My browser is being weird, I'm not having success at getting the link from the first article on this sad story. this appears twice in the Eagle, the second time is shorter under AP, here's the headline for the longer story:

Driver strikes, kills woman walking her dog Wichita Eagle

in an instant, a husband in his 50s lost his wife and his dog while they were walking the night before thanksgiving. This man and the driver are facing a huge tragedy at this holiday time.

Today, thanks to our representative democracy, I had the distinct pleasure of voting no on continuence of Judge Paula Martin. This judge has frequently given sentences far too easy to offenders in our community, including to rapists.
emphasized text My suspicion is that others feel the same way.

I sincerely hope the majority voted with me.

thanks for reading.

Hello--I did a blog like this last year, and people liked it so I thought I'd ask fellow posters again at the end of this year.

In 2011 we've lost some familiar posters, and others seem to be back with a new name or three.

Sven joined us, actually using his own name for a change, last spring. And ... he promptly got himself TOSsed off when he came in last place that April election day. (Sven Alstrom, city commission candidate and well known ljworld poster under a dozen or more names.)

Now we're under new management. Knology owns this space. We have lost Jonathan Kealing, and his sidekick Witney. As of now, Alex Parker is in control here (Alexander Haig ref).

Which thread was the funniest?

Which one was your favorite? Your funniest choice might be different from your favorite thread choice. Perhaps a thread moved you to tears or anger?

When you identify threads, please include links to them.

*and for those who have followed my postings for lo these nearly six years, I am soon posting a blog on 'how I spent my summer vacation' or, how I nearly died and some other stuff.' I'm especially looking forward to this 'best of 2011 threads,' because I missed many weeks online this year.

Enjoy ... oops, saying that, according to one very angry poster, means I'm an ITG (internet tough guy), though until she told me, I didn't know what ITG stood for, so I guess I'm thus disqualified from ITGship. lol

Merry Christmas, and may god bless us all, every one.

I hope this day is good for you and that you get what you wish for as one or more gifts.

If you care to answer, please post here just what was your best gift or experience for today, Christmas 2011.

I think "the natives are getting restless!" here's a sample of comments from the New York City CBS affiliate's website RE Occupy Wall Street and the record breaking [act of God] snowfall[apologies for the formatting]:

"BBONE I hope they all get the flu and expire. October 30, 2011 at 5:27 pm | |
greg they were counting on global warming. October 30, 2011 at 5:37 pm | |
abbeyconway Good one!! oops, now its global cooling….but of course, all man made, er man, woman and transgender made. October 30, 2011 at 5:49 pm | |
carl6352 this is so funny. the first time it has snowed in new york this early right about the time the retards showed up. is mother earth telling them something? i think she is. she’s telling them to go back to the rock they crawled out of and get off the grass. lol instead of let them eat cake i say let them freeze! lol October 30, 2011 at 5:27 pm | |
KTYBOFF Bring on the body bags October 30, 2011 at 5:27 pm | |
Steven Senior Occubaggers are’t[sic] really that bright – mater[sic] of fact pretty darn dim!!!!! HAHA October 30, 2011 at 5:27 pm | |
DawnJ I’d rather give my coats, hats, and gloves to the homeless, not this selfish, irresponsible bunch of brats. October 30, 2011 at 5:26 pm | |
Jim in Houston Maybe they could hock those iPhones and iPads to buy some cots if they are really sincere. October 30, 2011 at 5:31 pm | |
Gene Zucker They’re OWS-souls[sic]! October 30, 2011 at 5:26 pm | |
bumpkin heeheeeheeomigosh! OK. -People! They are TRYING to do something they believe in. Note is has nothing to do with work, uplifting others, or personal accountability, but…”always remember what’s taught is what’s known… the memories of children are written is stone….” (a song) …and, did they get their ideals from their parents? And, did their parents teach them common sense, like when to pull the plug on the ‘bathtub’, and just go home? If they weren’t getting PAID, you KNOW they would be gone. Hey! Maybe they signed a contract that stated if days they leave, they wont get a red cent for all the happy days they spent there- maybe they only get paid MONTHLY for being there! EEEK! October 30, 2011 at 5:34 pm | |
bumpkin heeheeeheeomigosh! OK. -People! They are TRYING to do something they believe in. Note is has nothing to do with work, uplifting others, or personal accountability, but…”always remember what’s taught is what’s known… the memories of children are written is stone….” (a song) …and, did they get their ideals from their parents? And, did their parents teach them common sense, like when to pull the plug on the ‘bathtub’, and just go home? If they weren’t getting PAID, you KNOW they would be gone. Hey! Maybe they signed a contract that stated if they go home early, they wont get paid for the days they leave, they wont get a red cent for all the happy days they spent there- maybe they only get paid MONTHLY for being there! EEEK! (This is what I THOUGHT I was posting… sorry some of it flew into cyberspace, apparently.) Don’t feel sorry for them, but don’t hate them, either. Just avoid their park. Wont be long now till the Mayor builds them a shelter… October 30, 2011 at 5:38 pm | |
Deb Budd With half a million in the bank, why are they asking for donations? Could it be they don’t want to spend their own money but prefer to beg for freebies? This is my surprised face :o October 30, 2011 at 5:26 pm | |
DawnJ Pretty much sums up their entire demonstration. October 30, 2011 at 5:28 pm | |
Sugahdaddy Any good looking hippy chicks can come to my place I’ll keep them warm…but they’ll have to leave with the rest of the trash in the morning. October 30, 2011 at 5:26 pm | |
rightcall Has anyone done an environmental impact study for the short and long term effects these ‘citizens’ are having on the local area? With the weather turning, perhaps some hot tea might be in order? October 30, 2011 at 5:26 pm | |
Temple J Now we break out the water hoses! October 30, 2011 at 5:25 pm | |
blancojoe A large snowplow going right down the middle of the park and then back up will do a nice job of cleaning up the snow and debris. If he misses anything, make several more runs. October 30, 2011 at 5:25 pm | |
Al Right OWS Movement has collected over $500,000 in donations so far, and yet they get angry when the homeless try to eat one of their 5 star chef prepared meals! How about Occupy a Soup Kitchen? Check out more of the stats on OWS at my website. October 30, 2011 at 5:25 pm | |
maggier Call home on your iPhone and ask Mom and Dad for winter stuff. October 30, 2011 at 5:24 pm | |
Robert Marvin Smith The poor pitiful weevils are huddled,( i.e. Occupards) in donated blankets while their cheerleaders, the likes of Michael Moore, Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn, are basking in the warmth of their 1% manisons[sic]. What a dishonest crock of greedy hypocrites. October 30, 2011 at 5:24 pm | |
D Carter Why doesn’t Soros or some other rich liberal pay for their hotel October 30, 2011 at 5:24 pm | |
Swamp Thing Suck it up, trust fund babies. Snow hurts when your nanny isn’t there to take you in for a hot chocolate after your mittens get wet. October 30, 2011 at 5:24 pm | |
Rayban64 Isn’t it ironic how many things they so desperately need that those evil corporations manufacture? October 30, 2011 at 5:23 pm | |
radsupporter hold firm,, huddle together in groups and shout give us back our electricity, block the roads and demand the return of the generators,,the world has heard the message, the corrupt money based upon a screw and optimize[sic] has harmed billions of lifes[sic] and needs to end.[sick?] October 30, 2011 at 5:22 pm | |
Kingfish Best solution is to light one of the protesters on fire, it should keep the rest of them warm for about an 1/2 maybe longer if they layered their clothing. October 30, 2011 at 5:31 pm | |
What's In a Name? This is really rich, the OWS protestors are asking the homeless for cold weather survial tips, after pitching a fit and turning away the homeless because the OWS cooks were tired of feeding the homeless and the OWS crowd wants only their kind taken care of. October 30, 2011 at 5:22 pm | |
lazy losers Notice how 99% of these kids are white and lazy ?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? October 30, 2011 at 5:20 pm | |
Steven Senior Yea – stupid crazy crakers October 30, 2011 at 5:25 pm | |
vera Racist! October 30, 2011 at 5:26 pm | |
Betty Great, now they’ll all get sick and clog up the already overwhelmed ERs. We’ll have to foot the bill while they get back to their mommies’ basements. October 30, 2011 at 5:19 pm | |
Homeless are better I would rather give $$$ to a homeless begger than to a white , middle-class art major who is lazy and full of himself October 30, 2011 at 5:19 pm | |
Robert Marvin Smith The weevils will soon return to the comfort of Moma’s flour cannister. October 30, 2011 at 5:19 pm | |
AngryDunmer Here’s an idea for the OWS bunch: GO HOME! Seriously you idiots, enough is enough. Why the hell aren’t the cops arresting you morons for trespassing? October 30, 2011 at 5:19 pm | |
whosthis They’re asking for donations of warm clothing, blankets, etc. that at this time of the year would usually be going to the poor and homeless. Of course, they made it clear earlier this week that the homeless were not welcome in their free food lines. Looks like there is a hierarchy of the 99 percent. October 30, 2011 at 5:18 pm | |
Rich Torquato And don’t forget, the organization has $500,000 in an evil bank. October 30, 2011 at 5:23 pm | |
Michael Phillips pick up a shovel and make some money .. or are you too lazy to do that , too October 30, 2011 at 5:18 pm |"

