A.L. is currently out doing the road trip thing, but he wanted y'all to know that Spirit of America raised USD $600,000 yesterday for its "Iraqi T.V." project, as a result of that Wall St. Journal article. Donations continue to come in, and they continue to be very welcome. This is an important mission.

Readers of our blog know that we've done a lot of work with Spirit of America, ever since Jim Hake sent me that Dec. 10 email inviting suggestions for the Marines and some help at Camp Pendleton. He got both, and he'll continue to get it. While we continue to publish and update our directory of ways to support the troops and people from many nations, Spirit of America has become the official cause/charity of our blog. Our involvement will continues to deepen - we are, to use my colleague Armed Liberal's words, "damn serious" about this.

On a personal note, there are other bloggers who have put a lot of time and effort into helping out in Iraq, through this effort and others. We've honoured Paul "Chief Wiggles" Holton, Michele Catalano, Dean Esmay and Matt Evans in a previous article - and Iraq remains a better place because of them. They are not alone.

To the bloggers, the donors, the volunteers, the Iraqis, and the Marines working to make Iraq a better place, our sincere thanks. We are, all of us, in this together.

[Update by A.L.: just want to point people to Dean Esmay, WizBang, or John Donovan, who will be having a competition to see who can raise more money toward SoA next week...may the best blogger(s) win!!]