All posts in Uncategorized

Kris Byus announces the opening of Kris Byus Nationwide Insurance.  Located at 2020 E Franklin Blvd Gastonia, NC 28054.  Make plans to attend the Ribbon Cutting Ceremony on September 9th.

Byus & Associates, Inc. is committed to providing professional insurance services and expertise to their clients. We will seek out the best need based solution while delivering outstanding personal service, promptness, and accuracy with comprehensive and competitive insurance products Read more…

Like

Unlike

There are currently three ways to “vote” for your favorite “Carolina Girl” in the ROCKS MAGAZINE CAROLINA GIRL CELEBRATION. Listed below are instruction on how to vote online at www.rocksmagazine.com and on FACEBOOK. Read more…

Like

Unlike

THE TAMS have been entertaining and thrilling audiences for over 40 years! Known for such hits as “Be Young, Be Foolish, Be Happy”, “What Kind of Fool”, “I’ve Been Hurt” and “Untie Me”, The Tams have had 2 Gold Records, and 1 Platinum Single. “What Kind of Fool” hit #9 on the Billboard charts, and #6 on the R&B charts. “Hey Girl Don’t Bother Me” hit #1 in the UK in 1971. While “Be Young, Be Foolish” only hit #26 on the Top 40, the single sold over 1,000,000 copies, sending it to Platinum status. In 1986, “Ain’t Nothin Like Shaggin’ ” hit #6 in UK Billboard charts, before being banned due to the UK’s definition of “shag”. Though their style of music has historically been referred to as Beach Music, it can be also classified as a mixture of Smooth Soul, and R&B.  Their show is fun, fresh and exciting and appeals to audiences of all ages and musical tastes.

Like

Unlike

Enjoy your 4th of July and continue fighting for the America the founders dreamed of!

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

— John Hancock

New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton

Massachusetts:
John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery

Connecticut:
Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott

New York:
William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris

New Jersey:
Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark

Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross

Delaware:
Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean

Maryland:
Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia:
George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton

North Carolina:
William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn

South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton

Georgia:
Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton

Like

Unlike

Love is but a song to sing
Fear’s the way we die
You can make the mountains ring
Or make the angels cry
Though the bird is on the wing
And you may not know why

I said, Come on people now
Smile on your brother
Everybody get together
Try to love one another
Right now
Right now
Right now

Like

Unlike

repost from NPR reports

Dawn dishwashing detergent is used to clean up just about anything covered with oil — from birds to sea turtles to human skin. But what makes Dawn so effective?

At a warehouse turned bird bathhouse in Venice, La., dozens of bottles of Dawn stand like soldiers behind a row of deep sinks. It takes three people as much as an hour to get the gooey oil off each pelican. They start by rubbing the bird with cooking oil; veterinarian Heather Nevill says that loosens the sticky petroleum. Then one of the crew sprays it with dish liquid.

“She’s scrubbing very vigorously, getting her fingertips under the feathers to really agitate the feathers in the water,” Nevill says. “It’s that action of getting the detergent into the feathers that really removes the oil.”

The bird is covered with a lot of suds.

“We’re using very heavy concentrations of Dawn because this crude oil has become very weathered, and it’s very difficult to remove,” Nevill adds.

When asked whether they have to use Dawn, Nevill replies, “Dawn definitely works the best. It very effectively removes grease but does not cause harm to the skin of the birds.”

Nevill and the rest of the workers at the International Bird Rescue Research Center sound like walking commercials for Dawn. And that’s not new.

NPR’s Daniel Zwerdling discovered this when he interviewed the group’s founder, Alice Berkner, during the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster in Alaska.

Zwerdling joked, “You’re going to get letters from Ivory and the other companies.”

“I hate to sound like an advertisement,” Berkner said, “but I won’t allow any substitutes for Dawn.”

And in the BP spill, Dawn isn’t just for birds. Even boat captains swear by it.

Kirk Prest, who ferries biologists through the oily waters, says he uses Dawn all the time.

“Just to clean my hands several times during the day,” Prest says. “It cuts the oil the best out of the different soaps. I would say most of the folks working this cleanup know that.”

Even before the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, Procter & Gamble was using Dawn’s oil spill credentials to sell its detergent. It also has raised $500,000 for wildlife groups.

Dawn spokeswoman Susan Baba says all the attention Dawn is receiving because of the spill helps get out the message that Dawn is a strong cleaner with a gentle touch.

“This tension between toughness and mildness has always been something that’s kind of challenging to communicate to consumers,” Baba says. “So in a communications standpoint, it’s been great.”

She says the reason Dawn is so good at cleaning birds without hurting them is that it was designed to erase grease from dishes without harming hands. The exact formula is a secret, but she says the key is balancing the surfactants — the chemicals that cut the grease.

What the company doesn’t advertise — and these days is reluctant to admit — is that the grease-cutting part of the potion is made from petroleum.

“To make the best product out there, you have to have some in there,” says Ian Tholking of Procter & Gamble. He says less than one-seventh of Dawn comes from petroleum.

“To say Dawn’s horrible because of this, that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense,” he says, “and that’s what we’re trying to avoid. Because we’re not trying to do something evil here.”

“I think it’s extremely ironic,” says Martin Wolf, a chemist for Seventh Generation, which makes a dish liquid without petroleum. “Here we are trying to squeeze every last drop of oil we can out of the Earth, and it’s despoiling the Earth. And we’re using that same product that’s messing up the Earth to clean it up.”

Wolf says his company sent a truckload of oil-free detergent to the gulf, but he hasn’t heard whether anyone has used it.

Veterinarian Nevill says she knows there are greener cleaners, but she says none of them have Dawn’s magic. Asked whether she has a special connection to Dawn now, and whether she uses it at home, Nevill laughs, “You’re not supposed to ask questions like that to an eco-hippie.”

Besides, Nevill says, Procter & Gamble donates tons of the sudsy stuff, so she has a lot of it left over around the house.

Like

Unlike

By  Brian Shepherd

I’m heading down to Atlanta  to see the Braves and Tampa Bay.  Two first place teams that I think could meet again in the world series?  Yes…

Enough about sports, let’s talk about the biggest news story today.  Of course it’s the release of Tom Petty’s new album, Mojo!  I can’t wait!

Here’s my U.S Open prediction…..  Pebble Beach is the perfect setting for a Tiger/Phil final.     Big Surprise!!!

Shep

Like

Unlike