Our world now faces a huge water crisis. I'm sharing here some work that helps especially poor and isolated peoples to maintain sanitation while conserving limited potable water. He is promoting Ecological Sanitation EcoSan.

You can find on his blog info about other useful EcoSan methods. Many of these he has designed himself, including simple and cheap systems to capture rainwater and dispense in hand washing stations.

I will post the link for the full article excerpted below. He has another article posted at that link.

Author: Christopher Canaday Affiliation and email: Omaere Ethnobotanical Park, Ecuador, canaday2@gmail.com, www.inodoroseco.blogspot.com

Abstract

Three different models of simple and inexpensive Urine-diverting Dry Toilets (UDDTs) are described: a portable one for squatting made from a barrel, another portable one made from wood and linoleum, and a permanent one for squatting made with palm wood. A simple, portable urinal made from two plastic bottles is also described. These can be made at very low cost, with abundant natural materials, salvaged post-consumer waste, and items that are readily purchased almost anywhere. They may be especially applicable in poor communities, slums, farms, disaster relief camps, and temporary events, plus they may be used to train and screen users before building more elegant UDDTs. With these designs, conversion to UDDTs may be more a matter of paradigm shift than capital investment.

· Urine may be diverted with standard plastic funnels or with ones cut from plastic bottles. · Urine may be stored in bottles for later use as fertilizer or it can be dispersed immediately via perforated hoses (at least in the Amazon) · Feces may be collected in sacks or buckets.

Diseases transmitted via feces, including diarrhea, hepatitis, typhoid, and intestinal worms, constitute one of the biggest threats to human health (Conant and Fadem 2008). Especially vulnerable are the people who live in large agglomerations under unsanitary conditions. In Developing Countries, most wastewater goes straight into the environment without treatment and many people do not even have access to the piped water needed to make such wastewater, so the fecal contamination of their environment is even more direct. Globally, an estimated 40% of people live without basic sanitation (UN-Habitat, 2003).

Urine-diverting Dry Toilets (UDDTs) have much to contribute in improving this situation, especially if they are: ü Very low in cost; ü Easily made from abundantly available (often recycled) materials; and ü (in some cases) Portable.

