Coca Cola invented Santa?

Every X Mass this topic will inevitably come up. You will be sitting around with your family, exchanging gifts, getting in fights, or sitting in awkward silence (whatever your family is in to) and someone will blurt out: "You know, Coca Cola invented Santa Clause!" What? Fuck off! They will then elaborate: "Well they invented the modern image of Santa Clause." Oh, well that sounds slightly more plausible.

We all remember those classic Coca Cola advertisements featuring Santa sipping on a tasty bottle of Coke, maybe they did invent the modern image? I will admit that there was a time that I believed this myself. It's very easy to believe something when so many people will tell you that it is true. I mean they heard it from a friend of a friend so it must be true, right? Wrong! You will find with the aid of a quick Goggle search, that Coca Cola invented Santa Claus no more than they invented polar bears!

The modern image of Santa Claus is an amalgamation of two older characters, St. Nicholas, the adorable little Elf from the poem "'Twas The Night Before Christmas", and Kriss Kringle (aka. Christkindlein), the child like gift bringer of Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

In 1881 a man named Thomas Nast drew a picture of Santa Clause for the cover of Harpers Weekly (right). This is considered to be the creation of the modern image of Santa Claus. This picture however was not in color, so some might say "Well it was Coca Cola who made him wear a red suit." Wrong again! J. C. Leyendecker drew an image of Santa Claus for the cover of the Saturday Evening Post (left) depicting a fat man with a white beard in a red suit, the same basic image of Santa we have come to know today. Published in December of 1923, this image predates the Coca Cola Santa Clause ad campaign by about seven years!

Since this blog is suppose to be about being angry, I'm going to finish this off by saying: Quit fucking telling people that Coca Cola invented Santa! Coca Cola did not invent fucking Santa Clause!!!

Merry X Mass!




Sources:
http://www.billcasselman.com/xmas_items/nast_santa_designer_xmas_2007_expanded.htm
http://www.curtispublishing.com/List/html/LeyendeckerMayer.html
http://www.snopes.com/cokelore/santa.asp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coca_cola

Dog: Man's Worst Enemy.

I have recently discovered we have a lot to fear in what I once thought to be "man's best friend."

http://www.sheldrake.org/papers/Animals/dogvideo_abs.html

A man named Rupert Sheldrake undeniably proves that Dogs are psychic. His results are stunning. Jaytee (a dog) would wait at a window occasionally when his owner was on her way home, and not so much when the owner was not on its way home. Check Mate my friends. How the fuck can you argue with facts like that?

Now some of you may find this cute and kind of endearing, I however, do not. This scares the shit out of me, okay great the dog "telepathically" knows when I am on my way home, is it such a stretch to think that the dog will then move on to "telepathically" MAKING me come home? Or making it known when he has to go out to relieve himself? Or "telepathically" suggesting to me that he needs to eat? Or maybe just maybe "telepathically" suggesting I kill the President??

Do you see where I am going here? This shit is terrifying.

But what the hell do I know? I am a 25 year old Divorceay. Fuck You.
-Chet Biggenston

Rectangular Box, 4 Weels: Cosby Kid Surprised.

Now this being my first post here, it may have been nice to do a little introduction and try to talk about something a little more current. However I chose not to.

This may be weeks old now but I still find it hilarious.



First off; Jim Callahan is my fuckin' hero. This man has made a name for himself by telling people he can talk to the dead and he goes on to prove this by recieveing fellatio from said spirit. He does this for roughly two and a half minutes, while the audience sits in awkward silence waiting for him to climax. A buzzer sounds (which could have been taken directly from a "Get Smart" re-run) and he is finished. Next; Raven Symone (A Cosby Kid) looks shocked and amazed, gets a little winded and makes very sure to tell everyone in the audience no one contacted her or had any access to the box at any point.

Bullshit!

If you want me or anyone to believe this kind of thing, please choose a less obvious routine. Who knows? Maybe she really didn't have any contact with anyone and no one did see the contents of the box, but that stupid statement completely destroys any credibility you may have had! BAH!

Oh and I guess Criss Angel does something kinda funny at the end as well.

But what do I know? I am a 25 year old Divorceay. Fuck You.
-Chet Biggenston

Father kills daughter for using brain.

