Homestar Runner Wiki Forum

:builds a fires:
lays a guitar:
:sings "kumbya":
:sways back and forth:

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I want to have an Embassy.

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CLOCK

What?

You can come over to my house and set up a temporary embasy in the living room. I'll serve tea & coffee.

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There are Muslims speaking out against the violence. You don't see them on TV, though because that might give people the impression that all religions are not all bad.

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If you can't fix it with a hammer, you have an electrical problem.

StrongRad has a point.
Most religious people are actualy seem to be very nice, peacefull, social responsible individuals. Coloring them all with one brush is unfair... but it does sell newspapers. It's also a conveient boogyman to be exploited by our reactionary politicians and ruthless dictators alike.

I've had mostly bad experiences with religion, so my world veiw tends to be hostile to the very concept of religion. That said, I don't want you to get the idea that I'm against you being religious,l I'm just against me being religious. Any critisism I might have against a religion is theological, not personal. After all, I used to be very religious myself, so I can understand how it is to be like that. Hey, if you think it's what's right for you, who am I to tell you what to belive?

Man, I would be so unwelcome in an Islamic Fundamentalist state.

An now, a picture of a preteen suicide bomber.

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Uh oh.

"Does the West extend freedom of expression to the crimes committed by the United States and Israel, or an event such as the Holocaust? Or is its freedom only for insulting religious sanctities?"

We here in Canada are still free and have a free press, but it's constantly under attack.

:waves the flag:
A student newspaper out east (I forget where, exactly) reprinted the offending "mohamid" cartoons and the president of that university pulled the newspaper.
Lousy timeing for us Canucks: We just had an election, and now the Neocons are in charge here. Which sucks. But they'll not last long since they have a minority government. Canadian politics is still more free than american politics, though. I mean, do I need to explain what was wrong with the last two US presidential elections?

Mark Fiore strikes again:
http://www.markfiore.com/animation/toon.html

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Apparently many of your fellow country men felt the past leadership sucked. Who was that again?

TOASTPAINT:

The thing that gets me about the outrage expressed by Muslims is the insane level of hypocrisy they are exhibiting. Islamic TV stations regularly air programming offensive to Jews, Christians, Buddhists, and the like. And then when someone isn't 100% respectful to them, it's suddenly "Death to Denmark!"? I also like how they're dragging Israel into this thing, even though they had nothing to do with it.

Iran encourages citizens to create cartoons depicting the Holocaust

While I think the paper should be able to print whatever cartoons they want, I do think they have to be prepared for the backlash that will ensue. (I also feel that most of these political/religious cartoons are distasteful at best).

I also don't think that the Iranian newspaper got the point (or maybe I am not getting the point). As far as I can tell, if they wanted to print an equally offensive picture (equal as in material, not necessarily in offensiveness), they would need to run some cartoons depicting Jesus, not the holocaust.

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I read a very insightful article on this at Slate. One thing that I found particularly interesting:



This was written by a Muslim American who was offended, though not murderously so, by the cartoons.

Link to fake

That would have been the Liberals (Liberal Party of Canada)
You have to understand that Canadian politics is very much more complicated that it might appear on the surface. For one thing, it's not a two-party system. For another thing, Quebec has it's own seperatist party and that effectively throws a spanner into the whole works: the seperatist Bloc Quebecouis (the BQ) want to seperate Quebec from Canada, which means that any party that would form a coallitian with them would take it in the balls at the next election becasue the non-quebecous voters would puinish them for doing that. This is important becasue Quebec has a huge number of seats in parliment (It's one of the most populated provinces, after all) so all the political parties really try hard to win votes in Quecbvec, more so than any other province.

Meanwhile, the left is splintered. The Liberals are a left-of-center party, the NDP is a left-wing/social democratic party, and the Green Party is a far left party that has never elected a member to parliment, but never the less sucks up votes that would otherwise go to the Liberals or the NDP. The Ultra-left-wing parties do exist, but they get patheticly low support: We're talking perhaps a thousand votes nationwide.

