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During the 11 years that I was a cook I have worked with a lot of people from many different countries. Latins, Malaysians, Europeans, and more. They all were good people just trying to feed their families and make it in the world. I don’t know what their immigration status was, and I really don’t and didn’t care. From my American history classes I remember studying about people who came to the US from all over coming here because it was the land of opportunity, it was the land of the free. If you worked hard you could live the American dream. It seams that over time we have forgotten about this and a lot of people don’t want people from other countries to come here. The government has made it harder for people to come here, and people are afraid that immigrants “will take their jobs” even though most of the people who come here work jobs that most U.S. citizens will not do their selves or are not qualified or educated enough to do. It is pretty sickening. It reminds me of the movie “A Day Without a Mexican” where people woke up one day and all the latin workers disappeared. It caused chaos and put things to a halt. Yes, I understand the need to lock our borders down. However I think part of ensuring national security is opening the borders to allow more people to move here, to at least work here and work on becoming citizens if that is what they want to do. They can pay taxes and as long as they have been veted with a background check then they can be here. There are good people coming here to provide for their families who are good people. Let them come. Lets make it so the people who come here illegally are the kind of people who the police would want to stop. The criminals, the terrorists. That is how it should work. We are wasting too many resources criminalizing people who just want a piece of the American dream. Oh, we need to stop the war on drugs too. We need to make them tax revenues, not tax burdens. But that is a different debate all together.

For the last 30+ hours I have been reading, replying to and posting comments here and here in the (livejournal business ) community. I need to stop. I need to make myself stop. After 70+ pages it is all pretty much the same.

For those of you in LJ land who didn’t read my last post, and those of you who are reading this in a blog from the outside world, what is going down is Livejournal is now actively putting ads in LJ calling them “sponsored communities. You are probably saying, so? There are ads everywhere. Well, you are right. Read on…

I have been a part of Livejournal for six years and three months, which is a lot of time and energy vested in something. I have several accounts with LJ, one an early adopter, a couple more through the invite system. I spend 80% of my computer time on LJ, Whoa! You say – computer time is not equal to internet time, you are correct, however I am also correct in saying that 80% of my computer time is on LJ, 90% of my online time is on LJ. Livejournal for me is my place to be on the internet. I have friends, family, and community there. Anything I need is there. My news, my information, and the comics I like to read. I can even find pr0n to masturbate to there if I want. All of this is ad free. Livejournal doesn’t give me popups, popovers, banners, or annoying beat the beaver and win prize bullshit. I admit, there are a very few syndicated feeds on my LJ that do serve me a banner. This didn’t come from LJ, it came from the feed it’s self, it stays in the feed, and it is something that LJ can not control, if I choose, I can remove the banner or the feed at anytime, I choose to live with it.

Livejournal has promised from day one to never serve us ads. The founder said that he was adamantly against ads in any way shape or form and he will keep it this way. He then sold his company to Six Apart. We as a community were in an uproar, we said that this is bad, they are going to kill LJ or even worse, serve us ads! Why Brad why?! SixApart then promised to us that they will keep with the standards and spirit of LJ and told us that they will give us no ads ever! So the angry mob calmed down and said OK, we trust you.

Livejournal saves me a lot of time, instead of going to 10+ websites a day to get my daily fix of information and dealing with their annoyances (see ads) I get it all in one place. Livejournal is one of the last islands out there where I am not bombarded with the increasingly annoying and hard to get rid of ads.

I do not want any kind of advertisements in LJ; not only for the above reasons, but it will also kill the spirit of community in Livejournal. When you ask for advice in a community, you trust the members to give you honest unbiased information. Now with these people creating user accounts and communities that LOOK like user accounts and communities, you will not be able to trust the people posting, are they being honest about a product? Are they a corporate monkey selling their wares to you? If you go to

( and start to read the comments, you will see the poorly disguised corporate worker bees trying to pose as lj users saying how much they love the movie. Their journals are newly created and/or never to very rarely posted in. It doesn’t take much for the average person to see through the deception. How do we know that they don’t go to other users and communities spreading their advertising?

This is going to kill something I love dearly: live journal, the spirit of Live journal and the community of live journal.

I am optimistically hopeful that the people at Six Apart will reconsider and renig on the contracts with the companies that they have lined up. I am hopeful that they will listen to the 3000+ comments telling that they DO NOT WANT. My paid account expires 11/17. I am trying to decide what I should do. Should I go to a free account? Should I abandon LJ all together? Yes I have my blog at Who Gives A Crap, but if I continue to blog there and shut of my live+press plug-in and abandon LJ, I will be abandoning a place that has been near and dear to me for six years.

If you are reading this and you are on LJ, then please, please, please go to one of the above links and tell them you do not want ads on LJ. I have posted this publicly and I have also cross posted this to the blogs at Carrot Juice and Blog Your News. I want people to google, yahoo, or otherwise search this and read this that are from Six Apart, Live Journal, or any other corporation who are considering doing business with them, I do not want ads in LJ. I will not buy your products. I will tell my friends, family, and co workers not to buy your products. I am a single male making enough money to live comfortably. I make buying decisions, and I will not buy any product that is advertised or sponsored on Livejournal.

When I went to get the coke for my rum and cokes I also picked up some Amy’s vegan enchaladas and some Tofutti Strawberry cheesecake “ice cream” and Tofutti Chocolate Supreme “ice cream”. I couldn’t decide between either one so I both. When it came time to eat desert I decided to also put both in the same bowl.

Let me tell you that the combination of these two were fucking orgasmic. Highly recomended.

See more content at http://whogivesacrap.net

For those vegetarians who still consume dairy and think that it does not hurt the animals…

Taken from Factoryfarming.com

Veal is a by-product of the dairy industry. In order for dairy cows to produce milk, they must be impregnated and give birth. Half of the calves born are female, and they are used to replace older cows in the milking herd. The other half are male, and because they are of no use to the dairy industry, most are used for beef or veal.

Within moments of birth, male calves born on dairies are taken away from their mothers and loaded onto trucks. Many are sold through auction rings where they are subjected to transportation and handling stresses. The fragile animals are shocked and kicked, and when they can no longer walk, they are dragged by their legs or even their ears.

Every year, approximately one million calves are confined in crates measuring just two feet wide. They are chained by the neck to restrict all movement, making it is impossible for them to turn around, stretch, or even lie down comfortably. This severe confinement makes the calves’ meat “tender” since the animals muscles cannot develop.

Published scientific research indicates that calves confined in crates experience “chronic stress” and require approximately five times more medication than calves living in more spacious conditions. It is not surprising then, that veal is among the most likely meat to contain illegal drug residues which pose a threat to human health.

Researchers have also reported that calves confined in crates exhibit abnormal coping behaviors associated with frustration. These include head tossing, head shaking, kicking, scratching, and stereotypical chewing behavior. Confined calves also experience leg and joint disorders and an impaired ability to walk.

In addition to restricting the animals’ movement, veal producers severely limit what their animals can eat. The calves are fed an all liquid milk-substitute which is purposely deficient in iron and fiber. It is intended to produce borderline anemia and the pale colored flesh fancied by ‘gourmets’. At approximately sixteen weeks of age, these weak animals are slaughtered and marketed as “white” veal (also known as “fancy”, “milk-fed”, “special fed”, and “formula fed” veal). Besides the expensive veal which comes from calves who are kept in small wooden crates, “bob” veal is the flesh of calves who may be slaughtered at just a few hours or days old. While these calves are spared intensive confinement, they are still subjected to inhumane transport, handling, and slaughter, and many die before reaching the slaughterhouse.