The UDDT is one technique of Ecological Sanitation (EcoSan), a practice in which excrement can be used as a resource for improving the soil, while applying natural processes to control the potential transmission of diseases (Winblad et al. 2004, Esrey et al. 1998). One of the least logical aspects of modern life is that of taking and purifying huge amounts of water, defecating in a large proportion of it, spending great sums of money to then try to purify it again, but never returning the nutrients to farmland, thus depending more and more on chemical fertilizers that are made and transported with non-renewable fossil fuels. To make things worse, pathogens develop resistance to the chemicals used to treat sewage and substances like antibiotics and artificial hormones cannot reliably be removed or degraded. These are the results of an irrational fear of our own excrement that leads us to do irrational things with it. In contrast, EcoSan is a way to control the real risks involved, and make our excrement safe to be added to the soil. In the case of water, everyone wants it clean, so it is best to simply not contaminate it with excrement.

The goal of this paper is to show that conversion to using UDDTs can be more a matter of shifting paradigms than capital investment. People can learn the concept and apply it on their own, with materials that they already have access to.

Ecological Sanitation (EcoSan) allows peoples who are native/poor to have sanitation without the use of potable water In the next couple of days I will feature a guy who has helped many people by designing and building ecological sanitation. No, I don't agree with some of his ideas. But the EcoSan is pretty cool, it has changed the lives of many people from the poor coastal people of Ecuador to the native peoples of Brazil's western jungle.

EcoSan is intended to answer the question: how do you wash your hands and dispose of human waste when potable water is not available or is just too expensive.

I am posting this "coming attraction" because there may be some in the Lawrence/Haskell/KU community who would find this interesting.

Tune in soon.

2010 was an eventful year for us posters on LJWorld's comment threads and blogs.

What do you remember as the funniest comment or blog of the year? What was the best overall?

---this year included the ejection of one poster at the end of January (He who shall never be named). Remember Macdonalds got double drive through lanes this year! And they're getting another set. Posters on opposite sides of national politics came together on local issues and humor. Sometimes we commenters help the newspaper with it's editing, too.

---And this year we have had Paul Hahn and Chelsea-Dianne join as active bloggers, contributing to our society. DIST has put up insightful provocative blogs. Then, of course there are the "cuzins" who emerge when a story calls for their presence.

---We also gained Whitney Matthews as our Hall Monitor. How often does she regret this job?

---and while some complain about the quality of comments here, complain about the complaining (LOL) etc., one look at other newspaper and news sites' comment spaces shows that we do pretty well here on LJWorld.

---So, what's your funniest or best for 2010?

The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added which are of so extraordinary a nature that they can not fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever-watchful providence of Almighty God.

In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign states to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere, except in the theater of military conflict, while that theater has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union.

Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defense have not arrested the plow, the shuttle, or the ship; the ax has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well as the iron and coal as of our precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege, and the battlefield, and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.

No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.

It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged, as with one heart and one voice, by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow-citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens.

And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the imposition of the Almighty hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it, as soon as may be consistent with the divine purpose, to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility, and union.

Just what was happening in Lawrence nine months ago, less one or two weeks?
[the first 100-characters makes a lousy summary for a blog so don't look here for it, please continue to read until admin fixes this]

I notice seven births announced in today's online edition of the LJWorld.

Nine months ago was Lawrence's Christmas Eve blizzard. Besides today's birth announcements, I have noticed the question of this blog discussed elsewhere. It is great to remember that blizzard from these hot days of August. Police and fire vehicles got badly stuck in the snow. Snow drifted to heights taller than many men. Snow in that depth stayed for weeks. Much of that snow refused to melt for many weeks.

Are we now in a local baby boom? Why am I connecting this to the blizzard?

For those who don't know, it takes nine months for baby to grow in mother's womb to the time of birth, for most babies. For an extended discussion of how the baby gets there, please refer to Wikipedia or Wikileaks or some place else 'cuz that's not where this blog is going.

It seems that perhaps nine months ago Lawrence residents were keeping warm in the most traditional of ways. Forced to stay inside at home. "so simple, a caveman could do it."

Anybody noticing this baby boom?

What do you remember from the Christmas Eve blizzard?

Will your memory have a name on him or her?