Public service announcement

This is less of a blog, and more of a public service announcement. 

To everyone who reads this blog, I ask you please to read this and help my friend (whether you're from Sunny South Africa or not).


Here's the problem. There is a profile on Facebook called TaLamia Photograph (https://www.facebook.com/katie.katie01). However, there is also a business page called TaLamia Photography. I know for a fact that the business is legit, but if you have a look the profile it looks a lot suspect. It also has the spelling suspiciously the same (it's an exact replica except for the "y" at the end of photography). I've had a peek and there are variations of Talamia of FB, none of which are the spelled the same. Now the business belongs to a friend of mine and I'd hate to see anything happen to her good name, because some inbred cretin thinks that ripping off other people's ideas is a good way to spend your day. My friend has spent the last 7 odd years cultivating this business into the success it is today. It would be a real shame if some idiot then does anything to damage her reputation.

It was suggested that this could in fact be a cloned account and if this is the case, they could do a lot of damage. Now while i'm not entirely convinced it is a "cloned account", it is rather disconcerting to think that someone is impersonating you or someone you know. Apparently this is a growing problem:
"[Alert] Cloned Facebook Profiles - We are getting a lot of questions and reports about fake/cloned profiles.Cyber criminals use this tactic to data mine user accounts and to spread malicious messages and likes. Check out this guide for more information on this type of scam and some actions you can take to limit your exposure. We also detail what you should do if you are a victim of this type of attack." ~ Facecrooks
(https://www.facebook.com/Facecrooks/posts/10151524855310345)
Also check out:
http://facecrooks.com/Scam-Watch/Fake-Facebook-Profiles-and-Pages-the-Tools-of-Scammers-Bullies-and-Thieves.html

And for those in SA have a look at this, apparently cloning is a big issue here:
http://www.enca.com/south-africa-technology/sa-facebook-account-cloning-scam

So I ask now, please go to the account (https://www.facebook.com/katie.katie01) and report it. My friend has tried to ask nicely that they change things, but this dunce has been ignoring them.

And finally to our little friend...

Faux News

Ok. So after the second Fox fiasco I've come across, I just had to rant (apparently misinformation is their trade, luckily I live in South Africa so I'm not tortured with their pseudo-journalistic drivel very often).

Now, while the Miss America debacle was a real testament to the type of "journalist" they hire over there at Fau... I mean Fox News, the troll-twaddle came from only one person (as far as I can tell), however this isn't the first time and apparently they make a habit of such behavior, off and on camera.

What really got the proverbial bug stuck well up my nose, was a story that ran a while back. And unfortunately the more these inbred hicks spewed forth the more I wanted to summon the full might of all three furies, and then burn the lot of them at the stake.
However I digress, if you haven't figured it out by now, the incident of which I speak is the stab they had at the University of Missouri's pagans and Wiccans. I'm not the first or last person to rant about this particular gem. There were many people, pagan and non-pagan alike, that found this seriously douchey.

The clips that I watched, all 3-4 minutes of them, are pretty much offensive from start to finish and if any other Journalist, in any other country had gone off like this lot there would have been repercussions. So, Fox news, be glad you live in American, where accuracy and fairness aren't a big concern when reporting the news. And your yearly legal budget is probably so phenomenal it could feed a large 3rd world country for several years.

So, back on point. There are two video clips in which the presenters talk about the University of Missouri's religious guide, that says; that no exams will fall on Wiccan and Pagan holidays. Tucker Carlson (talking to Tammy Bruce, who clearly isn't an authority on much, let alone pagan practices) then says that 20% of the holidays are Wiccan. Ok, great so the University has 40 holidays? I'm assuming due to the math. No problems there. Then Tammy Bruce clearly starts making assumptions, because she admits to not even knowing any Wiccans and by her fumbling over words, it's clear she did no research. She then makes an expected and not so subtle jibe about Wiccans being witches. Then she proceeds to say they all Wiccan are anti "the establishment". Sweetheart, cupcake, fudge muffin, doll. If Fox were around in the time of Jesus or Nero, I'm sure they'd have said the same thing about Christians and the Abrahamic religions.

Carlson then goes on to assume then the average Wiccan cannot name 8 Wiccan holidays. Well if you'd actually done research, you'd know that the average Pagan (Wiccan or not) can name all 8 holidays. Bruce then again goes to show her ignorance and lack of research and names the Festival of Pan as one of the 8 holidays. Now to which Festival of Pan are you referring?

"The Féile Pan Cheilteach or Pan Celtic Festival is held in Ireland. It was first held in 1971 in Killarney. It has been held annually in the week following Easter annually since then.
Its aim is to promote the modern Celtic languages and cultures and artists from all six Celtic nations, Brittany, Cornwall, Wales, Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man are featured."

 OR

"The Pan Pagan Festival (PPF) is one of the United States' first and longest running nature spirituality festivals, organised by the Midwest Pagan Council that spans from Wednesday through Sunday of the first full week of August every year. The first Pan Pagan festival was held in 1976 as a way of bringing different groups together to share knowledge and experience."

Neither of which are official Wiccan holidays. One isn't a Wiccan holiday at all, in fact

"...There's like ten of them...". Really Tammy, Tams? First the math says 8 then your colleague hints to 8 then you suck a random number like 10 out of your arse? Carlson, then goes on to insult the whole country, not just the pagans by bottom lining it to the fact that the whole country are pretty much rich lazy bastards who don't give a damn what happens in their own country. Don't feel isolated guys, this man likes to piss on everybody. So finally Tammy concludes that it's all just a political ploy and that it's "anti tradition" and that all us filthy little tree hugging freaks should be horribly offended by this injustice. And that the American Pagans are lucky because nowhere else in the world do Pagan have the right to practise their religion.

Another video, what looks like Carlson, again, carries on with his bigoted, misinformation by stating that "obviously the bad side of wiccan(ism) is, it's a form of witchcraft." Let me just stop you there Carlson. The only people that, that statement is "obvious" to, is uneducated cretins such as yourself   . Maybe I should clear something up for all y'all at Fox.  Pagan does not equal Wiccan. Wiccan does not equal witch. Wiki defines paganism as:
"Paganism is a broad group of indigenous and historical polytheistic religious traditions—primarily those of cultures known to the classical world.
In a wider sense, it has also been understood to include any non-Abrahamic folk/ethnic religion. The term pagan was historically used as one of several pejorative Christian counterparts to "gentile" (גוי / נכרי) as used in the Hebrew Bible—comparable to "infidel" or "heretic". Modern ethnologists often avoid this broad usage in favour of more specific and less potentially offensive terms such as polytheism, shamanism, pantheism, or animism when referring to traditional or historical faiths."
 And a dictionary definition says: "An adherent of a polytheistic religion in antiquity, especially when viewed in contrast to an adherent of a monotheistic religion."
So to recap. Based on current information; Pagans make up almost half the world's population. Now, if you take into account that the word heretic and the word pagan seem to be thrown together in certain dictionaries. That would mean that everyone is "pagan" because one man's heretic is another man's believer.
See my point here? Depending on what the "norm" says or how things are interpreted, everyone is right and wrong.

So Carlson, later on, again "flashes" the fact that he sucks monkey-balls when it comes to research. Now all of a sudden the Wiccan community gets a "ton of holidays". Apparently Wicca has 20 holidays. SO we've gone from 8 to 10 to 20 (well that escalated quickly).

Then one presenter woes about Christians can't say "Merry Christmas" anymore. Ok here I should just point out, it's not so much about you "pushing your Christian faith" on anyone as it it about respecting that not everyone celebrates Christmas over that time of year.
it easier to say 'Happy Holidays' than it is to say, "Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanzaa, Blessed Yule, Merry Eid Al-Adha". Because remember, unless you know the person, you don't know what faith they're part of and most people aren't aware of all the holidays anyway. I personally prefer "Happy/Merry f**king everything, now leave me alone 'til next year." But that's just me.

"...Any religion who's most sacred day is Halloween, I just cant take seriously." Halloween is only what it is today because it was "nicified" by the majority. In its "pure form" it's quite solemn and not geared towards children. So again, you've taken something sacred to someone else, contorted it to suite your needs and then you sneer at it later?
 Oh and I just had to mention, apparently all Wiccans are compulsive "Dungeons and Dragons" players or twice divorced midwives who live in rural areas.

And finally, all else aside, the quote that got my goat; "I will say this, because we're Journalists..."
I can handle the jibe at Paganism, Wicca and witchcraft. I can look past the fact they they clearly have no idea what research, fact checking or even the meaning of "fair and balanced" is. But Having studied Journalism myself, I find it an affront to anyone who ever studied Journalism (I don't go around calling myself a Journalist because I don't work in the field). Calling yourselves Journalists is like Ted Bundy calling himself a surgeon, Jeffrey Dahmer calling himself a chef,  Ed Gein calling himself a sculptor. You people are glorified talk show hosts, without the interactive audience.
Your 'news', for lack of a more accurate term, is factually inaccurate, completely bias, and mostly bigoted. Fair and balanced? An average propaganda speech from Nazi Germany is more fair and
 balanced.

If I went around and said; "All white Americans are; inbred, Confederate, hillbilly, zealots. With no more than a tenth grade education, who are so stupid they can't do anything more with their lives than, drink beer, sleep with their cousins and run around with guns." I'm sure you'd have something to say about that. Because it's neither true or fair to the intelligent American populous and it definitely doesn't show a balanced view of the Americans. Since you are a diverse and vibrant culture.



