Jabba the Hutt Snaps a Photo of Henry VIII

Some British woman who bares a striking resemblance to a favorite Star Wars villain, claims that she has a photo of the ghost of Henry VIII.

Her story goes as such. Anne Lambert, a nail technician (what?) was spending the night at some place called Samlesbury Hall. She was alone in a dark room when she felt some kind of presence. She pulled out her cell phone and started snapping photo's of the darkness.

"I thought, there's something there. I was taking different photos around the room. It was pitch darkness. I was on my own. I thought, if there's something there it will come up on the film."

It wasn't until she got home that she realized the photo's she had taken, were of none other than the ghost of Henry VIII!

I've been looking at this photo now for ten minutes, and I still can't figure out where exactly she is seeing Henry VIII. Not only does the photo look nothing like the former King of England, but it doesn't even look like a person!

The photo was taken with a cell phone camera, which have very low resolutions and crappy lenses, so the photos always look like crap, especially in the dark. This is typical of pictures of things like Bigfoot, UFOs and Ghosts. Probably because if the quality had been any better, it would be obvious what the picture was actually of. In this case Henry VIII is probably nothing more than a smudge on the lens. Quit touching the lens with your greasy fingers!

This woman is clearly looking for her fifteen minutes of fame. Lets only give her one.

HOLY FUCK...

Some podunk kansas baptist church, who are responsible for various other afronts to human rights, are planning on picketing....sorry I just threw up, then slipped in it and cracked my head on my Darth Vader Pez dispenser. After rgaining consciousness and cleaning up the pez vomit, I recalled what had made me so irate in the first place. Now let's see if I can get through this with out any projectile bodily functions occuring...the church as referenced above is planning on picketing Heath Ledger's...oh I had to swallow it back down there...are planning on picketing Heath Ledger's...ugh...funeral, all because he played a gay cowboy in Brokeback Mountain. Yeah. I shit you not. it's really that stupid.

Anyone who knows me is aware of the fact that I hate religion. There are no redeeming qualities, and the qualities that are all right such as community and morals can be achieved without a church. History has shown us that when you get people together they become a single ignorant minded rabble and are so focused on doing what they think is right for everyone else that they don't care to consider the pain they may be causing. What about Heath's family? Who gives a fuck, right? They're speaking the word of god and that's all that matters. Some press release that's been circulating by the church says:

Leviticus 18:22 in the Bible, which states that “thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.”

I think the show 7th Heaven is more of an abomination then gay sex, plus that statement more accurately implies that we shouldn't really lie with anyone. It may also mean that you literally shouldn't lie, as in to not tell tell the truth. It's a fairly nebulous statement to say the least, and to cap it all off, the undeniable evidence that religion's for tards, one of the church's fundy spokes people said and I quote “God hates fags,the wrath of God has been revealed before the eyes of this nation with the death of Heath Ledger. … This nation worships the dead almost as much as they worship their filthy sex acts. America is doomed.”

Now I realize that this isn't a representation of every church in the world, but it is an extreme example. If asked to give an extreme example of Atheism, I'd say "I once pissed on the lawn of a church." astronomical difference wouldn't you say?

-Beaker

Huckabee wants to change American constitution to fit god's standards.

Boy, sometimes I am glad that I am not an American. Their politicians are misguided and let their religions dictate their policy. One of the presidential candidates in the current election, republican Mike Huckabee has recently said that he would like to amend the constitution to be in line with god's standards.

"[Some of my opponents] do not want to change the Constitution, but I believe it's a lot easier to change the constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God, and that's what we need to do is to amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards rather than try to change God's standards,"

I'm not sure that Mike Huckabee knows what he is saying here. Has he actually read the bible? He's a former pastor so I'm going to go ahead and assume that he has. So he should know that there are a lot of stupid ass rules in there, and if they were to amend their constitution and make all those stupid biblical rules law, their jails would fill up faster than Oprah at a buffet!

Here are some examples of the bible's dumb-ass rules:

Leviticus 19:19
"You are to keep My statutes. You shall not breed together two kinds of your cattle; you shall not sow your field with two kinds of seed, nor wear a garment upon you of two kinds of material mixed together."

Farmer's look out! God doesn't want you planting two different kinds of seed in your field. Also, are you someone who enjoys a nice cotton-poly blend? Forget about it. God does not want you wearing mixed fabrics! Apparently he is some kind of fashionista and thinks that blended fabrics are a fashion faux pas.