A 16 year old Toronto girl was killed by her Muslim father because she refused to wear a hijab. A hijab is one of thoes head and body coverings Islamic women are required to wear for some reason.

This is a clear example of how religion is downright evil. This man's daughter did not want to wear the loose fitting, concealing hijab. She wanted to wear tight fitting, revealing clothing like the rest of the girls in her school, and why shouldn't she? In fact, what man would even make a rule that would prohibit women from wearing short skirts, and low tops?

But, her father had been brainwashed into believing that women are second class citizens, and should be forced to wear these unattractive frocks. He believes in it so strongly, that when his daughter defies him, he strangles her with his bare hands.

Because of her families ignorance, she is dead.

Belief.net: Inspiration. Spirituality. Faith. Ignorance.

I was sitting at home drinking my delicious Yop, when I thought to myself..."What are the creationist views on intelligent life?" So I Google searched it and I was led to a site entitled Belief.net where I read the article "Bible Leaves No Room for Extraterrestrial Life" So, I read the article, calmly drinking my strawberry yop until I reached the line
"evolutionists have not succeeded in showing how nonliving matter can jump the many hurdles required to form living cells" Needless to say my monitor was dripping with delicious yogurt. I was floored and pissed, and now I write.
I was initially ready to yell at the screen hoping someone over at the belief.net camp would hear me and say "oh, well I guess we were wrong. Time to pack up and move on to more productive avenues." and the site would be forever shut down, but I realized that I wasn't really sure if there was any science to back me up, and, as always, there was.

The process is called abiogenesis, which means "Spontaneous origination of living organisms directly from lifeless matter" The above chart (taken from this link) is a simplified version of the dichotomy between how creationists and scientists see abiogenesis. Clearly someone is missing out. My money is on the creationist croud, as they've proven time and time again that they are either misinformed or worse under informed. You'd think that if you're going to take on evolution (I must stress abiogenesis is not evolution) you might learn something about it first, although I believe that if any magical thinker were to actually understand the process, they might just blow a gasket and rethink the bull shit they subscribe to...not in this life.
This is especially true in the Kitzmiller Vs. Dover trials. If you want to learn about that waste of tax dollars head on over to PBS NOVA and watch the doc "Judgment Day:Intelligent Design On Trial" or read up on it at Wiki.
It's basically a case closed event on the whole teaching Intelligent design in a classroom. Fuck knows what they wanted to teach, I think it was basically a veil so that they could infiltrate science classes and discredit evolution. Fortunately the universe being "Intelligently designed" doesn't really lend itself well to a lesson plan, so the trial came up Darwin on that one.

The point is that because someone may not understand how abiogenesis works, doesn't mean that it doesn't. For ages scientists thought the earth was flat now we understand that it's not. Science is an enormous learning curve and in order to keep heading along that curve we have to ask the questions first. Religion would have us be content in knowing that god makes everything work in mysterious ways, and that he made us and only us in his image.
If that was how things worked I'd throw myself off the roof of a skyscraper right into the path of a Mack truck. I couldn't imagine a world where we never asked questions about the universe, and I don't want to imagine a universe where we're alone. What would keep us going? We would probably die off out of sheer boredom.

So it seems that other intelligent life is incompatible with scripture and religious doctrine. That is seriously retarded. Why would god create an unimaginably enormous universe, then make it finite, then fill it with billions upon billions of star filled galaxies, surround those stars with supposedly lifeless planets, then on the sixth day picks a planet at random and plops a dude down on it?
I bet the Christian god is made fun of by all of the other deities. "Hey Jehovah, why's your universe so empty? I bet you rushed and made it in like a week" Kinda like that delinquent in biology class who always sat at the back of the room and slept.
If creation were an exam, God would've flunked it. Perhaps this is one of those rare times when the church amends their ridiculous doctrine and includes, oh I don't know, the rest of the universe! At least recognize it's there and then give god credit for for making it so empty and worthless, but that'd be questioning his fallibility and we can't have any of those pesky questions now can we.

In conclusion the universe is more then likely teeming with life and you'd have to be an ignorant schmuck fundie to think otherwise.

Oh and Belief.net sucks.

-Beaker

Yet another personal war, this time it's commercialism.

