Jack Army, in the sandbox, posts (in two parts), a letter he received. He did ask one of his Iraqi counterparts to write what he thought. The letter talks to us. Worth the read. I doubt you’ll ever see this grace the media of anything even remotely related to the MSM:

I asked an Iraqi I know to write a letter to Americans. I told him he should write whatever he wants. Specifically, I said, “if you could say anything you wanted to the American people, what would it be?” He wrote a letter and was very passionate when giving it to me. I could tell that he had agonized over this letter, what he wanted to say and how best to say it. He speaks English well but has a little difficulty writing it. I wanted to give you his words without any help from my, but I did edit slightly only to make a few confusing sentences a little more understandable. Because he wrote such a long letter, I broke it into two parts. Below is part one. My Iraqi friend is eager for feedback. I promised him that I would share any comments about his letter with him. So, feel free to address your comments to him. Unfortunately, for security reasons, I cannot tell you much about this fine man, but I can tell you that I admire him for what he does and his dedication to Iraq.

This is what he wrote:

To my brothers and sisters all over the world,

Hi, I am in individual Iraqi, I can only express my own ideas about what is going on in this whole situation and I am very sure that the majority of Iraqis have the same idea.
[…]

Part I and part II, in their entirety, at Jack Army’s blog.

Read it there, before you don’t know you never saw it in the “news.”

Paint dot Net. Not only is it freeware, it nags you not, it does layers, varied “opacity,” has shapes, brushes, fonts, erasers, and not only does it have some useful effects loaded in, you can download a raft of free plugins to do things like make a picture on a spherical background, inject clouds, align objects, etc, etc, etc, via the Paint.Net user forum.

I do my headers with it, because it’s quick, simple and has plenty enough features to drop the SWO pin and lettering on top of a cropped pic to header dimensions.

High quality AND free (with a PayPal button if you feel inclined to use it)!

I heard about this program at the 2006 MilBlogs Conference, yet no one could tell me the link. I emailed VFW for an answer and none showed up. Reading a magazine yesterday, where Gunny Ermey was interviewed, he discussed the program set up by the VFW to help families stateside. He said not a single request had been turned down to date.

Your hands, fix-it know how and/or money would help take care of the families who have members in the fight, not available to get on with crossing off taskers on the “Honey-Do” list.

Get over to Unmet Needs and get smart, maybe there’s a family down your block that needs a lawn mowed or a leaking toilet fixed.

If you’re a family in need of help, the site has the button to get you to the help request form.

P.S. Like ValOUR-IT 100% of donations go directly to help the families!

Pass the Word!

Not that it takes near as much “intestinal fortitude” to chase down the guys sending your emails from Nigeria as it does to run headlong towards a flaming Jeep Cherokee and give a good kick in the bullocks to a terrorist, but be comforted in knowing some people are taking it to the ones who fill your email box with requests to help them free up the fortune, and you will receive a piece of it…
it seems some people have formed up into teams to purposely bait scammers into being humiliated by tricking them into thinking they found someone to rape the bank accounts of…

They ever award trophies….

Some of the sites where you might want to enlist to help the cause:

419eater, Scamorama and aa419.

The article I read in the St Petersburg Times (can’t find it there, but here is the original New York Times article) says the scam baiters won’t identify themselves, but did grant interviews over the phone.

St Pete Times article “Cunning ‘victms’ turn tables on Internet scams” 7/6/2007 says:

[…]
Their motives may seem altruistic, but not all law enforcement officials approve of their tactics, which can include entrapment and humiliation.
[…]

Gee, am I missing something? Humiliation in return for trying to commit international identify theft, wire fraud, and then abscond with the big $$$? Oh, well, some police person (in Lyons, France) said this:

They are fraudsters and they are not good people, but they have their human rights.

Leave it to the MSM to tell us how these wanna be, or maybe already, crooks have human rights.

Anyhow, news from the “front” in another kind of war. Just thought you’d like to know…

Some one searched for Chances of dying while skydiving and my blog came up as hit #2…

Then I wanderer about the link forest. looking for link trees and found this article. From “Living the Risky Life?” by Gene Charleton, beginning with this:

A Risky Day
Few of us think of ourselves as risk takers. Skydiving, bungee jumping or street luge are not in the vocabularies most of us use to describe our daily activities. Yet we live with risk all day, every day, without jumping out of airplanes or off bridges, or zipping down the street on our backs. Most risks we take are unseen among the minutiae of getting through the day. They’re there, but few of us spend a lot of effort thinking about them.

Most of us live our lives as if we could escape from risk by being careful. Engineers look at risk differently.

But…the money quote I like is:

Through the looking glass Risk is often in the eye of the beholder. Here’s an example:
which is riskier, skydiving or commuting to work? Here’s what the numbers say: About 350,000 sport parachutists make about three million parachute jumps each year in the United States. About 30 of them die in accidents. That works out to one death for every 100,000 jumps. If you make one parachute jump each year, your chances of dying are about 1 in 100,000.

