Aug 30, 2007

Remembering Diana the peoples Princess

Britain will mark the 10th anniversary of Princess Diana's death Friday with a royal memorial service and several other tributes.

With wrangling over legacy and conspiracy theories over her death still rife, Diana's sons Prince William and Prince Harry, her ex-husband Prince Charles and Queen Elizabeth II, will mark the tragedy with a solemn service in London.

Her sons, aged 15 and 12 when their mother died aged 36 after a high-speed car crash in a central Paris road tunnel, now are officers in the British army.

Charles's second wife Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall -- who Diana dubbed "the rottweiler" and blamed for her divorce from the heir to the throne in 1996 -- will not be attending.

Link

This shoe craze is a croc

When I was a kid the footwear craze was centered on saddle shoes (upper picture). Then came penny loafers, followed by the re-birth of flip-flops with clogs and platforms sandwiched in there as well.

That was before 2002 when a couple of entrepreneurs in Boulder, Colorado began making the ugliest, least flattering items of footwear you’ll ever see.

Putting on a croc with bare feet for the first time can be a rather startling experience. When my bare feet slid into the soft, spongy foam resin I was sure I’d stepped in a bucket of earthworms and couldn’t wait to take them back off.

I thought they were the most disgusting things I had ever seen or felt on my feet.

But what do I know? There has never been a shoe craze like this! In no time, crocs were everywhere. On the beach. In gardens. In the supermarket. Even in church!

Most croc wearers swear by the comfort of the shoe. Some claim their crocs have helped with medical problems.

For whatever reason hoards of people are footing the croc craze.

Because the shoes are wide and roomy, Podiatrists say crocs can help with foot problems like severe heel pain and bunions.

One Podiatrist said that comparing crocs to flip-flops -- crocs are better because they are closed in the front providing more protection as well as support.

Well, they can have their crocs. I just don’t like the feeling of stepping in a bucket of earthworms.

Aug 29, 2007

Hillary fundraiser is a fugitive hiding in plain sight

A prominent fundraiser for Hillary (pictured) and other Democrats is a fugitive from justice and should be in jail as reported in the Los Angeles Times. The link below has the story.

Since 2004, one Norman Hsu has been carving out a prominent place of honor among Democratic fundraisers. He has funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions into party coffers, much of it earmarked for presidential hopeful Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York.

For the last 15 years, California authorities have been trying to figure out what happened to a businessman named Norman Hsu, who pleaded no contest to grand theft, agreed to serve up to three years in prison and then seemed to vanish.

Leaving no guesswork as to the stance of the Hillary campaign in regard to taking contributions from a fugitive from justice -- a man who should be in jail, a Hillary campaign spokesman said:

During Mr. Hsu's many years of active participation in the political process, there has been no question about his integrity or his commitment to playing by the rules, and we have absolutely no reason to call his contributions into question or to return them.

Integrity and ‘playing by the rules’ indeed. As the article points out, Mr. Hsu is clearly a fugitive from justice and should have been in prison.

It is no surprise that the Hillary campaign has chosen to ignore the obvious status criminal of Mr. Hsu. The only surprise is that a blatantly politically liberal newspaper such as the Los Angeles Times would print this story.

Link

Aug 28, 2007

Will there always be an England? Maybe not

There'll Always Be an England was a popular World War II song. But how true are the words today?

There is an article at the link below titled: England is Vanishing .

Perhaps there will not always be an England. An exodus unprecedented in modern times, coupled with a record influx of foreigners, is threatening to erode the character of the land of William Shakespeare and overpowering monarchs, a land that served as the cradle for much of American thought, law and culture.

The figures, making headlines in London newspapers, tell only part of the story. Between June 2005 and June 2006 nearly 200,000 British citizens chose to leave the country for a new life elsewhere. During the same period, at least 574,000 immigrants came to Britain.

Missing from the numbers shown above are the thousands of Muslims arriving in Britain illegally.

Abraham Lincoln said no nation can exist half slave and half free. Neither can a nation be sustained if it allows conditions that result in mass emigration, while importing huge numbers of foreigners who come from backgrounds that do not practice assimilation or tolerance of other beliefs.

When one factors in the high number of abortions (one in five pregnancies are aborted in England and Wales), the high birth rates of immigrants (15 times those of white Britons), it doesn't take a population expert to predict that the days of the England we have known may be numbered.

Britons give many reasons for leaving, but their stories share one commonality: life in Britain has become unbearable for them.

They fear lawlessness and the threat of more terrorism from a growing Muslim population and the loss of a sense of ‘Britishness’, exacerbated by the growing refusal of public schools to teach the history and culture of the nation to the next generation.

The greater tragedy is that the people of Britain have little say in any of this, so they are taking the road of last resort. They are leaving.

Link

Aug 27, 2007

Modern day cattle drive

Author Robert Day wrote a novel in 1977 about a modern-day cattle drive from northwest Kansas to Kansas City.

Robert Day and friend O. Newton King plan to re-enact part of the fictional drive Sept. 4-5 at the Dickinson Ranch in Gorham.



King, a retired pharmacy owner from Lawrence, has spent three years planning and organizing the drive.
"His idea is almost as crazy as the idea of the book," Day said.

The drive also will raise money for 4-H clubs in Ellis and Russell counties, with 50 riders each day paying $300 each to go along.

The drive will commemorate the 30th anniversary of a novel.

Author Robert Day is hoping it goes better than a practice run last year when they lost all the cattle. They ran into a milo field and, in the words of Day, "It became The Lost Cattle Drive rather than The Last Cattle Drive."

Link