An X-Def Update - Sep 16

It's close to midnight right now and most of my post is being done early Saturday morning. I've managed to make myself administrator again. Had to go to my old computer and after a few mouse clicks I have restored control once more over my blog. I'm a bit reticent about reporting my next news as I have invited two female members of my church to be contributors to my blog. I may be jumping the gun here a wee bit but I'm hoping that you may start seeing new posts that are not mine very soon! Exciting stuff indeed. I have a big post here as I fell asleep yesterday and didn't have a chance to do a post. At least it's all hyperlinked for you so it's all tickety-boo.

Putting Out the Fire with Gasoline Dep't: I reported this in my last post about Pope Benedict XVI making some unflattering remarks about a certain 'religion of peace'. The fit has hit the shan as the plebians are fond to say. You can see these dolts making fools out of themselves in this picture gallery from the BBC. I ask you to judge for yourself whether or not Benny was out of line. You can read the condensed version here or download the full pdf version if you want instead.

I have to follow up on that shooting in Montreal. Kimveer Gill joins Marc Lepine and Valery Fabrikant as bullies that went on a shooting rampage in the beautiful city of Montreal. While Stephen Harper and Jean Charest bicker over mangled bodies, four of the victims still remain in critical care. I reported erroneously that Gill was killed by the Montreal police force. That is not true. While a cop did shoot him, Gill committed suicide with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. What a coward. I leave this story with a picture gallery from the CBC and take a peak at vampirefreaks.com, a website Gill frequented. Let me add a special disclaimer for the last link as I am not glorifying violence or vampirism, I'm showing you so you can make an informed decision. Like I've said before, there's a lot of strange stuff out there.

Amnesty International has taken the easy way out, condemning Hizbollah for it's rocket attacks against Israeli citizens after the war has ended. It's sort of like trash-talking about a bully long after he's left. Pretty weak if you ask me. Both Zionist.com and Hugh Fitzgerald are less than impressed with AI's flaccid response.

I've also got two good articles from euobserver.com. Romano Prodi is desperately trying to revive the EU constitution by chopping out the last third and the EU is agreeing to liberalize the arms market within it's borders.

I have some other odds and sods that piqued my interest as well:

It appears that Major Hess-von Kruedener and his UN cohorts were killed over a map reading error. What a tragic waste. I dunno, when I was in the military, a six-figure grid reference was dead easy to figure out. I think that there's more to this story here than meets the eye.

The World Health Organization has reversed policy on DDT, saying that it is an effective weapon against the spread of malaria. Why DDT was ever banned in the first place strikes me as strange politics, not to mention misplaced idealism.

This may come as a shock to you, but Hezbollah is still armed and deployed in southern Lebanon. I'm sure Kofi Annan is all over this. Or not.

In Somalia, things are predictably going from bad to worse as the Islamists start imposing harsh Sharia law against the will of the locals.

Not all is doom and gloom in Iran. There's a local music festival held there called the Tehran Avenue Music Festival, celebrating local art and music. How un-Islamic of them!

Wow. I'm tired and I'm going to bed. Hope you enjoyed my latest effort!

The Man in Black