Carol, over at No Sheeples Here, puts it best:

Running through November 11th, the 2009 Soldiers' Angels Valour-IT fundraiser is a spirited competition which raises money for technology that reconnects wounded warriors and supports their recovery.

It is a very very worthy cause.

Carol has also created a special [and wonderfully done] video that you can view by clicking here.

Check-in here at TCOTS tomorrow for a much longer posting on this great effort to help our wounded heroes.

Of course, Stacy McCain isn't the only one to have been offering great commentary on the race in New York's 23rd Congressional District, and related issues like Newt Gingrich's endorsement of the RINO/DIABLO, Dede Scozzafava.  I've been ignoring my Friends In The Ether who have been offering some spot-on analysis and musings on the election.  Time to make amends...

1) The Classic Liberal

You’re right Newt! That is, if you’re seeking power, and the control over a multi-trillion dollar budget you can use to your advantage. “We the people” on the other hand, have much different goals.

We don't care if we're invited to the right parties and asked to speak at the right think tanks and hired to write at the proper MSM organs.

2) On Tuesday, TheCL took on the charges made by Newt and Allahpundit that we're trying to purge the GOP of the non-conservatives/libertarians:

And btw, the only “purge” I’m aware of, is the purge the party and its bootlickers have been trying to give conservatives since your “me-too” moderate, Bailout McCain, lost the election. So get over your bad selves.

Right on, brother, right on.

3) The Left Coast Rebel has the video of Doug Hoffman appearing on Glenn Beck's show.  I also like him tagging Mr. Hoffman as 'The Little Engine That Could'.  Get all of his coverage by clicking here.

4) Michelle Malkin's coverage is located here.

5) Doug Hoffman has been getting a lot of endorsements, but this one is, perhaps, the most unusual: Iowahawk's [tip of the fedora to Smitty].

6) Stogie is dead solid perfect:

One thing the GOP's Good Ole Boy Club had better learn fast, is that we, the base, aren't going to put up with them anymore.  For years we have had to hold our noses and vote for some Rino like John McCain because there wasn't anyone better on the ballot.  Our choices on the Road to Serfdom consisted of the Democrat shortcut down Socialism Avenue, or the Republican scenic route through Big Government Park.  We would arrive at the same place (Red Square), but the Republicans would get us there more slowly.

No more.   NO MORE RINOS is our slogan and our battle cry.  We must continue to purge the false leaders and appeasers, the Quislings and the Vichy collaborators.  A liberal with an R after his name is a liberal still.  The GOP is not an end in itself but the means to an end:  more individual freedom, less taxes, less government.

Make 'em an extinct species.

7) Gaterdoug rips Newt a new one over at The Daley Gator.  A highlight:

Sure, Republicans might get your beloved majority, but what will they do with it? How will those "moderate" Republicans serve us Newt? Will they help us like Olympia "History Calls" Snowe? Is that what you think will help us Newt? Maybe we can garner more awards?

Please tell me you are not really that stupid!

If that is your "politically sage" advice Newt, then let me echo the sentiments of my blogging role model "100 percent unadulterated nonsense on a stick."

There's something else on that stick too....something Newt's full of.

8) Monique Stuart rips him an even bigger one:

...Gingrich has been working his way back in to regain power for years. And, now he’s making the colossal mistake of thinking that the way to do that is by endorsing liberal Republican candidates and alienating the grass roots. Well, good luck with that, buddy. Let me know how it works out. You think you can run in 2012 for the presidency? Well, you can run. And, you might even win the Republican nomination, but you won’t win the conservative vote, the liberal vote, or the independent vote and so you won’t win the election.

Newt can run, but he can't abide.

9) Dan Riehl has up a good report on the war raging within the DC GOP.

10) Good musings from Donald Douglas over at American Power:

It's mindboggling today that folks like Newt Gingrich have forgotten how utterly wrenching were the Republican primaries last year. Perhaps the Democratic drama of identity politics overshadowed the shakeout on the right. But the right's ideological fissues were bright and lasting, particularly when it became clear that the Arizona Senator would be the party's standard-bearer. There's simply not going to be room in the GOP coalition for half-hearted big-government, open-borders Republicans. Someone like Olympia Snowe - who's currently enjoying fleeting power as a swing-vote Republican on health - is the last of a dying breed. It's totally inconceivable that a pro-ObamaCare, bailout-backing Republican today will have any truck with the tea-party/town hall base. Folks on the ground have seen the enemy, and he's both Blue and Red.

