saving ink

Atheism is not a philosophy; it is not even a view of the world; it is simply an admission of the obvious. In fact, ‘atheist’ is a term that should not ever exist. No one ever needs to identify himself as a ‘non astrologer’ or a ‘non-alchemist’. We do not have words for people who doubt that Elvis is still alive or that aliens traversed the galaxy only to molest ranchers and their cattle. Atheism is nothing more than the noises reasonable people make in the presence of unjustified religious beliefs. An atheist is simply a person who believes that the 260 million Americans (87 percent of the population) claiming to ‘never doubt the existence of God’ should be obliged to present evidence for his existence-and, indeed, for his BENEVOLENCE, given the relentless destruction of innocent human beings we witness in the world each day.

— Sam Harris, “Letter to a Christian Nation” (via ageofreason)

Becoming a writer is not a ‘career decision’ like becoming a doctor or a policeman. You don’t choose it so much as get chosen, and once you accept the fact that you’re not fit for anything else, you have to be prepared to walk a long, hard road for the rest of your days.

—

Paul Auster (b. February 3, 1947) (via savingpaper)

Addendum: You also spend most of your days, if not all of them, working in jobs that you’re not fit for but have to do in order to survive.

Dear people who make the "Fox News IS a legitimate news operation because hey if you read newspapers don't newspapers also have an OPINION section and that's all shows like Glenn Beck's and Bill O'Reilly's are, opinions!!!" argument:

goodreasonnews:

savagemike:

inothernews:

Stop being dolts.  Newspapers relegate opinions and op-eds and “Your Voice”-type columns to one, two, three pages at most out of DOZENS of pages.  DOZENS.  Saying that Fox News is “just like a newspaper” is disingenuous and inaccurate at best AND YOU FUCKING KNOW IT.  Shows helmed by Glenn Beck, Bill O’Reilly, Greta van Susteren, Sean Hannity, Mike Huckabee, Greg Gutfeld and even Fox & Friends are NOT HARD NEWS PROGRAMS.  They are OPINION SHOWS and when you consider they account for about a fourth of a typical broadcast day the whole “Hey, newspapers have opinion pages too!” argument just EATS SHIT AND DIES.

So please, stop it with that shit, THAT STUPID SHITTY ARGUMENT, and in case you didn’t hear me the first time, STOP IT WITH THAT STUPID SHITTY ARGUMENT.

Thanks.

Not to mention that FOX News is always crowing about their ratings; but the vast majority of their ratings come during the hours that those shows are aired.

<Stands, appluads>

In addition, let me add that, even if we’re to accept that Fox’s pundits are only commentators, we’re then forced to discuss:

A) That Fox disingenuously reports the news then immediatly uses a block several hours long to ‘discuss’ the news (in a rather embarrassing way, mind you).

B) That the commentators seem to work in lockstep.

C) That, in an ultimate offense, Fox tells you that they report and then, after a long angry evening of punditry, tell you that YOU DECIDE!

You’ve got to be a fucking dullard to buy any of this stuff.

Here’s a little anecdote: Once I got into a discussion with an octogenarian about news and, in particular Fox. I told him what I knew about their methods of framing arguements and how they accept talking points directly from political ties and the harm they do to the news industry as a whole. He listened and at some points agreed, but when I asked him why he watched it anyway, when they were lying right to him, he simply said:

“They tell me what I want to hear.”

That was it. The conversation ended with that.

Any remaining claim FOX News could make about being an “objective” news channel were thrown out the second they cut off President Obama’s speech during the GOP Issues Conference, while every other news network aired the segment in full.

I calculate it took about seven minutes, give or take, after Steve Jobs finished introducing the shinypretty iPad before the whiny attacks on the wondergizmo began flooding in, how it didn’t have this or that expected feature, how it can’t do live video chat, doesn’t have Flash, the bezel is too big and it won’t double as a meat thermometer, how it doesn’t really revolutionize much of anything despite how it’s, you know, this gorgeous 1.5-pound slab of aluminum and glass that works flawlessly and can perform roughly one thousand tasks in a more fluid and astonishing way than any device of its kind in history.

Big f—ing deal. We just do not care. It’s all a big disappointment. Hey, I was expecting to be blown away. I was expecting miracles and transformations and multiple twitching orgasms on sight. Do not come at me with tantalizing promises only to reveal that you can fulfill most of them to a fairly good degree, and not far exceed all of them in every imaginable way. We’re Americans, goddammit. Ye shall know us by the tang of our bitter and untenable jadedness.

—

Why are you so terribly disappointing?

Great article which perfectly characterizes the non-stop whinyness on the web these days.

It’s like 1920. Lindbergh hasn’t flown the Atlantic, and they’re trying to sell 747s to Pan Am.

— Former NASA administrator and architect of the soon-to-be-defunct Constellation program, Michael Griffin, on the Obama administration’s plan for NASA to rely of the private sector for the development of more efficient human space flight rockets. NASA is expected to commission and work with private contractors to build the rockets for commercial and low-Earth-orbit use even though they aren’t receiving support from the administration for extended programs involving human space flight. (via ummwhat)

Thou shalt not use poetry, art or music to get into girls’ pants.
Use it to get into their heads.

—

Dan LeSac vs Scroobius Pip (via jekyll) (via hypem)

Considering the former approach doesn’t work on intelligent girls, this is good advice.