I shall walk among men

deboratron @ 2009-10-09T07:48:00

2009-10-09T12:27:00Z

Last night I went to sleep with the TV on.
This morning I woke up at 5 am to hear the news broadcasters proudly announce that Barack Obama had won the Nobel Peace Prize. The very next story was about how we were launching a rocket (the LCROSS) the weight of an SUV going 5600 MPH, in order to bomb the moon in search of water.. At 7:30AM. This morning. The crater the impact will create is estimated to be 30 meters in diameter, while "the amount of material (dust and probably ice) ejected could fill ten school buses, or ten Space Shuttle cargo bays. The plume will reach nearly 50 km high (over 30 miles)!"

I took this directly off NASA's website. http://lcross.arc.nasa.gov/impact.htm
Is it just me or is this looking a little crazy or what?

Eagerly I stayed up waiting for this momentous event which, they said, would be large enough to be seen through an amateur telescope.
In reality, the live webcast from NASA showed little more than the surface, then white fuzz, followed by a shot of happy people in the control center smiling and shaking hands while they removed their headsets...

While I'm all for space exploration and discovery...don't we have better technology than sending a rocket to bomb it? This seems like a rash decision after the report on Sept 24th that there is in fact water deposits on the moon's surface.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113159860&ft=1&f=1026

Realistically, an impact of this magnitude could have irreversible and generally negative effects on the moon itself.. Not to mention the fact that if there are actually large stores of water on the lunar surface, there would also be the possibility of life...which we just bombed. Way to go NASA and the USA, way to go Obama.. As your first act after winning the Peace Prize...you bomb the freaking moon.
What a strange day to wake up to. What's next?

Everything you can think of is true.

2009-07-29T04:11:13Z

I am twenty-two years old.
Most of the people I am remotely in touch with from high school either just graduated this year, or are about to graduate.
I've never completed a college application, and I honestly couldn't tell you how many I've started.
Let's just say 'a lot'.

My longest domestic relationship ended bitterly, and now lingers like some strange, sticky something you've accidentally rested your hand on and cant wash off.
8 30am tomorrow he's boarding a bus to Texas with his new lover.
Going to walk through Central America he says.
So it goes.

My current beau has my heart wrenching.

I want to smell the Pacific Ocean, wiggle my toes in the sand, and blissfully watch the days pass.
Life could be good some day, so I keep living just to see.

My ship is bright, keep looking East starboard my love.

I feel good.

2009-04-05T16:14:48Z

But, I wish I could understand what it is that I am doing differently in my life than some of my peers.
No, thats not quite it.
I am amazed at my minds ability to dream so big- to want, to yearn, to exist outside of what I percieve to be normal, or ordinary. Yet, there must be something that I am lacking in my approach to life that renders me unable to bring my dreams into fruition.
Is it some great, tragic flaw in the fiber of my being, or is it more simple than that?
Could I be the punchline to some great, cosmic joke? How about some terrible, corny joke? Am I the ketchup to the world's tomatoes?
I suppose it is possible that the only thing I am doing wrong is thinking more than acting on what it is I want.. but is that not what I have always been taught to do? To carefully think before you act so as to make the right choices in life.. could it be that I was set up for failure in this way? That because of that fact I am forever doomed to dreamer status, never quite actualizing my reality?
Am I being too dramatic here?
All I really want to know is why its so out of the question for me to spend a summer in Asia, spring in New Zealand, or winter in Hawaii? Why havent I started to learn all those languages I say I want to learn- or any of them for that matter? As flexible and open as my life is, why then is it out of the question to head to some sunny California shore for a few days, or weeks? What's stopping me? More importantly, perhaps.....why can other people do it? What's different?

deboratron @ 2008-10-11T06:13:00

2008-10-11T10:16:55Z

lieutenant got him a canary bird and shaked her head with every word

2008-10-03T08:46:30Z

I'm trying to understand this intense love and hate I feel for everyone.
I need blank CDs, so I can start making mixes again- I think that would make me happy.
Looking for a second job- I need to stop being so compulsively picky about every single detail of every fucking thing in my life.
I am allergic to wheat and rice. I've been eating only soup and steamed vegetables...It's a bit frustrating and will take some getting used to. Every fucking thing has wheat in it. I need a multivitamin. My hair is getting long, I'm glad. I need a new tattoo.
I was hanging out with some friends the other day, drinking and whatnot and some they started slap boxing, but no one would slap box me because everyone's afraid to hit a girl- so one of them told me to slap him as hard as I could across the face. I didnt want to, and told him so- but everyone egged me on and he really wanted it...so I did. Hard. His mouth started bleeding and his ear rang for two days. Actually, he still has a bruise over his eye and this was about two weeks ago.
I think I need to figure out how to release some tension.