Deuteronomy 22:10
"Do not plow with an ox and a donkey yoked together."

I don't see this situation coming up too often. But fuck, if people want to plow their fields with an ox and a donkey they should be allowed too! In fact it would be far more efficient than just an ox, or just a donkey. Does god have something against farming efficiency?

Deuteronomy 22:12
"Make tassels on the four corners of the cloak you wear."

God wants everyone to wear tassels for some reason. Actually that sounds kinda gay. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Leviticus 19:27
"Do not cut the hair at the sides of your head or clip off the edges of your beard."

God hates goatees, he fucking hates them! Mohawks too...

1 Corinthians 11:14
"Does not the very nature of things teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a disgrace to him"

God seems to have a lot of personal grooming tips. You know what other kinds of men have lots of personal grooming tips don't you...

Ephesians 6:5-6
"Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ."'

That's right, the bible condones slavery; so lets roll back the civil rights movement 200 years...

Deuteronomy 22:20-21
"If, however, the charge is true and no proof of the girl's virginity can be found, she shall be brought to the door of her father's house and there the men of her town shall stone her to death. She has done a disgraceful thing in Israel by being promiscuous while still in her father's house. You must purge the evil from among you."

Need I say more...

This only scratches the surface of the stupid biblical rules. The bible is severely flawed, and is full of backward ass rules that are not applicable in today's world (or any world for that matter). It is by no means the basis for an important political document like a constitution.

I sure am glad that I live in Canada, were our government has nothing to do with religion. Oh wait it does, fucking government funded catholic schools...

Life on Mars!

A recent article is suggesting that a recent picture taken of the surface of Mars by the Spirit rover shows that there is life on the red planet. Original picture here.

I'm sure most of you have heard of pareidolia, which is the phenomenon that causes us to see animals in clouds, and virgins on toast. In this case people are misinterpreting a rock formation for a man.

Occam's Razor says that the simplest explanation is usually the best. So let me ask you this. Which is more likely: that this is a rock formation that looks like a man, or that it is in fact a man taking a stroll on the harsh surface of Mars?

I think that if you take a look at the film below , it will become clear to you, that what we are seeing in the Spirit photo is not a man or a rock formation, but it is in fact sasquach!

Worst argument ever, ghost at work, plus some recognition from the skeptical giants.

Greetings skeptics and any idiot true believers the may have stumbled onto this site. Today we have some infuriating tales, as well as some fun news for our writers here at TAS. Now I lead a farely sheltered existance, I work, I sleep, I eat, and ocasionally I hang out with friends and even more rarely I make films, so the following will be more personal anecdotes than anything else, and as insane as any of this may seem I assure you dear readers it is all true.

First things first. I work in a very technologically driven industry, and because of this, I can only assume, it's rare that I come across any true believers as most techies are farely logical thinkers, at least that's what I told myself. I thought I lived in a very enlightened country (Canada) with very few magical thinkers, so when I hear news regarding a bunch of nonsense going on in the US of A I'd be all "Idiots I'm glad I don't live there." Well I was recently given a harsh reality check in the form of nonsense at my own work place. It started with Evolution.

My fellow co worker and I were talking about the hypocrasy of religion, a very taboo subject to be handeling at work I know but I assumed I was in good company, and for the most part I was, but there was a believer in the midst and he made himself known with a question in the form of "Do you believe in god?" I paused, afraid that I'd started something I couldn't finish/win. A friend of mine sent me a comic that sums up that fear perfectly.

I contemplated the outcome and basically decided that if a man can openly say he is religious then I can openly say I'm an athiest. His reaction was "Really!?" Really? He was surprised...my coworker also stated he was an athiest only to be greeted with yet another "Really!!??!" I couldn't help it, all of a sudden like a reflex I blurted out "What are your thoughts on evolution?" He didn't say no, at least not outright. What he said next was the worst argument I've ever heard against evolution, and here it is...

