I get the impression others have expressed their displeasure at your choice of avatar long before this, so I must ask a) if you knew that it (the avatar) upset people why didn't you offer to change it sooner, and b) why did it take the threat of being banned for you to change it at all ?

tom_in_toronto, why don't you put your pseudo-concern where it belongs? If you ever tried to understand anything beyond its literal meaning, you'd realize that what you consider an offence is actually sarcasm which pretty much dead-on in the figurative sense. Maybe you should think a while about "freedom of speech". By the way, it's 2006. Crusades are "out".