After being jailed for naming a teddy bear Mohammad after a child in the class, British teacher Gillian Gibbons is safely back home in Britain.

This is miraculous in itself in that the population got all worked up over it and called for her execution.

In spite of all that happened she is very gracious about it all.

Referring to the school where she worked, she said: “The support I received there was legendary and I will miss my class and colleagues immensely….

…When asked about the teddy bear row, she said: “I don’t really know enough about it. It is a very difficult and delicate area.

“I was very upset to think I might have caused any offence.

“I never imagined this would happen. I am just an ordinary primary school teacher.

“I went out there to have a bit of an adventure and got more of an adventure than I bargained for - I don’t think anyone could have imagined it would have snowballed like this.”

As usual, the radical Muslims got all worked up about something that was insignificant.

Many boys are named Mohammad and no one kills their parents or the child for naming him that.

Teddy bears are cute and cuddly and to name one Mohammad would seem to soften the image of such a horrible man as the prophet.

It’s very fortunate that two Muslims from the British parliament went over to Sudan to negotiate her release or she may very well have been killed.

Thank God she got back home safely without having to serve her entire sentence.

Even though John Murtha is trying to backtrack on his comment that the surge is working in order to get back into the good graces of his mentor, Nancy Pelosi, he said those words.

Harry Reid, on the other hand, will not admit the light at the end of the tunnel may not be a train. He says the surge is not working.

But Reid, in a Monday press conference, ceded no ground.

“The surge hasn’t accomplished its goals,” Reid said. “… We’re involved, still, in an intractable civil war.”

If everything in Iraq falls apart in the next year (and it could) then Harry Reid will be seen as a very bright man with foresight.

If, on the other hand, the surge does work and everything holds together with the Iraqis trained to protect their own, he’ll be seen just as another doomsayer who is hoping for failure in order to insure victory for his party in 2008.

Maybe he should take a trip as Murtha did and see for himself what is and what isn’t working.

I doubt anyone will tell him the central government of Iraq is working like a well-oiled machine, but then again I’m sure we had some growing pains too.

For those who followed the case of the Border Crossing Guards, Ramos and Compean, there is news today from the 5t Circuit Court of Appeals:

Federal prosecutors may have overreacted in their case against two Border Patrol agents who were sentenced to lengthy prison terms after jurors convicted them of shooting a fleeing drug suspect and hiding evidence of the incident, an appeals court judge said Monday.

Judge E. Grady Jolly, one of three judges from the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals hearing the case of Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean, questioned whether the two agents would have been charged if they had reported the shooting.

“For some reason, this one got out of hand, it seems to me,” Jolly said of the agents’ prosecution.

A federal jury in Texas convicted Ramos and Compean of assault, obstruction of justice and civil rights violations in the wounding of Osvaldo Aldrete Davila on the Texas border near El Paso in 2005. A federal judge sentenced Compean to 12 years in prison and Ramos to 11 years.

The agents’ attorneys are asking the 5th Circuit to throw out the convictions. The judges didn’t indicate when they will rule on the appeals.

“It does seem to me like the government overreacted here,” Jolly said, noting the severity of the charges and the lengthy sentences prosecutors sought, as he questioned Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Stelmach.

It will be interesting to follow these developments and hear if the 2 other presiding Judges have the same opinion as it seems Judge Jolly offered.

As the article points out, the court has set no timetable upon which to rule, but this one bears watching.

HT:Hot Air