Une autre révolution ?

Alright, I know us American's love to rag on the French for their cowardice, however I will try and resist my gut reaction to despise the French (which in turn I inherited from my Dad) and let the facts speak for themselves.

NY Times: Chirac Will Rescind Labor Law That Caused French Riots

So here's the basic gist of this information. In response to all the riots that were caused over the new French labor law, President Chirac, instead of standing strong, gives in and relinquishes the law. Now lets look at the base of the riots.

The rioting was basically formed over a law, a law that would make it so French employees between the ages of 24 and 18 could be fired easier, which is actually hard to do in France. However, what not a lot of people look at, (including the French people) is that under this law it would also make it easier to hire young French workers as well, which is a problem because France has a high unemployment rate. So now all the French students oppose the law because they hate that, as The Week put it, "they might actually be fired for poor performance." So now we have all the French people coming out of their cafes and wineries and protesting a law that was intended to help them.

Now for the most ludicrous part of this story. So what does Chirac do in response to the riots? Does he hold out and pass the law anyways, holding strong to his belief that it would do more good than harm? No, he instead puts up his little white flag and says "my bad" and drops the law so he can appease everybody. If this wasnt bad enough, the French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin sacrifices his administration's last shreds of dignity by explaining that they were withdrawing the law out of safety for the protestors.

Although this is indeed rediculous, it is to be expected from a society who hardly fought the Nazis when they invaded their country, and did almost nothing when their own people rebelled against them in the French Revolution. However, they still cant go one year without having to complain or protest about something.

In conclusion, here's a political cartoon that I think summed it up pretty well

Ok, well I guess that was sort of me showing you the facts and interpreting them myself, but oh well.

my next topic will be the social medium and structure of secondary school life (a.k.a, how to survive in Highshool), unless people reading my blog would rather me post about my personal life instead. you be the judge.

~Jared

Meanwhile in Jared Land.......

times have not been so good. Right now I am hacking up my lungs every few seconds (a.k.a everytime I breathe), I have a horrible nose that has to blown every 5 minutes, and I have chills all over my body. In summary, I am feeling pretty sucky right now.

Today I stayed home from half of school, and came back at lunchtime because I was so dead tired from tossing and turning the night before. and because I wasnt there, I have to make up all the stuff I missed.

On a brighter note, I got my permit Wednesday, and ive been driving a decent amount. Not on real roads mind you, but just around the neighborhood. Driving is fun, but challenging and you have to be alert the entire time your behind the wheel. go figure..

Also, on Tuesday, Fideles had a talent show to which Sam, Zach and I participated in by playing "Tuesday's Gone" by Skynyrd. We did ok, but our song was a little out of place, since the girl before us was singing "Colors of the Wind." Oh well. heres some of the other highlights:

• Awesome hip hop dancing kid
• Tap dancing madness
• about one bajillion piano pieces
• A kid playing Suzuki on the violin (I do not have fond memories of Suzuki...)
• Lightsaber fighting
• weird Miming (I can see why silent humor never caught on)
• A skit from some Russian guy named Checkov (not the one from Star Trek)
• Maza's 2nd
• A wacked up version of little red riding hood (featuring a jedi, the little mermaid, tarzan, and a.. dinosaur?)
• Good Riddance, according to Sam, Scott and James.

Thats all. Now time for some HW

The Ninja says peace out



~Jared

PS: ive heard of not paying bills, but this is pretty rediculous

Myspace vs. Xanga

alright, theres been a huge contreversy for many years about which is better. Myspace, or Xanga. Well I have investigated both these sites (www.myspace.com/im_a_communist) (www.xanga.com/aqsol_100_percent) and I have finnaly gathered enough information to determine their pros and cons. Alright, here goes

Myspace

Pros

• Alot of features, like mail messaging and other stuff,and not just blogging and connecting.
  
• good for connecting friends
• A very good way to get published. For instance, I noticed they have a lot of sites from bands, so you can check them out and you can also publish videos alot easier. not too shabby. Xanga was a horror trying to post videos.
  
