Fire One - Package Away

The first of what I suppose will be at least 3 and maybe as many as 5 holiday packages for Bob S. and his unit at FOB Bagram was sent out today. Thanks to all of you for your donations and help to date. By the way, yes this is a picture of Bob and three friendly locals in Afghanistan who work with Bob and his unit. I thought it would be nice if you got to see the soldier who will be receiving the packages for himself and his unit. No spring chicken, he is married and has teenaged children - yet he is over there in Afghanistan doing the right thing for his country (and that would mean for us). I can not tell you all how surprised I am that this package thing has worked out, and that so many of you have been as generous as you have been to date. It is nice to know there are AMERICANS who give a damn regardless of political viewpoints, religious affiliation, ethnicity, race, gender, national origin, and all other types of stuff that sometimes gets in the way of doing the right thing. You my friends have done the right thing by donating, and or helping with links to the donation icons. I don't think soldiers like Bob and his unit will soon forget how nice you all have been. I certainly will not.

Here is a copy of the email I sent to Bob S. to let him know to expect this package:

"Hi Bob,

I sent out one package to you and the guys today. Please let me know when you get it. It is a 28 pound box (I think that was the weight), it is loaded with spices and has some flashlights inside of it. I don't know if you have seen my blog about the lights, as I recall when you tried to view my blog it was blocked by the military. If you have seen it though, then you know what you are getting. If not, let it be a partial surprise, and let me just let me say for now - you are getting some very nice lights courtesy of StreamLight company who donated them to me absolutely no charge. As for those lights, there are 12 of them, one for each guy in your unit (I hope I got it right that there are 12 of you).

I also have other items and goodies for you and your unit. I will send something else out - probably tomorrow - don't use the spices until you get the other package too - you will know the one when it gets there by what is inside. I'll keep you informed as I mail them out. After that there may be one or two other packages in the near future - sent before Christmas, but who can tell when they will arrive; I imagine a lot of mail is being sent to you guys this time of year. I think you will like the contents I have planned for the other packages, and I hope you will be able to share them as much as possible among your unit and with other units. Right now I need to go shopping for a few more things for the packages.

One other thing before I go: I did not put any note or anything like that in today's package. I forgot. I wanted to add a holiday card from all those who made donations toward the package. I will do that with one of the other packages. For now let me just say there have been about 16 - 18 people so far, including myself of course, who have donated quite a bit, about $525 to date; and of course StreamLight who donated the lights. As for the money, all of it is being used to buy the contents of the packages I am sending, every penny of it. The postage is being taken care of separately. I am only saying something about this so that you and the guys in your unit realize this is a group effort, and there is a bunch of really nice people involved who are all thinking of you guys and wishing you the best, wishing you Happy Hanukkah, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and Happy Holidays, and hoping you will all be home soon both safe and sound. They realize the sacrifice you guys are making by being over there while we are here, and they are trying to make things a bit easier for you. By the way, thanks to the folks at StreamLight - you are getting a whole lot more than I had originally planned - those lights are not cheap - so their donation allowed for money that would have otherwise paid for the lights to go for other things. They did a really nice things, I was amazed, and I hope you guys will be too.

All the best,
Glenn B"

I'll keep you all informed as I send out the packages, and I'll fill you in once I get a response from Bob and his unit about them.

All the best,
Glenn B

Is She An Idiot, In Shock, Afraid, Or Being Guided...

...in what she has been saying about her ordeal in Sudan. Except that Gillian Gibbons is possibly in shock over her ordeal, I think she may be an idiot. I am not certain she is one, but I have to wonder about it. I mean sure shock is probaly a natural reaction for someone threatened with a death for something as petty as naming a Teddy Bear Muhamet, (or was it Mohamad, Mohammad, Mohamed, Mohammed, Muhamad, Muhamad, Muhammad, Muhamed, Muhammed), but how did she get there in the first place - maybe through idiocy. Maybe she is in a bit of shock and that is natural; then again maybe a lot of the shock she is experiencing is due to the fact that she is afraid, and allowing herself to be guided, and I woder that can all be based upon the premise that she is quite possibly an idiot (not the psychologically classified version, just your run of the mill every man's jerk).