Commercials of late have become long strings of bad punch lines. They do this because they think that if they can make us laugh then we're hooked. What they don't know is that we don't go to our TV's so we can be updated on the newest of useless products, but because we want to escape the bordem that is our lives, and commercials are just reminders of all the things we have to do once we hit that power button thus transitioning our consciousness back to reality. That's why we channel surf everytime our favorite shows fade to black, we can't stand seeing ourselves buying that new car or shopping at a grocery store and that's why commercials never truly work, because deep down we abhore them. We know that despite its innocuousness there's still that message beneath it all saying "Buy our product!" and you know that you're just another number on a pie chart to them.
You're probably all wondering where the skeptical bits are in this. Is this just another editorial from a pissed off liberal? Well first of all screw you, I am hardly liberal. Secondly I enjoy capitalism as much as the next guy, but I can't stand when corporations lie to you so that you'll buy their products.
I recently saw a commercial for some grocery store, where a lady walks up to the seafood counter in some brand x hypothetical super mega grocery mart and orders a speckled trout. The man hands her the fish and watches her as she begins to leave, then says something to the effect of "would you like some tires with that fish?" she looks at him oddly then sidles away. Then we get hit with the tag line "Keep shopping simple." or something. Bare with me here I'm operating on memory.
The point is this...has anyone ever...ever had this problem? Has anyone ever pandered tires to you as you purchase your standard speckled trout? NO. It hasn't. It will never happen because there isn't a grocery store in the world that would have fish and auto parts in the same department. If there is I stand corrected but I'm willing to bet there isn't. I know the really big places can have groceries, clothes electronics etc. but this kind of thing will never happen to anyone, and that my dear readers is a false premise.
They intentially and knowingly lied so that they could make their punch line and hook you, based solely on how charming they are. Shit forbid they have a quality product to sell, but who needs quality when you've got a douche bag sense of humour.
Look here's a monkey stealing a wopper from a dude...hilarious! Now here's a stick of chewing gum with a scottish accent...scottish accent? Well that's inherently funny, I'll take ten.

Intellectually dishonest marketing tactics should be made illegal, and replaced with ads that are truthful and include warnings on the products if they're at all hazordous to your health. For instance you could have a kid really enjoying a mars bar as most of us would but then you could make him toothless and three hundred pounds, and the tag line could be "Mars, delicious, but monitor your eating habits, or you could end up like Billy" then a final shot of the chubby kid with chocolate smeared across his face and sporting a gummy grin.

Commercials lie and make us stupid. Turn your TV off for the two minutes between brakes or pay the price of ignorance.

-Beaker

My personal war on Neal Adams, and intellectually dishonest infomercials.

Two things.

Thing the first

Neal Adams.
He's some kind of comic book artist, I think he's done some Batman or something, well he's decided he's not only an artist but the last stop in scientific info. I'm not going to go into the details of his "theory" you can google him if you want, I refuse to post a link mainly because typing his name makes me retch but also because he seems like the type of idiot that'd sue me for doing it, anyways needless to say this guy is quite possibly the most deluded creep I've ever come across.
Check out youtube, he's got some videos on there spreading his scientific abortions and you'll see that he actually replies to most of the criticisms. Now, unlike me who mostly performs ad hominems, some people actually have some genuine criticisms of his theory. His responses are some of the most dismissive and sophomoric "Nuh-uh" responses this side of preschool. Arguing with him is like debating a brick wall with ignorant graffiti scrawled all over.
There's no point in debating, so I just don't.
I could go in there with some scientific fact backing me up and I'd still get one liner's like "Nope. Earth Growing. New mass." So instead of actually addressing these valid concerns he dismisses them and then heads back to his throne and congratulates himself on being master of the universe.
This guy is an arrogant tard, he thinks that either the entire scientific community has just overlooked the information he's toting or, even worse, that they're, for some unknown sinister reason, are suppressing this truth of the geological make up of our earth.
Hey Neal what's more likely? Geologists all over the world are wrong , or that a lone quack artist that has no education in science and has absolutely no clue as to how the peer review or scientific discipline works, is wrong...I'm not a career academic, but I don't think you even have to be to see it's the latter.
In conclusion Neal Adams is a quack and he's pissed me off. So, I task anyone who's reading this to be soldiers in my army, and my war is with Neal Adams. We must stop this misinformation. We can do this by flooding him with emails and overloading his youtube videos with criticisms, screw that just insult the guy.
To actually listen to this dude in action listen to The Skeptics Guide to the Universe podcast episode #51 and you'll see how much of a crap artist this guy is.