I'M JUST SAYIN'


Videos of the Fox News teams giving "fair and balanced" opinions.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7YYWLlat28
www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwJqUQzghhM&list=FL6qgrmbh7IuSVOpK0tZaBMg

Some video rants from others.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-lbVv9dZB0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IJ6tgdW_sY

Other sourses
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_Pagan_Festival
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_Celtic_Festival
http://www.midwestpagancouncil.org/festival.html
http://www.panceltic.ie/
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pagan
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/pagan
http://www.paganfederation.org/what-is-paganism/

 

Self Entitled F*cktards

 This is just too much to not share. Warning, this is a pure rant. It is not particularly objective, journalistically accurate or unbiased. In fact it is very bias and entirely opinion. However I had to share.

I was just sickened by an article I read recently. It was about a cyclist who was busy cycling down a road when along came a diplomatic vehicle and skipped a stop street. The cyclist (from what I gather) was minding his own business and keeping out of the way of traffic. The diplomat, having performed the illegal action of skipping the stop sign, nearly ran him off the road. Feeling rather offended at almost being taken out, the cyclist follows the driver and knocks on the driver's-side, side mirror, to get his attention. They eventually stopped outside a local school. After harsh words from both the cyclist and the driver, the charming, incestuous, scum-suckers then exit the vehicle, three of them, and proceed to assault the cyclist. And at one point one of said scum-suckers actually threatened to break the mans neck. 

The whole sordid scene was caught on camera (which the police later told him to delete it. God bless our corrupt, lazy, fat-f*ck, rapist police department). The cyclist then proceeded to press charges of assault and reckless/negligent driving. To which the body-goons responded by filing charges of crimen injuria and intimidation. Now if you watch the video, I don't see how three guys could possibly feel intimidated in the situation.


This level of self entitlement shouldn't be accepted from anyone least of all from diplomats who are meant to representatives in our country. If this is how your representatives behave, we don't want you here. Any of you.

And this all in the wake of the Gupta cock-up. Brief overview, another bunch of entitled f*cktards, who, somehow, were under the impression that they were important enough in the world to warrant the total shutdown of the OR Tambo International Airport. And when this didn't happen, threw a tantrum and bribed a government official to allow them to land at the local Airforce Base (I don't use the word corrupt in this case, because here in sunny SA, there's no such thing as a non-corrupt government official).

I'm Just Sayin'


Oh and for those who can read Afrikaans, there's the article (for those who can't the video is attached, you can pretty much see what happening):

http://www.beeld.com/nuus/2013-05-13-diplomaat-se-wag-rand-fietsryer-aan

The Golden Boy is in Real Trouble

Oscar Pistorius has been in the news lately for something other than his world records, or world class tantrums. And this time a tantrum might have gone one step too far for the para-Olympian.

He was taken into custody after Valentines day for shooting and killing his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp. He shot her from behind a bathroom door. According to Pistorius' defense was that he thought she was a burglar. He has also stated it was not murder.

There are several holes in his story that I thought were rather interesting. Now I'm not a lawyer, police officer or in any way investigating this case. Nor do I have any affiliation with anyone connected to this. What I'm getting at is, I'm just a pleb who reads what the paper have written. But certain things seem 'hinky' to me.

First off, there had been several incidence involving Pistorius and violence against women. Not-to-mention the domestic disturbance call that the police got only hours earlier that same day. "A witness heard "non-stop shouting" in the home of South African athletics star Oscar Pistorius shortly before his girlfriend was shot dead". This alone begs the question, did he really mistake her for an intruder?



Then we have the fact that he shot four times through the door. The man has stated himself, that he goes to the shooting range when he is stressed. So it stands to reason that he must a fairly good shot. He claims he shouted to the person in the bathroom to identify themselves and there was no answer. This seems highly unlikely, as, having been in a home invasion personally, my first reaction was to make sure my pets were safe (as husband was at work for the day). If I, an unarmed, 20 something year old woman can make sure that my pets are safe, surely Pistorius should have checked to see if his girlfriend was safe and when he didn't find her in bed with him, gone looking for her. One does not simply walk through your house like Scarface. I don't care what you say, South Africa has not reached that level of violence and crime yet.

 The prosecution is looking for premeditation. The defense tried to put forward the notion that it was truly an accident and Oscar is bereft with grief over his loss. There are plenty of images of Oscar in tears. But of course he's crying. Wouldn't you be the moment it hit you and you realise that your life is effectively over?

The final glitch in the Pistorius matrix (before i get tarred and feathered by Oscar fans), is the fact that the man is prone to tantrum after tantrum. He petitions to be in the able-bodied Olympics. The council says no, he throws a tantrum. The council agrees, he doesn't win anyway. Then he races in the Para-Olympics and loses to a Brazilian with better skills and throws a tantrum, accusing Alan Oliveira of cheating. I see a pattern here. And it's my completely bias opinion, that says this man threw one too many tantrums and this one got him into the kind of trouble your PRO can smooth talk you out of.

I'm Just Sayin'


More reading materiel:


http://www.nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/50819918
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/20/us-safrica-pistorius-idUSBRE91F02L20130220
http://www.3news.co.nz/Oscar-Pistorius-accuses-competitors-of-cheating/tabid/415/articleID/267873/Default.aspx