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CARTOON LATEST

Mo-toon mortality now stands at nine following the shooting deaths of four Afghan protesters. In other developments:

Copies of a British student paper which reproduced one cartoon were hastily shredded and the editor suspended from a student union. A French court however refused to order the confiscation of a magazine which planned to print the images ...

Further protests erupted overnight in Pakistan, Egypt, Yemen, Djibouti, Gaza and Azerbaijan. At least 10,000 marched in the Bangladeshi capital and tens of thousands turned out in Niger’s capital Niamey to vent their anger. State assembly members in Muslim Kano, northern Nigeria, burned Danish flags.

It isn’t just Danish flags being attacked:

Gangs of pro-Muslim computer hackers have unleashed a withering cyber attack on Danish and Western websites in the past week, escalating their defacement barrage to coincide with dozens of violent street-level demonstrations across the Arab world in protest at the publication of a cartoon depiction of the Prophet Mohammed.

Nearly 600 Danish sites have fallen to cyber Muslims in the past week.

UPDATE. “A Muslim’s faith is above Western values.”

UPDATE II. It’s a walk out at the New York Press:

The editorial staff of the alternative weekly New York Press walked out today, en masse, after the paper’s publishers backed down from printing the Danish cartoons that have become the center of a global free-speech fight.

UPDATE III. If you’ve arrived at this site seeking the sacreligious cartoons of legend, click here.

UPDATE IV. Leftoid columnist Antonia Zerbisias talks sense:

As many editors have explained, merely describing the cartoons is sufficient for making the point.

I hope that’s the real reason for their reticence. I would hate to think that newspapers are backing away to avoid angry protests, to prevent ad boycotts, out of political correctness or a sense that some communities should get special treatment or, most of all, because they fear violent reprisals.

If you’re in the news business, sometimes you just have to take major risks in order to defend freedom of the press.

So you’d expect her to support bloggers who’ve published the images. Not so:

The right-wing blogosphere has been staging its own “blogburst”: the act of reproducing the offending depictions of the Prophet Muhammad.

Follow their politics and you’ll understand why they’re on this particular blogwagon: they hate Muslims.

Damian Penny has more on this ridiculous woman.

UPDATE V. Iraqi Muslim Zeyad:

I only saw these images of Muslim protestors in London today. For the life of me, I cannot understand how the British police let those demonstrators get away with it. The protestors are blasting free speech in Europe, yet they are using that same free speech to call for murder and bloodshed. I would strongly support deporting those people back to the miserable societies they originally came from.

Via Instapundit; hit that link.

UPDATE VI. Andrew Sullivan:

If Chinese radicals were ransacking Western embassies because of a cartoon, and were backed by the Chinese government, we would be outraged, demanding apologies, severing relations, and so on. But when Muslims do it, backed by Islamist governments, we are supposed to take it on the chin, to “respect” their religious traditions, issue mealy-mouthed statements, etc. In many ways, this is the real offense: treating Muslims as if their violation of global norms, and thralldom to medieval conceptions of politics and religion, were somehow acceptable. They are not acceptable.

UPDATE VII. Hail the Rockhampton Morning Bulletin and Queensland premier Peter Beattie:

“I strongly support their right to publish these cartoons,” Mr Beattie said.

We’ve now got two senior Laborites, both from Queensland, who support publication. Labor leader Kim Beazley, who opposes publication, is meanwhile remaining useless in Canberra.

UPDATE VIII. Hail the Blog Herald, too.

Posted by Tim B. on 02/07/2006 at 11:28 PM
  1. Aghan?

    AGHAN?

    What were they doing in Afghanistan?

    :)

    Posted by Quentin George on 2006 02 07 at 11:31 PM • permalink

  2. Where’s Bill Gates when you need him with his new “Cyper Plunger super dooper blogger fireball screenblap do be donger doo Virus sender”?

    Posted by ratio on 2006 02 07 at 11:38 PM • permalink

  3. Danish fools!  Must not have kept their subscriptions to “Dr. Mohammed’s Anti-Virus Intifada 2006” up to date.

    Posted by Tex Lovera on 2006 02 07 at 11:42 PM • permalink

  4. ROFLA

    Posted by ratio on 2006 02 07 at 11:47 PM • permalink

  5. The world’s favourite firewall: Check Point, is an Israeli developed product.

    I’m sure the Islamic cybercriminals meant no harm to the innocent businesses they are attacking. Surely they were just targeting the US funded Zionist Apartheid Firewall.