Now you may find my wondering about her smarts, or lack of them, to be rather harsh considering the ordeal she was just through, but I believe her ordeal could be in great part born of her being an idiot if in fact she is one. I beleive she could be the product of the idiocy of some of today's societies (especially British and European societies with Americans closing in). First of all what was she doing in Sudan. She was and I guess is a teacher. She is apparently white and of British ancestry. So where does she go to teach but to Sudan. Sudan is in essence, if not fact, an enemy of Britain and its people (by whom I mean to say Anglo-Saxons or the English and not those who have immigrated to England in the past few decades). Sudan is a country run by a Muslim hard line militant type of ruler, one Omar al-Bashir (see FoxNews.copm article Teacher Jailed for 'Muhammad' Teddy Bear Arrives Home in Britain). In addition he apparently is no friend to his own people in the Dafur region. Muslims, in my opinion, as they have shown over the past couple of years are also no friends of Great Britain and her people. Yet this teacher, this person who would have parents trust the education of their children to her care, seemignly though use of her mental capacities deemed it good and appropriate to go to the Sudan, a war torn reason, for the purpose of what? Well I am pretty darned sure I heard her say, on FoxNews today in a televised interview, that she did it for an "adventure"! So you say okay, she is adventurous, how does that make her an idiot. It does not on its own, so keep reading and wondering.

Besides wanting to go on an adventure, it seems apparent she actually wanted to teach, after all that was her profession and her job while in Sudan. She was teaching Sudanese, Muslim, children. Now anyone, even some of the biggest goofballs I know, are pretty much aware of the current world situation since 9/11. They have some idea that there are many hardline Islamic-fascists out there who seem to like nothing more than beheading those of different cultures than their own, and they seemingly do so for anything imaginable that could only possibly be seen through their eyes as an insult to their so called 'profit' (yes I spelled that right for this case), or to their proclaimed religion (or would that be their political stance, for Islam by their standards certainly seems more a form of government than it does a true religion to me). Why would she choose Sudan. Did she want to better the relations between the Muslim and Christian worlds, did she want to do likewise between the Islamists and the British, did she feel sorry for the children of Sudan, did she wish to become a Muslim, did she feel soooooo sorry for them that she had to enlighten them, or was she driven by idiocy? Well, whatever her motives, she went there to teach; and since she was going to a foreign country, wherein the ideals of the people were drastically other than those of her own country, one would think (her being an educator and all) that she would have taken into consideration how to conduct herself properly in a foreign land. I wonder if she did so, it seems to me she did not, and that seems none too smart, almost kind of idiotic as I see it.

Do I need explain myself. First of all who is she to travel to a foreign land and then think it is okay for her to do as she pleases? No I am not defending anyone who wanted to kill her, nor do I uphold their type of so called morality or religion (because I do not believe it to truly be a religion at all but only a masquerading state terroristic regime of terror); but I am wondering how she could have been, if indeed she was, so out of touch with contemporary happenings to have put herself in such a spot. The fact is that many, many Muslims in Sudan are hardliners, that they have no tolerance of Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, or any other religious group; and that Sudan is a hotbed for this type of Muslim and they routinely are violent in Sudan. The fact is that just about anything can set these folks off, but they repeatedly use insults to their prophet (whether real or not) to raise their followers into a frenzy of blood lust. So why in a million years, with all this evidence being presented on the evening news over the 'telly' (as they call it in the La-La Land of England) would she do or say anything that would be an OBVIOUS insult to, or that could be used to incite hatred and voiolence by, the Muslim hardliners. I wonder, and ask you, is it because she was an idiot? Yet you decide, read up on her and do so on with her own words. here are someof them, but I urge you to read and listen to more: (these are from the above mentioned article):

""I have a great respect for the Islamic religion and would not knowingly offend anyone," Gibbons said in the statement, which was released by al-Bashir's office and read to journalists by British Baroness Sayeeda Warsi."

Not knowingly offend anyone. Was she living on Mars or maybe Uranus while all the post 9/11 terrorism has taken place? Has she never heard of any of the beheadings, supposedly some of them because the prophet was insulted. Has she never heard of the Danish riots, the world riots, the calls for beheading of Christians and Jews, the death of van Gogh (no not Vincent), all due to so called insults to the prophet? Is she just an ill informed EDUCATOR or is she an idiot?

Now what else might asking the question as to whether or not sdhe acted as an idiot? Well she returns home and what does she spew forth? She says something to the effect that she was 'treated well' while in Sudan. Hold the presses, maybe she is not an idiot at all, maybe she is just out and out crazy, I wonder if she is either? Does she truly believe that being arrested and having to spend about a week in jail, for allowing a child to name his Teddy Bear - Muhammad, is being treated nicely? Does she believe that being made into a political pawn is being treated nicely or with respect? Does she beleive that is what ahppened at all?Does she believe that people calling for her death (probably by beheading) is being treated nicely? Does he think being charged with a crime, being held in jail, being under threat of death is a nice thing? Does she truly think the people of Sudan were nice to her? Here is what she says of her experience in Sudan (also from the above mentioned article):

"I am very sorry to leave Sudan. I had a fabulous time," Gibbons said."

