Want To Help The People Of Haiti? Try Donating To This Organization

My problem with most humanitarian relief efforts (& indeed, the ones often sponsored by my classmates & on bookface, etc.) is that I am often unable to find out how much of what I donate actually goes to help people. 25%? 95%?

Many of these organizations have so many paid people on staff, better than half of what they take in goes to cover their salaries.

There's one group I trust to use my money carefully--The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

Don't worry. They won't use your donations to proselytize--humanitarian aid and the funds used to support those efforts are kept entirely separate and are often done in conjunction with other groups--a tactic that helps them to assure potential non-LDS donors that they are not using aid to get converts.

Check out this article in the Deseret News.

And see this page for the Church's official press release on their humanitarian involvement and how you can donate.

Mind you, none of this should be taken as an effort to disparage any of the many good groups trying to help Haitians devastated by the earthquake.

This is about finding the most efficient and effective way for those of us thousands of miles away to help the people of Haiti.

If you have tips, questions, comments or suggestions, email me at lybberty@gmail.com.

Isn't Obama, Like, The Awesomest Guy Ever?!

Earlier today I went on a bit of a rant (a thoughtful, caring one) about the mindless, emotion-based support of many Obama backers.

Reader Amanda B. emailed another, recent example, from one of her friends on Facebook.

After your last post, I thought you would get a kick out of this. Just another piece of evidence that Obama voters have no idea what is going on...

This is a recent note posted by a friend on facebook.

Best Quote EVER
"Lately, he's called me a socialist," said Obama. "I don't know what's next. By the end of the week, he will be accusing me of being a secret communist because I shared my toys in kindergarten."
God I love Obama!!!! EVERYONE GET OUT AND VOTE IN THIS ELECTION!!!! ITS IMPORTANT!

She has either has no knowledge of Obama's past voting record [or] she has no idea what socialism is. I have a feeling it's a combination of both.

Yup. These are his supporters. Lots of un-ironic exclamation points.

If Obama says it, it must be true!!!!1!!one!!!


If you have tips, questions, comments or suggestions, email me at lybberty@gmail.com.

Support The Troops

We were recently "tagged" in a Facebook note by our friend and Marine veteran, Mark Patterson (subscription required). Mark called our attention to a paper recently released by the National Veterans Foundation. The NVF's paper highlights veteran's poor education and health benefits.

Patterson writes, "Why is it that our country can find money to bail out banks who gave irresponsible loans but it can't find the money to provide veterans with a fair education benefit?"

We would add, "why is it that our country can find money to bail out foolish borrowers?" It wasn't just banks at fault.

McCain has called for an increase in defense spending from 4% of GDP to 4.5 or 5%. We hope, and McCain has seemed to indicate, that some of this would go to better healthcare treatment for veterans and, we hope, increased education spending.

Patterson first calls increased veteran education benefits "welfare," saying, "while I oppose welfare in principle, I feel that providing a worthwhile GI Bill ... is an incredible investment for our nation." We too oppose welfare in general, but we don't call education spending for veterans welfare, we call it a smart investment in American human capital, as Patterson later labels it.

As it stands, the military attracts intelligent and capable Americans who forego higher pay in other industries because of a patriotic desire to serve. They, along with the less fortunate who rightly see military service as a way to improve their lives, comprise the best armed forces the world has ever seen.

We suspect there are many who, because of family and other concerns, decide not to join up. Perhaps if we took better care of our troops--increasing pay, bettering health care and education benefits--more people would make the decision to serve.


If you have tips, questions, comments, suggestions, or requests for subscription only articles, email us at lybberty@gmail.com.