    Ahem.

    Posted by Dan Lewis on 2006 02 07 at 11:51 PM • permalink


  6. “A Muslim’s faith is above Western values.”

    That’s why we created jigsaw puzzles, to find out which pieces don’t want to fit in.

    Posted by ratio on 2006 02 08 at 12:10 AM • permalink

  7. Oooooh boy: the brains trusts are out in force on the Courier Mail website:

    From: Jack Ingram
    Comment: You guys are a bunch of f*cking morons for publishing those images of the islamic dude.

    From: Muslim
    Comment: Anyone that mocks our prophet is a terrorist and should be taken into custody on the spot with his supporters. Your newspaper has published cartoos mocking our prophet and therefore you are guilty of terrorism. The penalty for your crime is life in prison.

    From: Roberta Clifford
    Comment: Why on earth would you publish such an imflammatory,insulting,and downright offensive cartoon making ridicule of people`s religious beliefs? You`ve lost me.

    From: J. Murray
    Comment: I can’t believe that you would publish the cartoons that portray the Islamic god Allah. Do you realise how antagonistic this action is? I am not of the muslim faith, I do not agree with any religion, but I do understand that people have their beliefs, and it just sickens me that a publication would perpetuate this type of religious hate. After what we have seen in the Middle East, with Danish, Swedish and Norwegian embassies being attacked, one wonders if in republishing these cartoons your publication is trying to incite civil unrest.

    Posted by BIWOZ on 2006 02 08 at 12:11 AM • permalink

  8. Slightly OT, more censorship in Eurabia:

    Floating Saddam banned
    An artwork depicting a handcuffed Saddam Hussein suspended in liquid wearing underpants has been banned from a Belgian art festival.

    The mayor of the small Belgian town of Middlekerke, Michel Landuyt, said he decided to ban the work before fury was unleashed over published cartoons of the Prophet Muhammed.

    Mr Landuyt said the sculpture could “shock people, including Muslims”.

    I don’t think I need to say anything else…

    Posted by Art Vandelay on 2006 02 08 at 12:15 AM • permalink

  9. Brains trust is being charitable.

    Pssst J Murray….the cartoons don’t depict Allah. They depict Mohammed.

    One is a god, one isn’t….Capice?

    Posted by Quentin George on 2006 02 08 at 12:16 AM • permalink

  10. And good lord, since when are we against questioning people’s beliefs? Fucking MORONS.

    Posted by Quentin George on 2006 02 08 at 12:17 AM • permalink

  11. Website blogs from America.


    “This is hilarious! A group of people are offended by their prophet being depicted as a source of violence—so they threaten violence! The world has officially become a big, fat cartoon.”

    I wonder how many muslims have seen the cartoons. I wonder how they know it is the prophet since no one has been permitted to have a picture since he died.
    Indeed it does seem sufficiently silly to start WWIII.

    The answer in my opinion is to completely isolate ourselves from Islamic countries. A Manhattan project to develop an alternative to oil is job one. Then, let completely leave Islamic countries to drink their own oil (if they can figure out how to pump and refine it without the West’s technoligies), make their own airplanes, cars, computers, drugs, medical brakthrough’s etc… let them fester in their own, stinking, rotten, God-forsaken hell holes for the rest of time. Period.


    I don’t know what poses more of a moral dilemma… the muslims resorting to violence over a cartoon, calling for censorship of a free press in the name of religious beliefs… or that Michael Savage was right all along.

    A caricature is a humorous illustration that exaggerates or distorts the basic essence of a person or thing to create an easily identifiable visual likeness.

    This caricature is NOT about Mohammed nor the Koran. It is about today’s muslims. Does it inaccurately and unfairly portray a violent image of the muslim community ?

    Perhaps the violent reaction by the muslim community to this caricature was ultimately what the cartoonist sought. Alas, the muslim community has ironically demonstrated that the caricature is not so exaggerated after all…

     

    We’ve gotta lot of blogging TO doooo

    Posted by ratio on 2006 02 08 at 12:21 AM • permalink

  12. AD break flicks the remote control:

    Coming up tonight on TV


    7:30 - Wheel of Terror
    8:00 - The Price is Right if Osama Says It’s Right
    8:30 - Children are Forbidden from Saying the Darndest Things
    9:00 - Taliban’s Wackiest Public Execution Bloopers
    9:30 - Buffy the Yankee Infidel Dog Slayer

    Posted by ratio on 2006 02 08 at 12:24 AM • permalink

  13. #9,

    a handcuffed Saddam Hussein suspended in liquid wearing underpants


    They say if you suspend these in the urine of pregnant women you can tell what gender the child is. Floats boy, sinks girl.

    Posted by HC44 on 2006 02 08 at 12:39 AM • permalink

  14. Breaking News! The source of one of the “extra three” Mohammed cartoons has been uncovered.

    Be warned - Full picture at site.  It will undoubtedly be offensive to Mohammedans.

    Posted by Kaboom on 2006 02 08 at 12:39 AM • permalink

  15. The protestors are blasting free speech in Europe, yet they are using that same free speech to call for murder and bloodshed.


    Sounds like an episode of Monty Python. Can they send them back to school for reprogramming?

    Posted by ratio on 2006 02 08 at 12:44 AM • permalink

  16. The audacity of these liars, to threaten the civilized of the earth and demand that we change our ways. “Stop calling us violent or we’ll kill you!”

    Kaboom an exert from the above site.

    I think it’s the same thing as the protest in Britain.

    Free speech and yet calls for bloodshed.

    Posted by ratio on 2006 02 08 at 12:49 AM • permalink

  17. Follow their politics and you’ll understand why they’re on this particular blogwagon: they hate Muslims.

    You’re missing something, lady.  It is what follows the word “who” in this sentence:

    They hate Muslims . . .

    who attack the very notion of freedom

    who aspire to kill those who disagree with them

    who behead people to get attention

    who blow themselves up in cafes, pizza parlors, holiday dinners, etc., to kill as many Jews as possible

    who plan to stage a latter-day Holocaust

    And so on.

    You can carry on with your self-delusion now.  We’ll see how long it lasts.

    Posted by stuartfullerton on 2006 02 08 at 12:51 AM • permalink

  18. Print the cartoons everywhere, print em on tshirts… Hats.. Make your own cartoons, protect the freedom of speech! Its funny that they have reacted this way, now people know what buttons to press, i can see it snowballing out of control. Kafir McHashish was right after all..

    Posted by Nabi on 2006 02 08 at 12:52 AM • permalink

  19. and you sand monkey followers wonder why the rest of the world hates and think you are all crazy suicide bombers? go and smoke a spliff, eat a pork roll and chill ffs

    Posted by Allah on 2006 02 08 at 12:56 AM • permalink

  20. First time poster, long time reader…

    On a (very) serious note, there is something far deeper and more sinister at play here…

    Chiliastic belligerence (militant millenarianism) is the notion that the apocalypse must be “helped along”. It is no secret that Evangelical Christianity—with a powerful proponent in G.W.Bush—sees (and influences) current events with an eye to the soi-disant “Rapture”.

    However, it may surprise some (not all) of you that millennialism has an important non-Western component.

    Islam, as a “religion of revelation”, began as an apocalyptic movement anticipating the “Day of Judgment”; and retains apocalyptic and millennial elements to this day, especially in Shiite theology, but also in many forms of popular religiosity.

    In particular the Mujaddid tradition, that foresees a “renewer” at every century turn, appears to constitute before the century has turned a form of apocalyptic messianic expectation in the coming of the hidden Mahdi.

    Call me paranoid, but I wouldn’t be fooled into thinking these are random acts. Many here have commented on the timing and rapid, state-sponsored dissemination of this whole tragicomedy.

    There is purpose, a sick and evil purpose, behind the headlines—AND ARMAGEDDON SICK OF IT!

