Illumination II

Bad news: Scottish kilt makers who had been prevented from making sealskin sporrans due to an EU trade ban have been handed an unfortunate (for the seals) break by an exemption granted to the Inuit peoples of the Arctic region that will allow Sporran makers to continue using seal skin for their product.

Ian Chisholm, of the Scottish Kilt Makers' Association, said: "Seals have been used down the generations. It has been a traditional skin. The way the light hits the skin, it has a lovely sheen to it and a lustre that gives a lovely quality to it."

That's just terrific Mr. Chisholm, we wouldn't want those sporrans to not have the appropriate luster or heaven forbid, be made from something synthetic or plant-based, would we? It is, after all, the twenty-first century and we also wouldn't want to let go of those all those important practices that define and keep us firmly captive in the previous twenty-five thousand years. Neanderthal.

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Good Fan-bloody-tastic news: The Kremlin has formally banned the sale of S-300 air defense missile systems to Iran three months after new UN sanctions when President Dmitry Medvedev prohibited the sale, which had been in the works for years.

Earlier, Gen Nikolai Makarov, head of Russia's general staff, confirmed that the missiles were "definitely" subject to the sanctions introduced in June and that possession of S-300 systems would enhance Iran's defense of its nuclear facilities against attack from the air.

Really Russia, you just now woke up and realized that you were about to empower a dangerous and paranoid leader? You're telling me that at some point in the last few years it was okay to sell these missiles to Iran? You greedy buttwipes.