http://www.theskepticsguide.org/skepticsguide/podcastinfo.asp?pid=51


Thing B

Infomercials.
Why does religion need infomercials anyway? If all of this were true and these "televangelists" were actually spreading the word of god they wouldn't need them! God would not be pleased with wasting precious bling on televising some white haired child molester messing up his "word" when he could just answer our prayers.
I mean what an incredible marketing tool that would be.
Hypothetical man kneels at his bed. He brings his hands together in prayer and whispers "Please god, my wife just divorced me for our lawyer and left me with our two cancer ridden children, what do I do?" Silence, then an inhuman voice fills his thoughts, it seeps into his conscious and subconscious saturating his very being. The voice says "My son, please call 1-800-525-Holy, and purchase my book "Faith in God Heals All" The voice is gone almost as quickly as it appeared and the man is left feeling euphoric. The voice comes back again for one last bit of wisdom "Drink Mountain Dew" it says, then is gone. The man rests against his heels and ponders his encounter with the divine being himself, finally he leans over and picks up the phone. He dials the holy phone number of righteousness and orders three copies of "Faith in God Heals All", one for himself plus two stocking stuffers, all while sipping a two liter bottle of mountain dew.
Unfortunately none of that is happening. If it were I wouldn't be writing this blog, I'd be on a mountain dew binge in an alley somewhere performing Mel Gibson's version of the passion repeatedly.
So the true believers must fall back on the untimely art of the infomercial. I saw one of these travesties last night, I'm not even sure what the name of the product was, but it was a book of some kind, a book with all the answers no doubt, however it wasn't the book that irked me, but the the format it was being presented in. The spot looked more like the news then your average commercial, so that right there is intellectually dishonest enough, but even worse is they had this text scrolling across the bottom of the screen that said "Proof of Jesus' existence discovered" Now don't you think that is this were true we'd have seen it sprawled across every credible news sources instead of some two bit late night infomercial? I hope most people will spot this as garbage, but there's no doubt in my mind that there are true believers out there that will see this as truth and further justification of their faith, and because of this they'll order up five of copies these useless books.(Useless is an overstatement, I'm sure they'd work splendidly as kindling or bathroom tissue)
There's nothing wrong with peddling useless crap to true believers, I mean it's preaching to the choir basically, but selling it as though it were fact by trying to replicate a news like setting with the talking head and background window in window graphics, is just dishonest. Some poor guy who's down on his luck may come across this spot and feel enamored in the message and he'll spend his last thirty bucks on this book, and he'll find that there are no answers to his questions and it's just another pathetic rehash of the age old turn to god to be healed trick. In conclusion televangelists are dishonest greedy assholes.

Screw Neal Adams, screw televangelists, screw infomercials and finally Yop is delicious.

-Beaker

Jesus caught aborting an abortion clinic, remains found in a dumpster behind Wal-Mart.

Come on we all saw this coming.

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/28817

Clearly this is satire, however I do believe that if Jesus were around today and he were one of the fundies that tend to operate in his name...I wouldn't doubt it for a second. He'd be the head of some cult with carefully tailored rules that allow him to copulate with preteens and collect 30% of his followers pay checks. In conclusion Christianity=cult

-Beaker

Germany moves to ban Scientology. Tom Cruise has a cow.

Apparently Germany is thinking of banning the Church of Scientology. All i have to say is: Ha-hahahahahahaahahahahaahahahaha!!!!!

But seriously now, I can't honestly say I'm in support of any Government telling it's people what they can and can not believe. This is not 1984; and there are no Thought Police. If they are going to ban Scientology, they are also going to have to go ahead and ban all of the other dumb ass religions (basically all religions). What Scientologists believe is no more retarded than what Christians believe...

That being said, let's just hope they all drink the grape flavored Kool-Aid and weed their dumb asses out of the gene pool!


Elvis Fucking Christ


Source:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7133867.stm

Fantasy Book Banned by Schools. School Board Run by Douches.

I recently heard that the book "The Golden Compass" has been banned by one of the Catholic School Boards here in Canada. Apparently the author of the book is openly Atheist, and his lack of religion comes out in his writing.

