So true! I really don't understand why Americans are not in the streets protesting this communist takeover of our government. You are right, the people have no power. The elections are decided before one vote is cast, and no politician cares what is good for the country. They go along to get along, so they can stay in D.C. and become extremely wealthy. Seems they will do anything, vote for anything, and look the other way, just to keep all their benefits coming. They don't even care that there is an illegal moozie that is posing as president.

...almost. I've been using the Q-strap for almost a year now on a daily basis and have had no complaints, until this morning. I was walking down my front steps when the unthinkable happened. My camera fell straight down two and a half feet and hit the step lens first. The lens shade absorbed almost all of the impact and aside from the battery door popping off (easily fixed) the camera apparently sustained no damage. I've tested all the functions and can find nothing wrong. Of course the lens shade needs to be replaced, which is a lot better than replacing the camera.
What happened was that the swivel on the caribiner wore down to the point where it spontaneously separated from the ring that the strap goes through. I've e-mailed Q-strap to make them aware of the problem. Just a warning to any of you Hedghogs who use the Q-strap or any other similar shoulder strap, if the swivel doesn't operate freely, replace it. Check it frequently and ALWAYS use your lens shade.

today'sFUNNY===========================

When I was a kid adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious diatribes
about how hard things were when they were growing up.

What with walking twenty-five miles to school every morning uphill both ways
through year 'round blizzards carrying their younger siblings on their backs to
their one-room schoolhouse where they maintained a straight-A average despite
their full-time after-school job at the local textile mill where they worked for
35 cents an hour just to help keep their family from starving to death!

And I remember promising myself that when I grew up there was no way I was going
to lay that on kids about how hard I had it and how easy they've got it!

But ...

Now that I've reached the ripe old age of thirty, I can't help but look around
and notice the youth of today.

You've got it so easy! I mean, compared to my childhood, you live in a Utopia!
And I hate to say it but you kids today don't know how good you've got it!

I mean, when I was a kid we didn't have the Internet. If we wanted to know
something, we had to go to the library and look it up ourselves!

And there was no email! We had to actually write somebody a letter, with a pen!
And then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the mailbox
and it would take like a week to get there!

And there were no MP3s or Napsters! If you wanted to steal music, you had to go
to the record store and shoplift it yourself! Or, we had to wait around all day
to tape it off the radio and the DJ would usually talk over the beginning and
mess it all up!

You want to hear about hardship?

We didn't have fancy stuff like Call Waiting! If you were on the phone and
somebody else called, they got a busy signal!

And we didn't have fancy Caller ID Boxes either! When the phone rang, you had no
idea who it was, it could be your boss, your Mom, a collections agent, you
didn't know!!!

You just had to pick it up and take your chances, mister!

And we didn't have any fancy Sony Playstation videogames with high-resolution
3-D graphics!

We had the Atari 2600! With games like "Space Invaders" and "Asteroids"! Your
guy was a little square! You had to use your imagination! And there were no
multiple levels or screens, it was just one screen forever!

And you could never win, the game just kept getting harder and faster until you
died!

Just like LIFE!

When you went to the movie theater, there was no such thing as stadium seating!
All the seats were the same height! If a tall guy sat in front of you, you
watched his hairstyle!

And sure, we had cable television, but back then that was only like 20 channels
and there was no onscreen menu! You had to use a little book called a TV Guide
to find out what was on!

And there was no Cartoon Network! You could only get cartoons on Saturday
morning... D'ya hear what I'm saying!?!

We had to wait ALL WEEK!

That's exactly what I'm talking about! You kids today have got it too easy.
You're spoiled!

You guys wouldn't last five minutes back in 1984!

Indirectly, letmedance. While the Japanese successfully initiated reforms, the Chinese tried and failed. This set in motion a series of events and a burning desire among the masses to emulate the Japanese successes, a trend that later facilitated Mao's ability to lead the Chinese people out of feudalism into a more modern era, albeit at tremendous cost to the old way of life and almost irreversible damage to ancient cultural institutions. The Chinese think in terms of centuries and millennia, unlike the West, so for them (as perhaps appreciated by some western scholars), reform, revolution and democracy is a 'work in progress'. That this is a cyclic process I have no doubts whatsoever. Sixty years ago, China and India were roughly at par. Today, India is way behind. The less said of 'democracy' in India, the better...I'm not dancing for joy, either.