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... is about the most ridiculous things I've seen in ages.

THIS is what people get worked up over? There are millions of starving children, in this nation alone... but how many people find the time to work a fundraiser to help put food into their rumbling bellies?

Our country's sons and daughters are fighting an asinine war in Iraq and dying, everyday; but THIS is what people are up in arms about on the home front?

The Editorial Projects in Education (EDE) Research Center reported, in June 2006, that nearly 1 in 3 high school students in the Class of 2006 will not graduate; they would, instead, drop-out of school. Don't get worked up about that number, though. I mean, it's cool. Larry Mishel of the Economic Policy Institute and author of another study on dropout rates says that this national study isn't valid. In his view, "It's ... inappropriate for comparisons across states and school districts, the reason being that his formula is very much affected by how much grade retention there is in ninth and 10th grade. Any school that retains students in ninth grade is automatically going to look worse, whether graduation rates really are lower [there] or not," he said of the EDE report. Mishel's own report, based on the US Education Department's National Educational Longitudinal Study, suggests that in 1992, 78 percent of students received a regular diploma, rising to 83 percent by 1994. For African-American students, whose graduation rates lag behind the US average, the figure rose from 63 percent to 74 percent over that period. OH. No cause for alarm then. So long as 83% of students in (supposedly) the last "Superpower" can manage to get through high school. Let's not even think about examining how many of those students ever, actually, LEARNED anything. Jesus. The education system in this country is a dismal FAILURE. That's okay, though. Just so long as NO ONE PUTS ADS IN A FREE FUCKING INTERNET JOURNAL.

Darfur? Nothing to worry about.  Nothing really going on there... But you'd better not touch my ability to have a free LiveJournal account without ads, or I'm going to cause a stir by boycotting "striking".

AIDS in Africa?  Whatever, man.  If they die off, it's less people that can have free accounts on LiveJournal...so I can get better server response time AND I can use those deaths to justify that there's THAT many people who can't get free basic accounts. SO I SHOULD STILL BE ABLE TO MAKE MORE FREE BASIC ACCOUNTS, DAMN IT.

The sarcophagus around the destroyed Reactor 4 of the Chernobyl plant is not an effective permanent enclosure for the radioactive pile of debris and unreleased nuclear material lying, in wait, beneath. Its hasty construction is aging poorly. The sarcophagus is in such a weak condition that a small earthquake or severe wind could cause the roof to collapse. If it collapses, another cloud of radioactive dust could be released, of unknown size, and could potentially cause even more environmental and health issues than have already been seen as a result of the Chernobyl disaster. Big deal? Naaaaahhh. Eliminating the previous incarnation of Live Journal basic (free) accounts and only offering free accounts with ads? HOLYSHIT. I'm going to stand up for the rights of all people who want to use LiveJournal and not pay. I'm going to "STRIKE" - and send a message to those unholy bastards who would change such a thing. (I just won't plan on moving to Russia/Europe anytime in the next 1,000 years or so.)


SERIOUSLY.  What the holy Hell is WRONG with people?
Of all the things one could possibly get worked up over, why is THIS it?
I just can't wrap my head around it.  I really can't.

I'm all for having a cause; shit, have multiple causes.  If something moves you, or you see an injustice or untolerable situation - do something about it.  Petition for others to take notice, and act, as well.  But for the love of everything holy... for the sake of Jesus Christ, or Vishnu, or Buddah, or Moses, or whoever the Hell you think is holy... TAKE UP A WORTHY CAUSE.



Now, aside from the ridiculousness of getting up in airs and wanting to prove a point/ garner attention to this "issue", I'll move to a few other topics related to this ridiculous exercise.

• Technically, LJ users can't "strike" ... they can boycott. I'm just amazing that people are still using the terminology "strike" for this.

• ...beyond that. I'm glad they're going to boycott. This will make a day with nice, fast, server response when I use LJ.

• Even beyond that, what corporation wouldn't like a break on server strain and, thereby, a decrease in overhead for 24 hours. Hell, if I was the current owner of LiveJournal, I'd be stoked for this. Because, even if you "strike" (God, I hate that terminology for this) - they've still got your money. And they'll still get your money next year, unless you want to move to a Blogger account, or a WordPress blog, or the like...

• LJ might be made up of content from users...but so is any service or business. The point is that LiveJournal IS still offering free accounts to users: if they want the services, they can have them at no charge - and just take some ads. If they want extra services, and convenience features like not having ads, they can pay to get them.
  
  Business is business...free services are free. That's the exact reason why your webmail services have ads in them, even if they are text only (but if you're still using yahoo, hotmail, msn mail, they're banner ads). Ads pay the bills. That's the reason YouTube has banner ads - that's the reason ads exist. SOMEONE has to pay the overhead of offering a service; if it's not the user, it's got to come from somewhere. Should they jack up the cost of having paid account benefits so WE can pay for the cost of hosting free users' sites? Color me crazy; but I don't think that's a valid option.
  

Okay.  I'm done ranting.  I've just seen that idiotic banner posted and reposted so many times, that I thought my brain was going to explode. 

Say now... Maybe that's something I could start up... A monetary donation pool to assist those so tired of ridiculous causes that they just need to go to get away to a private island and forget about the massive throngs of sheep-like people scattered across the globe who think anything that sounds like a cause is worth supporting.  Yeah, I like the sound of that.  Please contact me if you'd like to use your credit card or paypal account to lend to that cause.

Barack Lobster.