The Cartoon Dispute

Wow, this thing has seriously blown up!
A Norwegian newspaper published a few cartoons showing arabs in a satirical light. That’s SATIRE as in COMEDY. Much like we have Garfield and Gary Larson.
Anyway, the Muslims went completely wild, so much so that other newspapers have taken some of the comics and published them, with muslims going wild over that, and one editor even being fired!
Now governments are being prompted to come out with statements like ‘it’s in bad taste and shouldn’t have happened’.
Come on people, what about freedom of expression?! COMEDY, ha ha funny! This is so ridiculous it’s bordering on insane lunacy.

This is causing such a fuss?!

As an update to the international furore this is causing:
Both the BBC and the Guardian are running stories on Blair condemning the reactions to the cartoons, and of course there are the reactions:

Four killed in cartoon protests – BBC
Muslim demonstrations spread worldwide – Yahoo
Cartoon Conflicts – the Guardian
Readers comments – are the reactions justified? – BBC

The reactions are interesting in that most people agree that the violence and threatened violence of the protesters are entirely uncalled for, with the muslims saying they feel insulted and the westerners saying they think they shouldn’t be insulted, showing a very real chism in the way the west and the muslim east thinks.
Further interesting points made concern the press fanning the flames (apparently these cartoons were published 6 months ago and there was no outcry then) and then standing back in amazement that there’s a fire, and also an interesting ‘Look at the Badger’ theory – as Iran is being sent to IANA, suddenly this badger appears and takes over the international stage.
The issues of double standards come up a lot as well, with the westerners finally coming out en masse and saying they’ve had enough of mollycoddling other religions, cultures and peoples whilst the western religions, cultures and peoples are not getting any respect back at all.

So what else has come out?
I found this editorial “We are all Danes now” comparing the cartoons to the ‘insensitivity’ of westerners eating cow meat and the Hindu’s uprising for it at Boston Globe
and a rant on Boortz about what the Muslims have done in religions’ name and the amount of outrage that has caused among Muslims (none)
as well as criticism on the media for not showing the cartoons, whilst they freely blashpeme and ridicule Christianity (Michelle Malkin – many links to other sources)

7/2/6:
Broken News has a piece called Inflammatory Family Circus Cartoon Sparks Riots in Middle West

Pravda reports Iran will take revenge on Denmark by publishing 12 Holocaust cartoons – the winners will recieve golden rings.

8/2/6
Another French paper has decided to run more cartoons – but I can’t find the link yet…

Miasmic Milieu has run some more cartoons as well.

9/2/6
Yahoo writes that now the muslims are picking on the US for the cartoons – because obviously they run the Danish newspapers.

SFGate has a well thought out piece mainly going on about the double standards, but also discussing the background to the cartoons fairly well.

Adding insult to injury the Independant has an article on a blow-up sex doll called Mustafa Shag which has recently been released on the market. Did you know Mustafa was another name for the prophet? Neither did I. Neither did the company who makes the bop dolls. But they’re in shit for it!

10/2/6
Someone created the Mohammed dance website in the Hamsterdance vein. Hamsterdance was better.

The EU is to draw up a ‘voluntary code of conduct’ for media outlets.