If you're going to reply to this post to advertise a community, don't bother. I'm just going to delete the comment anyway, so save us both the trouble.

I've been hearing a lot on the news in the last couple of days about the health care reform in the US, and how a lot of people don't want it and are protesting it. I really don't understand why. Government health care means that everybody has insurance that you can't be dropped from if you get sick. It means that when you have to go to the hospital, you don't have to sit there stressing about how you're going to pay your bill, because you won't have to pay it - the government will. It means that if you don't have health insurance and you think there's something seriously wrong with you, you don't have to avoid going to the hospital and sit there slowly dying because you can't afford the bill and don't have health insurance.
Apparently there are rumors going around that with government health care, doctors would be able to decide with older people, who lives and who dies. They also think that if you get cancer, the doctors will pressure you to end your life sooner. I can't believe people believe this crap. Do they think that's how it is here in Canada? Those people are seriously brainwashed.

Here in Ontario, having government health care means that I can go to the doctor whenever I feel that I need to, and I don't have to worry about how I'm going to pay the bill, or avoid going to the doctor altogether because I don't have health insurance and don't have the extra money to pay the bill if I needed to. I automatically have health insurance just by being a resident of Ontario. I don't pay any premiums. I don't have to pay any medical bills. If I need blood tests, the government pays for it. If I need an x-ray, the government pays for it. If I need a CAT scan or MRI, the government pays for it. When I go to the doctor every year for a physical, the government pays for it. If I have an accident and have to go the emergency room, the government pays for it. If I have to have emergency surgery, the government pays for it. They even pay for every resident of Ontario to get a flu shot every year.
Government health care means that I will never have to go $30,000 into debt if I get sick.

A few years ago, my mother had to be taken to the hospital by ambulance for heart problems. Her medical bill was a total of $45 and that was for the ambulance. The government paid for everything else.

Having government health care means that when someone in your family ends up in the hospital, instead of worrying about how you're going to pay the bill, you can worry about what really matters - the health of your family member.

Yesterday, I made chicken with barbecue sauce, mashed sweet potatoes with olive oil, salt and pepper, steamed broccoli, and rice flavoured with vegetable broth.
I always cook for myself. I started learning how to cook when I was about 13. It blows my mind how many people these days don't know how to cook.

Help set a world record for the most downloads in 24 hours. Download Firefox 3.

Everybody always says that Wal-mart is evil, and now I understand why.

In may of 2000, Debbie Shank (a Wal-mart employee) was involved in a car accident that left her brain damaged and in a wheelchair. She sued the trucking company involved in the crash, and won 1 million dollars. After her legal fees were paid, she had $417,000 left, which was put into a trust fund to pay for her long-term care. Except that in the fine print of her health plan with Wal-mart, it said that they can take any money that an employee gets in a lawsuit for medical expenses, so Wal-mart took the money from her.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/03/25/walmart.insurance.battle/index.html

Is this what you want for your community?

They apparently haven't unsuspended all of the suspended journals that didn't deserve it, like they said they did.
Also, they are still suspending journals.
It seems like they're only doing one by one now, hoping people won't notice.

I decided to wait until after everything blew over to see what LJ/6A would do about this whole mess, and it looks like I got my answer.
They've broken promises in the past (like their promise that LJ would remain ad-free), so I see no reason to start trusting them now.

If my journal suddenly disappears, you know what happened to it. I don't plan on deleting it, and I don't have any "objectionable" interests listed.

I'm *this* close to permanently moving to greatest journal. I hope if I do, I'll see at least some of you there. Or you'll keep in touch through email.

I was just made aware of this post in stewardess' journal about this whole journal suspending fiasco. Apparently, sixapart was trying to get rid of journals that might be offensive to investors. As in, they're about to start publicly trading LJ stocks. If this is true, you can bet your journal that they're going to be making more deletions. (As stewardess said: "wannabe millionaires are very motivated"). And next time, they won't just be going after pedophiles. They'll likely delete anything that they don't consider G-rated. Think about that. Think about how many communities you're a member of that might not be considered appropriate for children. Now imagine them all deleted.
I can't believe how many people think this is no big deal and everyone who got upset was just overreacting.

