For those of you who haven't heard, the pope gave a speech in Germany wherein he referenced some old passage that criticized people practicing Islam for using violence to spread the faith. Now the pope claims that he wasn't calling people practicing Islam as being violent. The message of the speech was to not use violence no matter what religion you are practicing.
Now, I haven't read the speech the pope gave since it's long, full of big words and boring so I'll give the pope the benefit of the doubt and believe him. But for a person so commonly praised as a brilliant academic, he can't find another text to use in his speech that will not insult any religion? Surely there must be other articles he could have used.
Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone says that the pope wants Christians and Muslims to respect each other. I do recall him giving speeches of that sort however what I don't recall is him doing anything to have that come about other than giving speeches. I am surfing the web to find out if he has visited any Muslim countries since he has been elected as pope. So far all I've found out is that he seems to be visiting Germany a whole lot.
Hmmm, just a thought, maybe his plan would work a lot better if he also visited Muslim countries instead of always going to Germany. But I guess if he was planning on doing that, that plan would be moot right now since the citizens of those countries would not welcome him.
As a person who is being represented by this guy to the rest of the world, I have this to say to him about this incident, "Great job, D.W.!"
Side Note:
Is this the face of person you would follow? I agree that looks should never factor in choosing a person for a job, except if they are models, but frankly he looks like a scary man-eating guy who would scare off potential Christians and children of all faiths. 
I was recently asked why I haven't been updating my blog. The simplest answer to that is usually the one I have often used with my friends when they ask me why I haven't done a certain something, something. I'm a lazy ass. Seriously, that's my answer to them. Okay, my actual words are 'Procrastination, thy name is me'.
But to be truthful about this whole not updating thing, I was actually thinking of creating an entry on my thoughts on the recent world events. To be specific, the attack on Lebanon.
Now why didn't I? You see issues like these usually get me riled up. I would have gone on a very long rant which I may or may not agree with later on when I have had time to cool my heels and had tried to see the whole issue from all sides. Also, considering that the current U.S. government has no qualms about stepping on the privacy rights of individuals and have been caught doing a lot of dubious things, I have become a disciple of the Lone Rangers and have begun to think that I may just be flagged by some U.S. agency as some sort of terrorist threat. But right now I'm thinking, 'Screw it. Go ahead and flag me you bastards!' Besides, I've already cooled my heels on this issue, so I will no longer be belligerent about it.
So why does this particular event concern me?
My country also has a terrorist group. Actually we have several. These groups have been involved in bombings, squirmishes with the army and have been kidnapping people, several of them were foreigners. Given the ongoing state of corruption in our government, the terrorist problem here is far from being resolved any time soon.
As you can see, the country I live is similar to Lebanon. The groups here may not be as influential in the general populace as Hezbollah appears to be in Lebanon but they are more or less the same. So you can see why I would be upset with Israel's actions. This event could have easily been done to us and I may be without a home, family or a pulse right now.
Now this whole fiasco happened at the cost of hundreds of civilian lives. My first thought about that is that there is no excuse for killing civilians but then I realize that given the history of my country, there is an event that cost hundreds of civilian lives that I do accept, purely because this stopped the killing of my countrymen. But I digress.
So I get why Israel did it. Israel is sick and tired of being attacked by its neighbors. They have been attacked one time too many and the kidnapping is just the straw that broke the camel's back. It's attack or continue to be attacked for them.
The Lebanon government may not have sanctioned the attacks on Israel but could they have done something more to prevent Hezbollah from attacking Israel? Yes, they could have. However Israel should have dealt with this in a more diplomatic way. They should have negotiated with the Lebanese government and worked out an agreement on how to take care of this problem or have gone to the U.N. Just because you are being attacked by terrorists, it doesn't mean that you should become terrorists yourselves.
Both sides have contributed to this melee. Lebanon's sin is for being passive while Israel's sin is for being aggressive. Whatever my opinion is on them, it doesn't change the fact that both parties are losers in this one. The Lebanese people have lost their homes and loved ones. The people of Israel, on the other hand, are now in more danger because the Israel government just single-handedly gave Hezbollah the PR they need to recruit more people to their cause.
