Dhimmi This!

Benazir Bhutto: Assasination

Similarities?

Oorah! H.L. DeVore and Prudent Publishing Company

Supporting Our Troops with Some Holiday Cheer

H.L. DeVore, our Chief Marketing Officer, recently made a visit to the Blog World and New Media Expo in Las Vegas to seek out some potential new trends for our Greeting Card Blog. While touring the show he was introduced to Lou Kastendick, a representative for Soldiers' Angels, which is an organization that provides support to our nation's military men and women. The support programs implemented by Soldiers' Angels maintain the organization's motto – “May No Soldier Go Unloved.”

Lou connected H.L. with Patti Patton-Bader, the founder of Soldiers' Angels. It just so happened that Patti was in New York being honored with an Above and Beyond Award, bestowed by Microsoft and the USO to recognize the military support contributions of citizens across the country. H.L. flew home a few days later and met her for lunch in the city.

Being a father of four, H.L. immediately made a connection with Patti and her heart-filled cause. Patti's mission originated from a mother's love and compassion for her children and has spread into a wide-scale national effort. Her son, Sergeant Brandon Varn, was sent to Iraq and has since returned home after completing his mission. And now Patti's youngest son, Bretton Varn, has been deployed to Iraq to serve the call of duty for our country.

Through their conversation, Patti told H.L. about Holiday for Heroes, a Soldier's Angels program that reaches out to deployed soldiers during the holidays. The goal for this program is to deliver a gift and a personal holiday message into the hands of the 140,000 troops fighting overseas this December. H.L. decided that Prudent Publishing should be apart of this effort to spread some holiday cheer to the soldiers. So, on behalf of The Gallery Collection and Prudent Publishing, he offered Soldiers' Angels a donation of 280,000 cards – a personalized card for the 140,000 soldiers in the combat zones of Iraq and Afghanistan and a blank card to write home.

But it didn't stop here. Patti also informed H.L. of Project Valour-IT, which provides voice-controlled and adaptive laptops to wounded military personnel recovering from hand injuries and other severe trauma. So Prudent Publishing donated enough funding for Soldiers' Angels to purchase and distribute three of these specialized laptops.

Put in simple terms, these donations are simple acts of goodwill. Being a publisher of greeting cards, Prudent Publishing knows the importance of sending and receiving personalized messages to and from your family and friends during the holidays. Such communication can be incredibly important to the young men and women risking their lives on a daily basis, some of whom are only teenagers. Our efforts are for the soldiers…to express love and gratitude for the men and women who will be spending the holiday season thousands of miles away from home this year.

To find out more about Patti Patton-Bader, Soldiers' Angels, and the organization's numerous military support programs, please visit http://www.soldiersangels.org.

Oorah! Jon Luther, Rachel Ray and Dunkin' Donuts

Dunkin' Donuts, under the leadership of Jon Luther, and with the help of spokesperson Rachel Ray, has kicked off a national card drive with a donation of 1 ton of coffee to Soldiers Angels. See story here.

As part of this kick off, Rachael Ray will unveil an initial one ton donation of Dunkin' Donuts coffee to Soldiers' Angels founder, Patti Patton- Bader, which will be included in 2,000 care packages, and will honor two of the organization's hardest working volunteers.  In addition, visitors to www.ServingHeroes.com may make donations to Soldiers' Angels. ServingHeroes.com is an online effort from Dunkin' Donuts in conjunction with The Dunkin' Brands Community Foundation to recognize individuals throughout America who have helped emergency response organizations better serve their communities.

"I'm thrilled to help Dunkin' Donuts launch the Gingerbread Express for local shoppers and kick off a national card drive that will show our appreciation for the heroes who serve this country every day," said Rachael Ray.  "With these programs, we can spread the holiday spirit in a fun and important way, while providing a little taste of home through Dunkin' Donuts coffee and handwritten messages to our brave servicemen and women."

"It means so much to us that Dunkin' Donuts is supporting those who serve," said Patti Patton-Bader.  "The card drive helps United States military personnel know that we're remembering them and honoring their service ... and the donation of one ton of coffee will provide a taste of home they will really appreciate."

How to Defend against a Taser or other Energy Weapons

This question came up in a recent discussion.  Looks like there is already a defense out there.  It is a fabric made by Thor Shield.  Home page for Thor Shield is here. Demo is here. An article is here. I am wondering if it is using the same principal as a Faraday Cage. By the way one of the coolest YouTube videos ever is here.   

UPDATE: If all else fails there is always Project Grizzly or Project Grizzly II. (And no this is not an endorsement)

Another Response to Maginnis Article

The Town Talk has another response.

Your mail: Who is that masked man?

In a recent column, "Political groups free to speak free to hide," political columnist, John Maginnis, levied unwarranted and unfair criticism at attorney general candidate Royal Alexander and his legal abilities. To argue that Alexander's position in a last-minute lawsuit filed during the campaign disqualifies him from the office of attorney general is as silly as suggesting that Buddy Caldwell is not qualified for the office because he ran advertisements that failed to recognize the very basic legal definition of when someone has bee sued.   Alexander was attempting to find relief from the relentless and false attacks against him. Just because a view of the law has been upheld by the courts in the past does not make the legal reasoning right for the future. Alexander, facing an uphill, but not insurmountable, legal battle made a decision not to pursue the litigation and to focus the few remaining hours of the campaign on trying to reach the voters. The real story in the campaign was not the last hour legal wrangling by Alexander, but rather the use of unfettered attack advertisements against him. It is ironic that a campaign, which focused upon change and ethics reform, was heavily influenced by a clandestine, out of state, unidentified organization that funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars into television commercials for the sole purpose of directly influencing the outcome of the campaign. The "Louisiana Justice Fund" successfully circumvented the maize of campaign finance laws and launched a campaign solely designed to attack Alexander. This organization was founded on Oct. 4 and served no purpose other than to allow unknown, out of state parties to disguise their identity, ignore campaign finance limitations and directly influence a Louisiana election. Since the Louisiana Justice Fund refused to file campaign finance reports, little is known of the identity of the financiers of the organization. The identities of those that implemented the furtive plan, however, are known. Washing, D.C. firms such as the Dewey Square Group, Buying Time, LLC, Hilltop Public Solutions, the law firm of Harmon, Curran, Speilberg & Eisenberg, Katherine Buchanan, Catherine Birdwell, Derek Fitch and the lobbyist Jim Nickel of Courson & Nickel all worked with the nameless, faceless financiers to create a shell entity. There are leads that the media could investigate. The fact that no one in the media questioned the sudden injection of an unknown, very well-financed and politically astute organization into a Louisiana election is disturbing. The mainstream media in this country has accepted the mantle of the "Fourth Estate" and the citizens of this country depend upon it to point out public inconsistencies. In many instances citizens interpret the lack of media attention on a subject as a tacit signal of legitimacy. The Louisiana Justice Fund was legitimized by the lack of investigative reporting and the voters remained uninformed. Hopefully, the next election cycle will bring with it a more inquisitive media and maybe the voters will be able to "consider the source."   Richard M. John Shreveport