The right, however, has united behind the new Conservitive Party Of Canada. This is NOT the same part as the old Progressive Conservitive (PC) Party. What happened was that a protest party, called the Reform Party became mainstream, but they couldn't win many votes in Ontario becasue they were seen as a western protest part instead of a national unity party. Meanwhile, the PC part has had their head handed to them following the reign of Brian Mulroony (he is perhaps the most hated politician ever in Canadian politics: He brought in the hated GST tax, essential sold us out to the USA under the Free Trade Agreement, and just generaly was way too chummy with Ronnald Reagan). In a nutshell, the PCs were decimated: they'd gone from being the pary in power to having less than ten MPs. Hell, they ran a leadership campaign and nobody wanted the job of leader, so they dusted off former leader Jo Clark who proceded to preside over the death of the party. Th Reform party, seeing that the PC party was ripe for the picking, went through a long song-and-dance whereby they wooed former PC supporters to their party, and in the process re-named themselves the Conservitive Party. The average person doesn't pay too much attention to these things, so there's quite a few Canadians who voted Conservitve out of some nostalgia for the old PC party. Don't try and think about it too hard, you'll only hurt yourself. So, with the PC party dead as a dorrnail and the old Reform party sporting a different name, the right wing of canadian politcs was united. Oh sure, there's the usual crackpot nutbar loonies parties that clutter up the fringes of right-wing Canadian politics, but they are not even worth mentioning here.

Now, that brings us back to the BQ/ Like the NeoCons, thes guys are right-wingers. Under their second leader, Jacques Parizeau, some pundits remarked that they were something like cross between a French Socialist and a Nazi. The more satirical pundits added that the French Socialists want nothing to do with the BQ. However, they seem to have mellowed a bit under their current leader, who seems to have taken a more concilitory attitude. This is important becasue despiet their recent victory at the polls, the NeoCons still only have a minoraty government (The hold the most seats in parliment, but not a majority of seats). this measn that if they want to be able to survive a non-confidence motion, they will need the support of at least one other part. There's no way in hell that the NDP or the Liberals could bring themselves to support a NeoCon gobvernment without some very substantial consessions, so that leaves the BQ. An alliance comprised of the BQ and the NeoCOns would be more than enough seats to hold a majority, but the question is: Wil the NeoCons do a deal with the devil to hold onto power, knowing that the voters will punish them for it in the next election, or will they try and work something out with the NDP or the Liberals?

Further complicateing all this is the recent defection of a former Liberal cabinet mininster to the NeoCon cabinet.

In short, we have tied ourselves in so many knots that nobody's able to agree where the end of the string is anymore.

EDIT: Pardon my many typoes. I've got a cold and a fever.

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Sarge, you're right. That is a huge mess. Can't imagine why so many Hollywood elitists threatened to move there.



Link to the 12 cartoons that inflamed Islam

I don't see them as all that distasteful. But that's just me.

Well, let's see, first off they are drawings of Mohammed, which is considered blasphemy in Islam.

Second, there's one with a bomb for a hat.

Third, there's the one with devil horns.

Do I need to continue?

I'm not Muslim, but yeah, from what I know about the religion (what you learn in "intro to religious studies" and a little from conversations), those are pretty hot button things that you shouldn't do.

Essentially, it's very similar to going into a Catholic church and urinating on the Virgin Mary, going into a VFW hall and wiping your butt on the American flag or holding one of Fred Phelps signs.

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If you can't fix it with a hammer, you have an electrical problem.

That's not entirely accurate. Depending on which variety of muslim you are, it is frowned upon, though not scriptuarly prohibited. Sunni's are very strict about not drawing Mohammed, though other traditions are a little more lax. In fact, it is possible to go to some muslim countries and buy paintings of Mohammed.

The difference is that those all portray him in a positive light, where these ones are neutral for the best of them, and plain offensive for the worst.

Strongrad, I do see how they could be offensive to Islamic people, but I personally define distasteful as something excessively gory or disgusting, like portraying child molestation.

However, I just looked up the word "distasteful" and one of its definitions is "offensive". So there you go.

I do. It was a way of expressing how displease they were/are with the state of politics in the US. We may have a compicated four-party parliment, but at least our elections aren't hijacked, there's no Fundamentalist Theocracy running the show, and we're not off invading other countries for no reason. There's a list of things we Canadians don't like about America, but at the top of list would have to be that the American government tries to tell us what to do and throw it's weight around.