    (see you at Meggido, on the Plain of Jezreel)

    Posted by MentalFloss on 2006 02 08 at 01:03 AM • permalink

  21. Oh, well, if we got Andy Sullivan with us,  (this week) we’re okay then…

    Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 02 08 at 01:13 AM • permalink

  22. Further protests erupted overnight in Pakistan, Egypt, Yemen, Djibouti, Gaza and Azerbaijan.

    Hey, those places aren’t all that close together.  Why or why would protests erupt there?  Is there some common factor?  What could that be?

    Posted by wronwright on 2006 02 08 at 01:14 AM • permalink

  23. The common factor is the new McPork double pattie that just got released over there..

    Posted by Nabi on 2006 02 08 at 01:16 AM • permalink

  24. Do you think we could come up with a cartoon portrait of our loveable Bing Lee (Appliance King), burning his Wok in Protest against the Communist MAO god then?

    Posted by ratio on 2006 02 08 at 01:29 AM • permalink

  25. #21 MentalFloss:

    If your interests tend that way, and you have a strong stomach for clotted academic prose, you might be interested in looking up some of the work by John Wansbrough - for example, ‘The Sectarian Milieu’.

    Posted by SteveGW on 2006 02 08 at 01:31 AM • permalink

  26. What if god was one of us?

    Just a slob like one of us..
    Just a stranger on a bus…
    trying to make his way home…...

    AD break! Ad Break ! changes the TV channel…

    Tonight on Channel Televiv

    7:00 - Husseinfeld
    7:30 - Mad About Everything
    8:00 - Monday Night Stoning
    8:30 - Win Bin Laden’s Money
    9:00 - Allah McBeal

    Posted by ratio on 2006 02 08 at 01:34 AM • permalink

  27. Hi SteveGW,

    No, I’ve just eaten, but thanks for the hot tip.

    Posted by ratio on 2006 02 08 at 01:38 AM • permalink

  28. Good hit Kaboom (#15).

    The theory that Iran is leading this and continuing to drum up as much trouble as possible gains more weight every hour.

    More Australian papers will post at least one cartoon in the coming days I feel. The pressure is mounting to continue free press and not be initimidated.

    Posted by Mr Brightside on 2006 02 08 at 01:41 AM • permalink

  29. Useless in Canberra

    Now all we have to do is get Roger L. Simon to write the screenplay…

    Posted by scott crawford on 2006 02 08 at 02:21 AM • permalink

  30. We’ve now got two senior Laborites, both from Queensland, who support publication.

    I find when reading the letters page of the Sydney Morning Herald, the most sensible letters seem to be written by Queenslanders while the more moonbatish letters are written by Victorians.

    Posted by Jonny on 2006 02 08 at 02:38 AM • permalink

  31. #19 Nabi, 

    Print the cartoons everywhere, print em on tshirts… Hats..

    They were available at Cafe Press, briefly. Sadly, they are no more…

    :^(

    Posted by Spiny Norman on 2006 02 08 at 02:40 AM • permalink

  32. ot looking at the item on the jailing of ol’ hooky, can somebody tell me why some of these guys have lots of different names? done a half-hearted google & found no explanation

    Posted by KK on 2006 02 08 at 02:41 AM • permalink

  33. How the feck do these nobs “know” whats Mohammad. Every 2nd bloke in the ME is called mo, does that mean they violate their sacred desert survival guide every time they take a picture of someone with that name??
    I am glad that it appears the majority on the left (not the mad shreiking, chimpeachment left) get what is happening. Petro dollars are being used not for overt warfare, but for conversion and disruption. Also as good is the realisation by many on the “right” that alternative energy is not just for tree huggers but to cripple the beardy weirdys.
    Neuclear energy used to make hydrogen fuel with a crash programme to improve storage and conversion techs is probably the way to go.

    Posted by thefrollickingmole on 2006 02 08 at 02:45 AM • permalink

  34. UPDATE IV. Leftoid columnist Antonia Zerbisias talks sense:

    The lovely *cough* Antonia Z. has a burr under her saddle about LGF: a couple of years ago, she posted some whining and pompous retort to sarcastic remarks Charles wrote about a particularly ignorant article in the Star, and then waded into the comments thread to set the peasants straight about respecting their betters, and promptly had her silly ass handed back to her. She has not forgotten nor forgiven.