On the other hand, more than 40,000 people die each year in traffic accidents. That’s 1.7 deaths for every 100 million vehicle-miles driven. If you drive 10,000 miles a year, your risk of dying in a traffic accident is about 1 in 6,000. You’d have to jump 17 times in a year before your odds of dying in a skydiving accident equaled your odds of dying in a car crash. So why do so many people consider skydivers to be danger junkies while these same people happily risk their lives on the way to the office? People’s perceptions of what is risky and what is not are colored by how they see themselves in relation to the risk.

Oh, and it you drive about 20K/year….think of the odds…

So, all of you ground pounding “legs” out there will get in your car, but think I’m crazy? The joke is on you: I know what it’s like to hurtle towards the earth with others, making formations while going 120+ mph, yet all reaching the ground safely to begin to concoct the “jump lies” we will tell while drinking the free beer from the first timers (name the “first” and someone had to buy a case or beer/soda) just after the sun sets and we pack gear up before heading home; To meet people from all over the world, just because they were in the area of the drop zone you’re at, and they came by to get some air time, not because it was a special event; To be able to say “I can trust them with my life” and really know you can and that you mean it. Yes, and there’s lots more interesting things I’ve had happen in the 28 years worth.

Come Oct, there will be some video posted of two big ways. No one got hurt and we made a record….

Just thought you might like to know…and here’s the USPA drop zone locating page.

A Prius? 100 mph? YEEHAW! Maybe Tom Cruise should get one to have a ground based version of his P-51 Mustang…

But…I wonder how this flies in the Global Warming discussions at the family dinner table?

Research indicates the severity of lightning in Africa may directly foretell the severity of hurricanes….

Of course, the research is being done in Israel and doesn’t blame the Atlantic storms on Global Warming®….

Aside from the snarking value, this has real possibilities of alerting the Atlantic region further in advance of really nasty blows headed our way.

H/T: Post-Postmodernist Blog

Again, stumbling over links:

GI Film Festival scheduled for 16-18 April, 2008.

Check out the people that will be there on the home page. Michael Yon is one of them!

Thanks to Flag Gazer and her diligence in highlighting the heroes who serve us, I found out SSG Bagge is up for an award and surely could use your vote.

SSG Christian Bagge, US Army and the Commander-in-ChiefThe award? The Energizer® Keep Going® Award.SSG Bagge is the man who, while in a hospital bed at Brooke Army Medical Center, told the President he wanted to run with him. A year later, the picture above is the evidence of a man who just kept going, and going, and going….The whole post on SSG Christian Bagge is here on Flag Gazer’s blog…Oh, have you voted yet? GET ON IT!!! (and tell your friends)

I just caught wind of this yesterday on the radio:

Operation DVD, a program of AMVETS.

Used or new, the plan is to get them to the sandbox, so there’s something for the troops to pick through during their down time. Children’s videos dropped off will be sent to families stateside.

Some background, about one person making a difference:

“Op DVD Kid” Provides Entertainment for Troops
Above is a picture of Zach Cohen, a seventh grader at Charles Boehm Middle School in Yardley, Pennsylvania.

Zach got involved with AMVETS, Operation DVD while searching the internet to find a suitable “mitzvah project” in preparation for his upcoming Bar Mitzvah. When he stumbled upon the Operation DVD website, he knew he had found his match.

As someone who loves to hang out and watch movies with his friends, this effort proved to combine the leisure activities he loved most, with something he thought was very important – supporting our Troops.

“The soldiers do so much for us and for our country, and I want them to get to enjoy whatever free time they have. I can hang out with my friends and watch a movie or listen to music whenever I want, but our soldiers aren’t so lucky. Not only are they fighting in a very dangerous place, but when they have some time off, they don’t have much to do. Hopefully, AMVETS, Operation DVD will make their free time more enjoyable and will make them realize that we really care about them and appreciate what they do”, Zach explains.

“The best part about this effort is that people don’t have to dip into their pockets to help. After you watch a movie once or twice, are you really going to keep watching it? That movie can be enjoyed over and over again by many soldiers, if you just donate it to AMVETS, Operation DVD.”

“The best places to organize collections are anywhere where there is a lot of repeat traffic – such as places of worship, office buildings, health clubs, libraries, etc. Schools have made a huge impact on this effort and more and more are getting involved everyday.”

Zach has already collected over 2,000 DVDs for our Troops (even his local Honor Society has become involved). He is now in the process of working with other school districts and his Congressman.

A big round of applause for Zach Cohen!!!!!

You can donate cash via the site, or drop them off.

COLLECTION BOXES

Specially designed “Collection Boxes” for donated new and used DVDs will be located across the nation at large chains, retail stores, churches and car dealers.

The “Collection Boxes” are 26” high and “vinyl-wrapped” on the four vertical sides with a description of AMVETS, Operation DVD and logos of major sponsors.

Each “Collection Boxes” is designed in such a way that DVDs can be inserted — but not removed. Each box will hold over 250 donated DVDs for our troops.

Pre-paid shipping labels are attached to each “Collection Boxes” for transportation to sorting centers where “Children Titles” will be separated to be sent to the families (stateside) of soldiers serving overseas.
COLLECTION POINTS

Smaller rural areas (with no large chains) will be served by local AMVET posts. Material is supplied on the AMVETS, Operation DVD website for local Press Releases and Media coverage.

I bet you have a few DVDs you know they’d like and you haven’t watched in a while…help them out…it’s lonely when you’re far from home…