11) Over at The Corner, Jonah Goldberg has endorsed Doug Hoffman:

William F. Buckley's policy was always that he was for the most conservative candidate electable. This has always struck me as the most pithy and most sensible statement on these kinds of questions. Protest votes on ideal candidates are ultimately ill-advised and self-indulgent. Though it can be hard to accept the truth of it (take it from a Andre Marrou in '92 man). I agree entirely that the GOP needs more moderates. It needs more everybody. But in NY 23, Hoffman can win. That means he's not a protest vote, he's a vote for the most conservative candidate electable.

Vote for Doug Hoffman.

We don't need more moderates Mr. Goldberg.  I think we've had enough of them...ENOUGH!  Don't forget that the term 'moderate' is nothing but another way of calling someone 'liberal'.  A is always A; you can call it B, but it will always remain A.

12) Over at And So It Goes In Shreveport, Pat sees real hope in Hoffman and real change for the good that may come out of this race:

I think in Hoffman, people are beginning to see that one individual CAN make a difference. He's providing hope to a lot of people, and not that phony, slick, glamorized "hope" we were encouraged to buy into last year. Real hope. Real grassroots hope.

13) Finally, I haven't mentioned the site started by Dana Loesch, Dump Dede, in a number of days.  I'll mention it again now because its a great site and because it gives me an excuse to post a picture or two of her...

A father wants to honor his murdered son.  He wants the memorial plaque that their hometown, Kent, Connecticut, wants to erect to simply state the facts.  From Fox News, Douglas Kennedy reporting:

Peter Gadiel wants everyone to remember his son, James, who was killed during the September 11 terrorist attacks.

And he also wants people to remember how he died: "Murdered by Muslim terrorists."

For Gadiel, any tribute to his son would be woefully incomplete without those words.

No problem, right?  His son was working in his office at Cantor Fitzgerald on the 103rd Floor of the World Trade Centerwhen Islamic terrorists deliberately slammed a hijacked plane into it, and all the father wants to do is state who the murderers were so that generations hence will know.  I like to think I'm a reasonable person and, therefore, I don't see a problem with the wording; I'm sure you don't either.  The truth is what it is and should never be denied.  Well, the Left in this country is anything but reasonable and the mealy-mouthed Leftists holding public office are worst than most:

Town officials call the phrase too controversial for a small town memorial, and they recently voted against erecting the plaque if Gadiel insists on the language.

"We perceive ourselves as a very warm, loving town," said Ruth Epstein, a Kent selectman and one of two town leaders to vote the plaque down. "To disparage any one ethnic group is just against everything that we stand for here."

Epstein noted that other Sept. 11 memorials, like the one at the Pentagon, don't mention Muslim terrorists, and she said she does not want to alienate any members of her small and close-knit community.

"We have at least one Muslim family living here with children and it — it would be just awful to have them see something like that," Epstein told Fox News.

So, this stupid bink and her fellow public servants want to hide the truth because the truth—that all of the terrorists who murdered thousands of innocent people on 09/11 were MUSLIMS—might hurt or alienate a few people.  Not only is this kind of thinking the product of Leftist diversity indoctrination, but it is all the result of a civilization gone soft and grown weak.  One would hope that the people of Kent would rise-up and not re-elect the officials who are in favor of this if they are elected, and would apply relentless pressure for the non-elected ones, if any, to resign.  If they do not do this, they should be ashamed of themselves.  I don't know anything about this town, but, if you live in the area and do business there, stop.  These people who are in favor of banning the truth are, to borrow R. Lee's words 'worthless pieces of grabastic amphibian s**t.

Chris, over at WyBlog, is outraged too [tip of the fedora to him for turning me on to this story]:

The truth is that we must be able to identify the Muslim Jihadists by name if we ever hope to really defeat them. Peter Gadiel is speaking Truth to Power. Surrender is not an option.

Hear, hear, brother Chris.  Not an option for those on the side of good.

Over at Moonbattery, Van Helsing is spot-on:

By the same twisted logic, no Pearl Harbor memorial could mention Japan if there is a single Japanese family in the area, lest it offend them.

But it's open season to offend the relatives of the 9/11 dead by whitewashing the incident into some kind of random accident.

Future generations may not even be aware why the atrocities of September 11 happened. No doubt the events of that day will be spun into a pretext for rich white Christians to oppress doe-eyed, brown-skinned urchins.

If you probe the brains of the Lefties deep enough, you will find they do think 09/11 was The West's fault generally and America's specifically, and that we deserved the attack.  So a few thousand people are dead, so what?  One of their gods, Lenin, once said that you can't make an omelet without breaking some eggs.  Besides the good of the many, for them, far outweighs the good of individuals.  

Open your eyes people: this is the Leftist mindset.