The good ol’ U.S. of A. Red, white and blue, stepping up to help the third world, as usual. Our tax dollars at work…

AFP reports: The United States expressed “its deepest sympathy” for the victims of the cyclone that struck Bangladesh as it took part in international efforts to provide emergency relief.

“The United States government would like to express its deepest sympathy for the victims of the cyclone,” US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said, reading a statement.

“We’re ready to work with the (Bangladesh) government and foreign donors to assist in relieving the effects of the disaster,” he added.

Is it fair to politicize this issue? Why not? Altruism is a thankless job. We can only hope that next time there’s a controversial cartoon or some other major offense, the great Muslim nations will remember the generosity of America. Or is that why they hate us to begin with? Just sayin’…

In Honor of Capt. Brian Freeman, U.S. Army

Do you live in Riverside County, California? Then you may be aware of the radio station Q103.3 Classic Rock. Each year they hold a Charity Golf Tournament. This year Q103.3 is pleased donate the proceeds from our 5th annual Golf Tournament to the surviving wife and children of a Temecula soldier who was killed in action while serving his country in Iraq. Capt. Brian S. Freeman, a resident of Temecula, Calif. He first entered the Army Aug. 21, 1995, at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y.

Upon graduation in spring of 1999, he joined the active-duty Army for a five-year tour. He completed his tour in spring of 2004 and transferred to the Inactive Ready Reserve. Freeman’s military awardsincluded two Army Commendation Medals, two Army Achievement Medals, National Defense Service Medal, Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, Armed Forces Reserve Medal with “M” device, Army Service Ribbon, Iraq Campaign Ribbon, Combat Action Badge, Air Assault Badge, Parachutist Badge and the Marksmanship Qualification Badge. He was a former member of the Army World Class Athlete Program who competed in bobsled and skeleton with the U.S. national team in 2003.

He won a bronze medal as a four-man sled brakeman at a 2002 America’s Cup race. On a personal note, he was a kind, loving husband and a wonderful father. He worked for KB Homes out of the Temecula office. In September 2005, he began mobilizing in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. He was assigned to the 412th CA Battalion during the spring of 2006 and deployed to Iraq shortly thereafter. In the spring of 2006, he was deployed to Iraq to act as a liaison between the military and local Iraqis to help rebuild civic institutions in the Shiite holy city of Karbala. He quickly established strong relationships with the governor and citizens of the area. Not only did he help obtain more equipment and training for the Iraqi security forces and additional funding for renovation projects, but he developed personal bonds with those he worked with. When his interpreter died in the line of duty, Freeman helped secure death benefits for the family, and condolence payments that had been previously turned down. He also made arrangements for a Karbala police officer’s son to travel to the United States for heart surgery. Capt. Freeman, was captured and killed in Iraq, Jan. 20th 2007.

He left behind a wife, Charlotte, and two children Gunnar, age 3, and Ingrid age 1.

Q103.3 will donate the proceeds from this year’s golf tournament to Charlotte Freeman, through the non-profit organization “All from the heart.”

This is one of those rare events in life where you can come out; have a great time golfing with on-air personality Jeff Gonzer, advertise for your business, and help one of Temecula’s own families through their time of crisis.

Call KTMQ at 951-296-9050 for information regarding sponsorships. (Website)

Player entry fee $103.00 per person, which includes lunch, golf (4 man-scramble), and dinner

Date: June 15th, 2007
Registration and Lunch: 12 noon
Putting Contest: 1:00PM | Shotgun Start: 2 PM

—

Cross-posted at Rightfielder

Author’s note: Capt. Freeman did have concerns about the Iraq War. He met with John Kerry and discussed troop levels, funding, etc. Though he had reservations, he reported for duty, served faithfully, and died a hero’s death for his country. He was in the process of enlisting with the United States Coast Guard. I have met his widow personally and she is very grateful for support during this time of hardship. This is where we conservatives can put teeth into President Bush’s slogan “Compassionate Conservatism.”

CaliforniaConservative.org is proud to support this event.

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Here’s the story and video.

Sadly, FEMA is asking the same question.

“In the neighborhood President Bush visited right after Hurricane Katrina, the U.S. government gave $84.5 million to more than 10,000 households. But Census figures show fewer than 8,000 homes existed there at the time.

Now the government wants back a lot of the money it disbursed across the region.

The Federal Emergency Management Administration has determined nearly 70,000 Louisiana households improperly received $309.1 million in grants, and officials acknowledge those numbers are likely to grow.”

That’s a lot of lap dances.

Where’s Ray Nagin?

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If you’ve never heard of Gina Elise and her project Pin Ups for Vets prepare to become very informed and amazed. Gina Elise is a 24-year-old who majored in theater at UCLA. It’s not often that someone of Gina’s age gets interested in helping people. It’s even less often that someone from the state of California actively supports veterans and our troops like she does. Gina Elise is not your ordinary California girl, college graduate and with her Pin Ups for Vets calendars, specifically designed for troops and veterans, she is supporting the troops overseas, downrange, and veterans recovering here at home.