    Posted by Spiny Norman on 2006 02 08 at 02:49 AM • permalink

  35. Hey Ratio,
    I’d like to play:

    7pm:  Judge Jihad
    7.30pm: Burka’s Backyard
    8.30pm: Everyone Loves Ramadan
    9pm:  Sharia Law & Order
    10pm:  Rage

    —Nora

    Posted by The Thin Man Returns on 2006 02 08 at 02:53 AM • permalink

  36. It could be circulation suicide for a NYC newspaper, especially a small one like the New York Press, to go it alone in printing the cartoons. The NYC newspapers would be safer jumping into it together and then they’d lose maybe one day’s circulation. Maybe not even that, maybe instead I’m overestimating the risk. It’s just that most of the newsdealers in NYC are Pakistani.

    Posted by ForNow on 2006 02 08 at 03:08 AM • permalink

  37. #37

    Yeah!!  But have you ever known a Pakistani to put bullshit principles before a $

    Posted by Mikie Slats on 2006 02 08 at 04:19 AM • permalink

  38. Ok Nora:
    7.00 Global Pillage
    7.30 Bedouin Homes & Gardens
    8.00 Iran Chef
    8.30 Absolutely Fatwaless
    9.00 Extremist Makeover

    Posted by blogstrop on 2006 02 08 at 04:22 AM • permalink

  39. It’s good that the ‘Blog Herald’ posted them toons but what’s with their poll -
    ‘What do you think of Tim Blair’? ~~

    Posted by Lucky Nutsacks on 2006 02 08 at 04:52 AM • permalink

  40. ‘... they hate Muslims.’

    Many of my colleagues happen to be Muslims, my neighbours happen to be Muslims, I have friends who happen to be Muslims.  I happen to live in a predominantly Muslim country.

    What I hate is inhumanity, intolerance, violence, bigotry and intimidation.  If those that do this happen to be Muslims, that is regrettable. If those that do this, do it in the name of Islam then they betray me, my colleagues, my friends and my adopted country.

    Posted by Inurbanus on 2006 02 08 at 05:32 AM • permalink

  41. And the entire edtorial staff of alternative weekly New York Press walked out, en masse, after the paper’s publishers backed down from printing the Danish cartoons.

    Posted by davetherave on 2006 02 08 at 05:50 AM • permalink

  42. It is no secret that Evangelical Christianity—with a powerful proponent in G.W.Bush

    That is a load of crap mate. GW Bush is not an evangelical nor has ever claimed to be. He is merely a mainstream American Protestant. The only people who think he is an Evangelical are frothing lefties and fanatic Muslims.

    Posted by Andrew Ian Dodge on 2006 02 08 at 09:37 AM • permalink

  43. Among the victims of Barbaric Islam:Father Andrea, a Catholic Priest, was slain in Turkey by a Muslim High School Student. The reason? You guessed it:“The student told police he was influenced by cartoons lampooning the Prophet Mohammad, NTV commercial television said.”” (The News Report can be found on Michelle Malkin and elsewhere.)

    Posted by stats on 2006 02 08 at 11:13 AM • permalink

  44. Mr Tim

    Damian Penny has more on this ridiculous woman.

    And I’d like to read it, but apparently some leftist fucktard has successfully attacked his site.  There’s a block of text that overlays the Daimnation text, and it’s opaque, saying something about “Senator Durbin takes on Pajamas Media.” 
    Anyway, whatever Mr Penny has to say, it looks like I’ll have to wait until he counters this attack.
    WAY TO GO, DEMOCRATS!  WAY TO STICK UP FOR FREEDOM OF SPEECH!  You gutless fucktards.

    Posted by Stoop Davy Dave on 2006 02 08 at 04:18 PM • permalink

  45. ForNow 37

    It’s just that most of the newsdealers in NYC are Pakistani.

    The chap who sells me my havarti cheese is Pakistani.  And it’s “Boar’s Head” cheese at that.  He used to (well, for one week) sell me Carlsburg beer, but ever since the Philly paper printed those cartoons, I’ve been able to revert, in good conscience, to drinking Rolling Rock.

