The Gods

Photography by Eugenio Recuenco. I'm on love with this photo of the Olympians, particularly Artemis and Athena.

Recession

Unemployment 2007-2009 by county

"But years later, when we saw the lights going out, one after another, in the great factories that had stood like mountains for generations, when we saw the gates closing and the conveyer belts turning still, when we saw the roads growing empty and the streams of cars draining off, when it began to look as if some silent power were stopping the generators of the world and the world was crumbling quietly....

"The plane was above the peaks of the skyscrapers when suddenly, with the abruptness of a shudder, as if the ground had parted to engulf it, the city had disappeared from the face of the earth. It took them a moment to realize that the panic had reached the power stations - and the lights of New York had gone out."

- Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand

..via Nag on the Lake

For All the People I Know

"If we are ever to enjoy life, now is the time - not tomorrow, not next year, nor in some future life after we have died. The best preparation for a better life next year is a full, complete, harmonious, joyous life this year. Our beliefs in a rich future life are of little importance unless we coin them into a rich present life. Today should always be our most wonderful day" - Thomas Dreier

"The most intelligent men, like the strongest, find their happiness where others would only find disaster: in the labyrinth, in being hard with themselves and with others, in effort; their delight is self-mastery; in them asceticism becomes second nature, a necessity, an instinct." - Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

And of course, knowing me, no quote dump would be complete without a quote from Ayn Rand:

"Any refusal to recognize reality, for any reason whatever, has disastrous consequences. There are no evil thoughts except one: the refusal to think. Don't ignore your own desires....Don't sacrifice them. Examine their cause. There is a limit to how much you should have to bear."

Ayn Rand Character Flowchart

Yes, it is really rather true, but nonetheless, still love her books.

I Hate my Friends

The mouse-over is the best part (check the link). I love my friends, especially those that send my things like this to keep me in check.

You are an ass, but thanks for thinking of me on my birthday. Or, thanks for xkcd and friends for pulling a Rand reference on my birthday. Either way, kudos.

Great Idea!

Objectivism

Man donates $28 million to 27 different colleges. Generally with the stipulation that "Atlas Shrugged" is made required reading

I love this. Wish I had gone to a school where it was required. Would have already read it, but really might have cut down on the dumbassery of the people around me. And this picture is just great as tongue in cheek.

Atlas Shrugged Anniversary

50th Anniversary of "Atlas Shrugged" : A discussion on Rand's life, writing and impact in academia


October 2007 marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of "Atlas Shrugged," Ayn Rand's bestselling novel (an estimated 6 million copies have sold to date). To celebrate the anniversary, the Atlas Society held a conference in Washington, DC to discuss Rand's philosophy and the impact of the book. During this panel, Anne Heller, Ayn Rand biographer; Mimi Gladstein, author of "Atlas Shrugged: A Reader's Companion"; and David Kelley, Atlas Society senior fellow, talk about Rand's life, writing and impact in academia. The discussion was moderated by Nigel Ashford of the Institute for Humane Studies.

"If you saw Atlas, the giant who holds the world on his shoulders, if you saw that he stood, blood running down his chest, his knees buckling, his arms trembling but still trying to hold the world aloft with the last of his strength, and the greater the effort the heavier the world bore upon his shoulders, what would you tell him to do ?"
"I..don't know. What..could he do ? What would you tell him ?"
"To shrug".




..

Stupid working and not getting to watch things I want. :(

Monday comes...

"The purpose of morality is to teach you, not to suffer and die, but to enjoy yourself and live."

--Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

Food for Thought

"Thinking is not an automatic function, In any hour and issue of his life, man is free to think or avoid that effort....He is free to make the wrong choice, but not free to succeed with it. He is free to evade reality, he is free to unfocus his mind and stumble blindly down any road he pleases, but not free ti avoid the abyss he refuses to see....Man's basic vice, the source of all his evils, is the act of unfocusing his mind, the suspension of his conscoiuness, which is not blindness, but the refusal to see, not ignorance, but the refusal to know....Just as a man is free to attmept to survive by any random means, as a parasite, a moocher or a looter, but not free to succeed at it beyond the range of the moment-so is he free to seek his happiness in any irrational fraud, any whim, any delusion, any mindless escape from reality, but not free to succeed at it beyond the range of the moment nor to escape the consequences."

- Ayn Rand, The virtue of Selfishness

I wish my lungs would let me smoke

"Fire is a dangerous force, tamed at his fingertips....When a man thinks there is a spot of fire alive in his mind, and it is only proper that he should have the burning point of a cigarette as his one expression."

...Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

Self Reminder

"I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine."

--Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

Sometimes I need to remind myself before everything changes. I might step on some toes soon, anger quite a few people. I might not. The decision is not up to me. But I will not apologize.

Imminent Disappointment

"The New York Times ran an article today on the long saga of the Atlas Shrugged movie, focusing on how “until now, at least, no one in Hollywood has figured out a formula that promises both to sell popcorn and to do justice to the original text, let alone to the philosophy that it hammers home endlessly” and the pesky (if not outright paranoid) habit of Rand and her heirs to insist on script control.

File this kind of story under “as long as they spell the names right, who cares,” which is where I expect to file a lot of the stories that come as a result of this movie."

...via Rule of Reason

This is John Galt Speaking

"Morality, to you, is a phantom scarecrow made of duty, of boredom, of punishment, of pain, a cross-breed between the first school-teacher of your past and the tax collector of your present, a scarecrow standing in a barren field, waving a stick to chase away your pleasures--and pleasure, to you, is a liquor-soggy brain, a mindless slut, the stupor of a moron who stakes cash on some animal's race, since pleasure cannot be moral.
"If you identify your actual belief, you will find a triple damnation--of yourself, of life, of virtue--in the grotesque conclusion you have reached: you believe that morality is a necessary evil."

-Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged