I would rather live my life as if there is a God, and die to find out there isn’t, than live my life as if there isn’t, and die to find out there is!


Sunday, May 4, 2014

Do you think they will listen? Bill Schoonover Letter to his Senators



You can be Republican, Democrat, Liberal, Conservative, Independent or Libertarian and I bet this will hit a nerve.

This gentleman is obviously quite smarter than the two senators he sent it to. All I can say is amen to everything he said. A very articulate letter sent to the two U.S. Senators from Washington State


Senator Patty Murray
Senator Maria Cantwell
Washington , DC , 20510

Dear Senator:

I have tried to live by the rules my entire life. My father was a
Command Sergeant Major , U.S. Army, who died of combat related stresses
shortly after his retirement. It was he who instilled in me those
virtues he felt important - honesty, duty, patriotism and obeying the
laws of God and of our various governments. I have served my country,
paid my taxes, worked hard, volunteered and donated my fair share of
money, time and artifacts.

Today, as I approach my 79th birthday, I am heart-broken when I look
at my country and my government. I shall only point out a very few
things abysmally wrong which you can multiply by a thousand fold. I
have calculated that all the money I have paid in income taxes my
entire life cannot even keep the Senate barbershop open for one year!
Only Heaven and a few tight-lipped actuarial types know what the
Senate dining room costs the taxpayers. So please, enjoy your haircuts
and meals on us.

Last year, the president spent an estimated 1.4 $billion on himself
and his family. The vice president spends $millions on hotels. They
have had 8 vacations so far this year! And our House of
Representatives and Senate have become America 's answer to the Saudi
royal family. You have become the "perfumed princes and princesses" of
our country.

In the middle of the night, you voted in the Affordable Health Care
Act, a.k.a. "Obama Care," a bill which no more than a handful of
senators or representatives read more than several paragraphs, crammed
it down our throats, and then promptly exempted yourselves from it
substituting your own taxpayer-subsidized golden health care
insurance.

You live exceedingly well, eat and drink as well as the "one
percenters," consistently vote yourselves perks and pay raises while
making 3.5 times the average U.S. individual income, and give up
nothing while you (as well as the president and veep) ask us to
sacrifice due to sequestration (for which, of course, you plan to
blame the Republicans, anyway).

You understand very well the only two rules you need to know - (1) How
to get elected, and (2) How to get re-elected. And you do this with
the aid of an eagerly willing and partisan press, speeches permeated
with a certain economy of truth, and by buying the votes of the
greedy, the ill-informed and under-educated citizens (and
non-citizens, too, many of whom do vote ) who are looking for a
handout rather than a job. Your so-called "safety net" has become a
hammock for the lazy. And, what is it now, about 49 or 50 million on
food stamps - pretty much all Democrat voters - and the program is
absolutely rife with fraud with absolutely no congressional oversight?

I would offer that you are not entirely to blame. What changed you is
the seductive environment of power in which you have immersed
yourselves. It is the nature of both houses of Congress which requires
you to subordinate your virtue in order to get anything done until you
have achieved a leadership role. To paraphrase President Reagan, it
appears that the second oldest profession (politics), bears a
remarkably strong resemblance to the oldest.

As the hirsute first Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton (1834 -
1902), English historian and moralist, so aptly and accurately stated,
"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great
men are almost always bad men." I'm only guessing that this applies to
the female sex as well. Tell me, is there a more corrupt entity in
this country than Congress?

While we middle class people continue to struggle, our government
becomes less and less transparent, more and more bureaucratic, and
ever so much more dictatorial, using Czars and Secretaries to tell us
(just to mention a very few) what kind of light bulbs we must
purchase, how much soda or hamburgers we can eat, what cars we can
drive, gasoline to use, and what health care we must buy. Countless
thousands of pages of regulations strangle our businesses costing the
consumer more and more every day.

As I face my final year, or so, with cancer, my president and my
government tell me "You'll just have to take a pill," while you,
Senator, your colleagues, the president, and other exulted government
officials and their families will get the best possible health care on
our tax dollars until you are called home by your Creator while also
enjoying a retirement beyond my wildest dreams, which of course, you
voted for yourselves and we pay for.

The chances of you reading this letter are practically zero as your
staff will not pass it on, but with a little luck, a form letter
response might be generated by them with an auto signature applied,
hoping we will believe that you, our senator or representative, has
heard us and actually cares. This letter will, however, go on line
where many others will have the chance to read one person's opinion,
rightly or wrongly, about this government, its administration and its
senators and representatives.

I only hope that occasionally you might quietly thank the taxpayer for
all the generous entitlements which you have voted yourselves, for
which, by law, we must pay, unless, of course, it just goes on the $17
trillion national debt for which your children and ours, and your
grandchildren and ours, ad infinitum, must eventually try to pick up
the tab.

My final thoughts are that it must take a person who has either lost
his or her soul, or conscience, or both, to seek re-election and
continue to destroy this country I deeply love and put it so far in
debt that we will never pay it off while your lot improves by the
minute, because of your power. For you, Senator, will never stand up
to the rascals in your House who constantly deceive the American
people. And that, my dear Senator, is how power has corrupted you and
the entire Congress. The only answer to clean up this cesspool is term
limits. This, of course, will kill the goose that lays your golden
eggs. And woe be to him (or her) who would dare to bring it up.

Sincerely,

Bill Schoonover
Oak Harbor , WA 98277

Friday, April 25, 2014

His Father Must be Proud!


                                                                                                                                                                    






Jesse Jackson Jr. to Grab $8,700 Per Month in Disability, Plus a $45,000/yr Pension In Prison

Convicted Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-IL) is scheduled to receive $8,700 per month in government disability pay, as well as a partial federal pension of $45,000. That generous $8,700 in disability comes thanks to Jackson’s sudden development of a "mood disorder" as the federal government began looking to indict him. Jackson, who was sentenced to 2.5 years in prison, had no history of mental illness during his prior 17 years in Congress. Rev. Jesse Jackson has defended his son’s claims of mental illness, stating to the court, " This time a year ago I thought we may have lost him."

So, Jesse Jackson, Jr. 17-year veteran of the US Congress, suddenly gets a "mood disorder" (about the same time he learned he was to be indicted) and is going to prison for 2.5 years.

Because his "mood disorder" was so severe, he has become disabled and will receive $8,700 per month as a disability payment as well as $45,000 a year from his congressional pension, a total of about $150K per year. Is this a great country or what? It may be that he doesn’t receive th pension portion until he hits 65, but you get the point.

By the way, I have had a rather substantial "mood disorder disability" ever since Obama got elected in 2008. I have not committed any felonies, have not been convicted and sentenced to prison and I don't get squat..... other than a higher and higher tax bill every year and the privilege of watching our federal deficit grow every day of the year.


8,700 X 12 = 104,400 + 45,000 = $149,400 a year for the rest of his life. . . . . PAID BY YOU!

Friday, April 18, 2014

Easter Special

c. 1482
c. 1482 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)


THE SPIRIT OF HOLY WEEK

     It’s Saturday.  What a week it has been.  It is very dark in here, and a bit cool.  Not cold, just a bit cool.  I think these linen cloths they wrapped my body in keep it from being too cold.  You see, it was yesterday I died, but you know that. Are you wondering how I can sense cool or cold?  Remember that I have always existed, from before the beginning, and will exist forever.  There are no blank spots in my existence, not even when my body was dead and in this tomb.  I am the Alpha and the Omega. I have almost completed my work here on earth. I have suffered; I have died; and tomorrow I will rise again. Tomorrow morning when Mary Magdalene and the other Mary come to anoint my body, they will find it is not here, but I will have someone explain it to them.

     I have cried a lot in the past few hours, not because of my circumstances, but because of yours. You see, I have done what was required of me, and I did it to save you. To my sadness, there are many of you who still won’t acknowledge me. Even after all I have done for you, because of my love for you. Yesterday, I cried out “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” But I know why; it was for you -- because of my love for you. So now I ask you -- why are you forsaking me?  I love you -- please come to me.

     Oh yes, what a week it has been.  It was just last Sunday that I arrived in Jerusalem.  I entered the town on a donkey amidst shouts of  “Hosanna to the Son of David, the King of Israel.  Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord” from an enthusiastic welcoming crowd.   It was only a short time later the same crowd was yelling “Crucify him!” , but that did not stop me from loving them.  They did not know what they were doing.

     On Monday, there was a little incident at the temple.  When I got there,  merchants were buying and selling doves and other things, and money changers were profiting from very active trade.  They had turned my house into a den of robbers!  How dare they!  My house is to be a house of prayer. So, I turned over their tables and drove them from the temple.  What else could I do?  They had created an environment of stealing instead of healing.  It could not be tolerated.

     Tuesday was a little better.  I was able to spend some time teaching at the temple. But even while doing so, my authority was questioned.  Later in the day I went to the home of Simon the Leper.  A woman there named Mary poured some nice perfume on my head, and then poured the nard on my feet and wiped my feet with her hair. She really didn't know it but she was preparing my body for burial.

     Wednesday is the day that the plot against me began to take shape. Judas went to the chief priests and asked them what they would give him if he would hand me over to them.  They gave him thirty silver coins. 

     Thursday I enjoyed Passover in a large upper room with my disciples. I let Judas know that I knew he would betray me.  He denied it, but we know the truth, don’t we?  During the meal I taught the disciples about the new covenant and how to stay in communion with me with bread and wine.  The bread is my body, and the wine is my blood -- poured out for you.   Later in the day we went to Gethsemane because I wanted to pray.  I was very distressed and troubled. My soul was overwhelmed with sorrow. I fell to the ground in prayer and asked the Father to take this cup from me if it was possible, but I knew it wasn't possible, and I wept.  Sweat that was like blood dripped from my body. I was in torment, but I understood my mission;  a mission of love. A mission of salvation.

     Friday was the worst!  First I was arrested, then a trial that was nothing more than a mock trial.  After it ended, I was flogged and handed over to be crucified.  What do you know about flogging?  Do you know that it is done with a leather whip with multiple ends, and that there are sharp pieces of bone and metal in each end?  Do you know that it leaves the back raw and bleeding, and sometimes exposes bones and organs?  Do you know that sometimes it actually causes death?  Did you know that?  I endured that for you -- because I love you. And do you want to know something else?  I would do it again -- for you. 

     After they were done flogging me, they made me carry the cross they were to crucify me on, up the hill to Golgotha.  People spit on me and mocked me. They hung me on that cross, between two robbers.  They pierced my side with a spear.  I died on that cross. I won’t tell you how horrible death on a Roman cross is, but you ought to know they came up with this method of execution because it is the most painful death imaginable. My mother was a witness.  It is finished.  In just a few hours I will leave this tomb, and my mission here will be finished, but I will be with you always -- until the end.

     My beloved, I tell you the truth -- I did it for you.  You and your salvation.  Yet, I weep because some among you won’t acknowledge me.  Some among you won’t listen to what I say when I say “Knock and the door will be opened.”  I love you so much that I want you to spend eternity with me in paradise.  Won’t you accept my invitation?  Won’t you let me live in you?  Won’t you experience the joy of real life?

CHRIST IS RISEN!

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Sunday, April 6, 2014

Review of “The Wolf of Wall Street”

Leonardo DiCaprio
Leonardo DiCaprio (Photo credit: Wikipedia)



I don’t often do movie reviews, but there are times like this where I feel I must…

The Wolf of Wall Street is a 2013 American black comedy film directed by Martin Scorsese, based on Jordan Belfort's memoir of the same name. It was released on December 25, 2013. The screenplay was written by Terence Winter, and the film stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Jordan Belfort, a New York stockbroker who runs a firm that engages in securities fraud and corruption on Wall Street in the 1990s.

Did this junk really win Best Picture???  Unbelievable!  This is the worst excuse for entertainment I have seen in a very long time. It is a long movie (or maybe it just seemed that way) full of pictures of the very worst behavior of society.  Leonardo DiCaprio should be ashamed for taking the roll. Well, I guess that only proves it’s all about money.

Someone had warned me that is not appropriate for all audiences so I rented it when my wife was out of town.  When I say I rented it, what I really mean is I got one of those promo things for a free movie from RedBox .  So, at least I did not spend $1.29 on it. I just wasted my time and some gas going to and from RedBox.  But it still cost way too much!  This piece of trash should have been rated “X”. Maybe even “XXX”. It is not fit for adults, let alone children. I am really, really glad I did not subject my wife to this, and doubly glad I did not pay the price for seeing it in the theater.

With absolutely no redeeming social value, I am at a loss regarding the award.  Best Picture… Really?
Really!  I guess it is a reflection of the moral decay of society.

Do yourself a favor… don’t waste your time and money on this POS (excuse please).  Life is too short and there are much better ways of using it…

Best Picture… Really!

 

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