Yes they should, they can get as upset as they want, and the Danes can get upset about Muslims too. I find the way Muslims get "upset" to be quite amusing though, if this is "upset", what do they do when they're actually angry? Muslims souldn't necessarily love Denmark, that's their freedom, and vice-versa.

Is it right or justified to put a death sentence on Salman Rushdie for what he speaks? Is it right or justified to hate and threaten an entire nation because of a cartoon? Why aren't we arguing about how Palestinians are paid to sit at home all day doing nothing so that when there's a protest they join to avoid death by boredom? Aren't the protesters upset with the whole of Denmark, not the cartoon, but the whole package? Is that right or justified to the Danes who have more things to worry about than a cartoon in a danish paper?

Nobody is complaining about quiet Muslims, I'm concerned with the protesters, with people who cover their faces and chant hate, death and destruction, people who want to destroy me, I could care less about Muslims who have better things to do in their lives than blast me.

You are completely right though, South Park would never exist in an Islamic nation, in the Western Democracies you can publish any cartoon you want and take responsability for it, if you published the same cartoon in an Arab editorial you'd get your head chopped off before the police could arrest you and get you a trial. In the West you can question anything, anytime, anywhere, you can raise your voice and say all the crap you want and draw and paint all you want, responding for it. Potentially any text or cartoon might offend someone, but one can only be offended if he allows himself to be offended, if he accepts the offense, that is, if he is weak of mind.

I saw a protestant man kick a statue of the Hail Mary in his church, and years later a crazy man threw rocks at another statue of the Hail Mary inside a catholic church, why didn't Catholics worldwide filled the streets with Vatican flags and holy grenades preaching the end of protestants, the destruction of all protestant people, the burning of all their nations.

Do you REALLY can't spot the difference?! Take off your burqa or find a more transparent one.

Oh, don't worry, Muslim govts would still sell us oil. They can't live without our dollars either. Heavy crude is tough to drink ;)

I do wish we heard and saw more from Muslims such as you. Caspo :up:

:rotfl:

„Like a student that writes pussy on the blackboard to see how the woman teacher reacts�, comment on the publication of the cartoons by a chief-editor from another Danish newspaper.
The chief-editor of the local rag that published the cartoons in October 2005 first said, it was a test to what extent the freedom of opinion is already affected by fear of Muslims -- to apologise some weeks later.
Headline: “Pussy chief-editor makes use of his right to write pussy on the blackboard and apologises�.

To equal Islam and (all) its followers with terrorists by e.g. drawing Mohammed with a bomb on his head is with no doubt insulting. Agreed.

The moral outrage in the Muslim world is totally overblown. Agreed.

The cartoons are passed on in Islam Internet forums as Powerpoint presentations http://www.shiachat.com/forum/index....=post&id=19470
:-j
If people are so serious about the religious ban of picturing Mohammed, why do they to spread them to as many people as possible? That is false-faced: those people pretend to be concerned Muslims but above all they are politically motivated and try to round up the stupor cattle.

And of course, the anti-Islam fraction is recruiting sympathisers as well.

Found something else interesting - not quite as severe as the Muslim protest but it does prove that there are other religous fundamentalist groups willing to make a fuss over nothing. :P They are doing it rather peacefully though.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/eo/20060204/en_tv_eo/18292

But of course, it is not unusual for Britney Spears to create controversy.

Here are several points of view on Muslim immigrants in Denmark, including both sides. :yep:

http://www.danielpipes.org/article/450

BTW - I would like to state that I too think the cartoons are stupid and rather ignorant but I still believe that the authors have the right to publish them. As Voltaire (?) said, "I may disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." That is the basis for our democracy - well, that and equality of all people. I would also like to state that I have read newspaper articles mocking my home province (NL) and stating Canada would better off without us. :down: Even though this was outrageous, no one called for the deaths of the authors and a peaceful protest resulted in an apology from the newspaper (which was sufficient). No fatwa (I forget how to spell it) required. And I certainly feel no hatred towards the rwest of the country, of which I am proud to be a part.

One more article on the subject which presents a similar point of view - although the issue in this case is the location of protests and not really the message. This is a little different - I agree with some llimits on protests in this case but because a funeral is not an appropriate place for a graphic protest, not because one group is attacking another (a cartoon would not be inappropriate here, for example).

http://www.charlotte.com/mld/kansas/...el=kansas_news

http://www.enidnews.com/opinion/loca...034002317.html

http://tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/...0391/1006/NEWS

I here on the UK news in two weeks the protesters will be in London :down:

Check out my earlier post (Pg. 3)...they're already there.

@Skybird

What you believe about Mohamed is just that -- your beliefs. We could argue about history and justification, but that's a whole other thread. I don't want to get into a religious argument, because all religious arguments are biased. Only an absolute atheist can be objective, otherwise you inject your own beliefs/prejudices/biases into whatever argument you try and make.

Back to the thread topic --

As stated above -- thats your "truth." My interpretation of the cartoon -- all who believe in Mohamed are violent bombers. So am I wrong to be offended?

The feeling of being insulted -- I'm not goin to blame muslims for feeling that way. If I insulted Christ (I wouldn't) and you were offended, I wouldn't be surprised. If you weren't offended, that's OK too. But I wouldn't insult Christ, and then turn around and tell you to chill out if you were offended.

The violent response -- that I can't condone. The calls for violence, the burning of embassies -- that's wrong, plain and simple in my eyes.