When asked why, the superintendent said the book was removed, and i quote: "As a precaution". A precaution for what? What exactly do they think is going to happen when the children read this overtly Atheist book? Do they think that the kid's will go "shit, this book is right, there is no god!" and then they will all strip down to their birthday suits and start fucking each other, drinking booze, smoking crack, robbing liquor stores, and having lots and lots of abortions??? Are these bible thumper so fucking dumb that they actually think that it is the children's belief in god that is the only think keeping them from participating in these so-called immoral acts?

It makes me sick to my stomach to hear that my tax dollars are being used to pay these ignorant assholes to go and ban books that don't quite fit with their personal views. That's right, here in Canada our Catholic schools are publicly funded, and we have no choice, it's in our fucking constitution!!!

Perhaps they should spend less time brainwashing the children, and more time teaching them to not be ignorant douchbags like the members of the school board apparently are...



Jason (The Angry Atheist)


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_canada#History_of_religious_schools
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/calgary/story/2007/12/05/book-pulled.html?ref=rss
http://www.quillandquire.com/blog/index.php/2007/11/22/the-golden-compass-banned-by-catholic-school-board/

Headline reads: Will Smith skeptical about Scientology

No Shit.

Scientology is like the retarded cousin of organized religion. If any right minded person found out about Xenu or the E-meter they'd think you're bat shit. Well apparently Will Smith has had enough of being associated with bat shit and has decided to take a step back. Good move. I think this is more political then spiritual. He's hot on the heels of a real flop of a flick("I Am Legend", otherwise known as "I Am Almost Always Horribly Miscast") and he wants to step out of the lime light and into the shadows of agnosticism, at least in a...scientological sense. I think once his box office poison runs its course he'll be back with his buddy Tom "Nut bag" Cruise in a bunker somewhere until the threat of Xenu has passed, although he may step out every now and again to make some lame romantic comedy or even worse butcher yet another beloved sci-fi novel.

Even if he has seen the light on Scientology, he should still rot in hell for what he did to I,Robot.

-Beaker

http://www.hiphop-elements.com/article/read/4/10387/1/

Ignorance is Piss

I am an angry dude.

I've been pissed off since my mom squeezed me out and littered me into this backassward mixed up r-tarded universe, and quite frankly, I like it. The one thing that has always cut a path through my anger is science. Science is essentially the search for truth, now I'm sure there are many more technical definitions for it but that is basically it in simp speak. I love that. I love that there are people dedicating themselves to the discipline of it, however, there has been an annoying hitch in said discipline. This hitch has many names, pseudo science, creationism, ID, and finally religion. Now people can believe whatever crazy crap they want but when it stands in the way of progress...well that's when I get pissed.

I've been following the skeptical movement and I'm still fairly new to it, but the one thing I noticed is that the majority of them are too nice(With the exception of James Randi and Penn & Teller). Now I know that when your emotions get the best of you, you tend to become defensive and sloppy, especially when engaged in an argument or debate, and logical fallacies tend to pour out when you're in that state, but why not? The believers do it, and you could basically say yeah but why lower ourselves? I think maybe we should fight fire with fire.

I'm not saying give up on the completely rational end of the skeptical movement, but I'd like to consider myself the irrational end. I'm gonna be dismissive and ignorant and sometimes even annoying, so basically using their tactics, and I do this in hopes of getting at least one true believer to actually look at the arguments they make and rethink their whole position. If you want people to listen now a days you've gotta hit 'em in the face with some hard or sharp and I hope to be said instrument. Tall order I know, and quite frankly I don't even think anyone will listen, but if I can plant a small patch of doubt in the mind of a believer by sheer brute force...well then I've done my job.

I've heard, more times then I care to admit, that ignorance is bliss...I disagree wholeheartedly. Knowledge is bliss. Know I'm not gonna provide knowledge cause I'm still learning my self, but what I have to offer is pure untainted anger. Anger for pseudo science, anger for creationism and unbelievable, unadulterated, unhindered rage for ignorance.

I won't be the only one to write for this blog. My aim is to find some critical thinkers who have had enough of all the nonsense and want to speak out against it.

In summation I've created this blog to speak out, commit logical fallacies and vent all in the name of skepticism.

Call me Beaker.