jgarzik helper scripts, not in official git distribution:
http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/jgarzik/git-new-branch
http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/jgarzik/git-changes-script

Do you have some sort of magic bk-make-sum type util at all... 

For sending trees to Linus I used to run bk-make-sum and gcapatch and
then just throw my own stuff in the top of the mail ....

I'm being lazy I probably could write it myself, but bk-make-sum was a
very useful script for me...

Dave.