@TteFAboB
I agree with you, the response is overblown.

I can spot the difference. Theres no reason to resort to insults, though. But then, I guess that's you exercising free speech.

@Dan D
I'm with you.

@Neal Stevens
At the height of the oil crisis in 1973, when Kissinger tried to put pressure on King Faisal to drop the price of crude, King Faisal said that if the Saudi's had to go back to living in the desert and drinking goat's milk, they would. Some conspiracy theorists think that stance is the reason he was assassinated w/ the help of the CIA.

And re the dollars -- how much of the price of a barrel of crude do you think actually gets to the man on the street? The majority goes into the coffers of Western oil companies. Of what's left, the majority goes into the pockets of the royal families. I'm speaking on my own experience in Saudi -- if it's different elsewhere, I'd be surprised.

Don't count on it. People here don't realize that what goes on in the Middle East effects our oil prices only to a degree. Its like the world thinks that we get all of our oil from overthere or soemthing. Wake up and smell the coffee because we don't even get 1/4 of our oil from there. Remove Shell Oil from the equation, and that number drops ot less than 10% I beleive.

No one really wants oil from the middle east unless its cheap - it is very hard to refine as compared to oil from any other part of the world.

-S

How can you not stereotype when it's practically worldwide the threat to kill Westerners for a cartoon? Quite frankly, I am sick of Muslims wanting to kill me for either being an infidel or for something someone else did. Its like saying that we should kill all Muslims because they want to kill all non Muslims. Since we are stereotyping, is that the route we should go?

The Mosque thing - shows you the intelligence we are dealing with - Hey! Lets blow up our people to make the Westerners feel bad! Good idea!

Freedom of speech thing - no, that is not permissable to say they are wrong for drawing a cartoon. Everything you put in print will offend someone or something, somewhere, somehow and to say that they are wrong because they ticked off Muslims is just blaten arrogance or being completely naive. That is a completely unacceptable stance to the issue.

-S

PS. I wonder if someone should tell these people that there are not 72 virgins waiting for them in heaven. Maybe we should also tell them that if there is a little angel on each shoulder writting good and bad things that you do each day, and that you will only get to heaven if the good list is longer than the bad list that that is the mark of a tyranical god, not one who is loving and caring and you shouldn't want to go to a heaven that will probably be a hell.

Canada is on its way to becoming the largest source of oil in the world. It has already overtaken Iraq in the #2 position and it is believed by some that it will overtake Saudi Arabia for #1 within a decade as more reserves are discovered. :yep:

http://www.gasandoil.com/goc/news/ntn20664.htm

http://www.fromthewilderness.com/fre...a_canada.shtml

http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/canada.html

http://www.rense.com/general37/petrol.htm

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0872964.html

Of course, most of the oil (95%) is in oil sands in Alberta and is dificult to recover. Recently though, in an interview, an American oil development expert said that the fields off Newfoundland are of top grade quality (he specifically mentioned that it was better than Middle East oil).

None of this is to say that the oil producing nations of the Middle East hold no power - they still do hold a great percentage of the world's oil reseves.

OT:

An absolute atheism would still be biased, as he would regard atheism above the folly of religious believes.

@Skybird
I have read your essays, your open letter, and I find your believes to be very well documented. I'm hereby giving up on argueing against you, because making myself able to do so would require extensive studies and a considerable amount of time that I simply do not have. I still disagree with you, though.

I would like to point out what I think is a circle arguement on your part. You say Islam doesn't change. From your point of view, as far as I have perceived it, Islam can't possibly change, because you have researched and reached the conclusion that Islam is a static entity. This is a welldocumented conclusion on your part, no doubt.

But, you also say that those muslims that do change (i.e. are more tolerant) are leaving Islam and aren't true muslims. What you actually is saying is that they, being dynamic, are not in agreement with your view of Islam as a static religion. You say Islam is static because change isn't Islamic.

Some other considerations.

Where is the silent majority? Not demonstrating, that's why they are silent. What should they shout? By some quirk of human nature, you can get more people to shout 'Death to the infidels!', than 'Be tolerant and reasonable!'. (OTOH, check the link in my first post.)

This is, nevertheless, getting out of control, not because of the silent majority but because of the violent minority. Attacking an embassy is the closest thing to attacking the country itself. This should provoke a response. This response must in no way be violent. Let me repeat that in no way be violent. A violent response would be a prelude to war, and we do not wish that. (At least I do not wish that.) On the other hand, I don't have a suggestion as to how to respond.

Consider, however, that the hippies attacking American embassies in various countries during the Vietnam war were not met with a violent response.

This got messy at times. As said, I have a complex view on matters and when I start writing my thoughts, I often argue for both sides. Please bear over with me.

Why are we even paying attention to these morons? Anyone with a brain knows what's satire, comic books, etc, and what's serious. I really can't believe this is all happening and AGAIN all we do is appologise to the muslim radials. We don't get offended to South Park and Jesus, why do they care about a bloody cartoon? Fekin eh! I think we all should boycott all arab countries, and never go there as tourists ever again. let's see how they do with their tourism. More, we should not buy their oil. This middle east is out of control.



Ought to read the book called "The Mosque of Notre Dame de Paris"

Let us hope that Bush follows through on his State of the Union promise to aggressively persue alternatives to petrolium. Then, we can leave the Middle East be. With us (US, GB, Germany, the rest of Europe) out of the picture, they can go back to sending their suicide bombers after each other.