Shaun Kenney

Fascinating thought:

Kaiser Wilhelm’s court allegedly made up its mind after the Social Democrats (then Marxists) won a Reichstag majority in 1912, seeing war as a way to contain radical dissent.

This assessment was tragically correct. War split the Social Democrats irrevocably, allowing the Nazis to exploit a divided Left under Weimar.

Problem #1:  The Chinese Politburo doesn’t have to worry about dissent.

The Fischer version of events is a little too reassuring, and not just because the Entente allies had already fed Germany’s self-fulfilling fears of encirclement and emboldened Tsarist Russia to push its luck in the Balkans. A deeper cause was at work.

“The only condition which could lead to improvement of German-English relations would be if we bridled our economic development, and this is not possible,” said Deutsche Bank chief Karl Helfferich as early as 1897. German steel output jumped tenfold from 1880 to 1900, leaping past British production. Sound familiar?

Problem #2:  Days it takes to start a small business in the United States?  Four.  Days it takes to start a small business in China?  Forty five.  Not to mention that China is preciously thin on other vital resources…

Is China now where Germany was in 1900? Possibly. There are certainly hints of menace from some quarters in Beijing. Defence minister Liang Guanglie said over New Year that China’s armed forces are “pushing forward preparations for military conflict in every strategic direction”.

Problem #3:  China’s ability to project force is a fraction of the United States.  China’s GDP is on par with Japan, Britain, France, and Germany.  Furthermore, the Chinese are surrounded by governments wary of the direction of the PRC — South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, India, and despite all outward appearances to the contrary, Russia.

Professor Huang Jing from Singapore’s Lee Kwan Yew School and a former adviser to China’s Army, said Beijing is losing its grip on the colonels.

“The young officers are taking control of strategy and it is like young officers in Japan in the 1930s. This is very dangerous. They are on a collision course with a US-dominated system,” he said.

There’s a reason why China is pursuing stability above all other factors.  They know, as we know, that they will inevitably lose any future conflict.  Soft power by opening up the world’s largest consumer market is the key to any future prosperity.

Look what I found! You sometimes wonder how many of these websites are floating around, completely unknown to the rest of us. This crew is certainly conservative, with a radio show, and going strong for four years.

Reminds me of when I finally “discovered” the Virginia political blogosphere. Had been blogging for three years, then stumbled upon a world I barely knew existed.

My wife gets a phone call this afternoon. The script runs about how this lady had a terrible time getting into work this AM in Indiana, but she got there OK — but thousands of kids died that morning who were not OK.

…would ya like to make a pledge?

We give the standard response that most folks should give when you don’t know about the organization — send me something in the mail and I’ll consider the request.

Instead of honoring that, my wife is transfered to a closer.

“So, that’ll be a $15 monthly pledge, right?”
No… just send something in the mail.
“But you pledged to help? Don’t you want to help kids?”
Sure I do, just send something in the mail.
“I don’t understand — why did you talk to me if you didn’t want to keep your word and donate to the kids?”
Just send something in the m–
“But kids will DIE if you don’t keep your pledge!”

At which point, I snatched the phone away and barked at the caller. I do this for a living. If you’re looking for pledges, send something in the mail. Don’t badger the donor into making a donation they aren’t comfortable doing. Then the guy had the audacity to try to sell me on the pledge. Seriously?! That took about 15 seconds of my time.

Understandably, I was outraged. It’s called development, not hustling — and for a reason. So I decided to do a bit of research on the organization thinking this was a bit of a scam (just like the “Police Protective Fund” back in the day).

First, the organization Children’s Wish Foundation International does indeed exist. It gets a Charity Navigator Ration of zero, rakes in $11 million a year (how many trips to Disney World for a sick kid is that, really?) and pays it’s top two staff members salaries of $215K and $180K respectively — about 3.6% of what gets raked in (oh yes — they are husband and wife too). According to this short little blurb on Atlanta Unfiltered:

This couple (husband and wife) made this much as CEO & executive director of the Atlanta-based Children’s Wish Foundation International. The charity in 2007 spent 60 percent of its income on fund-raising and 20 percent on granting wishes.

The American Institute of Philanthropy has some concerns as well.

The website looks slick enough, but with a just a little bit of research, it’s no small wonder why their telemarketers weren’t very keen on passing along information. Yes yes… it’s the internet. Anyone can say something stupid and moronic about any organization online. Had the telemarketers been more concerned with developing this donor rather than playing stick-em-up with my wife, they might have squeezed a $10 donation out of me (in the mail).

Instead, I merely pass on my opinion and experience with Children’s Wish Foundation (which is not the Make-a-Wish Foundation) and allow others to come to their own conclusions, for good or ill.

Although it is disheartening that there are some exploitative charities out there, I also want to use this blog post as an opportunity to point you in the direction of some fundraising organizations such as Chipotle online fundraisers that are doing incredible things for those in need. And they come in different forms too to make it exciting for all kinds of people. Each different type of fundraising event attracts different people and if they enjoy themselves then they are more likely to donate to your cause. If you head to the GoFundMe website, you can find a list of some of the amazing charities out there that are doing brilliant work. Take a look and let me know your thoughts.

UPDATE: It gets worse. From the USA Today:

A Georgia-based charity, Children’s Wish Foundation International, awaits an expected hearing later this spring on civil allegations that its top officials improperly spent tens of thousands of dollars on luxury trips to England, Switzerland and the Caribbean. The complaint, filed by Pennsylvania charity regulators, also accuses Children’s Wish of inflating the value of toys, books and other supplies donated to Ronald McDonald House Charities.

I’d stay away from this one, folks.

UPDATE x2 (October 2012): Because folks continue to lean on my experience with Children’s Wish Foundation International, I thought this might be interesting to pass along. Apparently in February 2011, Children’s Wish Foundation lost a court case against their own auditor:

CWF’s financial statements were not accurate. The records showed that CWF had received 17 pallets of a particular book when, in fact, it had received only seven pallets of books. The problem arose because the quantity of each gift in kind contributed by CWF was calculated by subtracting the number of pallets of the item remaining in CWF’s inventory from the beginning number of pallets shown on the spreadsheet. Mayer Hoffman assumed the beginning number of each gift in kind shown on the spreadsheet was the quantity of the item received by CWF. In fact, the beginning number of each gift in kind shown on the spreadsheet was the quantity of the item ordered. Compounding the problem was the fact that CWF sometimes received fewer pallets of an item than it had ordered and did not have a process in place to record these discrepancies. The mistaken use of the quantity of each gift in kind ordered versus received as the “starting point” for calculating the quantity of each gift in kind contributed resulted in an overstatement of the value of gift in kind contributions on CWF’s financial statements by approximately $1.31 million.

Now apparently, these guys have been doing some pretty effective seo (search engine optimization) lately, as the good articles are floating to the top of a Google search. This just shows how effective it is when a business or organization follows seo best practices. To get to the top of a Google search is always the aim.

But with just a tiny bit more digging… well, you get stuff like this.

And this. And this. And this. And this. And this (a U.S. Senate investigation?!?!).

Stay far… far away from this one, folks.

UPDATE x3 (November 2013): Folks, this has to be one of the most enduring posts I have written. So many people have e-mailed or contacted me (or commented) on the malignancy of this organization, I’m very glad to see the number of people who have felt similarly and just haven’t known where to turn.

To that end, Fox5 Atlanta did a story on Children’s Wish Foundation that absolutely nails it. I could not more highly recommend this story… Randy Travis over at Fox 5 does a fantastic job.

I find it almost shocking that the managers of this charity (1) rake in over $200,000 in salary and (2) that they were unwilling to even so much as go on camera to discuss their fundraising operations. Yes, there are some excellent charities out there that do indeed get scammed by fundraisers. There are some great fundraisers out there working for horrible charities, too.

But when they work together? Everyone loses. That’s wrong.

UPDATE x4 (October 2014): Guess who made the list of the 8 Most Corrupt Charities in the United States?

Children’s Wish Foundation International is one of several charities that mimic the name and the mission of the well-established Make-A-Wish Foundation in Arizona. Children’s Wish reported that it spent about $600,000 granting wishes to terminally ill children in 2010 and gave them donated goods valued at $3 million. It paid professional fundraisers nearly $6 million for their services that year.

$63 million to the fundraisers, $200,000 in salary, and only $10 million towards actually helping children… and still folks are getting roped in.

It all started with this dumb comment from Eric Fuller, one of the victims of the shooter in Tuscon, given to Democracy NOW and picked up by Politico:

“Their [Sarah Palin, Glen Beck and John Boehner] wish for Second Amendment activism has been fulfilled — senseless hatred leading to murder, lunatic fringe anarchism…”

…and it turned into a short discussion on Foucault, continental philosophy, and the differences between Burkean and Thomistic understandings of conservatism.  From my comments:

Burke’s prescriptions only go halfway though. Most conservatives in America would argue that our rights and liberties can never be surrendered to government. In fact, government is designed to protect those rights, and any so-called “rights” we would infer that government prohibits aren’t really liberties at all, but license opposed to liberty just as surely as tyranny is.

If you believe that, then congratulations. You are an adherent to Catholic natural law philosophy, and in a long tradition of thinkers and saints who have believed the same for centuries.

Jim Hoeft runs a great public square over at Bearing Drift.  Glad to be a part of it — where else can you get Virginia politics, philosophy, policy, and the occasional sports commentary all under one roof???

On Friday morning, I came out of a briefing with several members of Fluvanna County staff and members of the school system.  The details of these numbers will be made more public at a Board of Supervisors presentation in February, but it will be safe to say that none of the numbers that will emerge will surprise those who have been sounding the alarm for the past five years.

One of the real questions in the statistical forecasting done by Robinson, Farmer & Cox is the condition of the local economy — one which at the moment, is entirely dependent upon the homeowners.  This report from Strong Team Realtors may give the slight indication of hope, but it is based largely on the sale of foreclosures and homes whose housing prices have been cut.  In other words, when we see a slight uptick in the median price, that’s not because your $450K home increased in value… it’s because the $450K home is being sold for $205K rather than $200K.

While it’s not the prettiest picture in the world, there are several strong advantages for Fluvanna in the near term.

First, though the tax credit for new homes did expire, our location is giving every indication that we’re starting to bottom out for the moment.

Second, the Zion Crossroads location is still doing remarkably well on the Louisa side of the fence.  Should we choose to develop this well and not allow internal fiscal pressures to wreck it, this will be a long term and sustainable (I really hate that word because it is so politically charged, but I’ve yet to find one better) approach to developing the Zion Crossroads interchange, as well as a long-term look towards the Ferncliff exit as well.

Lastly, we still need to be fostering a greater appreciation for the sort of entrepreneurship that doesn’t require water pipelines, sewer treatment plants, and other such massive infrastructure investments.  Agribusiness is one good start, but creating the conditions for people to become their own producers rather than strict consumers — i.e. work and live locally — is where we need to start aggressively focusing our efforts.  That starts with making sure there’s a robust system of workforce education, liberating some of the more strict ordinances that prevent property owners from doing business, and creating a workable system of local microfinance would be “thinking outside of the box” for a change.  And it will work.

The question still remains whether the sticker shock of fixing the problems of the past is going to force Fluvanna to recoil at the very prospect of doing something to prevent it from happening again?  I don’t have that answer… but I’ll do my best to make sure we have the conversation.

Good article from the Daily Progress concerning the very delicate issue of determining a statute of limitations on sexual abuse cases concerning pedophile or pederast priests

Caruso said Catholic Church leaders in Virginia don’t plan to point to a specific year as an appropriate civil statute of limitations. However, he noted that about 30 states have a civil statute of limitations of two to five years for child sex abuse cases.

“There’s only six states that have a statute of limitations of 25 years or greater, and of the remainder, the majority of those fall in the seven to 10 years range,” Caruso said. “Rather than pointing to a specific number, I think that this survey of what other states do in this area really kind of presents a reasonable context.”

Caruso said that the Richmond and Arlington dioceses have implemented mandatory background checks for employees and volunteers. There’s also been “safe environment” training, and there’s a requirement to report abuse to law enforcement.

Del. David Albo, R-Fairfax County, filed the House bill to extend the civil statute of limitations to 25 years. However, he said that Caruso presented a compelling case for a smaller window.

“They’re probably right,” Albo said. “If it was 25 years it creates a problem, because what if you discovered it when you were 40? And then you have 25 more years? You’d be trialing a case 55 years after the event happened. And witnesses pass away. People forget [things].”

This is not an easy issue to sort out.  On one hand, there’s your traditional anti-Catholicism running amok that just wants to stick it to the Catholic Church.  On the other hand, this is not an isolated problem.

According to the 2004 study “the most accurate data available at this time” indicates that “nearly 9.6 percent of students are targets of educator sexual misconduct sometime during their school career.”

“Educator sexual misconduct is woefully under-studied,” writes the researcher. “We have scant data on incidence and even less on descriptions of predators and targets. There are many questions that call for answers.”

In an article published on Monday, renowned Catholic commentator George Weigel referred to the Shakeshaft study, and observed that “The sexual and physical abuse of children and young people is a global plague” in which Catholic priests constitute only a small minority of perpetrators.

So where does the line get drawn?  And is the problem one of pedophilia or pederasty?  Rather than treating the symptoms of the problem in a legal fashion, how do we find a way to fix the problem at its source?  We can’t remove children from the classroom or priests/pastors from congregations.

It is appreciative to see that Virginia’s legislators and members of the faith community are dealing with the problem without rushing the job and creating worse monsters.  As the late Fr. Richard John Neuhaus put it, this is an issue of fidelity, fidelity, fidelity all the way through.

The bill to legalize your weekly poker game at home? Died this week.

Much like treating poker halls like bingo halls, I have never quite understood the hostility towards gaming in Virginia. This isn’t to say I’m the whole hog for legalized gambling, but having seen the real compelling reason why poker halls can’t operate like other games of chance in Virginia. Despite it being illegal in a lot of countries, it’s clear that many of the public still make use of the online gambling casinos that can be found at 우리카지노 and other websites similar. With high numbers of people still using online casinos, it doesn’t seem to matter that much whether it’s legal or not. People will always find ways to gain access to gambling sites.

In all honesty, why can’t they put the bill through and legalize certain games of chance? Have you seen the number of countries and other states that are legalizing gambling, either using casinos of a past era or online via many different online games. There are still the fan favorites such as poker, roulette, blackjack, there are still numerous slot games to play, as well as so much more thanks to technology and the internet. The only difference is there are SO many versions of these different games offered via online casinos now. That only serves to increase the enjoyment of the customer, no? Either way, as long as the money, and the bets involved, are legitimate and can be regulated and taxed, why not let people try their luck at winning it big? Due to the nature of the internet, this then means all players from new that might need to read certain game rules using resources like this with more or less everything you need to know from w88, to the likes of professional poker players, can gamble while enjoying their downtime in a relaxed environment such as their home.

Thoughts on the uprising of online gambling and casinos? Are you a fan or can you go without?

Once can only hope so. The WaPo muses on its decline from the forefront of politics in Virginia, while sidestepping the controversy over Lee-Jackson Day:

McDonnell famously proclaimed last April “Confederate History Month” without a mention of slavery and then responded to the subsequent uproar by apologizing and renaming it “Civil War History Month.” (That, of course, is a special insult to the Sons, who refer to the conflict “so often mislabeled the Civil War” by any name but.) Since then, McDonnell’s gone to pains to acknowledge Virginia’s complicated racial history.

Allen appears to be mounting a run to reclaim the Senate seat he lost in 2006. While he had until that point carefully cultivated a tobacco-chewing, gun-toting, Confederate flag-bearing good-old-boy image dating back to high school, it backfired on him with the 2006 “macaca” controversy. And in the course of performing damage control, he had said some things the Sons couldn’t forget, even years later.

For instance: “Even if your heart is pure, the things you say and do and the symbols you use matter because of how others may take them” – others, meaning those who aren’t Sons of Confederate Veterans.

Personally, I really don’t care whether you fly a Confederate flag or not.  And yes, the flag is a part of Virginia’s history.  That we should continue to honor the legacy on the values for which the Confederacy emereged?  The values for which it stood for?  The men whose property in chattel slavery they wanted to protect?

I can only imagine the history of South Africa being replayed on the North American continent had the South ever emerged independent on the basis of slavery.  Martin Luther King Jr. might very well have been our Nelson Mandela.  But I digress…

Virginia’s history is littered with abuses against the rights of others, from the mass genocide of native tribes, to the Triangle Trade, eugenics, segregation, Jim Crow, and Massive Resistance.

There’s very little in that history to honor as a polity when contrasted with all of Virginia’s incredible accomplishments — the birth of American democracy, the oldest representative body in North America, our Founding Fathers, the Northwest Cession, institutions such as the University of Virginia and VMI, the shipyards at Hampton Roads, and the thousands of young minds and great minds that have impacted American society.

To honor them all takes only one flag… that of the Commonwealth.

Bart Hinkle over at the RTD asks the question:

So, which is worse: Referring to Obamacare as “a job killer,” or suggesting that those opposed to it, for whatever reason, are “willing to cause the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people”? I’m just saying maybe we need a stylebook update. . . .

Damn good question…

The Persian Gulf War begins.

…and 20 years later, we’re still fighting the same war.