    Posted by Stoop Davy Dave on 2006 02 08 at 04:37 PM • permalink

  46. me 45

    stupid tantrum

    er… perhaps the site wasn’t hijacked after all.  I um I found a way around the stupid block of opaque type, on my 2nd try.


    Okay, it was on my 3rd try!  Alright already!

    Posted by Stoop Davy Dave on 2006 02 08 at 04:50 PM • permalink

  47. Sorry the computer dropped out, or could it have been a weird virus sent from “out there” ?

    AD BREAk AD break….

    FOR blogstrop and Nora.

    WEDNESDAY
    7:00 - Beat the Press
    8:00 - When Kurds Attack
    8:30 - Two Guys, a Girl, and Pita Bread
    9:00 - Just Shoot Everyone
    9:30 - Veilwatch


    Kenny G and George Michael are just two of the Western artists banned by Iranian
    President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. -

    Kenny G maybe, but not I Our “Last Christmas” George Micheal.. shrugs.  But then again, we could win the war on terror if we played it over there 24/7

    Posted by ratio on 2006 02 08 at 06:02 PM • permalink

  48. #43 Andrew Ian Dodge.

    With respect, I never said Bush was an Evangelical Christian…only that (some of) his actions and words appear similar to those of other chiliasts—notably the Bohemian martyr, eschatologist and failed reformer, Jan Hus (1369-1415), influenced by Wycliff and precursor to the later, more successful Calvinists and Martin Luther—Protestants all.

    If you read Bush’s speeches carefully, they are replete with re-worded biblical verses, many associated with eschatological themes.

    Would you consider the doctrine of preemption which has replaced the “no first strike” policy to be a radical shift toward an apocalyptic vision of the present/future?

    I would also like to apoligise for the use of the blanket term “Evangelical”—it is perhaps to broad a label to use in this context.

    I welcome your comments, prefaced though they may be by dismissive perjoratives.

    #26 SteveGW

    Thanks for the search tip.

    Oh, and off the top of my head:

    8:30 - Who Wants to be a Millenarian?

    Posted by MentalFloss on 2006 02 08 at 06:53 PM • permalink

  49. Yup, MentalFloss, you are paranoid.

    By the way, if you play Bush’s speeches backwards, what do you get?

    If you go looking for biblical references, you’re sure to find them, i.e. when all you have is a hammer, everything appears as a nail. Ergo, re-worded biblical verses, in and of itself, is dispositive of an apocalyptic vision. Not.

    You need a new hobby, or different reading material, to fill your spare time.

    Doctrine of preemption hasn’t been used as the toppling of Saddam’s regime was a resumption of the Gulf War; Saddam never complied with, and was in continuous violation of, the Gulf War cease fire terms.

    No first strike is merely an implication of MAD—mutual assured destruction—itself, an insane result of the default nuclear weapons strategy.

    Try not to rewrite history when trolling.

    Cheers.

    Posted by Forbes on 2006 02 08 at 09:52 PM • permalink

  50. MentalFloss, you need to use some. George W. Bush is a member of the United Methodist Church, one of the more mellow Protestant denominations out there. When I was a child being taken to the local Methodist church by my grandmother, I didn’t hear a whole lot about the Millenium, but I do recall lots of sermons on how to be a Good Person, which in my child’s mind became confused with not getting my white lace church gloves dirty. Now I see they are into being mildly hip (they’ve been running a tv ad over here with a theme of “finding your path” that is a blatant outreach to the disappointed-with-Buddhism-and-feng-shui crowd), and hellfire damnation remains as unfashionable as always. Now come out from under the desk, the scawy Christians aren’t the ones with the sharp objects.

    Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2006 02 09 at 12:17 AM • permalink

  51. #31
    Sydney Morning Herald, the most sensible letters seem to be written by Queenslanders
    I’ve found that too Jonny & wondered why they wrote to SMH.  Didn’t know it was generally available there.

    Posted by Mikie Slats on 2006 02 09 at 01:11 AM • permalink

  52. MentalFloss 21

    Chiliastic belligerence (militant millenarianism) is the notion that the apocalypse must be “helped along”. It is no secret that Evangelical Christianity—with a powerful proponent in G.W.Bush—sees (and influences) current events with an eye to the soi-disant “Rapture”.