I wrote this in reply to a comment in the apology post in news. I couldn't post it because the maximum number of comments has been reached for the post, but I wanted people to see it. So, here it is.


People are angry because some of us have been on LJ for several years. I've been here way before sixapart bought it - back when you still needed invite codes to join.
When you've been here that long, made friends, joined communities, or made communities, it becomes a sort of "home".
What LJ did is sort of like someone coming into your living room, putting a baseball bat through your TV screen and leaving a huge steaming pile of shit on your priceless persian rug, then turning around and saying "this is the wrong house. Oops, sorry" and then walking out without any explanation whatsoever.

Also, I'm not going to be leaving LJ over "strikethrough07".
They've at least acknowledged that they made a mistake, but if they think that makes everything all better, they can think again. This was a major violation of users' trust. They suspended a whole bunch of journals for no good reason, (because Warriors for Innocence threatened their advertising sponsors when they found journals supposedly promoting pedophilia) then said "oops, sorry". "Sorry" isn't going to cut it. They need to tell us exactly what it is that they will and won't allow on their site anymore. They made numerous references to "what community we want to build and what we think is appropriate within that community". They have yet to tell us exactly what that means. Until then, and maybe even after then, I don't/won't trust them. Does that mean that answers_on_sex is inappropriate and will be next on the chopping block? What about womenhealth, since "breasts" and "vagina" are words that are used there? What about vaginapagina? [sarcasm]"Vagina" is a dirty word, afterall.[/sarcasm] Does that mean that all journals having anything to do with homosexuality, women's sexuality, sexuality in general, or BDSM are now not "appropriate for the community"? Will only communities talking about puppies and disney movies be deemed "appropriate for the community"? What? Tell us.
Livejournal has been slowly but steadily going downhill since Sixapart bought it. I'm sure we can expect more of the same from them in the future.

Not to mention the fact that the issue at the base of all of this is poor parenting. Once again, people are outraged that the internet isn't parenting their children for them. They don't want their children to see things like this on the internet, yet they're not willing to sit with their children and monitor their internet usage like a good parent would.

With all the commotion about Livejournal permanently suspending journals claiming that they promoted illegal activities, or somehow violated LJ's TOS, I've decided, as have many others, not to support Livejournal anymore by having ads on my journal. I have downgraded from a Plus account to a Basic account. I also will never buy a paid account from LJ.
Show them you won't stand for it either. Show them that they can't just trample on our rights to free speech and free expression and get away with it. If you have a paid account, disable the auto renew feature. If you have a plus account, downgrade to a basic account.

(Copied from bdsm_lovers. Posted by garden_hoe21)


An internet vigilante group calling themselves "Warriors for Innocence" is combing through LJ looking for journals and communities that they feel encourage pedophilia, and getting the accounts suspended. Among these have been various fan-fiction groups; anti-pedophiles who have "pedophilia" or "incest" listed as an interest; and, most ridiculous of all, a Spanish language community dedicated to the study of the book Lolita by Vladmir Nobokov.

The group's site also cites their disgust with interests such as "boys in panties" (a perfectly normal kink) and ageplay terms such as "daddy's little girl."

Anyone with interests related to ageplay, incest-related fiction, Lolita fashion, etc. may be advised to remove these interests from their account and/or put their journal on lockdown before the witch-hunt finds them.

I will not link to the site because of fears related to Google backtracking, but they should be easy enough to find.

For more information, check out this user's very detailed post. It includes links to lists of journals that have been suspended.

---

I just downloaded LJarchive and backed up all my entries. I also deleted a few of my interests that might be considered questionable. I don't think they are, but I'm just being extra careful.

