep your cool when talking to Senate staffers. You’re a lot more likely to get your message across if you are kind.
8. After that, I would tell grad students opposed to the #GradStudentTax to write and submit op-eds to the newspaper that covers your local area or an area you can claim as “home.” These newspapers might include:
11. I guarantee that someone on each of those Senators’ staffs reads the local newspaper cover to cover every day. You want the #GradStudentTax to be on their minds.
12. I would then caution #GradStudentTax/#GradSchoolTax opponents against hitting the streets – protest style. For some of these Senators protest will only fuel the narrative that grad students are privileged, elite, liberal snowflakes in their ivory tower.
13. While that is incredibly unfair, that is how some Senators will see your impassioned speech about the #GradStudentTax.
Instead, this is a great time to use the skills you’ve learned in academia.
14. By now, you have spent so much time as a grad student learning how to write. Use those skills – write emails, letters, op-eds, etc. There is a place for open protest, but the written word is much stronger than any picket sign or chant when it comes to the #GradStudentTax.
15. Most importantly, keep your eye on the prize – finishing your research/dissertation/thesis etc. If this bill will cripple your ability to go to grad school, do all you can to finish before the #GradStudentTax/#GradSchoolTax gets enacted.
16. We need citizen-academics to change the world with their research. That is a lot harder to do if the #GradStudentTax forces you to quit before you get “PhD” at the end of your name. Do all you can to finish, and do so ASAP.
17. Lastly, I would tell #GradStudentTax opponents stay out of the way of the universities and other organizations that are fighting on your behalf. If you are in graduate school, chances are your university has a lobbyist who is fighting tooth and nail for your future.
18. Don’t get in your lobbyist’s way by being mean to Senators or their staff. Your lobbyists need to draw on good relationships they’ve spent years building in order to do their jobs. Don’t tie one hand behind their backs just because you are (understandably) angry.
19. That’s how I would tell #gradstudents to oppose the #GradStudentTax if I was still a lobbyist. But I’m not, so I defer to actual university lobbyists who do incredible work. If you hear something different from them, listen to them. Trust me, they know what they are doing.
Facebook user Amanda Rose posted a photo calculating how much taxes she would have to pay under the new tax bill.
Under a $39K take home stipend and $51k tuition, she used to pay $3.7k in taxes, and could potentially pay $13.4k in taxes, leaving her post-rent income decreasing from $21.4k to just $11.7k, a nearly 50% decrease in disposable income.
I took a hiatus to apply for grad school but the damn GOP just won’t let me live. Back to yell into the Tumblr void about this:
The House haspassed their new Tax Billwhich does many unreasonable things, the chief of which I am unhappy about is that they will no longer consider tuition waviers as untaxable income.
Consider that most grad school programs cost anywhere between $30k-$50K a year, with stipends in the range of $20 to $30K. Under the new ruling, grad students will be taxed the tuition wavier, money which they never touch. This could raise taxable income from $30k to $80k. Not only do grad students already earn very little to survive on, now they pay a higher real tax rate than any billionaire (adjusted for take home income). It is entirely possible for them to have to pay nearly $12k just in taxes, leaving just $18k to live on.
I am in the process of applying to grad school and receiving this news I don’t even know if I can afford it now, even with a full ride. I was already not going to accept any school that doesn’t cover my tuition, now I might not even be able to attend at all.
The (barely) good news is that the Senate has a Tax Bill of its own that retains the clause that keeps tuition waviers from being taxed. If the Senate passes that Tax Bill, then the House and Senate will have to sit down and reconcile the bills. Meaning, the have to argue over the differences and decide which version to keep in the final cut.
It is possible to keep tuition waviers tax free. Following what ex-lobbyist Chris Marsicano said, there are ways to persuade the GOP members that will be on the reconciliation committee to favor the Senate version. Please help spread the word, so that grad students in the USA can afford their education, rather than have to give up their studies. (Plus it hurts the US knowledge economy.)
Candlelight-magick 