Pierre Trudeau, perhaps the most astute Canadian politician ever, once commented that "...living next to the USA is like being in bed eith an Elephant: It's a fairly tolerable situation unless the elephant decides to rolls over." (I'm paraphasing: I couldn't find an actual quote for this one online.) In other words, it's not so much a love-hate relationship as it is a we-don't-have-a-choice relationship. The acident of Geography has inexorably tied us the the Americans, and we'd rather that this wasn't so. However, there's nothing we can do about it so we try and make the most of it.

So, we will sell you water when you run out of water (and you are running out of water, in case you didn't know.) but we won't allow you to build a pipeline so you can suck us dry. You're gonna have to pay for it, big time. How does $50 a bottle sound?

But, I'm completely off-topic now. I think this fever is getting to me.
If you'll excuse me, I need some Chicken Soup.

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I wasn't just talking about these cartoons. I was referring to all of the "political"-type cartoons that you see in the papers, especially those that involve religion.

These cartoons are poking fun at something that someone (aka the people who are currently rioting and burning down embassies). I know a little of your personal beliefs (more so than some), and I think I know how you would feel if someone were to make jokes at the expense of things that you held near to your heart. Things that you don't talk about in public (or to compare to the Muhammad cartoons, things that you don't draw?)

I can't really go into much more detail than that, but I think you (lahimatoa) know what I am talking about.

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Well, I personally believe that with great power comes great responsibility. Yes, Danish newspapers have every right to publish those cartoons, BUT, in doing so they showed a massive lack of respect for a religious group that has had plenty to put up with since 9/11.

Another thing is that Islam, which the media has described as a religion of peace and tolerance (especially back when the Islamic land empires were in power) has time and time again shown itself to be exactly the opposite. There are numerous protestors out there with signs saying things like "Your 9/11 is on the way." and "Death to those who insult Islam." I know that there are level-headed Muslims out there who wish not to be associated with the radicals, but it seems like as of late the radicals are doing all of the talking for Islam.

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That's just because only the loons get coverage.
Christianity is the same way. The Fred Phelps' and Pat Robertsons and Jack Thompsons are the ones that get all the coverage.

There's no fun in covering people who act "normal".

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If you can't fix it with a hammer, you have an electrical problem.

KIt's a huge freeking mess. I mean, people have died over a CARTOON. what does that say about the Islamic fundamentalists? Are they backwards or what?

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Canada's National Post has a good timeline that shows what happened and in what order. It shows how certain people deliberately trumped up and lied about what happened in order to further their own fascist goals.

And Stu, I don't think that these are as offensive as you think they are. Well, the original 12 cartoons are not as offensive as you are claiming (though some of the fakes introduced later may be). I think this is no more offensive than some of the things people say and write about Joseph Smith. Offensive, yes, at times. However, I don't think that anyone could justify the reaction.

Another good article.

I was listening to a radio talk show thing this morning, and I'll kinda paraphrase what they said. Though most Muslims don't, many (fundamentalists) run around with bombs strapped to themselves killing people in the name of Muhammad. While they may find a picture of Muhammad with a bomb on his head offensive, we find real people running through crowds of innocent people with bombs strapped to their heads quite offensive as well.

Sure, it's offensive, and I wouldn't like it if Christ or, as racer_x mentioned, Joseph Smith was depicted in such a way, but I'm not going to go on a murderous rampage because you're offended. But then again, we're talking about Muslim fundamentalists here. They already are on a murderous rampage.

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Whoa, wait. Jack Thompson is a Christian? You'd never think it by the way he acts.

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Jack Thomson is insane.

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Agreed.

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So apparently a Muslim cleric has put a bounty on the head of the cartoonist who depicted Muhammed.

I hope someone puts a $2 million bounty on the cleric's head, and double it if they get him before the cartoonist is whacked.

The only thing is, this will only make the problem worse... It'll strengthen the stereotype that the radical clerics preach of the West.

Here's an interesting thought: What would happen to Judeo-Muslim relations if a Jewish person killed the cartoonist?

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If you can't fix it with a hammer, you have an electrical problem.

Wait, what are they going to say? "The Americans are the devil because they put bounties on people's heads!"? Uh, not unless they don't care about being huge hypocrites. And it appears they don't.



Can they get any worse? Many Muslims have publically stated (and have been for a long time) that their goal is to wipe all Jews from the face of the planet.