• I always liked the long profiles that you could put up on your site i.e. more detailed (which is not always a good thing)
  

Cons

• Never in my life have I seen my porno ads then myspace. I had to close the screen in disgust many times.
• SLOOOOOOOOWW! perhaps due to the fact the whole freaking site is bigger than google.
• Confusing as heck. I takes my thirty seconds each time to find the button I need with all the different little ads and popups with dozens of features
• Popularity contest. Although you may be "connecting" with people, it really just comes down to whoever has more comments or friends.
• Horrible atmosphere. Several young girls have been raped over myspace, partly because myspace is so bent towards dating and finding love on the net (as evidence by the dating service ads). So even though its connecting friends, it often connects them in a disguisting sort of way (i.e. dating, online relationships, and sometimes rape)
• More perverts. Although Myspace supposedly has a "no porn" policy, I have seen several risque and/or perverted things on that site that really shouldnt be tolerated.
  

Xanga

Pros

• Weblog acction! is more bent towards people that want to blog about stuff and post pictures on posts.
• More Community like. Xanga feels more like you can connect with your friends, and always know whats going on in their life when you subscribe to them and comment on their posts. Myspace just didnt has as much to comment on and felt more like a dating site.
  
• SIMPLICITY!!! Not very confusing, and could be used by just about anybody. Also a lot easy to customize your site.
• I always liked the ideas of blogrings, and connecting people with their certain interests. I dont know if Myspace has a feature like this.
• Relitvaly clean. 95% of the sites ive seen usually do not have any horribly perverted material. This might be because Xanga has people that patrol sites to make sure your not a xanga perv.
  

Cons

• Alot of ads that were a bit risque. they used to have alot more, buit luckily they took them down.
• The system of comments seems to get out of hand. Like in myspace, sometimes it can just get down to whoever has more comments.
• Xanga also has a "no porn" policy, but I have seen this rule violated, but usually the site gets taken off the web soon after.
• No filtering. Pretty much anybody can subscribe to you, and it can get slightly annoying when random people give you "props." Myspace fixed it with having them become your friend first (although that got annoying too)

Well, thats my opinion with Myspace and Xanga. Everyone please give any comments or opinions.

On the home front, I was still able to play Saturday, but my wrist was continually hurting and is right now. Its gotten a little better....

Today at church, Me, Sam, and Anna performed our skit for the church. Everyone seemed to like it a lot, and some people said we allmost made them cry (?). Great job Sam and Anna!

Spring Break is almost over sadley, and my guitar has not come in and wont be coming in till summer. once agian, it works out in a crazy sort of way. I guess tommorow its back to school.

Peace out

~Jared

Unavailible Americans?

this article was sort of interesting

Bush blames Democrats for stalled immigration reform

One quote from President Bush kind of confused me:

Bush reiterated on Saturday that a guest-worker provision would not amount to amnesty but instead would "create a legal way to match willing foreign workers with willing American employers to fill jobs that no American is available to do".

Now apparently old Bushy was using the wrong choice of words, and this quote would be fine if he changed "available" to "willing." Obviously, there are plenty of people that are "availible" to fill jobs, but most of them are too lazy to do these jobs anyways, and instead live off wealfare and suck money from the government. However, if Americans are willing to do jobs like these is another problem. Unfortunately, living off wealfare and social security has made alot of americans lazy, and now we wont even do the jobs in our country, making a bunch of illegal immagrants have to fill the void instead. If Americans actually did the jobs in our country and didnt think they should have to be spoon fed by the government, maybe we wouldnt have an immagration problem.

Ok, thats all the blogging for today

Coming up next: Myspace vs. Xanga

~Jared

Movin' Out

Alright, I think ive decided to blog on this thing from now on. So anyone who wants to read about me, go here. Im fed up with xanga and myspace, and now im getting a real blog.

On a side note, my wrist still hurts from tendonidess, but its getting alot better. I may be able to play music again!

On another side note, my guitar still hasnt come in. Apprarently, its all delayed because theres a music festival in Germany so all the distributors packed up their merchandise. I guess it works out in a crazy sort of way, because now my wrist is hurt so I wouldnt be able to play it anyways.

~Jared

Edit: Found out the model of my guitar is back ordered, and I wont get it for another 4-8 weeks. bummer.....

Trying it out izzle

just trying out this blogger site. not bad so far. could start posting soon.....