And furthermore, she added:

""It is a beautiful place and I had a chance to see some of the countryside. The Sudanese people I found to be extremely kind and generous and until this happened I only had a good experience.""

Remember folks this is a highly trained educator, she is a TEACHER, and she reportedly said these things after her ordeal. Is she for real?

Now please, don't get me wrong. I agree completely with Inayat Bunglawala, reportedly a spokesman for the Muslim Council of Britain who reportedly said:

""Gillian should never have been arrested in the first place, let alone held in jail. She had done nothing wrong,"... "It will be wonderful to see her back in the U.K. I am sure she will be welcomed by both Muslims and non-Muslims after her quite terrible ordeal at the hands of the Sudanese authorities.""

Yes it was terrible treatment, but remember she does not seem to think that the Islamists treated her terribly, at least based upon the words reported in the above mentioned article, and based upon at least the part of the interview I heard this morning on Fox News television. Were her words due to idiocy or to fear of reprisals now that she is home in a country that has been the target of Muslim extremists, and homegrown Muslim extremists at that? Or is she just allowing the British government to tell her what to say? Whichever way I look at it, I cone up with having to wonder is she an idiot? She well could be the penultimate liberal do-gooder, who uses her mouth to undo the evils of the world without regard to anything other than what she wants to to on the spur of the moment. Adventure to Sudan, teach those of a foreign culture quite possibly without first having taken heed of their culture, say or do things and apparently not expect the consequences whether the consequences be just or not (just not expecting them makes her the idiot in my mind), these things all make me wonder: "Is she an idiot?".

The sad thing is that it is not she alone whom I wonder about with regards to idiocy. Those calling her a hero are quite possibly idiots, or at least I would have to question their smarts. Are those who would do likewise idiots too? Is the part society that has allowed such to happen is idiotic itself? Think of it folks. At the cost of our own possible well being, have we allowed a so called religious group to begin our own destruction by using our own laws against us? We continue to call Islam a religion - and I wonder who is fooling whom? The fact is that those who use Islam to take over other countries, and to rule people under religious or any other form of government, constitute not a religious group, but are in fact acting not as a religion but as a state. They should be treated as such and swift action should be taken to thwart hem, or so I believe.

It is not without irony that the item at the crux of this latest Islamic tyranny was a Teddy Bear, a bear named after Theodore Roosevelt. Had this happened during his era, I am pretty sure the outcome would have been fair, just, swift, and not idiotic at all; but rather one in which some Islamic-fascist ass was kicked. Would that have been appropriate in this case? maybe so. Of course, nowadays, the government of England, and most governments around the world are fearful of insulting the Islamist lest someone be beheaded. Damn them, don't they see that this will be the outcome regardless of their pandering to Islam? I believe it is due to their faults in the first place, their political correctness, their inability to show backbone, their wanting to accommodate and tolerate, their idiocy that led us down the road to this point where we bow to every whim, every whisper of threat, every tenet of the so called religion of peace. So I have to ask, are we non-Muslims all idiots. Ask yourselves.

When you think of it it is rather funny in a sad way that any of this has happened. I feel bad for ms. Gibbons and her family,. I feel bad for the boy who wanted to call his Teddy Bear Muhammad (what happened to the boy and his family, were they punished). It is funny, in the sad sense, and extremely hypocritical as I see it, that Muslims do not behead or threaten to behead other Muslims who are named Mohammad (by any spelling) who commit crimes such as assault, theft, child abuse, rape, sodomy, terrorism, making terrorisitc threats, being bigots, and so forth - and then continue to use said name for themselves. Don't they too insult the prophet by continuing to use his name after having committed these crimes? Sure it is funny, don't you think so? The joke is on anyone who continues to let these scum get away with using any excuse to spread the terror of Islamo-fascism.

Of course maybe I am too questioning. Maybe Islam is the religion of peace. Maybe this was no injustice here, maybe there was no idiocy, maybe tolerance of everyone,despite their actions, is a good thing - but I tend to doubt it. For all I know Ms. Gibbons could in effect be a rocket scientist, but I just have not seen that yet based upon the facts as reported. To me she seems more like the product of a whimpering, subservient society that has lost its backbone and self esteem. What do you think?

All the best,
Glenn B