A suggestion http://www.elca.org/Who-We-Are/Our-Three-Expressions/Churchwide-Organization/Communication-Services/News/Releases.aspx?a=4723
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Japan and Charity.
There is no doubt that the whole world needs to respond to the tragedy in Japan with compassion and generous charity. To what organization should you contribute? May I suggest that you contribute your money to your Church's world relief organization. The Red Cross is a good group but remember that they pay high salaries, get government subsidies and that your money is only refilling coffers expended in the crisis. I am not against RC but suggest that your money may be better contributed to the Roman Catholic,Methodist, Presbyterian, Baptist, etc. organizations that will be there for the people of Japan in the long term. I recently read that for every dollar contributed to the Church based organizations, 93 cents gets to the intended recipient. I read that for many other groups the range is between 66 and 77 cents on the dollar actually gets to the recipient. Where do the remaining pennies on the dollar go? They go for staff salaries and advertising!
Friday, March 11, 2011
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Ohio Law expands the Popular Revolt Against Tyranical Unions.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Ohio-union-plan-like-rb-215366419.html?x=0&sec=topStories&pos=3&asset=&ccode=
The Ohio statue for limiting the negotiation privileges of Public Employee Unions is the second in a popular and publicly supported wave for Responsible Government. The problem with having Unions for government employees is that the Unions apply their money to the support of candidates that favor them. This results in a closed and circular system. The Unions automatically support Democrat candidates who in turn are obligated to support Unions. This means that an agency of government is obligated to support a fraction of the population ad versus the rest of the non unionized population. The result is a prejudice against the non unionized in favor of the unionized. This prejudice uses favorable actions of the Executive and legislative branch to singularly favor unions and thereby exclude the majority population which is non union. This prejudice of the government in favor of the unionized means that the majority population, which is non union, is required by the law to pay for the wages, benefits and pensions of the minority. As President Obama is fond of saying, he wants to spread the wealth around. However, he is reaching into the pockets of lower paid non union workers in order to pay the higher wages, pensions and benefits that the unionized workers receive. This is unfair, since the non unionized have not voluntarily agreed to do this but are forced to pay for the unionized by legislation and the tax code. The preferential treatment of one category of people against the interests of another category of persons is coercive and it seems to this writer to be a civil rights issue. How does this play as a civil rights issue. Simply! A citizens should not be required to pay for the higher wages, higher benefits and higher pensions of another group of citizens.
The Ohio statue for limiting the negotiation privileges of Public Employee Unions is the second in a popular and publicly supported wave for Responsible Government. The problem with having Unions for government employees is that the Unions apply their money to the support of candidates that favor them. This results in a closed and circular system. The Unions automatically support Democrat candidates who in turn are obligated to support Unions. This means that an agency of government is obligated to support a fraction of the population ad versus the rest of the non unionized population. The result is a prejudice against the non unionized in favor of the unionized. This prejudice uses favorable actions of the Executive and legislative branch to singularly favor unions and thereby exclude the majority population which is non union. This prejudice of the government in favor of the unionized means that the majority population, which is non union, is required by the law to pay for the wages, benefits and pensions of the minority. As President Obama is fond of saying, he wants to spread the wealth around. However, he is reaching into the pockets of lower paid non union workers in order to pay the higher wages, pensions and benefits that the unionized workers receive. This is unfair, since the non unionized have not voluntarily agreed to do this but are forced to pay for the unionized by legislation and the tax code. The preferential treatment of one category of people against the interests of another category of persons is coercive and it seems to this writer to be a civil rights issue. How does this play as a civil rights issue. Simply! A citizens should not be required to pay for the higher wages, higher benefits and higher pensions of another group of citizens.
Wisconsin Governor Doing a Courageous Job.