    As an atheist, I like to preface all of my remarks with the phrase “as an atheist,” for no good reason.  And as an atheist, I have to give the above remarks a “B” for “bullshit.” 
    Yes there are such things as Christian Reconstructionists and similar fundopathic fuckwittery at the fringes of America’s mostly-Christian population, but they are tiny annoying minorities with nothing approaching the political clout to elect a president. 
    Also, as an atheist raised by Methodists, I have to agree w/ the accuracy of Ms Andrea’s remarks above. 
    Also also, as a non-television-watching American, I have to note that I am VERY OFFENDED at the way the Grammy Awards turned out.  To my horrified disappointment, Kelly Clarkson beat out Mariah Carey; I had hoped she was going to beat UP Mariah Carey.  And don’t think I don’t blame Bush for this!

    Posted by Stoop Davy Dave on 2006 02 09 at 11:25 AM • permalink

  53. My goodness. And here I thought this was a forum for critical thought, where ideas could be put forward, critiqued in the spirit of dialectical discourse—and then shot down, with prejudice if need be, or supported.

    I make my very first post to a blog, with a comment intended to provoke thoughtful consideration that some in positions of power in the West and the Middle East may be influenced by their theology and I am immediately labelled a “troll”.

    I am kind of fond of young George, to be honest, and while I may have wrongly attributed his detachment (or lack thereof) of policy from theology, I hardly think this qualifies me as a troll.

    My intent was not to point out a hidden agenda in Bush’s patterns of speech (which I still consider of interest) or actions; but to draw attention to militant millenialism in Islam—a point which none of the above respondents has seen fit to address.

    If Mr. Bush is giving a nod and a wink to his support base by employing phraseology he is sure they will understand, more power to him—whether he is Methodist, Episcopalian or one of the “Frozen Chosen”, as his venerable father refers to himself.

    The fact the doctrine of pre-emption has not been used does not alter the fact that it is a shift in policy, nor does my mention of it endorse in any way the MAD “no first strike” policy which preceeded it.

    I do not seek to cause offence, though it seems I have done so.

    I would ask, however, that the entire post be subject to your opinion and comment—not just the part that gets your back up.

    Again, do you think militant millenarianism plays a part in the actions of the Assad and Ahmadinejad regime in their recent rhetoric and the riots over these cartoons?

    Posted by MentalFloss on 2006 02 09 at 08:17 PM • permalink

  54. My goodness. And here I thought this was a forum for critical thought, where ideas could be put forward, critiqued in the spirit of dialectical discourse—and then shot down, with prejudice if need be, or supported.

    So your “idea” was shot down. What’s your bloody problem, then?

    Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2006 02 09 at 09:44 PM • permalink

  55. My “problem”, as you put it, is that my “idea” was not shot down. The primary topic of my post—non-Western millenialism—was never actually addressed by anyone.

    If I made certain factual errors regarding Bush’s religous denomination (frankly, I was unconcerned with his denomination during my exegesis of his recent speeches), then I stand corrected.

    If ad hominen and “appeal to ridicule” rhetorical style are the hallmark of what passes for discourse here, so be it.

    You will doubtless be pleased (or, more likely, non-plussed) to hear that I will take my questions elsewhere.

    Somewhere, perhaps, where the question or comment posed will be considered in its entirety, rather than stopping at the first paragraph that offends and discarding all that follows as necessarily erroneous or delusional.

    “Polite” and “Political” do not share the same etymology, nor, it seems, do they share any place on this forum.

    Posted by MentalFloss on 2006 02 09 at 10:47 PM • permalink

  56. Mental Toss Flycoon

    The primary topic of my post—non-Western millenialism—was never actually addressed by anyone.

    Blame yourself.  Your primary topic, if that’s what it was, was encased in a stinkbomb of inaccuracy-riddled insinuation about alleged Western millenialism, and anybody who tuned you out right then and there was within their rights.

    Posted by Stoop Davy Dave on 2006 02 10 at 10:26 AM • permalink

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Please note: you must use a real email address to register. You will be sent an account activation email. Clicking on the url in the email will automatically activate your account. Until you do so your account will be held in the "pending" list and you won't be able to log in. All accounts that are "pending" for more than one week will be deleted.