No I don't believe in the wasting of time, but I don't believe that I'm wasting mine

2008-08-13T04:36:28Z

I wish I wasnt such a scared little girl

I had so much to say, but now it feels redundant

2008-07-11T07:38:54Z

I'm just so happy to learn that you, too, are fallible and distinctly human.
It does make me feel just a little better.

Judge not lest ye be judged?

Child with the Toy Hand Grenade, Central Park

2008-06-28T19:43:04Z

nudey flick.

2008-06-14T00:16:03Z

I just saw the most inspiring porno in my life
mhmm.

a good for you kind of energy

2008-06-13T07:24:02Z

then you said "keep playing the game".

Bistromathic drive

2008-05-21T18:25:04Z

The Bistromathic Drive is used in Slartibartfast's craft Starship Bistromath and works by exploiting the irrational mathematics that apply to numbers on a waiter's cheque pad and groups of people in restaurants. Life, the Universe and Everything describes bistromathics as follows:

"Bistromathics itself is simply a revolutionary new way of understanding the behaviour of numbers. Just as Albert Einstein's general relativity theory observed that space was not an absolute but depended on the observer's movement in time, and that time was not an absolute, but depended on the observer's movement in space, so it is now realized that numbers are not absolute, but depend on the observer's movement in restaurants." An important concept of bistromathics is recipriversexcluson: being anything other than itself.

"The first nonabsolute number is the number of people for whom the table is reserved. This will vary during the course of the first three telephone calls to the restaurant, and then bear no apparent relation to the number of people who actually turn up, or the number of people who subsequently join them after the show/match/party/gig, or to the number of people who leave when they see who else has shown up.

The second nonabsolute number is the given time of arrival, which is now known to be one of those most bizarre mathematical concepts, a recipriversexcluson, a number whose existence can only be defined as being anything other than itself. In other words, the given time of arrival is the one moment of time at which it is impossible that any member of the party will arrive. Recipriversexclusons now play a vital part in many branches of mathematics, including statistics and accountancy, and also form the basic equations used to engineer the SEP Field.

The third and most mysterious piece of nonabsoluteness of all lies in the relationship between the number of items on the bill, the cost of each item, the number of people at the table and what they are each prepared to pay for. (The number of people who have actually brought any money is only a sub-phenomenon in this field.)"

Bicycle Day

2008-05-17T16:03:42Z

Some people already know this story, but I am putting it here because it made me laugh today and maybe when I read it again later, I will be just as amused.

Bicycle day

On April 19, 1943 Dr. Albert Hofmann intentionally ingested 250 µg of LSD, which he hypothesized would be at most a threshold level dose, based on his research on other ergot alkaloids. Surprisingly, the substance showed a potency orders of magnitude above almost any other substance known at the time, amounting to a much heavier dose than typically given in modern therapeutic use. After ingesting the substance Hofmann found himself struggling to speak intelligibly and asked his laboratory assistant, who knew of the self-experiment, to escort him home on his bicycle, since wartime restrictions made automobiles unavailable. On the bicycle ride home, Hofmann's condition became more severe and in his journal he stated that everything in his field of vision wavered and was distorted, as if seen in a curved mirror. Hofmann also stated that while riding on the bicycle, he had the sensation of being stationary, unable to move from where he was, despite the fact that he was moving very rapidly. Once Hofmann arrived home, he summoned a doctor and asked his neighbor for milk, believing it might help relieve the symptoms. Hofmann wrote that despite his delirious and bewildered condition, he was able to choose milk as a nonspecific antidote for poisoning.[9] Upon arriving the attending doctor could find no abnormal physical symptoms other than extremely dilated pupils. After spending several hours terrified that his body had been possessed by a demon, that his next door neighbor was a witch, and that his furniture was threatening him, Dr. Hofmann feared he had become completely insane. In his journal Hofmann said that the doctor saw no reason to prescribe medication and instead sent him to his bed. At this time Hofmann said that the feelings of fear had started to give way to feelings of good fortune and gratitude, and that he was now enjoying the colors and plays of shapes that persisted behind his closed eyes. Hofmann mentions seeing "fantastic images" surging past him, alternating and opening and closing themselves into circles and spirals and finally exploding into colored fountains and then rearranging themselves in a constant flux. Hofmann mentions that during the condition every acoustic perception, such as the sound of a passing automobile, was transformed into optical perceptions. Eventually Hofmann slept and upon awakening the next morning felt refreshed and clearheaded, though somewhat physically tired. He also stated that he had a sensation of well being and renewed life and that his breakfast tasted unusually delicious. Upon walking in his garden he remarked that all of his senses were "vibrating in a condition of highest sensitivity, which then persisted for the entire day".

can't do much to please you

2008-05-14T21:59:26Z

So I just went through every single entry I've ever posted here. All I can say is that I see a decline in myself, and my writing.