Governing is not a popularity contest. The Governor and the Government of a State should not be treated like an American Idol Game show. The Governor is doing his job as best he sees it. He wants to end the brutal downward spiral of the State's economy, to stop the interest payments bleed which will eventually kill Wisconsin, and to bring honest accountability to government. It is amazing that there is no outcry from the media concerning the democrat representatives who have run away from their jobs. At the federal level, the last Congress of the USA faced an unprecedented show of force by President Obama. He offered legislators money, kickbacks, perks and political promises including campaign money, resources and his appearance at their rallies. Obama delivered on his promises for pork barrel spending to the Senators he purchased and he used Air Force One, the nation's Jet to fly to dozens of rallies, (five alone in NJ) to support those he owned. The cost of the jet for one use is minimally $180,000 per one way flight. So to support NJ democrat candidates cost the US Treasury $1,800,000 taxpayer dollars! You do the math for all the Obama Campaign trips. I think he could give Wisconsin that money and solve their money problem. Oh, I forgot, we are talking about "do as I say and not as I do" Obama! Is this man ever going to stop scolding the citizens of USA? I think not until 2012 when he's let go. By the way, during the onslaught of Obama/Reid/Pelosi, the Republicans did not run away from their jobs. Although they were totally ignored by the majority democrats, the republicans stayed, spoke out, proposed viable alternatives and valiantly tried to use the art of persuasion and sound reasoning to win the fight. Obama, Reid, Pelosi, the Unions and the bribes were too much and the democrats won the battle but as evidenced by the 2010 election, they may have lost the war.
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Sunday, January 2, 2011
Gays Have a Right to Combat Duty.
Okay. Gays are in. So let us make sure that they have all the rights and privileges to which they are entitled as members of the military. That means they should be and must be assigned to combat arms units. It also means that all openly gay persons be allowed their right to be deployed to the theater of war, to face the enemy face to face as every other member of the military does. After all, this Don't Ask, Don't tell, is not about getting the same sex partner monetary benefits. It is not about being sure that the same sex partner gets survivor benefits if the same sex spouse is killed in a car accident. It is not about ensuring that the married same sex partner gets the right to half of the member's retirement benefits. What we have been fighting so hard to get is the right of the gay, lesbian, trans gender, same sex oriented person... to give them their right to serve openly in the military. As President Obama said, "It is time to close this chapter in our history,..It is time to recognize that sacrifice, valor and integrity are no more defined by sexual orientation than they are by race or gender, religion or creed." Therefore, assuming that the President is correct in the assumption that gays and others want to sacrifice for their country then we are compelled to assure that they have all of the rights and privileges they so feverishly covet which definitely includes armed combat in the forward battlefields of America's wars. It would be a terrible crime to admit our heroic gay members into the ranks of the military and relegate them to mere desk jobs at headquarters and the Pentagon. Such jobs are demeaning to these fine men and women who have struggled so forcefully for the right to sacrificial service. In such jobs our gay service members would be required to shuffle administrative paperwork which decides the career path of combat arms personnel. At such headquarters jobs we would put our gay members into the military office ghetto where all they would be allowed to do is decide the promotion eligibility of those deployed to the field of battle. As well meaning as Senator Mc Cain may be, he is absolutely wrong to think of refusing our female and gay service members their right to serve in a war zone and a combat arms unit. All blood runs red on the battlefield and every one must be given their chance as President Obama said, "It is time to recognize that sacrifice, valor and integrity are no more defined by sexual orientation than they are by race or gender, religion or creed." Hooray, no more getting out of combat because I am gay. Bravo, no more getting out of deployment because I am pregnant. Three cheers for our gay, trans-gender, lesbian and other sex orientations. We should applaud their struggle to be allowed to lay down their lives on the field of armed conflict. Let's all keep this in mind as this law is implemented. It would be terrible discrimination to implement it in such a way that only married men with families and children can fight. It would be a crime to assert that only heterosexual people are allowed to die for their country. Equality for all. Make your voice known, that you want full and equal rights for our gay members and that you refuse to allow them to be relegated to the ghetto of office work, administrative duty and stay in America jobs.
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