Another prominent Syrian regime adversary in Lebanon has been assassinated. This time it’s Pierre Gemayel.

No one intelligent can think for even a second that the timing of this is coincidental or that the Syrian government didn’t have anything to do with it. The Lebanese government has been mounting an investigation into the assassination of Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, and this is a direct blatant attempt to intimidate those involved and disrupt the normal process of law.

If the Syrian government doesn’t suffer serious consequences for this, they’ll continue to act the same way. The problem is, I don’t know if there is anyone in the international arena who is willing to make those consequences happen.

If you look at the tabs, you will see one that is labeled “LDS Blog Feeds.” That is a page that is devoted to promoting LDS blog posts. There is no specific bias or particular hierarchy in how blogs are listed, except that the most recent posts appear at the top of the list. If you have an LDS-themed blog or you are an LDS blogger and you would like your site’s posts to be included, I will be happy to add it. Just let me know in the comments or through the contact form.

The page isn’t limitless. It currently lists the 200 most recent posts, based on the list of rss feeds I’ve compiled. I can easily add to that if necessary, but I doubt anyone would have the time on a specific day to go through even half that many.

The aggregator should check for new posts on an hourly basis.

If you run WordPress and would like to create your own aggregator page, you can use this plugin. It’s quite easy to do.

Yesterday evening at 96th Street on the West Side I stood at a bus stop next to a Muslim couple. I knew they were Muslims because the man was wearing a white knitted cap and white clothing in a style that I’ve seen devout Muslim men wearing before. He also had a beard. If that hadn’t given away the couple’s religious identity it wouldn’t have mattered because the woman was wearing the full Saudi Arabia-style black abaya, hijab and niqab. Her hair face and body were covered entirely, with only eye holes for her to see out of. The skirts of the abaya went all the way down to the bottom edges of her shoes.

At their feet, each of them had a backpack that appeared to be fully packed.

Did the possibility occur to me that the backpacks could be full of explosives? I guess it did. I’ve seen a lot of pictures of buses that were blown up by Hamas. There have been times when I’ve wondered if bus bombings will ever happen in America. Ghosts of 9/11 in my mind. I admit, I was a little nervous. I thought about watching them get on and waiting for the next bus to come.

Instead I got on the bus anyway and for no reason at all made a point of sitting behind them. After sitting down, they talked to each other for a little while. I was interested in how she had to communicate her words through black cloth. Then they reached down to their backpacks. I thought to myself “if they are going to pull some kind of trigger, this is it.” Instead, each pulled out a small Qur’an and started reading. His was all Arabic. Hers had Arabic writing on one side of the page and English on the other. I wondered if she was a convert to Islam.

Only after I got off the bus did the obvious dawn on me. There’s a mosque near my apartment. I’m not sure if Thursday night there’s a reason to go to mosque. But there’s a good possibility that was their destination as it was the next stop.

For some time people have been questioning whether Mark Butler (who was posting at Millennial Star) is a real person or not. I was one of the people asking that question.

For the record, I called him and spoke with him on the phone. He is a real person.

He knows I am writing this post. We talked about it and he gave his approval. On the phone, I have to say, he sounds like a very nice guy. I wish him well.

The purpose of this post is to help end any controversy on the question of Mark Butler’s identity, not to start new discussion. For that reason, comments are closed.