Also, I miss Bryon.

Effects of various drugs on various animals

2008-05-14T18:57:43Z

waiting on some beautiful boy

2008-05-11T10:00:44Z

I just got a "new" argus autronic 35. They were only in production in 1960 and take pretty badass shots. I can't wait to try it out.

Guardian?

2008-04-28T01:54:38Z

Thursday morning I was in a car accident that could have taken my life. I am still shocked.

Consumerism

2008-03-13T17:18:53Z

Wish List-

*laptop computer (macbook, anyone?)
*mp3 player (zune, ipod?)
*darkroom supplies
*surprise visits from people I love
*sunflower
*kitten
*these sandals

i want moar

2008-02-23T15:56:35Z

what a strange couple of days.
It was SO GOOD, but then you acted like it wasn't.

My bounty is as boundless as the sea,
My love as deep; the more I give to thee,
The more I have, for both are infinite.
"Romeo and Juliet" (2.2.139-41)

deboratron @ 2008-02-19T00:05:00

2008-02-19T05:08:14Z

I wish that I could spend even just one day selfless.

deboratron @ 2008-02-12T20:00:00

2008-02-13T01:50:24Z

WTO NEWS: 2006 PRESS RELEASES
Press/388
November 13, 2006

Listen to Voice of America broadcast about this proposal, Dec. 11, 2006
WTO Announces Formalized Slavery Model for Africa

US Trade Representative to Africa, Governor of Nigeria Central Bank weigh in at Wharton

Philadelphia - At a Wharton Business School conference on business in Africa, World Trade Organization representative Hanniford Schmidt announced the creation of a WTO initiative for "full private stewardry of labor" for the parts of Africa that have been hardest hit by the 500 years of Africa's free trade with the West.
The initiative will require Western companies doing business in some parts of Africa to own their workers outright. Schmidt recounted how private stewardship has been successfully applied to transport, power, water, traditional knowledge, and even the human genome. The WTO's "full private stewardry" program will extend these successes to (re)privatize humans themselves.

"Full, untrammelled stewardry is the best available solution to African poverty, and the inevitable result of free-market theory," Schmidt told more than 150 attendees. Schmidt acknowledged that the stewardry program was similar in many ways to slavery, but explained that just as "compassionate conservatism" has polished the rough edges on labor relations in industrialized countries, full stewardry, or "compassionate slavery," could be a similar boon to developing ones.

The audience included Prof. Charles Soludo (Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria), Dr. Laurie Ann Agama (Director for African Affairs at the Office of the US Trade Representative), and other notables. Agama prefaced her remarks by thanking Scmidt for his macroscopic perspective, saying that the USTR view adds details to the WTO's general approach. Nigerian Central Bank Governor Soludo also acknowledged the WTO proposal, though he did not seem to appreciate it as much as did Agama.

A system in which corporations own workers is the only free-market solution to African poverty, Schmidt said. "Today, in African factories, the only concern a company has for the worker is for his or her productive hours, and within his or her productive years," he said. "As soon as AIDS or pregnancy hits—out the door. Get sick, get fired. If you extend the employer's obligation to a 24/7, lifelong concern, you have an entirely different situation: get sick, get care. With each life valuable from start to finish, the AIDS scourge will be quickly contained via accords with drug manufacturers as a profitable investment in human stewardees. And educating a child for later might make more sense than working it to the bone right now."

To prove that human stewardry can work, Schmidt cited a proposal by a free-market think tank to save whales by selling them. "Those who don't like whaling can purchase rights to specific whales or groups of whales in order to stop those particular whales from getting whaled as much," he explained. Similarly, the market in Third-World humans will "empower" caring First Worlders to help them, Schmidt said.

One conference attendee asked what incentive employers had to remain as stewards once their employees are too old to work or reproduce. Schmidt responded that a large new biotech market would answer that worry. He then reminded the audience that this was the only possible solution under free-market theory.

There were no other questions from the audience that took issue with Schmidt's proposal.