"I have a hard time believing that a Tyrannosaurus Rex turned into a bluejay"

I think at that point I voided my bowels. I've heard some shit before against evolution and all of it was stupid but atleast it was predictable. This was ignorance at its peak. It was like I blacked out then and when I awoke I had already unloaded on him. At first it was basic stuff that the T-Rex died out in the major extinction (via asteroid) and that the smaller animals evolved, then I went off on a tangent of defending evolution, I brought up tiktaalik and those crikets in Hawii that evolved right before our eyes, and he just stood there, not because he was afraid or because he was waiting to retort but because he'd never ever heard any of it before. I hope I've planted a seed of doubt in this person because he needed it. To be so unaware of the universe around him must be hard on him.

Second event was also at work, different day similar nonsense. My fellow coworkers seem to think we have a ghost in our shipping department. That sounds stupid already but I assure you people around here are taking it seriously. The guy who heard the spectre in question said it was banging on the wall. Well the previous day I was talking with my night manager and he was saying that the night shift operator was messing with the guy in shipping by banging on the walls with a hammer. You see the shipping department has geographically moved and there construction going on in that area, so he just grabbed on of the hammers and bang bang bang, scared this dude shitless. So what does he do, he takes a picture. I'm trying to picture this guy randomly taking pictures of nothing around shipping, I haven't seen it yet but I'd be willing to bet it's a fake. When I get it I'll post it here.

Needless to say I was beginning to loose all hope in humanity after these incidents when a fellow skeptic of at the infinitely more popular Memoirs of a Skepchick blog was good enough to mention us in a post of hers. I pointed out to her a funny gag some dude pulled on the Coast to Coast AM asshole, where he called in and pretended to be the fictional character Gordon Freeman from the kick ass vid game series Half-Life. It trully is hilarious to listen to this guy blatently lie to this idiot believer and he buys it all hook line and sinker. Listen to it for a good laugh. "Wow portal technology" r-tard. Anyways if you head down to the bottom of the skepchick post you'll see my name (Michael=Beaker) and a personal thanks to TAS. Thanks for the nod Rebecca!

-Beaker

Intelligent Design? Not this universe.

Some may say to you that this universe has been intelligently designed, that life is far to complex for it to arise and evolve on it's own, well now you can say bull shit you r-tard. If one were to look at life carefully, which many do (They are reffered to as "Biologists" for those of you unaware) one might see numerous glaring flaws in the make up of complex life forms. Little things like the blind spot in the human eye and the appendix would make any moderately intelligent engineer cringe, so to call it intelligent is erroneous. I stumbled across a short article entitled "Unintelligent Design" The article is pretty good despite the authors digression at the end, speculating on a universe that was still created then subsequently left to its own devices never to be interfered with again. The problem with this mentality is that it's still a huge leap, to go from no information on how the universe got here to having the answer. How can one deduce an answer with no information on the subject? The fact of the matter is we may never know. The universe is unimagineably old and so enormous that humanity itself may die out without ever answering any of the fundamental questions, such as How did we get here? Are there other intelligent life forms in the universe? and the all to classic Why are we here?

Some people don't like the idea of having those questions roaming free and wreaking havoc among society, encouraging people to ask questions and think for themselves, so they wrap it up in a neat little package and slap a giant cross on the box. The only practice that we know of that has given us an active understanding of the universe and ourselves is science. It has proven itself to us time and time again that it works. It may not always be right, but when it's not at least it fesses up to its mistakes, and that is an admirable trait to have where as religion claims to always be right. I don't know about you, but when someone tells me that they are always right, my first thought is always 'liar'

-Beaker

Eerie Lights Spotted Over Lake Erie

Wired posted an article this week about UFO sightings over Lake Erie. Apparently the lake has become somewhat of a nutjob, er I mean, UFO hot spot over the last couple of years. The local ufologist Aaron Clark thinks that there is some kind of UFO base at the bottom of the lake. The video evidence was shot by some musician named Michael Lee Hill. Hill becomes so excited over the sight of three barley moving lights in the night sky, that he nearly creams his pants when one of the lights disappears! He is quoted in the article as saying: "I think they're absolutely sending us a message. I believe they are here to help us become a galactic society."




Clearly what we are seeing here are not Aliens trying to recruit us to their galactic society. The lights are more likely airplanes (as pointed out in the article) or satellites. The reason one disappears is probably because a cloud moved in front of it.

If aliens had the technology to travel billions of light years to come here, they would probably have thought of a better way to communicate with us than by creating triangular shapes in the sky. Perhaps they would draw circular patterns in our crops, or mutilate our cattle? You know, something we might understand...