Here's a chance to tip the scales of this VERY HOMOPHOBIC group's own survey. The AFA (American Family Association) is expecting an overwhelming majority of respondents to say that they would be 'less likely' to do business with a company if they knew it supported the"homosexual agenda" - whatever that is. So far, they are getting the results they seek. Of course, they are only sending it where they will get the expected results. Let's change the outcome by completing the 1-question survey and sending it to everyone we know who is tired of this archaic and hateful way of thinking. Follow the link below to take action on this important issue. Go to http://www.afa.net/petitions/businesses/businesses.asp and pass it on!

As I was waiting for the bus on my way home tonight, I was standing in the bus shelter because it was snowing. A guy who was also waiting for the bus was smoking a cigarette and standing right in front of the doorway to the bus shelter, and the smoke was blowing right into the shelter.
My asthma has been acting up again recently, so it made me start coughing. I had to walk away and go upwind of him so I wasn't breathing in the smoke.
Then it got me thinking. They do everything to protect people who are allergic to peanuts, including outright banning them from schools, and in some cases public places like airplanes, but they really aren't doing much about cigarettes for people who have asthma or other breathing problems. It really doesn't make sense when you think about it. Cigarettes kill millions of people every year. Peanuts don't. No healthy person ever developed a life threatening illness from eating peanuts, but that happens to healthy people who smoke all the time.
Cigarettes are far more dangerous than peanuts, but they seem to be doing more about peanut allergies than they are about cigarette smoke allergies, asthma or emphysema.
I guess my right to breathe ends at their right to have a cigarette.

Bristol Myers Squibb will donate one dollar for every person who goes to their web site and lights a candle to help fight AIDS, up to a max of $100,000.

Please go to this link to light a candle.
Light to Unite

Don't forget to pass it on.

A couple of days ago, I found this website by PETA - iamscruelty.com. Basically, they're telling people to boycott the dog food company Iams because the company that owns it - Proctor & Gamble, tests on animals.
They do realize that dog food has meat in it, right? Meat that comes from animals?
So, they don't have a problem with animals being killed for dog food, but they do have a problem with P&G testing on animals?
Riiiiiiight.

Drink More Diet Soda, Gain More Weight?

Overweight Risk Soars 41% With Each Daily Can of Diet Soft Drink By Daniel DeNoon
WebMD Medical News Reviewed By Charlotte Grayson, MD
on Monday, June 13, 2005


June 13, 2005 -- People who drink diet soft drinks don't lose weight. In fact, they gain weight, a new study shows.

The findings come from eight years of data collected by Sharon P. Fowler, MPH, and colleagues at the University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio. Fowler reported the data at the annual meeting of the American Diabetes Association in San Diego.

"What didn't surprise us was that total soft drink use was linked to overweight and obesity," Fowler tells WebMD. "What was surprising was when we looked at people only drinking diet soft drinks, their risk of obesity was even higher."

In fact, when the researchers took a closer look at their data, they found that nearly all the obesity risk from soft drinks came from diet sodas.

"There was a 41% increase in risk of being overweight for every can or bottle of diet soft drink a person consumes each day," Fowler says.

More Diet Drinks, More Weight Gain

Fowler's team looked at seven to eight years of data on 1,550 Mexican-American and non-Hispanic white Americans aged 25 to 64. Of the 622 study participants who were of normal weight at the beginning of the study, about a third became overweight or obese.

For regular soft-drink drinkers, the risk of becoming overweight or obese was:

26% for up to 1/2 can each day
30.4% for 1/2 to one can each day
32.8% for 1 to 2 cans each day
47.2% for more than 2 cans each day.
For diet soft-drink drinkers, the risk of becoming overweight or obese was:

36.5% for up to 1/2 can each day
37.5% for 1/2 to one can each day
54.5% for 1 to 2 cans each day
57.1% for more than 2 cans each day.
For each can of diet soft drink consumed each day, a person's risk of obesity went up 41%.


http://www.webmd.com/content/article/107/108476.htm