During his talk, Schmidt outlined the three phases of Africa's 500-year history of free trade with the West: slavery, colonialism, and post-colonial markets. Each time, he noted, the trade has brought tremendous wealth to the West but catastrophe to Africa, with poverty steadily deepening and ever more millions of dead. "So far there's a pattern: Good for business, bad for people. Good for business, bad for people. Good for business, bad for people. That's why we're so happy to announce this fourth phase for business between Africa and the West: good for business—GOOD for people."

The conference took place on Saturday, November 11. The panel on which Schmidt spoke was entitled "Trade in Africa: Enhancing Relationships to Improve Net Worth." Some of the other panels in the conference were entitled "Re-Branding Africa" and "Growing Africa's Appetite." Throughout the comments by Schmidt and his three co-panelists, which lasted 75 minutes, Schmidt's stewardee, Thomas Bongani-Nkemdilim, remained standing at respectful attention off to the side.

"This is what free trade's all about," said Schmidt. "It's about the freedom to buy and sell anything—even people."

http://www.gatt.org/wharton.html

This is a goddamn outrage! When has slavery of any sort actually worked out to the advantage of the actual people who are being used and treated/traded like objects or machines to be bought for a service???
I am having difficulty finding any articles on the subject that are recent. - if anyone knows of any update to this, PLEASE LET ME KNOW.
This article is straight from the WTO website, it is not a joke.
Fuck, there HAS to be something I can do...that WE can do, together. Human beings are not fucking property, to be bought and sold.
DAMNIT

deboratron @ 2008-02-11T13:31:00

2008-02-11T18:40:25Z

A pivotal event was the 1964 exhibit "The American Supermarket", a show held in Paul Bianchini's Upper East Side gallery. The show was presented as a typical small supermarket environment, except that everything in it—the produce, canned goods, meat, posters on the wall, etc.—was created by six prominent pop artists of the time, including the controversial (and like-minded) Billy Apple, Mary Inman, and Robert Watts. Warhol's painting of a can of Campbell's soup cost $1,500, while each autographed can sold for $6. The exhibit was one of the first mass events that directly confronted the general public with both Pop Art and the perennial question of what is art._

Andy Warhol > you.

If at first you don't succeed, you're not Chuck Norris.

2008-02-09T22:19:25Z

If you have five dollars and Chuck Norris has five dollars, Chuck Norris has more money than you.

There is no 'ctrl' button on Chuck Norris's computer. Chuck Norris is always in control.

Apple pays Chuck Norris 99 cents every time he listens to a song.

Chuck Norris can sneeze with his eyes open.

Chuck Norris can eat just one Lay's potato chip.

Chuck Norris is suing Myspace for taking the name of what he calls everything around you.

Chuck Norris destroyed the periodic table, because he only recognizes the element of surprise.

Chuck Norris can kill two stones with one bird.

When the Boogeyman goes to sleep every night, he checks his closet for Chuck Norris.

Chuck Norris doesn't read books. He stares them down until he gets the information he wants.

There is no theory of evolution. Just a list of creatures Chuck Norris has allowed to live.

Outer space exists because it's afraid to be on the same planet with Chuck Norris.

Chuck Norris does not sleep. He waits.

Chuck Norris is currently suing NBC, claiming Law and Order are trademarked names for his left and right legs.

Chuck Norris is the reason why Waldo is hiding.

Chuck Norris counted to infinity - twice.

There is no chin behind Chuck Norris’ beard. There is only another fist.

When Chuck Norris does a pushup, he isn’t lifting himself up, he’s pushing the Earth down.

Chuck Norris is so fast, he can run around the world and punch himself in the back of the head.

Chuck Norris’ hand is the only hand that can beat a Royal Flush.

Chuck Norris can lead a horse to water AND make it drink.

Chuck Norris doesn’t wear a watch, HE decides what time it is.

Chuck Norris can slam a revolving door.

Chuck Norris does not get frostbite. Chuck Norris bites frost

Remember the Soviet Union? They decided to quit after watching a DeltaForce marathon on Satellite TV.

Contrary to popular belief, America is not a democracy, it is a Chucktatorship.

deboratron @ 2008-02-08T14:19:00

2008-02-08T19:21:21Z

I really need to get a scanner.

without you, today's emotions would be the scurf of yesterday's

2008-02-08T19:17:48Z

This is incredibly interesting, do not be discouraged by the long segment in the beginning, it comes together- I promise.

This is exactly the kind of thing I wanted to see. Thank you A M Baggs, for showing this to the world.

she's got a whole pile of things you don't wanna hear

2008-02-01T21:43:27Z

so, if YOU (my invisible audience, of course) just got a new car and lived near orlando but didnt really know anyone...what would you do on a friday night?