A year ago Gina Elise decided to take her, “love for retro and do something to help injured soldiers at the same time.” Gina told me that the inspiration for Pin Ups for Vets is, “The stories I hear about injured soldiers returning home from overseas really has a huge effect on me. Their lives have changed forever because of these injuries — because they served our country. The motivation and energy they have is inspiring to me. I want to do something for them.”

Gina Elise is supported by American Legion Post 360 in Lake Arrowhead, CA and makes calendars that she models in; the proceeds from which go to VA programs such as eyeglasses for Veterans, the home health program, recreational therapy, spinal cord injury & amputee programs, substance abuse program, women’s Veterans’ program, homeless program, reading materials and subscriptions for the Veterans, social relief fund, televisions, wheelchairs, and outreach programs for the visually impaired. She poses for each month in a World War II kind of retro look because Gina says she is a, “HUGE fan of all things retro. I’ve been a performer my entire life — love costumes, anything from another time period.” I’m just glad she decided to grace our time period with her looks (she’s a looker, ain’t she, fellas), grace, and caring nature.
(continue reading post »)

When famous computer scientist Jim Gray went missing a few days ago, the coast guard launched a large scale search that found absolutely nothing. On Thursday, they gave up.

Then Amazon stepped in. They arranged for a satellite sweep of the area and stored the images on their S3 storage service. They then created a task on their Mechanical Turk service to allow volunteers to scan the images to look for the boat. It’s a tough task - the boat would only be about six pixels in size in an image, and there was a lot of cloud cover obscuring large parts of the area scanned. But volunteers are pouring in to help out.

If you’d like to help, go to this task on Mechanical Turk. You’ll be asked to view five satellite images and note any that should be looked at more closely.

(via TechCrunch)

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Yes, you read that right. Joe Kennedy II has written an op-ed in today’s NY Daily News where he attempts to rationalize the deal made with Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez. Here’s how he attempts to justify doing business with the Western Hemisphere’s biggest terrorist supporter:

When the oil industry profits hit a record annual high of more than $100 billion, we wrote every OPEC nation asking for some assistance to alleviate the huge burden of energy prices on the poor. We wrote to every single major oil company as well.

And every single one turned us down.

Every one, that is, except Venezuela and CITGO Petroleum.

So, in 2005, we began a partnership with CITGO, an oil company owned by the people and the government of Venezuela, to distribute heating oil. The program went smoothly. Tens of thousands of households were served without any particular controversy.

This year was another story. Our program attracted negative attention this season for only one reason: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s controversial speech at the United Nations last September. A lot of people didn’t like Chavez’s speech. I didn’t like his remarks, either.

That speech led critics to suggest that the oil program to help the needy is somehow un-American.

How is aiding those less fortunate un-American? It is only un-American to hypocrites who criticize a program that helps the poor, but are perfectly happy to drive their cars, fill their boats, fly their planes and heat their homes using Venezuelan oil. If the oil isn’t good enough for the poor, it shouldn’t be good enough for them.

Joe Kennedy is missing the point by making this rationalization. The same week that he writes an op-ed explaining why we need to make deals with the most notorious South American thug, we also learned that the Democratic House wants to take ANWR off-limits forever. The bill’s author is Ed Markey, (D-MA). ANWR has one of the biggest natural gas fields in the world. (continue reading post »)

As I discussed early this morning, I’m upset that John Bolton was essentially forced out of his seat as UN Ambassador. Throughout the day I’ve been reading numerous stories about his resignation, many of which provided a discussion of his brief tenure. However, I noticed that many of his accomplishments are not being mentioned. None of the numerous CNN.com iterations of the story discuss the fact that Bolton was nominated for a Nobel peace prize for his tough work exposing Iran’s nuclear ambitions. In fact, CNN.com had trouble getting his name right! Also forgotten were Bolton’s strong words condemning the UN for not acting on the Darfur crisis. These aspects were also missing from MSNBC/Newsweek, Reuters, and The New York Times. CBSnews.com doesn’t mention the Nobel nomination, but Darfur is at least mentioned in their story, within a quote by President Bush:

“Ambassador Bolton led the successful negotiations that resulted in unanimous Security Council resolutions regarding North Korea’s military and nuclear activities. He built consensus among our allies on the need for Iran to suspend the enrichment and reprocessing of uranium,” Mr. Bush added. “His efforts to promote the cause of peace in Darfur resulted in a peacekeeping commitment by the United Nations. He made the case for United Nations reform because he cares about the institution, and wants it to become more credible and effective.”

This latter point, his tough stance on providing reform to an organization mired by corruption, scandal, and poor leadership, is also mysteriosly absent from the vast majority of these stories.

Yet, while his noteworthy and commendable accomplishments are not discussed, his personality seems to be unavoidable. It seems as though his hot-headed personality trumps his actions. To demonstrate this, many of the articles I’ve read discussed an incident between Bolton and U.N. Deputy Secretary-General Mark Malloch Brown. That his personality should overshadow his actions is unfortunate, though that appeared to be the sticking point amongst Senate Democrats who vowed not to reaffirm Bolton. The most common criticism of Bolton is based not on his actions, which speak for themselves, but rather his brash personality.

However brief his time was, I feel as though his actions demonstrated the potential to provide real change within the UN, and to promote peace and security throughout the world. Like the ambassadors from Japan, China and others, I appreciate his hard work, and am sad to see him go.

Cross Posted at The Gentle Cricket

As each of us takes time today to reflect upon the 5th Anniversary of 9/11, if you have something to share with others, please use our trackback to promote your post, and link to this blog so others can read all about it.

This post shall serve as a small resource for finding other blogs paying tribute to lost lives and the fallen heroes of 9/11.

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Soldiers’ Angels supports Soldier Ride and lends it’s support in the way of volunteers and money.

(PRWEB) July 7, 2006 — Wounded servicemen and women cycling across the United States From Montauk, New York to San Diego, California to spread their inspirational message of courage and hope. The brave men and women participating in this event are cycling in support of their injured comrades recovering in military hospitals across the country. All of the participants are provided the adaptive equipment they need to cycle though missing one or more limbs.

Soldier Ride is a non-profit organization that raises awareness and funds for our injured soldiers returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan. This organization is 100% non political. It’s not about the war it’s about the soldiers. Soldier Ride organizes cross country and local bicycle trips used as rehab opportunities for soldiers recovering from major injuries and also to raise awareness.

Funds raised go out to such organizations as the Wounded Warrior Project (www.woundedwarriorproject.org) and Disabled Sports USA (www.dsusa.org) You can learn more about us at www.soldierride.org or please feel free to contact Nick Kraus at 516 994 5907.

Soldier Ride began in East Hampton , NY as an effort to raise money and consciousness for soldiers who were severely wounded overseas. Last year Chris Carney a local bartender embarked on his second cross-country Soldier Ride, cycling from Los Angeles to Montauk, New York. Soldiers from the current conflict and veterans, both disabled and not, rode with Carney on Soldier Ride. Over the last two years Soldier Ride helped raise millions of dollars for the WWP. These funds are being used to:
(continue reading post »)

I just read an amazing article from the Washington Times’ Julia Duin. Let’s get right to it:

Retired Iraqi Gen. Georges Sada, a former fighter pilot-turned-Christian evangelist, says Kurds are converting to Christianity “by the hundreds” in northern Iraq. Gen. Sada earlier reported that he had been told that Iraqi pilots, flying private planes, took weapons of mass destruction to undisclosed locations in Syria in 2002. The “good news” from Iraq’s turbulent religious scene, consisting mainly of Sunni and Shi’ite Muslim militias battling each other, is from the Kurds, he said. Kurds are creating a constitution that does away with Shariah, or Islamic law, a move counter to trends in other Muslim countries such as Afghanistan and Iran, where leaving Islam is a capital offense and Christian converts are often killed. “No Christians in the Kurdish territory are persecuted,” he said yesterday in an interview.

That’s quite a revelation, especially about the “Kurds are creating a constitution that does away with Shariah, or Islamic law” and that “No Christians in the Kurdish territory are persecuted.” Anyone who’ll try telling you that Iraq isn’t better off now than it was under Saddam simply isn’t credible.

He added that Nechervan Idris Barzani, prime minister of the Kurdish regional government in Irbil and nephew of former Iraqi Governing Council President Massoud Barzani, was extremely positive about evangelical Christians’ efforts among Iraq’s 4 million Kurds. “He told me he’d rather see a Muslim become a Christian rather than a radical Muslim,” the general said.

Frankly, I’m at a loss for words and that doesn’t happen often. Like once every couple decades or so. Let’s just say that this is proof that reality is often far stranger than fiction.

He spoke last night at McLean Bible Church, Northern Virginia’s largest congregation, about his new vocation as director of the Iraqi Institute for Peace and president of the National Presbyterian Church in Baghdad. “My foundation for peace is Christianity,” said Gen. Sada, who was born an Assyrian Christian. “We must learn to love. Muslims will say they’ve got love and forgiveness, but I want to emphasize what Jesus Christ has said.”

I’ll be certain to add General Sada and his ministry to my prayer list. I’m sure he’d appreciate your prayers, too.

Technorati Tags: Gen. Sada, Christianity, Iraq

Cross-post at LetFreedomRingBlog